Tibor noticed Bela staring at him. Not meeting his brother's eyes, staring directly in front of him, Tibor whispered to his brother in disbelief, "This has to be temporary, just a holding area. These are the Americans, after all."
During the next few hours, hundreds more new arrivals descended onto the sloping field, taking their places in rows of military precision.
They didn't have to wait long before the order came to lie down, on their backs, shoulder-to-shoulder, feet to head on the ground. Tibor looked up at the late afternoon sky, tinged blue puffs of clouds forming here and there. He felt like calling out to God loudly, publicly, but instead decided to say a prayer in the silence of his heart: "Dear Lord, let the suffering of this war end. Enough already, God!" He closed his eyes, comforted in the knowledge that his brother was with him.
His prayers were interrupted by the rumbling of jeep motors. Tibor couldn't tell if it was one jeep or more, but could hear that one of the engines was screeching on and off from exertion. It was then that Tibor turned his head to see three jeeps very near to them. A drill had been attached to the back of the first jeep. With it, the driver was digging a deep hole in the ground every five metres or so. The second jeep, following closely behind, placed a heavy duty thick wooden pole into the freshly dug hole and secured it.
The men on the third jeep were unwinding a barbed-wire mesh fence and nailing it to the inside of the posts. Tibor closed his eyes once again as he lay on the ground, too terrified to accept what was going on around them.
By the time they finished, and the men were allowed to stand up, they saw that the Americans had encircled the men on each side of the hillside, and the fence separated them from the creek running on the bottom and up the other side. Darkness had descended on the hillside by the time the fence was finished and a steady cold drizzle of rain had begun pelting down on them.
A few men were given shovels and ordered to dig a latrine at the bottom of the hill, inside the fence, parallel to the creek. The ditch was ordered to be narrow but deep, just enough to straddle your feet on two sides and defecate or urinate. There was no cover to the ditch, nothing to hold onto and nothing to wipe yourself off with when you were done.
The brothers settled in the small space they had on the ground, covering themselves with the sweaters and the raincoats they brought with them. They and the thousands of other prisoners slept under the open sky.
During the night, they heard the terrifying screams of a man being beaten and tortured. The screams pierced the night and seemed to go on for hours. The dreadful sounds came from the other side, where the German prisoners were held. Tibor shut his eyes as he tried to sleep, covered his ears with his palms.
At dawn, they were woken and ordered to stand in line for food. Each section was instructed to receive their food at a specific time of day. Tibor and Bela's platoon was assigned four in the morning and four in the afternoon.
Food consisted of a bowlful of pinkish water the Americans referred to as "tomato soup." It looked as if a few cans of tomato soup had been tossed into hundreds of litres of water. The soup had a stench of gasoline - the water to make the soup was transported to the camp in tanks that formerly held gasoline.
The available drinking water was also permeated with the same stench of gasoline. Tibor and Bela consumed some of the soup, but avoided drinking the water for as long as they could. They still had some food (smoked meat), and ate small amounts of it in the dark, making sure no one else saw or heard them. But, after the first few days of their incarceration, the food they brought with them was gone and they were famished like everyone else.
After one week, as they stood in line for the soup, Tibor was elated to see that the men in front of them in the line were being handed entire loaves of bread.
"See?" Tibor said to Bela. "I told you the Americans would start feeding us. They simply weren't prepared for all these people. Now they're getting organized."
Three American soldiers were in charge of the distribution. One soldier translated and kept repeating, "Every thirty-eighth gets one."
It was when Tibor reached the front of the line that he saw that they meant every thirty-eighth man was handed one loaf of bread.
Bela was the thirty-eighth in their group. The private who was counting and distributing looked at Bela smugly and handed him the loaf of bread.
Great, Bela thought, as the famished men gathered around him. Now the rest are going to slit my throat for a piece of bread.
He realized he had to find a way to make sure the loaf was equally distributed. He spread out his raincoat and began by breaking the bread into chunks, then further working the bread into smaller and smaller piles of crumbs with his hands. He could feel the eyes of the thirty-seven men on his hands, watching his every move, making sure each pile was equal, while practically salivating like dogs.
It took at least twenty minutes to prepare the anthill-like piles of bread crumbs, and only seconds for each man to swallow his tiny ration - about a teaspoonful each. Bela was surprised there wasn't an outcry, but everyone could see that not a crumb was wasted or distributed unevenly.
The next time they divided the bread in this way, it was mutually agreed to let a different prisoner have first choice each time - this way the person dividing up the loaf could not be accused of favouritism. Bela was chosen to be the one to divvy the loaf up each time.
The brothers spent their entire waking day and night trying to make their day-to-day lives more bearable. Then, as if the heavens were mocking their cruel fate, cold dark clouds brought spring rains, saturating the ground beneath them. Tibor and Bela were grateful to have a couple of raincoats to crawl under.
But it rained for days on end and they realized they had to find a centre pole for their makeshift tent, as the raincoats had to be propped up away from them. By the third day, they were soaked by the seemingly unending downpour, despite their raincoats.
