The Lost Boys

by Catherine Bailey

  Soldiers directed them to an abandoned building close to the station, which had once been a lunatic asylum. There they remained for eleven long days.

  Papke and Kupfer allocated the group three rooms: one for the men, one for the women, and a communal room, where the stove, carried from the train, was installed. The weather was still bitterly cold and the stove was the only source of heat in the asylum. Due to the blustery wind outside, it smoked constantly, filling the room with clouds of choking fumes. ‘After some adjustment of the pipe, the heat comes back,’ Gagi noted two days after they arrived.6 ‘In the meantime constant running up and down the passage to keep warm.’

  Fräulein Papke sat in a corner of the room glued to the radio that she now kept permanently by her side. Even discounting the propaganda that coloured the Nazi war reports, the news for the Germans was grim. The Russians had crossed the Oder and were just 35 miles from Berlin. Fey relished Papke’s discomfort as reports of Soviet reprisals against SS troops were broadcast: ‘We heard that in Bromberg, a town 100 miles to the south of us, the Russians had executed all the SS officials they could lay their hands on. That sent shivers down Fräulein Papke’s spine. Pinched and pale, she took on the brittle expression of someone in a controlled but ever-growing panic. Her sharp voice no longer resonated along the corridors. On the contrary, she became quite obsequious.’

  Fey, however, recognized that Papke’s fate could be her fate too. If the Russians caught up with the group, as ‘members of the SS’, they would also be executed. Knowing that her life depended on the survival of the Nazi regime caused her acute torment. Since her childhood in Rome, when her father had first crossed the regime, she had longed for Hitler’s downfall. Instinctively, listening to the radio broadcasts, her heart leaped at every indication this moment was at last approaching. Yet the grim logic of her situation – regardless of any plan Himmler might have for the group – was that the immediate priority was to escape from the Russians and only the SS had access to the necessary means of transport. Part of her, therefore, was willing the Nazis to hold out for longer.

  As the fear of being ‘snapped up’ by the Russians once again preoccupied the group, they found themselves listening to the news reports with the same avid attention as Fräulein Papke. While the front line was a hundred miles to the south of Lauenburg, the Red Army had advanced a staggering 130 miles to the west. As Fey recognized, they risked being caught in a pocket of land just as the trekkers had been in East Prussia. ‘We heard that the Russians were nearing Stettin. If they captured the city, it would close off our line of escape. From the radio reports, it seemed the Wehrmacht was defending a narrow corridor of land between Stettin and Stargard. But for how long? I was beside myself with impatience to get away, to stop wasting time. Berlin was being bombed every night, and it was obvious we would have to move quickly if we were not to be surrounded by the Russians.’

  Every morning, Papke told the group that ‘departure was a possibility’ and that they must be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. But to their frustration – and for no apparent reason – the move was constantly postponed.

  The terse entries in Gagi’s diary point to the demoralizing uncertainty of those days:

  Departure still always a possibility.7

  Departure still uncertain.

  Rumour of a departure tomorrow morning.

  As always, our departure is shifted to the following day.

  On 17 February, five days after they arrived at Lauenburg, Kupfer let slip that a train was waiting for them at the station. In an embarrassed manner, he told the group that it was in fact the very same train that had brought them from Matzkau and that it had been waiting in a siding ever since. Cryptically, he added that the train was not authorized to leave because the ‘living inventory was missing’. Then – to their alarm – he revealed that they were the ‘living inventory’. Until he received orders from SS headquarters, neither they nor the train could proceed.

  The implication was clear. Himmler had not yet authorized their departure. Two days of speculation followed as the group tried to fathom the reason for the delay. Had Himmler abandoned them? Were they no longer of value to him? In an attempt to second-guess his motives, they listened out for his name on the radio. A few weeks earlier, Hitler had appointed him commander of the war on the Eastern Front and it cropped up frequently in the catalogue of defeats. Their one hope was that the delay was due to the fact that they were simply low on Himmler’s list of priorities.

