都市封鎖での大混乱、第２次大戦直後とは「違う」　体験者らの言葉

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】欧州における第2次世界大戦の終結から75年を経た今、新型コロナウイルス感染症（COVID-19）のパンデミック（世界的な大流行）が、戦後最悪といわれる経済的・社会的大混乱をもたらしている。（写真はドイツ首都ベルリン近郊の自宅で取材に応じるルッツ・ラッコウさん）
　ＡＦＰはイスラエル、英国、フランス、ドイツ、ロシアの５か国で、１９４０年代の激変を生き抜いた人に今日の状況について思うことを聞いた。

■ドイツ：ルッツ・ラッコウさん
　ラッコウさん（８８）は、戦時中に育ったベルリン南東部の家に今も住んでいる。ラッコウさんにとって、今の状況は当時とはまったく異なる。
　終戦を迎えた１９４５年は「完全な非常事態だった」と、ラッコウさんは語る。「生活上の問題はただ一つ、どうやって食べ物を手に入れるかだった。子どもは皆、学校で給食が出たから、少なくとも１日１度は食事にありつけた。だがそれ以外は、食料はかなり欠乏していた」
　ラッコウさんは１８歳になると、ベルリンのリベラルな新聞社で働き始めた。「職場までは列車で１５分ほどだったが、その途上、人が住んでいそうな家は３軒ほどだった。それ以外は完全に破壊されていた」
　今日、ラッコウさんは妻とともに、ミュゲル湖へとつながる広々とした庭でくつろぐことができる。「ここではお互いの距離を保つのは簡単だ」とラッコウさん。「恵まれている」

■英国：ジョアン・ホールさん
　戦争が始まった時、ホールさん（９５）は英バーミンガムで両親と暮らしていた。１７歳になるとすぐに英空軍婦人部隊に入隊し、それから４年間、主に将校向けの食堂で働いた。
　「戦時中は、外出して飲みに行ったり食事をしたりすることができた」とホールさんは違いを語る。「このウイルスは多かれ少なかれ、私たちを自宅に閉じ込められた囚人のようにしてしまう。大きな違いは、自由。私に言わせれば、戦時中の方がこのウイルスよりもましだった」
　一方で似ている点もあるという。「戦争が続いている時は、みんなとても親切で一緒に働き、力を合わせた。今は、このウイルスの流行で、人々が昔みたいに結束しているように見える。お隣さんがドアをノックして、手を貸そうかと尋ねてくれる。戦時中にそうだったような共同体精神があるように思える」

　■ロシア：エレナ・ミロノワさん
　２年前に夫を亡くしたミロノワさん（９２）は、モスクワ南東部のアパートでロックダウン（都市封鎖）を乗り切ろうとしている。毎日、近くに住む２人の娘や孫たちと電話で話している。
　ミロノワさんは、感染症の流行によるロックダウンと第２次世界大戦の体験を比べることは問題だと思っている。「戦時中、ソビエト連邦では２８００万人が死んだ」。経済状況の悪化も「今回のパンデミックとは比べものにならない」とミロノワさんは語った。

■イスラエル：ロバート・ウルフさん
　「比較はばかげている」と、フランス生まれで、今は妻と娘と一緒にエルサレムに住んでいるウルフさん（９４）は言う。
　ウルフさんは仏中部リモージュの実家を１７歳で離れ、同国東部のアンでナチス・ドイツの占領に抵抗するレジスタンス運動に加わり、そこで逮捕されたがなんとか逃亡した。
　戦後はリモージュに戻り、米軍のラジオ修理工として働いた。「あの頃は飢えていて、とにかくみじめだった。ユダヤ人は解放されるまで追放され続けたのだ。（感染症の大流行と）比べることなんてできない」「今は本もテレビもある。文句は言えない」
　戦争が終わっても厳しい状況は続いた。「（ナチスの）協力者を見つけ出し、リンチしていた人々の残虐さは忘れない。裁判さえないこともあった」

■フランス：ガブリエレ・マニョルさん
　フランス南西部ペリゴール地方のサンパルドゥーラリビエールに住む元美容師のマニョルさん（９３）は、閉じこもって暮らしている。会うのは理学療法士と医師、それにヘルパーだけだ。
　戦争が終わった時のことを、マニョルさんは喜びにあふれた日々として記憶している。「３夜連続、踊り続けた。３足の靴をすり減らした」。だが、喜びの日々に続いたのは、食料配給だった。
　ロックダウンとの大きな違いの一つは、戦後は店が再開しても品物が何もなかったことだ。「私たちが経験したのは、本当の物不足だった」
　車いす暮らしの今、新型コロナウイルスはもちろん怖いが、戦争の恐怖に比べたら何でもないと話す。
　「占領下の暮らしと外出制限では、共通するところなど何もない。あのときは自分たちの生命に不安を感じていたし、飢えていた」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/05/12-13:01）

