The better part of
valor is discretion.
Shakespeare
Chapter 15
Even the Sun Dimmed
As we two prisoners were escorted along the streets at about 2 pm, the sky and the surrounding areas turned darker and darker. When we arrived at the gate of POW camp Number 195, it was almost completely dark. Everybody was looking at the sun through blackened pieces of glass or projected the eclipse through pinholes onto walls or pieces of paper.
I was depressed, because the darkness seemed a bad omen for the next stage of my existence. When I walked through the gate however I remembered the Latin saying “Per aspera ad astra” and hoped that it would apply here and guide me back to a normal life.
I was elated, because the people at the camp were intelligent enough to find ways to safely observe a rare total sun eclipse and they all spoke German. I could communicate with them. What a relief. When the sun began to illuminate the area again, we were checked into the camp. I was issued a shabby old green German army uniform because I was in civilian clothing, which was not allowed in a POW camp. My old German military boots were in relatively good condition and I was allowed to keep them.
We were then told that we had to go through a three week quarantine. Only after the work commandos had left the camp in the morning would we be allowed to walk around in the yard. Sanitary conditions were bad and maybe that was the reason for the quarantine. We shared the room with several other POWs who had come back from hospital stays outside the camp. They too had to go through a three week quarantine.
Several old-timer POWs taught me the camp’s modus operandi. I listened attentively, and kept my mouth shut. An older, sick looking Berliner took a liking to me. I called him “Orje” which was a typical Berliner slang expression for George. He told me that he had been in Stalingrad and was a POW for three years. Orje had been in many other POW camps and I figured if he had survived that long, he certainly had learned a lot and was a good person to know. Orje struck me as a typical blue collar proletarian, working in the factories in Berlin, not an intellectual, but street smart. From his worn uniform I could not tell what rank he had held, most likely an NCO. I was sure he was close to twice my age. At first I didn’t trust him, he struck me as a dyed in the wool, communist.
This POW camp No. 195 complex was out of the ordinary in every respect. It was in the former Slupka Palais, probably built in the 18th or 19th century by a Polish count and situated right by the Wilija River. The complex consisted of two story brick buildings and was surrounded by a concrete wall at least 10 feet high. Until 1941 it had been a Lithuanian penitentiary. During the German occupation it served as camp for Russian POWs and under the Russian occupation it served as a German POW camp. What if these walls could talk?
The four corners of the concrete wall surrounding the compound had wooden guard towers occupied by armed Russian guards . When I walked around the camp for the first time, the first thing I noticed was a big Russian propaganda sign. It was a satirical reference to “Painter Schickelgruber’s genius”. “Schickelgruber” had often been used to describe Hitler in Russian radio propaganda.
As I continued on my walk I heard music and a choir singing and I suddenly recognized the music as Johann Strauss’s “Blue Danube Waltz.” It was so unexpected that tears came to my eyes. The next surprise was a sign on a door advertising, “Swing Music of Glenn Miller, played by the Wilija People’s Jazz Group.“ I went back to Orje and reported what I had seen and heard and asked, “What the hell is going on?” Orje told me that this camp had several artistic “kollektives” (groups), who were probably rehearsing for the next variety show. They had to work eight hours a day like everybody else
I replied, “Variety show? You are kidding me, Orje.” “No,” he said, “These POWs are operating in the camp under an Austrian music director and he has to come up with a different show every month. The entire Russian camp staff with wives and kids come to see the performance. Since Russians are great lovers of music, they appreciate these musicals. The rest of the POW work groups will see the show later.”
I was thinking of my dreadful experience with the NKVD and guessed that this was one of their dirty propaganda tricks to show foreign correspondents how well they treated the damn Germans. * See footnote.
I asked Orje about a job opportunity that I had seen on the bulletin board. The Russians were looking for optics experts. Since I had been educated in that field I thought that might be an interesting job. Orje took me aside, and after carefully checking all around, quietly said to me, “Don’t be crazy Hans, they are looking for people who will re-erect the optical factories which the Russians have dismantled in Germany and which are now being unloaded east of Moscow. They will keep you for years, don’t fall for that trick.” He told me that he had been in a POW camp east of Moscow, where they had built the factory buildings to house that equipment from Germany. This had happened long before the war was over!
