by Jana Petken
“No, he’s not,” another disagreed, “If the pullover is wet it’ll be stronger, and it’ll strengthen his grip on the bars. We could spend hours trying to prise them apart with our bare hands, and we’ll probably reach our destination before we make them wide enough. Make room. I feel a pee coming on.”
In the next five minutes, several men donated their urine to the pullover until it was saturated. While fighting to overcome the stench, Wilmot wrung it out, made it into a rope and then wrapped it around one of the window bars. It was humiliating, having other men’s pee soaking his hands and wrists, but he was spurred on by the anticipation of freedom, even if it were to last only minutes before he was shot down.
The Hauptmann who’d ordered Wilmot not to try anything, appeared to have changed his mind. No one would give him their pullovers, so he took his off and dipped it in the latrine bucket. Then, he followed Wilmot’s lead and wrapped it around the second bar.
“We’ll all take turns, right, men? Every one of you will have a pull whether you’re coming with us or not. It is our duty to escape and to get back to our forces to continue the fight.”
Up yours, Herr Hauptmann, Wilmot thought. My fighting days for the Fatherland are over.
The men moved back as far as they could to give Wilmot and the Hauptmann room to pull. They were standing on either side of the window, poised as though they were about to start a tug of war.
Wilmot grinned at the expectant faces and pointed to the ceiling. “Keep your voices down, and don’t get too excited, you lot. Them up top might hear us and think we’re up to something.”
Chapter Thirty-One
As daylight waned, Wilmot stuck his head through the newly bent bars, which had been prised back sufficiently for most of the skinny prisoners to get through. On his left the dense forest lay about two hundred metres from the train which was chugging at a snail’s pace on snow-laden tracks. He slid his eyes right to the same landscape: flat snow-covered land with white-topped pine trees stretching as far as he could see.
Inside the wagon, most of the men avoided his gaze. So far, only seven, including the Hauptmann, were committed to his plan. Others thought the whole idea was suicidal, as did Wilmot, to be truthful. Still, he didn’t care who came and who stayed. Every man was free to live or die as he pleased. The rank system had all but disintegrated and camaraderie hung by a thread as every man fought for food, usually thrown at them as though they were animals in a zoo. He was becoming immune to the feelings of others. Death had taken too many friends, and he was losing his sense of self, not only because of starvation and cold and having the shits and shakes, but with the loss of his fighting spirit and dreams of a future outside Russia. He’d be damned if he’d end up like Jürgen, a suppurating mess who had to be led everywhere by the hand pleading for the bullet that would end it all.
“Look at the lot of you. I’ve seen harder spines on caterpillars. You’re all waiting for death as though it’s your only option. I pity you…”
“We’re going now or not at all,” the Hauptmann interrupted. “It’s none of your business what the rest of them decide to do.”
Wilmot nodded. “Fine. We might break our necks from the fall, or catch a few bullets in the back, courtesy of the snipers on the roofs, but if we make it to the trees we’ll have a fighting chance of getting away. It’s more than I can say for them.”
“What do you call a fighting chance?” Jürgen asked.
“I’d say about twenty percent. I don’t think you should come with us. You’re too weak and you won’t make the hike if we survive the first part.”
Jürgen’s eyes smarted. “Don’t leave me. I want to go. I won’t hold you back, I promise, Willie – I don’t want this life – I don’t want it.”
“No.”
“Let him come, Vogel. He has the right to try like every other man here,” the Hauptmann said.
“It won’t work with him. I had to drag him up the bloody train ramp because he was too weak to walk up it himself.”
“I’m going. The Hauptmann said I could,” Jürgen huffed.
Wilmot looked at the boy and felt his own chances of survival lessen. The lad was going to be like a rope around his neck. “All right, but if I make it, Jürgen, I’m not hanging around for you to catch up with me.”
Jürgen pulled himself up as though to solidify his courage. “I understand, Willie. But twenty percent odds are better than no odds at all, and I’d like to take them.”
