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Rape of Christian
Europe - By Elizabeth Lutz During the last months of World War II, with the blessing of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the Red hordes of Josef Stalin surged, raping and killing, through Eastern Europe and half of Germany. The fate of the hapless civilians - mostly women, children and the elderly - was kept from the American people lest they question the sanctity of "our great ally." Following is the story of one woman who lived to tell the truth. Dr. Austin J. App, one of the deans of revisionism, who first published this testimony, said: "Talking over the various points with the narrator, and correlating her story with other sources, convinced me that here was a remarkably sober, restrained account of the incredible tragedy inflicted on the women of Christian Europe; the brutal mass violation and slave abuse of hundreds of thousands of German, Austrian and Hungarian women by the proverbial Eurasian hordes whom Christian Europe had managed to keep out for a thousand years, but whom American Unconditional Surrenderists Yalta-ed into the middle of Europe - into Berlin, Vienna and Budapest.
In the fall of 1943 the legal division of the German cabinet, of which my husband, Dr. Thomas Lutz, was head, had to be transferred to the idyllic little town of Berbitz, east of the Oder River, because of the continuous air raids on Berlin. Other departments were moved to smaller towns in Pomerania or Thuringia. We found a second floor apartment in a house outside of town and managed to move practically all transportable objects except for larger pieces of furniture. In this way we thought we had saved our things from the war. Had I the slightest premonition of the tragedy that awaited me in Berbitz, then in the summer of 1944 (when my husband was drafted into the army and sent to the coast of the North Sea with the naval artillery) I should have returned to Berlin, despite the bombings. As it was, I depended on the assurances of the government that we would be evacuated in trucks in due time, should danger of an invasion from the East at any time threaten us. Up to the very last we simply could not believe that we would be sacrificed to the Russians. But, as we learned later, the Ministry of Propaganda had prohibited the evacuation of the population east of the Oder so as not to provoke panic among the German people. [The narrator uses the word "Russian" to mean any member of the Soviet Red Army. The first Soviet units to enter the town of Berbitz were from Soviet Asia and the troops were not ethnic Russians - Ed.] Neither did I know that many people, better informed than I about the true situation in January 1945, had sacrificed their homes and left with the last trains. It is true that one saw daily columns of refugee transports moving through the town, coming from further East - people who could have warned us better than anyone else. But the cold was so intense and the snow lay several feet deep, so that the horses could hardly get through, to say nothing of an individual human being with a heavily laden hand-sled. In one transport alone, the last to pass through, 16 tiny children were frozen to death. They had to be buried in Berbitz. When there was no longer any doubt that the Russians would be coming soon and that escape was no longer possible, we women folk seated ourselves together and consoled ourselves with the thought that the Russian army would merely pass by on the way to Berlin, perhaps leaving only a few occupying soldiers in the town. In case of emergency we had some potatoes and other vegetables cached away, whereas in Berlin, even though our homes might still be intact, we should have had no food whatsoever. On January 29,1945 I left our house on the hill, portable typewriter in my hand, and started for work. As a young married woman without any children, I was obliged to work as a secretary. All the shops were closed and in front of the Post Office, where I stopped to post a letter to my mother in Bavaria, an officer of the Volkssturm (mostly draftees and late-in-the-war volunteers; consisting of the very young and very old) was giving some young men instructions in the use of a Panzerfaust, a hand held anti-tank weapon. Another man in uniform stood at attention with a machine pistol. When I arrived a little later at the corner house in the Freudenbergerstrasse, where my artist friend, Helen Bärwald, lived, I found all the residents in the cellar. Freudenberger Allee had already been attacked by artillery fire and Russian armored cars had driven past. I induced my friend Helen to bring all she could carry and come to my apartment. The next morning the first Russians entered the house. They were a detachment of four men wearing thick fur caps and padded winter jackets. As a precaution, the landlord, Mr. Grebmann, had lined the vestibule with liquor bottles in the naive hope that his house might thereby be spared from ransacking. To the succeeding troop of slant-eyed Mongolians, the tenants brought their jewelry and watches. Hysterical, Mrs. Friedel embraced one of the greasy Kirgis and drank with him from the same bottle, and the elderly Mr. Grebmann patted them familiarly on the back. In short, they enacted a disgusting brotherhood scene which could not but nauseate Helen and me. However, this whole degrading exhibition naturally did not hinder these