by Jana Petken
He had a good idea where they were being taken, but he still couldn’t understand why the Russians were moving towards the Karelian Isthmus, an area mostly held by Finnish troops. He and the other prisoners had concluded that the Russians were planning another assault on the Mannerheim Line, at present also held by the Finns. Perhaps the Russkies needed labourers to dig ditches, or maybe, as a German officer had suggested, they were going to fortify territory as close to the Line as possible, to hold it against a Finnish attack? The officer had then calmly deduced that regardless of what those two armies were planning, they, the prisoners, would probably be executed when they were of no further use.
Two hours after the vessel had docked, Wilmot marched in formation through a town where every sign had been painted over with either graffiti or the name Stalin. He felt the urge to chuckle as he imagined Russians running around deliberately hiding the names of streets and inconsequential towns. Maybe they had scrubbed out the names because they were previously inside Finnish territory? Who cared, he thought, as he pushed his body on. All he wanted to do was find was a sheltered corner, a roof, and a blanket to shield himself from the wind and snow. But he’d be lucky to come across any one of those.
As though his prayers had been answered, Jürgen, Wilmot’s constant companion since their capture together at Leningrad, pointed out a train station up ahead of them. “Do you think we’re going on a train?” the youngster asked.
“I don’t know, but imagine that we are – imagine it, Jürgen – a roof, a dry space, straw floor maybe, and at the end of the journey a warmer place to stay.”
“Now you’re dreaming, Vogel.” Another man poked Wilmot in the back.
Suddenly, the men in front of Jürgen and Wilmot halted. Wilmot’s heart punched against his chest as he peered at a large hut and a goat pen in a field with wooden fencing separating the animals from the railway tracks. Behind the fencing, three Russian soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders, were throwing a large ball to each other. Wilmot was struck by the relaxed way those men were handling sub-zero temperatures; the weather had already killed half the German prisoners.
“How many of us are left, Jürgen?” said Wilmot with a macabre giggle. Every day, the two men took a guess at how many German prisoners had disappeared or died during the night. At first, the game had been a silly, ghoulish joke, a way for them to concentrate on something other than their miserable situation and the fear of death every time the column halted. In Leningrad, there had been far too many prisoners to even contemplate counting, but since leaving that city many of their number had died, weakened by disease, malnutrition, mistreatment or murder at the hands of over-zealous Russian guards.
The men had stayed in various camps on their journey. Most had been damp and bitterly cold. Wilmot recalled one such place they’d been in for over three weeks. The cells, which had glassless windows set high in the walls, had no heating, but there were two wood-burning stoves in the long corridor outside. The cell doors had been kept open day and night, so that the prisoners didn’t freeze to death. Thick layers of ice had formed on the walls of Wilmot’s cell, which had been on the corner of the building, and at night, the undersides of the straw mattresses got covered with hoarfrost.
He recalled being allowed to congregate in the corridor where the stoves gave off a welcome warmth. Wilmot’s cell was farthest from the heater and deemed uninhabitable, so he and the other eight cell mates had carried their mattresses into the passageway at night. That didn’t stop two of the men in his cell from dying of pneumonia. They’d whimpered and cried right up until they’d breathed their last without having found a sympathetic ear, medicine, or an extra blanket. He still wondered why he’d been spared, why their lungs had filled with fluid and his hadn’t.
Food had been scarce, sometimes non-existent. On one of the coldest days he’d ever experienced, the Russians had thrown food into the corridor. Forty men had tried to share three kilograms of bread, a half a can of Schokakola – the bitter-sweet, caffeine and kola nut dark chocolate – and four grams of fat. He, at the edge of the emaciated horde had got nothing but a brief lick of the empty can.
“Start counting, Jürgen,” Wilmot whispered again.
“I don’t want to play, Willie. Just let me stand here. I’m too hungry and knackered to speak to you,” Jürgen muttered as he picked lice from his hair and cracked them open with his thumbnail and finger.
