Unlikely Warrior

by Georg Rauch

  The next of the cement depressions appeared, and we were just coming up beside it when the Russian soldier galloped past us, yelling loudly to a prisoner who had stepped out of the line. At the same moment we jumped. The Berliner crawled ahead of me into the pipe, which was just slightly wider than our chests. I followed and lay flat with my head in the direction from which we had come. I could hear the soldiers walking overhead and feel the vibrations.

  Suddenly a Russian soldier jumped down from the road into the cement cavity, blocking the light at the entrance to the pipe. I closed my eyes and waited for the round of shots, but all I heard was the rattle of a tin can that the guard had picked up and was examining. A moment later he dropped the can and disappeared again.

  The end of the column drew near and passed overhead. The noise from thousands of shuffling feet slowly became fainter, and then all was still. We waited a few minutes longer, and then, very carefully, we crawled out of the pipe, peered down the road, and crept away.

  That night, the following day, and the next night we spent in the fields near a small creek. We ate fruit and corn and slept in a haystack. I rested with my foot propped up high as much as possible, continuing to puncture the scab from time to time. I had a fever and felt miserable.

  The second morning we heard noises—tank motors, many voices, and rifle shots. We moved to the top of a hill covered with trees from which we could see a tightly closed chain of soldiers and tanks spread out over the countryside, heading in our direction. The Russians were systematically combing the territory for remaining German soldiers. Much later I found out that the Romanians had freed themselves at this time from the German grip and gone over to the Russians, enabling them to enclose and capture an entire army. Many thousands of men had already been taken prisoner in this area, but scores were still running around free.

  We immediately realized how senseless it would be to run away. In fact, it seemed absolutely imperative that we not flee, since a runaway would be shot at. We inched a little way on our hill to a bare spot with no trees or bushes where we could be seen from a distance, stood up straight with our hands above our heads, and waited for the Russians. Soon we were walking with a small group of prisoners toward the next village and from there, in an ever-increasing column of several thousand, once more headed for our unknown destination.

  My limp was becoming noticeably worse. Now I could step only on the ball of my foot, and even that caused severe pain. The fever had also weakened me considerably, and I fell back in the column, where I was overcome by panicky fantasies when I saw the tail of the column once more close at hand.

  The end for those who couldn’t keep up was now generally known. Also, because of a few incidents, the guards were becoming stricter. One soldier who stepped out of the column simply to pick up a corncob was shot. He lay, bleeding to death, as we passed by. The late August days were indescribably hot, and we walked in a constant cloud of dust. Our only thought or desire was for water. I had always imagined that lack of food was the worst deprivation until I learned on this march what it is to be thirsty.

  I dragged myself along, limping on the right edge of the column. A young Russian guard, holding his horse by the reins, walked not too far from me. It became more and more obvious that I couldn’t continue much longer. My strength was diminishing by the minute, and my vision was increasingly blurred and hazy.

  On the edge of the road and a few yards up ahead lay an empty gas mask canister. Everyone saw it. Everyone would have given anything to have it. A container with a well-fitting lid and shoulder belt could be filled with three or four liters of water each time we stopped to drink and then carried along for later.

  As the young Russian passed the canister, he gave it a kick with his boot, and it rolled closer to the column of prisoners. No one dared bend over to pick it up. That might be considered a provocation. The Russian remained standing there near the can and, as I staggered past, he looked me directly in the eye and made a gesture with his head. Somehow I managed to pick up the canister and hang it over my shoulder. Within a few seconds a powerfully built German pushed himself next to me from the left, and another giant came from the back to my right side. They put my arms over their shoulders and carried me for the rest of that day and the next. We shared the water with the Berliner, who was still ahead of us. With a kick on a can, a young Russian soldier had taken pity on his prisoner and saved my life.

  THE EVENTS AT BALTI

  On the afternoon of the next day we reached an improvised camp where several hundred prisoners had already gathered. It was no more than an uncultivated field containing a few half-destroyed houses, enclosed by a barbed-wire fence. Machine guns pointed menacingly inward at the corners of the field, and mounted soldiers rode guard outside the perimeter.

  Here, for the first time, the Russians gave us an official meal: kasha, or buckwheat cooked in water, with a few added pieces of cabbage and potato. I was grateful, not only to have something warm in my stomach, but even more for the reassurance that evidently they intended to treat us as human beings, to try to keep us alive.

  Later I got into the long line of sick and wounded that had formed outside one of the buildings. After hours of waiting, I had my foot disinfected and bandaged. Since I was running a high temperature, I was given an old potato sack to hang around me. We slept on the bare ground out in the open, but, since it was only the beginning of September, it was still fairly warm.

  During the days that followed, many more columns, each numbering several thousand prisoners, dragged into the camp. The dismal procession never varied: weary, dust-covered men, wounded and tattered, in barely recognizable German uniforms.