soldiers from ransacking the house and "liberating" what they liked. One of the Mongolians held up my Tom's tall leather boots triumphantly, the other one put my rings into his pants pocket. Although the rings I had laid out for them were only my second best set, I retrieved them immediately while he was looting around in a drawer. I thought, and rightly so, that I could perhaps make good use of them another time. Scarcely had this second detachment left the house and we were beginning to breathe freely, when fists once more thundered at the door: thus it kept up the whole day. The house doors were not permitted to be locked any more. Each took what he wanted either in a more or less harmless or in a malicious way. Soon we and the Russians were wading knee-deep in thrownaround clothing, laundry and bits of smashed dishes. Helen and I were the first Germans, I guess, to go outside the next day in an attempt to run down to the burning town in the hope of possibly retrieving this or that from [the home where Helen had been living]. Though the ceiling above us was still burning, we were able to get into the rooms on the street floor and snatch at random what lay near or what was especially dear to Helen. Although we encountered wild-looking fellows everywhere, we tried two other times to get to the village and into the house before the walls collapsed. We did manage to drag a number of things into the garage, which was still standing, and some other things Helen took with her. The major effort, however, was that of salvaging from the smoking cellar canned goods and preserved vegetables, meat and fruit for Mr. and Mrs. Nieser, who were too scared to leave their asylum at Grebmann's to fetch the things themselves. We realized that food would be at a premium in the future; consequently we labored so determinedly to salvage it, the more so since we were promised a portion of it. The terrific task of dragging one rack wagon after another up the hill, the sight of a totally destroyed town, the scurrying of terrified people, the house being continuously ransacked by Russians and the prospect of a night without rest and security had, even during the first day, physically overtaxed us. A few days later, when we had learned from bitter experience that the Russians were not at all fastidious about women, and did not let themselves be scared off by shabby clothing, I put a pillow beneath my clothes to effect a hunchback and Helen hobbled around on a stick. As soon as a new detachment of Russians entered the house noisily, we squatted trembling about the round table in Grebmann's living room. One of the soldiers sat at the table with us with pistol disengaged and demanded schnapps or vodka, while the others rummaged around the house. It was a most uncomfortable roundtable, at which no one dared to speak. We women sat with downcast eyes and lowered head. Someone had told us never to look a Russian in the eye, otherwise we would be lost. Two houses from where we lived, the owners had taken in some young girls and women from the town. These had to suffer violation every time a new detachment of soldiers came up the hill to the undamaged houses. Before long the inside of the house looked as if a band of robbers had lived there and that was about the literal truth. The fellows had cut the beds up into little pieces, slit open the upholstered chairs, thrown the furniture around; had slashed pictures, despoiled books, cracked eggs against the wall; had poured liqueur over the rugs, torn curtains down, and scattered the entire contents of all the closets and drawers all over. One of the most painful shocks for me was to see how two of the ruffians with their heavy boots kicked the chest in which I had my beautiful porcelain wrapped in tissue paper and cotton wadding. They were all treasured pieces from Meissen, Sevres, Copenhagen, Naples, Nymphenburg, Berlin - elephants with saddle-cloth, dancers with lace skirts, rococo figures, colored cups, birds and other animals, sweetmeat services, bonbon dishes, receptacles with beautiful hand painting, fruit dishes and cake platters, all in the most exquisite style. My most beautiful piece, a Meissen container in delicate form, was used by one of them as a toilet. Fortunately I had been able to rescue two trunks of things. Once I buried them in the garden in the snow. Another time I dragged them into the cellar, later to the roof and finally, as the snow was beginning to melt, under the coal in the shed. Once I appeared just as the Russians were emptying my knapsack onto the floor, in which I had hidden all my identification papers, personal papers and photos and my purse and money which I thought safely concealed in a faraway corner of the room. They tossed the papers into a pitcher of sour milk. They had also taken an ax and smashed open the gigantic chest which was standing in the cellar of the house, the total belongings of relatives of our landlady, evacuated from East Prussia. It contained irreplaceable materials, jewelry, crystal and so on; all this the ruffians stole or completely destroyed. The following day we learned that
Mr. and Mrs. Hahn had taken poison the very night the
inferno started. Mr. Hahn had been a friend of my husband
and it had been one of the most consoling thoughts to know
that he was in the same town with us. We had hoped to be
able to rely on his support should we have needed it, and
