摘要：当希特勒侵略的步伐碾过苏联边境，一个因身材矮小被飞行俱乐部拒之门外的犹太女孩，做出了改变命运的选择。她并非天生的战士，却将最简陋的木制双翼机化作暗夜利刃，在引擎静默中如幽灵般掠过纳粹阵地——她就是被称为“暗夜女巫”的波琳娜·格尔曼。在斯大林格勒的焦土与柏林城外

有趣灵魂说

译文为原创，仅供个人学习使用

The New York Times｜The Front Page

纽约时报｜头版

Overlooked No More:

不再被忽视：

Polina Gelman: Fearless ‘Night Witch’ Who Haunted Nazi Troops

波琳娜·格尔曼：无畏的“暗夜女巫”，令纳粹部队闻风丧胆

She was a navigator with an all-female unit of Soviet aviators who attacked German troops at night, whooshing in wooden planes like witches on broomsticks.

她是一个全女性苏联飞行员部队的领航员，她们在夜间袭击德国部队，驾驶着木制飞机，像骑着扫帚的女巫般呼啸而过。

By Alexander Nazaryan

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

本文是“被忽视者”系列讣告的一部分，该系列介绍那些非凡人物，他们的离世（自1851年起）未曾在《纽约时报》上报道过。

A contemporary ink portrait of Polina Gelman. “The war gave her the opportunity to display extraordinary qualities,” a historian said.

波琳娜·格尔曼的一幅当代墨水肖像画。“战争给了她展现非凡品质的机会，”一位历史学家说。

他们说她太矮了，不能飞行。那是1938年，波琳娜·格尔曼，一个一心向往蓝天的少女，正试图加入一个苏联飞行俱乐部。但在飞机的驾驶舱里，身高不足5英尺（约1.52米）的她，只能用脚尖勉强够到脚踏板，只能从控制面板上方窥视。

“如果你能的话，长高点吧，”一位同情的教官告诉她。

她从未长到足够高，但她拒绝放弃。相反，格尔曼将接受领航员的训练——这一调整最终让她在历史上占据了一席之地，成为苏联著名的“暗夜女巫”（Night Witches）之一，这些勇敢的女飞行员在二战期间对纳粹执行轰炸任务。

格尔曼成为其中最著名的成员之一，也是唯一一位在战争中获得“苏联英雄”勋章的犹太女性，该勋章是苏联对军役的最高嘉奖，以色列大屠杀纪念馆和博物馆（Yad Vashem）的历史学家阿尔卡季·泽尔策尔（Arkadi Zeltser）如是说。

“她年轻时就聪明而有抱负，但没人会预见到她将获得荣耀，”佛蒙特州诺维奇大学（Norwich University）的历史学家、空军退伍军人雷娜·彭宁顿（Reina Pennington）在接受采访时说。她撰写了一本关于二战期间苏联女飞行员的书。“战争给了她展现非凡品质的机会，不是通过任何一次英雄壮举，而是通过持久作战任务所要求的那种耐力和决心。”

格尔曼在第46塔曼近卫夜间轰炸航空团（46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment）——绰号“暗夜女巫”，德语称为“Nachthexen”——记录了1058个战斗任务小时，所有时间都处于德军的无情炮火之下。飞行员们得到这个名字，是因为她们在接近目标时会关闭发动机，像骑着扫帚的女巫般在黑暗中呼啸而过。

1941年6月22日，当希特勒发动“巴巴罗萨行动”（Operation Barbarossa）入侵苏联（他预计在年底前完成）时，格尔曼正在莫斯科国立大学学习。那年10月，当格尔曼和其他学生正在挖掘反坦克战壕时，“队伍中流传着一个谣言，”她在自传中写道，年轻女性正在被招募去执行飞行任务。

格尔曼热切地加入了。“既然我自己可以创造历史，为什么还要学习历史呢，你知道么？”她在1993年接受彭宁顿采访时说道。

根据Yad Vashem的数据，她将是据信在红军服役的约五十万犹太人中的一员。他们不仅为苏联的生存而战，也为反抗他们的人民在波兰纳粹死亡集中营中被灭绝而战。

“我决定上前线，”格尔曼写信给她的母亲，并补充道，“我是犹太民族的女儿”，与希特勒有一笔“特别的账”要算。

当女兵们抵达接受飞行训练时，一位教官厉声下达了第一项任务：“剪男孩头”。之后将与格尔曼共用一架飞机的赖莎·阿罗诺娃（Raisa Aronova）在她战后的书《暗夜女巫》（Night Witches）中写道。女兵们欣然剪掉了长发，渴望证明她们和男性战友一样愿意做出牺牲。

