A Character - Tuvia Bielski

I have an irrational love of the movie Defiance.

I know it is not completely accurate, but it is an extremely powerful movie and very well done. I own it, and although it's not one you want to watch over and over again to close together, it's well worth owning.

Please note that this movie is disturbing and really deserves it's R rating. At the beginning it shows actual German footage of a brutal attack on a Jewish village. There is quite a bit of violence, but really the most disturbing aspect is that things like this actually happen.

We've always watched it on Clearplay, so I'm not sure if I'm recommending it or not without it.

I love movies that show a lot of people together and how they change through similar experiences (think Flyboys, Remember the Titans, and Master and Commander). Defiance does this beautifully.

The individuality of the Bielski brothers and their relationships is amazingly done. Simply awesome.

The Bielski Brothers

Zua, Aron, Tuvia, and Aseal

Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Tuvia (Daniel Craig)

Probably the most complicated relationship in the movie.

Zus and Tuvia
This is the part where I want to-
1) Die
2) Cry my eyes out
3) Rave about good acting
4) Wish I could write something like this

The reason I think Tuvia is just an awesome character are many.

I guess the most obvious and over all is that he is fully drawn. He is not perfect, but he is believable and he is extremely likable. He's a strong character.

He is a true leader.
He is both strong and compassionate.

He is an awesome brother.

And on a more trivial note....

He has an awesome white horse.

An outstanding collar.

And
I love most World War II era clothing...but this coat...
Yes. Very good.

He's a down to earth character, strong character. It think he's interesting to study and I'd love to be able to create one as fully drawn.

Edward Zwick directed and wrote the screenplay with Clayton Froham. I don't think I've seen anything else done by Edward Zwick, but he does an amazing job in Defiance.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Survival in Auschwitz - Primo Levi

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

A Touchstone Book

Published by Simon & Schuster

Rating: 7
Readability: Painful.

Impact: We'll see.

Read it Again: I dunno.
Recommend It: Yes.

What to Expect

Primo Levi spent one year in the death camps of Auschwitz. He is an Jewish Italian who was capture after joining the Resistance in 1943.

This is his first book, a memoir of that year.

(As expected, this book does have some nasty bits, but over all is very tastefully written.)

My Squib

Although not as lyrical as Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi is a very gifted writer. His book is disturbing, hopeful, and heart breaking.

He gives more of a big picture than other accounts I have read. It was eye opening. You get a much better idea about life for everyone, the confusion of languages, the bartering, etc...

He uses a disturbing amount of colons and writes in present tense erratically. But neither bothered me too much since it did have to survive translation and the present tense was powerful even when mixed with past. It was a good tool for a memoir like this.

From the Book..and more obtrusive squibbing

One interesting thing was his talk about identity. I love it when I'm reading more then one book at the same time and things start to line up. I've been going through Leithart's book on 1 & 2 Kings and he happened to be talking about identity too.

Here's part of what Levi said...

"Imagine now a man who is depraved of everyone he loves, and at the same time his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgement of utility. It is in this way that one can understand the double sense of the term 'extermination camp', and it is now clear what we seek to express with the phrase: 'to lie on the bottom.'"

Here's part of what Leithart said...

"Some goods, Augustine argues, are such that they can be possessed only when they are given away; they can be possessed rightly and truly only in dispossession, only in recognizing that the self must be centered in God. The self is among these goods. First Kings 11 suggests a similar anthropology: Solomon is himself not in himself but in relation to his Lord, Yahweh, and when he departs from Yahweh he becomes a different Solomon."

So, that doesn't really give all of what Leithart was saying...I didn't think you wanted me to post the whole chapter. ;-) But I'm hoping it gives the idea.

