Brothers Beyond Blood Page 6

  I learned some American language on that trip. The one thing I learned was that Nazi was followed by bastard. American soldiers didn’t know more than a few words of German. Shnell was one and it was usually screamed.

  I learned to ask for water, food and clothing. The soldier who rode in the back of the truck with us was named Jimmy. He didn’t like it when we couldn’t pronounce the J properly. I practiced with him until I got it right. He taught me the American words for arm, leg, head, foot and some others like food and truck.

  On the afternoon of the third day, we came to a hastily constructed compound that resembled Kefferstadt, only much larger. It appeared that most of the buildings had been burned and the new barbed wire fence only recently been erected as evidenced by the piles of dirt by each post. Guards patrolled the gates with dogs, much like we used to. The truck stopped by a small maze-like gate where a German- speaking American soldier wrote our names down in a book. He asked our ages, ranks, service numbers, former assignments, places of birth, heights and weights and then had another soldier take our photograph up against a piece of canvas with numbers painted on it. Then we were escorted to a tent and assigned a cot. The interpreter informed us that we’d get two meals each day, and they would interrogate us at their convenience.

  I asked how many men were in this camp.

  The officer sneered, “You five make just over four hundred, all former camp guards. See how you like it on the other side, Nazi bastards.”

  After folding our blankets and placing them on the foot of our beds, Karl and I stepped outside and wandered over to a group of some fellows our age.

  “Gutten tag,” I said, introducing us. Two of the other fellows introduced themselves as Heinrich Schmidt and Josef Keppeler. The others just turned away, whether from shame at being here or fear or what, I did not know.

  “Where is your home?” I asked Heinrich. We walked over near the fence, where we found a crude wooden bench and sat down on it.

  “I am from Berlin,” he said, “though I fear that I will never see it again.” His whole body sagged. He was a good-looking boy about seventeen years of age, same as my own. He also seemed to be healthier and better clothed than Karl and I, though there was a patch of blood on his tunic.

  I pointed at the dried bloody patch, “Are you hurt?”

  He looked down, “Ach, no. That is not my blood. One of the other guards started to run when the Ami soldiers arrived and they shot him just as he went past where I was standing. It is his blood.” He shook his head. “I was not about to run after that happened.”

  “And where was this?” I asked him in a low voice.

  He leaned in toward me and whispered, “Dachau. Can you believe it? I was only there for three weeks! All I did was help destroy papers, uniforms and things like that.”

  He went on, “I didn’t even know what the camp was for.”

  This was a story I would hear time and time again. How could they not know? How could the local townspeople not know? The smell alone was awful. They say that people who live near an abattoir get so used to the smell that the brain ignores it after a while, but they still know they live near an abattoir. When I came to Kefferstadt, within a day I knew that it was no “work camp”.

  I chose to let this pass. If Heinrich wanted to live within this fantasy, who was I to question it? The war was coming to a close and, once again, Germany was on the losing side. My father fought in the Great War of 1917, and we lost. Now I was involved in my own generation’s Great War and we were defeated. When would we learn? Our people had followed the Fuehrer blindly. No one was allowed to question him and now he had brought us to this. I asked Heinrich, “Have you heard any reports of the war or Berlin?”

  “Ya. Not going well. The Amis come from the West, the Russians from the East and the Allies down from the north, you know, the British and the Canadians. I have even heard that there are Italian troops coming from the South. Can you believe that? They were our allies!”

  I laughed, not believing these rumors, “Next you will be telling me that the Japanese will be fighting us too!”

  He looked startled, “Have you heard something I do not know?”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Relax, my friend, I am just making something up.” How much crazier could this war get?

  “What else have you heard?”

  “I heard our radio man say that Berlin is in ruins from constant bombings. Many of the civilians have been killed, and the noose grows tight. It will all be over in another week or two. After that, I do not know.” He grew morose again, staring down at his scuffed boots, idly swinging them back and forth in the dirt.

