Shortly after that as the evening approaches, an SS man comes into the cottage for his friend, who is warming himself. They are all leaving, apparently being ordered to retreat. The field is gradually vacated until only a few horses run freely. Hans and Sepp set out to capture them, and they succeed in catching two. Sepp elatedly declares that now he can be a farmer who owns a horse! It has cleared up, and near the other farmhouse where we were at noon we see a truck burning with its cargo of munitions exploding. The German resistance at Oberteisendorf is overcome.
As I go out, the sun comes out and is setting in the west. I am enchanted to see the Alps suddenly loom in the distance. On the road the rumbling of the American tanks toward Salzburg continues. In the distance I can hear artillery as the Germans probably are guarding the town. Later I find out that the Americans attacked Salzburg from the opposite direction from Freilassing and therefore the SS with whom we were marching and the other SS never reached it. The Americans got there first. I now have the definite feeling that we are no longer under German domination and we are free.
Freedom
At the same time I feel considerable hunger. We eat by the light of an oil lamp. Mrs. Gillinger, whom we call mother, cooked a potato soup, with potatoes in sour milk [considered a delicacy]. With us at the table are two Hungarian soldiers. I am almost ashamed how fast my potatoes disappear, as I have never eaten as much in my whole life. But I just survived starvation and a ten-day death march, so it is no wonder that I devour so much. Immediately after supper Sedlář lies down on the sofa. He is the most exhausted of all of us, and he still has the wound on his chest. He is soon asleep like a log. The other women left earlier with their children.
All of us men are now left in the room with Mrs. Gillinger. Her brother, Hans, and I recount our experiences. We are lucky that we have come to a village that remained opposed to the Nazis. Only the local schoolteacher had joined the Nazi party. Hans was also opposed to the party, as he is a good and friendly person. He invites us all to visit him in Hammerau after he returns. He is offering sincerely to help us as much as he can. He tells us how he had to defend himself so that he would not be inducted into the SS, and how, as a result, he was in constant danger. We drink black coffee from Hans’s army rations and smoke cigarettes. All of us feel that we have survived a momentous era, and that this is the end of a terrible slavery to which millions of Germans and other people were subjected. At last we are free of Nazi terror that ended thanks to the American army.
There is a knock on the door. Who can it be at ten o’clock at night? Mr. Gillinger and Hans go into the hall to investigate. A voice can be heard as he steps out of the shadows. A man in his thirties in civilian clothes with a pack on his back enters. He is sturdy but appears weather-beaten in spite of the fact that he is wearing a raincoat, and he is obviously very tired. He is another army deserter. He started his journey six days ago from the mountains, and the last two nights he slept in the woods. He is from Hamburg and is intending to walk there. After he rests for a while he speaks in crisp sentences. He says that after such a terrible defeat he would like to leave Germany. For the last two years he has not believed that Germany could win the war. He knows that life will now be difficult for Germans, but it is bound to be better than being in the front lines. He has sized up his future quite realistically, without sentimentality and without optimism.
We are preparing for the night. Roubal and I are going into the barn to sleep in the hay, while the other men will sleep on the floor in the house. We lie down fully dressed with our boots on, even though they are cold and wet. We still can’t allow ourselves more comfort in case the fighting comes back and then we might have to run quickly to the Americans. It would be difficult to get dressed and put one’s boots on quickly in the dark barn. The moon is shining and the snow on the peaks of the Alps is bright. I am unable to fall asleep since I am cold, and because of the stirring events of the day, the proximity to the front, and my newfound freedom. Mostly I am thinking of my freedom and the fact that the war must end in a few days since so many soldiers are deserting the front.
