by Albert Holl
Now and again appears one of those female creatures. As Soviet citizens with equal rights, they look quite funny in their working clothes, but they come and fill their tightly secured knickers with corn. It is also funny when they bind a life belt around their breasts and, after filling it with corn, they turn to a prisoner and ask for help in fastening it. In this whole business I have to keep asking myself: ‘Who is deceiving whom?’
The Russians have imposed only one condition regarding our smuggling, which we agreed: not to act as competitors. They are particularly surprised over the amount I get away with. The smuggling gives me pleasure and I view it as a sport. I also regard it as a point of honour to help my hungry comrades and to do harm to the Russian state. I do not take anything in return for the smuggled items. We cannot change the times. We come here for our work like vagabonds and hardly one of us can still recognise that the tatters we carry on our bodies were once uniforms. My trousers show over a hundred patches and hardly any of the original material is discernible. But they are complete. Every time they tear they are sewn back together. If the sun shines while we are working, we go about stripped to the waist and even the tatters that we have as footwear are left in a corner, as we can go to and fro in canvas or wooden shoes for the time being.
Today we had a special pleasure. A Russian woman went past us carrying a child wearing a dress that had been sewn together from the curtains of a German Reichsbahn railway coach. She walked proudly past us in her new clothing bearing the DR insignia.
A quite wonderful event has occurred: for the first time a considerable amount of post has been distributed. Already a few weeks earlier I had heard that some post had been received from the homeland, but had not believed it. Now I can see it with my own eyes. If there is none for me, I can still hope. Perhaps they already know back home that I am alive. Are my darlings all well? My feeling is yes, but feelings can be wrong.
Weeks have passed on the land, meanwhile. The majority of prisoners in the camp have received news from home. Several cards bring heartache with their bad news. Poverty rules everywhere. The news from the Soviet Zone is particularly discouraging and stands in crass contrast to what the newspapers and radio report. There is still nothing for me. I am becoming more desperate. I sent a third card that I was able to write to the parents of my fallen friend Rolf-Werner.
A Russian film was announced with a lot of propaganda, and we made our way to the camp square to watch it. It was a film about soldiers in which the Germans are made to look ridiculous. Such lack of taste! I go back to the accommodation full of anger. If they have nothing else to show us, then I will not look at any films any more. It was embarrassing that not everyone went back to their accommodation immediately. Many were afraid and believed they would shame themselves if they did.
God be thanked! Today there was a lucky post delivery. A reply arrived in response to both my first cards written on the 15th of January and the 23rd of March 1946 and the senior Anti-fascist activist, Gilbert, handed it to me on the 21st of August 1946. I am overjoyed. My loved ones are all alive. What does it matter that my parents’ house was bombed, and that all the things that I had left there have been destroyed. It doesn’t matter. Again and again I read the words of my little wife: ‘Beloved! God be praised, you are alive! We too and are all well. Your parents are now living with us here. Darling I am always with you! With my deepest, pining kiss, your Ilse.’ The card has been on its way since May, so it has taken a full four months to get here.
ON A COLLECTIVE FARM
6th September 1946. For several days almost 150 prisoners of war have been gathering the potato harvest at the farm of the main camp. We had to march 18 kilometres to the farm. To my surprise, the camp senior here is Captain Hindenlang, who had sat with me in isolation when Block VI was closed down. His interpreter is my fellow-countryman Hans Mohr. The work that the Russians demand from us is strenuous and the accommodation appalling, as at times it rains through the torn tents. In compensation we help ourselves to supplementary potatoes; the Russians do not permit this, but the practice is appropriately camouflaged by Hindenlang and the booty shared out equally. I also meet here people I have not seen for a long time, including two of my comrades from Block VI, von Folksen and Oberhofer. Both were fortunate enough to be repatriated as invalids. I said goodbye to them yesterday. Hopefully they will get through.
The weather is very bad for the harvest. It has been raining for days already without a break. Nevertheless we have to go out day after day to lift potatoes from the clayey fields. Our clothing will no longer dry out. We have now been here for fourteen days and have another eight days to go.