Wilmot pulled his jacket and coat on and began buttoning them up. The others glared petulantly at him but made no move to follow. He found their reluctance incomprehensible but was secretly glad that only a handful were going. He didn’t want a mad rush of men falling out of the moving train. The smaller the group the more chance they had of getting away unnoticed. Looking out the window, he also deduced that the first and second man to jump would have a better chance of escape than those who came afterwards. Eventually, the guards on the roof manning the machineguns would notice and start mowing people down as they tried to run in the deep snow.
Wilmot inhaled a long breath and then let it out slowly. “This is it. After you, Herr Hauptmann.”
“No. The honour is yours, Schütze.”
Wilmot supposed the Hauptmann wanted to see how far someone could get before committing himself, clever git. “If I die in a hail of bullets, don’t follow me, okay, boys.” Wilmot chuckled yet his knees were knocking with fear.
The Hauptmann boosted Wilmot to the window. Once there, he knelt on the ledge while two of his comrades held the back of his coat so he could manoeuvre one leg after another out of the narrow window like a contortionist. Once sitting sideways on the ledge, he reached out and slotted his fingers between the wagon’s wooden slats, then pulled himself outside, his nose almost touching the wood as his feet searched for another foothold.
Perched on the edge of the wagon, he nearly lost his balance as the ferocious wind hit him in the face. The chugging noise of the train, although travelling slowly, was deafening. His left ear was stinging as the freezing air hit it, but he continued to cling on until he saw the Hauptmann’s head appear out the window. Then the silly git nose-dived as though he’d been shot from a cannon. Gone in a flash, Wilmot didn’t even see the captain hit the ground.
Wilmot and the others had agreed to meet up in the forest if they made it that far – he was going now, not waiting for the other men to jump. Every second that passed took him further away from the Hauptmann, and closer to being detected. Now was not the time to play hero, to make sure men like Jürgen got away safely. This was his idea, his chance to survive. “Jump – jump,” he howled into the wind. “What are you waiting for? Now – now!”
Wilmot leapt, using the concave shadow, as the train went around a corner. When he landed, he tumbled down a small slope and rolled like a ball until his body came to a halt. Then, with no other thought than to escape, he charged, zigzagging for the trees, a hail of bullets chasing him as he ran.
A few metres into the treeline, he halted and fell to his knees. The train was still chugging down the track, but even as the high-pitched squeal of its wheels faded, the intensity of machinegun fire from its roof reverberated through the forest.
Every part of Wilmot shook. His teeth chattered with shock and his throat was burning. If he died right now, he’d go to his maker a happy man. He was free. He’d got away from the Wehrmacht and the Russian pigs who laughed at dying men and spat on their corpses. If he only lasted five minutes, he’d be grateful for every one of them.
He started to weep, then howled with full-blown laughter. He didn’t give a damn about being in the Russian wilderness. He’d just jumped off a moving train and survived! Aware he was becoming hysterical, he finally shut himself up by grabbing a handful of snow and shoving it in his mouth.
When Wilmot’s euphoria faded, exhaustion and numbness hit him. He lay down, a shivering mess on a bed of snow. He was afraid of falling asleep but too drowsy to care about th
e warnings of hypothermia when one dozed off.
A few seconds later, the lower branches of a tree made a whooshing sound as piles of snow plopped to the ground. Wilmot sat up, dizzy with the sudden movement. “Who’s there?” he whispered.
“Is that you, Vogel?” a small voice called back.
“You made it, sir,” Wilmot nodded, noticing his Hauptmann’s figure picked out by the light of a sliver of an early moon reflected off the snow.
The Hauptmann staggered forward, panting for breath, his face ghostly, his expression dazed. “Did you see the others … anyone else?”
“No. They hadn’t come out the window by the time I jumped. I don’t know if the krauts’ attention was on me or those who came after. I heard the machinegun fire from the train, but it faded a few minutes ago.”
The Hauptmann ran his trembling fingers through his snow-wet hair and collapsed beside Wilmot on the ground. “The train didn’t stop. I’m going to wait for the others.”
Wilmot shook his head in defiance. “You do what you want, but I’m not staying here. We need to head north to the Soviet-Finnish battlefront…”
“The Mannerheim Line?”
