“Concentration camps?” The term is new to me.
“They’re prison camps modeled after the ones the English used in the Boer Wars. We’re basically ‘concentrating’ hundreds, if not thousands, of Herero into small prison camps here in Windhük and along the coast,” he tells me as he checks my pulse.
“I thought General von Trotha said the Herero would be killed if they returned.”
“He did. But there was a bit of an uproar about it because the settlers were being denied their cheap labor. So the Kaiser ordered Trotha to set up concentration camps instead.” Alexander feels my brow. “That’s enough talk for now. You need to rest.”
The next day, Alexander delivers a pile of letters from Hanna. I look at them in surprise. “I thought you were going to tell her I had died.”
He busies himself checking on Max Bayer, the patient in the next bed. “That was the request of a fevered mind,” he mumbles. “I know how much you love her.”
I push the letters away. I can’t deal with them yet.
I spend the next few weeks eating and sleeping and building my strength. I also catch up on the news with Max. Although he served as a captain in General von Trotha’s division, I hadn’t really talked with him until now. He was sent to the hospital to recover from typhus; then the doctors discovered he had a heart condition. Now, he’s recuperating so he can go home.
“I wish I could stay here to see this thing out,” Max tells me.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “I thought the war was pretty much over.”
“The Herero uprising has ended. But now the Witboois and the other Nama tribes are revolting. They’re smaller, so it shouldn’t last too much longer.” He sighs. “I’m looking forward to getting home. But I’d like to finish what I started.”
“What are you going to do when you go home?” I can’t bring myself to even say the word Germany.
“I hope to remain in the military,” he said. “I guess it’s in my blood. My father was a major in the Prussian army. I also want to write.”
I quirk an eyebrow.
He smiles sheepishly. “I’d like to write about my experiences here. What about you? Are you going to stay in the army?”
“No, I’ve learned that army life is definitely not for me.”
“So you will get a post in a nice hospital back home?”
I hesitate before answering. “I haven’t figured out yet what I’m going to do,” I say softly. “But I’m not planning on returning home.” It’s the first time I’ve voiced my intentions.
“What about your family? Or am I prying too much?”
I look down at the white bed sheet. My silence is answer enough.
* * * * *
My body is beginning to recover, but my soul remains torn. As soon as I’m able, I take daily walks around the small hospital and out into the so-called garden. I’m reminded of my walk with Hanna through the lush gardens at Juliusspital that fateful day when she agreed to be my wife. It seems so long ago – more like a wonderful book I read than something that really happened to me. I was a different man back then. A young, brash know-it-all who thought the world would mold itself to his bidding.
As I walk, I look for answers, or at least a little clarity. I’m sure of two things: I love Hanna so much it hurts. And I can never live in Germany again. So how do I reconcile these two truths?
It’s not that I hate Germany. But I’ve come to realize Papa was right. Germany is not – and never can be – my Fatherland. Yes, I have some great friends who are Germans. And there are German leaders, like August Bebel, who speak out against the dangers of a racial pride that flows forward from the Crusades to be fueled by today’s “science” of eugenics. A pride that’s the foundation of a national policy that says all other people, by divine right, are to be valued only for their service to the German empire. And if their best service is extermination, so be it.
This time it was the Herero and the Nama. How do I know that, in the future, it won’t be the Jews again?
I can’t take that risk nor, by my presence, condone such a policy and the actions that spill from it. My months in the desert have taught me that. But if I don’t return to Germany, where do I go? Although the beauty of the African desert has grown on me, staying in South West Africa would be as bad as going home. It’s now German soil.
I could explore other parts of Africa. Perhaps some of the English areas like Cape Town, Walvis Bay, or even Bechuanaland. But from what I’ve heard, these are still wild areas that can take their toll on the hardiest of people. How can I ask Hanna to give up the comforts of home? To leave her family? What do I have to offer her other than a broken man? I don’t have the right to demand that she leave everything that’s dear to her to join me in a foreign land where white women are scarce and Jews are even more of a rarity.
