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Josef Nowak: Rhine meadow camp
of Rheinberg
Chapter 6: Final
station Rheinberg
"American" torture
with race and beatings -- bombing of the tank
deposit of Misburg - detainees and fire truck --
the meadow -- the torture of the criminal
"Americans" without end in a camp without anything
from: Josef Nowak:
Seed on the field. War prisoner in the home land
(German: Mensch auf den Acker gesät.
Kriegsgefangen in der Heimat)
translated by Michael Palomino (2013)
[Criminal "Americans": again
torture with race and with beatings - the next field is
trampled down]
Come on! Snell! Snell! Snell! Snell! [Fast! Fast! Fast!
Fast!]
The prisoners had to jump from the freight cars on the
embankment, they were stumbling, falling, coming up on their
feet again, they are pushing mutually down the slope, they
are twisting their ankles, they are falling one above the
other, they are coming up again, they are racing forward,
they are forming moving groups, they are dissolving the
group, they are urging each other, they are pushing each
other. Who is behind is taking the flight from the beatings
forward. Who is forward is running straight ahead somewhere
where is nothing watching every moment because any moment
the machine gun fire could begin. It seems as if a buffalo
herd would be hunted in the prairie.
-- Snell! Snell! Snell! Snell! But more German the drivers
did not learn.
[1944 apr.: remembering a bombing of tank deposits in
Misburg near Hanover - detainees in zebra uniforms and the
fire brigade]
Where have I seen such a persecution in my life before?
It was in Misburg. Not far from this town. The streets are
always full of dust of cement. There was my battery, the
flak tower. This flak tower had to protect the oil refinery.
One day I was as a courier in Hanover and was returning to
my position by bike. Just reaching the urban fringe of
Misburg the sirens were giving alarm. I know what this
means. Bombing attack is coming already. In the refinery
[p.64] work is not stopped before the first bomber groups
reach the limit to throw their bombs.
I was speeding with my bike with the highest pace passing
the main gate of the refinery when this gate was slowly
opening itself always more and more. And then a massive
queue of human beings in striped clothes was coming out.
There are simple prisoners with them, also convicts, but
also prisoners of concentration camps of all classes. I
don't know the details about the zebra uniforms of misery
and shame. Only much later I got to know that the real
criminal had a green stripe, the politician had a red one,
Jews had a yellow one, Bible searchers had a blue one,
homosexuals had a violet one.
This humiliated mass of human beings war running for their
lives. The faces are deformed by fear. In their eyes sorrow
of death is expressed. This life, is it precious yet, it is
worth to save it? The masses of slaves of the dictator are
throwing themselves on the road in their despair as if the
earth behind them would burn. They know that the bombs are
under way, are making noise of rustling and gurgling over
their heads already.
Devil, now I can also see a striped woman -
I have to come down from my bike. No, this is wrong, I
cannot drive any more, I am enclosed, I am only a helpless
piece of life in this human hurricane. I cannot see anything
but heads and shoulders. They will trample me to death soon.
Why shouldn't they do it? No, there [p.65] is no feeling of
animosity, of hatred. Certainly they detect me as a man with
another uniform, but just another poor dog. And now they
think about their own life, not about my life.
But now the factors of order are having effect. Complete
loads of lorries with SS men are coming now. There are ten,
twelve, twenty fire brigades coming fast. Here is the spot
of life for the eastern front. Police troops, construction
groups, medical corps are coming from all corners and ends.
Save the oil tanks, save the machinery. The "Führer" wants
it. Misburg must not be destroyed. What is coming there from
8,000 meters of height this is the first group of a complete
bomber division. The are not throwing badly. One oil tank
after another is exploding. And the oil is burning in the
spirals of fire of red and black color, with 100s of meters
of height.
I use this first opportunity for breaking out to the side
from this caos of the chased people reaching the free field.
SS lets me pass. I am biking on on my bike fast over hedge
and ditch crossroads through the cattle fields passing old
and fresh bomb craters always to the east, only leaving this
hell. That it exists I was told already. Now I had seen it
the first time, the striped dancers of the dead of Misburg.
[Rheinberg: where is the camp? - it is the meadow itself]
here in Rheinberg I cannot break out [p.66] to the side.
This time I am myself a member of the striped whereas I had
had been qualified for a red stripe then [as a political
prisoner] and today I should be free because of this. But
this is not important for the terrible mentally retarded
from overseas. When it was described in Lessing's book
"Nathan": "Do nothing, the Jew will be burnt", then for the
situation here the text would be: "Do nothing, the German is
catched and beaten."
And one should not protest in this situation. They had their
guidelines, their categories, they imported their doctrines
of race and classes. They were fulfilling their political
dogma like the council of Nicea was keeping the equality of
Christ and God Father.
I am pushed and I am pushing, an irresistible wave. Where
the Devil will be the damned camp of Rheinberg? Somewhere it
has to be. No barrack can be seen, no tent, no wooden fence,
nothing. Thus will be a march? How long? Where? Behind on
the right, just far far away can be seen a gray movement of
another wave. Are these also - - - Yes, they are prisoners.
But how many? Goodness Sake, is united here the complete
German army? There at the left side it seems also to be like
this. There is the union of another army group.
From time to time - from horizon to horizon - there are big
groups waving from one side to the other side. In this way
it had to be in Lapland when the reindeer were moving.
Suddenly the branding [p.67] wave was collapsing and is
halting and urging back with force. Lorries with black
Americans are encircling us and are installing barbed wire
like a huge snake. The bubbling mass is orienting itself, is
streaming to the opposed direction and is coming back again
at the end where are the lorries, the fast Negroes and the
barbed wire.
Now they are conceiving step by step what is happening here.
We are caged. Here is Rheinberg on this clover field. Here
is the camp, under our feet it is, with the fresh grass and
in the young seed. Here the 20th century is creating a new
superlative, the biggest refugee camp of all times.
[Criminal "Americans": torture without end against
Germans with a camp without anything]
The Negroes are working fast. Have they learnt this with
Himmler, or with Berija? Or is the handling of barbed wire
simply one of their capacities of the technical age? Faster
than Gestapo or NKWD the Americans were installing a penal
camp for a quarter of a million persons. Well this is not so
difficult indeed. Rejecting the installations of housing,
light, kitchen, water and even latrines only working with
motorized barbed wire then the possibilities of caging
people are without limits.
And now we are celebrating the first night in Rheinberg,
tight to the bosom of Earth in calm under the sky of stars
as a feather bed over us. We are laying there like the
thrown wool of [p.68] the universe, like faded leaves blown
together from the mountains by the wind.
We feel that this here is a dumping ground after a
catastrophe, and we are the garbage being eliminated from
the ruined towns being thrown aside [p.69].
^