The camp commander, an American army major named Diggs, greeted them at the main gate of the barb wire enclosed facility. In addition to Jessica and Florence Turnbull, Jessica’s Uncle Tom Granville was representing SHAEF.
“Please tell me you’re here to relieve me,” Diggs said with a wan smile as they took seats in his office by the heavily guarded main gate of the camp.
Florence Turnbull took the lead. “Is it that bad?”
“Worse. And with all respects to you and the others in the Red Cross, the United Nations, and SHAEF, I’m getting next to nothing in the way of help or supplies.”
“Are people actually starving?” Jessica asked. She’d seen the camp’s wasted inhabitants through the barb wire that kept them in. It angered her. Refugees from Nazi Germany should not be prisoners.
“Close enough,” Diggs said with a sigh. “Not only am I not getting enough food, but there aren’t enough tents or blankets, and there’s damn little in the way of medicine. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the refugees are in rags and it’s still cold, so, to answer your next question, yeah, a lot of people are still dying. Oh yes, I don’t have enough men to administer this place. I’ve got two hundred American soldiers and most of them are castoffs, the petty criminals, dregs and dunces nobody else wants.”
“So you’re using Germans to help out? Nazis?” Turnbull snapped.
“Yes, another hundred or so, but only former local cops and no SS or Gestapo.”
“Are you sure?” asked Tom.
Diggs shrugged. “Not really, Colonel, but they are all I have. We checked them all out and nobody’s got an SS tattoo. Get me some more people and I’ll get rid of them. Otherwise, I’m not ashamed to use them and I feel they are necessary to maintain order.”
“I’m confused,” said Jessica. “If these people are refugees why are you treating them like prisoners?”
Diggs laughed mirthlessly. “Because, if I let them loose, they and the local Germans would be at each other’s throats in a heartbeat. All the German refugees have been moved to local households and the French ones have been shipped back to France. The ones in this camp are the Czechs, the Poles, and God knows what else. They hate the Germans because they were kept as slaves and now a lot of them want revenge. A number of Germans have been murdered and the women raped by rampaging gangs of refugees and I can’t let that happen.”
“And you can’t send them home until their homelands have been liberated,” Jessica said, understanding. “How many are Jews?”
“Out of the twenty-five thousand in this camp, maybe three thousand, and most of them want to go to Palestine. Of course, the Brits don’t want them going there and upsetting things in that mess of a country, so we can’t move them anywhere for the time being. I understand this new United Nations is trying to set up better camps in France, but I haven’t gotten any direction regarding sending anybody anywhere.”
“Nor will you anytime soon,” said Tom. “The French are overwhelmed with problems themselves.”
Tell me about it, Jessica thought, thinking of the chaos and fighting she’d seen. “In the meantime, can we get them more food and other supplies?” she asked of her uncle.
“Jessica, I will try, but you have to understand that our fighting men have absolute priority, and that includes those men in hospitals and the thousands of American prisoners who are being liberated as we advance. Like it or not, the refugees come last.”
“It’s my understanding, Colonel, that supplies for civilians and refugees are coming into Europe,” said Turnbull.
“They are,” answered Jessica’s uncle. “However, much of it is being diverted by the French, Dutch, and Belgian governments to feed their own people who are starving as well. And that doesn’t take into account what is being stolen by criminals and making its way into the black market.”
Jessica winced at that comment. It reminded her too much of Monique and her sergeant. Monique was recovering from her wounds and would be tried in a French court. If found guilty, which was extremely likely, she would be lucky if she wasn’t hanged.
Jessica shook her head. “The American public won’t like it when they find out that refugees are starving.”
Tom glared her down. “They’d like it less if they knew our boys lacked food and ammunition for the coming battle.”
“You’re right, of course,” Jessica admitted. “But can we buy food and other supplies from the locals now that the rules have been eased?”