这个全女性飞行员部队被称为“暗夜女巫”（德语：Nachthexen），因为她们在接近目标时会关闭发动机，像骑着扫帚的女巫般在黑暗中呼啸而过。

尼古拉·伊格纳季耶夫/Alamy 供图

“每个人都是爱国者，”格尔曼回忆道。但这些爱国者也是“姐妹”。

夜间轰炸机驾驶的是由木材和帆布制成的Po-2双翼机，这种飞机以前仅用于训练。（而且因为它们有双重控制系统，像格尔曼这样的领航员经常扮演飞行员的角色。）现在，她们将进入战场，对抗世界上有史以来最强大的军队。飞机满载炸弹时的最高时速约为60英里（约97公里）。“有时地上的卡车、汽车可能比我们在空中飞得还快，”格尔曼说。

这些飞机“非常简陋”，撰写过苏联军队中女性的澳大利亚历史学家罗杰·D·马克威克（Roger D. Markwick）在一次采访中说。他补充道，关于格尔曼，“事实上她能活下来已经相当令人惊讶了。”

Po-2的缺点结果变成了它们的优势。它们的低速、制造材料以及缺乏无线电信号，使它们几乎不被德国雷达和红外追踪系统发现。当飞机接近德军时，飞行员会在投弹时无声地滑翔。

夜间轰炸机驾驶的是由木材和帆布制成的Po-2双翼机，这种飞机以前仅用于训练。满载炸弹时的最高时速约为60英里。

Sovfoto/环球影像集团，经由盖蒂图片社

大约40架飞机接踵而至，每架每晚执行多达15次飞行。“她们所做的就是让德国人无法入睡，发动这些可能不知从何而来的随机袭击，”彭宁顿说。

格尔曼本人执行了869次战斗任务，不仅因其耐力，也因其精确性、在炮火下的沉着冷静以及深刻的政治使命感而脱颖而出。

她的经历既具代表性又独一无二。“我们可以完全自信地说，波琳娜·格尔曼是动荡、战斗、革命的二十世纪的化身，”作者V·谢伦斯卡娅（V. Selunskaya）在格尔曼回忆录的后记中写道。

波琳娜·弗拉基米罗夫娜·格尔曼（Polina Vladimirovna Gelman）于1919年10月24日出生在乌克兰的别尔季切夫（Berdichev），当时正值1917年布尔什维克革命后席卷俄罗斯的内战期间。

她的父母是共产主义事业的热情支持者。

“我母亲生我的时候，一颗炮弹炸毁了医院的一半，而我母亲刚好在安全的那半边楼里，”格尔曼告诉历史学家安妮·诺格尔（Anne Noggle），后者1994年的著作《与死神共舞》（A Dance With Death）汇编了苏联女飞行员的口述历史。她的父亲弗拉基米尔·格尔曼（Vladimir Gelman）在波琳娜出生后不久被反革命分子杀害；她的母亲叶莉娅·利沃夫娜·格尔曼（Yelya L'vovna Gelman）在革命期间担任护士。

波琳娜出生在一个被称为“栅栏区”（Pale of Settlement）的地区，在俄罗斯帝国统治下犹太人被限制在此居住；到1926年，别尔季切夫将有30812名犹太居民。父亲遇害后，波琳娜和母亲搬到了白俄罗斯东南部城市戈梅利（Gomel），那里也是犹太人的生活中心。

1938年，格尔曼进入莫斯科国立大学，打算学习历史。她陶醉于首都丰富的文化生活中。“生活对我们来说就像一个节日，”她在自传《关于战斗、战火和同志朋友们》（Of Battles, Fires and Friends-Comrades, 1995年）中写道。

节日没有持续多久。当德国坦克和步兵向莫斯科推进，沿途粉碎了措手不及的红军防线时，苏联领导人约瑟夫·斯大林在7月3日的广播讲话中告诉苏联公民，“一切都必须服从前线的利益”。这项努力将包括女性。

当格尔曼和第46近卫团最初被部署时，德国正处于计划夺取巴库油田（位于现在的阿塞拜疆）的早期阶段，这些油田将为希特勒的战争机器提供急需的燃料。夜间轰炸机参与了对黑海和亚速海沿岸以及克里米亚半岛上德军阵地的袭击，并向被包围的红军部队空投补给物资。

