- Date added
-
Aug. 18, 2021, 4:45 p.m.
- Description
- And during the exhibition she came face to face with German veterans from the besieging army. ‘No words were necessary,’ Martilla said. ‘I could see it in their eyes - I was at Leningrad.’ She took a group of them round - they were asking questions, asking about conditions in the blockaded city, and then they all stopped. ‘They just stood there, with tears in their eyes,’ Martilla recalled. And then one of them stepped forward. ‘I ask for your forgiveness,’ he said. ‘None of this was necessary, from a military point of view. We tried to destroy you, but we destroyed ourselves as human beings. On behalf of all of us, I ask for your forgiveness.’ As he spoke, Martilla became acutely aware of a different siege memory - the callous indifference shown by Leningrad’s leaders towards ordinary people’s suffering. They would never ask for forgiveness. ‘War is terrible,’ she replied, ‘but my quarrel is with fascism, not with the German people. And fascism exists in all of us.’”