The only possibility of escape might have been underneath the barbed-wire fence on either side of the creek, where the ground was soft because of the latrines and groundwater. Their captors, however, had a strategy to thwart any plan of escape. Each night, American soldiers drove two new Volkswagen cars to either end of the creek, parked each parallel to the water on opposite sides, then turned the motor off with the lights burning. It was like an amazingly well-lit soccer field during the night. By the time the batteries on the cars went dead, daylight broke.
The vehicles with the burned-out batteries were left there night after night. A few prisoners were allowed out the next day to take apart the useable parts for shelter. They ripped out the seats and upholstery with their bare hands.
After a week, the ground near the creek was covered with automobile carcasses, picked clean of any useable parts.
Those who weren't fortunate enough to find a bit of material for shelter or fend for themselves died of exposure. They lived and slept under the open sky. Unprotected from the driving unrelenting cold rains and blistering winds of early May, many caught colds that turned into pneumonia. Those who survived until the warmer weather arrived at the end of May sometimes collapsed from dehydration.
The gasoline-tainted pinkish soup and drinking water made many sick with dysentery. The first sign was body-wrenching diarrhea, eventually leading to dehydration and ultimately death. The brothers were camped on the first row, on the bottom of the hill, closest to the latrine. As the days turned into two weeks, the stench of human feces and vomit became unbearable, yet there was nowhere to move to - the rows higher up were covered with prisoners. Worst still was seeing the lineup of the sickest and weakest, distinguished by the yellowish sallow skin, and the hollowness of the eyes. Those most affected by dysentery barely had the strength to move away from the area of the ditch-latrine. Weakened from disease and hunger, often they would simply fall into the latrine and die where they fell.
The young boys were the first to go. Tibor couldn't imagine how these young kids ever ended up here. Their mothers were pr
obably still waiting for their safe return home. Every once a while, Bela reminded his brother of his earlier comments that the Americans were just getting organized, that they weren't counting on this many people, that they wouldn't allow so many people to starve. Tibor was fascinated by the United States and its history - to him the country represented higher ideals. He remained adamant, stating he still couldn't believe that this was being done purposefully.
While in military school, however, Bela had studied the international treaties governing the treatment of prisoners of war. Countries, including the United States, had to abide by these international rules. After two weeks of living out under the open sky and being given starvation rations and tainted water, Bela suspected something more sinister.
A local Catholic priest was allowed into the prisoner-of-war camp to say daily mass for the prisoners. He brought with him the wafers of unleavened bread used as hosts. The brothers went to mass every day. Bela stood in line to receive communion three or four times during the mass. Tibor admonished his brother and told him what he was doing was sacrilegious, but Bela replied he didn't care. He didn't have the energy to pray anymore - he just wanted to have the feeling of something in his stomach.
After two weeks, Tibor was already starting to show the first signs of dysentery - he had developed a severe case of diarrhea. He didn't want to alarm his younger brother. Tibor felt the energy drain from his body, and when he stood up to drag himself to the latrine, he felt dizzy. He simply wanted to lie down and be left alone. Bela noticed with dread Tibor's increasingly gaunt face and the dark circles under his older brother's eyes.
Each night the screams of men being tortured and beaten on the other side went on unabated.
chapter 22 | may 1945
AS HE WATCHED TIBOR'S strength slowly hemorrhage out of his body, Bela knew he had to do something and quickly, although he didn't have an inkling of how he could get his brother something solid to eat. He wracked his brain for some solution.
While part of him still clung to his past, everything he had been trained to believe in was slowly crumbling. Military discipline and honour, respect for fellow enlisted men, lending a helping hand for those in need ... Bela had witnessed these noble ideals trampled in the mud and muck of Tittling. He felt like an empty shell, drained of his youth and any hope the future held, robbed of the lofty ideals he had been taught at military academy. He thought of the motto of his military school with disdain. "Fide Virtute Famam Querere" - "To obtain Glory with Virtue and Loyalty." Indeed. It turned his guts inside out to think about how much he used to believe in all of it.
There was nothing ennobling about the behaviour of the military men he had encountered on either side. No military honour or regulations were observed here. It was survival of the fittest, rule by the most powerful. For the second time in his life, he realized that he didn't care whether he lived or died. If he died, however, he would choose the route, and he knew he wouldn't expire like the others around him: weakened by hunger, felled by dysentery, thrown onto the back of a jeep and dumped into a communal grave with hundreds of others. He wondered how long it took to die of hunger. How many more days of this would he be able to endure? How would he ever be able to face his mother if Tibor died and he survived? He would never be able to come home again.
He scoured his knapsack and found the last dress uniform jacket he had. It was relatively clean, all the buttons in place. The jacket was the last symbol of his attachment to the past: it was decorated with two stripes and two decorative gold buttons - indicating he was the best in his class. Silently, he pulled on a pair of safari pants that were about the same beige colour as the uniform jacket - each of the pants legs had several big pockets.
Without having a clear idea of what he was going to do, Bela decided to head toward the administration building. He surveyed the distance. He would have to walk two hundred metres past an American guard with a Tommy gun slung over his shoulder.