now we discovered that he and his wife had passed on before
us. Sadly we turned again toward town to take a look whether
the Hahn house was still standing and if the rumor was
really true. Since our own The house in which the Hahns had lived was still standing, but devoid of people. Gently we mounted the stairs and opened the living room door. A deathly sweet odor pervaded the entire room. Everything was desolate and demolished, but on the table were still standing two glasses and nearby lay some pills. By her bed we found Mrs. Hahn, lying on her face, dead. As we turned her over, we caught the most horrifying expression on her features. From the fall she had received a bloody wound. We rolled the heavy body in a carpet and left it lying, as we wanted first of all to inquire about her husband in the hospital up on the hill. In the hospital where the Sisters [i.e., Catholic nuns] were running about with distraught faces - not even they had been spared the lust of the Russians - we found in an indescribably desolate room, Peter Hahn. In the other three beds were more suicide cases. One of them was gasping his last, another was all blue, even to his dangling arms. The third was completely covered up with a blanket. Mr. Hahn lay there, a picture of wretchedness such as I shall never forget as long as I live. The stone floor under the bed was sopping wet. The coat that lay over him hung down in a pool of water. His face was clammy; he couldn't even open his eyes, for the poison had blinded him. And yet he was alive. As he became aware that someone was standing by his bed, and when we told him who we were, he was unmistakably glad that someone had cared enough to search for him. He kissed our hands and whispered to me that I should tell "Tom he had always been a good friend and wanted only the best". Gropingly he asked if we knew anything about his wife. When we said she had died, he breathed easier. Despite our own wretched condition - we hadn't been able to eat for days, since the Russians had meanwhile battered to pieces our hard-earned preserves, and we hadn't been able to sleep at night - we started out once more to his dwelling to try to get a blanket for him. The sight of him in the hospital had been sickening, for whoever had known that man as a fine, stately gentleman would scarcely have been able to identify him in bis present condition. The next day Helen and I set out to fetch Mrs. Hahn's body. The physical burden of carrying the dead woman inside the carpet down the stairs and placing it in the rack wagon was in itself staggering. I laid the spray of evergreen, which stood in a vase on the table, over the body. Thus through the stream of Russian autos, armored cars, horses, dirt and mud, we drove to the graveyard at the end of the town the remains of one who had been such a pampered wife. At the cemetery we found a huge mass grave dug; the number of deaths from suicide being so many, the corpses lying about on the streets had apparently been gathered so that a huge pile of them lay ready to be shoveled into a common grave. We unloaded the pathetic body and placed it to one side, hoping somehow to be able to procure a coffin from the cabinet-maker. We felt that it would be comforting to poor old Mr. Hahn to know that his wife had a grave of her own. Luckily I got the last coffin from the shop for 70 marks, and that afternoon we wearily pulled it along in an old cart and laid the body of the dead woman in it. Those designated by the Russians as grave-diggers had promised us that they would, without fail, dig a separate grave for Mrs. Hahn. With that promise we left the graveyard with a feeling of satisfaction in our hearts. The following night Russian soldiers forced their way into the house again and though we ran swiftly downstairs - we were always fully dressed - we did not succeed in reaching the common living room. Three youths cut us off and pushed us up the stairs again after beating back Mr. Grebmann, who had tried to help us. Quaking in our boots we decided that our hour had come. There was no longer any way of escape, since the most revolting fellow imaginable, with barber's itch, on which he had smeared white cream, had bolted the door. I tried to convince my partner that I was having my "bad days" and cried out: "ja balet, ja balet," which meant "I sick, I sick." However, he only let me go after he had personally convinced himself of the truth of my statement. But Helen had to suffer her fate on the couch nearby. Then blustering and swearing, the three of them went out. Shortly thereafter more heavy steps could be heard approaching on the stone steps in front of the house, and we chased downstairs at a mad run. I had disguised myself again, but Helen had no time to put on her shawl, so her blond hair streamed over her shoulders. The same three ruffians came in again and lighted up all faces present with their flashlights. From fear I had seated myself as close to Mr. Nieser as possible, who was half scared to death himself and offered me little protection. This time the brazen fellow with the barber's itch stepped up boldly and accused the landlord of harboring a German officer in the house. He brandished a pistol around and finally pulled Helen up from her chair and threw her out. When she came back in she told how, outside in the snow, all three had fallen over her. After that night's experience we firmly decided that we would no longer stay