How does it feel?
You cannot possibly understand how utterly dejected a refugee
feels, unless you have actually experienced that mind-numbing experience. One of Bob Dylan's most popular songs says
it best: "Like a Rolling Stone". Once you were a professional in your field: A doctor, a lawyer, and engineer, or a
skilled tradesman. You took great pride in your work, and all of your friends looked up to you.
You enjoyed a circle of friends, with whom you shared your
leisure hours, and in that group, you gave each other support, when someone needed it. You shared the same values, and
you were proud of your high standards, the ones by which you measured success or failure in your life.
Now you are a complete unknown, many miles and hours away
from your home, and all you own is in that rucksack on your back, and you are wearing an extra layer of clothes, because that
is the only way you can now carry them. Your wife, if she has been lucky enough to survive the constant bombings, and
the periodic strafings by enemy fighter planes, is pushing a baby carriage. In addition to your child, for which a doctor
is no longer accessible in case of need, the stroller contains the only valuables you still own.
The baby is well bundled up, but at every stop, your wife
picks the little child up, and tucks it under her coat, because she has seen the frozen remains of other little children,and
she realizes that tiny bodies freeze quickly in this intense cold. Her understanding of that invariable principle of physics
is reinforced by the sight of numerous other babies which have died, and been abandoned by their parents on this road.
Once in a while, and enemy fighter plane swoops overhead, a
few of women and children are wounded, and some killed. In our case, we were heading west on the autobahn towards Chemnitz,
You know that the strafings of civilians is against international law, but there are no 'international lawyers"
among your fellow refugees, and even if there were, they would be hard pressed to find anyone in the 'international community"
who gives a damn, or who has the influence to stop this barbaric practice.
Every society includes a substantial percentage of unsavory
and borderline criminal elements. During a war, their true nature becomes truly developed - scum usually floats to the
top. No longer a mere embarrassment to their society, they become a festering sore on a weakened and demoralized body.
Now, they are able to get away with crimes which would otherwise cost them many years in a maximum security prison, or
the death penalty.
To their country's enemies, the refugees become mere
pop-up targets, a convenient way for the newer soldiers to continue the marksmanship practice of their training program. Since
killing is the method by which an army executes the policy of it's nation's leadership, the circumstances of that execution
are seldom questioned.
When you find abandoned farm house, and several dozens of
you and the other refugees are able to squeeze into every room, you worry about falling asleep, in case some of the others try
to steal your belongings or your money. Since your country, the nation which has issued this money, has been defeated, that
money may be completely worthless already, but within the constantly shrinking remnants of your crumbling state,
a few merchants are still forced to accept this currency, but they hide most of their inventory away from their store, intending
to barter their food for the few valuables which the refugees carry with them. An expensive camera is worth a loaf of
bread, a winter coat will buy a quart of milk for the child.
You finally reach a village, which has been relatively untouched by the war, and the local residents
grudgingly agree to let you stay in an abandoned school house. All of the boys 11 years and older are gone, forced
by a desperate government, in fear of being subjected to war crimes trials and execution bu the victors. They were indeed criminals,
but had they been innocent, their fate would still be the same. The victor has to justify it's role in the killing,
so the vanquished leaders have to be openly punished in show-trials which invariably make a mockery of the term "justice".
In this village a few miles east of Chemnitz, the Soviet Army frontline infantry troops
had moved through almost unnoticed during the night. At dawn, elements of the divisional headquarters, loaded in several
dozen jeeps, stretched from the center of the village to the forest behind. The grim-faced division commander asked
all of the refugees to line up in front of the school-house. Frowning intensely, he asked the mother of a small boy,
my mother, where my father was fighting. "In Italy," she replied nervously, and that happened to be the truth. Still
with that same look of grim resolution, he called me over, while my mother started after me, and then froze in her tracks,
a hollow and empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, that had nothing to do with her hunger.
In my foolishness due to my ignorance of the danger, I eagerly bounded forward, and gave the
general a big smile. He searched in his pocket for a small piece of candy, and handed it to me, without changing the
expression on his face. Then he addreses the refugees: "You will stay in the school, and you will be safe there."
