My Name Was Five

by Heinz Kohler

  My compartment was mostly empty; except for a woman and two Army officers–a lieutenant and a colonel–I knew it because we had learned to recognize the insignia in school. The woman was trying to sleep. The colonel was straining to read a newspaper in the dim nightlights that illuminated the compartment. The lieutenant smoked a lot and the smoke bothered me. I sat next to the window across from him and watched shadowy trees fly by and an occasional house. I listened to the thump-thump-thump of the wheels on the tracks. I stared at my face and the rest of the scene as it was reflected in the window glass. There I saw the lieutenant, drawing another cigarette from his pack, groping for a match, then lighting it, and blowing puffs of smoke into the air. I thought of smoky fire bombs and our air raid shelter and I wondered whether my mother and Helmut were still alright.

  Half-way to Berlin, for no apparent reason, the train stopped. A conductor said there was an air raid in Berlin. We’d go in right after the all-clear.

  “All dark, all dark!” he yelled, going from one compartment to the other.

  But the lieutenant kept lighting his cigarettes. I thought of Mr. Eisler and how he had sent us out into the streets at night to stamp out every last light that enemy pilots might see. Certainly, a lighted cigarette would qualify. But I said nothing.

  We listened to a nerve-wracking hum of engines overhead, droning like mosquitoes high up in the sky. And suddenly, dozens of lights flashed all around the train.

  “My God,” the woman said, “they are going to parachute right into us!”

  Parachutes, each sparkling with a thousand lights, it seemed, hung overhead, motionless. The train stood in a landscape as bright as day!

  “Christmas trees, just Christmas trees,” the lieutenant said. “Nobody’s going to get us.”

  The suspense was awful. My heart was beating in my throat; each breath felt like it might be my last. I heard the sound of machine guns. An airplane veered off to the right, just missed the trees at the edge of the meadow. I felt blood trickle down my cheek; glass splinters lay in my lap.

  When I dared open my eyes, I saw the lieutenant slumped in his seat across from me. He didn’t move. Dark blood poured from his mouth, slowly spreading over his chest, flowing over his medals, soaking his pants, the upholstered bench, dripping to the floor. And I saw something even more incredible: two fingers lying on the floor, still clutching a cigarette….

  I felt tears pool in my eyes. My vision glazed, I saw nothing at all, except the tailor cutting the little boy’s thumbs in the Struwwelpeter book.

  “He’s dead,” the colonel said to the woman.

  “Are you all right?” the woman said to me, but I couldn’t respond. I felt frozen in place, I couldn’t feel anything, I couldn’t move.

  ----

  I don’t remember what happened next. But I do remember the nice lady from the Red Cross who took me home from the train station the next morning. She couldn’t call my mother very well; nobody in our apartment house had a telephone. So she just went with me on the subway, but I was so afraid of what I might find at the other end! I stopped half-way up the stairs leading to our street. My heart kept pounding, and I couldn’t hold back the tears. The scene swam before my eyes, but I could see enough: Our house was still there.

  My mother screamed when she saw me all bundled up with bandages, but the Red Cross lady explained. They put me to bed and I fell asleep almost at once. I heard them talking, but nothing made sense.

  “Lost memory” someone said and “it’s natural.”

  Strength Through Joy

  A drawing of the 27,000 ton Strength-Through-Joy ship Wilhelm Gustloff, entering a Norwegian fjord, along with Travel Savings Certificates

  15. Traitors Everywhere

  [August – October 1943]

  For a few weeks after my trip to the Spreewald, my mother kept me with her at all times. She said she needed me to help with Helmut who was just learning to walk, but I knew better. She was worried about me because of those Christmas trees and all, which is why she kept hugging me for no apparent reason. But I was fine. The little cuts and scrapes on my face had long since disappeared and I was eager to see Dieter again at some time other than our nightly trips to the air raid shelter.

