In the morning we all fill our cups with the oats and chew them as we march on. But we get a nasty surprise as we look out, since everything is covered with snow. When it melts we will all swim in mud. We get three small, half-spoiled potatoes. I eat them but am full of doubts whether it is wise.
The going through the mud is terrible. In a village we learn that the Führer has bravely given his life in the defense of Berlin. I hope it is true.
We come to a wood, and as we approach a grove of spruce trees several prisoners vanish. The SS open fire. As we continue through the woods, Honza and I try to estimate how far we are from our guards. We are without our commander, who left us yesterday in Neu-Etting. Our leader is now a man named Kowalski, a Pole, who is more considerate than the commander. I never saw him deal harshly with prisoners, not even swear at them. At times he has to shout, but on the whole, considering these times, he is a decent man. In Plattling I often did work for him, and now I try to stay close to him. I have such confidence in him that perhaps if I could not go on, he would not permit me to be killed.
The prospect of escape is very tempting, although it means being at least two days in the woods and hungry, before any traces of us will disappear or until the Americans find us. We are constantly evading them by changing our course. If only there were no snow on the ground, then at least one could find a dry place in the woods to sleep next to a fire, even though one is hungry. My boots are soaked for the second day running, and although I know I can stand it, at least we have had a roof over our heads at night. In two days in the woods in this weather, and in our rundown condition, one could easily catch pneumonia. These are the reasons why I cannot decide easily, even though Honza, who is eleven years younger than I, says quietly that at a sign he is going. As he says this, he jumps among the trees, as do several others, and disappears. Shots ring out after them. God go with you, friends! You have put your trust in escape, and at least, if you are killed, you will be killed as free men.
Before noon we are skirting a village where army supplies like boots, coats, and shirts are being distributed in a great hurry from a supply warehouse to the local population. This is a good sign that the end of Nazi rule is coming as the front approaches. We often hear the din of gunfire. In the next village some of our SS are going with the most trusted prisoners to “organize.” This term in our situation means: what you cannot beg, then steal, and what you cannot steal, beg. The SS accompanies the prisoners to some home to beg for a piece of bread, since the prisoners cannot go alone. Then the prisoners divide what they get with the guards, as they are also hungry.
On one of these group “organizations,” Tonda Bondy disappears. A friend of mine hypothesizes that Tonda is already dead. But within an hour Tonda is back, swearing. He had hidden in a building and was going to wait until it was safe to continue. But a German patrol found him, and when Tonda told the officer that he could not go on in his broken wooden shoes, he sent him back to the march anyway. What luck!
Nevertheless the thought of escape is constant. But I would like to have some bread, in case I have to spend two days in the woods hiding until the escorts of our march are 70 kilometers further. Then I can go begging myself. If a person is hungry with snow on the ground he is twice as cold. I feel that something must happen soon. I have had enough of this constant marching in mud. But I have to be sure because flight is a double gamble for one’s life: if you escape the bullet, you may still perish from hunger or fever.
By noon on May 2 we wearily enter the town of Trostberg. We are mere shadows of our former selves. Even the men in town cry when they see us, and the dislike of the SS is now openly expressed. People are throwing bread from the windows, bringing potatoes or dessert, and one even came with a pot of goulash. We have to gobble it up quickly since we have to keep moving, but the SS are not preventing us from accepting food. I am now walking alongside an SS guard, a German from Slovakia, who suggests that I work my way to the back of the march and he will let me and another prisoner, Roubal, escape. He himself might join us. The SS man and I go up to a house, and a seventeen-year-old girl with an intelligent face immediately calls her mother. She gives us bread, potatoes, and a piece of meat loaf. That is my first and last effort at “organizing” as they called it, but really simply begging. We divide the food among the three of us and march on behind the others crossing a bridge.
On the way we discuss our escape. In any event, I do not want to march much longer. In the afternoon I would like to break away, now that I have had something to eat, and I have some bread saved. I am among some good people, and it might be possible to get food from some of them. Beyond the bridge we encamp among some bombed out German equipment. In the adjoining buildings we discover some Czechs who have been conscripted to work there. They happen to be on their break. Tonda had received some tobacco from them. They too think that the end must come at any moment, and some have even received their severance papers so that legally they are free.
I ask our guard where we are going next. He says he doesn’t know yet, but the manager of the factory has prepared some food for us. It looks promising. We receive a portion of good soup and some bread. Now in any case I am prepared to withstand two days of hiding, and by that time the front will be that much closer. Then I will have to somehow cleverly cross over to the Americans and the death march will be over.
But our calculations are premature. After lunch we huddle again, but they have prepared a little train for us—a locomotive and two cars. There’s a fine kettle of fish! I wanted to disappear in the afternoon and now I am off to parts unknown. In the cattle wagon I debate what to do next. We pass through some wooded hills and see many soldiers, armored vehicles, cars, and guns. Something is about to happen.