Obviously these are extremely different situations. Levi is talking about things I can not imagine. Leithart is talking about Solomon turning away. But it seems to me that they are both talking about the root of identity. The root of usness. It seems like "finding ourselves" is such a big deal, but we look in all the wrong places and put our assurance on all the wrong things. Don't know if I make sense, but it certainly made sense in my mind. ;-)

There so much puzzling about Jewish life. I think it's an interesting study. Levi is proud of being Jewish, but I can't remember a single mention of God or faith. Near the ending of the book he does mention Providence and luck numerous times and hoping from a miracle from the Bible. But no where does he mention faith or hope.

How could you go through what he went through and come out human without Christ?

Elie Wiesel's books talk about this more. He seems to understand Jesus is the answer to suffering. He is Hope. But Wiesel stays with Judaism. His books talk about his anger at God and later reconciliation, but Primo Levi does not mention anything in Survival of Auschwitz. It's almost more disturbing.

But I am rambling.

Here is another quote...

"We lay in a world of death and phantoms. The last trace of civilization had vanished around and inside of us. The work of the bestial degradation, began by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by Germans in defeat."

Another sobering read, but I'm glad I read this book.

Thank you for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Saints and Soldiers (2005)

Saints and Soldiers

Written by Geoffry Panos and Matt Whitaker
Directed by Ryan Little

Rating: Okay...so I love this movie, but I do recognize it isn't cheese free, so I'm not going to attempt to give it a number.
Watch-ability: I didn't get bored.

Impact: High...

Watch it Again: I have already watched it multiple times and as I own it. I don't this is the last.

Recommend it: Yes!

What to Expect

A World War II movie loosely based on a real event. The camera follows five men, all very different, on their mission to reach fellow Americans from behind enemy lines.

My Squib

Well...you probably already know I have a weakness for movies during the World Wars. :-)

Saints and Soldiers is awesome for a variety of reasons.

Despite the fact that sometimes the lines fall into some pretty sticky cheese, the characters are genuine. I love them all. (Especially the German guy with the creepy blue eyes. LOL.) Deacon is the awesomeist.

If you've know the plot of this movie and know me, you know why we click. There are plenty of complicated issues and ultimate sacrifice.

This was a low budget movie, but don't take that to heart. These people really pulled it off. They won over 7 awards and totally deserved it.

Gould and Deacon really excel in their acting. The only one that bothered me (and this was only occasionally) is Gordan Gunderson played by Peter Holden.

The extras are also very interesting. They talk about their research and family from World War II. I really enjoyed it.

This film is rated PG 13 for violence. I would add disturbing images. The beginning is certainly disturbing. There is a lot of blood, but it's never gore for gore's sake. It's tasteful. There is some very mild language.

I totally recommend it. You'll have to tell me what you think.

From the Movie

There are some truly amazing quotes, but I can't remember any word for word and I can't find any on the web. You'll have to watch it yourself. ;-)

Cpl. Nathan (Deacon) Greer
acted by
Corban Allred
You can read an interesting interview with him here.

Medic Steven Gould
acted by

Alexander Polinsky

Gould and Pvt. "Shirl" Kendrick acted by Larry Bagby.

Gould, Kendrick, and Flt. Sgt. Oberon Winley acted by Kirby Heborne.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Writing and Reading

This last week we had a three day writing and planning trip. I was able to get a lot done and it helped me refocus and work out some concrete goals. Very productive.

Besides writing, obviously, I got a lot of reading done. I'm hopelessly behind in reviews, so here are a few quick squibs.





I finished His Rules by Christopher L. Burge & Pamela Toussaint.


This book was an extremely good one that really covers any age or predicament for someone who is single.




Really enjoyed it and it was an easy read. The main thing that bothered me was their use of the MSG and sometimes their strange use of Scripture totally out of context...but really, an excellent book!

You can read my sister's squib on it here.

I read two Elie Wiesel novels, which I have mixed feelings about... I felt like his writing style wasn't as deep as Night. (If that makes any sense.) Of course, his personal memoir will probably remain the deepest.





I also think that because he wrote these novels in French (at least not his first or second or third language) which was then translated to English by two different translators, they might have lost some of their potency.
Night was written in Yiddish and the version I read was translated to English by his wife. I imagine she probably has a better understanding of what he wanted to say then a normal translator.