Yet I can’t imagine my life without her. She’s my future. And I fear for her and David, who’s growing up in a country that will never accept him. Like Papa, I want to spare my son the disillusionment of the false hope that it can be otherwise.
Alexander joins me in the garden. I wish I could share my thoughts with him. But I don’t think he’d understand. He’s still blinded by hope.
I finally begin to read Hanna’s letters. They’re filled with her love and the antics of our son. His first tooth is coming in. He’s beginning to crawl. He can say “Mama.” I pore over her words, which are filled with the normalcy my life lacks. Her days are spent chasing after David, working in the garden, and canning vegetables.
She also has found a trove of tin figures Papa had made, along with notes on how to paint them. She plans to finish them, keeping some of them for David and selling the rest to supplement my military pay. “I can see you frowning right now at the thought of your wife working,” she writes. “This isn’t a financial necessity; it’s a joy. Painting these little soldiers Papa made brings me closer to him and to you. Besides, I’m trying very hard to be a woman of valor.” I smile at her reference to Proverbs 31, which Papa recited to Mama every Friday night before the Shabbat meal.
After reading Hanna’s letters, I walk in the garden, thinking about how I should respond. I must let her know what’s in my heart. I owe her that. But I can’t find the words to explain my feelings. Instead, a restlessness falls upon me. And with it, the need to escape the sterile walls of the hospital, if only for a few hours.
Dressed in my uniform, and with Alexander’s stern orders not to overexert echoing in my head, I leave the confines of the hospital for a leisurely walk through Windhük. Without thinking, I head up the hill toward Alte Feste. The walled fort gleams white in the summer sun, like a jewel crowning the growing city. My trek up the hill is interrupted by the sight of an encampment of at least a hundred hovels made of sacking and salvaged planks, all surrounded by a double strand of barbed wire. A few soldiers guard the only entrance. This shantytown of pontoks must be the concentration camp. It sits in sharp contrast to the grand building taking place throughout the town.
I watch in astonishment as a heavy wagon rolls slowly toward the entrance. Instead of oxen, a line of half naked Herero women pull it. Still weakened from their flight into the desert, the women don’t look strong enough to push a baby pram, let alone pull the overloaded wagon. As they reach the entrance, one of the women trips on a rock and falls. A soldier rushes forward, his sjambok raised high. The other women step passively out of the way to avoid the sting of the whip as it lashes repeatedly against their fallen companion. They look at anything but the skeletal woman lying motionless in the dirt as the soldier yells and beats her.
I see her blood pooling in the dust and wonder why she isn’t screaming in pain. The only reason that comes to mind is that she’s already a shade of death. There’s not much more the soldier can do to her.
Without thinking, I step up to him and catch his arm. “That’s enough,” I say softly but firmly. I stare, unflinchingly, into his eyes, half expecting him to turn the sjambok on me.
&n
bsp; Sweat beads on his forehead as he snarls at me. But apparently, he’s had enough, too. He lowers the whip and looks around. The other women are watching him. To show he still has authority, he kicks the nearly lifeless body of the fallen woman out of the way and orders the others to get back to work. They grab hold of the rope and pull with what strength they have left.
As the wagon lurches forward out of the gate, I kneel beside the beaten woman. I pick up her arm to feel for a pulse, ignoring the curses of the soldier. It reminds me of the time I lifted the arm of a skeleton back in my early years of medical school so I could identify all the bones. The woman’s pulse is so faint I can barely feel it. I try to lift her. Even though she has wasted away to almost nothing, I don’t have the strength to carry her. Helplessly, I sit by her side as her last breaths make their escape, freeing her from further torture.