We disembark at Bad Empfing. As we march through the town there are field hospitals and army units everywhere. On a side street a woman with her daughter brings us in her bag some sliced bread and a few apples. But our prisoners, mostly those from Eastern Europe, almost trample them. They are so unruly that even the butts of the guns cannot restore order.
This scene arouses the animosity of the civilian population against the SS. One woman fearlessly makes some threatening remarks against them. Our condition elicits anguish and terror simultaneously among the civilians. That is how we appear. The command to resume marching is given to bring the situation under control.
We pass along several side streets, cross the river (Salice, perhaps?) and come to a distinctive Bavarian town, Traunstein. We are going to sleep in a pigsty on a bare cement floor, and there will not be room for all of us. “My” decent guard let me sleep in one of the feeding troughs that had some dry leaves. At least I did not have to sleep on the bare floor in my wet clothes and soaked boots. Originally, he had saved the spot for himself, but better quarters were found for the SS. There are eight of us there, pressed together like sardines, but at least we are warm. By morning new snow has fallen. At roll call there are only eighty-eight of us left. We get a little terrible soup but no bread. It is May 3—a memorable day in our lives. The boys in the pigsty find a container full of carrots so we have a “treat” for breakfast and some for the way. This is our last breakfast as prisoners. I am determined to disappear today, since I also found out that our commander had given the order not to shoot any fleeing prisoner. The guards can only shoot into the air, to prevent a mass exodus. I also observe that the SS are beginning to think more about themselves than about us.
Not long after the march begins we have to stop to let some army cars pass. That is repeated several times. Here and there we see civilians also fleeing with their belongings loaded into hand-pushed carts. For the most part they are well dressed and have evidently lived a good life. Probably, they are prominent Nazis who do not want to be captured by the Americans. Now they are trudging through the same muddy snow. We are having April weather: one minute there is snow and rain, and the next the sun is shining. On the left side of the road, artillery shells are stacked like a cord of wo
od. Obviously, this is in preparation for battle. God be with us if they begin to use them. Today we are supposed to reach Salzburg and from there further into the Tyrol Mountains. Salzburg is about 40 kilometers further, but I don’t want to trudge that far in this weather. I want to disappear at the earliest opportunity. But the little settlements we are passing through are full of SS and soldiers, some of them Hungarian. Also, there are only a few farms.
Around ten o’clock there is a traffic jam of army vehicles that suddenly materialized among the mixture of retreating German soldiers. The cars are full of soldiers and SS, with officers in better vans, intermixed with armored vehicles, tanks, and even some horse-drawn vehicles. Most of the troops are Hungarian. Some vehicles are in the ditch—out of commission. We prisoners have ceased to be an organized march but go on in smaller groups interspersed among the troops, but still under the watchful eyes of our escorts. It isn’t quite chaos yet, but a far cry from the usual German order. On the muddy road I see the trunk of our commander Kowalski that our prisoners have had on a pushcart all the way from Plattling. But those prisoners disappeared and the guards and SS then carried the trunk. Now it is lying forlornly in the road—further evidence that the last vestiges of discipline and respect for authority are vanishing.
Sometime before noon our SS guards huddle and, goaded by their superiors to be rid of us prisoners, tell us that those who cannot go any further are on their own. They in turn begin a fast march with which we cannot keep up. Now there are only fifty of us left and small groups begin to peel off. I am with Roubal and also with Sedlář, who had helped the partisans in the Slovak uprising in December 1944, for which he was arrested. He came with us to Flossenbürg and then to Plattling, and had a wound on his chest from a Kapo’s blow with an iron bar. We drag on, accompanied by the SS, Jozko, and are all looking for the right moment when we can see some farm where there are no troops. It looks like we are still being guarded and that has its advantage, especially when we are standing by the side of the road weighing whether this is the right moment to begin our road to freedom. A military police officer from the Wehrmacht challenges us and asks us why we stopped. We tell him that we are on the road to Salzburg, but we are tired and need to rest. When Jozko confirms our story, the officer leaves.
Jozko then begins to march briskly on and we walk slowly for about two more kilometers to the village of Oberteisendorf. We leave the main road there. Roubal wants to turn right into the village, and I want to go left. It is funny because nothing makes any difference any longer. All we want is for this awful march, the hunger, and the lice to end. I see hills to the right, and that is another reason to leave the road, since I do not want to climb into the mountains.
We take a path through the field toward two farmhouses. Roubal goes to the second one a little further on, and Sedlář and I to the nearer one. Sedlář is in such bad shape that he cannot last more than a few days longer. He tells us later that he could not have marched another two days. None of us are much better off.
That field path from Oberteisendorf to Lohstampf is our road to freedom. We are planning to go through the woods and skirt the villages, heading back toward Traunstein to Trostberg. On the way we hope to meet the American army. But first we need food and rest. As we come to the first farm I see an older bearded and red-cheeked man, smoking a pipe, throwing out manure. I suspect he owns the farm, and from afar in a loud voice I greet him and ask if we can get anything to eat. He nods and we know we are going to get a bite. When I knock on the door an older farm-woman, who still has black hair and red cheeks, answers. I make our request, but she does not chitchat since we must look terrible in our striped prisoner garb, unwashed, and covered with mud. But in a short while she brings us some soup with a dumpling made of dark flour. Obviously it was left from lunch.
