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Josef
Nowak: Rhine meadow camp of Rheinberg
Chapter 12: Farewell
of an old man
Falling on the head -- "American" mass murder and
field of dead bodies with German prisoners of war --
the "old man" forgets to leave an address
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)
[Vitamin deficiency and falls
on the head]
It was lasting some time until hunger was damaging every
part of the human body. There were stomach pains, head
pains, there was a dizziness, but these are just bearable
things yet. Somewhere are some reserves stored yet, even in
a not fattened body, and then these deposits are consumed
slowly. But one day there is nothing left. Vitamin supply is
coming down to almost zero. Proteins, fats and carbohydrates
are left out. Now you can make your biological and
physiological studies with your own mortal casing. And you
will conceive with all clearness that this hunger which was
imposed against you is a mean crime against human nature.
Whereas you give only a little part of the daily need to
your stomach and intestine you suffer of chronic digestion
disorder. Fresh food is never given at all. The first
indications of scurvy are coming. Stomach illnesses of all
kind are occurring with their first symptoms. All this is
only strange in the beginning, an enigma, not conceivable.
But soon you come behind it that here is a big crime against
your life.
One morning I am waking up in the sun, sleepy, tired,
without any will. But nature pleads for it's [p.116] right.
I have to look for the place for it. I am standing up fast
as I am accustomed to it. Some seconds later I get aware of
what had happened. I was falling into the sand with my head,
headfirst. There is a little cavity in the ground now, this
is the testimony of it. I am smiling in a little bit an
embarrassed way, I am almost ashamed that I am such a
weakling. But nobody is noticing anything. The glances
hitting me are not because of me. I could also be in a
museum full of Egyptian or Gothic statues.
[Mass murder of criminal "Americans" - the field of dead
bodies]
I am standing up one more time, this time in a slowly way,
in a deplorable way step by step. First I am prostrating,
and then I am erecting myself as it wold be a procession
like a very old patriarch who had fallen in the street. I am
walking with little humble steps passing the camp, not
straight, but on a path like a snake passing the arms of the
people lying there. I had not the force for a march any more
because I was always fighting for the balance. The humans
are on the ground as if there had been an artillery fire, on
their belly, on their back, on the side, with stiff limbs
like deads, but also in deformed positions, stretched out,
curled up, with closed eyes or with half opened eyes, not
being part of the world any more and probably not at all
seeing anything. Like the trees in the High Black Forest
(Hochschwarzwald) after a storm, broken, crushed, in this
manner they are lying there. There was no mean any more to
cause them to be part of life (p.117] than this: holding
them some bread, some meat, something eatable in front of
their teeth.
Just before my feet there is a lean body. It seems having
been stiffly frozen despite of the warm spring air. The
tendons of his feet are without force now. The tips of the
feet have fallen to both sides and are almost touching the
ground. The eyes are in a fixed position gazing to the sun.
They are not suffering any damage any more. They are
belonging to a dead person. Nobody has found the time to
close his eyes yet. I am not doing this either. I am glad to
be upright. I don't want to suffer one more fall on my head.
Therefore I am passing by going on my way. I just have
something to do. Only that's why I was standing up.
[Hardly control of the own legs by the hunger torture and
undernourishment]
Coming back from the latrine I am deciding to evade this
dead person. I don't want to see him any more. I can give
him neither a coffin nor a funeral car nor a priest. But
with me it's going on like a beginner on the bicycle now.
Like the person ramming an obstacle with the safety of a
night walk whereas he is seeing the obstacle from fifty
meters already. In this way I am almost falling over the man
who has laid himself to rest there. the brain has nothing to
order any more anyway. The legs are moving without control
in their own way and they are ordered by an unsearchable
mechanism.
[Blackout of the memory by hunger torture and
undernourishment]
I remember me of a custom that I had [p.118] got to know as
a child already in a little town in Upper Swabia. When there
is a person dying on the deathbed the Christian person has
to pray a Lord's Prayer. Let's pray thus, a Lord's Prayer
who You are in the sky, holy is your name - let the devil
take it, I am not remembering the whole thing. The seven
pleas do not want to be composed any more. The memory is on
strike. It is not working any more. It is protesting against
the undernourishment. I try to cite it in Latin, in Greek,
in Gothic, in French, in Italian, in Spanish, I can find
there a rag, there a rag of the Christian Western world, but
a Lord's Prayer cannot be formed of it. Misery is teaching
praying. I am catching myself in a way so I am loudly
laughing. Some people around on the ground are looking at
me, not blaming me, but knowing. They have already an idea
that my life will soon be ended. Misery is teaching praying
- when this would be true then we had had more prayers than
in any Trappist convent.
[Philosophy about an "old man" a short time before dying]
-- Old man, now I remained guilty not having given you the
last will and I will have a bad consciousness for my life.
