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Josef Nowak:
Rhine meadow camp of Rheinberg
Chapter 24: Coming
home
Danger of typhus -- meadow camp in Weeze near Kleve
-- Klöckner Hall in Osnabrück -- a soccer ground --
forced labor in the British zone -- arrival of camp
comrade Gerd -- the rosebush in the ruins of the dome
of Hanover
from: Josef Nowak:
Seeded on the field. War prisoner in the home
land.
(German: Mensch auf den Acker gesät.
Kriegsgefangen in der Heimat, 1956)
translated by Michael Palomino (2013)
[Typhus in "Camp F" - 59 days
of quarantine - the "winners" can do in Germany what they
want]
-- You have got verdigris in your face. What's up with you?
I just came back from a short meeting of the "commanders".
My officers salary which I had got was half of a bread I
hold under my arm. What should be up? The departure home had
put into question again. There was the rumor that there was
typhus in the neighboring camp F. [Typhus was invented often
by the English occupation forces persecuting Germans, also
in the Hitchcock films about Bergen-Belsen typhus was
invented etc.].
Typhus provoked a quarantine of 59 days. This had just been
the last thing missing. I was afraid that we had to stay
through many mental crises or even suicides yet. One more
time to begin from the beginning, one more time waiting for
the end in thick fog? And what the winners will invent yet
against us in the meantime? They did not care about their
own resolutions at all. They could take other resolutions
every day, they could conclude agreements with each other.
And we could be the pocket money with which the charges had
to be payed.
[Departure without woolen blankets - 30 persons for each
lorry - German cooks and camp policemen are missing]
But typhus - if there had been any in the camp F - was not
appearing in our camp saving us. On July 30, 1945, we said
bye bye to the camp of Rheinberg. Before all was taken from
us, also the woolen blankets. Well, when this was the way
home - - -
But it was not a fast way for going home.
The way going home was organized. The soldier knows this,
knows what is awaiting him when the Wehrmacht [p.218] is
organizing. When I was a recruit in 1940 and then was put
indispensable (uk, unabkömmlich) during 6 weeks of
apprenticeship I had almost to make a trip from
Schleswig-Holstein to Varsovia first because my troop had
been lodged there. Later the general staff detected that I
also had been able to arrange leaving the troop in Hamburg.
When we had won the war, then we had been obliged to go to
Linz in Austria for getting the dismissal document for going
home. There were thousands of kilometers - back and forth.
In this way the general staff was deciding. Also Great
Britain had such general staff as we could notice soon.
There was one lorry for 30 men each. This quota was already
a sign for changing times. On the trip to the west 60 men
had been herded in one lorry. The English had their reasons
to drive us home. If they had put the hungry vermin on the
road then we had robbed all houses and farms like wolves. We
just had not violated any women, but we had taken any food
from the kitchens and cellars. It would not have been
advisable hindering us with this.
We were happy to leave Rheinberg, but we had a heavy fury in
our hearts not because of the memory of what we had stayed
through, but because of the fact that the British were
protecting their German servants. They did not gave [p.219]
us our fat cooks, our fat camp policemen on the lorry. We
had rather liked to throw them from bridges into channels or
on rail tracks. We had rather liked to see them being killed
under the wheels of British lorries. No one of them should
leave alive this place. All this we had sworn for ourselves.
The English made us weak. They had no sense for justice.
Thus an important work remained undone. Therefore we were
not so content but with a big fury leaving this spot.
[Meadow camp of Weeze near Kleve - criminal military
terrorism by a British adjutant - next hunger torture and
a night without housing]
We were under way just a wile already one of us suddenly
noticed that the morning sun was in our back. Damned, we
were not driving to the east but to the west. So where? To
Holland? To Belgium? To France? Were there needed more
forced laborers after having done nothing during six weeks
only having eaten? We were in an unrest, then in an
resignation, at the end apathetic. Then the new "home" would
be just a working camp in Normandy. We had lost the war.
Presumably we had housing there at least. When they wanted
that we should work well then they had also to feed us
better.
But soon the convoy reached it's goal. The location was
Weeze, a little village. Here was one of the big deposits
for human freights. And it was nothing more than an open-air
theater without barracks and without tents [p.220].
A well dressed Englishman just coming from his military
school had the command. As assists he had elected a German
sergeant who was giving orders in a very snappy way.
-- Line up, fast, fast!
We were very surprised to hear this. The war had not ended
yet?
-- Line up according to your size? the snappy was shouting.
We did just not conceive what the people coming home had to
do with their size, but he was shouting in this way:
-- Dismiss to the back side, fast, fast!