That night, his men went on a rampage in the village, raping every girl from the age of 10 and
up, even some of the more youthful looking grandmothers. All of the men were beaten, whether they tried to save their
women, or just looked disapprovingly at the soldiers, while the attacks were in progress.
The next morning, one of the Russian soldiers saddled a horse belonging to the villagers, and
rode it, while whipping it's head and neck, forcing it to go faster and faster. Eventually, after what seemed an eternity,
the horse collapsed and lay still. By now, the Russian soldier had lost interest in his game, and walked away.
As soon as he disappeared, the villagers, who had been hiding in fear of their lives, swarmed from their houses, knives and
axes in their hands, and chopped in gouged into the still warm carcass.
The next morning, the Russian commander entered the school house again: "The war
is over, return to your houses and homes!"
Betrayal of our friends
During the end of my assignment at Ngo Trang, north
of Kontum, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, some of those memories resurfaced unexpectedly. The mission of my Regional
Forces 748 company was unexpectedly changed, so that I would be unable to support the Banahr villages in the area, in case
of a communist attack.
The Vietnamese commander and his men had established a very
close relationship with these mountain tribesmen, and I worked hard to reinforce that rapport. During my first
night at Ngo Trang, at about 9PM, I heard automatic weapons fire south-southwest of our location. I found
that village on my map, and asked my interpreter to call them up on the radio, and find out what was going
on there. Not possible, said he, since their radio had been in the shop for several weeks. It seems they
were not able to bribe the Vietnamese soldiers to get it fixed, so they just had to do without.
I looked at the map again, and found that there was a mountain
just to the south of that village, and there was a trail from the top of the mountain to the village. Where
would their small defense force be at this time of the evening? My interpreter and the Vietnamese commander both assured
me that they very seldom ventured outside their palisade fences at night .
I called up an American 155 artillery unit and requested
two rounds on the mountain top, and then to walk several additional rounds down the trail, stopping halfway
toward the village. The explosions would send a message to the attackers that the villagers were not alone, and there
would be more resistance if they continued.
Meanwhile, I asked the small American unit, which consisted
of one M-48 tank, and two armored personell carriers, to lend me one of their APC's. The Vietnamese company
commander agreed to let me have a platoon of thirty fine Montagnard soldiers, led by his best platoon leader. I decided
to leave the rest of the team at the base, and move out with my medic and myself on the APC, the Vietnamese platoon in front. I
wanted the American "Armored Personnell Carrier" for two reasons. First, the .50 caliber machine gun gave us more firepower
than all of the Vietnamese soldiers with us on that patrol. In addition, this was a surefire way to identify
our team to American helicopter gunships which were sure to come to our assistance should we get into serious trouble.
The enemy did not use armored vehicles in our area of operation. In addition, the fire of our .50 would pinpoint
the most rewarding targets for the rockets of our gunships, and give the pilots a precise indication of our own position.
Lt. Buttone, my brave XO, wanted desperately to go along
on our mision, but I had to order him to stay behind. I needed him to encrypt the message to the District
Advisor of my plan - encoding that message in the secure American code would take at least half an hour - and to coordinate
artillery support for our company size base, in case that were attacked as well.
The fastest route to the village would have been by
road, and we could have arrived there within twenty minutes. In order to avoid a possible enemy ambush, I decided to
make a difficult river crossing - the banks of the small river very very steep and it took our APC more than ten minutes to
struggle up the fifteen foot muddy embankment on the far side, after my Montagnard infantry had secured a perimeter a hundred
meters in front of them. Then, after we had passed through the village of Ngo Trang, our men moved thirty
feet in front of our track, spreading out in skirmisher formation, as we moved into a 100 meter wide
grassy clearing. In the bright moonlight, we could scarecely see the palisade fence of the village we had come
to protect. We had a full moon, and I was thinking that there was far too much light, in case the enemy had occupied
that village, when my idiot boss flew overhead and offered to drop flares on us.
