Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences

by Frederic Martini

  Fred

  But Fred never did receive a reply. By the time the first of Lucille’s letters reached Poland, he was long gone.

  On 20 January, Fred started hearing the sound of artillery from the advancing Russian forces. Orders came to check that the POWs had at least the recommended minimum supplies: two D-bars, 1/4 lb of cheese, 1/2 lb of oatmeal, half a loaf of bread, and some sugar. Cans of margarine, although heavy, were also recommended both for nutritional value and as a salve to prevent chapping of the lips and other exposed areas of the face.

  Yet other aspects of camp life continued as ever, including the planning and rehearsal of a new show at the theater. At 2130 on the night of 27 January 1944, Fred was sitting near the back row of the theatre while the play You Can’t Take it With You was being performed before a packed house. Without warning, Col. Goodrich suddenly stopped the program, walked onto the stage, and reported that the goons had just given South Compound 30 minutes to prepare for departure. They were to assemble at the front gate.

  Pandemonium ensued.

  Fred, Ed, and Stan rushed back to the barracks. Fred stripped the blankets from his bed and put on a second layer of clothing, packing the sleeves and legs with newspaper and wrapping cloths around his doubled socks and then around his shoes, as if he were bandaging sprained ankles. A pillowcase would serve as a makeshift pack.

  Before heading for the assembly point, the airmen were told to go through the warehouse that stored Red Cross parcels and take whatever they could carry. Fred stuffed every pocket of every layer of clothing with food and helped others load their primitive sleds. He tucked bits of chocolate and loose cigarettes between his layered shirts, and ate the cookies and chocolates he had no place to store. He followed the lead of some of the other POWs, smearing butter over exposed areas of his face to provide additional protection from the elements. Figuring that it couldn’t hurt, he also ate as much butter as he could stand, scooping it out of the opened can with his fingers.104

  Fires were started in the compounds. The POWs burned anything of potential value to the Germans, and the Germans burned anything of potential value to the Russians. Fred could see the flickering lights of a big fire in North Compound through the falling snow as he headed for the main gate.105 As far as he could tell, neither the Germans nor the POWs were making any attempt to contain the blaze.

  What with all of the confusion, there was zero chance that South Compound would be ready to leave in 30 minutes. By the time Fred got to the front gate, weighed down with supplies, it was closer to 2300. He stood in the assembled crowd, stomping his feet and swinging his arms to fight the cold. Snow was no longer falling, but the temperature had dropped further.

  Finally, the gates were opened and the order given to move out. It felt good to get moving, even if he didn’t know where they were bound. In the initial burst of excitement, some of the POWs got a little carried away and started singing songs (Off We Go, Into the Wild Blue Yonder being a local favorite) as they marched, four abreast, along the main road in the darkness. They were treating the evacuation as a lark, assuming that things could only get better, wherever they wound up. Neither Fred nor Ed, who had joined him, felt like singing along. Because Stalag Luft III had been a big improvement over Buchenwald, they knew what the other POWs did not — their destination could be considerably worse.

  Fred was part of a ragged column of prisoners. There was empty road in front of them — South Compound had been the first to leave Stalag Luft III — so those near the front, guided by flashlights, had to break through the accumulated snow and those further back, like Fred, had to deal with an uneven surface in total darkness. On either side, armed guards marched with the POWs. A few rows behind Fred, the column ended. Glancing back, he could see a pair of guard dogs and a horse-drawn wagon. The dogs made him nervous, so he quickened his pace, moving a bit farther from the rear.

  In the frozen darkness, Fred marched in his own isolated and frosty world. There was no use trying to talk — it was too cold and the wind too strong. Besides, he had to concentrate on keeping on his feet. The makeshift sleds in the line ahead had started falling apart, leaving planks and runners and boxes of food that had to be avoided. He also had to move around men who were trying to scavenge valuable supplies from the wreckage. Fred had to stay alert and pay attention, shifting and maneuvering his way along. Everyone else faced the same challenge, and the pace of advance slowed to a crawl.106 Fred could hardly believe how cold it was.