“That’s the one. If we can get within striking distance, we’ll stand a chance of hooking up with the Finns.”
“You’re off your head, Vogel. You’ll run into Russian divisions if you go in that direction.”
“That’s the second time today that someone’s told me I’m off my head, yet here I am, a free man. Look, Hauptmann, I’m not trying to tell you what you should do, but to the south there’s only Russians and more Russians between us and the German armies…”
The Hauptmann staggered to his feet, leaving Wilmot’s words hanging. “Shh…”
Wilmot heard the snow crunching and clambered to his feet as Jürgen appeared.
“I’m alright, Willie. I hurt my knee when I landed. I knew I’d find you if I backtracked … we’re free… we did it.”
“Did anyone else get away?” the Hauptmann asked.
“Two men jumped before me, but I didn’t hang around to see what happened to them. I thought someone was running behind me, but there was a lot of machinegun fire and I didn’t turn to look. It was a miracle I dodged the bullets. I think they all might be dead. Do you think they’ll stop the train and come after us?”
“The train’s gone.” Willie grinned at the youngster. “Now we go home.”
The Hauptmann dithered. “I’m not sure about going home, Vogel, but we do need to move – all right, we’ll go north – we might pick up our men on the way.”
The image of over four hundred German prisoners getting on the train popped into Wilmot’s mind. He felt guilty for leaving them behind and wondered if they’d be punished because of the escapees. He glanced at the Hauptmann and wondered if he also felt guilty.
“Hauptmann, we might not get far today. It’ll be pitch black soon in the forest. Maybe we should make some sort of shelter.” He could feel snowflakes tickling his cheeks. “If we don’t, we’ll freeze to death before morning.”
“On the upside, Willie, we shouldn’t bump into any Russians in this Godforsaken forest,” Jurgen said, his voice unusually calm.
An hour later, and only a short distance from where they’d started their trek, Wilmot felt bile rise in his throat. His stomach heaved as he slumped against the nearest tree trunk. His head was spinning, unrelated objects swimming towards him then back and forth. A sudden heat suffused his body and he rolled onto his knees to push his face into the snow.
Beside Wilmot, the Hauptmann’s chest rose and fell like a panting dog. Jürgen was lying flat on his back with his eyes shut. The snow was still coming down and the trees were dropping great lumps of the stuff onto the ground.
“Your name’s Willie?” the Hauptmann finally asked.
“Wilmot … but, yes, Willie to my friends and family, sir.” His tongue was swollen in his mouth, and he couldn’t swallow. He grabbed some snow and sucked it into his burning cheeks. “May I ask your name?” he croaked.
“Max – Max Albrecht– and you can drop the sir, Willie.”
“Max, eh,” Willie mumbled through chattering teeth. “That’s a name I like.”
“Max is Willie’s older brother,” Jürgen said, taking a peculiar furtive look around. “He’s in the British army.”
Lifting an eyebrow, Max Albrecht said, “I’d like to hear how that happened.” Then he took on a serious look. “We left our own behind on that train…”
“Or they left us,” Wilmot interrupted, rubbing his face again with snow.
“Maybe. My point is, whichever way you two look at it, we three should make a pact not to desert each other – we can do this – we can make it home but only if we stick together.”
Wilmot sighed. He’d sat down for five minutes and his extremities were already numb. It was a nice thought, but he didn’t believe a word of it. They weren’t going to reach home; they were dying men in their final throes.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Paul Vogel
Łódź, Poland
February 1942
Paul left Berlin alone for Łódź, Poland’s second largest city. Valentina, Biermann, and Olga were to join him four days later because his father-in-law had loose ends to tie up from an ongoing investigation in Berlin. Paul had suggested that Valentina travel with her mother and himself, but Biermann had made other arrangements for the ladies.
“They will travel in comfort, Paul. I have arranged a private compartment for us. You don’t want your pregnant wife to sit for hours on the crowded Wehrmacht trains that you have to use, do you?” Biermann always seemed to finish his questions with a do you or a don’t you think? Like a challenge to contradict. Paul, though desperate for Valentina to join him, was secretly pleased to have four days to himself in which to settle in and track down Kurt, who’d been deported to the Litzmannstadt-Łódź Ghetto at the end of January.
Fewer than half the train carriages carried Wehrmacht soldiers, SS, and Gestapo on this, the last leg of his journey. The windows in the last four ancient third-class carriages were blacked out, and inside they were crammed with deported Jews. Paul had many outstanding questions regarding the fates of the Jews going to Łódź, but the failure to learn about the ghetto was entirely his. He’d been too busy enjoying himself with Valentina in Dresden, and he hadn’t wanted to spoil his leave by thinking about what was to come. Paul now wished that his father-in-law had given a bit more background into the place. He’d been cagey about the whole thing, especially when Paul had specifically asked about Kurt’s fate.
“I told you, he’s got off lucky.” Biermann had deemed that was all his son-in-law needed to know.
Only one other man was sharing Paul’s section of the carriage, an SS officer eating a ham sandwich. He must be from an affluent family, Paul deduced. It was not a common sight nowadays to see a thick cut of meat wedged between slices of bread, nor was the sterling silver tea flask the man was using.
“Have you been to Łódź before?” Paul asked, noticing snowflakes slicing into the windows.
The young, fair-haired Untersturmführer finished chewing his ham and peered at Paul.
“Before? Hah, I was born there. I’m Polish on my mother’s side. My Father was German, but I didn’t know him. He died just after the Great War. I was in Berlin visiting my German cousins. One of them got married yesterday to an Oberstleutnant. She’s done very well for herself.”
“Do you have anything to do with the Łódź ghetto?”
“I’ve been there for over two years. In fact, I was there right at the beginning.”
“The beginning of the ghetto?”
“The beginning of everything.” The man smiled displaying white teeth and thick lips spotted with breadcrumbs. He seemed friendly enough, but then, so had Hauptmann Leitner when Paul had first met him.
“How many Jews were in the city before the ghetto walls went up?” Paul asked.
“Over 230,000 when our
forces occupied the city in ‘39. But we don’t call it Łódź anymore. It was renamed Litzmannstadt just after we got there. You heard of a German general called Karl Litzmann?”
“No, sorry. I can’t say I have.”
“He led the army in 1914. You don’t know your military history very well, do you?”
“I’m afraid not.” Paul was beginning to feel uncomfortable in the SS officer’s company. His spell in the SS, albeit for a short and devastating period of his life, had taught him to expect an almost fanatical attitude from its ranks, who were not above reporting members of other branches of the military to the security authorities for myriad misdemeanours that, in their eyes, were disloyal to the Führer. Still, he was desperate to learn all he could about the ghetto, and who better to ask about Łódź – Litzmannstadt – than an SS Untersturmführer who’d been there since its inception.
“Hmm, I must read up on the general. You see, this posting was very last minute,” Paul said.
“Ach, don’t worry about it. It’s not like you’re a real soldier. I don’t suppose the Medical Corps have to learn all that military history stuff. You have enough on your plate learning about the anatomy, eh.”
“Yes, how right you are.” Paul smiled, warming to this Untersturmfürer. “I’m Paul Vogel,” he said extending his hand.
“Gert Wolff. Call me Gert, please.”
“Gert, will you tell me a bit about the ghetto?”
“What do you want to know? It’s big. It still holds one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe, second only to Warsaw. Having said that, the Reich intends to purify the city by expelling every single Polish Jew to the Generalgouvernement. The ghetto is only a transitional centre. The Reich’s aim is to burn out entirely this pestilent abscess from Poland.”
“Does that mean the Jews will be looked after by the German authorities and not the Poles?”
“Exactly. It’s getting that way now. When our authorities took the city, they ordered the Jewish residence to be limited to specific streets in the old City and the adjacent Bałuty Quarter – you’ll get to know these places in the ghetto when you have a good walk around it – anyway, the big push into the ghetto happened in May of ‘40 when they had the pogrom. The SS weren’t supposed to be directly involved. We were just standing by in case the Orpo Police got into trouble when they launched the relocation of the Jews across the city. The Kikes were given fifteen minutes to leave their apartments. After that, those who were found inside them were shot.”
