by Albert Holl
Now and again we are given the left-over remains of their prison food from those receiving packages. We divide these items equally between us. The food is not sufficient to live on, but we vegetate.
I am the only one to have a voucher for 135 rubbles. As the hunger among us all is so great, and smokers are fully dependent upon what a Russian gives them, I declare myself agreeable when Ortel suggests to me that the money intended for our flight be used for buying bread and tobacco at the camp. It takes days before we receive the first items ordered, although the shop is in the same building.
Our appeal to the highest military court in Kiev has already been under way for days. We have also submitted an application for the paying out of our account money in Camp 7100. We are sceptical, but an attempt should do no harm.
A really hearty relationship exists between the Hungarian comrades and ourselves. They report that a statement made by their comrades led to their conviction. They are now waiting to be transported off once their conviction is confirmed by Kiev.
The number of Germans in our room has now been increased by four men. Some of the work teams sold wood in order to supplement their food a little, and one of them stole a corn cob to cook for them. The Russian response to this was five to ten years of hard labour!
On my birthday this year I did not get the rest period that I got the previous year. I did not have to work, but we still had delousing and a big cleaning of the room. Afterwards I let my comrades take me into the waiting room, which was full of people, to sing the hymn Deutschland heiliges Wort. Puzzled, the Russians listened; some of them who had been in German captivity understood our language quite well.
The Hungarians have gone. Our appeal has come back from Kiev and the sentence is confirmed. We are now waiting daily for our onward transport. But another positive thing has happened: the main administration of the prisoner of war camp has actually transferred the remains of our money to the prison. In total, there is more than 600 roubles for us all. Truly it seems a wonder. The whole sum will be a communal treasure once more.
The March sun is already showing that spring is about to chase away winter. The roofs drip water very strongly at lunchtime and we take care to let the sun shine on us when we take our walks outside. Through a Czech, who is to be shipped to Russia and is sitting here in the prison at the moment, we learn that those who have been sentenced to twenty-five years’ imprisonment have gone to an unknown destination. They include Bauer. Our hour too has arrived. The warder reads out our names and we take our last bath in the banja. Here the transferred money was handed to us by the female accountant. We immediately share it out evenly. As we are led to the gate, I ask the warder where our packs are. He wants to see our receipts. But as we have been given no receipts, we cannot show him. He says that means we will not get our packs back. The guard who is to take us to the station in the green Minna, as the prison vehicle is called, is already waiting. Time is limited, as we are to be taken by the Sevastopol–Moscow train to Charkov, and it leaves Saporoschje on schedule. I translate clearly to the warder our determination not to go without our packs from the prison, and say we would rather be shot. Swearing terribly, the warder goes off and returns in a short time with the packs. Wolf’s and Oskar’s things are missing. I bring this to his attention but the driver acts stupid and we are manhandled into the green Minna.
IN CHARKOV TRANSIT PRISON
Six well-armed militiamen and a guard dog ensure that we are brought to Saporoschje-South railway station in the shortest time. The right-hand factory of the Sawod Komunar goes past like a ghost. Room has already been made for us at the station. The people appear to be familiar with this practice, as they immediately jump aside as we come along. In threes we move at a fast pace to the train already standing at the platform, which has a prison wagon. Here we are handed over to the officer responsible and NKVD guards lock us into a cell with a civilian who comes along with us.
In three stages the twelve of us now lie like sardines in this cage. Our astonishment is great when in this cage we meet another condemned prisoner of war who had been with the Waffen-SS. His name is Butterweck, and he comes from Vallendar near Koblenz, as does our Menden. They did not know each other before, but the world is just a village.
Butterweck tells us the following story. As a prisoner of war he had worked in a normal camp in Nikopol. There he got to know a young Ukrainian girl who fell in love with him. He used this opportunity to run away with her. With the use of several thousand roubles that the girl had obtained, they first went to Moscow. As he was wearing civilian clothes and bribed the responsible train guards and controllers with suitable sums of money, they got there without trouble. They stayed with relations of the girl for several days and then went on to Riga, their actual destination. From there they intended to try to get away by sea. The girl hoped to find accommodation with an aunt living abroad. As the journey to Moscow had gone so well, they became careless the nearer they got to their destination. Shortly before Riga, they were found asleep by a militia patrol. As Butterweck could not produce his identity documents, and was not Russian, they were both arrested. When they arrived at the old camp the real suffering began. Under special interrogation he was made so irresolute that he agreed with everything the NKVD wanted from him. He signed up to things that he had never done in his life. The NKVD derived a special amusement from having a member of the SS in front of them. In court Butterweck rejected the statement he had made under force and mistreatment. The judge took no notice of this and sentenced him to twenty-five years’ hard labour. As we worked out, this was the same judge who had awarded us eight or ten years’ hard labour: Lieutenant-Colonel of Justice Malichin.
It is already midnight when we are unloaded in Charkov. Butterweck is travelling on to Moscow. We wish him all the best for the future, but it looks really bad for him.
Militia soldiers are waiting for us on the station platform with two Alsatian dogs. Accompanied by some male and female Russians, who have difficulty managing their heavy packs, we are led through the streets of Charkov at night. Fortunately the way is not too far and soon we stop in front of the thick, high walls of Charkov Transit Prison.