  My mother said Dieter could come up to our place; she had bought us a whole bunch of toys so we would have something interesting to do. The toys came in several boxes. One of them contained a marvelous medieval castle with four movable towers, all sorts of walls and staircases, a working drawbridge, and an army of knights to keep the enemy out. Another box contained a woodcraft construction kit. The kit came with plenty of laminated wood, sandpaper and glue–I so liked the owl on the yellow tube of Uhu Alleskleber glue!–and there were plenty of suggestions as well. I chose to build models of dinosaurs; Dieter worked on a Mayan temple. First, I started with triceratops, the one with the three-horned face. Then came stegosaurus, the “roof reptile,” followed by tyrannosaurus rex, the largest meat-eating dinosaur that ever lived. It weighed 7 tons, my booklet said, was over 13 meters long and over 5 meters tall. The diplodocus even weighed 11 tons, in reality of course, and was twice as long and over twice as tall. I had fun building its whip-like tail. Still, my favorite creation was a smaller creature, called velociraptor, which lived some 80 million years ago in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. I always found Mongolia fascinating. Mr. Eisler had told us that Outer Mongolia now was under the control of Russia and that its capital was Ulaanbaatar. It had almost 2 million inhabitants.

  In the meantime, Dieter built the pyramid temple El Castillo, located somewhere in Mexico, where people worshipped the god Kukulkan some 1,500 years ago. Dieter was only half done with the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen-Itza when I finally got permission to go down to his place.

  When his parents were gone, we made a beeline for the radio and we quickly updated my secret notebook with the latest summary of events, as reported by the BBC.

  1943

  July

  The world’s greatest armored battle is raging around the Ukrainian city of Kursk, involving over 6,000 tanks; Field Marshal Günther von Kluge loses 250,000 men

  July

  A 2,500-vessel invasion fleet, carrying British, Canadian, and U.S. troops commanded by General Bernard Montgomery and General George Patton, lands on southern Sicily, takes the island within 5 weeks

  August

  Nearly 600 British bombers attack Germany’s super-secret rocket research center at Peenemünde on the Baltic Sea, where German scientists have developed a pulse-jet-powered Flying Bomb, called V1, and a faster liquid-fuel model, known as V2; V stands for Vergeltung, the German word for revenge

  We didn’t think our teachers would fill us in on such news; so we decided to make appropriate entries on Dieter’s European map, which we kept under his bed. Using my hieroglyphic rubber stamps, we put a red stamp on Kursk, a blue one on Sicily, and a green one on Peenemünde on the Baltic coast. We were so pleased with our cleverness.

  And we were very surprised when we walked to school the next day, for the first time in weeks. So much had changed! Many more buildings had turned into mounds of debris or just into empty skeletons with scorch marks around all the window holes. In some streets, in fact, not a single structure had been left unscathed. And everywhere we ran into little groups of Russian POW’s, cleaning up broken concrete and bricks and plaster and strips of wallpaper that had spilled onto the sidewalk and even into the street. We could tell they were Russian by looking at their brown army coats–the German ones were green and gray–and at the funny hats they wore with the dangling earflaps, and, of course, by noting the big R on everybody’s back.

  At one street corner, they were loading plumbing fixtures onto a truck, along with pieces of furniture, upholstery ripped open, a twisted street lamp, and the sad remains of a chandelier. At another, they were reclaiming bricks, stacking them into neat piles and making the sidewalk passable. We watched a streetcar there, too. It was stuck because the metal arm coming out of i
ts roof had become separated from the overhead wires which were sparking like crazy. The conductor had come out, trying to push the arm back to its proper place with a long pole. We waited to see whether he would get electrocuted despite the fact that the pole was made from wood. He wasn’t and we went on. Some of the ruins, we noted, now had messages on them, written in chalk.

  “Everyone saved from this cellar” one sign said.

  “Mrs. Schmidt, where are you?” said another. “Come and stay with me. Heta Burg.”

  -----

  Back in school, just as I had expected, Mr. Barzel had nothing to say about that summer’s events in the war. Without delay, he took up our language instruction and this time its focus was Caesar. He pronounced the name KAH-E-SAR and said that’s what the Romans did, which also explains why our emperor was called a Kaiser.

  “As to Caesar, he undertook two trips to Britain, in 55 and 54 B.C.,” Mr. Barzel said, “to punish the Britons for helping the Continental Celts. Eventually, many years later, Britain became a Roman province, too. That’s when many Latin words were brought into the English language. Some show up in names of towns; others, in words of daily life.”

  “Thus,” Mr. Barzel continued, “Latin words like castra, colonia, and portus appear in Lancaster, Lincoln, and Portsmouth. Words like strata, vallum, and milia show up as street, wall, and mile.”

  “But enough of that,” Mr. Barzel said. “This fall, we will learn why Caesar did not live to see Rome triumph over Britain. The reason was a simple one: He was betrayed and murdered by his own friends!”

  Mr. Barzel told us about Brutus and his pals, stabbing Caesar during the Ides of March, and he told us of Schiller’s play, and of Shakespeare’s.

  “But nowhere,” Mr. Barzel concluded, “is the story of this treachery more beautifully told than by William Shakespeare and to that story we now turn.”

  Before we knew it, Mr. Barzel handed out copies of Shakespeare’s Caesar, asked us to turn to Act III, Scene II, and told us to memorize Mark Antony’s eulogy by the end of the week. We would talk more about betrayal then. But we didn’t talk much about Brutus and Caesar.

  “Betrayal is a terrible thing,” Mr. Barzel said, “yet it is happening all around us. At this very moment in our history, military men who pretended to be his loyal friends, just like Brutus once was to Caesar, are betraying our Führer. I have put two examples on our bulletin board.”

  And so he had. When he pulled away the cover sheet, we saw this:

  1943

  Betrayal # 1:

  On September 19, a so-called Union of German Officers broadcast an appeal from Moscow, asking our brave soldiers to stop fighting on the eastern front. The appeal was made by generals captured at Stalingrad, including Field Marshal Paulus, General Strecker, and General von Seydlitz, the very ones who had disobeyed the Führer’s orders not to capitulate.

  Consequence:

  The Stalingrad betrayal allowed Russian troops to break through German lines, forcing German troops to relinquish the Donets Basin and even give up Smolensk.

  Betrayal # 2:

  On July 25, Marshal Pietro Badoglio staged a coup in Italy, formed a new government, arrested Benito Mussolini, and dissolved the Fascist Party.

  Consequences:

  On September 3, which was their 4th anniversary of war with Germany, British and Canadian troops under General Bernard Montgomery, facing minimal resistance, were able to land at the tip of Italy’s Calabrian peninsula, opposite Messina, Sicily.

  On September 8, the Badoglio traitor surrendered Italy to the Allies; asked Italian forces to prevent trains, ships, and trucks from carrying German soldiers and supplies; sent 24 Italian warships to captivity in Malta. In response, German troops occupied Northern Italy and imposed martial law.

  On September 12, German paratroopers, led by SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, rescued Benito Mussolini from the Gran Sasso d’Italia hotel in the Abruzzi Mountains.

  On September 13, Benito Mussolini formed a new National Fascist government in Northern Italy

  On October 13, Marshal Pietro Badoglio’s government in Southern Italy declared war on Germany.

  “Such,” said Mr. Barzel, “are the terrible consequences of betrayal in our time. But be assured, the cowardly treachery of Pietro Badoglio will not be tolerated. The Duce’s National Fascist government will punish these traitors pitilessly.”

  “And you can help!” Mr. Barzel continued. “You can help counter treachery by joining the new campaign to Fight Waste! You will get instructions tomorrow. As you will see, and already know, fighting waste saves crucial raw materials and thereby strengthens our troops in the East, in the South, and wherever they are called upon to defend our fatherland.”

  He opened up the cabinet holding the record player and made us stand while he played Italy’s Fascist anthem, the Giovinezza. Then he gave each of us a leaflet to take home.

  “YOU ARE A TRAITOR,” it said, “if you listen to enemy broadcasts, if you believe in enemy slogans, if you spread enemy propaganda, if you follow enemy instructions, if you make a pact with the enemy. Even if you carry the mask of an upright citizen, of a friend of humanity, you won’t elude us. We will grab you, quickly and firmly… TRAITORS BELONG ON THE GALLOWS!”

  -----

  On the way home, Dieter and I worried about our listening to the BBC. Would they hang us children as well? And we discovered a new placard on the poster column:

  To the Parents of Berlin’s Youth!

  The enemy’s aerial terror does not show the slightest consideration for the civilian population. The Anglo-American gangsters of the air are carrying out a brutal and sadistic war of annihilation against defenseless women and children. My concern about Germany’s youth, about its health and life, requires special measures.

  Therefore, as of this moment, Berlin school children can be evacuated to safer places in the districts of Brandenburg, Pomerania, and East Prussia, where they can continue their education. I expect parents to take advantage of this opportunity. Their willingness and understanding will contribute to a frictionless process and allow us to safeguard our children from the consequences of the enemy’s terror.

  The Reich Defense Commissar for the Reich Defense District Berlin

  Dr. Goebbels, District Leader and Reich Minister

  That was scary stuff. Somehow, that message shook me even more than the prospect of hanging from the gallows. Despite all the dangers present in Berlin, I didn’t want to leave home, not ever again! Without my mother, I felt, it would only be a matter of time–hours at most–before I would sink into a delirium and die.

  A whirlwind of frightening thoughts danced through my head. I thought of the BBC story of a few days ago, about Armament Minister Albert Speer touring Essen, Dortmund, and Wuppertal–all of them devastated by the Royal Air Force earlier in the year. He considered Wuppertal beyond rebuilding, they had said. And they had quoted Prime Minister Churchill’s promise: “Every corner of Germany will be bombed as thoroughly as the Ruhr has been…”

  And that bombardment, the BBC had said, would be an all-day affair; the British at night, the Americans during the day.

  And I had another even more frightening thought, something of an epiphany in fact. I remembered all the bombing stories they had told us at school about times when the shoe was on the other foot: How Germany’s Condor Legion, way back in 1937, destroyed Guernica from the air on Franco’s behalf, how Germany’s dive bombers annihilated Warsaw in 1939, not to mention other cities, like Rotterdam and Coventry in later years. But what had Spanish and Polish and Dutch and English children ever done to me? Wouldn’t justice demand that I be killed in turn?

  Just then, across the street, I noticed firemen who were still pumping air into the cellar of a collapsed house! I wondered whether they could hear the people trapped underneath. I heard a strange roar in my head and felt dizzy. I couldn’t breathe right and my heart seemed to jump. I ran home and my mother promised she would never send me away. />
  akg-images, London, United Kingdom

  Children walking to school amidst ruins.

  Note the poster column in the background, a favorite source of news.

  16. Firestorm

  [November 1943 – February 1944]

  You may think that the stories I have told you so far are pretty grim. One wouldn’t wish those experiences on anyone, certainly not on a child. You would be right, of course, but so much worse was yet to come! Starting near the end of 1943, our life became a lot scarier still as a result of events that unfolded in rapid succession. In December, just before school let out for Christmas, Mr. Barzel decided to teach us one last lesson. It all had to do with phosphorus.

  “Phosphorus, symbolized by P,” he said, “is a highly reactive, poisonous, nonmetallic element occurring naturally in phosphates.”

  He paused long enough to write relevant formulas on the blackboard, like this:

  Examples of Phosphates: Ca3 (PO4)2 or Ca5 F (PO4)3 or Ca (H2 PO4)2

  “Phosphorus,” Mr. Barzel continued, “can exist in any one of three allotropic forms: white/yellow, red, and black.”

  Again he paused, waiting for us to consult our dictionaries, as we had been taught, and to translate “allotropic forms” into something more manageable, such as “molecular structures,” perhaps.

  “Phosphorus, atomic number 15, atomic weight 30.9738, valence 3.5, specific gravity 1.82,” Mr. Barzel said, “is an essential constituent of protoplasm–the complex, semi-fluid, translucent substance that constitutes the living matter of all plant and animal cells.”