  This hope was reinforced when, on 19 February, Uncle Moppel appeared, escorted by two SS guards. Everyone was thrilled to see him – Fey particularly. ‘He was thin and very weak, but miraculously alive. What a tough constitution he had! When he saw us all, tears came to his eyes. We were as happy as if we had heard that we were to be liberated, so strong were the ties between us.’

  Extraordinarily, from Matzkau, the SS had initially taken Uncle Moppel back to Stutthof. The area was still in the hands of the Wehrmacht and the Russians had not yet liberated the camp. As soon as his escorts discovered that the prisoners of kin were no longer there, they had turned round immediately. With tens of thousands of trekkers still on the roads, the journey, both ways, had been horrendous. The error pointed to administrative chaos: at SS headquarters, wires had obviously been crossed. At the same time, the lengths to which the SS had gone to reunite Uncle Moppel with the group indicated their importance. At the very top of the organization, they were still part of some sort of agenda. They had not been abandoned.

  At last, on 23 February, Papke announced they really were leaving. While she refused to answer questions about their destination, she allowed the men to remove panes of glass from the asylum so they could be used to cover the gaping windows in the wagon. Clemens von Stauffenberg was too weak to stand and, without a bed to sleep on, Dr Goerdeler doubted he would survive the journey. Once the bed was in the carriage, there was not enough room for them all to lie down, which meant having to take it in turns to sleep.

  They set off punctually at nine o’clock in the morning. Papke allowed Fey to sit on the running board, providing she stayed within sight: ‘It was a fine day and we rolled along with the doors open. I sat perched on the steps, gazing out at the passing countryside, fighting off unsettling thoughts about my children. On the curves, I could see that the train was extraordinarily long and seemed to be carrying everything: prisoners, troops, refugees, and even cattle, which I could hear mooing at the far end. We took advantage of the frequent stops for obvious reasons. But because the train would always start again without warning, I was terrified of being left behind or having to jump into a wagon filled with strange people. The idea of using these opportunities to escape did not occur to me, nor, I think, to anyone. The thought of being alone in that frozen countryside, without papers, money, or food, was enough to put one off the idea immediately.’

  Alex also occupied her thoughts. Since leaving the Hindenburg Baude on 30 November, the two of them had never been alone. The strain of constantly having to conceal her feelings in front of the others had worn her down. At the start of the journey from Matzkau, she and Alex had continued to speak to each other in Italian – as they had done at Stutthof. But in the close confines of the carriage, it was always within earshot of the others, some of whom found their private conversations irritating. Now, their sole from of communication was through notes and lines of poetry, which they wrote down on scraps of paper and passed to each other when they could.

  In the coming days, however, so focused were they on surviving the journey, even these were abandoned.

  The train was now heading west, parallel to the front. The region – the western part of Pomerania – had been badly bombed and the wreckage was everywhere – derailed trains, burning vehicles and the rubble of countless buildings. The raids were still in progress and, as they drew closer to the front, it seemed to Fey that an angel was watching over them: ‘Time after time, we would leave a town just before it was occupied, or a s
tation just before it was blown up. But the train continued on its way untouched. I began to think it was pre-destined that I would get Corradino and Robertino back.’

  Then, early on the morning of 25 February, they came to a halt outside Stargard. This was the most dangerous stretch of their journey. The front was just 2 miles to the south and the Russians were trying to trap the Wehrmacht in a pocket by taking the corridor between Stargard and Stettin.

  Outside, soldiers were running up and down the length of the train, shouting, ‘Counter-attack in progress! All passengers take cover!’ Papke and Kupfer bolted the doors and ordered the group to lie down. Seconds later, the firing began. They were only yards from an anti-tank gun; as they lay piled on top of each other in the confined space, the noise and the vibration from the force of the explosions was terrifying. The attack lasted all day. In the breaks between the firing, they could see lines of infantry pushing forward from trenches dug into the flat ground. Most distressing of all was the long cattle train, crammed with women and children, which had pulled up alongside them. The wagons were open and they could hear the cries and screams of frightened, frozen children.

  Cowering on the floor of their carriage, they expected the Russians to fire back at the anti-tank position at any moment. Miraculously, this did not happen and, after twelve awful hours, the train started moving again.

