Our quarantine period was coming to an end and immediately the Laska family was transported to Taucha, near Leipzig. That was not where I wanted to go, in an area for the masses. I myself had no ties at that moment, so I decided that perhaps I had to give my fate a helping hand. The farewell to the Laska family was very hard for me, for they had become my beloved family.
The experiences of the last few years washed over me. I had met brave and frightened people. Friendliness, faithfulness and the dark side of human nature, all had been mixed with suffering, destruction and death. In the middle of it all, I had found love, founding the very strong will to survive. This will, in the striving for a little luck in life, could not be broken.
Before I had left Breslau, Inge Rudolph, the wife of the company commander that I had had in Pomerania had offered me a home, in her birthplace Finsterwald. That was in case we lost the War and I could not return home to Holland. I had written to her as soon as I had arrived in Zittau, and by 13 October, her husband, Hermann, brought me the necessary settlement permit for the area of Finsterwald. At that time, this permit was the most treasured and necessary that a man could possess, for without it you did not receive a ration-card.
Hermann lived with Inge ‘in sin’, or a ‘wild’ marriage which had nothing wild about it, for it was one without a marriage certificate, and he lived there under another name. He had escaped from a POW camp following some dangerous adventures. No one knew that he was not Inge’s legal husband (in those times it would have been a scandal) or that he had been a former Waffen SS officer. We had no inhibitions in deceiving the absurd and bureaucratic ‘collective’ régime that masses of others also sought to avoid.
The excessive number of criminals now found within the Communist authorities was just as much of a scandal. It did not need a very high intelligence on our part to hide our identity or our past from them. In my case, I had been a Dutchman under the Poles and now, I was a German with the Christian name of Heinz.
I lived with Inge and Hermann in a room at the back of their house, which was warm and comfortable, the warmth coming from the traditional tiled stove. Inge was well-known since her childhood, which was not so surprising, for her family’s textile business could be found on the market square. It had been one of the leading businesses for the last 100 years. It was highly respected, the reason for the very quick settlement permit when one had contacts!
It did not take long for me to find a circle of friends who shared my own tastes. Tastes? With that I mean in beliefs and convictions, all having been part of the young war generation, growing up in the Third Reich, and not being able to throw off its fascination. On top of this, the shock of losing the war ran deep. They would tell you that they did not feel freed, or even agreed that they had been, but that they had been betrayed of their ideals. Added to this was the brutal régime of the Soviets, which did nothing to bridge the gap between them and their convictions, and most certainly did not make them change sides! The continual defamation of the German soldier from the occupiers hardened their attitudes, beyond any doubts. We were soon to become just as much of a conspiratorial band, a corps bound together, as that which I had found in Breslau.
This new chapter in my life did not bring a new routine into it, for we were all hungry. When you needed something as nourishment, then your empty stomach had to groan until you found something to eat, which usually meant travelling for miles around. It was a catastrophe when the distance to the local farms was just too far for a bicycle ride. It sometimes resulted in going away empty-handed, because the farmers had nothing themselves. Then you had to take the train, which meant special permission. I had no trouble in obtaining this special permit for a long train journey in 1946 in those Eastern zones. I obtained a permit at the office of the ‘Antifa’, because I was a representative of the firm of Inge’s parents, and I went on buying trips for them. This process was not however possible without a certain ‘denazification’ procedure.
I travelled with a rucksack and a cardboard case filled with textiles as exchange wares, just as I had in Breslau at the junction of Scheitniger Star. I was once more ‘king’ of the road and the barter business. My expenses from the firm did not run to anything like a good square meal on the way. It was nothing more than a potato cooked in its jacket and spiced with a little salt. This pomme de terre was cold, the carriage was cold and my fingers were blue with the cold. I ate it usually just after the train rolled out of the station, in the hope that I could replace it with something edible from the farmer, on arrival. There was no heating in the train, for many a window was broken, or did not have any glass in it at all. Many were provisionally repaired with cardboard or wood but the wind whistled through the carriages nonetheless. Others could not be moved, up or down, because the leather strap for this had been cut off by passengers and taken away, most probably to sole a pair of shoes.
The whole population was now a caravan of merchants, all travelling hundreds of miles for corn, flour, potatoes or apples, anything to fill those groaning stomachs. Perhaps if one was lucky, one took possession of a bundle of dried tobacco leaves, for a puff or two. In every carriage of the train, small textile or household businesses were represented with tools, saucepans or an iron, rugs, underwear or suits as exchange wares for the farmers.
Such train journeys were not without danger and led to many accidents. A permit most certainly did not ensure you a seat. Every inch of the train was used as one, be it by climbing on to the roof, sitting on the buffers, or clinging for dear life on to door handles whilst standing and journeying on the running-board. All the ways were as dangerous as the other. For those on the roof, a tunnel meant lying flat and holding on tight in order that you were not blown away. For this far from luxurious method of travel, I invested in a pair of motorbike goggles against the soot and black smoke from the steam-engine, not only to protect my eyes, but in order to see better. When I found that there was no seat for me, then I always favoured the buffers between the carriages, where there was a little protection against the wind.
A situation that I experienced in Berlin is burned into my memory. For me it represented the basic instincts of man and took place in the almost destroyed transit station. At 11 o’clock at night, the station looked like something out of the Balkans, or a soldiers’ camp. Everywhere were bodies, men and women snatching sleep, with their arms tightly holding the treasures of that day against thieves. All were waiting for the next train, which departed at three in the morning.
As the train slowly rolled into the roofless station, there was an eruption of movement and a flood of people stormed the train. People shoved, people were pushed, elbowed and all fought for a place on the train. They screamed and fought one with another like animals. One man I saw paid the penalty of using his ingenuity, climbing in through a window, half in and half out, someone saw the opportunity of a lifetime and, from behind, helped him out of his shoes. Decent behaviour or consideration, if brought up with it, was in this situation worthless. One had to reduce yourself to that basic instinct just like everyone else.
Another time I had to journey home on the running board of the train and experienced at first hand the depths that basic instincts sink to when hungry and in need, from people in despair. I hung on, with my precious bundle strongly held between my knees. The quality of coal was not the best and public transport suffered. Second-grade coke fired the furnaces of the steam-trains and this poor quality showed itself when pulling a heavy load uphill or around bends. The train puffed its way nearly to a standstill. Those standing with their treasures on the outside of the train, were subjects of attack, from people who had reconnoitred and were standing at those points, armed with long sticks with hooks. They tried their best to snatch whatever they could away from you. Many a bundle changed hands this way, in trying to ward off the attacks with hefty kicks.