The camp had six barbers taking care of the approximately 1,500 POWs. There was an infirmary with a female Russian doctor, a Russian nurse, and a German military doctor, complete with juicy rumors about their relationship.
Everyone had to work in this camp. There was an “Invalid Company” (IC) where soldiers who had been badly wounded, like the several amputees in the camp, could work. The largest percentage of POWs was working outside the compound. They cleared the rubble left by the war, repaired the vehicles of the NKVD, rebuilt the city’s generating plant, and felled trees in the nearby forest.
While I was in quarantine Orje asked me, “What is the matter with your right leg?” When I told him, he said, “You go to the dispensary immediately and get yourself a cane. I never want to see you walk without that cane, and that is an order. Try and get into the IC group.” I never walked without the cane again. One never knows how a dreadful physical disadvantage can turn into an advantage later on.
My mind wandered back to what had happened to me during my first year in school. When I started school in Düsseldorf in 1930, I was injured in physical education, during the high jump exercise.
My grandpa in Berlin found out that the chief physician of the Charitè Clinic in Berlin, Professor Dr. Bier, was the foremost authority in bone surgery, and my mother took me there. The next day I was prepared for surgery and was wheeled into a large auditorium. I could hear Professor Bier talk about my case to a number of students. Two days later the assistant surgeon reported that my peroneus (motoric) nerve unfortunately had “jumped over the surgeon’s scalpel” meaning that Professor Bier had accidentally cut the nerve. He said that I would not be able to lift the tip of my right foot any more, because there was no way that the severed peroneus nerve could be sutured and made to function again.
That dreadful injury might just get me into the Invalid Company (IC). Orje himself was in that company. He was just skin and bones, and I guessed that he was suffering from tuberculosis and probably had other serious health problems. After three years in Russian POW camps it was surprising he was still alive.
The members of the IC had to do light work inside the compound, such as making wooden shoes, weaving baskets, helping the cooks and other general cleanup duties. Orje told me that even though the food ration was lower for IC duties, he felt they were better off than the outside work crews, who often had physically demanding jobs.
When we “quarantinees” went through a physical checkup before being released to the work units, I requested to be transferred to IC, and was told that I qualified, but it would take a few days for the camp administration to make the transfer. Meanwhile, I had to go out with the work crews. The unit I was in had the job of clearing the rubble at the local power generating plant, on the other side of the Wilija River. The next morning, using my cane as ordered, I marched out of the camp with an 80 man work detachment to help restore what had been destroyed during the war. It was hard work moving big chunks of concrete. I had lost about 40 pounds, had a greatly weakened physique, and was exhausted all the time. The other POWs were in similar conditions and worked with minimum effort to preserve precious body strength. I think we subsisted on less than 800 calories a day.
While on work assignment, I had an interesting conversation with a young Russian lieutenant, who was an engineer and spoke German fluently. I didn’t know what branch of the military he was in, he could have been with the NKVD. He said that Stalin had made a big mistake by stopping his troops at the Elbe River, because he should have conquered Europe all the way to Portugal. I was appalled about his naiveté, because he seemed to believe that the western allies would have just given up Europe to the Russians.
Another day I asked him about that big peat fired electric plant near Leningrad. He gave me some impressive figures about it. He was obviously an electrical engineer specializing in power generation, which made his presence at this job in Vilnius logical. He mentioned that soon there would be better ways to generate electricity, using methods the American “Manhattan project” was developing. I didn’t know what he was talking about. Many years later when I did know about the Manhattan program, I was even more surprised that the guy knew about it in 1945!
After several days on the outside work commando, I was transferred to the IC and got a job in the basket workshop. Here several men were weaving strips of wet wood into rectangular market baskets. It was reasonably light work in a small, quiet basement shop. We had a quota of so many baskets per day, and didn’t have much of a problem to meet that, except if we didn’t get the necessary material in time.
* The Russians said the Americans let tens of thousands of their POWs die in Germany. I didn’t believe it, but I know better now, because it was factual and is pointed out in the book “Other Losses” by James Bacque. My friend Dietrich (Dee), who was a POW in one of those camps verified that. However, compared to the death rate in Russian POW camps (one third of the several million POWs died there), it was “insignificant.”
SBN 1-89-634-05-0, Printed in U.S.A. Copyright 1999 by Hugelwilhelm Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages.