A Letter From Munich

by Meg Lelvis

  At the mini fridge, Jack opened a bottle of Pilsner and took a swig. But the images his father described assaulted his taste buds, and the beer almost came back up. His knees started to buckle so he steadied himself against the wall. Needed to sit back down. He was tempted to call Tommy or talk to Sherk about what he’d read. But his brother would have to wait until he was done with the whole thing, until he’d had a chance to absorb his father’s words and hopefully become numb to the horror. Besides, he could hardly read it over the phone.

  Just sit, Jack. Sit and breathe.

  Hopefully Renate would give him the journal to keep. But wait—she’d said something about passing it on to Ariana’s daughter. Damn, he’d forgotten about that. He’d get Sherk to talk to Renate. Since Jack’s father wrote that journal, shouldn’t it belong to him and Tommy?

  He glanced at the notebook. Who was this soldier who wrote these words so many years ago? Jack couldn’t separate his memories of his father at home in Chicago from the soldier trudging through frigid weather and coming upon those gruesome bodies. John Bailey must’ve been how old? Just a young guy. He was born in 1922, so he’d been around twenty-three. He also had a wife at home in Chicago. He and Maureen O’Leary, Jack’s mother, had married a year before he’d enlisted.

  Jack thought of himself at that age. Drinking, carousing, community college between dead-end jobs. A carefree world then. He didn’t get his shit together until his late twenties. Witnessing the horrors of Dachau, no wonder his old man was a mean drunk.

  Jack glanced at the Pilsner bottle, but decided he had no taste for it. What had happened to him? The worn brown notebook rested on the table beside him. Like picking at an irresistible scab, he lifted the journal and found where he’d left off.

  Swallowing hard and settling back against the pillows, his thoughts drifted back to April 29, 1945.

  Chapter 23

  Journal Entry — June 4, 1946

  Ariana, I hope this hasn’t been too much for you. Even now, a year after the war, most people in the States don’t know what truly happened. When I wrote ma and pa just a few things about Dachau, they refused to swallow it.

  About the death train. Some of the squads stayed around the tracks and helped survivors, others followed our sergeants into a large compound with a stone wall around it. We split up, some going on either side, where we met guys from another division. We made our way to a huge gate with “Arbeit Macht Frei” across the top of the iron entrance. I learned later those same words were on the gates of other camps. “Work Makes You Free.” What bullshit.

  Crowds of prisoners in gray stripes behind the gate were hollering, cheering, others silent, crying, moaning. We were their liberators. The Americans. The gate opened easy from the outside, the lieutenants and sergeants yelled at us to keep the prisoners inside.

  A few German guards held back Rottweilers, barking and lunging, straining their leashes. The dogs acted crazy, as if they could tell something big was happening.

  It took a while to get some kind of order. Our commander was Henning Linden, and he walked over near the gate and stood on top of one of the barriers over a narrow canal. He was shouting orders when a German lieutenant and a Red Cross worker with a white arm band approached, holding up truce flags. Our guys had their guns on them until Linden signaled the okay.

  Lt. Heinrich Wicker (we learned his name later) carried surrender documents. He walked up to Linden and saluted with a “Heil Hitler,” announcing he was ready to turn over the camp. So, Linden officially signed the Dachau surrender that afternoon of April 29.

  After that, an American officer grabbed Wicker’s arms, called him a “Schweinhund” and shoved him into a Jeep. They drove away and a couple minutes later, a gunshot cracked. That’s what I was told later, but I didn’t witness it.

  I don’t remember in what order things happened after that. Shouts of “Kill the bastards” could be heard over and over that day and the next few days too. Everything was madness. Even some of our boys walked around like they were shell shocked. I spoke to one guy, and he looked at me in a daze, said his mother was cooking pot roast for dinner. He probably ended up in a Section 8.

  We saw piles and piles of clothing, and prisoners were hanging out upstairs windows of the stone jails. But others were walking outside by that time. Little kids called some of our guys “Papa” and hugged them. They hadn’t seen their parents for so long, forgot what they looked like. One scrawny little boy wouldn’t let go of a soldier’s leg. He kept crying, “Papa” and some German words too. Poor kid. It was hard to watch.

  In the midst of this, our sergeant told us to inspect the rest of the camp. We walked across the courtyard and crossed the canal that served as a makeshift moat. There we saw the gas chambers and crematoriums. Low brick buildings. Chimneys. Piles and piles of human ashes, some bones mixed in. The storage rooms were filled with grisly stacks of gassed prisoners.

  A buddy later described the smell this way: When he was a kid, his mother would bring home a freshly killed chicken from the butcher. She’d hold it over the gas flame on the stove to burn the feathers off and some skin and fat would burn too. The stench was the same, except these were human bodies.

  By then, we were ready to call it quits when this woman journalist who tagged along with our division came running over to us. Everyone thought she was a real pain in the ass, sticking her nose in everything and writing about it. She wasn’t a bad looking broad, but she got in the way, like she was so fuc frickin’ important and smiling a lot.