Major Diggs shook his head. “We could, but the local Germans don’t have much food or supplies to share, and, assuming we could buy supplies, how would we pay for them? The Nazi Deutschmark is can’t be used, and Germans aren’t allowed to have American money.”
“Then how is any commerce being done?” Jessica asked.
“With illegal money exchanges or, at the very local level, with cigarettes,” her uncle explained.
“And women are selling their bodies for food, aren’t they Major Diggs?” Jessica asked, wondering if the camp commandant was one of those in the trade.
“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” he said, unfazed. “But don’t paint everybody that dark. Our own men eat in the mess hall and have more than enough to eat, and some of the good guys are giving leftovers to kids and the sick, but there’s just not enough of it to make a difference.”
Outside, screaming was heard. Diggs swore and ran outside and into the camp. Several dozen people were fighting over the shredded and bloody pieces of what might have been a chicken. Camp guards, American and German, waded into the throng with cudgels and clubs and quickly broke up the fight. A few refugees had bloody heads, but no wounds seemed serious. A woman sat on the ground and wailed in emotional pain. She’d been the first to grab the chicken and considered it hers. Now all she had left was feathers.
“Someone threw it over the fence,” said a grim Diggs, “and not out of charity. Some of the locals think its great fun to start a riot.”
They left Diggs with a promise to do what they could to ease the situation. Diggs thanked them but said he wouldn’t hold his breath. “No disrespect, but it’ll be a long time before we get this under control and a lot more people are going to die. Oh yeah.” He laughed harshly. “If you think this is bad, check out the German prisoners of war. They get what food the refugees don’t want.”
They left Diggs with the understanding that there was no solution to his problem. Jessica was angry, perplexed and frustrated, but understood the helplessness of those like Diggs who were trying their best.
“Going back to Aachen?” her uncle asked. “I can give you a lift.”
“No, but you can take Florence. I plan on staying here a few days and surveying the situation.”
“Surveying?” he laughed. “Is that what you call it? I ain’t stupid, Jess, I know where the 74th is stationed.”
“Then wish me good luck.”
Her uncle kissed her on the cheek. “Make your own damn luck, Jessica.”
* * *
Margarete listlessly poked at the food on her plate. It was no longer as inviting as it had been, although she would ultimately eat it. She would need it to keep up her strength for whatever ordeals were coming.
They were reaching the end of what food had been stored up for winter and there were serious questions regarding planting crops in the spring. Simply put, would the war let them? The specter of starvation was beginning to haunt them. Her aunt and uncle scoffed at her doubts. The Reich would be victorious well before food became an issue. Neither Margarete nor her mother felt that confident and she suspected that her aunt and uncle had unspoken doubts of their own. Meal portions had been reduced, and would shrink again. Still, one must eat. Food could not be wasted. What little they now had was much more than the people in the cities had.
The stress of waiting for the inevitable conflagration to sweep over them was sapping everyone’s emotional strength. The weather was definitely warming up and each day brought them that much closer to “Armageddon on t
he Rhine” as Margarete liked to call it. Her uncle referred to it as the final German victory. Margarete was too polite to laugh at him and, besides, she really did like the pompous old man. If he didn’t love the memory of Hitler so much, he would be quite charming.
Uncle Eric spoke softly. A new problem had arisen and the police had sent a notice. “Once upon a time I liked to go for walks in the woods. The forest was and is still thick and, when spring comes, it will be lovely again. However, it is now a place of death. The police fear that a number of bandits, deserters, refugees, and escaped workers are hiding in its depths and, when the snow is gone, we will be sweeping the place to get them out before they can emerge and attack us.”
“Who is we?” Margarete asked.
“Every man who can walk and carry a gun,” Eric said. “It will be a motley army consisting of the very old and the very young, but we must get the criminals out of the woods.”
“Is it that bad?” Magda asked.
Eric nodded solemnly. “Just the other day a man’s body was found. It was badly decomposed and eaten by animals, but bodies should not be found in the forest, and not our forest. Once upon a time it was such a friendly place.”