  Papke and Kupfer kept the doors closed. Fey lay awake listening to the constant banging as refugees pounded the sides of the wagon, desperate for a place on board. Her impression was of complete break-up and collapse.

  The Allies were bombing the line ahead and the train soon came to a halt again. The incident that followed, as Fey recounted, had a dramatic bearing on the group’s situation:

  A Wehrmacht officer knocked on the door and yelled up impatiently: ‘Open up immediately! Some more people must be put in this wagon.’

  Papke answered, ‘Impossible. I have orders to let no one inside!’

  ‘That is idiotic,’ shouted back the officer. ‘There are women and children out here half-frozen to death. They must find shelter!’

  ‘We are travelling with the Sippenhäftlinge under the special protection of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler,’ barked back Papke.

  ‘Oh, my God, that idiot!’ exclaimed the officer angrily. ‘I’ve had it up to here with that pig!’

  The officer’s insolence and Papke’s startled silence made the group laugh; yet more than anything else, they were laughing with relief. As ‘members of the SS’, the threat of summary execution had dogged them since Matzkau but, in one sentence, Papke had let slip that their status had changed. Himmler – for whatever reason – had ruled that they were once again ‘prisoners of kin’.

  For the next two days, the train moved from siding to siding. Forty miles to the south, the Americans were bombing Berlin. It was the biggest attack in months, involving 1,207 bombers and 726 fighter escorts. One woman described the chaotic scene in Potsdam, a suburb of the city, as civilians and troops vied to escape: ‘Heavy tanks rolled down the streets next to sedate old trams, rural wagons and landaus.8 In long columns, this grey mass of soldiers, refugees and natives pushed each other urgently through the streets; ragged figures beside elegant Potsdam ladies; lice-infested country people next to flashy officers; filthy barefoot children next to shiny prams; grey, old and tired women beside dolled-up girls, horses, dogs, cows, sheep, and cats. On and on they swarmed, squeezing through the gridlocked tanks on the bridge … Ladies at the top of Potsdam society competed with poor women for bits of coal falling from a lorry and men of every class and type stooped unashamedly to pick up old cigarette butts … What a terrifying change in the space of a year! No, you couldn’t conceal it anymore; no people look like this when they are within grasp of victory.’

  When – on 27 February – the prisoners of kin arrived at Rüdnitz on the outskirts of Berlin, the ruins of the town were still smoking. Once again, they were unable to go on because the Americans had blown up the line ahead. By this stage, Clemens von Stauffenberg’s health was of grave concern. His breathing was laboured and, with his condition weakening by the hour, the others feared he might die. Dr Goerdeler gave him two days at most and even Kupfer, muttering that after Anni von Lerchenfeld’s demise one death was quite enough, felt he had to do something.

  Fey was astounded by the swift response from SS headquarters in Berlin: ‘Kupfer phoned through to them – a miracle in itself given the pounding the city had taken. They must have been alarmed, because a doctor was immediately sent to examine Clemens.’ The doctor’s verdict was that he should be transferred to Sachsenhausen, a nearby concentration camp, where there was a hospital. Elisabeth pleaded to be allowed to accompany her husband. If he was going to die she wanted to be near him. Eventually, the doctor agreed and, towards seven in the evening, an SS squad arrived to take the couple away. ‘Poor Clemens, barely conscious, was lifted out on a stretcher, with Elisabeth following,’ Fey wrote. ‘She had to leave her three children behind and had no idea if she would ever see them again. None of us said a word as they left. There was nothing to say.’

  So bleak was the parting for Gagi, writing her diary later that evening, she could hardly bring herself to mention it: ‘Papa goes with Mama to the hospital in Sachsenhausen in an ambulance.9 Difficult farewell. Will we see each other again?’

  Nothing was moving on the railway. With the air raids continuing, the lines ahead were destroyed as quickly as they were repaired and the Sippenhäftlinge remained at Rüdnitz for several days.

  It was not until 2 March that they set off again – heading west, away from Berlin. At six o’clock the next morning, Papke told them to gather their things. After ten days on the train, they were an hour away from their destination: Buchenwald.