Before we started out on our mission, this major had offered
to pick me up in his helicopter, and drop me in the village I was now going to. Only a completely brain dead man could
have even contemplated such foolishness: First of all, we had no idea whether our Montagnard friends had been able to resist
the attackers. For all we knew, the village might have been occupied by a company of North Vietnamese regulars, and
one burst from an automatic weapon would kill the entire crew, together with their passengers. Those who survived would
have to endure the comforts of an enemy prison camp for the rest of this war.
Once the boss had decoded the message, which my XO had sent
to him after my departure, the major liked my plan, and now he was trying to be genuinely helpful, but again, his brain capacity
seemed to be unable to process the realities of the current situation. With all of the tact I could muster, considering
the severe problems that these powerful parachute flares, which almost turned night into day, could mean for
us, I thanked him for the thought, but asked that he remain overhead in case we should need him to adjust artillery for us,
but hold off on the flares.
The shadowy figures emerging from the palisade fence of the
Montagnard village turned out to be friendly villagers, and not the enemy. I shook hands with the village chief,
and told him that I wanted to work closely with him to defend his village.
Next morning two of the village elders arrived at my outpost,
with a request to follow up on my offer. That morning, I drove to the village again, in order to survey the site and
its defenses. As I walked a few feet up the trail from the mountain from where the enemy had come, two young Montagnard
fighters rushed past me, to make certain that there were no dangers up ahead, and one of them disarmed a primitive booby-trap.
My inspection revealed that the villagers were unlikely to
repel even a platoon sized enemy force armed with automatic weapons. They had only a few men under arms: Five single
shot shotguns, three M-1 semi-automatic carbines, one M-2 automatic carbine, and one Thompson submachine gun was all
they had. They also told me that they had to buy their ammunition from the corrupt government soldiers in Kontum.
In their poverty, they could ill afford emough ammo to defend themselves. While there, I received a radio
message from my boss, asking me to announce to the villagers that District Headquarters wanted to have a party for the village,
complete with cokes and hot dogs. The village chief rejected the idea, asking that the district provide him with ammo
for his weapons. That seemed puzzling. "You get free ammo from the government, right?" The serious old man managed
a faint smile: "No, we have to buy our ammo from the government soldiers, and since we have very little money, we have
to be careful how much we shoot at our attackers. If you will get us some more ammunition, our defenders will be able
to resist an enemy attack much better". To me, this seemed incredible. Here we were, spending billions of dollars
on this war, but the men on the cutting edge of that conflict were unable to defend themselves properly, since they could
not afford the ammunition. The enemy we faced in our area included an entire North Vietnamese Regiment,
dispersed in company and platoon size units, all armed with first class AK-47 automatic rifles, lurking somewhere within five
miles of us in the jungle.
We did get some ammunition after a few days, but not
as much as I wanted. An American infantry squad would fire that many rounds in ten minutes of a serious attack.
Nevertheless, we did make progress. At my request,
the Vietnamese commander in our outpost appointed one of his Montagnard corporals as a training instructor, and I procured
some 24x36" charts with pictures explaining the disassembly and assembly, and general weapons care. The instructor
did a superb job, while my team watched, usually being plied with rice wine as honored guests of the chief. There
was a dramatic change on the Montagnard instructor, and he fulfilled his role brilliantly. Instead of having my instructions
translated into the Vietnamese, and then one of the Montagnard languages, the instructor was able to speak directly to the
villagers. Before his new assignment, he had worn the uniform his wife and children had washed in the muddy creek near
our post - where I also took my daily bath. Now, his uniform was pressed with an iron, and his boots were always
spitshined.
Other villages in the area were also included in our training
program. Then the inevitable change: Our Montagnard 748 Regional company was issued M-16 rifles. Not a bad
weapon, if properly maintained and kept out of dust, in which case it would jam during the most embarrassing moments.
So the immediate question - where is the special lightweight lubricant for these weapons? None had been issued!