It is evening. Ill-humoured, we lie in our damp tent and wait until the cook is ready with the potato soup. Suddenly Heuser, the group leader and an old activist, appears and gives the order to get ready to move. We ask, what is happening? The reply comes: ‘The inspector from the Fournier Factory has appeared to fetch us in person. We have to fall in immediately!’ He gets called the choicest names. It does not bother me. It will soon be 2200 hours. It is completely dark outside and the rain is falling in torrents. It would be better marching by day but unfortunately we are not given the choice. Our complaining and swearing finally stops without us getting our potato soup. This march back to Fournier Camp could be marvellous!
In single file to right and left of the actual track, searching for routes that are less muddy or already under water, we work our way forwards at intervals – depending on the size of the puddles – through the night. As my ‘Progressive’ wood and canvas shoes are soaked through, as is often the case, I take them off and carry on in bare feet. Then I suddenly stumble into a deep puddle and fall down heavily, and with the fall go my last restraints. Now I plod on forwards and straight on only! I have already lost a shoe, but complaining is useless. One just has to grit one’s teeth and carry on. It doesn’t matter. If one gets angry, one only damages oneself and becomes a bundle of nerves.
About a kilometre from the camp, as we are going straight down a steep bit of the road, I unfortunately collide with a thick stone. My shoeless foot disagrees with this and is very painful. I enter the camp limping badly, but soon I am fast asleep.
There are times when we have a day off, mainly on Thursdays. On such days I seek the company of my old, faithful friends whom I knew in the worst days of captivity. With a beaker of coffee, which we have recently been able to purchase for a few roubles, we pass the time in conversation or in thinking about our loved ones, exchanging our latest postal news. We sometimes get ideas from the post. On other days we avoid getting together as the ‘gentlemen’ of the National Committee look at us suspiciously if our meetings are too frequent.
This camp distinguishes itself especially for theft from comrades. It is sad and shattering, when I think that these men were once officers. When a comrade was given two months for having stolen 68 roubles, I decide to lead a fight against this criminality. I was successful in several cases and the thieves were then excluded from the community. However, I was unable to stop this thieving by comrades.
The year 1946 gradually comes to an end. The Russians say that Marshal Zhukov has fled to the Americans. With him were further eight generals. The truth or otherwise of this cannot be verified. Either way, the Zhukov portraits in the factory and various public rooms have disappeared.
ON THE VOLGA ICE
With the commencement of the icy period, the worst time of the year for us has begun again. The fight against the cold is the most frightful that a prisoner has to endure. Even the relatively warm rooms of our accommodation cannot make up for the eight to ten hours in the open air. But it is better than nothing. Unfortunately the food we eat at work in the cold is completely insufficient and has even become worse – it wasn’t nice to begin with. The Volga has long since frozen over. Two big wooden rafts going to the Fournier Factory have become frozen in and have to be hacked free from the ice, pulled ashore and loaded by us.
We hold our heads wh
en we hear the propaganda speeches or read the articles in the prisoner of war newspapers, in which Russian progress is praised in the highest tones. But the naked reality is here, among our cold, hungry bodies, reminiscent of the darkest Middle Ages. We hack away at the ice with crowbars and axes. Then an iron chain is fastened to a tree trunk, often a fat one. Teams of fifteen to twenty men, although sometimes as few as ten, then pull each tree trunk ashore, where another group is already waiting to roll the long and thick tree trunks on to a rack from which the trucks will be loaded.
The work is the most exhausting one can imagine. Even fur coats do not always keep out the wind that blows along the Volga. I vividly recall the Kama trip to Xiltau. In this work we earned virtually nothing. The calculation for payment of the fulfilled task – measured according to the State form – varied from 3 to 4 per cent. What made it even more difficult was that the bread ration for prisoners of war was reduced from 600 to 400 grams. The reason given was a crop failure in the Ukraine. In order to get the prisoners of war to make the final effort, the camp commandant could give those who overfilled their norm 200 grams from the bread allocation that was taken from the others.