  “Have you heard anything about the Fuehrer?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. The last time we heard was just for us to fight on to the last.” He snorted, “Easy for him to say. He didn’t have to get shot at.” This last was said in a small whisper so as not to be overheard by anyone. He looked around furtively and leaned close to me. “There are men here who would kill me for just saying that.”

  I was surprised. “Aren’t there just old men and boys like us here?”

  “Nein, Hans. There were still almost two hundred guards at our camp when the Amis came.”

  “They didn’t run away? Most of our guards did or got sent to the front.”

  “Nein, ours didn’t have a chance. The Amis parachuted in and surrounded the camp before anyone could run. My friend Horst got shot because he was frightened and ran.” He muttered, “I was just as frightened but couldn’t move with all the guns pointed at me.” He got a faraway look on his face, “ The first Amis came down shooting outside the fence, then more and more both inside and outside. After awhile, trucks and jeeps came up the road from the city.” He turned to me again, “The Amis are very well equipped, and very disciplined. They have been fighting here in Europe for a very long time, and yet their uniforms are in good condition and they seem to have plenty of ammunition.”

  “Yes, they came to our camp quickly and took charge most efficiently. However, they did not kill any of our people and seemed to be genuinely helping the prisoners.”

  “Ya, they do bring their medical personnel in right away. I think this is good. Do you agree?” Heinrich asked.

  I nodded, and then reflected, “Do you think they will hang us or shoot us?”

  Heinrich shook his head, “Nein, I do not think so. They could have done it easily by now. I understood one of the Ami soldiers say that we would be tried by a military court.”

  I looked out through the wire. “What is that camp they are building? Another for our people?” I saw a large force of soldiers driving in steel posts, stringing barbed wire and putting up large tents.

  Heinrich frowned and said, “I think that is for Landsmannschaft (displaced persons), you know, refugees, homeless people and,” he leaned toward me and whispered behind his hand, “Jews, former prisoners. Even Gypsies!”

  We stood and I decided to walk about the camp to get my bearings and see if there were any other boys I, perhaps, knew from my school days.

  Chapter 12 - Herschel’s Story

  After a long day riding in the truck with several wounded soldiers, we came to a small town. I don’t remember the name. Many of the buildings had been bombed and the American Army officers had taken over what was left of the Rathaus, or city hall. I assisted the wounded soldiers to their medical tent, and then went looking for an officer.

  I found an officer with gold leaf-shaped pins on his collars. “Excuse. Please, sir.” I tapped him on the arm. He was just standing with his hands on his hips, surveying the rubble. This officer had dirty trousers tucked into his boots, a short jacket and a helmet with a red star in the front.

  “Yeah, what?” he muttered without looking at me.

  I tapped him again, tugging on his sleeve. “Sir, I need information, please.” He was taller than me and outweighed me by at least fifty kilos. I held my pass under his nose.

  “Eh? What’s this?” He sn
atched it and read it quickly. In a second he thrust it back in my hand. “What can I do for you, kid?”

  “Sir, I need ride in vehicle.”

  “Yeah, sure, don’t we all? Where do you want to go, kid? New York?”

  I frowned. New York? Why would I want to go to New York? “No sir, south. Near Austria. There is a camp there called Landesberg.” Now I had to lie to this man. “I think it is for Landsmannschaft, sir.” I had to find Hans, and if I had to lie, I would do it. I felt bad. In fact, I felt terrible, but if I told him that I was going to try to locate a guard from a death camp, he would have me locked up.

  “Landenshafter? What’s that, kid?”

  “It is a camp for refugees, sir. The word means displaced persons.” I thought fast. “I think my brother may be there. He is all I have left in the world.”

  “Yeah? Too bad. We’re still fightin’ a war.”

  Ach, was this where my search would end? I could not give up yet. “Please, sir, don’t you have a Red Cross vehicle going south or a supply truck? I will ride in the rear or even on top.”

  He eyed me from under his helmet. “You wanna get to this here DP camp pretty bad, eh, kid?” He extracted half of a cigar from his breast pocket and lit it with silver lighter. In a moment he moved it to a corner of his mouth.

  “Yes, sir. My brother may be there.” I felt bad lying to this officer, but maybe I wasn’t lying. My brother Isaac could be in that camp. He could still be alive.

  “O.K., I’ll tell you what. We’ve got some ambulances heading south in a couple of hours with wounded. The Army has a hospital set up in Augsburg. That’s as close as I can get you. It’s about ten or fifteen miles from that camp. You know the camp you’re heading for was a concentration camp, don’t you? How do you feel about that?”

  I shrugged, “I have come from Kefferstadt, sir.”

  He said nothing, just looked appraisingly at me, frowning.

  I felt he deserved more. “It was an extermination camp. There were fewer than one hundred of us left when the Americans came.”

  The officer put a hand on my shoulder, “I’m sorry, kid. It’s a screwed-up world.”

  “Yes sir.” What else could I add? Even I knew what he alluded to.

  “You see that medical tent there, kid?” He pointed to the large khaki tent with the huge red crosses on fields of white painted on the canvas. I had helped take the wounded soldiers there. It was a very busy place. Though the German soldiers were nearing their end, what fighting that was still going on was fierce.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, you be in front of it at,” he looked at a large wrist watch, “fifteen hundred hours. That’s three o’clock for you civilians, okay?”

  Since the war had started, we Germans had kept the twenty-four hour time.

  “I’ll see you get a ride out of here. If I’m not there, just tell them that Major McReady said it was okay.” With one last squeeze on my shoulder, he pushed by me and strode into the Rathaus.

  This would probably be my last ride. I went off to find some food and something to drink. A dining tent had been set up for the medical personnel, and I walked into it. Of course I used Major McReady’s name and got a heaping plate of some kind of pinkish meat, mashed potatoes and some green beans from a long serving table heaped with food. Against the side wall of the tent was a table holding a large silver container full of coffee and thick mugs. I was in heaven. All this food would have fed everyone in our camp for a week.

  At the appointed hour I stood before the medical tent, two apples in my pockets. The Major spoke with a thin redheaded man with the now familiar Red Cross armband, and I was motioned to the rear of an ambulance. The Major shook my hand and wished me luck.

  Inside the truck were four soldiers on litters. Two had no legs, just bloodstained bandages. One was swaddled in bandages from his chest to the top of his head and the fourth had a shiny cream on what was left of his burned face. His hands were tied to the sides of the litter, probably to keep him from scratching at the wounds. He moaned incessantly. I should have been horrified, but after what I’d been through at Kefferstadt, I think I was immune to human suffering. What did that make me?

  The countryside was a combination of blasted holes, toppled and burned trees and peaceful farm country. The small villages were fairly normal but the larger towns had been bombed and attacked by heavy artillery. I saw a few bodies, and, in one town, a man’s corpse hanging from a street sign. In another town I saw several women being herded by a mob and pelted with stones. Their heads were shaved and their clothes torn. I heard one man yell, “Collaborator!” In almost every village and small city, American soldiers wearing armbands with the letters MP on them were acting as police, traffic controllers and generally bivouacking troops, usually in the largest and fanciest houses. To the victors belong the spoils. I would never know. I had never lived in a Germany that had won a war. The only spoils I ever saw my good German neighbors making off with were the possessions and property of the Jews.

  Late the next afternoon, after getting two more rides, I stood in front of the gates of the DP camp at Landesburg. Across a wide road and dirt field, I saw the barbed wire and gates of the guards’ camp. It looked remarkably like my old home, Kefferstadt. After all, it had previously been a concentration camp.

  The DP camp was very busy, and all sorts of people were coming and going. While I stood before the gate, a truck pulled up and several men in black and white striped camp suits like I had worn were helped out. Their heads were shaved; they were gaunt and weak. They looked like I had, like scarecrows.