  31.

  Jedem das Seine. ‘To each what he deserves’. These were the words engraved in large wrought-iron letters on the gate at the entrance to Buchenwald. Dawn was breaking, a grey, damp day. Kupfer and Papke had disappeared and Fey tried to catch the exchange between the officer in charge and an unseen guard on the other side of the gate. The unmistakable, nauseating stench from the crematoria clung to the air, catching in the back of her throat and her nostrils. Through the latticed gate she could see hundreds of prisoners milling around, the thick black and white stripes of their uniforms standing out in the murky light. Double rows of barbed-wire fencing, some 12 feet high, enclosed the huge compound. Instinctively, she glanced up, counting the watchtowers around the perimeter. There were twenty-two in total. A terrible fear seized her. Why here? Was this a temporary move? Or was this the end?

  The gate did not open; instead, after a long wait, Fey and the others were marched away from the main entrance, across a vast square. At the far end, smoke billowed from a huge factory complex, ringed by more watchtowers. It was the first time Fey had seen a concentration camp at close quarters: ‘New SS guards led us at a brisk pace through the immense camp, which was a small city with tarmac streets. There was a nucleus of maybe 200 barracks surrounded by barbed wire. Beyond these I caught a glimpse of yet more barracks where we were told thousands of prisoners lived and worked. Further behind were buildings of all sizes used as kitchens, storerooms, factories, crematoria and, as I later learned, execution rooms and a hospital for medical experiments. Everywhere you looked, human skeletons marched in columns. They were no more than skin and bone and the blank look in their eyes was horrifying. Pus oozed from the weals on their faces – presumably the marks of beatings from the camp guards … I could not believe what I was seeing and I was gripped by the same feeling of helpless fury that I felt when I thought about what the SS had done to my children.’

  Ten minutes later, the group arrived at a crescent-shaped line of barracks – the accommodation blocks for the SS. Here, the guards turned down a narrow road strewn with rubble from the bombed-out buildings on either side. At the end of the road, they came up against a high, red-brick wall with a door set into it. The door opened on
knocking and, following a discussion between the SS and the guard manning it, they found themselves in a courtyard in front of a long, low building.

  After the dreadful sights she had just witnessed, Fey was stunned by the scene in front of her: ‘A crowd of strangers, dressed in shabby, yet evidently once elegant clothes, spilled out of the barrack towards us. Suddenly there were cries of delight as people fell into each other’s arms. It emerged that these strangers were also relatives of people involved in the bomb plot.’

  Incredibly, Uncle Moppel’s children were there. All three had been transported to Buchenwald from a nearby prison: Ines, aged twenty-four; Alexandra, twenty-two; their brother Clemens, fifteen years of age. Annelise Goerdeler also found two more of her children and her daughter, Irma, was reunited with her husband.fn1

  Still reeling from the walk through the camp, the sea of happy faces reduced Fey to tears: ‘I knew we were safe. Our fate was not the fate of those poor wretches outside. Yet while others in the group had found their children, mine were not there and, in the midst of all this joy, I was flooded with despair.’

  The prisoners remained in the courtyard for some time, exchanging greetings and swapping news. Fey felt alone and excluded: ‘Everyone seemed to know someone and I felt too crushed to interrupt their conversations. Then I suddenly heard the name Maria von Hammerstein. Although I had not really known her myself, she had grown up at court with my mother and was one of her greatest friends. So I went up to say hello. Straight away, she began speaking about my father’s execution. She didn’t realize of course that no one had confirmed his death and I still clung to the hope that he was alive. Choking back my rising sobs, I stiffly pretended to be well acquainted with the facts as she described his last days in great detail. Maria recounted how he had been tried at the People’s Court by Roland Freisler, the worst and most fanatical of the Nazi judges. During the cross-examination, my father so impressed the audience of Nazi party guests that stories leaked out about what went on. It was said that no one knew who was the accused and who the accuser. At the thought of my father so honourably defending himself, I could no longer control my emotions. Muttering some excuse, I rushed away to be alone with my grief.’