For several days ‘Herr’ Kehrhahn, who in May 1945 took me with ‘Herr’ Colonel Esch to the lock-up in our camp, has been in our camp. The one-time political instructor and company commander in the League of German Officers has been sacked. With Work Level III, he is trying to be ‘quite harmless’. As the son of a big landowner, is he really in favour of land reform?
Today is again particularly cold. We look at the thermometer in the hall – 33 degrees below zero! Fine, then we don’t have to work today, as with a temperature below 30 degrees of frost we do not have to work. On the Volga the wind is certainly even colder! What are they saying there? We have to go out to work? It cannot be! But it is really so! Eichhorn personally, on the Russians’ instructions, drives us out to work. His explanation: ‘The Russians have said that not at 30 degrees but at 33 degrees below freezing is it work-free. The thermometer in the camp, however, shows 32.5 degrees below.’ We reproach him; we know it will be even colder out on the Volga and we should not have to work in this sickening cold. Our objections fall on deaf ears with both Eichhorn and the Russians, so swearing mightily we go out to the Volga bank. The wind attacks us like a hungry wolf as soon as we are outside the camp. It is even worse on the tributary. Although everyone picked up a nose protector or some sort of mask as we were being chased out of the camp, some cheeks were already turning white on the way to the river. We check each other for frostbite. My left cheek has already become white. The blood returns after some vigorous rubbing with my hand. Now it is my nose’s turn. I cannot keep my nose shield in place as my nose is running, and as soon as moisture from my nose meets the outside air, it freezes.
We get our working equipment from the workplace hut. The coldness of the iron bores through the gloves and our hands are like lumps of ice. No one is in a fit state to work. Guards and factory overseers start to complain and to hit out at us. Determinedly, we keep on looking for those places sheltered from the wind. Our feet are like ice. After we have been standing around for about an hour the camp commandant appears. It is quite apparent that nothing is to be done with us today and he lets us turn back. We all begin to leave at once. Suddenly, as a result of the weight of the many prisoners, a freshly frozen layer of ice breaks and several men fall into the water. My work comrade von der Heiden is one of the unfortunate ones. We run back to the camp so that we do not get pneumonia. For us there is yet another painful half hour before we are back in camp. The men are extremely angry with Eichhorn. He has shown quite clearly how he supports the interests of the Russians, as the position of a camp senior is a well fed one and the man does not have to do any physical work.
CHRISTMAS 1946 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
The Christmas of 1946 is approaching. For several weeks now, as always before, we have been saving things, despite our hunger, for Christmas Eve.
A change has occurred in our camp life today. Eichhorn has been sent off to Kasan and Captain Gröppler, whom I already knew from Jelabuga, has replaced him. Gröppler is also an old League of German Officers member but he has his merits. He especially drew my attention when I recalled seeing him standing by the kitchen in Jelabuga, where he was waiting for a second helping. He is a tall chap with a big chest, so his yearning for the cooking pot is therefore understandable. Consequently I expect a little more understanding from him than we got from Eichhorn. His deputy, who is also the link to the NKVD, held the rank of captain in the military police in the 24th Panzer Division. Stratmann is very dangerous and delivers unconditionally on a plate to the Russians. Apparently, as a former military policeman, he fears complications.
With loving work, four of us have set up a small box in honour of this most German of all festivals. Although there are more than one hundred persons in our room, we are completely isolated from the outside world. The other prisoners have also made their tributes in small groups. Our greatest pleasure this year comes from the wax candles that we are able to buy at 5 roubles each. Pictures of our loved ones stand under the candles and provide the charm of home. Quietly the old beloved songs ring out. Our hearts tremble with homesickness and longing, and everyone is careful not to notice the others’ tears. To join my friends Horster, Schüler and von der Heiden come later Gerischer and my namesake Gerd Holl. Gerischer talks about his Erzgeberger homeland and their customs. The hours pass in quiet thoughts of home.