in that house, especially after we learned that the woman in the first house in the row, who had until now been our salvation, had taken in Russian officers as permanent guests, so that they would no longer have to fear the roaming hordes. In desperation we thought of the evangelical church committeeman, who lived farther up near the edge of the woods. We hurried to his house. Just as we arrived this dearly beloved pastor was being carried lifeless through the garden gate, while his white-haired wife, chalk white and hysterical, stood at the front door. He had taken the risk of holding a service in the town for the consolation of his suffering flock. While at the altar he was shot down from behind. Miserably depressed, we went back into town, hoping to find an empty corner in the home of Mr. Barend, the baker, whose house had been spared. From all appearances the Russians had their headquarters there; there seemed to be lively activity in the cafe from which voices and accordion music were issuing forth. We learned from one of the baker's journeymen, who was forced to bake for the Russians, that Barend with his wife and married daughter, who was soon to have a baby, had attempted to flee over the icy lake to a rest house in the woods, which had not yet been discovered by the Russians. The little group, however, had hardly started out when they were overtaken by the Russians. Despite the kneeling entreaties of the baker, both women were violated there in the cold and then sent back to town. Through the dreadful excitement the young mother suffered a premature confinement, unattended by a midwife or doctor, and lay with a high fever in the noisy house. Luckily we soon met Mr. Wendler, whom we knew from eating with us at the same table in the hotel where all the evacuees, who had no kitchen facilities of their own, used to eat. He was standing in front of a mountain of rubble that was once a hotel. When we told him our story, he was at once ready to offer us shelter for the next night. He lived with his family in a former stable of a large estate which, from the outside, looked more than modest. On the ground floor it revealed only a kitchen and one room, but upstairs it contained two nice rooms which he had furnished tastefully with the furniture he had managed to bring with him from Berlin. From below one could not imagine that the storeroom was likewise habitable, and the Russians so far had not discovered this fact. Besides, his dwelling and his family enjoyed the protection of the Russian commandaturea. Mr. Wendler had represented himself to them as a victim of the Nazi regime, and on the basis of his knowledge of Czech had declared himself a Czech. As a matter of fact, he had been classified as a Mischling, Grade I, that is, as a half-Jew in the Third Reich because his father had been a Jewish manufacturer from Prague and his mother had been Dutch. Since he was manager of a firm manufacturing dental equipment, he had, like myself, been evacuated from Berlin to the bomb-safer Berbitz.[1] Because he was also competent in the manufacture of technical dental materials, such as crowns and bridges, he had attached himself to the Danish dentist resident in Berbitz. Now he and the dentist were rushed fashioning gold crowns for the healthy molars of the Russians, for every Bolshevik soldier who had been able to "requisition" enough gold for himself, ordered at least several gold crowns for himself. It was thanks to this happy idiosyncrasy that the family Wendler, as the only ones besides the dentist, did not have their home looted and were given some victuals by the invaders. Nevertheless, in spite of this, Mr. Wendler thought it wise to keep his 16-year-old daughter hidden in the loft. We fetched our blankets from our old quarters and in Mr. Wendler's house on straw sacks were able to get a night's rest, the first in a long time. We surely needed it. Next morning, as I approached our house on the hill, a hostile attitude seemed to meet me on all sides. Our usually dignified landlady was behaving like a fury. In the night three Russians had again been there and ransacked the house looking for us. They had kicked up a terrible row when they could not find us and demolished the place in a dreadful manner. In the process they had thrown Mrs. Friedel on the floor, disregarding the fact that she held her child in her arms, and abused her in front of all present. If Helen and I weren't going to sleep there at night, we were not going to be allowed to go there during the day. My pale protest that surely we couldn't allow ourselves to be violated in order to spare her house was not acceptable to her and she threw me bodily out of the door. At the point of despair I packed a big basket with a few possessions, some clothes and rolled my (fur) coat with the lining turned outside and hung it over my shoulder. When I put Helen wise to the situation, she too packed her only remaining suitcase, the Russians having stolen her other one, as well as her valuable astrachan [sheep skin] coat. Her expensive jewelry seemed safer when not on her person, so she had hidden it under some gutter tiles. Thus we stood laden down, with the thermometer reading 20 degrees, out on the snowy streets, not knowing where to go. At the moment we felt very much forsaken and outcast, and dragged ourselves wearily from house to house to beg for shelter. No one wanted us, since young women