Interesting and thought provoking, but certainly not easy, warm-fuzzy reads.

I finished On Writing by Stephen King. I had some extremely mixed feelings about it. I would not recommend it because of language and crudeness, which is really to bad because King has a lot of excellent things to say about writing.





Books on writing are written by writers who feel like writing about writing. Duh? Yes, but I have a point.
I think these writers in general tend to be plot-first novelist and learn a certain way (I know I'm greatly generalizing here, but this has been my experience.) They don't cover everything.

I honestly don't think Stephen King would have woken up one morning thinking he'd love to write a book on writing. His publisher or agent told him to.

He has a unique perspective and writes from the hip, which is something most writers that have written books on writing don't do. He actually bashes plotting (which I do not entirely agree with). He emphasises more of the feel and rhythm of writing.

While I didn't agree with some of what he said I could feel the balance this book helped me take. I was very inspired to write and it felt more carefree again.

I know a lot of this book was things I needed to hear. Unfortunately some of it was things I really didn't need to hear too. So...yeah, what a bummer to have objectionable content in such a good book!

One specific thing he talked about was writing as telepathy, which was something I'd never heard before.

Here are a few quotes. There was so many good ones, but I'm only including two.

"All arts depend upon telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing offers the purest distillation. Perhaps I'm prejudiced, but even if I am we may as well stick with writing, since it's what we came her to think about."

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."





I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok which is something that has been sitting on my desk-shelf for some time. Mama has been telling me for awhile that I would like this book and I've finally got around to reading it!




We were able to watch a live play version earlier this year, which was very good and already gave me a grasp of the story. Reading this book was certainly an interesting experience.

I'll be giving this novel it's own post soon. :-)



So, yeah. That's what I've been doing.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Night - Elie Wiesel

Night by Elie Wiesel
Translated by Marion Wiesel
Hill and Wang

Rating: 10
Readability: The style is very readable, but the content is sometimes hard to read.
Impact: 9

Read it Again: Yes
Recommend it: Yes



What to Expect

A heart-rending, poignant memoir of a teenage boy during the holocaust.

This book is brutal in its portrayal of brutality.
It is certainly not for the faint hearted. It gets an R rating for violence, disturbing images, and some other material.
Having said that, it is not an inappropriate book. I highly recommend it. Some of it is disturbing, but it's subject matter is disturbing. To try to make it undisturbing would be unforgivable.

Elie Wiesel is now a best selling author of over 55 books. This is his first. His testimony to the world.

My Squib

I hardly know what to say about this book.

I feel guilty admiring his writing style (even after it has survived translation), but the truth is, its amazing. I was so struck by the elegant prose in the introduction that I read it three times and then immediately felt guilty for admiring it so much when it deals with the subject matter.

The main book text is not as fluid and amazing as the introduction, but his style fits perfectly with his story. It is heart wrenching and honest.

This is not a happy book, but I highly recommend it. There is much to learn from such a slim, 100 page volume.

One thing that did strike me was how far Jews have come from the OT even and how different everything would be without Christ. I would never have the stamina and will to continue living that this sixteen year old boy does if I did not have hope in Jesus.

I quoted a section of the forward by a French Christian who met the author before the book was written.
Wiesel, a reporter at the time, was conducting an interview with him on his reaction and memories from the war. Francois Mauriac, the French Christian, spoke of a memory of the eyes of starving Jewish children staring from a moving train car. Wiesel replied, "I was one of those children." Thus started their relationship.
Mauriac's reaction and wish for the Jews to have known and recognized Christ as Lord, spoke strait to me. You can see the quote below.

Please read the quotes. They say much more then I can.

From the Book

Okay, so I took a lot of quotes from this book. I wanted a piece of the intro because it was so beautifully profound. I took a piece of the forward because it took my emotions and thoughts towards this story from a Christian perspective and put them into better words. I took pieces from the book so you actually see what it was like. And I took pieces from Elie Wiesel's Peace Prize speech because he is so amazingly quotable. I do not necessarily agree with everything Wiesel says, but his views on indifference spoke right to me.

Please read the quotes. They will give you much more then my review can. Or, just pick up the book and read....

-From the introduction to the new edition-

"If in my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one.
Just as our past lingers in the present, all my writings after Night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works.
Why did I write it?
Did I write it so as not to go mad, or on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that erupted in history and the conscience of mankind?
Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself?
Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent, at an age when one's knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what one discovers in literature?
There are those that tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am not convinced. I do not know how I survived: I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself. A miracle? Certainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me, why not for others more deserving than myself. It was nothing more than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival. Was it to protect the meaning that I set to paper an experience in which nothing made sense?
In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer - or my life, period - would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try and prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory....

And yet, having lived through this experience, one could not keep silent no matter how difficult, if not impossible, it was to speak.
And so I persevered. And trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words. Knowing all the while that anyone of the fields of ashes in Birkenau carries more weight then all the testimonies about Birkenau. For despite all my attempts to articulate the unspeakable, 'it' is still not right....

Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz'; I answer that not only do I know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response. What I do know is that theres is a 'response' in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness so close and yet so distant, 'responsibility' is the key word.
The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.

~Introduction to the New Translation by Elie Wiesel

-From the forward by Francois Mauriac-

"And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child?
What did I say to him?
Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world?
Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine.
And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaughterhouses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is they who have given it new life.
We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word of each of us belongs to Him.
That is what I should have said to the Jewish child. But all I could do was embrace him and weep."
~From the Forward by Francois Mauriac

-From the Book Text-

"The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered my soul and devoured. it."

" 'I've got more faith in Hitler than anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises to the Jewish people.' "

"I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget that concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece of Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the male and melancholy face of my polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men."

"From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me."

-From Elie Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech 1986

"But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation. Without it no action would be possible. And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all...

And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world di know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.
We must take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

~From the Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech by Elie Wiesel 1986

The Red Baron (2008)

The Red Barron
Directed and written by Nikolai Mullerschon.


Rating: 9 for its kind




Watch-ability: It is more concerned with telling the amazing history of the Red Baron, then in entertaining you. I thought that was amazing, but if you have no interest in history you may not like it. ;-)
It did have some pretty nasty disturbing images. It also had some other things it could have done without. :-P
Impact: 8

Watch it Again: YES!!!!!!!!!!!
Recommend it: Yes.

Originally released in Austria.

Staring Matthias Schweighofer, Joseph Fiennes, and Lena Headey.

Rated PG-13 for disturbing violence, mild language, and some suggestive material.

The financing for this film came exclusively from well-to-do individuals living in the state of Baden-Wuttemberg in the honor of these men's place in history.

Here is one of the trailers. Youtube has changed their setting so they no longer give you a size that fits on average blogs. :-P If you want to see the whole thing, go to this link on Youtube.



Warning: The views on this movie may be skewed.
I enjoy history, am fascinated with the World Wars, have a weakness for fighter pilots, and a greater weakness for Germans. See this post...

What to Expect

The Red Baron was created to honor the lives of these pilots. It jumps around a bit to follow the life of Baron Manfred von Richthofen, his role in the First World War and his character struggles and change.

This movie has a similar flavor to Flyboys, except it is not as well done...
Having said that, it is amazing in the fact that it just portrays the events and characters and lets you fall in love with them or not as you choose. It doesn't press anything on you or ask for sympathy.

In general the acting was very good. I was originally excited because I have watched a few movies with Joseph Fiennes and really enjoyed his acting. His performance in this was disappointing. He plays the typical cheesy American that reside in foreign films.

My Squib

Matthias Schweighofen did an excellent job in this movie.
(For those of you who do not keep up-to-date on these things, Matthias Schweighofen plays Lieutenant Herber in Valkyrie. He's a character you really want to like, but in the end turns them in. Loser. Anyways...)