I shake my head, amazed at how the Herero are being treated. Then I notice the gallows in the camp. The corpses of several men hang awkwardly from the nooses. The extermination order may have been lifted, but we’re still bent on destroying what’s left of the Herero nation. Sickened by what I’ve seen, I retrace my steps to the hospital.
By the time I get back, I’m exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Alexander sees me as I limp through the door. He motions for an orderly to bring a wheelchair. I plop heavily into the chair without protest. Alexander follows me into the ward and helps the orderly lift me into the bed. He watches as I drink a little bit of water.
“I told you to take it easy, especially in this heat. You’ve probably set back your recovery by several days, if not weeks.” He shakes his head. “It’s true what they say about doctors being bad patients – at least in your case.”
I wake hours later from a long nap, feeling slightly better. I reach for the glass of water on the little stand next to my bed, scattering Hanna’s letters. I’ve got to write to her. I can’t keep putting it off.
Max helps me prop up in bed and gives me a few sheets of paper and a fountain pen. “My dearest Hanna,” I write. “Forgive my long silence. I’ve been laid up with typhus for a few months now. The fever was almost too much for my body, which was already exhausted, dehydrated, and malnourished from the trek through the desert. But I guess my time on this earth is not yet up. I’m recovering now and will be back on my feet soon.
“The best medicine I could get would be to hold you and our son. But that’s not to be for at least several more months. Although my year of service is about over, doctors are still very much needed here. The Herero – those who have survived, that is – are coming in from the desert and being forced to live in filth in concentration camps. If they have any chance at life, they will need medical care. We….” I pause and scratch out the “we” before continuing. “I owe them that.
“My heart begs me to return to you, but my soul reminds me I have a debt I must pay to these people. I wish I could tell you when I’ll be home, but after all I have witnessed, I’m not sure Germany can ever be my home again. Every time I think I’ve seen the worst man can do, I am proven wrong.
“I have sorely failed you, my Eshet chayil. You deserve so much more than what I have to offer. I will understand if the waiting grows too long and lonesome. Please, don’t think you must be chained to an absent husband. Do what you think is best for you and David. Rabot banot asu chayil v’at alit al kulanah.”
A tear smudges the page as I assure her of my love and sign my name. I put the letter in an envelope, handing the pen back to Max. There, it’s done. I’ve opened the door for Hanna to find a man worthy of her. While my heart breaks at the thought, part of me hopes she steps through that door. It would be a just punishment for my selfishness.
BACK AT WORK
It’s with heartfelt sadness that I tell Max goodbye. He’s finally strong enough to make the sea journey home. While I’m happy for him, I’ll miss him. He has become a good friend. As he packs up his things, he asks me if there’s anything he can take back to Hanna.
“I plan to do some traveling,” he tells me. “It would be no trouble for me to stop in Fürth.”
I give him the shawl I had bought for Hanna a year ago in Madeira. The bottle of wine I got for Papa is long gone.
His bags packed, Max gives me a firm handshake. “It was a pleasure meeting someone as principled as you,” he says, looking me in the eye. “I hope someday you’ll return home. The Fatherland needs men like you.”
I smile. “Good luck with your writing. One of these days, I’ll be reading a book by you, and I’ll tell my children I knew the author.”
Within a few days of Max’s departure, I join the hospital staff. It’s a temporary assignment until my next orders come through. It feels good to be working in a real hospital and to be caring for others instead of worrying only about myself. In my spare time, I volunteer at Eingeborene Lazarett, the “native hospital” set up next to Windhük’s prison camp in response to the townspeople’s concerns that infectious diseases will spread from the camp into the nearby neighborhoods.
Surrounded by thornbush fencing, the hospital is made up of a number of kraals in which the prisoners are separated by disease type. Inside each kraal are open-sided military tents and a bunch of pontoks, slapped together with wood, sacks, and corrugated iron. The biggest kraal is devoted to free native women and Damara and Ovambo workers. Even though these tribes have not risen in revolt, the colonial administrators are taking no chances. With the Herero all but decimated, the Damara and Ovambo are needed to build roads, railroads, and government buildings. The colonists fear that if they’re not locked up, they would return home to their families and herds. And the colony can’t prosper without forced labor.