were a fearful burden and hazard for anyone. I left the basket with Mrs. Raff, the doctor's wife, an elderly lady whom I had been friendly with in better times. She was the wife of a lord of the manor with four large estates which lay in the vicinity of Berbitz. The preceding Christmas, Helen and I had celebrated with that lady in a festive and ceremonious manner, and we younger ones, longing for our husbands who were at the front, had read their letters aloud. Now we learned from Mrs. Raff that the Russians had deported her husband and thrown him in a dungeon with many other landed persons, designating them as "capitalists." We couldn't stay with her because her own dwelling had been burned to the ground and she was living in a nearby villa only by virtue of the kindness of the owners. Therefore we trudged disconsolately on, so weakened by the burden of our rucksack and trunk that we went into old Mr. Sadenschwig's house, on which only the basement was left, and deposited our things with him. No one could, of course, assume responsibility for them since the Russians spared no dwelling. One hardly knew why one bothered to take one's belongings anyway, since they were certain, sooner or later, to be pillaged. Mr. Wendler gave me to understand that he had assured the Russian commandatura that he would allow no Germans in his house. He was afraid to jeopardize his own position, especially through the presence of Mrs. Helen Bärwald, who, because of her unusual height, would certainly be noticed. So Helen and I decided to part. She hoped to try to find room in a temporary shelter with the wife of a business colleague of her husband, and I prepared to go back to Mr. Sandenschwig and fetch my knapsack containing my money and papers. Just as I got there a band of marauders forced their way in, threatening him at the point of a pistol to hand over his watch, although he had long ago been robbed of it. Being totally unable to help him, I stole my rucksack from under the noses of those monsters and ran out of the house with it. At Wendler's house door, Helen nearly knocked me down and yelled at me: "We are being deported. I have to get to the corner of Freudenberger Allee in two minutes or I will be shot". We couldn't even shake hands to say good-bye. I quickly threw my blanket to her, then she raced away. Just after that I learned from Mr. Wendler that posters had gone up ordering all employable men and women to be at the main square by 12 o'clock. Who remained behind would be shot. I still had time carefully to pack my rucksack with toilet articles, a handkerchief, and some change of clothing. I hung my jewelry and money around my neck in a leather bag next to the skin. The screaming, wailing and howling in the square will haunt me the rest of my life. Mercilessly the women were herded together in rows of four. Mothers had to leave tiny children behind. I thanked God from the bottom of my heart that my boy had died in Berlin shortly after birth, though I could scarcely overcome my grief at the time and had temporarily lost all faith in a kindly deity. Such faith was even harder after seeing the horrors taking place at the moment. How could God look on all these atrocities? Mrs. Raff saw me standing in line and embraced me tearfully. I begged her to carry my greetings to my husband, should she ever see him when the war would be over. Since most of the men had been deported already, our transport consisted mostly of women. Near me was only one man, horribly thin and emaciated. The carload of wretched victims was then set in motion to the crack of Russian whips. It was foggy and damp, and a drizzling rain swept into our faces. The streets were icy and slippery; in many places we waded ankle-deep in ice water. Before long one of the women collapsed, and being unable to rise, remained lying there. So we marched along, mile after mile. I had never believed it possible to go so far on foot, but I was so indifferent that I scarcely could think. I just pushed one foot along mechanically after the other. The region was sparsely settled. Probably most of the land belonged to large estates, so that there were houses only at great intervals. Toward evening we reached a town where we were distributed into different homes in groups of 50. The farm wives, who no doubt had likewise suffered terribly from the Russians, cut up all the bread they had on hand and gave us generously to eat. In the rooms and along the halls, straw was scattered where we could lie until daybreak. Early in the morning we had to march
further into the gray without goal or hope. Only rarely did
we exchange words. Each of my suffering fellow-creatures had
enough torment of her own and many had eyes swollen and sore
from weeping. My own load, consisting of two blankets in
addition to my heavy knapsack, was dreadfully heavy. In my
bodice I had sewed a pocket into which I had put all
my 'KILL THE
GERMAN' Ilya Ehrenburg,
born into a Jewish family in Kiev, was a Soviet
propaganda writer with a visceral hatred of
everything German. In his 1943 book Borba ("The
War"), Ehrenburg wrote, "The Germans are not human
beings. From now on the word German means to us the
most terrible oath . . . We shall kill. If you have
not killed a German a day . . . you have wasted
that day. There is nothing more amusing to us than
a heap of German corpses. Do not count days . . .
count only the number of Germans killed by you.