  Two civilian women rushed out and told the truck drivers where to take the men. A large, tent sat inside the gate to the right. It was obviously the medical clinic. There were large red crosses painted on the roof to discourage aircraft from bombing it, either Allied or German, though I doubt that there were many Luftwaffe airplanes still flying.

  As I started across the road, a motorcycle came roaring toward me. It sounded inordinately loud. A German soldier sat astride it, waving a grenade over his head. It was one of the can-shaped ones with a handle sticking out the bottom, a Model 24 Stielhandgranate. I knew it was filled with steel and iron scrap. He was shouting something, but I could not make out what he was saying over the roar of the motor.

  The cycle hit me a glancing blow as I tried to avoid it, but I managed to deflect his arm and the grenade sailed over my head and rolled under an empty nearby truck. I covered my head and dropped to the pavement. I looked out of the corner of my eye, and saw the rider throw up his arms and fall backwards off the wildly swerving cycle. I thought I heard shots. Absently, I noted that it was a German military BMW R75 cycle, dark gray in color with white letters painted on the petrol tank.

  Just then, the grenade exploded. A great blast of hot air flipped me over and drove me backward. I saw the truck heave upward and then fall slowly onto its side, the canvas aflame and petrol spilling out. I knew it was about to explode. At the same time I was peppered by numerous particles. That was the last thing I remembered.

  Chapter 13 - Hans’ Story

  We heard the blast that came from the front gate and ran in that direction. I bumped into Karl on the way and he gasped, “What has happened?” We ran. “Is it an air strike?”

  “I do not know, Karl.” A glance at Heinrich only brought forth a shrug.

  Along the gate, several guards were facing us with rifles at the ready, nervously looking over their shoulders. About fifty of us crowded the fence, trying to see the street and what was happening. A cloud of smoke hovered above the street, partially obscuring a large truck lying on its side. Soldiers and civilians swarmed around a man laying in the street and, farther up to our left a motorcycle was smashed against a utility pole. I saw a German helmet still rocking in the dirt by the side of the road.

  Several more men ran up and loaded the fallen man onto a stretcher. I couldn’t see very well, but they were treating him as if he were still alive. I wondered wha
t had happened.

  “Do you think it was a bomb in the truck?” asked Karl.

  “I do not believe so,” I replied. “It looks like something happened with a soldier of the Fatherland involved.” I looked around and called, “Does anyone here speak any English?”

  A boy stepped near me and said, “Yah, I speak some. I spent one year going to school in London.”

  “Gut. Ask one of the soldiers what has happened, bitte.” I grasped him by the arm and pulled him before me. He looked daunted as an older soldier shouted something at him, and he tried to pull back. I held onto his arm and urged him again, “Ask him.”

  “Please, sir, what took place here? Was someone killed?”

  The soldier poked the rifle at us and shouted, “Some Nazi son-of-a-bitch tried to blow up the DP camp. They got him though, shot him right off the goddamn cycle!” He grinned and poked again with the rifle, “You boys git on back there a ways.”

  My friend asked, “Was it the soldier they were carrying on the litter?”

  “Naw, it was some civilian who got knocked down by the cycle and probably got blowed up by the grenade. The guy ridin’ the cycle is dead. I saw them put a blanket over him.” He squinted at us, “Why? Was he a friend of your’n? Did you guys know he was comin’? Maybe to break you fellas out?”

  “Oh, no, sir. We just hoped it was not an air strike.”

  My new friend said his name was Josef Kreisher. Karl, Heinrich and I introduced ourselves and we moved off to a corner of the compound where we squatted in the dirt while Josef explained to us what the guard had said.

  Behind my back I heard one of the other prisoners say, “I wish it had been an air strike and obliterated that nest of vermin across the road.” He spat in the dust. I looked at him, a sergeant major. “What are you looking at, young swine? Do you know what they are going to do to us, all of us?” He stuck his tongue out and tilted his head to the side, holding a hand over his head. “They are going to hang us.” He spat again and walked off with two other sergeants.