I envisioned a horrible situation, after the troops would
clean and oil their M-16's with their relatively heavy oil used for their M-2 carbines and BAR's. You might as
well smear tar on the M-16's. Although it was late, I drove my jeep for the ten miles or so to Kontum, and entered the
MACV supply room, where I was greeted by a Vietnamese sergeant behind the counter. When I asked for the special lubricant,
he told me he had none. I pointed to the large case behind him on one of the top shelves, marked: "Lubricant, M-16".
"Oh, that: we always have to keep one case on hand. My usual diplomatic nature evaporated: "Look here: We are defending
a position from where an enemy force has a clear path to Kontum. If our post falls, those fellows are going to
come to your little counter, and take this lubricant, after they shoot your useless hide full of holes". Fortunately,
an American major, the Assistant Province Advisor walked in, stormed around the counter, pushing the arrogant Vietnamese
soldier aside, and gently placed the case of lubricant on the counter in front of me, with a smile, and the words:
"Is there anything else I can get you?" Fortunately, I was able to race back to my post at the 748 company before darkness
fell, a time when the North Vietnamese soldiers usually had their ambushes out, and began mining the roads.
Within a week, we received word from District headquarters
that our mission would soon be changed. The Montagnard company would destroy their post, including the network of bunkers
and tunnels which permeated the fortification, in which the soldiers lived with their wives and children, and where we had
beaten back an attack by two companies or so, of North Vietnamese regulars. The two 105mm howitzers manned by outstanding
Vietnamese artillerymen decided that one for us, firing their weapons at point blank range, at a rate of fire which demonstrated
their excellence. Meanwhile, our Montagnard soldiers kept up a steady stream of fire from their M-2 carbines, while
their wives and children reloaded their magazines. Fortunately, I had about a dozen hand-held flares, which I fired
sparingly, whenever it seemed absolutely necessary.
Now that our mission was changed, and after we destroyed
our post, we would operate as a company size infantry force, continually moving through, and sleeping in the jungle.
When word leaked to the villagers in the area, we woke one morning to see a stream of refugees, all of the adults which had deserted
their villages and walked toward south toward Kontum. All of them literally had their hands full: The adults with
bags of extra clothes and mats to be used as bedding. plastic containers filled with drinking water, and some food items,
including bananas grown in their villages. Within minutes, I received a call from the district advisor, ordering me
to turn this mass of humanity around.
The driving was very slow, as I drove my jeep toward the
head of this huge column, since the Montaganrds occupied almost half the road, and occasionally the children darted
out in front of me, apparently in blissful ignorance of the disaster that was taking their parents south.
The further I drove, the more I regretted that I had agreed to intervene in this tragedy. Out of the dark recesses of
my mind, and from the many stories of my mother and grandmother, I remembered the tragedy of our own history as refugees,
and I became angrier and angrier. Before I reached the head of the column, I sent a radio ultimatum to my boss
at district. Either change our mission to what it had been, so that I could continue to protect these people, or I would
refuse to try to persuade them. I also assured my idiot major that if he betrayed me by wieseling out of our agreement,
I would find a member of the US press in order to give him the truth.
As I had anticipated, I was fired on the spot, and
immediately flew by Air America to Nha Trang for reassignment. Never in my life have I been so utterly happy about
a termination, and yet so very sad at having to leave my Montagnard friends. I had fought for a principle on the
side of the Montagnard people, and I fought for them again in a different manner by remaining true to their faith in my integrity.
In my heart, I hoped that my replacement would have the same courage to stand up for these wonderful people, who were
unable to lie, and even the though of stealing was abhorrent.
Somehow, through the many mountain tribesmen in our company,
the word leaked out, and one morning, there was a column of refugees several miles long, men, women, and children, trudging
slowly with heavy steps, toward the city of Kontum. Many of the villages had already abandoned the villages where
they had spent so many years, and more villagers were streaming out of the jungle to join this pathetic parade.
The multitude threatened to engulf the city of Kontum, and
since I had succeeded in earning the trust of the Banahr, I was ordered to turn this dejected and wretched
mass of humanity around.