Seventy-five years since the end of World War II in Europe, the coronavirus pandemic is wreaking economic and social havoc on a scale often described as the worst global crisis since 1945.
People in five countries -- Russia, Israel, England, France and Germany -- who survived the upheaval of the 1940s gave AFP their take on what is happening today.
- Lutz Rackow, 88, Germany -
Rackow still lives in the house in southeast Berlin where he was growing up during the war. For him, the current situation is completely different.
It's just another complicated international situation -- but a completely different context, he said. It was a total emergency situation in 1945.
There was only one issue in our private lives: getting food. Every child received a meal at school so that they could eat at least once a day. But other than that, provisions were very poor.
We also had no heating and experienced terrible cold. There were two winters when the Spree (river) froze through to half a metre (1.6 feet) deep and we had temperatures of minus 25 degrees (minus 13 Fahrenheit).
At the age of 18, Rackow started working for a liberal newspaper in Berlin.
When I took the train to work, about a 15-minute journey, I saw maybe three functional houses on the way. Everything else was completely destroyed, he said.
Today, as half of humanity sits in some form of lockdown, Rackow can enjoy relaxing with his wife in their sprawling garden leading down to the Mueggelsee lake, while his two daughters both have steady jobs and are able to work from home.
It's easy for us here to keep our distance, he says. We're in a privileged situation.
- Joan Hall, 95, England -
Hall lived with her parents in Birmingham at the start of the war. She joined the Women's Royal Air Force at just 17 and served for four years, mainly in the officers' canteen.
During the war, you could get out and have a drink, have a meal. Now, with the virus, you can't go anywhere, she said.
This virus, it makes you a prisoner in your own home, more or less. The main difference is the freedom. And speaking for myself, I would prefer the war years than I would this virus.
She also sees similarities.
When the war was on, everybody was very friendly, worked together, pulled together. And now, you know, with this virus going on, it seems to me that it is bringing the people back together. Now neighbours knock on your door and ask if you need help.
They go out to help you with your shopping and this seems to be a more communal spirit, like it was in the war.
Unable to receive visits from her 70-year-old son, Hall spends her time at home in Fairford, near Oxford, working in the garden and talking on the telephone with friends.
- Elena Mironova, 92, Russia -
A widow of two years, Mironova is riding out the lockdown in her apartment, southwest of Moscow. She speaks by telephone every day with her two daughters and grandsons who live nearby.
For her, comparing the epidemic lockdown to the experience of WWII is problematic.
During the war, the USSR lost 28 million people, she said, adding that the economic devastation was also incomparable to the effects of the pandemic.
After the war, Mironova lived with her husband Viktor in a small apartment in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg).
The first winter after the war we never had enough paraffin and sometimes we had just a little flour and sunflower oil for a week. I spent my time standing in queues (for food), she recalled.
But there were brief moments of diversion as well: visits to the museum, cinema or theatre, activities which are now off-limits.
- Robert Wolff, 94, Israel -
The comparison is ridiculous, said Wolff, a French-born nonagenarian who lives with his wife and daughter in Jerusalem.
At 17, he had left his parents' home in Limoges in central France to join the resistance at Ain in the country's east, where he was arrested but managed to escape.
He returned to Limoges after the war and worked for the United States army as a radio repairman.
We were starving at the time and it was complete misery. Jews were being deported right up to liberation -- how can it be compared (to the pandemic)? he said.
Today, we have books, television, I cannot complain.
After the war ended, times were tough for a while still, with food rationing and a volatile atmosphere.
I remember seeing the savagery of people when the (Nazi) collaborators were found and lynched, sometimes without trial, Wolff said.
- Gabrielle Magnol, 93, France -
Confined in Saint-Pardoux-la-Riviere in the Perigord region of southwest France, Magnol sees only her physiotherapist, doctor and household aides.
She remembers the end of the war as a joyful period.
We were crazy with joy. We could go dancing and at 17 we dreamt of nothing else, she said. I danced for three nights straight, I went through three pairs of shoes.
But after the joy, there were the food stamps.
It was no fun, we were allowed only so much butter, so much sugar from the shop, she said.
To live, one needs more than sugar and fat -- in the clothing and shoe stores there was practically nothing.
In one major difference, there was no run on supplies once stores reopened after the war, Magnol recalled.
Now, in the shops, people rush in because they fear they will not have enough tomorrow. We experienced real shortages.
In a wheelchair today, the former hairdresser admits she is fearful of the virus, but feels it is nothing compared to the threats of war.
The occupation and confinement have nothing in common: we feared for our lives and we were starving!
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