We still have to wait a while before we are led through the long gate entrance, which has two heavy gates reminiscent of a medieval castle. Here in the prison we are put in a cell that has no windows, merely an air vent in the roof six metres above us. Not knowing where we are, we lie down on the damp ground. While I am tossing and turning restlessly, it occurs to me that this is the 9th of March.
Is it day? Is it night? We do not know. Shivering from the cold ground and the dampness of this dark hole, we stumble across the yard into a room in which a woman is sitting in a white smock. It is about 0800 hours. We have to strip completely and this woman turns out to be a female doctor taking the well-known ‘flesh show’ and lazily entering our work capability on a list. I have grown accustomed to this theatre and am not troubled by it any more. From here we are taken for delousing, and endure another shaving with a knife. A warder finally takes us to Box VI.
In the yard leading to Box VI we see several cells have already been opened to air. The occupants are walking around in single file, one after the other. It is a sad picture with these figures wrapped in pathetic rags and wearing footwear that any beggar in central Europe would have burnt. Noticeable among many of these young people is the cheeky, bold look from deeply set eyes lying in their baldly shaved, pale heads. Some are quite well fed.
We are led to a low corridor where our baggage and clothing are undergoing a thorough search. All metal objects are removed from us, including the spoons that we eat with. With difficulty I manage to persuade the officer responsible that the photographs the Red Cross sent me do not endanger the Soviet state. I can also keep my sketches and my Russian-German dictionary. The suitcases, containing whatever we cannot take to the cells, are handed in to the baggage room.
After the search we come to Box II and discover to our delight th
at the responsible senior, a sergeant, has allocated a small cell for us Germans. It is the last cell but one on the right side on the first storey. We can appreciate this, as all the other cells as small as ours are occupied by at least thirty Russians, while there are only fourteen Germans. We meet up here with another four prisoners of war who have been sentenced like us to six or so years’ hard labour. The reason: stealing because of hunger.
In the cell next to us is Arthur Marx from Cologne, with whom I had worked in the Lowag Brigade in Camp 7100/2, together with Götz and Korff. He has a fifteen years’ hard labour sentence. He had apparently been involved in anti-partisan operations. Lörken came against him as a crown witness and confirmed the Russian statement that the young man from Cologne had fought against him.
Our cell is 4.5 metres long and 2 metres wide, and 2.5 metres in height. Ten men can sleep on the double iron bunks, with the other four lying on the stone floor. We get light through a small semicircular window that is particularly prominent in the thick wall. We have no freedom of movement at all in this small cell, but we are happy to be among ourselves here. The four new comrades tell us about the conditions in the other cells and paint a picture of homosexuality, thieving and beatings such as we have not experienced so far. When we are let out for our daily half-hour walk we meet the company of such a cell and are happy not to have been subjected to such conditions.
The food here hardly differs from that in Saporoschje, except that the bread ration is 150 grams more at 750 grams, for being on the transportation list and liable to be called any day.
Korff, Götz and I receive receipts for the wedding rings that were taken from us here. I handle mine with care as we should get our rings back at the end of our banishment.
Heroes’ Memorial Day, 1949. We do not know whether the authorities in the homeland today think of our fallen. The millions left behind will certainly be thinking about their dead, who fought for the well-being of their people and were lost on the battlefields or fell victim to the enemy bombs falling on their home towns. We too in our narrow cell think of them, and neither the enemy’s hatred that still strives to destroy us physically, nor the powerful prison regime with its metre-thick walls, nor even the uncertainty over our fate can prevent us. Is it the unusualness of the situation that makes us susceptible? We are not ashamed of the tears that roll down our cheeks from singing the songs of good comrades. They apply also to our fatherland that now, torn and bleeding from innumerable wounds, has become a football to be kicked around between East and West.
The calm in the cell lasts only another two days. Kurt App is suddenly removed. The next day it is Mütschele, Franke, Doerr and Menden who leave the cell in the morning. Only a short time later follow Götz, Korff, Breske and me. Schroeter is the only one of us remaining in the cell.
The warder leads us to a cellar room where the window is open. Russians come in who have clearly been politically punished and sentenced to twenty-five years because they had fought on the German side against Bolshevism. They are very friendly towards us, some even giving us machorka and a little dried bread to eat.
Night brings me little sleep. The cold stone floor and the open window make it uncomfortable. The next day the cellar becomes even more crowded. To our delight, Schroeter also appears. The adjacent cellars are equally stuffed full. There is talk of a batch of 1,200 persons leaving, including also women who had worked for the Wehrmacht.
There are days of waiting in which we move from room to room, are sent to the bath and back again, and then left in a cellar waiting for what was to come. To the uninitiated it seemed an unhealthy confusion but in fact it was organised.
When we collected our bags, a warder informed us that we were going to the Lena area in Siberia. Others had hoped we would be sent to Alma Ata, which would have been preferable as the border of Alma Ata was not so far distant.