  Anyway, she was all excited and came running up to us, blabbing that Col. Felix Sparks of the 45th Infantry was walking through the residential part of the camp when he saw a Lt. Bill Walsh chasing a German soldier shouting: “You sons of bitches’ over and over.” So, Walsh caught the German and beat him on the head with the barrel of his rifle. Sparks yelled at him to stop, but Walsh kept beating the guy. He wouldn’t stop, so Sparks cracked Walsh over the head with the butt of his .45. Walsh fell to the ground and laid there bawling like a baby.

  After Sparks secured command, it took seven men to haul Walsh away. And while I’m on the subject, that Maggie Higgins journalist broad told us more the next day. She said after Walsh was hauled off, she followed Sparks’ men to the coal yards where a group of 50 German prisoners were lined up in front of a wall. Sparks ordered that a machine gun be trained on them, but not to fire. Then a soldier called for Sparks, and he left. The machine gunner opened fire, then another GI shot his gun. Sparks ran back into the coal yard. He pulled out his .45 and fired into the air, yelling orders for his men to stop. But the machine gunner was still firing, so Sparks ran toward him and kicked him in the back. He dragged him away by the collar, away from the gun shouting, What the hell you doing? The soldier told Sparks the Germans were trying to get away, which I’m sure was a lie. Sparks saw about 17 Germans who had been killed. He ordered the injured to be taken to a hospital.

  Ariana, I’m telling you this because you will catch wind of how American soldiers broke military law by shooting prisoners of war. Rumors flew around, and I’m not certain everything that the Higgins broad said was true. She worked for a New York newspaper, and I’m sure she was part of the group that brought charges against our boys for killing the Germans after the surrender of the camp. She said a photographer and cameraman had recorded what happened, and their reports and photos were sent to General Arthur White, the head of the Seventh Army.

  I’m straying off the subject of the camp, but I want to tell you what happened after the killing of the SS guards. When the war ended, Sparks was ordered back to America. Before he left, they sent him to see General Patton, who had been made commander of Bavaria. Of course, Sparks was afraid he’d be court martialed for the killings of the Germans on his watch, but Patton dismissed all allegations against
him. According to several buddies, Patton told Sparks the charges against him were a bunch of crap. He said these words to Sparks: “I’m going to tear up these goddamn papers on you and your men. You’ve been a damn fine soldier, now go home.” I’ll bet the story is true.

  And now I’ll get back to the next few days at the camp and write more about the death train.

  Chapter 24

  Journal Entry

  Ariana, I couldn’t get the death train out of my mind. Where did those 4,800 people come from? At first guys said they came from Buchenwald because the Allied troops were advancing, and they needed to get rid of the prisoners. The Germans were transporting them to Dachau to be gassed and cremated, but the camp ran out of coal, so they couldn’t run the crematoriums. So, the inmates, dead and alive, were stuck in the train cars in freezing weather.

  Later, I learned there were prisoners from other camps that met the Buchenwald train and were added on, so if that’s true, that’s why there were so many victims.

  . . . . .

  Back to the day after liberation, April 30. Part of our division was ordered to soldier on to Munich, but my platoon stayed at the camp to help with sick prisoners. I admit I was relieved. I don’t want to sound yellow, but no one was certain what lay in wait for our guys in the city. Besides, if I’d gone to Munich, I never would have met you, Ariana. Maybe there is such a thing as fate.

  The 7th Army took over, and by then they said there were over 30,000 prisoners at the camp. I wondered if it was true. The next day a group of Army doctors and other military personnel formed a displaced persons and hospital team. They came with truckloads of food and medical supplies. A couple days later, two more evacuation hospitals came and set up in empty prisoner barracks that we’d cleaned out. We scrubbed them out to make billets for our living quarters. It was a godawful job, we threw out filthy, bloody, shabby blankets, swept up rat droppings all over the floors, used bleach to try and sanitize everything.

  By now you know about the typhus epidemic, not unusual during war, spreading in camps and to the soldiers too. The disease killed about 400 prisoners a day. The Army contributed enough DDT powder for dusting the inmates to kill the lice that cause the spread to other people. After we bathed and dusted them with DDT, the prisoners were given clean pajamas, and their old prison clothes were burned. I did the same jobs you and Renate had when you were Red Cross nurse’s aides at the Munich hospital. I made up beds that were lined up along opposite walls, with no curtains between them for privacy. We stocked medications, bandages, syringes. I carried my share of bedpans. The place stunk like a sewer most of the time.

  The official typhus quarantine also called for the dusting of Army personnel, visitors, etc. We had to show our immunization records and were given the typhus shots unless we had gotten them in the last thirty days. They wanted to inoculate all the prisoners, but there wasn’t enough vaccine on hand.

  It was shocking how scared the sick prisoners were of us, even when we tried to give them vitamin shots. After how they’d been treated by the Nazis, they didn’t trust anyone, except a few of them clung to some nurses like they were their mothers.

  Then came the day we had long waited for—May 7. Word spread that Germany was about to at long last surrender to the Allies. As the day passed along, our sergeant said that General Jodl traveled to Reims and signed the unconditional surrender of the German forces. Everyone shouted, cried, and even without understanding English, the prisoners understood what happened. The next day was declared VE Day.