Wilmot stamped his feet to stop them from going numb. He took off one of his gloves and then studied his damaged hand. It had been stitched up by a Russian doctor during the first night in captivity. That man had done more for him than the German Medical Corps who claimed to serve the Wehrmacht and the soldiers in it. He wondered if Paul was waving away injured men because he couldn’t be bothered tending to them the way that doctor had done for him at the Leningrad Line? He had to force thoughts of that day to the back of his mind. Had he been sent back to the German line for treatment, he wouldn’t be in Russian hands now, dying a slow excruciating death. Germany had sentenced him to die, not Russia.
He cast aside his thoughts of death while a German officer was being led across the narrow dirt track to the hut. Then another was pulled out of the line, and another after that. Ten minutes later an infantry Schütze was frogmarched away, followed by another.
The two Russians weaved in and out of the lines, stopping every now and again to study the prisoners’ faces. That usually spelt disaster for the unfortunate Germans, for when the guards did that it typically meant they were being chosen to die. There was no system to the selections, no special type of man, rank or age, height or weight; they were singled out on the whims of low-ranking Russian soldiers who delivered them to their bored, sadistic officers.
When the two guards reached Wilmot’s line, he lowered his head, froze, held his breath and prayed. His terror was absolute, but only the beaded sweat trickling down his forehead into his eyes displayed it. Eight men had left his column so far, but he had seen up to ten being taken away at one time, and no one ever returned.
The guard came to Jürgen and halted. The lad’s loud panting breached Wilmot’s woollen hat even though he’d pulled its flaps over his ears. Please, God, not Jürgen, he thought. And not me, either.
A whistle blew and the inspecting Russians by-passed Wilmot, moving away from the column towards the hut where the German prisoners had been taken.
Wilmot turned to the boy behind him, a seventeen-year-old from Hamburg who’d let out a guttural sob after the Russians had left.
“It’s over, Hans. Hans, it’s over. Get a grip on yourself.”
The boy’s eyes widened like saucers as he stared at the field. Wilmot followed the lad’s gaze and gasped. The Russian soldiers were carrying or dragging German bodies from the hut across the stony ground, and they weren’t hiding the blood around the dead men’s throats.
Wilmot looked down at his feet, hunched his shoulders, and exhaled a mighty breath. He was already aware that for most Russian soldiers, any instinct for pity or mercy had died somewhere on a hundred battlefields between Moscow and Warsaw. The veneration of Adolf Hitler, the magnificent Führer, had not reached Russia or their Soviet territories. On the contrary, many of his fellow prisoners, including himself, were beginning to agree with the hatred Russians felt for the German leader. Hitler Kaput! the Russian guards shouted every five minutes.
After years of not being able to voice an opinion, or even think one that might insult the Führer or his supporters, Wilmot and many of the other prisoners were, for the first time, beginning to discuss all that they didn’t like about the Nazis. Wilmot saw no need to hide his ugly experience in Dachau from the other men since he was in a situation he was unlikely to survive. His main gripe was the murder of Jews in the back of Polish steel-covered trucks, he’d told a group of men one night, and he’d then divulged his crime of attempted murder.
Wilmot noted that some, especially the officers, were still indoctrinated, refusing to listen to
any seditious talk against Hitler. They disagreed with Wilmot’s assessment about the killing of Jews, saying that Kikes deserved to die after all they’d done to impoverish real Germans. He’d always thought the term real Germans, was a subject of debate. He was born in Germany, making him a real German, but hundreds of thousands of Jews were also born in Germany, yet they were defined by religion and not nationality.
Most of his comrades were past caring about what their officers thought, and a lot of them deliberately threw their opinions in their superiors’ faces for the fun of it. Adolf Hitler, the saviour, the man who was to make Germany great again, was a liar and a conman who didn’t care about the tens of thousands of men who were dying in Russia.
