by Albert Holl
AN UNSUCCESSFUL ESCAPE ATTEMPT
After four vitamin injections the sickness in my left leg eased off for a while. Oskar also improved a little. Nevertheless, work still made me very tired. Because of my sickness I was put in a brigade that worked within the camp and was busy preparing the camp for winter. For the next few weeks I made mixtures of water, sand and clay to plaster the wooden walls of the barracks. Now and again I had to help with the erection of trellises. I am convinced that our forebears knew this ‘advanced’ working method more than 150 years ago. In Germany a person would hardly have survived on this kind of work. However, this work in the camp is good for me, although I have to walk around a lot each day.
As before, the few roubles that we earn every month are thrown into a pot. The distribution of the money reminds me that I still have my purse and the appropriate pockets in which to conceal it. We have learned that we are surrounded by thieves and not to let others see anything lying around for a split second. The worst thing is Wolf not doing anything about it, and once my nerves almost got the better of me when some money was stolen through his lack of attention. I think that this pressure is not worth it.
Now it is Wolf’s turn to go to the hospital. He has a high temperature and the nurse suspects pneumonia. I hope this does not get any worse, as happened with Ottel! We say goodbye to him with great concern; we can only hope that he will recover. Wolf is as thin as a rake and we can count every one of his ribs, but he is still sharp.
The camp experts’ initial dislike of us diminishes as time goes by. They can see that we do our work as well as possible. We also keep ourselves neutral as to do otherwise can only do ourselves harm. I still definitely want to escape, but my leg is not yet sufficiently restored for that.
There are only a few men in this camp who have been sentenced under political paragraphs. They behave very cautiously and only act otherwise when they believe themselves to be unobserved.
Wolf returns to the camp in the middle of August. Quite by chance he had the opportunity before his departure to visit Ottel’s grave, which has the number A.36. There are still some Germans in the hospital, including Major Friedrich Mueller, an engineer with the Oak Leaves to the Iron Cross, who comes from Solingen, and Captain Reingraeber, an East Prussian. Both have been sentenced to twenty-five years under Paragraph 58. Of the German doctor, Dr Mueller, Wolf reports that, in contrast to the Russians, he is not good. Mueller refuses to have any Germans in his barrack and keeps well away from them. He was sentenced to twenty-five years for dealing in medicines at a prisoner of war camp.
My pack has been ready for our escape for several days already. Despite the misgivings of both Oskar and Wolf, I am going to flee with the Latvian. It must be done! I have been away from home for seven years now. I have put up with a life of slavery until now in the hope and belief of seeing my homeland again. But I cannot hold back any longer or I will go as crazy as many of my comrades.
The night of the 23rd of August seems especially suitable for our plans. I wake up at about midnight. It is raining heavily outside. Almost every second the darkness is lit with a flash of dazzling lightning, and after each flash the night seems even darker. It is so dark that I cannot even see my hand in front of my face. I have never experienced such a storm as this. Inconspicuously I get up, take my coat and go through the sparsely lit room. Everyone in the barrack is fast asleep, even the duty orderly. Refreshed, I breathe in the exquisitely fresh air. Behind the barrack door the smell hits you like a wall. I hasten through the rain to the neighbouring block in which Ivan sleeps. I am feverish with excitement. Here too the man on duty is asleep at the table. I gently rouse Ivan, who wakes immediately. I leave the room and wait for him outside. Flashes of lightning rip through the night. Suddenly I hear footsteps and step into the dead angle of the door so as not to be seen. It opens and the room orderly steps out. Ivan follows him on foot. I am noticed. The orderly asks me what I want here. I reply that I have been assigned to the kitchens with Ivan for night duties. Not to arouse any suspicion, I leave my sack standing behind the door. Ivan and I go to the gate. Under its left side is a depression that has become even more washed away by the rain. If we keep quiet, we can get out through here. Now, though, the glare of the searchlight is directed on the gate. We can do nothing. As quickly as we can, we vanish back into the barracks. One thing is certain, as this effort has shown, we are unable to get out of the camp. The guards within and outside the barracks are too alert.