At first I didn't like him much at all. Fredrick Sternberg, played by Maxim Mehmet, was my early favorite. But Schweighofen developed the Baron's character in such away that by the end you really loved him, with all his problems. I think he was one of the most interesting characters I've seen in a movie in a long time.

I really liked how they included pieces of the lives of so many historical characters. The only character that was fictitious was Fredrick Sternberg. He was included in memoriam of all the Jewish pilots that fought and died in the First World War...and he was amazing. ;-)

I could go on forever, but I won't. If you watch it, we can talk about it sometimes.

Okay...so I loved this movie.

From the Movie

Read this amazing quote by Baron Richthofen to his girl, Kate.
The Baron is offered to become the leader of the entire air force. Of course his girl is ultra excited because now he won't be getting shot down.
He refuses the position without telling her. When she does find out they, of course, get in a little bicker. This is his response...

"When I was a little boy, I could hit all the targets with my father's rifle, targets so far away the others couldn't even see them. I dreamt of seeing everything and of being like a bird. Hawk's eyes, eagle's eyes it was called.

When I became a pilot, I truly thought I would see everything from up there. I saw nothing. I was blind before I met you. You opened my eyes, you taught me to see what I didn't want to see. We all chose to fly; Voss, Sternberg, Immelmann, Wolff, Hawker, and whatever side we took we all knew the risk we took.

I wanted to be the best. I wanted to win and I thought I won. I can see now, Käte, we've turned the world into a damn slaughterhouse and I'm already too big a part of it. They use my photograph to give hope where there is none. They use my name to feign immortality whereas the reality is annihilation. You said it yourself, the men dying out there have no choice. I have and I cannot order men into battle. I can, perhaps, lead them, help them, die with them, but I will not betray them or keep the truth from them by remaining the immortal god that Berlin wants me to be.
You are my greatest victory."


Visit the movies website.

Read more about the real Red Baron on Wikipedia.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Characters - Where do they come from?

I had a crises with my story project the other day. :-P I have so many versions that reach about 12,000 words and then I turn on them and want to tare them apart. I think I've finally diagnosed some of the problems and we are working on a treatment.


My male characters clear to me, my female ones....so boring!

So, I've been doing some serious thinking. I'm making two poster boards with character sketches, pictures, and anecdotes all around the edges and the plot timeline down the middle. I'm using post-it-notes for scenes and events so I can move them around as necessary.

One of the things I noticed after this critical rethinking and remaking was similarities or oddities in my characters.
First, all my cool guys are fall and thin and fiercely loyal. They either have blonde hair or black hair and are the quite thinking types. Yes, they all have differences, but I had to shake them up a bit.

This story has been in progress for a very long time (at least five years now).
Why are my guys this way?
It's not just this story either. All my heroes are pretty much like this.

There just sort of like....Sherlock Holmes meets Erich Hartmann....

I believe that especially at a certain age, we are very heavily influenced by what we read. I guess Sherlock Holmes and The Blond Knight of Germany really hit me during this time. :-)

My sister and I got out Erich Harmann's biography last night and I was pretty amazed flipping through it how much I'd obviously been influenced.

Other assorted influential characters since the beginning of my scribbling (which pretty much started way before I could spell) include: Sir Percy Blakney, Stonewall Jackson, George Washington, the hares in Redwall, and my brothers. :-)

How weird is it all?

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

P.S. For those of you who may not love Germans in general or World War 2 aces in particular and have been to lazy to look up Erich Hartmann on Wikipedia, he was a pretty awesome German Ace.




(And it was okay because he shot down Russians, not Americans, and he was indoctrinated so he didn't know what he was doing. :-) After the war he traveled through England and America and was very sweet to everyone.)

