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Josef
Nowak: Rhine meadow camp of Rheinberg
Chapter 4: Freight of
death
Beating torture again --
open freight cars -- bombed Ruhr area -- criminal
"Americans" have shot all street lamps -- shots on a
Hitler poster -- mass death in the wet freight car --
Rhine bridge near Duisburg -- Rheinberg
from: Josef Nowak: Seeded on the field.
War prisoner in the home land.
(German: Mensch auf den Acker gesät. Kriegsgefangen
in der Heimat)
translated by Michael Palomino (2013)
[Agony on the sports area of
Brackwede - rumors ("latrine slogans")]
If I was very sad? I don't know any more. Probably not. We
were living in a kind of moral agony. An air plane had
crashed with 30 persons on board. A ship with 4,000 refugees
on board had sunk [the German refugee ship "Gustloff" was
bombed by the Soviet Air Force, a giant war crime against
German refugees]. One town had converted into a crematory
for 40,000 or 120,000 persons [also towns in Japan]. Who
wanted to have an idea about the march of the deads yet?
Here before my feet only one heart had seized to move, a
mortally ill human heart. One watch had been stopped. The
clockwork stopped ticking. And we had other sorrows. What
would be to eat tomorrow? Again Meat and Noodles without
taste, again Lima beans without taste, again ham with
scrambled eggs or a piece of black bread? And when would we
come home? For whom at last it would be worthy to go home?
There were no latrines in Brackwede, but there were latrine
slogans without limit [rumors for being flushed down the
toilet]. Would be brought to Canada as woodcutters? Or was
it right that all from petty officer upwards would be
deported to the Fireland Islands, a measure which was
foreseen only to the members of the general staff first? Was
it right that Russian negotiators had come already to the
anglo American [p.50] head quarter for selecting a bigger
group of German slaves for the reconstruction of Stalingrad?
No, there was no lack of slogans and topics to speak about.
One only needed good nerves for staying through the inferno
of latrine slogans. By which reasons one should not believe
them? By which? What had been organized with us until today
could be the beginning to a barbarism, to any crime to human
beings. This was a fact without any doubt.
[The cargo train: criminal "Americans" torturing again
with beatings - race and then 3 hours waiting time - beatings
for helping]
One morning the marching order came. In front of the sports
area always new convoys of prisoners of wars were coming
jumping like frogs on the floor. But we were leaving
marching fast passing the exit in the back. Where we had no
idea. There were again transatlantic bully boys in a big
quantity, cowboys drumming their words into the fur of the
cattle herd always repeating the winner's alphabet. On a
high railroad embankment a cargo train was ready. This train
we had to take in a storm without considering the own or
other body parts. Within three minutes about thousand men
had swung themselves on board. But then there was a waiting
time of three hours yet until the train started. One does
just know the military appointment calendar. Who was
presenting oneself like a helper of the Red Cross helping
the heavily ill to come on the train was treated with many
beatings. May be that the reader is [p.51] considering this
eternal mentioning of beatings as monotone now, I will not
mention it so much again from now on. After some weeks it
had lost it's attractivity to be new also for the active
side. May be that the fans of this sport had become simply
too lazy by the time to continue their athletics.
[Food for the trip is thrown on the heads - bombed Ruhr
area - criminal "Americans" have shot all street lamps]
The open freight cars were our hotel now, for two days and
for two nights, as it turned out later. [Other transports in
freight cars could last also 10 or 20 days as it was in
April 1945 with captives from Buchenwald]. The sky was
darkening now. We had lost the war and therefore we were
earning rain for the transport. In a few hours it could be
here. Before the wheels were rolling there came a hailstorm
on our heads. The hail were little boxes, this was our food
for the trip, the normal half breakfast ration for the whole
day. This time the food was easily digestible with cookies,
sweets, little chocolates and similar things. Beverages were
not foreseen.
After some minutes we knew that the train was going to the
west, not to Stalingrad. Now all possibilities were open
from Bering Street until Cape Horn. The rails were not in
the best condition. Weeds were knee-high between the ties
and sleepers. Switches could not be moved, signals could not
be moved. All signal towers were out of work. What the
"Americans" had not bombed, the Germans hat blasted. With
pain and misery one single track had been prepared passing
the Ruhr area [p.52]. North America's fusiliers
[infantrists] felt underestimated within the technical
battles of destruction. Therefore they had shot all
porcelain lamp shades of the telephone poles. This was very
intelligent to see.
Slowly our train was passing the Holy Camp of heavy
industries. All wheels of the industry had stopped. Not one
single cable sheave was moving in a coal mine. More death
could not be in Hiroshima or in Nagasaki either. Who should
bring this crater landscape with their deformed steel
frameworks and broken concrete blocks in order again? No,
even Fireland [Southern point of Chile] or Alaska would be
better.
[A postcard within Germany lasts 4 months]
Passing Hamm the train had a longer stay. I was throwing a
paper with the plea to write a postcard to my wife. The
finder was following my wish. The postcard arrived in
September [1945]. But in August already I was at home. Thus
the mail service was thus much slower than the pace of a
camel caravan being ridden by the couriers of Genghis Khan.
Considering the king of Persia Xerxes who had a fast mail
service from Stockholm to Messina within three days, and
this 2,500 years ago, then one can recognize the progress of
the technical period in which we were in 1945.