No, he was not joking when one could see this [stupid] face.
-- Line up in one line, fast, fast!
The snappy was proving as if it would be on the military
back yard of Potsdam. He was controlling if elbow was on
elbow, if toecap was on toecap, if the line was not forming
a basin and so on. All this would have been a serious danger
for our coming home.
With an impenetrable face the varnished Englishman (Tommy)
was standing aside being decorated with his crease. At the
end the snappy was half-way content. Being the boss of the
convoy I had to negotiate with him later. He was the most
disgusting piece of human I have ever seen when I was a
soldier or a prisoner. Why the English were taking him as a
puppet? This made us thoughtful.
Following the order wood and sheet [p.221] were given away
before the departure. Blankets and rain flies had been
robbed. In Weeze there was no comfort. The hand was formed
like the cup and like the plate. The fingers had to be the
knife, the fork, and the spoon. We had no vessel, not even
for one swallow of water. The night was cold. We were
sleeping one hour. Then we were waking up with shivering
teeth and with a horror. Then we were walking half an hour
back and forth getting warm again. Then we were lying down
again for one hour. Your poets who you are prising your
summer nights, you should sleep open-air first until you are
waking up in the soaking wet, not because of sweat but
because of the dew on your bodies. The whole poesy will go
then and you will wish a lousy straw sack in a smelly
barrack.
[Osnabrück: One night in the hall of Klöckner plant -
sandwiches from the nuns and from school children in
Telgte - the "sharks"]
From Weeze the convoy was heading to Osnabrück. This town
was the crossing of the railway lines, and was also the
crossing of the British convoys with prisoners of war. From
here they were going to the north and to the west, to the
south and to the east. Our hotel now was a hall of Klöckner
production plant. My God, what an evening! No barbed wire
could be seen. We were walking like free humans around. And
nobody took a flight. Everybody knew that there was a place
for him on a lorry the next morning. We were sleeping on the
concrete ground. We were sleeping on sheet plates, in just a
comfortable way, also without mattresses and without quilt
blankets because it was the last [p.222] night and we had
approached culture a little bit having a roof over us.
One more time I was thinking about the trip passing Munster
region. In a narrow street in the location of Telgte [near
Munster] there had been nuns and school children. They had
brought sandwiches on piles of several meters.
-- Hey, a young Berlin man was shouting, did you see this?
They had potato fritters - - -
The fate was merciful to him. The next corner the convoy had
to stop. One nun was handing us a pile of potato fritters.
The pious women and the little school girls were deforming
their eyes by the horror they was. They had never seen
sharks like this. The sandwiches and the fritters were
disappearing in the open mouths as if these had been bread
crumbs. Whatever was brought to us as a provision was not
enough. The convoy had 30 lorries [thus 900 men]. Thirty men
were looking with greedy eyes and hands for food. When the
sandwiches came flying through the air the sandwiches were
torn in the air yet. For us it had been a little matter to
strip the town bare. We had done this more profoundly than
grass hoppers. There was hardly any will to part the prey
honestly. And when someone tried to indicate some civilian
customs then he was cried down in an angry way [p.223]. Were
there also cooks and camp policemen in our souls? The first
time after such a short time I was doubting if it had been a
justified thing to throw the cooks and policemen from the
lorries being killed by the wheels of the following lorries.
Perhaps the Englishmen were really reasonable people. Who
knows. For sure something had been missed in this camp of
Rheinberg. But there is missed so much in this world - - -
[A soccer ground near Hanover]
It was not the last night of our captivity yet in Osnabrück.
There was one more night in Hanover on a soccer ground where
we had to sleep. But this was really the last one. We were
accepting this as sports activity.
[Hanover: master baker Schulze giving breads]
The next morning we were in our town, but not at home yet.
We were passing the town which we knew and loved. The
British drivers knew about geography. Every lorry was
stopping one second in front of the bakery of master baker
Schulze. He had a mountain of sandwiches piled on the
sideway. Two breads were coming in from the front and two
from behind on the lorry. This procedure was continued by
this man for weeks until the time of convoys was ending. His
own son was in captivity of war. He hoped that also he was
getting sandwiches - - -
[Meal in a brickyard - former BDM women leaders in
British service treating the people coming home in an
insulting way even robbing them]
We were brought to an old brickyard - again with ornaments
of barbed wire. now we learnt what was our new home land we
had not seen such a long time. Many young German ladies had
become the staff of the British administration already
[p.224], BDM leaders at their top. Such service gave special
rights. Our food for the day had consisted of the little
chocolate parcel how any prisoner knew. We thought that we
would get this now and then bringing this parcel as a
present for bride and children.