The night orderly in Ivan’s barrack is suspicious because he found the sack. However, Ivan took it back and gives it to me in the morning. That morning Ivan is examined by the NKVD. The night duty man has reported both of us. Fortunately the orderly does not know my name, and the NKVD runner is now searching for a small German man with a limp. As I am not limping at the moment, the runner takes Sommerfeld, who has the same illness as I had. Sommerfeld truly knows nothing of my plans as for several weeks already we have been excluding him from our company for stealing. I keep quiet, and so does Ivan. Both of us are kept under special supervision when working outside the camp. After a short while Ivan unexpectedly admits that he has been detained under the political paragraphs and he is suspected of fleeing. I have no chance of saying goodbye to him.
THERE IS NO EXPLOITATION OF PEOPLE BY PEOPLE IN THE SOVIET UNION
At the next parade I am assigned to Work Group 2 and so have to work outside the camp again. I am allocated to the Dolgushen Brigade, a wild crowd consisting mostly of young lads aged between eighteen and thirty. Only a few are older. The brigade is thirty-six strong and we are working on the foundations for a railway bridge to be constructed over the little valley stream. To my pleasure Ruprecht Scholtissek is also with this brigade, so at least I am not so lonely. We always work together. The work is very hard and defies description. Cleverly, the supervising engineer understands that in return for small allocations of food and some handfuls of machorka, the men will do their utmost. It is not unusual for us to be at the workplace from 7 o’clock in the morning until the next morning. With an especially crazy work commitment, the brigadier wants to drive his men hard, even at the cost of their bones. He drives the men on without a pause. They follow him because crumbs fall from his table. Food is brought to the site by vehicle in the evening.
I discover a particularly obnoxious practice when I see how the prisoners smoke cigarette butts. Such a butt goes through five to six hands and each makes yet another one. The last remnants of crumbling machorkas remaining from the butts are then collected to produce another small cigarette. Tobacco is more precious than gold for the banished here.
The days are still hot, but as soon as the sun sinks it is suddenly cooler. We had almost finished the big hole for the foundations in the stream bed when a commission arrived. The responsible sector commander, a general, decided that no bridge should be built here, but rather a concrete pipe with a dam. The whole job was in vain. What we had dug out yesterday we shovelled back today. Afterwards we dig in the stream bed again. The stream is diverted but the mass of water does not drain and the ground water keeps coming back. It is just as well that some of us have rubber boots, but these have holes in them and one can be sure that the water will rise above our artificial leather shoes. We try to keep the stream dry with two or three pumps, but it is futile. Sometimes the pumps are not used at night, because the risk of flooding is so great, and then the next day the whole stream bed is under water again. Until it has been pumped empty again, we are set to breaking up stones. The norm here is so high that one cannot achieve it without deception. At unobserved moments we bring across the already crushed gravel on stretchers to a new heap. Thus the piles of gravel often change and there is more on paper than in reality.
Once the engineer has made the all the preparations – the cement brought out, sand brought and washed, prepared gravel lying in sufficient quantities there – and the sinks for the foundations are sufficiently deeply excavated, then the work of pouring concrete can be
gin. The mass of men are then committed in a constant process. In Europe such a process has been done with technology and the appropriate machinery for years. One group washes the components and takes them to the concrete mixer, a product of the Molotov Factory, while others bring the mixed concrete from there in the tipper. In addition, men with wheelbarrows are ready to do the mixing on the spot. The concrete layers are worked on next. If the mixing machine goes wrong, a ‘specialist’ comes and brings things back to order, using mainly hammers and crowbars. It often takes a considerable time before the mixing machine is working again, further mixing being done by hand. The water is taken from a source about fifty metres away.