  The minimum temperature that night was recorded as 7°F, and there were snow flurries and gusty, westerly winds that blew the snow into his face and any exposed openings or seams in his clothing. He had to lean into that biting wind with his packed pillowcase in his arms. After a few hours, it became simply a battle of endurance. Fred could no longer hear the jangling of the horse-drawn wagon behind him,107 but he knew that the dogs were back there, and the knowledge goaded him on. Every thirty minutes or so, the column paused for a break. At one stop, loaves of bread that had been on the wagon were handed out. Fred took one and tried to eat it, but it was frozen, so he stashed it in his already unwieldy pillowcase pack.

  Fred and Ed Ritter lost track of Stan in the darkness. Struggling to keep up, they had slowly but inexorably drifted toward the rear of the column. Frost formed on their exposed hair, on their eyebrows, and on the stubble of their beards. Ice caked on Fred’s feet, which had become numb with the cold. He found it even harder to walk through broken snowcrust and snowdrifts when he could no longer feel his ankles or his feet — his legs might as well have had bricks attached to them. He was continually stumbling and catching himself.

  The breaks lasted ten minutes. Whenever one was called, Fred, Ed, and others nearby would collapse in a heap by the side of the road. By the first break, the singing and joking had stopped. For the next few breaks, they had griped about the marching and tried to start small fires to warm themselves. After that, the breaks, like the marching, were silent. Fred, who had neither sung nor joked, remained focused on keeping the pace and not falling behind. He had no idea what would happen to those unable to continue, but he assumed that stragglers would either be shot or left to die of exposure.108

  As the march continued and men tired, they began jettisoning cargo. The first indication Fred had of this was when he stumbled over a jumbo can of margarine. Soon the snow-covered roadway was littered with debris. The marching continued all night. In the morning, the level of chaos increased as local residents took to the roads desperate to escape the Russians, whose artillery could be heard clearly. In the cold, crisp air, it was impossible to tell just how close the Russians were, but they were certainly close enough to panic the local population.

  Fred was pushed to the side by panicked civilians, and the whole column was sometimes forced off the road by horse-carts heading west toward Germany, or truckloads of Army and SS troops headed east into Poland to slow the Russian advance. After getting off the road, it was sometimes a struggle to get back onto it, as the snow was deeper off the edge of the roadway. The breaks were welcome, but as the men were completely exhausted, many fell asleep immediately and were difficult to awaken. Fred and Ed watched one another. If Fred fell asleep, Ed was to wake him, and vice versa. Whether he had dozed or not, Fred always had to force himself to get upright, back on the road, and back into march mode.

  Fred saw men fall by the wayside, collapsing from exhaustion, but he had no energy left to help strangers. He hoped that friends or passersby would get them back on their feet. It took all of his strength to avoid joining them. As the afternoon wore on and the snow started falling again, an elderly Luftwaffe guard was marching nearby. Whenever Ed asked him how much farther they had to go, the answer was always three more kilometers.

  Visibility was reduced by the blowing snow, and Fred’s world shrank to the few feet immediately in front of him. He was marching simply because he was marching. He had no idea where he was going and no clear idea of where he had been. His feet were remote,
inert blocks that he steered with his legs.109 He had lost touch with his nose and his ears as well. Both were frostbitten, as were exposed areas of his wrists and fingers.

  Fred fall asleep at least once while marching, going down like a puppet with cut strings, but Ed prodded, cajoled, and ultimately hoisted him back onto his feet so they could continue with the others. His pillowcase was gone, probably lost or stripped away in Ed’s battle to get him moving again. No matter, he was too tired to think about eating anyway.

  He marched on through the snow, leaning into the wind as he passed through towns and villages. He saw farmhouses, many abandoned with the doors left open. He heard other men talking, but could make no sense of the words. Others were moaning, or he was — it was hard to tell the difference. The sound made by the passing column was soft but eerie, like the mournful wails of the damned.

