Those warm June days spent with Brigitte, were the most wonderful of my life, spiced only with a kiss or two, although we became so close that after only a short time, we knew what the other was thinking. There was no need for our love for one another to be put into words. It appeared to me that our souls were totally bound together. Soon, I started to talk about marrying. Later, although under different circumstances, that was to be utopia.
Brigitte’s skin was as brown as her eyes, but this did not come from a beauty spa. It came from forced labour in the fields around Liegnitz, under the Russians. It was some 50 kilometres west of Breslau, where she had been evacuated with her mother, in January 1945. She too had experienced the exodus in the snow, ice and 20° below freezing. She had seen uncountable people die, including her mother who died from dysentery shortly after their arrival. Now as a total orphan, Brigitte stood there totally alone and under the ‘victors’ wrath. The drunken Russian soldiers, frustrated at the long and tough defence of Breslau, often vented their spleen on those defenceless German citizens. Those whom they did not transport away, were put to work in the fields under the old Russian motto “no work, no food”.
Brigitte could not forget the plight of the horses when following the plough, for all had wounds, from bullets or shrapnel and their wounds had never been attended to. When horses failed then the Germans were saddled with their work and they had to pull the ploughs and farrows, like Volga boat-people, pulling their barges. She was one of the lucky ones, for she could in the first few weeks of the occupation avoid the raping that was customary, together with other young girls. They could hide themselves, quite successfully, in a hole in a mountain of coke that they made, in the grounds of a nursery. Not only at nights, but also by day they fled to this haven of safety, where they stayed, freezing and still as mice, and were fed at nights by the older women. Only those who had experienced Bolshevism, such as I, with the motivation of leaving my home to fight against it, can understand its system.
In July of 1945, Brigitte returned to Breslau to find her parents’ home in ruins. In October she was ill with typhus, which she survived in spite of the fact that medical attention for Germans was a catastrophe. Many died of typhus. One could say that we were both orphaned, for I did not know if my family had survived or not. My last communication from them was at the end of 1944. This ethnic-cleansing programme of the Poles was now to rob her of her homeland.
Far quicker than we wanted, she and all the Germans had to leave their district on 22 June. It broke our hearts and made us happy at the same time, that one of us could turn our backs on that Polish commercial and economic management. Our happiness was however tinged with worry, for the expelled could decide nothing for themselves, including where they wanted to go. They were forced to go where they were sent, be it to the West, or to the Communist Eastern zones of Germany. It had been a journey that decided life or death in many cases. Thousands had already died, in the middle of December, in conditions that could be compared to cattle transport. It was important that the Silesians were sent on their way. 1,600 had been given a loaf of bread and a herring as provision for the journey, which had taken a week. In temperatures of 20—25° below, they were herded into cattle-wagons, which were unheated and with no toilet facilities. They arrived in Potsdam, in Bruckenburg, in the Western zones with 35 dead. After being delivered into hospital, a further 141 died from the results of pneumonia, heart attacks or the results of freezing.
My hopes for her well-being were realised when receiving a letter from Brigitte from Detmold, which was in the British zone. The journey in goods and cattle-wagons had taken eight days, but she had survived the stress. In Görlitz and on German soil, but under Communist direction, the wagons were directed on to other tracks, so that the expelled could be plundered once more, of the last that they possessed. My medals, which Brigitte had hidden in balls of wool, had not been found.
In Breslau, things were moving on for the Laskas and myself, for we had registered with the German charitable Organisation ‘Caritas’. At the same time, I presented my Russian discharge papers and was accepted as any other German soldier, although I was Dutch. My BVB paper was not shown because of the danger of a DP classification, and deportation to Holland.
For some inexplicable reason, our deportation was delayed and I was already thinking about deporting myself out of Breslau and undertaking a one-man journey to the Western zones. My friends talked me out of the idea, telling me that it was a very dangerous mission and could cost me my life. So I waited. We waited throughout July, August and September, and it was on the 30th that we were ordered to leave. We could take 25 kilos of possessions with us.
With stamps and cardboard stickers on our chests, we left to form a queue under Polish control, and marched to the Freiburger railway station. Before we left, Mrs Laska had run her soft hands over every piece of her furniture in her home. In tears she caressed each piece that had given years of service to her and her family. I, in my happiness at leaving, did not at that time understand her deep feelings at the loss of her treasures. Only later, after slowly collecting my own possessions laboriously together, did I understand. The keys were then taken from the inside of the locks, placed on the outside, and we left.
The Poles did not have enough intelligence to realise that they were expelling the best of their ‘milk-cows’ and ‘cutting their noses off to spite their faces!’ They did not comprehend that the industrious hands of the Germans and their knowledge of the economy of their land was something that they did not possess, and perhaps never would.
The militia, armed with German rifles, screamed their orders at the throngs of people, with gestures that drove the column through the streets to the station. They showed no sympathy. The pram of Mrs Laska’s daughter was snatched away from her, shortly before she climbed into the train. Most were in tears having sunk to the depths of depression, because of that act, the worst act of man against his fellow man. The Poles drove the people into the wagons laid with straw, but which were now overflowing, then into the goods and cattle wagons. Toil et arrangements were left for them to arrange from inside.
One’s wits were a valuable asset in those moments, for we were by now well acquainted with the greed of those non-capitalists. The Laska family and I had the joy of outwitting them, at the last minute, with my plan, ‘Operation Janka’. My own baggage consisted of a rucksack and a cardboard box which I gave to the Laska family just before reaching the station. Surreptitiously I removed myself from the throng, unnoticed by the militia. I made my way to one of the exit points at Lutzowstrasse, to where another fully laden cart was parked, which I took. I rejoined the last third of the column and reached the first control point, which I passed through without any problem. I rejoined my waiting friends with the additional freight. They were overjoyed at the ‘trick of war’ against the Poles. It was a grotesque comedy. It was the joy of the ‘little’ man, that he could rob a kilo or two from the robbers themselves.
Just before the wagons started to move, a young blonde girl ran along the platform, calling someone’s name. To my great surprise it was Elzbieta Markowitz, who was looking for me. Being Polish, she had been allowed to enter the station briefly and she looked so happy at finding me. She had found out somehow that I was among the deportees on that day. “Till we meet again, Hendrik”, she said, giving me packets in which I found pork-dripping sandwiches and cigarettes. It was all so hurried. Rather choked by her gesture, all I could say was “farewell little Elzbieta”, as the over-long train gave a jerk and started to steam out of the station.