Bela had seen enough of American soldiers to be able to imitate their air of self-confidence. He simply had to imagine being part of the victorious side. No matter how hard he tried to build confidence, however, his knees were turning to pudding at the thought of the distance he had to cross.
Fortunately, he still had one last piece of chewing gum, saved from the pack the Americans had given them during the march. Bela knew the gum was a critical part of the "American look." As he put it in his mouth and started to chew, he realized the gum also helped calm the queasiness of his knees and his stomach.
If he was going to do anything at all, he had to do it now. He felt his courage already dissipating.
Bela garnered his last bit of strength, put on the best swagger he could muster, and walked toward and past the American guard with the Tommy gun. The young private was also chewing gum, checking him out with a look of disdain. Bela walked calmly. The guard didn't seem to be suspicious, probably thinking that if Bela was trying to escape, he would have been walking away from the administration building, not toward it.
Bela forced his feet to take slow, measured steps. If he was going to be shot, it would happen any second now. He braced himself and realized taking a bullet in the back would be a quick, easy, relatively painless way to go. The shot never came, however, and Bela didn't look back, only ahead.
As he reached the door of the administration building, he froze. What will I do now?
As he stood there in a frozen stupor, he saw through the glass pane that a uniformed officer was heading out of the building. Bela grabbed the doorknob, opened it, saluted the soldier, and closed the door behind him. With his heart pounding so loudly he was convinced the entire camp could hear it, he cautiously looked around. All was calm. The private with the Tommy gun wasn't even looking at him.
Another soldier came in, another officer went out. Bela opened the doors for both.
Until noon that day, Bela dutifully opened and closed the door and saluted everyone entering and exiting. No one asked what he was doing there. There were two doors - an inner and outer door. By noon Bela was opening and closing both doors from inside the building. At lunch time one of the staff approached him and said, "Come on kid, help pass out the lunches."
Bela understood, nodded, and said, "Yes, yes," trying not to seem overanxious.
Bela was directed to the basement where there were boxes of food piled to the ceiling. He was shown where the prepackaged boxes of lunch rations were, and instructed to bring up a dozen - one for each of the clerks upstairs.
Bela dutifully passed out all the lunch rations, ate a lunch portion as well, then went down to the basement again and helped himself to more food, grabbing packages at random from cartons full of chocolate bars, crackers, cookies. He even found a hen laying eggs in the basement. He grabbed two eggs, cracked them carefully, then poured the insides straight into his mouth, swallowing the raw whites and yolks whole.
After lunch, Bela returned to his post at the door and continued working until the staff in the administration building finished their day. Around four o'clock, when he completed his task, he casually went down to the basement again and filled his pants pockets: cans of spam, sardines, condensed milk, crackers, chocolate bars, and cheese -everything he could grab. Walking very carefully, with each pant leg looking like an overstuffed sausage, Bela sauntered past the guard again. Trying to look nonchalant, Bela even gave him a little wave. The guard was smoking and busy reading a paperback book. A scantily clad woman with voluptuous, half-exposed breasts decorated the cover. Bela thought the soldier must have been reading the sexy parts, as the guard barely looked up to acknowledge the greeting.
"Where were you?" Tibor asked when he returned. "I was worried about you!"
Bela motioned to his brother to come under cover of their tarp and, looking around to make sure no one was watching them, slowly unpacked the packages of meat, fish, crackers, cookies, and chocolate bars hidden in his pockets. Tibor grabbed a chocolate bar ravenously, ripped it open, and practically swallowed
it whole. Then another. He smiled at his brother. "You're amazing."
Bela told him about his stint as doorman.
Then Tibor's expression changed to a look of concern.
"You stole all this food? They're going to come after you. What were you thinking?"
"What was I thinking? We're starving! Are we just supposed to lie here and die of starvation? Anyway, if they want to come after me, let them. Sooner or later we're all gonna die with what they're giving us to eat."
That night they went to sleep, without feeling hungry, for the first time since they arrived.
The next day everyone woke to the sound of sirens blaring: six military policemen in two jeeps were driving through the camp. There were no roads - the jeeps simply drove wherever they wanted to, the prisoners jumping up and out of the way like pigeons scattering before a speeding car. The sound of those sirens confirmed Bela's worst fear.
"This is it," he said to Tibor. "I'm finished. The Americans found out I stole their food." It was probably the two missing eggs that gave him away. There was only one chicken, after all.
As the jeeps sped through the camp, almost running over several prisoners, flattening tents and sleeping areas, one of the military police ordered a stop and began to study the faces of the prisoners.
Then, one of the MPs recognized Bela and shouted to the others, "That's him!"
Two MPs grabbed Bela and got him into the jeep. The jeeps turned around and drove back to the administration building.
When they arrived the MP who identified Bela pointed to the front steps and motioned to Bela.
"Get back to your post!"
Still incapacitated with fear, Bela was incredulous. He simply couldn't believe what he was hearing.
The MP thought maybe Bela didn't understand and yelled again, louder and slower this time, emphasizing each word.
"We need you o-o-o-pen and clo-o-o-o-ose the door." With that, he stretched out his arm and pointed to the door.
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