  Fred ignored the rushing civilians. He just kept his head down and plodded through the broken snow. All he thought about was staying awake and taking the next step. At 1400, after marching steadily for 14 hours, barns were located, and the men were allowed to take shelter for several hours.110 The barn was unheated, but Fred found a place in the hay near a cow he thought might radiate some warmth. He caught about three hours of sleep before word passed that the farmer who lived there had brought some hot water, so they could make coffee if they had the fixings in their packs. A fire was started outside, and POWs who had taken their shoes off before sleeping had to use it to thaw their shoes before they could pull them back on. Fred opened a small tin of margarine and smeared it on his cracked lips as a balm, smearing the rest on his thawed shoes as waterproofing. Although he tried massaging his lower legs, they remained numb with the cold. He and Ed compared notes on how lousy they felt. They were parched and their voices ragged. Fred chewed some snow, which helped assuage his thirst.

  By 1800, it was dark, and the temperature, below freezing all day, was dropping. The men were roused to their feet and sent back into the wind. Fred saw the same German guard Ed had spoken to earlier abandon his rifle, leaving it in the snow. If anybody was going to try to escape, that guard couldn’t care less. It had become a battle for survival for all concerned, and it was all Fred could do to keep marching, let alone come up with a viable escape plan.

  It was wasn’t hilly country, but every time the road climbed even by a degree, the column slowed to a crawl. It was just as well — the pace of a crawl was about Fred’s top speed. A front came through, causing rapid changes in the weather: first snow, then rain, then hail. On Fred went, stumbling and staggering and sliding, numb with the cold and fatigue, until shortly after 0200 on 29 January, he crossed an icy bridge and entered the German town of Muskau. Fred had been on the road for more than 27 hours and had covered 37 miles.111

  Once within the town, the column stopped, and Fred stood with the others, waiting for instructions. It was an agonizing wait, without even the heat of exertion to fight the cold. He did not know how long he could endure the cold and the exhaustion. He was dizzy, swaying on his feet and barely regaining his balance each time he fell asleep. Finally, at 0400, he was directed to a large factory building with tall smokestacks. It was a glass factory, and when Fred and Ed reached the entrance and stumbled through the door, they walked into a wall of hot, dry air produced by the blast furnaces. It was like a blow from a giant feather pillow.

  Ahead of them, men were spreading out and flopping to the floor, too exhausted even to discard their now excessive layers of clothing. Fred managed to shrug off the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and remove his second layer of clothing, laying them out, to the extent possible in the crowd, in hopes that they might dry in the heat of the furnace. He then sank into an exhausted sleep that for once was so deep that no nightmares could touch him.112

  When Fred awoke, the factory was a hive of activity. There was running water, so those with sufficient energy and motivation were able to wash themselves. Others were using the heat of the furnaces to cook food, and POWs on the second floor found a kitchen area. There was something for everyone. Some of the food provided came from the pockets or sleds of the airmen, but to their surprise, they also received gifts of food from the local residents who took pity on them.

  Fred ate what he could, helping himself to soup at every opportunity, for it was warm and easy to chew. He remained in the blissful warmth of the factory all through the day and then had another night of rest before they got the word that it was time to leave, to make room for the arrival of the POWs from West Compound.113

  At 1100 on 31 January, Fred was marching with the rest toward the west, leaving Muskau behind. The road was still congested by vehicles and by people on foot, some of them leading livestock. As before, the traffic was either going their way (civilians) or opposing them (military personnel). Fred saw civilians digging trenches and makeshift barricades that might slow the inexorable advance of the Russians and buy their families extra time to reach safety. The workers were men of all ages, from boys hardly past puberty to old men barely able to wield a shovel.

  The temperatures were high enough that the snow was melting and the surface of the dirt road had thawed. Any sleds that had survived were abandoned, and the contents either carried or eaten. Fred’s original treasure trove of supplies had dwindled to a few bits of chocolate and a handful of cigarettes. His outer clothes were still slightly damp, but his inner layer was dry, at least initially, and his mood had brightened considerably. His feet, however, were still not back to normal despite the hours spent in the warm factory and the bandaging of the scrapes, sores, and blisters. Curiously, while the surface of his feet were completely numb, it felt like there were burning coals buried deep under the skin. Every step was painful, and the layer of cold, wet mud that accumulated around his cloth-wrapped shoes did nothing to cool the interior fires.

