DUSK IS FALLING IN TREPTOWER PARK ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF BERLIN AND I AM LOOKING UP AT A STATUE DRAMATICALLY OUTLINED AGAINST A LILAC SKY.

 Dusk is falling in Treptower Park on the outskirts of Berlin and I am looking up at a statue dramatically outlined against a lilac sky.

 Twelve metres (40ft) high, it depicts a Soviet soldier grasping a sword in one hand and a small German girl in the other, and stamping on a broken swastika.

This is the final resting place for 5,000 of the 80,000 Soviet troops who fell in the Battle of Berlin between 16 April and 2 May 1945.

The colossal proportions of the monument reflect the scale of the sacrifice. At the top of a long flight of steps, you can peer into the base of the statue, 

which is lit up like a religious shrine. An inscription saying that the Soviet people saved European civilisation from fascism catches my eye.

But some call this memorial the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist.

Stalin's troops assaulted an uncounted number of women as they fought their way to the German capital, 

though this was rarely mentioned after the war in Germany - West or East - and is a taboo subject in Russia even today.

The Russian media regularly dismiss talk of the rapes as a Western myth, though one of many sources that tells the story of what happened is a diary kept by a young Soviet officer.

Vladimir Gelfand, a young Jewish lieutenant from central Ukraine, wrote with extraordinary frankness from 1941 through to the end of the war, despite the Soviet military's ban on diaries, which were seen as a security risk.

The manuscript paints a picture of disarray in the regular battalions - miserable rations, lice, routine anti-Semitism and theft, with men even stealing their comrades' boots.

In February 1945, Gelfand was stationed by the Oder River dam, preparing for the final push on Berlin, and he describes how his comrades surrounded and overpowered a battalion of women fighters.

"The captured German female cats declared they were avenging their dead husbands," he writes.

 "They must be destroyed without mercy. Our soldiers suggest stabbing them through their genitals but I would just execute them."

It gets worse.

One of the most revealing passages in Gelfand's diary is dated 25 April, once he had reached Berlin. 

Gelfand was whirling around on a bicycle by the River Spree, the first time he'd ever ridden one, when he came across a group of German women carrying suitcases and bundles.