The sensation of freedom is sinking in. I can still hear the artillery in the distance, the rumbling of American tanks on the road, punctuated by machine-gun fire. I am reminded of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture, and how appropriate it is for May 1945. I remember the suffering I have endured since my arrest on October 13, 1944, how my brother and Mila came to visit me in prison in Bratislava, and the evening of October 29 when Mila watched as I mounted the metal steps of the Bratislava police prison to my cell, number 19. She clutched her coat and suspected that the next day I would be handed over to the Gestapo in Brno. I had hoped that I would remain in Bratislava for a few more days and so fell asleep that night in my cell. In the morning I learned otherwise as I was awakened. I wondered about how Slovaks survived when in April the news reported house-to-house fighting in Bratislava, and about my mother and other relatives who were still under German occupation in Bohemia. Toward morning I fell asleep briefly.
I doubt that this cottage in Lohnstamf ever hosted such a motley company. “God, I thank you that I am free, and that as a result of all I experienced during the last seven months, which was a great trial, I have emerged victorious and with a stronger faith than I had before.” That is my great gain from these turbulent times in my life.
The morning of May 4, 1945, greets us with full sun, and I am in a happy frame of mind. After a good breakfast we discuss what we should do next. On the highway we see a steady stream of cars full of American soldiers, tanks, artillery, armored cars, large inflatable pontoons, huge cranes, and smaller cars darting in between very quickly. Overhead there are many noisy planes. German soldiers and SS men are coming down from the mountains both singly and in groups, but already unarmed.
We dare to approach the road only in the afternoon after we see the first group of German prisoners being marched toward Traunstein, led by German cars waving a white flag. We get our first close glance of American soldiers at the pub near the road, next to a gas station. They are young boys, dressed in khaki with helmets on their heads and armed only with a side arm. They are just fixing a flat tire on a bicycle. They recognize who we are in our striped prison uniforms, and as we approach they extend a friendly hand to us. Since there are also Canadians among them, I tell them in French that we are Czechs and thank them for freeing us. I have to dab my eyes since I am shedding tears for the first time. It is a moving occasion for me as I realize that here are people who grew up on the other side of the world and came to fight for the same freedom for which we fought here.
One of these young soldiers goes to his car and brings back a box of cigars. We each take one, but he offers another. We thank him, but he is proffering the box again and gestures that we should take the whole box. We gladly oblige. We ask him where the American headquarters are and he says in Aach Thale, about 5 kilometers away on the road to Salzburg. He indicates that he will lend us the car, if one of us can drive, but unfortunately none of us can. He still gives us some matches since they are not to be had in Germany. So we each light one of our wonderfully aromatic cigars until it smells like bread baking in a cottage, and we set out walking on the road toward Teisendorf, about 3 kilometers away. We want to go to the town hall to see if we can get a ration card.
We have to walk very slowly and at the edge of the road, and we need to stop frequently. The road is filled with a continuous and fast-moving procession of vehicles. The tanks make the road shake. We wave at the soldiers, who are dancing on top of their cars, and we shout “Nazdar” (hello) at them, but it is drowned out by all the traffic. The soldiers wave back to us, but some of them are tired and lying down on top of the tanks. Both the soldiers and we are covered with dust since the air is thick with it. One soldier sitting in a tank turret is drinking champagne and soon the empty bottles are ending up in the ditch. In one of the tanks a black Senegalese soldier has a wide toothy smile, as there is a French division attached to the third
American army. From other tanks we are thrown cigarettes, chocolates, and cookies. Although they are all tired, they clearly are elated by their victory. The joy of these young people is infectious and soon sweeps us up in it. Nazi Germany cannot resist this mighty show of soldiers and weapons much longer. That is now obvious to us. By the side of the road there are German cars, discarded rifles, all kinds of weapons, and burned out tanks with the dead soldiers still in them.
An American officer stops us on the outskirts of Teisendorf. When he learns that we are Czechs he opens a small warehouse for us that had been for German and Hungarian troops and invites us to take what we need. We help ourselves to bread, crackers, soap, tobacco, and various other items that we need, such as needles and thread, razor blades, and so on. We are returning with two full sacks, already experienced “organizers.” For three days and nights there is a constant stream of vehicles moving toward Salzburg. The cloud of dust raised by the traffic envelops the trees, and they appear gray. We are absorbed several times into this stream of humanity on the road and share its enthusiasm for victory and freedom. We return each time to Lohstampf, where mother Gillinger is amazed at what we are bringing.