It would have been dishonorable to lie to the leaders of
this wretched parade, telling them that we would continue to protect them, when I knew that we could not. I had
agreed to serve in Vietnam in spite of the misgivings of my parents. As a citizen of the United States of America, I
felt obligated to do my part in her wars against the communist menace, under which my grandmother and mother had suffered
in Breslau.
Although I had obeyed the orders by Major Dixon, the
District Advisor and my boss, no matter how ill-advised they often seemed, I drew the line at the betrayal of the trust of
these people whose respect I had earned. Lies which cause the death and injury of trusted allies are the most despicable
crimes against humanity, and an army career and the prestige of rank and power are nothing in comparison.
I threatened to seek out representatives of the American
press corps, should he, or one of his people, lie to my Montagnard friends, and expose them to almost certain slaughter by
our merciless enemy.
Within minutes, he relieved me of my command, and I was forced
to leave my wonderful team at Ngo Trang, heading on an Air America plane to Nha Trang. While this probably effectively ended
my U.S. Army career, I am still very proud that I made the right choice. What is the value of a career, when one is
forced to abandon the very principles, which separate us from the lowest forms of life. A career is disposable.
To those who take a dedication to their friends seriously, honor is not.
Palestinians: Refugees in the city of their birth!
There are few people on this tiny planet, who can appreciate
the plight of the Palestinians more than I can. In order to fully understand, you must have once shared the same
fate, as my family and I have. In 1974, during the Watergate Hearings (May 17, 1973 to July 27, 1974) in the U.S.
Congress, a local talk show host decided to have a young Palestinian college engineering student debate an Israeli history
professor about the problems in the Middle East. Since I thought that the Palestinian was very much outgunned, I decided
to seek out the young student, and help him to even to odds by coaching him on ways to get his message across to our American
public. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the young man knew his history, especially the part about Palestine,
but he seemed to be unable to relate his very personal experience, so that he could share it properly with his
listening audience. I spent several hours with Mr. Samir Farah, this very bright and pleasant young man, and I had the
feeling that we made a lot of progress. Still, I felt compelled to repeat over and over again: Don't just
tell your story from your own perspective, but relate your frustrations and pain to that of the American experience: Relate,
relate, relate.
When the big day finally came, I was very proud to see that
he did just that. A very ignorant but belligerent lady, apparently completely brainwashed by our partisan press, living
in Arlington, a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth, suggested: "Since all of the Arabs are brothers, as you claim,
why don't your fellow Arabs offer to give your people some of the plentiful land in the Arab nations, and a
home?"
Samir's response: Suppose that Dallas decides to go to war
against Fort Worth, and evict most of the residents of Fort Worth, to re-settle them in your community
of Arlington. Would you offer them your land and your home, in order to provide them with shelter? Would you
object, if your government forces you to give up your home for these brethren of your people?"
Her knee-jerk reaction: "Oh, now you are talking about war,
and I will defend my home to the death!" She didn't get it, she just didn't get it, so the talk show host was forced to interject:
"I think he's trying to tell you something".
I believe that Samir's message was finally received and understood
by the listening audience. While I am aware of the historical problems of the Jewish people, I was proud to contribute
to our world's understanding of the Palestinian situation. These proud and wonderful people remind me so much of our
own expulsion from historically (12th century) German lands, and I truly feel their pain.
Back to World War II:
When the war was finally over, and we returned to the
city and to the house we were forced to leave, Breslau was occupied by strangers, whose language we did not understand.
My mother found a job at the main railway station, replacing the glass of the rail cars damaged by the artillery
and bombs.
My father could not be with us, for he had been drafted
into the German Army, and was now in a prisoner of war camp in Erbisoeul, Belgium.
By the time we returned to the city of our birth, we found
most of Breslau occupied by Polish citizens. There was constant hunger and fear, fear of random murder
by the Polish refugees expelled by the Russians from their homes, as well as by the Russian soldiers, who had a very
large presence in the city.
