by Albert Holl
Despite the strenuous work and the poor food, I keep up my language studies. I try to write down every new word that I hear, together with the German translation, so as to at least learn something. I am pleased with my success. A young Ukrainian who had fought with the Waffen-SS and had been sentenced to twenty-five years makes friends with us. His father, an officer in the Red Army who was connected with the Bucharin affair, vanished and since then he has not heard any more of him. He has nothing particularly good to say about the system. I am especially astonished again and again to find that a great many of those who do not come under the political heading speak badly about their government.
The bread deliveries from the neighbouring camp are wholly inadequate. Until now, we have not had the correct amount on a single day. The hunger is overwhelming. We are supposed to get it all later, but I do not believe this. We worked feverishly on making an oven so that the camp could be independent for bread. The old ones among us are the most pessimistic and believe that they will not live much longer. There is a 58-year-old among them who has been given a twenty-five year sentence.
Something out of the ordinary has occurred. Three young Russians from the neighbouring tent have escaped. For me this is proof that it is possible if one so wishes. But how far will they get? Their disappearance was discovered at this morning’s head count and within two hours there were people here from the main administration with tracker dogs. If the fugitives are caught then they can expect the same treatment as was meted out to then men from the 209th Column who were on the run for three days. When they were caught, one was shot, the second was badly wounded and was taken to hospital, and the third came back to the camp. I saw him standing in front of our camp with a battered face describing himself as an idiot and giving us the advice not to make any attempts at escape. Nevertheless I will try should a suitable moment occur.
Easter 1949. In the remotest part of the camp we seven Germans have got together to celebrate Easter. With the ‘Easter Walk’ from Faust and some spring poems we return in our hearts to our homeland and try to forget our surroundings and our difficult situation.
UNDER FALSE SUSPICION
It is a lovely day in May. The sun is shining and we are already quite warm by midday. The short noon break is already over. Another two-fifths of the present area and we will have fulfilled our norm.
A Russian appears and says that Götz, Franke, Schroeter and I have to go to the guardroom with our baggage. Not knowing what it is about, we go back to the tent and collect our belongings. With the contributions from my friends, I have again acquired some rags, which are valuable items here. Three Asiatics are waiting for us at the guardroom. There follows a basic body and luggage search in which both my diary and the Drift der Papanins are taken off me. Even my photographs, which I always carry with me and until now have been able to keep, are taken from me by these slit-eyed Asiatics. I keep quiet. Once the rest are done comes the order: ‘March!’
With us come three men from the 209th Column, who tell us that our friends are still there. We dare not leave the centre of the track and are constantly chased forward by the barking and aggressive tracker dog. Although a few days before we had received new summer shoes, they are made out of cheap leather uppers and rubber soles and the melting snow and marsh quickly permeate through. We follow the same route that brought us here. On the way we meet our former camp commandant, who grins scornfully when he sees us. As one of the guards told us, we are going to the punishment column. The reason for this transfer is not made known to us.
It is already beginning to get dark when we reach our new unit. It lies near the 206th Column, which was our last post before we went to the 208th Column. In front of the wooden building that apparently serves as the guards’ accommodation, we have to sit on a fallen tree trunk. A captain soon appears – he has only one ear, the other side being covered by a black flap – and asks us if anyone speaks Russian. I report that I do. He then orders me to follow him into the building. In his office I remain standing at the door while he takes a place at his desk. The captain asks me my name and rank, where I had fought and for what I had been sentenced. Once I have answered his questions, he asks if I know why we are here. I reply in the negative. He snaps back: ‘You have made preparations to flee and apart from that you are carrying Fascist propaganda!’ The captain looks sharply at me while speaking these words. I counter his look and ask with a contemptuous smile: ‘And where would we then flee to, captain? Apart from that, I am the only one of us who speaks any Russian and you yourself must realise that by the second word it is obvious that I am a foreigner. We have all been in the Soviet Union for years as prisoners of war and know all too well that we can only harm ourselves by escaping.’
‘We will see. Only don’t believe that your agitation will work here, or you will experience things to wonder about!’
The hearing appeared to be at an end, as the captain called in the guard. I asked once more for my handwritten vocabulary and the pictures that had been taken from me. The first was flatly refused, the second allowed. Ottel’s mirror, which I had had since Stalingrad, remained with the captain. Mirrors are very rare items here and very highly prized as they belong to the ‘Kultura’.
The guard brings us, together with the three Russians, to a dark cell. Before we seven men are shut in the small 1.5 by 2 metre cell, we have to undergo another thorough search. Ottel and I still own a comb each that we acquired in Saporoschje. The warder finds some fallen hairs and we keep quiet as both combs vanish into our pockets. Since I lost my pack in Bratsk it is all the same to me. And we still possess something that these people find attractive.
It takes some time for all of us to squeeze into the extremely small cell, which is intended for two or three persons. We all have to make ourselves as small as possible. I make it clear to the Russians that we would prefer to have no problems with them, and, as we are in the majority, they agree.
