Maria Zeitner Linke Poem by Gert Strydom

I

For the Russians, the members of the Red Army
at the beginning she has more hate than respect.
She does remember the first dark day
when she fled from Berlin and how they did corner her.

She could not defend herself
and while she were preparing food for them they were laughing at her
where covertly they were looking at her
and in the back of a military truck she could not stop them.

It happened suddenly and unexpectedly
where eight of them time after time did rape her
and later she would thoroughfare through the whole Red Army
that would tear her clothes from her time after time,
where in Siberia she did year after year languish for freedom
where to her it feels as if every day does come to a final end.

II

Where to her it feels as if every day does come to a final end,
like a child she trusts in God,
like a small girl that holds on to His hand
she continues to hope and trust.

Unfortunately she can talk and understand Russian,
she asks the Russians why are they continually raping her
where bewildered she clings to her torn clothes,
and they strip her naked

try to hang her from an apple tree,
she struggles to escape and she struggles for her life
and around her folds darkness
when the last German resistance does catch the Russians unaware
and when she comes to her senses she is astounded,
while she wonder why she is still alive.

III

While she wonders why she is still alive
the Russians see her as a spy
because she can speak and understand Russian,
and whatever she does

she cannot persuade anybody to let her go
as a normal German woman
and she is taken to a country where every human being hates her,
are harassed for nine years in prisons and penal camps

but does not let these things get her down,
does not even want to renounce God
in the presence of the killer Chorobrof,
when he aims his pistol at her and decisively pulls the trigger

and the loaded pistol refuses to fire,
while the raging Russian stands astonished.

IV

While the raging Russian stands astonished
he fiddles with the weapon in unbelief
screams at her to go away
and does shake his head time after time.

Later Chorobrof walks past with two other Russian officers
with the pistol that he swings wildly in her direction
comes to a halt and in anger he roars:
"There is the holy Mary, even my pistol cannot kill her! "

The interrogators come to the conclusion:
" by pure accident
you did come to be seen as guilty"
but at the Waldheim trial the court says:

"you are a war-criminal, a traitor" and she gets the death sentence,
she is seen as anti-socialistic where she is innocent and just a Christian.


V

She is seen as anti-socialistic where she is innocent and just a Christian
but continually Maria does urge other people to believe in God
and time passes very slowly in the prison
but nothing can stop her trusting in the Lord God.

Later a decision is taken that she is innocent
and the communists cannot convince her
to donate her prison wage to Northern Korea
and again the prison door does slam shut behind her.

Four years after the Waldheim trial Mary is set free
where she still does trust Jesus Christ as her saviour,
she is allowed to pass over the border to West Germany
where her mother and father at Stuttgart station clings to her

and her father says over and over: "praise God, praise God
and she does return to life as a single individual.

[Reference: The true story of Maria Zeitner Linke as written by Ruth Hunt and Maria Zeitner Linke in the book: "East Wind."]