What should the farmers from Upper Swabia think of me where
I learnt so beautiful popular customs? Old man, your face is
as if it had been formed out of a gray stone. Death is the
first sculptor on Earth. He is forming of the most simple
material, from the most empty face a honorful form yet. Old
man, you are looking like an old man from the last defense
from Volkssturm, sixty years old. Now [p.119] the big storm
tide brought you to Rheinberg. Somewhere you just had to
die. Why not here? Are you a Silesian, or from the Marc, or
a man from Eastern Prussia? Who should I see this in your
gray hair, in your almost white beard? Where you were living
around, old man? here on the Lower Rhine? Or the hunger was
converting you into such an old man and you perhaps passed
the polar sea until Rowaniemi [town in northern Finland]?
Have you fled from Prague and you were at the eastern front
until the western front was melting down? Was it your fate
being given to the Americans in Saxony or in Turingia or you
have succeeded to take the flight over Elbe River in the
last minute passing the modern river of fate?
[More prisoners of war falling on their heads]
Oh, well, like this it is, I think then. There at the other
side was another person falling on his head. Now he is just
in a disorder and stupid as I had been before. Next time
when he is standing up he will also take more care.
[Familiar members thinking that the "old man" had died in
Russia]
-- Old man without name, now they will take you away soon
and then they will bury you. No one knows your name. Nobody
can ask you any more. Asking others would be without sense.
And after all it's just not important if you are buried with
an alien name or with no name at all. You are de-registered,
you are logged out. Perhaps your children will think, your
grandchildren, will think some years yet that you had
remained in Russia. But [p.120] when you don't write at all
- - -
Russia is big. Russia is wide. Who should have the perverse
thought that you, a fighter of the eastern front having
passed half of Russia with his boots, would be the unknown
dead of the Lower Rhine? When some day somebody is pleading
for your body, then he will plea for it certainly at the
wrong location.
[More falls on the head]
Once more another one is falling there. Hunger is doing it's
proper work. As if there would be a stick and everyone
having the courage for standing up would be beaten on the
skull. Thus I am not the only moan bag here in the camp.
It's strange how hunger is making us equal making falls on
the head on the same day as if there would be an order. This
can heal you from any vanity. You are just nothing special
on this cemetery of illusions. You are just a normal poor
devil and you have fallen on the head just like other
thousands of poor devils.
[The "old man's" farewell]
-- When you are never writing then, old man of the last
defense of Volkssturm, then your wife will think - with whom
you had had the celebration of golden wedding - that you had
died in Courland or on Moldova River. I can understand you
very well, old man, you simply had no will any more, you
simply rejected to wake up. What for? For suffering more
hunger? No, no, this cannot be called a suicide. But
confess, you finished with your life very consciously by
tiredness and hopelessness, you stopped your own [p.121]
heart. Isn't it, it has was like this? You were coming down
to the original art of an animal and of a primitive human
being dying at the right time without noise. And now you got
such a head of a majesty thus one is becoming almost
dignified. Perhaps I should give you not a Lord's Prayer but
a tear. But I have to spare everything. There is nothing to
drink here for replacing wasted liquids. And why should
there be something crying at all? You did perform your
farewell from Rheinberg in a way expressing the highest
distance. For the Americans it's not just flattering how you
are thinking about them. And one cannot eliminate the
despite again which is fixed in your face.
[More falls on the heads]
As I want to go home at least to my earth hole and to my
neighborhood I am looking over the camp a little bit. There
has come some movement into the mass. It's time to get food.
All is getting up. But my God, search for your original
memory which is older than the watch of the oldest
ancestors. Search if you had seen such a theater once in
your life. It is as if hundreds of thousands are suffering
epilepsy (falling sickness) from the same night on.
Everywhere I see nothing but falls on the head. It's a
horrible cabaret show which is produced here. It is a
falling army of acrobats or of jumping jacks making trouble
here. When Edvard Grieg had seen it before [p.122] he had
composed the dance of trolls in the hall of the mountain
king, then this music had been more dreadful yet, even
wilder yet.
[The "old man" did not leave any address]
-- Old man, you did not accept it any more. You don't have
any idea, you inconsiderate died person how much life is in
such a heap died of hunger. You did sneak away too early.
Not even documents you left, not even an address of your
family. You have no name, dead body. But who knows if one
had put it on your grave. Some days ago on the other side a
person was suffocating in a hole. This person did not have
any name either. He looked like as if aunts were pulling
another aunt from the building. The dead person was dragged
to the gate. There will be hands to drag you there. Have a
good trip to the Last Judgement. When I can compose the
Lord's Prayer I will think of you with pleasure whereas you
did retire into your stiffness without vacation and we were
loosing the balance performing the hunger ballet in the wire
cage [p.123].
^