  On the fourth day a group of Russian officers, including a female doctor, went through the camp and ordered the sick and wounded to stand in a designated area near the gate. Many who were not really sick at all sneaked themselves into this group, hoping for better treatment, but later the doctors returned to narrow down the selection. They ordered those of us who were chosen to wait outside the gate, explaining that we were to be taken to the train station. Supposedly from there a train would transport us to a hospital in the next town.

  Soon thereafter we marched away, accompanied by a minimum of guards. Those who remained behind watched us go, their eyes filled with envy. The Berliner, who had also been selected, walked next to me through a pretty landscape that was slowly becoming autumnal. It was peaceful, with grazing cows and butterflies weaving lazy patterns in the air, seeming to declare that nothing had changed in their pastoral world.

  In the afternoon we arrived at a small burned-out building near a railway track. A few hours passed during which absolutely nothing happened. No train went by; no people came to wait. Finally the guards informed us that the train wouldn’t be coming after all. We would have to walk to the next station.

  Weary and dull, the column began moving once more. My foot was hurting a great deal, and beads of perspiration stood on my forehead. The Berliner wasn’t in much better shape. The prisoners straggled, and the column began stretching out in length. The guards no longer even attempted to keep the ragged line together. I neither wanted nor was able to go on. Also, I had little faith that there was any more likelihood of a train being in the next station than in the one we had left behind.

  “I think it’s about time to make for the bushes again, don’t you?” I said to the Berliner. “Are you coming along?”

  “You’re reading my thoughts. And I wouldn’t mind at all biting into some of those plums and all that other fruit.”

  When there didn’t seem to be any Russians in view, we simply wandered off into the high cornstalks. In the adjoining field we found a watermelon, ripped off a few ears of corn, and made ourselves comfortable in a pile of hay, not even caring to consider what might happen later.

  I awakened the next morning to the sound of voices. Carefully I moved to the edge of the field, bent a few high stalks apart, and found myself facing only ten meters away a small blond bo
y, not more than six years old. He was dressed in a miniature Russian uniform, his gray military shirt with stand-up collar pulled together by a wide leather military belt. A little uniform cap with a red star was perched on his yellow curls.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he began walking purposefully toward me while I nervously considered in what manner, preferably as silently as possible, I could kill him. In order to survive myself, I had to get him out of the way. I had to gain time until my foot was healed or else I would never be able to keep up with the column without falling back and being shot.

  As the child came up to me and took hold of my jacket with his pudgy hand, I looked down at him … and did nothing at all. He began pulling me, and I followed without resisting. The Berliner, who had been a few yards farther back, remained in the field. My captor led me across autumn fields, past the working women whose voices I had heard, and past farmhouses in front of which men and women stood, calling out admiring comments to the proud youngster. Finally we arrived in the village, where the child handed me over to a few officers at the commandant’s office.

  So I was once again in the hands of the Russians, much sooner than planned. They locked me up in the windowless village jail, and around noon they brought a bowl full of food that they permitted me to eat outside, seated in front of the jailhouse door.

  A few meters away, in a shady, open space between the adobe houses of the village, a dozen officers sat on benches around a long table. Three or four were women, and all were eating heartily. Cutlery, except for a large, crude knife, was nonexistent. The Russians tore the fried chickens apart by hand, stuffed the flesh into their mouths, and washed it down with wine or vodka. Watching them was fascinating, and this first view of the Russians away from the battlefield or the prisoner columns made a very strong impression on me.

  The fried hunks of meat, torn pieces of tomatoes and cucumbers, and half-charcoaled potatoes were dipped into piles of coarse salt on the rustic tabletop. The juice ran over their faces and hands. The chicken bones and the unappealing parts of fruits or vegetables were simply thrown in an arc over their shoulders. Because of the heavy imbibing, the mood grew louder, but finally all were full and most lay down in the grass to rest.

  One of the women, who seemed very young to be an officer, came over and examined my heel. She must have noticed me limping as I was brought in. At her order, one of the soldiers took me into a connecting house. The young lady officer was quite attractive, with Slavic features and dark hair. While attending to my foot she asked me, “What city do you come from?”

  “From Vienna, in Austria,” I said.

  “Waltzes, Strauss, Danube,” she said, smiling. And then all of a sudden she became excited. “Music! Can you fix a broken radio?”

  “Of course,” I bragged. “I’m a telegraphist.”

  I would have claimed with equal certainty that I could butcher a pig or repair a Venetian mirror. Anything to gain a few hours or days out of the great marching masses. For the moment, I seemed to be the only prisoner in the village, and that also gave me hope for better rations and care.

  The young doctor led me to a house on the other side of the street and spoke to an officer. He took me inside and showed me the radio that sat on a table in a glassed-in veranda. It was a Braun portable, exactly the same model I had purchased in Vienna the year before I was drafted. At my request, the officer brought me a screwdriver and pliers. I unscrewed the back cover and peered into the tangle of wires, tubes, and condensers. One of the wires leading to the loudspeaker was loose. To repair it would be a simple matter and take a mere five minutes.

