Posts by: Michael361

People often inquire after the poem Wait For Me read by Sir Laurence Olivier in Episode 11. Red Star-The Soviet Union (1941-1943). It was written in 1941 by a young Soviet officer, Konstantin Simonov. Today he is regarded as arguably Russia’s greatest poet. At the time he was unknown. Wait For Me was intended for his girlfriend Valentina Serova but ended up being published in Pravda. Soldiers cut it out of the paper, copied it out as they sat in the trenches, learned it by heart and sent it back in letters to wives and girlfriends. It was found in the breast pockets of the killed and wounded. Here is one translation of the poem.

Wait for me, and I'll return
Only wait very hard
Wait when you are filled with sorrow
Wait in the sweltering heat
Wait when the others have stopped waiting
Forgetting their yesterdays.

Wait even when from afar no letters come to you
Wait even when others are tired of waiting.
And when friends sit around the fire
Drinking to my memory
Wait, and make no haste to drink
Alone amongst them all.

Wait. For I'll return, defying every death.
And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky
They will never understand that in the midst of death
You with your waiting saved me
Only you and I know how I survived
It's because you waited, as no one else did.

Konstantin Simonov 1941

Top 10 moments

1. The footage of the French market town of Oradour-sur-Glane. Episode 1. A New Germany (1933–1939).
2. The footage that locates Toshikazu Kase on board USS Missouri during the surrender ceremonies on 2 September 1945. Episode 22. Japan (1941-1945).
3. Sir Laurence Olivier’s reading of Wait For Me by Konstantine Simonov. Episode 11. Red Star-The Soviet Union (1941-1943).
4. The testimony of Rivka Yosilevska. Episode 20. Genocide (1941-1945).
5. The testimony of R.M. Van Der Veen. Episode 18. Occupation-Holland (1940-1944).
6. The testimony of Rita Boas Koupman. Episode 18. Occupation-Holland (1940-1944).
7. The testimony of Traudl Junge. Episode 16. Inside the Reich-Germany (1940–1944).
8. The footage of the woman disarming the wounded Vichy gunman accompanied by Sir Laurence Olivier’s declaration “Morning had come.” Episode 17. Morning (June-August 1944).
9. The footage of Russan Katyusha multiple rocket launchers as the Red Army advances on Berlin. Episode 21. Nemesis-Germany (February–May 1945).
10. George Formby performing “Imagine me in the Maginot Line” to allied troops. Episode 15. Home Fires-Britain (1940–1944).