Two hours must have passed already. Our limbs ache from the uncomfortable conditions in which we half-crouch, half-lie. Near our cell is a second one with women in it. The Russians use the time to start talking with them as their deprived circumstances leave hardly anything else to wish for. The abusive names they use on both sides are very numerous, the least harmless being ‘dog’, ‘bitch’, and ‘whore’.
IN THE 205th COLUMN
The cell is opened quite unexpectedly. It is dark outside. We have to get together all our things that are strewn around in the anteroom and climb on a truck. We go like the wind through the night. We disembark at the entrance to the village of Kaimonovo and are directed by the guard through open country that we are unable to recognise in the dark. I do not feel well, and seem to have a fever.
We proceed over boulders, grassland and through a stream, followed by the two swearing guards, who hit us with their rifle butts if we do not move fast enough. The glow from an open fire serves to guide us and a few minutes later we are standing before the camp guardroom. On all four sides outside the camp four great fires are being maintained so that the darkness cannot be used as cover for fleeing.
The guards are particularly alert of late since twelve men escaped from the 203rd Column, including a former tank major and a submarine commander. They took the guards by surprise and disarmed them before taking the first good truck on the road, which happened to be full of food, and setting off in a generally western direction. Anyone who offered any resistance at the road-blocks every 4 or so kilometres was shot down. So far no one has heard that they have been killed. We did learn that the three men who had escaped from the 208th Column were caught, though. One of them was left on the track.
We went through the usual search at the guardroom. Why do they do it? Is it just curiosity? My photographs aroused considerable interest, and the purses containing about 40 roubles were retained by the guards. Experience reassures me that they will be returned the following day.
It is already midnight when we are locked up in the isolation block. Wat
er is brought from the kitchen for us to drink. We lie down on the cold ground floor in the anteroom of the little blockhouse, but no one can sleep properly as the night is too cold and there is a draught coming under the door. My head wants to burst with heat.
We are up before the warder arrives. It is already daylight outside and we can make out where we are. It is a small depression in the dark woods of the taiga with a shallow stream running through it. On one side lie the few partly collapsed and windblown houses of Kaimonovo village. Opposite them stand the new-looking prominent blockhouses of the prison camp, which bears the number of the 205th Column. Here we are to learn our fate.
We are allocated to an already overfilled barrack for our accommodation. The prisoners within receive us with shouting. Most of them are between sixteen and thirty years old, with only a few older men. I get the impression of living in a primitive jungle. We lie on the floor at the rear of the barrack. Every moment some person or other comes to relieve their curiosity about us.
We discover that there are already three other Germans here, as well as a Volga German. The latter soon appears and asks in an unrecognisable Swabian dialect where we come from. His name is Caspar Leisle, whose antecedents had come from southern Germany at the time of Catherine the Great. But he does not differentiate himself from the others and gives the impression of being cunning.
Shortly afterwards we get to know the three other Germans, who are prisoners of war like ourselves. There are two Silesians, Ruprecht Scholtissek and Theo Murawiets, and a Dortmunder, Erich Sommerfeld.
That evening I go to the hospital at the appointed time. I am running a temperature of 39.2 degrees. I will not have to go to work tomorrow.
Next morning my friends have to go with the Voronin Brigade to work on the railway line, but the camp nurse has ordered bed rest for me. Tired and washed out, I lie down on one of the bunks and soon fall fast asleep. I wake at noon, my head still feverish. I climb off the bunk to put on my shoes, which I had placed under the bed. I ask the room orderly, a large, rigorous bull of a man, if he had seen who took my shoes. He says not. I clasp my head and think I must be in a madhouse. This is simply not possible. Who could possibly be interested in my shoes?
Barefoot, I go to the guardroom and report the loss of my shoes. The duty officer is the one who had received us in the night, and he now returns my photographs and the purses with the money. Then he came with me to the barrack but he too was unable to find my shoes. I then discover from the other Russians that one must never leave shoes or other items of clothing lying around as they are immediately stolen: ‘There are professional criminals in these camps who steal everything they need, or even take them forcibly. Your shoes will soon have been turned into boots, as now the summer is beginning and the brigadiers allow boots to be made out of shoes. The soles of the boots will be made of leather while sailcloth is used for the uppers. Whoever stole your shoes will sell them to a brigadier, who then gives him supplementary food to eat for several days or gives the shoes to a racketeer who will sell them openly in the village. You must put your shoes under your head and sleep on the other things.’
That evening I take note of the footwear of the brigadier and several prisoners who enjoy a special status in camp life. They have better footwear and also clothes that stand out from the rest. Although their clothing is not up to European standards, it is far better than the rags and tatters of the majority. Here the strong live at the expense of the weak, enforcing their rule with brutal force. Should anyone oppose the despotic system of the brigadiers, beatings and deprivation of food ensue.
These professional criminals are known as Bladnoi and all over the Soviet Union they stick together like pitch and sulphur. They regard work as dishonourable and acknowledge no authority, so they are seldom challenged. A life counts for nothing here! None of the supervisors dares to go against these lads, for fear of retribution. Even those who have left the Bladnoi have put their lives at risk, as every ‘law-abiding’ Bladnoi is duty-bound to kill such apostates. Even if they have been outside for ten years or more already, there is no end to the chase. ‘Who knows what tomorrow will bring?’ is often heard. So these criminals have to rely on a war to bring them freedom, and many want to get to Germany as soon as possible as they have heard that one can live well there. Everything is available in the shops and the citizens are not as closely watched as they are in the Soviet Union.