Ruprecht and I had the task of carrying gravel. This is the least popular job and everyone shirks it. It is a real bone-breaker and we are thinner from day to day, although Ruprecht has some reserves from his work in the baths. We return fatigued to camp late in the evening, but never fail to meet again at some place or other. Pleasures and sorrows are shared. Our constant concern is food. We are as hungry now as during the worst times in the prisoner of war camps. Fortunately now and then we meet a person who gives us something, but for the four of us it is always too little.
Sommerfeld is not quite sane. We have tried to stop him, but all appeals and admonishments have been for nothing; his hunger is driving him ever deeper and he has sunk to the same level as the most dissolute individuals in the camp. Even when he was caught stealing by the Russians and was repentant, he was stealing again the very next day. Now the Russians come grinning to us and report that he is a homosexual and involved in homosexual orgies. In payment for this he gets bread and the beloved porridge. The matter is so serious that we decide to ostracise him as all attempts at reforming him have been in vain. When I see these starving men in the camp crawling around, I always think of the predators prowling in the zoo. They have the same characteristics.
The Red Army truck convoys keep on coming. As I discover, their loads are taken to Lena and transported from there to the far north. Of late they have been mainly fuel convoys.
In October Ruprecht and I together earned 34 roubles. The brigadier demanded 5 of them and we gave them to him without a whimper as our peace is precious to us. Until now we have had Dolgushen giving us a protecting hand and preventing the bandits from bothering us. We want to buy bread and tobacco with the remainder but obtaining foodstuffs from outside the camp is very difficult. Several times already we have entrusted people with money, believing that they would not let us down. It has been a disaster until now. Even the friendliest men in the camp here are unpredictable when it comes to money. Which of these people can one trust to distinguish between mine and yours? The only option left to us now is Sasha Melnikov, an air force lieutenant from Dnjepropetrovsk. He has been friendly towards us until now and helps where he can. We have not given him any money until now; if he too betrays us, we will have no one.
Sasha is immediately prepared to look for bread, tobacco and even oil. He says he will bring them another day. Unfortunately he also lets us down. Not the next day nor on the following days did we see anything of the promised items or the money. We can only write it off and for the whole of the remainder of the month we have no chance of buying bread.
The atmosphere in the Dolgushen Brigade has become unbearable. Ruprecht and I are transferred to the Sainulin Brigade, which consists, apart from one Ukrainian, entirely of non-Russians such as Usbecks, Kazakhs, Turkmenen and Tartars. The brigadier himself is a Kazakh. We often talk about why non-Russians of all colours are more friendly as a rule than the Russians themselves. The Jews are also very forthcoming towards us, although they must harbour some spite for Germany. Their behaviour causes me to revise my prejudice. We understand each other well because here we all belong to the repressed nations. These nationalities are great lovers of a free life. Nevertheless any efforts in that direction are vigorously suppressed because the informer system makes any resistance impossible.
Working conditions in the Sainulin Brigade are somewhat easier. I have come to an agreement with the brigadier for him to ascribe us to the highest percentage, in return for which he will get half of our earnings. In this way we get the 350 grams of extra bread per day. Our work? We again dig boreholes all day, or break up stones.
Overnight it is winter. At first it is not so cold, and snow comes. The individual brigades have received winter clothing following urgent demands. Almost all of us have received padded clothing from a specially erected tailors’ workshop. The old prisoners use this as grounds for concern in the maintaining of the workforces. If we fall out through freezing, it will spoil the unity of the workforce.
Soon after receiving it, Ruprecht’s padded jacket – a half-length steppe coat – is stolen. He gets nothing else, but is charged 300 roubles for the replacement. This money will be deducted from his pay. There are thieves everywhere, and I think we will never learn and will always fall for their tricks. While I was putting on my shoes, my 400 grams of bread was snatched from the windowsill. It was only out of sight for a brief instant as Ruprecht stood in between to pull something out of his bed space, but the bread was gone. Four Russians sitting there denied having seen anything. Even a search by the guard was unsuccessful.