While I respect the many contributions of Polish intellectuals
to the culture of our planets, to our human civilization, I have the very distinct impression that these men and women are
not the ones my grandmother, mother and I were privileged to meet.
Those who were unfortunate to follow the advice of the Russian
soldiers at Chemnitz walked into the hell, which made the most horrible visions of biblical purgatory seem like the promised
eternal paradise.
Nine years after the British arranged our escape from Breslau,
our old home town, my grandmother taught me this song sung to the tune of the old German folksong: "Wo die Nordseewellen
rauschen". No one knows the author, and we suspect he died in one of the concentration/labor camps organized
by our Russian and Polish occupiers, of hunger, or during the countless acts of random and organized violence against
the remaining German inhabitants of this ancient German City (13th Century AD).
Anyone caught singing these verses in Breslau could be punished
by death, either immediately, or within 24 hours:
Wo die Oder durch die Hauptstadt Breslau fliesst,
wo der Schutt in hohen Truemmerhaufen liegt,
wo so viel Ruinen stehen Stein auf Stein,
da ist meine Heimat, da stand einst mein Heim.
(Where the Oder flows through the capitol Breslau, where
lies in tall heaps of ruins, where so many ruins stand stone on stone, there is my homeland, there stood once my home.)
Wo die Bomber reisen nachts am Firmament,
wo mal ab und zu ein ganzer Stadtteilbrennt,
wo die Scheiben klirren und das Licht ging aus,
da ist meine Heimat, da stand einst mein Haus.
(Where the bombers cruise nightly in the sky, where a whole
sector of the city burns off and on, where the window panes rattle and the light goes out, there is my home, there stood once
my house.)
Wo die Feinde toeten Frau und Kind,
wo so viele Opfer zu begraben sind,
wo so manches Auge ist von Traenen schwer,
da ist meine Heimat, die ich liebe sehr.
(The the enemy soldiers are killing woman and child, where
so many victims need to be buried, where so many an eye is heavy with tears, there is my homeland, which I love so dearly.)
Wo der Pole jetzt durch unsre Strassen zieht,
wo der schwarze Handel auf dem Rollfeld blueht,
jeder Tag den Deutschen bringet Leid auf's neu,
das ist meine Heimat under der bleib ich treu.
(Where the Pole now moves through our streets, where the
black market is in full bloom at the airport, every day brings new sufferings to the Germans, thery is my homeland, and I
will remain faithful to it.)
Wo des nachts man ploetzlich "Hilfe" rufen hoert,
wo von Pluenderungen jeder ist verstoert,
wo in einer Stunde man ist nackt und bloss,
das ist meine Heimat, ja da ist was los.
(Where by night one suddenly hears cries for help, where
everyone is affected by robbery, where within an hour one is robbed of all clothes, there is my homeland, yes those are the
goings on.)
Wo der Pole uns oft "Deutsche Schweine" schimpft,
wo so manche Traene wegen Hunger rinnt,
alles geht vorrueber, alles geht vorbei,
treu stehen wir zur Heimat bis sie einmal frei.
(Where the Pole us often calls "German Swine", where so many
Tear falls because of hunger, all will once be over, all will once be history, we remain faithful to our home until it
is once again free.)
Here, I must clarify my reasons for describing the desperate
condition of the German population forced to remain in Breslau. My description is as accurate as I can possibly
make it, based on many conversations with my mother, my grandmother, and a few other former "Breslauer", whom I
was privileged to meet a few years after World War II.
This does not mean that I harbor any resentment toward the
Polish people. Whenever a civilized society collapses, the worst scum of each nation floats to the top,
giving the general population a bad name.
The Polish leadership in Breslau consisted almost entirely
of such scum. They required all men and women who were unable to find jobs in the city to clear the rubble which
covered a very large part of the city, and to demolish and clear the many ruined buildings. The authorities provided
no food to these forced laborers, and many, almost skeleton-like, collapsed during their work. These were
carried to a nearby building, often a public school, where they were placed on cots, given water, but no food,
until they invariably died. Then, these German men and women, were buried in mass graves, layer upon layer,
with a sprinkling of quick-lime to avoid the spreading of disease. It is true that "Care" packages were shipped to Breslau,
but no German seem to have received any of this humanitarian aid.
