That night was long and one that brought no sleep for me. It was one of tense agony and apprehension for the second act. The next day, far quicker than I thought possible, I was standing before this committee. It was a room filled with blue cigarette-smoke, with German and Russian doctors, a translator, and who was sitting in the middle at a table? This beautiful apparition! So, she was a doctor, which explained her rank, but from her appearance she could have been a medical student.
To examine me, she carefully undid my sling and, just as carefully, felt the area around the bullet holes on my arm, which by now was almost paralysed. Although I was tense, I felt the soft touch of her long slim fingers on my skin, like a caress, but let out a loud yell, “Ouch!” as was rehearsed with our assistant doctor during his ‘simulation course’. My arm had not healed quickly without the use of a sling and so I saw to it that I had not used mine very often. In that way I stretched the healing process for as long as possible, and the result was now, at that moment, to be seen. I could hardly be called ‘whole’, although I was not in as bad a condition as others. A discussion began between all of the doctors. In the months of contact with the ‘Ivans’, however distant, through repetition one is forced to recognise words, until you ask what it means, or you are informed, and so I recognised the word good. Did that mean good enough to work? Was I not going to be released? This angelic female could not release me on medical grounds? I watched her whispering for some minutes with an older colleague in a white coat, and then she turned to me and smiled, saying “Du domoy”, i.e. I was dismissed!
Only upon leaving the room did I understand her words. I was going home! Had it been the tuition from my doctor friend? Had it been the sympathy of this woman, of the same age as I, which had spared me from Siberia and saved my life? I will never know. Numbed but happy, I wanted to share my news with my chums and returned to my room. Most were Group One. Suddenly it was clear to me that to have shared my joy with them would have abused them emotionally. I could not console them, for I could not find any words. As I stood there, the melancholy sound of a harmonica filled the air, coming from the cloister garden. The melody hung in the air. It was one known to all of us who had worn a uniform. The musician interpreted what we were all suffering, what we all needed, interpreting the despair in most, and the hope in others. The music of this soldier’s philosophy was far better than any words of mine could ever be. Es geht alles vorüber, es geht alles vorbei. “Everything changes, changes to yesterday”.
CHAPTER 19
Illegally in Poland
Now the war for me was definitely at an end. The last act of the Silesian drama was simply a matter of enforcing the resolutions of the Potsdam Treaty which took place on 2 August 1945. From then on, Breslau was no longer German territory, but Polish. Already in the middle of May, a Polish flag could be seen fluttering in the breeze over the City Hall. Breslau was no longer Breslau. Breslau was given the new Polish name of Wroclaw. A seven hundred year old culture sank in a flood of Poles and Polish government. The ‘blooming’ capital city of this part of Germany had been given away.
The fate of the German eastern provinces had already been decided between the Western Allies, by February 1945, in Yalta. This ‘bounty’ of war was divided. Although Poland lost territory to the Soviet Union, Poland’s borders were enlarged by 250 kilometres, stretching into Germany like soldiers ‘falling-out’ to the side. It had been a subject of discussion however, as early as 1943, at the Teheran Conference, when Winston Churchill’s dry comment was that “No one can do anything about it, when this treads on German toes.”
This ‘falling-out’ action brought compulsory seizure of property, following the forceful expulsion of15 million German inhabitants. As a result, three million people lost their lives. “A land of death, from the Oder to the Neisse, for the outlawed”, was the description from the journalist Robert Jungk, on 26 November 1945, in the Zürcher newspaper Die Weltwoche.
I was a free man on 20 September 1945. I was given my discharge papers and a ‘pound-loaf of bread. As a stranger, I was all owed to stay in Breslau, just 24 hours. I was still there 12 months later. “Du domoy!” The Russian doctor had said to go home, but where was that? I could not and did not want to return to my ‘home’ in Holland. I knew that the ‘old’ régime was allied to the Communists during the war, and allied now to the ‘new’. I could only expect reprisals against the ‘volunteers’ from my homeland. That was confirmed at a later date. No! I must find myself a new home.
I cannot describe the utter joy that overwhelmed me with the first steps I took into freedom. I was free at last. Free! There were no more Russian guards and no locked doors. The military discipline, and the ever-present fear of death over the last years, was no longer there. I was totally alone. There were neither accompanying guards of escort, nor any of my reliable comrades to give me their company. I felt the isolation. The realisation came that I must fight my way through a strange survival strategy that I knew existed, but that I had to discover for myself what it was.
My uniform was tattered, making me feel like a vagabond. But because of it I blended into the tattered city. It was a city of debris and ruins. I made my way to the home of a young nurse from Breslau. She had been discharged some time before me, and now lived with her mother on the outskirts of Carlowitz. Upon her discharge, it was possible for her to retrieve my personal effects, under difficult circumstances, and smuggle them out of the hospital. She buried them, like a dog burying a bone. They were waiting for me. My diary and old photos were all the possessions that I had.
After dressing in a borrowed suit of her brother, who at that time was missing, I could go out into the streets. It was dangerous, because the terror of the Poles raged. Everyone in my age-group immediately aroused suspicion as having been a soldier. If you gave them the opportunity, they would tear your discharge papers to pieces.
At the end of the war, the Polish state police, or to give them their official title ‘Organ for Public Safety’, were installed as supervisory officials by the Communists. But they possessed a high percentage of criminal elements. They made a business from plundering. They dressed in leather jackets, or had the gall to dress in German uniforms and carry German weapons. They elbowed their way through the population, stealing from them by day and by night. Under the protection of the Communists, they had never even had a whiff of gunpowder. But they were the ‘victors’ and now behaved just like the ‘Ivans’, although they had never been friends. It may be somewhat strange to understand, but the Communist leadership which now reigned, was very often the saving grace for many of the German nationals to be found in Breslau, simply because of their relationship with the Poles.