We had moved once more, to Hedwigstift, a church boarding-house, to be shorn like lambs. One could never have failed to notice the varying degrees of the hair-cut of the Russian soldier. The ‘men’ had their heads shaved, the sergeants were shorn to ear-level and the officers were not shorn at all. Such were the medical measures against lice. Nonetheless we protested. It was of no avail for our protests fell on the deaf ears of the grinning Russians. “Shaved heads, no lice, dawai, dawai!” Those who refused, were physically brought to the barber by force. I found it all demoralising and so I refused to move too. In the palaver that ensued it was overheard that I was Dutch. This saved my hair, but I had to report to the Commander.
Two Russian soldiers appeared, to escort me to the Commander. They wore blue caps. Blue caps meant that they were certainly from the NKVD and with granite-hard faces, they conducted me for interrogation. “What is your name? You are not German, but you are SS?” Now I knew what he was after and I played dumb. My repeated words in Russian “I don’t understand,” brought the Captain who was sitting at the wooden table to a rage. Then he ordered me to remove my jacket and shirt, which I was not allowed to lay on his field-bed, for fear of lice. I explained freely that the scar on my arm was due to shrapnel, but he chose not to believe me. “You SS!” With that the two granite-faces had turned to grinning ones, and their owners took me to the barbers, where I was shorn just like the others.
I had hoped that that was the end of the matter, but I was wrong. I was now branded. I was now ‘one of those’, and treated accordingly, being separated from the rest. It was however not long before I was joined by the others. For a witchhunt had begun for other SS soldiers. All had to bare their left arm and show their tattoo. The Commander had been informed and the information had filtered through. Now the guards wandered through the building, searching. Some were able to hide themselves, in the attics and the cellars, and the Commander made good use of the incident for another purpose.
Up to that time, individuals had escaped. It was clear that as there were now 25 in my room, that the commander wanted to use us as pressure to stop those attempts. It was announced that for every one who tried to escape, one of us would be shot. We hoped and prayed that we could rely on the solidarity and comradeship of the others. We were under special arrest for six weeks, six weeks when our comrades never let us down. No one tried to escape in that time.
We, under special arrest, as well as all in the Hedwigstift, were moved once more. Following that move the witch-hunt for the SS was forgotten for a short time. The pressure on sorting ‘us from them’ eased and we were moved to the Cloister of Compassionate Brothers. For me it was to be the last stop in Breslau as a prisoner. There was no compassion from the Soviets in possession of this house of God. The cloister was the sorting house for Siberia. The fate of every man inside its walls was decided by a commission of Russian doctors, male and female. The cloister was very strongly guarded and the compassion came not from the guards but from the monks. Most spoke Polish and with this language tried to communicate with us.
After a while, the word went round from the others already there, that when a certain doctor was on duty and sat in the president’s chair, then few escaped the journey to Russia’s paradise. Fear struck every man whose name appeared on the list on the same day as that doctor, who was a female major. The accent being more on ‘major’, than on ‘female’. When this was confirmed, the word went around the prisoners like wildfire, and there was no escape. The said ‘lady’ could be described as a typical Russian. She wore a tight high-buttoned blouse stretching over her more than ample bosom. There were fist-thick epaulettes on shoulders and neck, and she looked as if she was growing out of it all. She was never, even in high summer, to be seen without her Schapka, with its red star on the front, covering the military cut of her short dark hair.
She was as hard as granite. Not fever, nor a bad stomach, would qualify anyone for exemption from Siberia. For of course the weeks of the long, long journey would act as a ‘cure’ whilst underway! Those prisoners belonged to Group One and would be shipped off to Russia. That woman had a rather doubtful method of delivering her diagnosis as to whether one was healthy or not. Disregarding the symptoms, she would give every man a good hard pinch on his backside! Many doubted if that method of testing the flesh on this area of the male torso had been medically founded. But she believed in it, or wanted to. Under her scrutiny even those on crutches, or with wounded feet, were classified as Group One.
I celebrated my twenty-second birthday on 4 Sep t ember 1945, but there was no joy on that day. According to the entry in my diary it de noted utter depression. My thoughts were back home. I asked myself if anyone was thinking about me on that day. One thought led to another, as to whether they or any of my family were still living. My entry also tells me that because of malaria, or dysentery, many of my comrades were no longer with me. They had been sent in massed transport to Hundsfeld, the transition camp. From there they went in the direction of the East instead of, according to General Niehoff s conditions of surrender, returning home. Home? One upset oneself by saying the word out loud and so it remained in one’s thoughts.
The day came when I had to go before the commission, when my name was on the list. There must have been all of a hundred men who had as sem-bled. We queued like lambs for the slaughter on that day, in the dark, tiled, cloister corridor leading to the doctors’ room. There were amputees among us. In circumstances such as those, one could almost be jealous of their very good chances of escaping this plight. But there was no escape when the scales tipped in your direction. Even those who had received a bullet in the lungs, which no one would ever wish to have, gazed with interest at the beautiful frescoes decorating the cloister ceilings. Their optimism could not be overlooked. However, that did not interest us, for we were too busy with ourselves.
The queue moved slowly, too slowly. The hours ticked by. The tension built up inside every one. Would it be Siberia or our home land? German medics accompanied the Russians with their long lists. They controlled the queue, together with a very young Russian woman in uniform. Her appearance distracted our thoughts. She was the only thing that could have distracted our thoughts, nothing else! It could have been very amusing under any other circumstances. Even so, this very feminine apparition replaced our thoughts with others. They lasted only for seconds. She was blonde, with obviously long hair that was twisted into a grandmother’s knot at the back of her neck. When she undid this knot of angel hair she must have been beautiful! Every time she passed us, we all looked. Our mouths fell open, one after the other, and our eyes followed her very shapely legs encased in soft Moroccan leather boots, which caressed her legs like stockings. She wanted, with her short, brisk military steps, to give another impression. But conscious of her attractiveness, she pursed her red lips as she went, as if that could detract from her beauty.
I began to feel really sick in the pit of my stomach, as the queue slowly nudged its way to that door where my fate would be decided. When I landed in Group One then I would try my luck at escaping! Perhaps I could find a trusted comrade, one whom I could rely on, and we could use our chances of escape on German soil. One way or an other, they were not going to send me to Siberia and that was for sure! Suddenly, we were no longer needed. “Come back tomorrow”. The commission had not managed to examine the numbers on that day. A move from ‘Lady Luck’ or that ‘God of War’?