While the “free” workers are a little healthier than the Herero prisoners, the biggest difference I see is their identification. The Herero are forced to wear metal tags, emblazoned with “G.H.,” indicating they are Herero prisoners of war. Recognizing that those who escape might be able to remove the tags from around their necks, General von Trotha suggests tattooing identification on each Herero.
“We brand cattle,” he says. “Why can’t we tattoo the prisoners?” His staff officers protest the idea, saying it isn’t practical.
The conditions in the camp worsen as hundreds of Herero are brought in. With no room to build more pontoks, thirty to fifty prisoners are forced to share each small hovel. Many of the Herero are hardly recognizable as human. Captured after months of barely surviving in the desert, they are mere skeletons. Young mothers, on the verge of death, hold their babies to their withered breasts in a vain effort to keep the little ones alive.
Despite their physical condition, the prisoners – men and women, old and young – are forced to carry loads heavier than them, from early morning to late at night, under the whips of the German overseers. On General von Trotha’s orders, the only food they get is a handful of rice, salt, and water. They eat the rice raw as they have no pots to cook it in. Although the colonial government is making money by hiring the prisoners out to the railroad and settlers, Trotha insists that no resources can be drained for their care.
That attitude of neglect has turned the concentration camp into a cesspool of viruses that claims several lives a day and threatens the health of anyone who works here. Dysentery, influenza, pneumonia, scurvy, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, venereal typhoid – it’s all here. Death has become a way of life, whether by disease, exhaustion, or the gallows. The dead are carted out daily to be dumped in a mass grave outside of town.
Since the German doctors don’t want the post, I volunteer for a full-time position, hoping I can bring a bit of humanity to the camp. It isn’t easy. Brutality is routine in this place where the Herero are driven like cattle, fed like cattle, and buried like cattle.
I’ve just finished for the day and am heading out of the camp to return to my quarters. Hearing a baby cry, I turn around. Several frail Herero women are carrying heavy sacks of grain on their heads. One of them has the crying baby
tied to her back. As the mother instinctively turns toward her baby, the load of grain shifts and the woman loses her balance. She falls to the ground, spilling the grain. Yelling angrily at her clumsiness, a corporal steps up and sjamboks both the mother and the baby for several minutes. The baby wails, but the mother, her eyes wide with fear, only whimpers. When the beating stops, she slowly struggles to her feet and raises the heavy load back onto her head. Fighting to conceal the pain, she continues her work.
Tears well up in my eyes as I turn away. I should have done something, I think as I walk back to my room. But what could I do? I’m no Moses. I can’t take on the Pharaoh’s guards. If I raise too much fuss, they might close down the hospital or send me back to Germany. What good would that do? The brutality would just continue, and there’d be no one here to soften the impact of the blows when the wounds become infected. No, I must go about my duties, doing what I can, and once again seeming to condone the atrocities with my silence.
A letter is waiting for me when I get back to my quarters. It’s from Hanna. With trembling hands, I open it. “My beloved, I will be as honest with you as you always are with me.” I stop, dreading her next words. I kick off my shoes and sit down on the bed, preparing myself for the worst. I take a deep breath and continue reading:
“It’s not easy being separated from you or raising our child without his father. But as I reminded you in the gardens of Juliusspital, life is rarely easy for a Jew. You warned me then that we might have to be separated for years or live in a place far from Germany. Kov, home is not a place; it is you. Home, for me, will always be with you.
“I realize you have changed. How could you not? I’ve changed, too. Motherhood has a way of doing that. But my love for you has only deepened. If we must be separated for a few more months, or for several years, so be it. I will live embraced by our love and the knowledge that we will be together again.”
Mama Namibia: Based on True Events Page 36