But the young German ladies had stolen everything in a very
mean kind of behavior. They had stolen our food for the
journey and now they were walking in the back yard of the
production plant back and forth coloring their red painted
lips with our chocolate. As a balance we got a tin bowl with
three centimeters of red cabbage and ten centimeters warm
water. Well, where were the capacities of these young ladies
for being the staff of the English? Their cooking qualities
could not be a reason for having recruited them. Just
casually we were conceiving that this female young people
had changed the side already and was on the side of the
winners and therefore they were permitted to treat the
people coming home like scoundrels.
[Forced labor in the British zone - practically without
substance - Third Reich is continuing - a writer should be
an assist on building sites]
A short time before reaching the state's registration office
(Einwohnermeldeamt) we have our climax of coming home. On
the order of the government's President a hired stupid of
incredible dimensions was greeting us. Also he was speaking
as a "winner" to us:
-- You were not brought home for having a leisure
time. You have come home for hard work from the first moment
on. Tomorrow you have to register [p.225] at the employment
office - in the morning. You have to accept any work you are
ordered. When you reject to do so what is ordered to you you
will be handed over to the occupation forces for a
punishment.
This he said to us when we could not half an hour work
normally without being dizzily. Thus also at home there were
cooks and policemen governing as in the camp. Democracy had
begun as it seems. They were welcoming us with the texts of
the Third Reich of which we thought that it had been
eliminated already. Thus all was there yet, in German and in
foreign heads at home. It was just not so simple to get rid
of Hitler. Human rights were lying again or yet under our
nailed boots.
Some days later I got to know the real situation - and it
was heavy. The director of the employment office was
appointing me as an assist on a building site. One has to
admit that there was a big lack of assists on building sites
otherwise one had not ordered the only writer of plays of
the whole district to do this. A writer? This is no
profession, explained the lady in the office, pardon, the
lady in the employment office. I had to obey, or - - -
Also my well estimated compatriot Götz von Berlichingen
could not help me in this situation. Thus I effected an
order of the British town's commander for leaving me in
peace [p.226]. Fortunately this commander was a literary
well educated man who was protecting me from the plebs.
[Arrival of a camp comrade Gerd]
Some weeks later at my home the bell was ringing. My friend
Gerd, a friend from the Rheinberg camp, had been deported to
Belgium. Now he was coming to my home. He was from Berlin
and could not go home and therefore had indicated my home as
his home. Now he was here and hold my hand and could not
speak because he was crying.
My wife and my daughter saw him and we were a little bit
helpless. Well, she thought about, these two men had heavy
days together. We would also cry in their situation. Finally
Gerd was normal again and was thanking me as if I had been a
patron saint. Just I had been the person who had saved his
life in Rheinberg in camp D. This he stated. He had had
dysentery and I had torn him to the entrance gate so an
"American" ambulance would find him and take him. I was
breaking down because I had been so weak, I had half borne
him, half torn him, until the action had been finished. And
the "Americans" had almost loaded me too because I had lied
there on there on the ground exhausted.
Hit is just beautiful when somebody is telling such good
works and is thanking for it. But I did not know anything of
it any more, not in those times, when Gerd was counting it
[p.227] remembering me, and also today it's not coming back
again. I just believe him, but there is not the slightest
remnant in my brain about that. Well, may be other persons
also have the same fate being mentally incompetent doing
best action in life. This is bewaring him from complacency
and from any mental arrogance.
[The destroyed dome of Hanover - rosebush blooming]
It was lasting just a while until I was visiting the dome
again. I just knew that the apsis in the east had been split
by an air mine. The 1,000 years old rosebush had been burnt,
buried, suffocated, by sand stones, by fluent plumb and by
glowing copper plates. This holy symbol of the town had been
destroyed. How should be the interpretation of this signal
for our future? I was climbing over the ruins reaching the
open graves of the bishops. What hat stayed of the splendor
of Carolingians, of Ottonians, of Salians? There was a high
wall looking like a swinging wall, and there were burnt
towers. But the cloister of two floors was easy to restore.
Apsis could be eliminated and reconstructed. And there was
the 1,000 years old rose at it's margin.
I cannot say it any more how long I was standing there
seeing this rose, first I did not want to believe it, and I
had not recovered from this dreadful dream. But what I saw
was just the truth.
The 1,000 years old plant had had a resistance from the
falling stones [p.228] and from all firing metal. It had
formed new sprouts heading for the apsis. And there were
some eight or ten pale rose stars. But is was alive. It was
blooming [p.229].
^