[Criminal "Americans" shooting on Hitler posters - criminal
"Americans" continuing their water torture - and rain]
An American had a Hitler poster hanging on the platform on a
railway wagon. In front of our eyes he began to shoot it
with his pistol [p.53]. It was obvious that he got angry
when nobody of us was laughing. It was a little bit late
what he was doing here, historically seen. This was not
brave, not a joke either. Pastor Müller in Grossdüngen had
had the courage to tell a joke to some hearts when it was
dangerous yet to spread jokes about Hitler. Roland Freisler
was sending a priest, and he was a rare case of eagerness
and will of character, to the guillotine. But the stupid
person from Chicago or from Los Angeles did not know
anything about this, otherwise he had conceived that this
simple brave action was leaving us nothing but cold. Perhaps
he had become just a respectable SS man or a Gestapo assist
when he had been born in Central Europe. Additionally we
were more interested in the water tap on the railway
platform. This water tap was trickling. We were addicted for
water with our tongues falling out of our mouths down to our
knees like sheepdogs on a hot summer day. But there were two
machine guns between it. Temporarily it was worth suffering
thirst yet. Later perhaps -
During the evening there was enough water then. There were
real floods of rain coming down into our open freight car.
We were holding the hands open which were not washed during
ten days and let them rain fully. Perhaps we were also
drinking dysentery with it. But we had no sorrow any more.
Who was part of the freight of the death was already
starving [p.54].
[Criminal "Americans" committing mass murder: mass death
in the wet freight cars]
The night was dreadful.
There was only little free floor surface which was reserved
for the ill persons who could not hold themselves upright.
They were laying there on iron and on wood somewhere with us
invisible in the wet darkness, half swimming in the rain
water which came from the sky without limits. Sometimes
there came a moaning of fever reaching us, from comrades who
were freezing in the face by the cold. Who did not stay it
out any more could die here without difficulties. He just
had to lay down giving up all resistance. And many were
taking this possibility in this night.
[Criminal SS regime: mass murder of Russians in open
freight cars in winter - Russians in Germany - help is
high treason]
Some years before there were also prisoners of war being
driven to the west. They were in freight cars without
heating passing the hardest winter. These were Russians from
the eastern front being sent to Germany. In these trains
also masses were killed as during the Black Plague in the
Middle Ages. The cold was playing the butcher then. Semjon
from Siberia was speaking a broken German, but he was very
angry telling me this. He was one of my battery assists on
the flak tower, a 2 cm battery. This was not an easy life.
The Russians [in the Third Reich] were something more than
slaves, but something less than prisoners. We were only
allowed to see them and to kick them in the pants. Later
when the situation was more earnest and when the Russian
assist was more precious we were not allowed any more to
kick them in the pants [p.55] but any human relationship was
a high treason. Of course this guideline could not not be
followed or only partly. I had an agreement with Semjon
which could be approved by my conscience alone. I made him a
thief. All food which was in the third box of my cupboard he
was allowed to steal. He was suffering a digestion illness
in his main camp. I could supply him white bread, some
butter, pudding, some eggs, also medicaments from time to
time. Of course he will not be allowed to tell this in
Russia, and of course I am not allowed to tell this in the
Third Reich with the exception of my wife. This was high
treason when he was allowed to take some food from a German.
It's really difficult to move as a human being between the
fronts without getting into danger of life.
[The Rhine bridge near Duisburg - acquaintances of Nowak
from the same town]
Some time the train was rolling over the Rhine bridge in
Duisburg. Rumors say that this was the only bridge of the
lower Rhine which was passable yet. Thus any flight to the
other side of the Rhine was blocked more or less. Because
how we look like? Even worse than any person from a jail,
worse than any gypsy, worse than any criminal, no one would
like to be with us. But do we want to flee? Has anybody fled
already? I don't believe that one of us was thinking about
this if there was any possibility to change the fate.
Provisionally we did not do anything, we were waiting [p.56]
what should happen with us. At the other side of the Rhine
bridge I am listening some minutes to the chattering of two
men next to me in the early morning. They are living in the
same town like me. The first is telling that he is a
typesetter in a newspaper house. In which publishing house,
I ask him. And it's turning out that it was the same house
where I myself was working for several years. Principally I
should know this man. He should remember me whereas it's 12
years in the past when I left the editorial department. What
is his name? What is my name? Of course we knew each other.
But by the ugly beards around our lips and chins we were so
deformed that we had to present each other with our names.
[Again food is thrown on our heads - little trip under
the threat of machine guns - pipe concert at Rheinberg
station]
Sunrise was coming. There is new food. Again as if a bag of
peanuts would be thrown into a monkey cage. The train
stopped. Now after having passed the Rhine we are allowed to
get out the first time walking on a free territory but from
all sides the machine guns are threatening us. Then we are
at Rheinberg station waiting for hours. there is wild
exchange of pipe signals. They have to replace all what was
the communication with signal towers, with telephones and
with telegraph equipments before [p.57].
We are standing in the cargo cars in the morning sun, wet,
hungry, freezing, shivering, the most miserable group of
lost humans lost by all good spirits in Europe.
In this morning before entering Rheinberg we were hosed the
first time and we did not believe in any future any more. We
had used our last reserved during the last two nights
[p.58].
^