Kill the German - that is your grandmother's
request. Kill the German - that is your child's
prayer. Kill the German - that is your motherland's
loud request. Do not miss, do not let through.
Kill." During the Oct. 1944
Soviet Offensive a leaflet written by Ehrenburg was
distributed that stated, "Kill. Nothing in Germany
is guiltless, neither the living nor the yet
unborn. Follow the words of Comrade Stalin and
crush the fascist beast in its den. Break the
racial pride of the German women. Take her as your
legitimate booty. Kill, you brave soldiers of the
victorious Soviet Army. " While such thoughts were racing like lightning through my mind, a plane inexplicably began to dive. Petrified, we saw the plane head directly toward us and before we knew it, bursts of fire had ripped holes in our ranks. Screaming, we leaped into road ditches while the plane made a loop and once more the monster raged over us and fired from its guns unsparingly into the road ditches where already several women were lying bleeding. Everything happened in a trice and at no moment did I have the feeling that I would be hit, although my neighbor, with whom I had just spoken, sank to the ground without a murmur. The picture of horror and wailing was indescribable. Many lay dead; others were seriously wounded and stretched out their torn limbs tormented to the marrow. One young girl's back was torn open completely; another was holding her leg, torn to shreds, screaming, "Greet my husband and children for me." Then the Russians returned - they had vanished completely when the planes appeared, a fact I only noticed afterwards. Although we who had survived wanted to stay with the wounded and lay the dead in the ditch next to one another, the Russians came with their whips and drove us on. The wounded, whom we had to leave lying on the road just as they were mowed down, cried out to us in the most pitiful manner. Our numbers had been reduced from 200 to 16. I led and aided a young girl whom I had known in Berbitz, who had often waited on me as a salesgirl in the store. She had only suffered a shot through her arm, but was pale as death and could hold herself upright only with tremendous effort. We managed to get to the next town, which was Solden. I knew the town as the junction point for going to the East Sea Bay or to the Polish Corridor. But this little town, one time so nice and clean, had been soiled beyond recognition. It was part destroyed by fire, teemed with Russians and was almost empty of Germans. When our guards could not so precisely keep track of us in the confusion of people and vehicles, horse teams and rounded-up cattle, I drew my wounded comrade to a ruin in a side street and started to hunt for the hospital. The Russian lazaret was housed in what had been the local government headquarters. Since as a girl I had at one time briefly taken up the study of Russian, I was able to make out the Cyrillic letters and make myself understood with a few simple words. I begged a Russian attendant to take in the wounded girl and advertised with outstretched arms, which were by no means very muscular, my ability to work. I went on the assumption that work in a hospital would by no means be as hard as the digging involved in building an airplane landing place. We had gotten word from one of the watchmen on the march that we were to be used for that purpose. In the meanwhile the other 14 were coming and I quickly told them of this opportunity. To the Russians in the hospital we appeared usable, and they showed us into a former bath room. Though we were exhausted and tired, they put us to work immediately. First chore was to remove the frightful dirt from the room, which stank horribly, since the toilet bowl was filled to overflowing. The cleaning was no small task and more than once we had to give up. Since the room was much too small for the 15 of us, we struggled to remove the tub. Despite the lack of help, we finally managed, thus creating a few more yards of space. In the courtyard some rotting straw lay around which we collected to strew on the stone floor on the room. We had to sleep on it, or rather, spend the night on it. The narrow space could not be enlarged; we lay like herrings in a can. Each one had the other's feet in her face. Since the space by the door was narrower, those last to enter, who had only a little place by the door, couldn't even stretch out, but had to sleep sitting propped against the wall. The woman who got the place under the toilet bowl had the most disagreeable position of all, lying around the foot of the bowl and, besides that, having to move every few moments, since nearly all of us were suffering from diarrhea. When at night someone from the front of the room wanted to get up, all the rest of us had to get up too or else she had to walk over our bodies. On the first morning when, with my little Christmas tree candle, of which I had brought several with me, I walked around the sickrooms and saw the conditions, I almost dropped the candle from horror. The picture the dispensary revealed to me was fantastically horrid. Hideous Kirgis and Tartar faces stared up at me with slit eyes; one of the men lay totally naked, the other was partly covered with his soldier's coat, another with a tiger skin. Naturally one does not visualize a field hospital as being as hygienic and sterilized as a city hospital with its white lacquered