My mother was fortunate in finding a job at the main
railroad station, replacing the window glass in the railcars damaged during the war, and was therefore able to buy
a little food to support me, and my grandmother, who had to work in the rubble without any compensation.
All of the Germans in Breslau were required by the Polish
authorities to wear white armbands, and those who were caught without those were severely punished. According to my
mother's boss at the Railway station, a Polish Jew, who had just been released from Auschwitz, the Russians rescinded that
order, with the comments: "We conquered this territory, not the Poles". The Polish jew did his best to protect
the Germans who worked for him, even designing a seal of the Polish railroad, and imprinting the white armbands
with that insignia, so that the other Poles would think twice about harrassing or robbing his people. Holdups were
a daily occurence, and my mother nromally passed two or three on her way to work. The robbers took money, and since
few Germans had any, they would settle for any other valuables, and even the clothes they wore. Like the other Germans
who were forced to walk along the streets of Breslau to earn food for her family, she tried to walk as far away from the Germans
who were in the process of being held up, always crossing to the opposite side of the street, just in case the thugs wanted
to pull her over and wait for her moment to be robbed.
Then 46 years old, she was worked near the high school across
from the "Augusta" hospital near the "Lehmdamm" every single day. Every day, she came home exhausted to our arpartment
at No. 9 Kospothstrasse. Like the other Germans, she was used as a human bulldozer, picking up the bricks and larger
stones from the bomb and artillery damaged houses, and loading the debris of war on the Polish trucks. Water was provided,
but no food, but my mother shared what food she had earned with her daily labor at night.
This hard labor forced on German civilians by the Polish
administration required a lot of energy, and the other Germans had almost no or no food whatsoever. Many collapsed after
a few days. Those who were unable to continue were carried to the nearby high school, where they were
allowed to lie on the hundreds, perhaps thousands of cots setup in the empty classrooms. Polish nuns supplied them
with water, until they inevitably died. Then they were carried to a huge nearby pit, at least ten by thirty feet, by
fifteen feet deep at the beginning of the construction effort. The bodies were stacked closely together, until
they filled the entire bottom, then stacked on top of each other, until the stench had become unbearable, and the threat of
disease seemed to become very real. Then, some quicklime was somehow procured, and successive layers of dead
bodies were sparingly covered with this rare commodity.
Then, disaster struck against the small remnant of our family,
which was trapped in hostile territory. The one good pole, who had provided a little extra food for his workers,
was replaced by a bad one, and all three of us were steadily losing weight. My mother became weaker and weaker
as she trudged every morning toward her job, and she had dark nightmares about dying on the street, unable to help me to survive.
She began to ask around for some sort of poison, which we would all take at the same time, so that none of us would have to
die alone, for that seemed to be our certain fate.
Just in time, we received the good news that we were to be
exchanged for Polish families who had ended up in Western Germany after the war. As a first step, we were required to spend the night at a high school near the railroad
station, to receive a medical examination. Polish nuns, who seemed to have some sort of medical training, sorted
out those who would be permitted to leave this hell, and those who would be required to stay.
Since I was malnourished, though not nearly as much as my
mother and grandmother, I had some sort of skin problem. The Polish nuns put us on the unsatisfactory list, and that
was that. Generally, they seemed to care very little for the German civilians, and again, we thought this might
be the end for us. Fortunately, we found
a way to cheat, climbing out of the ground floor window, and we mingled with the crowd streaming by, on their way
to the railway station in the morning.
More problems on the train station:
In Goerlitz, the train was met by British soldiers,
and we continued on toward western Germany in comfortable passenger cars, while the Polish citizens for who we were traded,
continued to Breslau. An examination by qualified medical personnell showed that, except for severe malnutrition
neither my mother, grandmother and I were afflicted with any sort of contagious disease, the assumption
for which the Polish nuns in Breslau had attempted to thwart our departure.
