Gentle people suffer under tyrants

From 1598 until 1927 it was called Tsaritsin. In 1918 Stalin defended it during the Revolution. It was named after the Soviet dictator in 1927. In 1961 it was renamed Volgograd. Called after two tyrants and one river.

For more than 300 years a wonderful sounding name but centuries of terror.

Many kilometres west a guard at a concentration camp decided who would die and who would live.

Later in a march westwards in 1945 that same guard was part of an SS crew who let a large number or prisoners burn to death in a church.

Some years earlier she had been working with Siemens in Berlin, was offered promotion, saw an ad for the SS, applied and got the job.

She applied for the SS job because she could not read or write and was afraid that through her new job in Siemens it would be discovered that she could not read.

The accidents, the misfortune, the evil of those in charge so often cause and all in the name of some spurious cause. But all to do with their power and control.

Berlinale - Berlin Filmfestival is currently running and last evening RBB showed Der Vorleser - The Reader. Great film, great book. It was followed by 'Enemy at the Gate'.