  You wondered how I felt, but it’s hard to put into words. Naturally, I was relieved and happy and confused all at once. We still had jobs to do at the camp, and I didn’t get what the future would hold for me and my buddies. Our officers reported that some divisions would stay on for the occupation, but at first no one was sure if or how Germany would be divided among the Allied countries.

  It took a while for the U.S., Britain, and the Soviets to negotiate the terms for the end of the war. But that summer at Potsdam, they signed the declaration, and the Americans got Bavaria and other parts of Germany as well. Of course, that was good news to me since that included Munich. I did not want to be far away from you.

  Ariana, I wanted to tell you how American troops first marched into the town (Dachau), and saw this pretty little village, and were mad as hell that it was right next to the horrors of the camp. I was real angry when I learned about it too. Just the idea that regular people lived next door to all that suffering caused by their own people.

  The following week, the U.S. Army commandant of the town (can’t recall his name) after the liberation, brought about 30 high-ranking Dachau citizens to witness the camp. He was furious. He told them that their town should be sacked and turned into ashes.

  The local priest was among the visitors, and they swore he got down on his knees and begged the Americans not to destroy the town. He may have saved it, but I’m sure he wasn’t blind to what was happening in the camp. According to rumors, the Vatican and the Reich were in cahoots, from the concordat back when Hitler came to power. I won’t go into all that, but Ariana, even as a not so faithful Catholic, I reckon the Church turned a blind eye to what was happening.

  A day or so later, our staff sergeant told us our squad was joining the platoon assigned to go into the town and force more citizens to visit the camp and see for themselves what their country had done. It was a damn good idea. Let them see what their great Führer had done.

  I was happy to get out of hospital duty. I didn’t mind helping, but it was taking longer to rid the place of typhus than we thought, and I was getting sick and tired of blood and bedpans. Those nurses all deserved medals. For sure, so do you, Ariana, and your sister.

  After we got our orders and assignments, we formed groups of three to go knocking on doors in the village. It was a warm, bright day, and things were peaceful in town, but people were hiding in their houses because they were scared, even though the war was over. Some men and women had to be almost dragged outside to wait until we got a certain number in our group. I was glad to see the bastards cowering in their homes. I wanted to stick their noses right in the decaying corpses. I am sorry for that now, because most of them, like you and your family were innocent people.

  Ariana, I will always remember that sunny day we came to a house, small and gray with white trim. We walked up to the porch, and the lilacs were out. My ma had lilacs in Chicago, so I saw them before. I remember they smelled like perfume.

  No one answered our knocks, so we banged on the door, and I can still recall us hollering. “Come out right now, or we’re coming in.” The door cracked open, and a gray-haired woman peered at us. We stepped inside and went through our drill, shouting for everyone in the house to come forward.

  It was hard with the language, but I was lucky to have Bill along to help translate. He found out the woman’s name, it was Hilda. She didn’t seem afraid of us, talking so fast, Bill barely comprehended, but he figured that more people were in a bedroom down the hall because she kept glancing in that direction. Hilda kept trying to stop us from heading that way, and she grabbed my arm, then looked at me, and with a startled look on her face, suddenly jerked her hand away, as if it dawned on her I was the one in command.

  Bill knocked on the bedroom door and forced it open. Two women huddled together on the bed, one older, one young. Bill tried to tell them they needed to come with us, and they were not going to be hurt. Then he said there might be more people, so we looked around. I opened the closet door, and through the dim light I saw a bunch of hanging dresses and blouses pushed to one side and a pile of clothes underneath.

  I was aware of the women trying to stop me, but I leaned in and shoved the dresses away. A white shoe peeked out from the pile on the floor. I slowly pulled back the garment covering most o
f the shoe, and then saw a pair of legs, knees bent. A muffled cry came out, and I peeled off the rest of the covering. Looking up at me through sky blue eyes, was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

  Chapter 25

  Weimar

  Jack’s stomach tightened as he read the last words. His old man calling another woman the most beautiful girl? Even though Jack hadn’t been born then, anger and a sense of betrayal coursed through his veins. He harbored a protective loyalty to his mother back in Chicago waiting for her husband to return from the war. She’d be devastated, even today, if she found out.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. He put the journal on the nightstand beside the untouched beer bottle, took a deep breath, and headed for the door, figuring it was Sherk. Who else would it be?

  “How’s the journal coming along?” Sherk wandered in and sat in the red vinyl armchair beside the TV.

  “Depressing, tragic in parts. I had to take a couple breaks.” An understatement, for sure.

  “Yeah, I can imagine.” Sherk started to speak, but stopped. His fingers anxiously scratched at the red vinyl. He turned to Jack. “Anyway, I just talked to Erica. She’s doing well, she claims. I can’t help but worry, though.” Jack thought he noticed a catch in Sherk’s voice.

  Jack sat on the bed. “Yeah, I guess you would. Glad she’s better.” Sounded like a broken record, but one of these days, he’d encourage Sherk to talk more about his wife. For now, his thoughts were elsewhere. “Want a Pilsner?”