Many are now going around without winter clothing because they were not careful enough with their coats or felt boots. The stolen items are immediately smuggled out of the camp as fast as possible and sold for a cheap price to the people.
We have two days off on the 7th and 8th of November, which had already been worked for as usual. With a big banging of drums and speeches in the month before the revolutionary celebrations, we were expected to compete against each other in honour of the ‘Greatest Socialist October Revolution’ which was to be fulfilled ahead of the ‘Stalinist Post-war Five Year Plan’.
Even the big concrete tunnel intended to carry the stream under the railway tunnel had to be finished for the celebrations. Although this was not accomplished, a completion report was passed on to the supervising office so that the people in charge of the job would not be subjected to reprimands. Only a week later could one really say that the job had been accomplished.
Sainulin let me remain in camp today because I had been working constantly and needed a rest. A film is being shown today; I will go and see it with Zubeck, who has been in the camp for some days and comes from Upper Silesia. Unfortunately I cannot see much of the film as the room is overcrowded and I am obliged to crouch on my knees with my head bowed to the ground: if I raise my head any higher, it blocks the screen and hides the picture. Immediately the mob shouts: ‘Head out of the way, you dog!’ I console myself with the fact that several others must be in the same situation.
For days already we have been working on the excavators. These machines are products of the Molotov Works. They load earth for the railway embankment on trucks at a location about 2 kilometres south of the camp, in day and night shifts. The mass of men work here ceaselessly as the Russians want the line completed and the first trains running. Here and elsewhere the prisoners are engaged in clearing the ground. If the machines cannot accomplish it, we have to make boreholes in the difficult terrain – which is very difficult with the lack of tools – so that the excavator can get on with its work. Thirty Siss-Ural trucks – some of them new tippers – drive continuously, working day and night. With them come two more Germans: Ludwig Zubeck from Upper Silesia and Heinz Becker from Westphalia. Both, like us, were sentenced under Paragraph 206 of the Ukrainian law. Their workplace is in the workshop company, as they are good with their hands.
58 DEGREES COLD
The cold now sets in hard. It is suddenly down to a degree of cold that even the old prisoners have hardly experienced. Already when we get up in the morning to get our sparse breakfast, we can see from the window whether there is more than 50 degrees of frost. The dark, dirty barrack, the walls of which are already collapsing because of the damp, is overfilled.
Already for a long time we have had to
sleep on the floor and not infrequently we discover in the morning that one of those living on an upper bunk has urinated over us. All rubbish here is thrown on the ground. For several nights Ruprecht and I had a place in the upper bunks, but the bunks are so narrow that one can only sleep on one’s side. Should one of the sleepers change position, the others are forced to change their position too. If you get up to go to the urine barrel, which stands right beside the door, it is difficult to get your place back again. Hence we are trying to sleep on the ground again.
In the morning I feel washed out, and Ruprecht is the same. The hoarfrost on the windows tells us the approximate temperature, it being 30, 40 or 50 degrees according to the thickness of the frost. In the open air the cold hits you and immediately takes your breath away. As fast as we can we run to the cookhouse, where the food servers of the individual brigades are already arguing. After breakfast we all lie down again on our beds and wait with trepidation for what decision the officer of the day or his assistant brings regarding the work. A howl of pleasure goes up when we do not have to go out because of the cold, which is usually the case when it is more than degrees of frost. Swearing and complaining arise when it is: ‘Get out to work!’
When that is the case, many try to dodge the work. They do not appear at the guardroom, but rather keep themselves hidden. However, after the camp is counted, a search begins for the shirkers. Most are soon found and driven to work with blows and prodding. In response, for the next two days they receive the daily punishment ration of only 350 grams. Nevertheless sometimes some of them manage to remain in the camp. They think the punishment ration less harmful than the cold. Those who gain a reputation for being shirkers eventually end up in a punishment unit.