My comrades return late in the evening from the worksite. They are tired and shattered. Their physical weakness is visibly more apparent. They had to move earth in very primitive wheelbarrows. They tell me there is no proper work supervision in the brigades other than that of the brigadiers. And they have already lost favour. From lack of knowledge of the customs or – as the convicts say themselves – camp rules, we have turned some of the brigadiers against us. As Ottel went to the workshop to get something repaired he met a Bladnoi on the way who was a brigadier. He called Ottel to him, but Ottel, in his ignorance when he was before him, replied that if he wanted something he should come himself. The brigadier punched Ottel in the stomach. Immediately Ottel aimed a blow at his head but missed, and other criminals hurried to help the Bladnoi. Ottel told them that if they wanted something from him, they should meet him alone behind the barrack. An overseer agreed with Ottel and took him away. There was nothing to be seen of the brigadier on the way back to the barrack. As we later discovered, the Bladnoi was called Miroshnitshenko.
God be praised, we were able to transfer to another brigade, where the brigadier is a former captain who had attended the Russian War Academy. He is very friendly towards the Germans and keeps a protective hand over us. He also keeps away from the other brigadiers. The reason for his sentencing he keeps to himself. I assume it was for a military offence. He agrees that we have been too harshly punished with eight or ten years under Paragraph 206, for which the highest punishment is five years. Under his instructions we have to dig boreholes. It is an arduous job as the scaffolding is insufficient and unprofessionally laid out, but at least we get a little extra bread for it.
Early in the morning we go to the workplace, which is about a kilometre from the camp. There is a hill here that has to be demolished. With crowbars, hammers and spades we dig bore holes four or five metres deep into the cliff. The deeper we go, the more dangerous the work becomes, because the scaffolding is most insufficient and also unprofessionally erected. Those working below have to beware of stones falling from the shovels of those working above them. There are relatively few accidents. The loose stones that we dig out are hauled up on wire and wooden ropes in wooden buckets made in the camp, and heavy enough when empty. There is very little pay for all this hard work.
No longer do we have the pleasure of working in a brigade with our friends. The new camp commandant, a captain who had been a prisoner of war of the Germans for some time, as I was able to interpret from some remarks, ordered that no more than one German should work in a brigade. This is very bad for my comrades as they cannot understand Russian without my help. I was moved to the Klutshnikov Brigade. This is a carpentry brigade which is based in the women’s camp of the 206th Column, some three kilometre distant from here. The brigade consists mainly of criminal elements. It is twenty-four men strong, of whom between fifteen and eighteen work at a time in most cases. The others spend their whole time in the women’s zone. Every day the camp experts change some of the brigade to enable men to let off steam.
On the way to the women’s camp we have to go past the workplace where the women are employed. While we are marching past conversation starts up between them and the Bladnois that concerns the lowest, animal-like desires and is conducted in a general and ordinary manner that would make even prostitutes blush. The children of the guards’ families, aged around six or eight, hear these conversations every morning on their way to school. They laugh about them because they know nothing else. Overall, if one looks at the children’s faces, one can see a certain precociousness that is not on the whol
e visible in our children back home. It is the knowledge of reality that our youngsters acquire later. I regret these creatures that mar their children’s paradise. Do they also know the excitements of Christmas, Easter or their birthday?
Having arrived at the women’s camp, we work animals are immediately chased to work while the do-nothings lurk about, waiting for an opportunity to slink into the women’s huts. One man keeps lookout so that they are not taken by surprise. If there is any danger, such as an overseer on the way, then these lads are immediately at the workplace, grabbing the tools out of the working men’s hands and digging like mad. This way they displace the men who have already been working away for hours, so that the overseer concerned gets the impression that they are the best workers. Of course, the instant that the overseer is out of sight again, they throw the tools into a corner and vanish again.
Those of the robots who will not work are beaten down and get less to eat. The percentages, however, are in the hands of the do-nothings and Bladnois, and on payment days they of course get the highest sums. As there is little money overall, the Bladnois and brigadiers also take part of the workers’ money. Most workers donate money willingly just to keep on good terms with the brigadiers.
Anyone who sees these emaciated figures knows without being told that hunger plays a great part here. They are all physically too weak to be able to speak out against this criminal injustice. The brutes rule here with fists, and I am relieved that the Bladnois generally handle us Germans somewhat more carefully. They know that we are spiritually superior to them and have heard much about our fatherland so they have a little respect. It is naturally often difficult to give them the answers they want to their sometimes naïve questions about Germany. With those who have had a little more education it is quite a different matter. With them one can discuss matters that are relevant. They mainly occupy positions in which there is no physical work to perform and they can therefore live better. I am certain that, in contradiction to the statistics that I have seen until now, there are still very many illiterates. Even my limited knowledge of Russian grammar is still better than that of many country children.