doors and polished floors, but this one resembled a whiskey den. Since there were no narcotics available, or other means of quieting pain, the seriously wounded were given schnapps to dull the pain, so they were practically drunk. Then there were soldiers with faces badly burned, who groped around blindly. It was terrible for me to have to go to such a poor devil and hand him a bottle or the bedpan. When we did not understand right away what they wanted, many of them got angry and threw things at us. Others overwhelmed us with reproach while threatening us with strangely formed clubs and, pointing to badly injured comrades, shouted: "The Germans did that." It was of no use to say that the Russians had done likewise, because if they understood us they became assaultingly mad. Some, on the other hand, were grateful if in their pain, we let them hold our hand and would whisper: "O panienka!" One had to be careful, however, not to let the Russian attendants or doctors see this, for we Germans were really there to do exclusively the lowest type of work. Three months must have gone by when we awoke one morning to discover that all the wounded had been removed during the night and only one officer with a few soldiers had remained behind. It was made known to us that we must go back to where we had come from and not in the opposite direction. Heavy-hearted I joined the group, knowing that I could never make the grade alone through that desolate territory, especially with Russians and all other kinds of questionable persons roaming about. The railroad track had been partially dismantled and I felt as if I were in an entirely different world, cut off from all civilization, in a kind of desolate noman's land. Since I was only by accident of circumstances in this land east of the Oder I felt no inner attachment to it and in daydreams my native Bavaria seemed like a lost paradise to me. Were there still people who could sit congenially around a coffee table or go to the theater of any evening or to a concert? Were there still Sundays with the sound of bells, festive people and ceremonious religious services? So I mused while our little mound of people trotted, wan and sickly looking, along the frozen street till we came to the spot where death had reaped such a bountiful harvest. It really couldn't be possible and still it was so: there lay the corpses frozen solid - forms that even in death had been violated in the most horrible way. They lay there partly exposed, their knees spread apart, copulated with iron bars or wooden sticks. Horrified and turning away, we hurried past. I shall probably never in all my life forget this ghastly scene. [2] At about the end of May, without saying anything at home about it, I visited Helen Bärwald. I wanted to talk over with her the possibility of attempting to trek through wasted no man's land to Berlin. Apart from the fact that we lacked the necessary foodstuffs for the journey, Helen still felt too weak to take upon herself any such exertion. Then Thursday, May 31, 1945 arrived, a radiant spring day, which I shall be able in the future to celebrate with far more justification than my birthday. Mr. Wendler came in excitedly and said that if I chose to, I could ride to Berlin with an officer I had known at the hospital. My heart jumped from surprise for I had never dreamed that I could get an offer like this. Of course I had often felt, in desperation, that I would avail myself of the first chance to get out of Berbitz, and now that the chance had come I lost no time. In a flash I fetched my two trunks. All else that I had purloined away from our house in single trips had to be left behind. I hadn't the vaguest notion what was awaiting me in Berlin, if our house would still be standing, and how I would ever manage, but all these worries about details were unimportant alongside of the indescribable joy of leaving Berbitz. It was like a modern fairy tale: Smiling, the captain awaited me at the car door, and Stepanik, his chauffeur, lifted the bags into the trunk. My expression of thanks to the Wendlers for self-sacrificing hospitality had to be cut all too short. We merely took leave from one another in the hope of meeting again in better times. "Best of the best and my regards to Helen," I cried and was already speeding out of the town toward the main highway. The wind caught up my hair, flapping it like a sail, and eyes closed, with an overwhelming surge of a will to live again, I faced freedom once more.
References: The late Austin J. App, Ph.D., was associate professor at La Salle College in Philadelphia. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Catholic University in Washington, DC. He spent five summers in Europe, 1926, 1931, 1932, 1934 and 1940. In addition to many pamphlets and articles, Dr. App was the author of History's Most Terrifying Peace (1946). He was an expert on wartime atrocities, alleged and real. Source: The
Barnes Review |
plundered
house was no longer very important to us, we took a good
look around us and noticed that the heart of the town around
the main square was really completely burnt down, but that
the houses toward the outer edge of town were still fairly
intact, just as were our quarters on top of the hill. On the
same evening a house was set on fire because of a reprisal
and in order to keep the people in fear. One's own home
could be the next one to go.