As we are eating I tell her who we are and where we are coming from. Her daughter-in-law joins us. Her husband is in the army. They listen intently, and the younger woman also brings us some potato salad. In the meantime a group of soldiers appear in dark uniforms with an eagle on their sleeves, presumably a part of the SS, also looking for food. But they get only some milk. Two of them come inside and one makes small talk, and as self-protection I talk with him. They are Germans from Slovenia in Yugoslavia who were working for the Todt Organization [a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany named after Nazi leader Freid Todt]. Six days ago in Munich their weapons were taken from them and they were dressed in SS uniforms. They know that the war is lost and they long to get back to their families in Yugoslavia.
One of them shows me a map marked with the positions of the American and Russian armies in southern Bavaria and Austria. We seem to be in a confounded corner of the Third Reich where the last battle of the war may be waged. That could be a real fight in which we might still lose our lives. In case we cannot find any other shelter for the night I ask our hosts if we can stay in their barn or pigsty. We thank them for the lunch, say good-bye to the Germans, and go to find Roubal.
He too has had good luck and come to good people. They are poor but have big hearts. The farmer who had just hosted us owns that farm too, and the renter is a bricklayer, Georg Gillinger. He lives there with his wife and son, Sepp, who was exempted from military service because he is “feeble-minded” (retarded), which is quite common in the mountains. Their three other sons were all killed in the war. Inside the house we are welcomed in a friendly way by a German army deserter, Johann (Hans) Steinbacher. He is a barber from Hammerau near Bad Reichenhall and had already been sheltered there for a week, after a 120 kilometers march, mostly at night, through woods in which he hid. The Gillingers are very sympathetic and even though they themselves live only on their allotted rations, they immediately give us their last. Hans produces a bottle of red wine and we have to drink to celebrate our freedom and to a better future.
He also gives me a shirt and underpants so that I can discard mine. That is the first step in getting rid of the lice. Now I simply have to catch and kill those left on my body. We are also able to wash and shave, and we feel like new men. Hans served in the Wehrmacht as a junior sanitation officer, so he knows what we most need. He also gives us cigarettes, and I have my first one in six months. In a little while, the brother of our hostess appears. He is also a deserter and with him are two Hungarian soldiers. It is about three o’clock in the afternoon, and the first American tanks can be seen on the road. A defensive line of artillery, manned by SS, is situated about ten steps behind our cottage, within range of the highway. Two women with their children now come to the house. They are Austrian refugees.
There are now about twelve people in the room when the first American shells explode about 200 meters from us. The cottage is shaking, and the women are crying and trembling with fear. Only the baby in the carriage is sleeping peacefully. We are comforting the women, as this is nothing new for us. We are used to such bombings since in Plattling we experienced frequent air raids.
The Germans are beginning their defense. Already nineteen of them have been killed. The rest of the disheveled SS are coming into the cottage to dry out and get warm. One uniformed nineteen-year-old declares that they will continue to resist. We are not feeling too safe since we are still dressed in our prisoner-striped rags and the red triangle next to our number indicates that we are political prisoners. That makes us his enemies. Here we are face to face in the last phase of this long and terrible conflict. We are here with a clear conscience in our fight for human freedom and dignity, but they consider us their enemies being locked into their senseless, fanatical Nazi ideology about being a superior race, which drove them into terrible collective and personal crimes inflicted on both nations and individuals. It is obvious that they are worn down by their long retreat and continuing battles. Even when they talk with great fanfare about victory, they no longer believe it. They are armed to the teeth and still carry out orders, but only an orderly retreat into the Tyrol Mountains makes sense to them. There, they hope to f
ind shelter somewhere.
The thinking in the German army is interesting. All who retreat or run before the American army have only one destination in mind: the Tyrols. In their minds that is the only safe goal, as if the mighty American army with its superior equipment and support from the allies couldn’t occupy this little area in a few days, even if it is very mountainous. Tyrol became the latest manifestation of their psychosis.
The grenades are exploding a little way off, and there is always a black cloud of smoke and dirt. We hear gunfire from rifles and machine guns. We are at the front. We hope it will all end well. The Germans will have to retreat since their artillery does not seem to be reaching the American guns, and they will not be able to withstand the onslaught from the allied guns, tanks, and planes that has now begun. I go outside the house so that I can observe a little, but I return quickly when I overhear the sharp order by the SS officer in charge above our cottage: “Shoot all bandits.” Was he referring to us in our prisoner rags, or was it a command for his troops to fire on the Americans? To be safe, I told the others to sit where they could not be seen through the window.
About 40 meters away, a horse with his rider has fallen into a stream and is unable to gain his footing in the rain-soaked field. The rider tries to cajole the horse to stand, but after not having any success, a pistol shot rings out. The magnificent young animal tries once more to rise, but then lies down on his side and his fight is over.
My Train to Freedom Page 18