On my birthday, June 5, I lie down on the grass behind the cottage, enjoy the warming sun and appreciate the breeze coming from the snow-capped Alps. Along the highway the rumble of the traffic continues, punctuated by the protective airplanes above. I no longer feel hunger pangs because we have been eating properly as a result of our begging. I am enjoying quiet times now, following the storm I have lived through in the past months with its deadly vortex. An ant is crawling on the blanket I am lying on. I take it gently and put it in the grass. And then I realize that I am human again, aware of the feelings of every related being, even this ant, as it proceeds to hunt for its food in the grass.
I should end here. Later I will work on this account and put it in a more acceptable literary form but keep the description of the whole picture. We lived for a while in a camp “Strupau” at Berchtesgaden. We were there with American soldiers, Russians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Dutch, Belgians, French, Luxembourgers, Italians, and Yugoslavians. I would also describe how we Czechoslovaks said good-bye to our American commander and his dear boys, who really looked after us with brotherly love. Then we went on to Salzburg, where we stayed about a week, Munich, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Bamberg, where we again got stuck for a week, and finally we arrived in Pilsen and first tasted our freedom in our native land. On July 6, 1945, in the morning we arrived in Prague.
APPENDIX 2: AUSCHWITZ AND DEATH MARCH SURVIVOR LISELOTT BÄCHER FRAENKL
LISELOTT WAS MY cousin. For all of the Backer family living in America, Canada, South America, or South Africa she was our “favorite aunt.” She consistently refused to speak about her Holocaust experiences until 1986, when she was in her eighties. My cousin Paul and I persuaded her to tell us her story, but she insisted “no tape recorder.” Thus, this narrative is written in the third person; it is our reconstruction of the conversation we had with her.
Liselott was married to Pavel (Paul), the youngest of three brothers who had inherited a thriving factory that manufactured agricultural equipment in Roudnice, about an hour’s drive northwest of Prague. They expanded the business to several parts of the world. The oldest brother, Jiri (George) emigrated to Rhodesia in 1939 where the firm already had a branch. Karel (Charles), the middle brother—my father’s closest friend—went to Argentina. Pavel and Liselott remained in Roudnice to take care of the business there. This is why the Bächers are scattered in different countries.
Her account began with the year 1941 when the entire Jewish Roudnice community was ordered to the train station by the Nazis to be deported to Poland. Liselott and Paul were taken to the Jewish ghetto in Łódź. There they and their daughter shared a very small room with another family of three. Luckily, the other family shortly moved elsewhere.
Łódź was a ghetto for forced labor. Pavel was an engineer and was ordered to build a smelting machine in the space of a few days. He had the knowledge to do that, but he told the Nazis he needed certain materials. “You NEED?” they shouted. “We are ORDERING you to do it. Don’t bother us until it is finished—and you better finish it fast!” Somehow he was able to produce the machine. In the meantime, Liselott was assigned to repair discarded military uniforms for prisoners. These uniforms had to be re-sown so that inmates could be identified easily. Liselott was very thorough in attaching colored appliqués to the uniforms, but a friend told her, “Don’t be so conscientious! If anyone ever escapes they might need to rip those markings off easily and quickly.”
Liselott and her family were in Łódź until 1944 when the war was winding down and the Soviet army was approaching. Prisoners in the ghetto were given the choice to go west, away from the front, or stay and face an uncertain future. The Jews had to guess what the outcome of either choice would be. If they stayed they could be executed by the Nazis to stop them from talking, or they could be liberated by the Soviets. Who could predict what the approaching army would do? Liselott and her husband chose to go west, while most of the prisoners remained.
They ended up in Auschwitz and knew immediately it was an extermination camp and danger lay ahead. They were separated as soon as they alighted from the train—men to one side, women to the other. That was the last time Liselott saw either Pavel or her daughter. Pavel died in Dachau later. The women went to the showers to be decontaminated because they were covered with crab-lice. On the way Liselott saw a friend lying on the ground, someone she recognized; but she was forbidden to go to her and offer help.