New sentries appeared. The old hands knew that we would soon be on our way. The whole of the 20th of March we had to endure a thorough search of our baggage. As a group of ten men we came to a cellar in which our escort was waiting. A young soldier wearing a Komsomol badge searched me. I looked on naked, my teeth chattering, as he went through my clothing. When he saw my little photo album in which there were forty photographs that my wife had sent me via the Red Cross, he called his supervisor. This one, a sergeant, rummaged through them with curiosity and wanted to take them from me. I kicked up a racket, my knowledge of Russian coming in useful. The now decisive captain commanding the transport gave them back to me. My dictionary, on the other hand, he held on to, but with the promise that he would return it at a certain place. All other writing was also taken from me. Fortunately I was able to save a book of poetry that I had composed myself and an English-Russian reading book that had been published in Moscow. Bereft of most of my valuables – I had even had to give up my wooden suitcase – I went back to my comrades who had been handled in the same sort of way.
ON THE WAY TO SIBERIAN BANISHMENT
Shortly after midday our names were called out in alphabetical order and we were brought to the prison yard. Here already stood individual columns with their baggage. Some of the condemned ones wore inadequate clothing, having lost everything else in games of chance. It took some time until half the transport, about six hundred men, stood ready to march off. Under careful supervision, we were directed through the gate that we had got to know on the night of our arrival.
We had to form up in fives. My astonishment was large when I saw the gigantic contingent of soldiers. There were even some mounted ones. I estimated at least a company of them. We were now formed into rows of ten. To the right and left of us stood the soldiers in double rows three paces apart, armed with machine-pistols or carbines with fixed bayonets. There was a guard every ten metres or so. They had great trouble controlling their bloodhounds, with their slavering mouths and loud barking.
Great numbers of people have assembled to watch this spectacle and they come as close as the cordon of sentries allows. Their faces express sympathy for our plight and several mothers or wives dab away their tears with a handkerchief. Some of them have travelled several hundred kilometres by railway to get here: it is a mystery to me how these people knew that we would be transported today.
Today is the beginning of spring. After the long winter months, spring life begins again. Few of those in our ranks share this hopefulness today. Which of us will return from the uncertainty that awaits us? Does uprooting millions, putting them behind barbed wire and leaving them there for years and years under the hardest slavery sit with freedom? Perhaps we previously defined freedom falsely in the homeland. According to reports by the prisoners, between twenty and thirty thousand Soviet citizens are living in banishment.
Some of the Russians in our ranks recognise relatives. They are unable to suppress their emotions and have to wipe away their tears. It is a farewell for years, perhaps even for ever.
The last prisoners are now standing outside. Slowly the gigantic column sets off. The second half of the prisoners will be brought along this evening. To the constant shouts from the guards, which is largely a waste of their breath, we hasten forwards, taking care to keep in line with our row of ten. We are on the road, but it is very bad in parts and often there are big puddles that we have to go through; it is not easy to stay upright, for we are carrying our packs in one hand and holding on to our neighbour with the other. The word Siberia weighs heavily on these banished men, staggering along with their heads hanging. My friend and I bump up against them. With a clear conscience, and the belief that one day the door to freedom will open again, we hold our heads up high. We look people firmly in the face as they look at us from the trams and make ourselves known immediately as Germans.
It is also interesting to observe the behaviour of those standing on the roadside. An old woman standing near a picture of Stalin points her finger at us as we march past. Behind a window pane I see a man photographing this column of prisoners. Everywhere I can see nothing
but a deep and silent sympathy. What could the thoughts be behind these faces? By the morning it could be any one of them marching along here.
We are marching at a brisk speed through the town’s neglected streets, but the wooden buildings let us know that we will soon be outside the town. Where are we going now? Railway wagons can be seen in the distance – could they be our destination? A scrap heap reminds us of times past, with German and Russian tanks and trucks waiting to be scrapped. We have long since given up trying to keep our feet dry. Our feet are wet and covered in mud up to the ankles.
Finally we reach the loading place and the last preparations are made by the escorting troops. Several civilians who have been following us until now stay at a secure distance and try in vain to hand over gifts to their family members.
We halt alongside our railway wagons. There are sixty-two of us standing in front of a Pullmann car, and once our names have been called out, we can climb aboard. We establish from our friends that Kurt App, who had not been seen until now, is here, so all ten of us condemned men are on this transport. In our wagon, apart from me, are Götz, Korff, Mütschele, Doerr and Menden. I follow the example of several Ukrainians, writing a letter to my family in the last of the dimming light. I was told that immediately the train started off the letters would be pushed out through the gaps in the doors. Locals would immediately search the area and any letters they found would be thrown into the letter box. The same sort of thing had happened in Charkov Prison, where the prisoners, at an unguarded moment on their daily walks, would wrap their letters around a stone and throw them over the five-metre high prison wall to the street. Passers-by then picked them up and forwarded them on.
I wrote one letter to the wife of my fallen commander in the East Zone, another to my friend Karl in Saporoschje. Although I was not convinced that the letters would reach their destinations, I threw them through a crack in the door in the darkness of the night as the train moved off. Once more I was travelling in a barred and heavily guarded wagon through the endless expanse of Russia.