Po-2双翼机有双重控制系统，因此像格尔曼这样的领航员经常扮演飞行员的角色。

尼古拉·伊格纳季耶夫/Alamy 供图

女兵们长期睡眠不足。“我们甚至在飞行员和领航员之间达成了一种协议，一个人可以在飞向目标时睡觉，另一个则在返回机场时睡觉，”飞行员拉里萨·利特维诺娃-罗扎诺娃（Larisa Litvinova-Rozanova）告诉历史学家诺格尔。

随着战局开始扭转，第46近卫团伴随红军穿越白俄罗斯和波兰，然后进入德国本土。她们在盟军胜利前夕，于柏林城外执行了最后一次任务。

战后，格尔曼与弗拉基米尔·科洛索夫（Vladimir Kolosov）结婚，并育有一女加琳娜（Galina）。她学习了语言，并成为一位受人尊敬的学院派经济学家，于1990年退休。

1970年，格尔曼在莫斯科的一次新闻发布会上。战后，她学习了语言，并成为一位受人尊敬的学院派经济学家，于1990年退休。

美联社（Associated Press）

在她生命的最后几年里，她目睹了她为之奋斗的苏联解体。她出生于弗拉基米尔·列宁时代，见证了弗拉基米尔·普京的崛起。

她于2005年11月25日去世，享年86岁，被安葬在莫斯科著名的新圣女公墓（Novodevichy Cemetery），离米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫和鲍里斯·叶利钦的墓地不远。

历史学家彭宁顿于1993年在格尔曼莫斯科的公寓里采访了这位年迈的飞行员。采访结束时，格尔曼担心彭宁顿给予她过多的关注。

“但不止是我，我们所有人都必须飞行，不止是我们，还有其他机组人员，”格尔曼抗议道。“有些人喜欢夸夸其谈。我不想看起来像那样。”◾

They said she was too short to fly. It was 1938, and Polina Gelman, a teenager with her heart set on the skies, was trying to join a Soviet flying club. But in the cockpit of a plane, at a height of under 5 feet, she could barely reach the foot pedals with her toes and only peek above the control panel.

“Grow up, if you can,” a sympathetic instructor told her.

She never did grow tall enough, but she refused to give up. Instead, Gelman would train as a navigator — an adjustment that ultimately landed her a place in history as one of the Soviet Union’s famed “Night Witches,” the daring female aviators who flew bombing raids against the Nazis in World War II.

Gelman became one of its most celebrated members and the only Jewish woman who served in the war to earn a Hero of the Soviet Union medal, the U.S.S.R.’s highest commendation for military service, according to Arkadi Zeltser, a historian at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Israel.

“She was bright and ambitious as a young woman, but no one would have earmarked her for glory,” Reina Pennington, a historian at Norwich University in Vermont and an Air Force veteran who wrote a book about Soviet women fliers during World War II, said in an interview. “The war gave her the opportunity to display extraordinary qualities, not through any single act of heroism, but through a kind of stamina and determination that extended combat duty required.”

Gelman logged 1,058 combat mission hours — all of it under relentless German fire — with the 46th TamanGuards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, nicknamed the Night Witches, or “Nachthexen” in German. The pilots got the name from powering down their engines as they approached their targets, whooshing through the darkness like witches on broomsticks.

Gelman was studying at Moscow State University on June 22, 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union that he expected to complete by year’s end. That October, as Gelman and other students were digging antitank trenches, “a rumor went down the ranks,” she wrote in an autobiography, that young women were being recruited for flying duty.

Gelman eagerly joined up. “Why should I study history when I can make history myself, you know?” she told Pennington in a 1993 interview

She would be among a half-million Jews who are believed to have served in the Red Army, according to Yad Vashem. They fought not only for the survival of the Soviet Union, but also against the annihilation of their people in Nazi death camps in Poland.

“I have decided to go to the front,” Gelman wrote to her mother, adding, “I am a daughter of the Jewish people” with “a particular account” to settle with Hitler.

As the women arrived for flight training, an instructor barked out the first order of business: “boyish haircuts,” as Raisa Aronova, with whom Gelman would soon be sharing a plane, wrote in her postwar book, “Night Witches.” The women cut their locks gladly, eager to show that they were as willing to make sacrifices as their male counterparts were.

“Everyone was a patriot,” Gelman recalled. But these patriots were also “sisters.”