After a few months in the camp, Liselott was taken to Breslau by train and forced to begin the grueling death march. She was already very weak from her ordeals and the march was to be about 100 miles long to Cheb, in the most western part of Czechoslovakia. The women covered 10–15 kilometers a day, while the men had to march 40. Another person on the march was Hanka Gluck, a friend of the Bächers. Hanka knew that section of Czechoslovakia, and Liselott learned that she was planning to escape. Liselott asked to come with her. Hanka replied, “You can come beside me, but I cannot be responsible—I cannot take care of you.” Liselott decided that she could not escape in her weakened condition, and anyway she did not have good shoes. Later, reflecting on her decision, Liselott acknowledged that Hanka was right and she held no grudge against her.
Recalling her bad shoes reminded Liselott how she came to obtain a better pair. On the march a Nazi soldier said to her, “Clean my boots. If you do a good job I might give you a pair.” Liselott replied, “I need polish and a brush.” He repeated the words that were said to Pavel, “You NEED?” So she polished his boots with grass and spit and the shoes did shine. The German handed her a pair of shoes before walking away.
The death march continued. The route came very close to her home town, Roudnice, but Liselott didn’t have the strength to escape. With great effort she continued to march to Cheb. Liselott described the kinds of Germans who supervised them. They were largely ex-soldiers who had been wounded at the front. The Nazis had to find some kind of work for these men even if it was make-work. The former soldiers were forced to march as guards of the prisoners and they were very resentful. Liselott knew there were other marches like hers taking place, and she was puzzled at the reason. From the Nazi point of view she wondered, “Why not shoot us all?”
When the death march reached Cheb, the prisoners were loaded on a cattle train to Bergen-Belsen, a notorious concentration camp located between Hanover and Hamburg in northwest Germany, a long distance from Cheb. In these last days of the war Liselott was the closest to death that a person can be. Her niece, who was also interred in the same camp, discovered her aunt and found a way to smuggle potatoes to her that were unavailable to the prisoners.
Liselott confided that many times during those years when she was at her lowest ebb, help appeared from somewhere. Something pulled her up a rung from where she had been and helped her survive another
day. Here it was receiving the nourishment of stolen potatoes.
Then came the end of the war and liberation by Allied troops. A Swedish deputy, Count Folke Bernadotte, appeared at Bergen-Belsen to actively help the remaining residents. Later he served in the United Nations. Bernadotte issued an invitation to all prisoners on behalf of Sweden to come to his country to be given the best possible medical care.
This was a dilemma for Liselott. On the one hand, she had been close to death and was still in dangerous ill-health, and Sweden offered the best chance for her recovery. On the other hand, she was waiting for her husband. In Bergen-Belsen, Liselott saw men dropping like flies from exhaustion following their death marches. She realized she did not have the strength to make the arduous journey to Prague to find out about Pavel. She decided to go to Sweden.
On the train to Sweden, Liselott was given a bed with sheets. “That was heaven,” she recounted. She had not had a bed—especially not one with sheets—since her deportation in 1941.
Someone stopped by her bed and asked, “What would you like?” and without hesitation she replied, “A cigarette.” On another occasion another person posed the same question and this time she said, “A toothbrush and a book.” Two women passed her bed and she called after them, “Lotte, Kathe.” They turned around bewildered and wondered who had called them. “I am Liselott” she announced. They looked at her as if a strange object had just fallen from the sky; they did not recognize her. Then Liselott realized how transformed she must be—almost a different person.
Liselott must have been one of the most serious cases on the train. The Swedes took these cases off the train immediately at the point of entry at Kalmar where there was a Red Cross hospital. She stayed for three months having a fever the entire time and weighing barely seventy pounds. At this low point help came again in the form of two Estonian women who had lived through the concentration camp but were now sufficiently recovered to aid others. Liselott slept most of the time. One time when she awoke she asked them, “Aren’t they going to feed us today?” The women told her, “You slept through it again.”
My Train to Freedom Page 19