  I turned to the officer standing at my shoulder and said solemnly, “I know this type. Given enough time, possibly I could repair it.”

  “Karascho,” he answered.

  He arranged for me to be brought a plate of food and a cup of wine, my second meal of the day. This struck me as an unexpectedly friendly gesture, and my hopes rose. Then he sent me back to the town jail for the night.

  The next morning a soldier came for me and took me to the doctor. She disinfected my wound and made a new bandage. In her presence I suddenly felt, for the first time in what seemed like ages, that certain male/female feeling. It seemed like a forgotten wonder to me.

  A few hours later, after a good breakfast and several appearances of the lady doctor and others, I permitted the radio to emit a loud crackling noise, which was interpreted as a good sign by those present in the next room. The second day I let the radio play music for a few seconds and was immediately rewarded with an especially large plate of food and a cup of wine. That same evening the radio played perfectly. Everyone danced and got tipsy to the program of a Russian military radio station. The doctor brought me two more glasses of wine, referring to it each time as medicine. It was close to midnight before they led me back to the jail.

  I gained one more day of good rations for putting the radio back together, but the following day I was loaded into a horse wagon and driven ten kilometers back to the same camp from which I had marched away a week earlier.

  The camp was now full to bursting. Twice a day, columns of five hundred to a thousand prisoners marched off to unknown destinations. The third day after my return I was assigned to one of these columns. The landscape was now flat and treeless, and again we received only a few ears of corn for our daily rations. Once or twice a day we were permitted to drink from puddles or ponds.

  The guards were very strict and unfriendly, especially following a few incidents. Once a German sprang out of the line toward a well. Bullets brought him down before he ever reached it. During the long nights many also tried to escape and were shot.

  I had finally given up on the idea of escape. When my foot was so bad, I hadn’t had any other choice, but by now it had become clear that I would never be able to make it all the way home. For now I was happy to have reached a point where I was no longer being shot at. If I could now come to terms with the fact that I was a prisoner, however long that might take, I might have a good chance of surviving.

  I reasoned that if the Russians had intended to shoot us, they could have done that right at the start. If I tried to escape again, with the intention of making it home, I would only turn myself into a living target. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to use any public or private transportation, and at any rate I had only the vaguest idea of what direction to take. Thus I would have to face a thousand barefoot kilometers without warm clothing, trying to survive on stolen food and chance finds of water, and all this with another Russian winter just around the corner.

  A month had now passed since my original capture. The nights were becoming noticeably cooler, and more and more often it rained for a few hours. On those occasions we were soon covered with mud, and walking on the sodden track became more difficult. The advantage, however, was that we no longer had all that dust to swallow, and the rain provided additional puddles from which we were sometimes allowed to drink.

  My strength began to flag once again, not least of all because of the contaminated water and the diarrhea that followed without fail. More and more of us, above all those with injuries, collapsed and didn’t get up again. The Russians made short work of these. We heard the brief bursts from their machine guns more and more often. I had the feeling we were being urged to more speed than at the beginning. Some of the prisoners toyed with the idea of overcoming the guards. In my opinion, that could only have resulted in a monstrous bloodbath.

  We began to realize that if this march didn’t soon come to an end there would be very few survivors. Even those who were still relatively healthy couldn’t endure much longer under the terrible conditions. On the sixth day we saw the silhouettes of watchtowers on the horizon. Until then, I would never have imagined that such a landmark could become a goal toward which I would strive with new hope, summoning my last remaining reserves of energy.

  We finally arrived at Balti, an open field fencing in thousands of prisoners with barbed wire. No roof or shelter of any kind
was to be seen. Machine-gun emplacements topped the wooden watchtowers. Mounted soldiers patrolled outside, their fingers on their triggers.

  Our column was gobbled up into the gigantic mass of prisoners. I stretched out full length on the damp ground and felt relief simply at no longer having to walk. It was the beginning of a new stage, one that didn’t seem to promise anything positive.

  During the daytime the sun shone off and on, and the conditions were more or less bearable. We received one loaf of bread a day for twenty men, and its proportioning often led to arguments. When these developed into actual fights, the Russians simply came and took the bread away again. Twice a day we received a ladleful of buckwheat cooked in water. After waiting in the food line for hours, we held out pieces of wood or tin, a mess kit, or, lacking these, our empty hands. Then we gobbled the kasha down with our fingers. Nobody had a spoon.

  The nights, however, were ghastly. My thin jacket and pants were no protection at all from the cold, wind, and rain. We had nothing soft or dry to lie on, nothing with which to cover ourselves, no corner into which we could crawl and curl up.

  Three methods were developed for getting through the nights. One way was to keep in constant motion, especially important when it rained. We walked on beaten paths, with hundreds of others, in an enormous circle, always in the same tempo as those in front and behind. My eyes became accustomed to the dark, even in the rain, and soon I was familiar with all the obstacles, such as a small ditch or the large root of a bush. With our heads hanging down, half-asleep, we walked behind the others, next to the others. There was no talking.