During a conference, I found myself crossing the Potsdamer Bridge in central Berlin regularly. There, a plaque commemorates the heroic act of the Soviet sergeant, Nikolaj Iwanovich Massalow. During the final days of WWII, Massalow’s unit of the Red Army was awaiting orders to cross the Landwehr canal and begin the siege of Berlin’s central district. In the temporary lull of battle, he heard a child crying in the no man’s land between Soviet and German troops. He risked his life to save a three-year-old girl who was tugging on the coat of her dead mother. The men in his unit covered him as he escaped back and got the child to safety.
Eighty years after the event, we now know that bombings, executions, and mass rapes were common occurrences as the Soviets entered Berlin before the other Allied forces. However, Massalow, despite being surrounded by such violence and cruelty found the humanity within himself to save a child of the enemy he was fighting.
I thought about Massalow every time I crossed that bridge in Berlin. Why does a 24-year-old have a stronger moral core than many of our current leaders? Why are so many in positions of power incapable of acting with the same dignity and humanity? Massalow knew what the right action was and risked his life to save another human being. Do the rest of us have the courage to make the same choice as he did?
I’m Frances Jaeger, and that is my Perspective.