Wilmot sucked in his already caved-in belly as a Russian guard approached the area where he was standing. Traumatised by the recent selection of prisoners who’d just been murdered, he closed his eyes and prayed again.
“Move, all of you!”
As the Russian barked this command, Wilmot exhaled with relief and, to take his mind off things, he played his and Jürgen’s game, counting the men in his line of sight. The day before, he’d calculated that there were around five hundred prisoners left. That number had altered in the last hour with the death of eight men.
At the sound of an approaching train, he stopped counting and nudged Jürgen. “They’re putting us on an animal transport, Jürgen. It’ll be dry, and there might even be straw on the floor. We’ll have a lie down, eh?”
“Do you really think we’ll be able to sit down?” Jürgen said, his voice croaky.
“Probably. If we can, I hope it’s a long journey. We’ll feel better after a decent sleep.”
“Do you think we’ll get food?”
“We’ll get the usual daily allowance, I imagine.”
Jürgen stumbled. His face was as white as the fresh snow, his eyes sunken and unfocused. “It’s not enough to survive on, Willie … only for dying slowly.”
Although he agreed with Jürgen, Wilmot refused to verbalise his fear of death as the youngster often did. After almost three months in Russian custody, the short, skinny Jürgen was showing signs of starvation, as were they all.
Like his brothers, Wilmot was about 1.9 metres tall, and his weight, although he couldn’t confirm it, was probably hovering around fifty-six kilos. He was anaemic, had diarrhoea, his body was covered in a rash, and his heart fluttered in a strange way, especially when he lay down. He was scared, and his morale had sunk lower than a snake’s belly.
Wilmot stared at the dead Germans piled outside the hut’s door. He felt sorry for them, but he also wanted their boots and gloves. He’d take everything off them if he could; his soles were flapping at the toes, his pullover was full of snags and rips, and his hands could do with another pair of gloves to pad out his own torn and holey ones.
Two soldiers came out of the hut. They were laughing, and one of them was talking while cleaning blood from his hands with a sheet of old newspaper. Wilmot imagined getting out of line. If he had a knife handy, he’d cut the man’s throat and have the pleasure of seeing a Russkie choke on his own blood.
“These men collaborated with Fascists! They deserved to die. Do any of you object to what we did to them?” the blood-stained Russian officer shouted at the prisoners.
Wilmot noted the silence. Where was the Geneva Convention? he wanted to scream.
Chapter Thirty
The wagon doors slid open and ramps were attached. Wilmot glanced behind him and grunted. The Russians were stripping the dead Germans, then throwing them in a pile and dousing them with gasoline. His comrades, men he’d walked with, talked to, and struggled alongside had had their throats slit for sport. He guessed what would come next. He had witnessed Russian disposal methods in other places; the smell of gasoline, a couple of matches, the whoosh as the liquid ignited and the eventual bonfire of Germans to keep the Russkies warm.
“I don’t think we’ll be going north,” Wilmot heard the man behind him say.
“Why not?” Wilmot grunted without turning around. “I don’t think they know where the hell to take us.”
“They’re not stupid, Willie – stands to reason if they go much further north they’ll eventually bump into the Finns – they’re going to get us on that train and head south, probably west to avoid Leningrad.”
“You’re full of shit,” Willie said, shuffling forwards.
Minutes later, Wilmot pulled Jürgen up the ramp behind him and into the wooden wagon where about eighty men were already packed in, hardly able to turn around, never mind lie down. Over the heads of the others, Wilmot spotted a latrine bucket on the floor in the corner. He struck out towards it, barging his way through the tightly knit men. He was desperate to relieve himself and get as close to the bucket as possible before it became impossible to reach it. Despite daily indignities, no one wanted to shit or piss their trousers and then live in them afterwards.
Jürgen looked crushed as the train pulled away from the platform. “I don’t see any food or drink … not even a water bucket … oh, Jesus Christ, Willie, I’m sick with hunger!”