He is the highest ranking ace ever in aerial warfare with 1,404 combat missions and 352 personal victories!
After the war he spent 10 1/2 years in a Russian prison camp, but was eventually sent home. Here's a short hunk of what Wikipedia had to say about him along with a youtube video at the end... If you couldn't tell, I do recommend reading The Blond Knight of Germany. :-)

Imprisonment

After his capture, the U.S. Army handed Hartmann, his pilots, and ground crew over to the Soviet Union on 24 May 1945, where he was imprisoned in accordance with the Yalta Agreements, which stated that airmen and soldiers fighting Soviet forces had to surrender directly to them. Hartmann and his unit were led by the Americans to a large open-air compound to await the transfer. The number of prisoners grew to 50,000. Living conditions deteriorated, and some American guards turned "a blind eye" to escapes. In some cases, they assisted by providing food and maps.^[41]

After being handed over to the Soviets, the German group was split up into groups according to gender. Hartmann witnessed widespread rape and murder of civilians. When the outnumbered Americans tried to intervene, the Soviet soldiers charged towards them, firing into the air and threatening to kill them. Order was later restored, and some of the guilty soldiers were hanged "on the spot" by a Soviet commander.^[40]

Initially, the Russians tried to convince Erich to cooperate with them. He was asked to spy on fellow officers and become a stukatch, or "stool pigeon". He refused and was given 10 days' solitary confinement in a four-by-nine-by-six-foot chamber. He slept on a concrete floor and was given only bread and water. On another occasion, the Soviets threatened to kidnap and murder his wife (the death of his son was kept from Hartmann). During similar interrogations about his knowledge of the Me 262, Hartmann was struck by a Soviet officer using a cane, prompting Hartmann to slam his chair down on the head of the Russian, knocking him out. Expecting to be shot, Erich was transferred back to the small bunker.^[42]

Hartmann, not ashamed of his war service, opted to go on hunger strike and starve rather than fold to "Soviet will", as he called it.^[43] The Russians allowed the hunger strike to go on for four days before force-feeding him. More subtle efforts by the Soviet authorities to convert Hartmann to communism also failed. He was offered a post in the Luftstreitkräfte der Nationalen Volksarmee (East German Air Force), which he refused:

If, after I am home in the West, you make me a normal contract offer, a business deal such as people sign every day all over the world, and I like your offer, then I will come back and work with you in accordance with the contract. But if you try to put me to work under coercion of any kind, then I will resist to my dying gasp.^[42]

[edit]War-crimes charges

Hartmann had gone too far with his resistance. He was falsely charged with war crimes, specifically the deliberate shooting of 780 Soviet civilians in the village of Briansk, attacking a "bread factory" on 23 May 1943, and destroying 345 "expensive" Soviet aircraft.^[44] He refused to confess to these charges and conducted his own defence, which was a waste of time, according to the judge.^[44] Sentenced to 25 years of hard labour, Hartmann refused to work. He was eventually put into solitary confinement, which enraged his fellow prisoners. They began a revolt, overpowered the guards, and freed him. Hartmann made a complaint to the Kommandant's office, asking for a representative from Moscow and an international inspection, as well as a tribunal, to acquit him of his unlawful conviction. This was refused, and he was transferred to a camp inNovocherkassk, where he would spend five more months in solitary confinement. Eventually, Hartmann was granted a tribunal, but it upheld his original sentence. He was subsequently sent to another camp, this time at Diaterka in the Ural Mountains.^[45]

During his long imprisonment, Hartmann's son, Erich-Peter, was born in 1945 and died as a three-year-old in 1948, without his father ever having seen him. (Hartmann later had a daughter, Ursula Isabel, born on 23 February 1957).^[46]

In 1955, Hartmann's mother wrote to the new West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, to whom she appealed to secure his freedom. A trade agreement between West Germany and the Soviet Union was reached, and Hartmann was released along with 16,000 German military personnel. After spending ten and a half years in Soviet POW camps, he was among the last batch of prisoners to be turned over. Returning toWest Germany, he was reunited with his wife Ursula, to whom he had written every day of the war.^[47]

In January 1997, the Russian government, as a legal successor to the Soviet Union, exonerated Hartmann by admitting that his conviction for war crimes was unlawful.^[2]