  In the early afternoon, progress slowed as large numbers of airmen were stricken with diarrhea from eating from contaminated cans. Fred passed hundreds of men squatting by the roadside — privacy was a forgotten luxury. At around 1400, Fred was offered meat, bread, and margarine, but his arms were full, and after eight hours of marching, he was more tired than hungry.

  After 12 hours of marching along a main roadway, Fred saw a sign identifying the town of Graustein. The POWs were directed to an unheated barn where they would spend the night crowded together for warmth. Some of the men squeezed into into chicken coops, but Fred slept on the ground. At dawn, Ed helped Fred to his feet yet again, to join the column as it continued westward.

  Word had reached Fred that they were marching to Spremberg, but he had no idea how far away that was nor how long it would take to reach it. To his great relief, it was relatively close, and they arrived at the town around 1130 on 1 February. Their destination was a large Army training base for tank units. Railway lines ran into the base, and there were tanks parked on flatbed cars with young, nervous crews standing by.

  The column entered an open area and formed an assembly. Fred and Ed waiting in one of the rows as the POWs were counted by their German escorts. It was boring and extremely uncomfortable, as the process took hours, and they were standing in slushy mud. Finally the counting was done, and Fred and Ed were sent to a heated garage where they were given hot soup.

  The welcome respite was short-lived. By late afternoon, Fred was on the move once again, marching two miles though the town to the railroad station, where a chain of boxcars awaited. Fred thought they looked all too familiar. He waited in the cold breeze, trying to keep warm, while livestock were unloaded to make space for POWs. At 1830, Fred climbed into a boxcar with 50 other POWs. It was overcrowded, but not as badly as Fred’s trip from Paris to Buchenwald.114 Fred and Ed, among the first to board their boxcar, sat with legs outstretched. Other men stood or crouched, while a few stood leaning against the wall. The boxcars had solid walls with very small ventilation openings, and as soon as the doors were closed and locked, the air became foul. The waste bucket filled almost immediately, forcing
the men to relieve themselves in corners or on batches of straw on the floors. At that point, Fred and Ed decided it was time to stand. The air initially carried the stench of manure, but attacks of dysentery and bouts of vomiting soon added to the general miasma. At some point, Fred found that he’d adapted to the environment, and he no longer noticed the smell.

  Fred and the rest spent two days and three nights in that filthy, overcrowded boxcar. The water bucket was soon empty, and everyone became very thirsty. Fred was allowed to leave the boxcar to stretch and relieve himself only twice, once in Chemnitz and a second time in Regensberg.115 At each stop, he was able to get a drink and a small chunk of bread. Well before dawn on 4 February 1945, the train pulled into Moosburg, roughly 30 miles outside of Munich. The men closest to the doors beat on them, pleading to be let out, but the guards refused. They remained packed in the locked boxcars for the rest of the night.

  103 The Nazi forces had advanced so rapidly that they outran their limited supply lines. The original plan had been to capture and plunder Allied supply depots, but resistance at those depots was much stronger than anticipated.

  104 Officers stashed intelligence documents and other records on their persons or in packages that could be concealed on a sled. Lt. Ewell McCright tied an extra pair of pants around his neck and tucked his POW ledgers within them. These ledgers, which survived the war, are a priceless record of the POW history of South Compound.

  105 In North Compound, it was Block 104, where the tunnel for the Great Escape originated, that burned to the ground.

  106 It took over eight hours to evacuate all of the compounds. Men started leaving South Compound at 2300; North Compound at 0100; West compound at roughly 0200; Center Compound around 0300, and East Compound at 0600 on 28 January. Of the approximately 12,000 POWs held at Stalag Luft III, roughly 500 POWs were left behind for the Russians to deal with, as they were either too sick or too weak to move.