The night bombers flew Po-2 biplanes constructed of wood and fabric that had previously been used solely for training. (And because they had dual controls, navigators like Gelman often played the role of pilots.) Now they would enter battle against the most formidable military the world had ever seen. The planes’ top speed was about 60 miles per hour once fully loaded with bombs. “Sometimes a truck on the ground, a car, could go faster than we were going in the air,” Gelman said.

The planes “were very primitive,” Roger D. Markwick, an Australian historian who has written about women in the Soviet military, said in an interview. He added about Gelman, “The fact that she survived is actually pretty amazing.”

The shortcomings of the Po-2s turned out to be their strengths. Their slow speed, the materials with which they were made and their lacking radio signals made them nearly invisible to German radar and infrared tracking. As the planes approached German troops, the pilots would glide silently as they dropped their bombs.

The night bombers flew Po-2 biplanes constructed of wood and fabric that had previously been used solely for training. Their top speed was about 60 miles per hour once fully loaded with bombs.Sovfoto/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

The planes, about 40 in all, came in succession, each making as many as 15 runs a night. “What they’re doing is keeping the Germans from sleeping, making these random attacks that can come out of nowhere,” Pennington said.

Gelman herself flew 869 combat missions, standing out not just for her stamina but also for her precision, her composure under fire and her deep sense of political purpose.

Her experiences were at once representative and unique. “It is possible to call Polina Gelman, with full confidence, the embodiment of the roiling, fighting, revolutionary 20th century,” the author V. Selunskaya wrote in a postscript to Gelman’s memoir.

Polina Vladimirovna Gelman was born on Oct. 24, 1919, in Berdichev, Ukraine, during the civil war that gripped Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Her parents were ardent supporters of the communist cause.

“When my mother was giving birth to me, a shell from the air destroyed half the hospital, and my mother was in the half of the building that was safe,” Gelman told the historian Anne Noggle, whose 1994 book, “A Dance With Death,” compiled oral histories of Soviet female aviators. Her father, Vladimir Gelman, was killed by counter-revolutionaries shortly after Polina’s birth; her mother, Yelya L’vovna Gelman, worked as a nurse during the revolution.

Polina was born in a region known as the Pale of Settlement, where Jews had been relegated under the Russian Empire; by 1926, Berdichev would be home to a Jewish population of 30,812. After her father was killed, Polina and her mother moved to Gomel, a city in southeastern Belarus that was also a center of Jewish life

Gelman enrolled at Moscow State University in 1938 intending to study history. She reveled in the cultural plenitude of the capital. “Life seemed to us a holiday,” she wrote in her autobiography, “Of Battles, Fires and Friends-Comrades” (1995).

The holiday did not last long. As German tanks and infantry pushed toward Moscow, shattering hapless Red Army defenses along the way, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin told Soviet citizens in a July 3 radio addressthat “everything must be subordinated to the interests of the front.” That effort would include women.

When Gelman and the 46th Guards were initially deployed, Germany was in the early stages of a plan to reach the oil fields of Baku, in what is now Azerbaijan, which would provide Hitler’s war machine with desperately needed fuel. The night bombers participated in assaults on German positions along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas, as well as on the Crimean peninsula, where they dropped supplies to encircled Red Army troops.

The women were chronically sleep deprived. “We even had a kind of agreement between the pilot and the navigator that one of us would sleep going to the target and the other returning to the airfield,” the pilot Larisa Litvinova-Rozanova told Noggle, the historian.

As the tide began to turn, the 46th Guards accompanied Red Army troops across Belarus and Poland, and then into Germany itself. They flew their final mission outside Berlin, on the cusp of the Allied victory.

After the war, Gelman married Vladimir Kolosov and had a daughter, Galina. She studied languages and became a respected academic economist, retiring in 1990.

In her final years, she watched as the Soviet Union she had fought for unraveled. Having been born under Vladimir Lenin, she witnessed the ascent of Vladimir Putin.

She died at 86 on Nov. 25, 2005, and was buried in Moscow’s storied Novodevichy Cemetery, not far from the remains of Mikhail Gorbachevand Boris Yeltsin

Pennington, the historian, interviewed the aging Gelman in 1993 in her Moscow apartment. As the interview ended, Gelman became concerned that Pennington was giving her too much attention.

“But it is not only me, we all had to fly, not only us, other crews as well,” Gelman protested. “Some people like to brag. I would not want to look like that.”

来源：左右图史