Wilmot ignored the moaning lad who was trying to follow him to the bucket. For some reason, Jürgen clung to him like a limpet, constantly sapping his energy. How the hell did such an infantile mama’s boy even get in the army with all his weeping and wailing?
“Willie, I asked if you saw any food being loaded?”
“No. Shut up, Jürgen. I’m thinking.”
It was dreary outside with slate-grey skies shedding a light snowfall that had started the previous day and hadn’t stopped for a single minute. Only a pale gleam was coming in through the wagon’s window. Wilmot noted the wide spaces between the bars, of which there were only three. If pushed aside, a man his size just might be able to squirm through with a helpful push from someone inside.
The first few times he’d seen his comrades and officers being murdered, he’d felt ripples of shock that had made him feel sick and shed tears of panic. Now, he accepted that soon his own luck would run out, and he’d be the one being dragged into some hut and mutilated. He couldn’t live with his pathetic acceptance of inevitable death any longer. He’d go mad. He’d rather die jumping out the train’s window.
The wagon held about ninety men. Twice, men’s boots trod on Wilmot’s feet, but despite the discomfort of being jostled and cursed at, he eventually managed to reach the window for a closer look. The bars were red and coarse with rust but almost two handspans apart.
Spurred on by the miniscule chance of escape and the fear of not lasting another week with the Russians, he said in a loud voice, “Has no one else noticed this window? It might be big enough to get through, even for a man of my size.”
“You’ll never get the bars off, Willie,” a voice said from somewhere in the crowded space. “Shut up. Keep your stupid ideas to yourself,” another grumpy voice shouted.
“We don’t need to get them off, just prise them apart,” Wilmot insisted. “This is the best chance we’ve had in months. We can do this. Come on, who wants to get out of here?”
“We’ll be dead as soon as we jump from the train. Did you not see the machineguns and searchlights on the roofs?” someone asked.
“I spotted the guards manning machineguns up there,” said a man standing next to Wilmot.
“We all saw them, Gunther, but I’d rather break my neck and get shot at than waste this chance of getting away,” Wilmot maintained.
A short scuffle ensued while an officer barged through the men to get to Wilmot. “Move away from there, Vogel. Don’t let me hear you talk of running away again. You’ll get us all shot,” the skeletal Hauptmann said.
Wilmot noticed the man’s badge and stopped what he was doing. No one argued with a captain of the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi death squads. One showed such people respect, even if one didn’t care for their ambiguous yet telling mandate. Wilmot recalled the Einsatzgruppen when Army Group North had crossed into Russia from the Baltics. Th
ey’d given him the rifle and told him to shoot the people at the mass grave. They were cold-blooded bastards.
A man pulled at the bars and said, “The Hauptmann is right. You’ll never move them, Vogel.” Then, finally, an enlightened soul took Wilmot’s side. “Hmm, I don’t know. I’m with Willie. If we all take turns at pulling the bars we just might do it. They’re rusty and old. They might even snap.”
“Look at the state of us, discussing whether we go or not,” Willie said, gaining confidence. “Where are your balls? You saw what they did to our men at the station. Do you think they won’t kill the rest of us? They don’t have enough food to feed their own people never mind us. I don’t understand why you won’t even try to make a run for it.”
The man who’d agreed with Wilmot said, “Listen to him. Don’t you want to die knowing you at least tried to escape?”
“He’s right,” Wilmot said. “We’re all going to die as soon as they run out of grub, so we might as well lose our lives on our own terms. I say we should go for it.”
The Einsatzgruppen Hauptmann, the only officer present, remained silent as Wilmot pushed his way to the latrine bucket. It had only a couple of pee’s worth in it, the men having not been on the train for more than ten minutes, and with little or no food or drink in them, few had any urine to dispose of. He looked at those who were nodding, and without a word removed his coat, jacket and pullover. Then, he shoved the pullover in the bucket, unbuttoned his trousers and pissed.
“Willie, you’re off your bloody head,” a man said, his mouth agape.
