In the week after Easter we were transported to the complex of the Medical Academy. It seemed to be an intact hospital and not a temporary military hospital as the ‘TH’ had been. We were moved over there in Sankas. The drivers were Russians, but the porters were German prisoners. As we were being loaded up and unloaded we were surrounded by Polish civilians who followed the proceedings with hostility.
It is true that Danzig had not possessed a university, but as well as the Technical High School it had had this Medical Academy, where it was possible to study medicine before the ‘collapse’. Head of Surgery was Professor Klose, an old gentleman. His senior registrar Dr Johanssen was middle aged. The rounds of those two gentlemen provided a welcome change. As civilian doctors in a university clinic, the operation of a military hospital was strange to them. They carried out their work as they had been accustomed to do and as the conquerors permitted. There were even private consultations.
Professor Klose, as we found out, enjoyed a measure of respect in the eyes of the Russians. In 1932 he had operated for acute appendicitis on the Russian State President Kalinin who had been on a cruiser on the way to a state visit to Sweden. Professor Klose, a worthy and corpulent gentlemen, told us that he spent his summer holidays in Pechtoldsdorf near Vienna, where he had a house. One day he reported – but this was certainly not true – that the express train connection from Danzig to Vienna had been re-established. The senior registrar Johanssen was a cheerful, bright man who shared our pleasure when a cure was progressing well. From the conversations I had, I recall the theme of the future, which, in accordance with the euphoria of the convalescent, appeared to us in rosy hues. Conversing with Dr Klose and Dr Johanssen, I told them about my parents’ parsonage and told them that I, too, would most want to study theology.
We did not stay long in the Medical Academy. Instead of the many Russians, who at the beginning continued to come, then it was Poles in some kind of official capacity. The hospital was evidently taken over by a kind of Polish civilian administration. Various commissions came, of which it was said that they were ‘Lublin’ Poles, that is, they belonged to the wing of the Polish resistance that was allied to Russia. I can recall a civilian doctor who had a seven-figure number tattooed on his lower arm. He showed it to us and said that he had got it in a concentration camp. In the Third Reich we had heard by hearsay of the existence of such camps, above all Dachau. But we knew nothing at all of their extent and of what their inmates had to suffer. At one of those inspections by Poles, a German-speaking Communist was present. He had fun rocking on my bed in order to hurt me. He succeeded, too. But I was even more astonished at the sadistic temperament of a man expressing itself in such a way.
From the shell splinter injury on my left buttock an abscess had formed. It required opening by a lengthy cut at the top of my upper thigh. Today I cannot recall whether this intervention was carried out while we were still in the ‘TH’ or whether it was carried out by Dr Johanssen in the Academy. But I do remember that afterwards for some weeks I was only able to lie with my leg drawn up. There was as yet no question of getting out of bed, especially as I was also really weakened by hunger. In the sick room, food was an important topic of conversation. Doubtless it was a sign that we were getting better. We imagined what sort of celebration meals we would have if, with God’s help, we were once again able to eat them.
It must have been about 20 April that we were moved in cattle wagons by rail to Thorn. That was about 150 kilometres away up the Vistula. In Thorn there still remained from the war a large barracks camp, in which Allied prisoners of war had been held after the German victories. So the camp was filled with us, the final losers. As far as I could establish, as well as soldiers and officers who had been taken prisoner uninjured, the camp also came to house many wounded and sick men. Dysentery and typhus were rife. Those who had become sick with those diseases were isolated in their own barracks. From them, day after day, were brought out in the morning the bodies of those men who had died the previous night. Most of the camp inmates were dystrophic, recognisable by their oedemas due to hunger, by swollen legs and faces. On their arrival in the camp, both the healthy and the sick had to go into the sauna, the banja. No consideration was given to fever and the danger of pneumonia. I saw wounded men, running a temperature of 40 degrees, who had to go into the hot sauna and afterwards would lie for hours on end in the train on the way to the barracks.
The wounded not only died of dysentery and typhus, but also, it seemed to me, simply of debility due to their wounds and a lack of sufficient nourishment. In our sick barracks, in which I had ended up with Franzl Manhart, the thin soup handed out twice a day, by way of food, was distributed out of a pot. The pot, after it had been brought in, was set up in the barrack block, and then every man received his dollop from the ladle into his canteen. The many men who were confined to their beds were served their food by medics. One thing remains unforgettable to me. In that barrack block officers and men were not separated. One comrade was at the point of death. The medic, who had seen this, quickly put next to his pillow the canteen of the man who was lying at his last gasp. After the wounded man was dead, the medic hurriedly removed the canteen. In that way he got a second portion for himself. Even today I can see the scene. The medic lurked there watching the man, who was still alive. Then, after the man’s life was over, he tucked into the dead man’s soup ration.
After our arrival in the camp and before we were put into the barracks I had lain in one of the several Finnish tents which were provided for seriously wounded men. The Finnish tents were made of plywood and were taller than a man, so that the people lay in two layers over each other. I lay in the lower layer and I remember a Latvian SS Leutnant who lay diagonally above me. His arm had suffered paraplegia and dropped everything down. It was terrible, because his arm was not cleaned. Beside me there lay another Kriegsfreiwilliger Latvian officer. His Christian name was Antons. He had had one leg amputated and in the other had an extensive flesh wound. But he had still kept his leg. As well as his native language, Antons spoke fluent German and Russian. So I was able to have some good conversations with him. He was completely without illusions in contemplating his future. He was enormously collected and self-controlled. As a Soviet citizen who had opposed the Bolsheviks, he might expect their revenge and a completely uncertain future. The Russian medical officer, a major, who came on his rounds once a day, was called Raskolnikov. His hair was already grey and he had a moustache. We could tell how to a certain extent he ‘put up with’ the misery which surrounded him. But he clearly regretted that he was not able to give better help.
Time alone had been left to heal my wounds. There were neither medicines nor fresh dressings. I was urged by the German doctor to diligently practise stretching my left leg. A final test tap revealed that there was no more coming from the injury to my lungs. In Thorn, in the barracks, I was allowed to get out of bed and could move around the camp with a single crutch. As the doctor had threatened that he would sit on my crooked leg if I did not soon stretch it out again, I carried out the exercise diligently. Slowly the condition of my leg returned to normal.
In the camp at Thorn for the first time we came into contact with political propaganda. On large banners were written so-called ‘sayings’. They were mostly words of Lenin or Stalin, with which we were confronted. ‘The Hitlers come and go, but the German people, the German state, will remain’, went one Stalin quote. It had a surprisingly prophetic ring to it. As we received no kind of news or situation reports, we knew nothing of the progress of the war or even about the death of the Führer.