Bertha sniffed. “And we should not talk of dead bodies at dinnertime.”
“And why the devil not?” Eric said. “All we’ve had for all these years is war and death. Hitler’s dead. The Allies should negotiate an end to this.”
Margarete agreed that the war should end, but she doubted that the Allies would ever deal with Himmler. Still, the idea of the forest being so hostile was depressing. She remembered wonderfully scary tales of monsters and witches and goblins in the depths of the woods, and the tale of Hansel and Gretel always gave her chills as a child. But these were not imaginary trolls or bogeymen, these were people who would kill. No, she would not go anywhere near the woods.
Nor did it surprise her that people were hiding in them. On those occasions that she had to go near the tree line a mile or so from her uncle’s property, she’d had the uncomfortable feeling that eyes were on her.
On a happier note, she’d gotten a letter from Hans Hart, the young pilot she idealistically thought of as her beloved. His attempt to transfer to jet fighters had been, as he wrote tongue in cheek, shot down. He’d been informed that there were far more experienced pilots than there were jet planes. If he wished to transfer to the Luftwaffe and fly and ME109 or some other, older plane, he was more than welcome.
Hans wrote that he was willing to fight for the Reich, but not commit suicide. He was, after all, German and not Japanese. Realistically, other than the ME262, all the other German planes were either second rate, or outnumbered a hundred to one, or both.
As a courtesy to her father, General Galland had spoken to Hans and told him to stick with ferrying officers in his Storch. The Luftwaffe was kaput. Stay alive, Galland had said and Margarete wiped away a tear as she thought of the Luftwaffe general’s courtesy.
* * *
“We will have to move,” Alfie said and his two companions nodded agreement. Most of the snow had melted and tender green shoots were poking up from the wet ground. For a long time they’d been aware that they weren’t alone. As they patrolled their area, they’d seen footprints and, on one occasion, watched in hiding as a handful of wretched men in German army uniforms tried to eke out an existence in the woods.
The three men made no attempt to make contact with any of the others. Desperation could drive refugees to do terrible things. They did not go out without weapons and, since few Germans and even fewer foreign refugees had guns, they assumed that anyone who’d seen them would think twice before attacking. They assumed the German soldiers they’d seen were deserters, which meant they were criminals in the eyes of German law and would do anything to keep themselves alive.
As far as they knew, the cottage had gone unnoticed. No footprints had been seen anywhere near it, but perhaps others had hidden their tracks just as they had swept away their own.
“And where shall we go?” asked Rosenfeld. He had taught them what tender young roots were edible. Alfie thought he was crazy, but damned if they didn’t satisfy a craving and actually tasted good if you were hungry enough.
“Alfie’s right,” said Blum. “We can’t stay here forever. Sooner or later, someone’s going to stumble on this place just like we did. I wouldn’t be surprised if the police don’t send patrols into the forest to look for people like those deserters we saw, and if they find us they’ll kill us. You heard the Ami planes last night, didn’t you? Well, the Nazis will doubtless feel that someone is tipping off the Americans and we’ll be likely candidates.”
“But how would we ever do that without a radio? Smoke signals?”
“They won’t care,” said Blum. “If they catch us we’re guilty and the local Nazis would have done their job.”
“Jesus,” Alfie said. Last night, several American fighters had flown tantalizingly low over the forest before bombing and strafing a nearby target that had exploded with a tremendous roar. They’d argued whether it had been gasoline or ammunition.
But Blum was right. They would not be treated as prisoners. For one thing, Alfie had already escaped once and, for another, Blum and Rosenfeld were clearly Jews. The crudely drawn tattoos on their arms so testified.
“If the Americans make it,” Rosenfeld said, “we stand a chance. If not we’ll have to do something desperate.”
Alfie laughed. “As if this isn’t desperate enough? Whatever the hell do you mean?”
“We should consider either heading east in the general direction of Berlin to where the situation might not be so violent,” Rosenfeld said, “or, God help me, we should be trying to cross the Rhine.”
Blum snorted. “And how the hell do we do that? Should we disguise ourselves as logs and try to drift across? And your idea of heading towards Berlin is sheer insanity.”
Rosenfeld shrugged. “Then somebody come up with a better idea.”
No one did.
* * *
Jessica did as Jeb directed and found the small hotel in Rheinbach. He said it belonged to someone he knew and Jessica met Hilda almost immediately.
“You are probably wondering if your cousin and I are lovers instead of just sleeping together and the answer is yes.”
Jessica forced a smile. “I would have been surprised if you weren’t.”
Hilda laughed. “I suppose you are right. The next question you’d like to ask is whether I or my family were Nazis and the answer is also yes, and at one time I was proud of that fact. Before you judge too harshly, recall that Hitler was chancellor since I was nine and before that there was chaos, hunger, and civil war in Germany and abject poverty here in the Rhineland. Please recall it was administered by the French who despised us and abused us because we were German and had killed so many of their soldiers in the first war. Hitler brought order out of chaos and returned the Rhineland to Germany.”
“Wonderful, but he also brought a second world war and death to millions of innocents.”
“Which no one suspected would happen and which no one will believe now. And yes, we initially supported the takeover of Austria and Czechoslovakia and the recovery of the Rhineland to return us to our place in the world. Contrary to what some believe, however, there was not cheering all over Germany when we invaded Poland and wound up at war again with France and England. For so many, it was as if a nightmare had returned.”
Jessica had heard the same from others, that many Germans had been shocked, appalled when the 1939 attack occurred, evoking memories of the horrors of the First World War. However, she wondered just what was reality and what was self-serving fabrication.
“Yes,” Hilda continued, “we did support expelling the Jews, but not their murder. But we laid down with the devil, didn’t we? And now my family is trying to repair its fortunes by dealing with the American army and whatever government is installed in the Rhineland.”
“And that includes sleeping with Jeb?”<
br />
Hilda actually giggled. “No, that is pleasure, not business.”
The two women went to the third floor of the hotel. There were only a dozen rooms, but all were clean and neat, although impersonal, typically German. Jess was pleased to note that no pictures of Hitler or Himmler adorned the walls, but there were a couple of spots where a frame had been removed.
The room given to Jess had a double bed and its own bathroom with tub and shower and a nice view of the street below. She could see no damage from bombing or fighting. Hilda made a point of mentioning that it was the only such room in the building and Jessica was properly grateful. Even if Jack couldn’t make it, a weekend with her own private bath and bed would be heavenly.
She put her toiletries in the bathroom and a change of clothing in the dresser. She had a civilian dress, but had worn her Red Cross uniform with slacks instead of a dress. Turnbull had told her that a young woman in civilian clothes apparently waiting for someone could easily be mistaken for a prostitute and harassed by the MP’s.
She went downstairs and outside. The sky was clouding over and a hint of rain was in the air. More important, there was no sign of Jack. The few German civilians walking about ignored her while the GI’s gave her the once-over and walked on. She heard one of them say “officers only.”
“Hello there, Red Cross lady.” It was Levin. Could Jack be far behind? He answered for her. “Your friend is looking for the address. These street names and numbers are a mess. Don’t worry, he’s just going around the block, and I was trying to find the place, too.”
“Wonderful. And what are you doing here?”
Levin’s expression became grim. “I’ve gotten permission from Colonel Stoddard to interview some of the Jewish refugees at the camp you inspected. I don’t suppose you had a chance to talk to any of them?”
“Nope. Never went inside the compound,” she said and told him about the fight over the chicken.
“No surprise,” Levin said, “but I want to talk to people who actually survived the death camps. I want to know what really went on in them and whether it was as awful as I’m hearing before I make a decision regarding the rest of my life.”
Himmler's War-ARC Page 36