Towards 1100 hours we are joined by our team interpreter, von Bismarck – a successor to the brother of the ‘Iron Chancellor’, whose example is followed by Einsiedel and the League of German Officers. He tells me to join the night shift. I look at him and decline in quiet, clear words. Never in my life have I worked on Christmas Eve, and here, in imprisonment, I will definitely not do it! Apart from this, I know the orders from Moscow are that we do not have to work on Christmas Eve, except for vital tasks. After me, a further seven men refuse to work, although the most nervous ones dutifully comply.
The first day of the holiday passes peacefully.
My team commander Heuser, the political agent Hahn, who comes from Altena, and ‘Herr’ Arndt – also a tested member of the League of German Officers with considerable experience in kitchen and canteen matters – have protested to Stratmann and Gröppler about our refusal to work. Von Bismarck has already told me that we are to do the night shift.
The last week of the year is over. Tonight on New Year’s Eve I am sitting with my friend Karl-Heinz Hintermeyer in a small group in the bath. After a good cup of coffee with which Hintermeyer serves his guests, I read an extract from the birthday speech of E.M. Arndt concerning the birthday of his majesty King Gustav of Sweden in 1809. When one reads this speech one can draw a good comparison with today. Then too there must already have been the same kind of low creatures in Prussia conducting the same kinds of traitorous role and crawling on their stomachs in front of him. But at the end of that time came Waterloo!
Before I went to this celebration I was called by the duty officer, who asked me why I had not gone on night duty. I put a counter question to him: ‘If I work tonight, will I have to work tomorrow too?’ He replied in the negative. ‘Then I will work today, but definitely not tomorrow!’ For me the Russians have authority, but not ‘Herr’ Stratmann, who wants to force me to make up for the missed shift of Christmas Eve.
For a good hour I have been standing with my work comrades on the wagons loading tree trunks. Since the frost arrived, the wood is brought here on the railway. It is crystal clear and cold at night. The work progresses only slowly. From time to time we vanish into a small wooden shack, taking it in turns to take shelter.
When the moment comes, we stop our work and sing out ‘Happy New Year!’ into the crystal clear winter night. It is the first time in my life that I have had to work exactly on the change of year. High up on the tree trunks I send my thoughts to my loved ones so far away.
The first day of 1947 passes quietly. Our talks draw us to the future once more and the possibility of our returning home. Would this year finally bring us the yearned-for journey home? We all hope so, yet without having any expectation of it. Certainly the first men had gone home in November, but who had been sent home? Real invalids and the sick! Two of my friends, Hugo Bartscher and Dieter Baumann, were among the lucky ones. With pleasure I heard that they had already called on my family and given them precise details of my fate until now. Now everyone knows!
On the morning of the 2nd of January I was preparing to go to work with my team as usual when somebody told me that I had been transferred to another team and had a late shift. I now belonged to the Dahlbeck team, which worked in the mine. That was fine for me, as it is quite warm in the mine. Haber was also transferred to another team.
Towards noon Haber and I received instructions to go to the camp administration. We obeyed. In Stratmann and Gröppler’s accommodation was sitting our camp’s NKVD officer, a young lieutenant who has not been here long. Second-Lieutenant Adam, one of the oldest prisoners of war, having been captured on the second day of the war, translated for us. Stratmann and Gröppler are hostile, but for me they are just hot air. The Russian wants to know from us why we have not gone to work! In clear, unmistakable words I give him the reasons. These are moral slaps in the face for Stratmann and Gröppler, who sit at the table with sunken heads as if they had still a spark of shame in them. On the report that the Russian lays down in front of us I can clearly read the signatures of the two scoundrels. I am pleased that Adam has translated word for word, in contrast to many other interpreters. I have also quite clearly explained that on the Holy Evening we had even less wanted to go to work when this suggestion was put to us. After half an hour of interrogation we were able to leave. It was clear to me that something was about to happen. The Russians could hardly leave us in the camp after my previous experiences.