大象传媒

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING
We knew that the Russians were already quite near the camp and we knew that something will have to happen, that we will have to be evacuated from that camp, and I knew all that from Mr Nitschke, who was the German foreman in Siemens. So we prepared our plan that when we are going to be evacuated and transported to the next camp, which at that time, we didn鈥檛 know was going to be Belsen. So we had everything ready 鈥� our clothes, which were hidden. I even got some money. And we already started to store bread we got so that it would keep us for a little while.
I was with the two girls. One was called Lisa and the other was called Bebina. And they both worked at Siemens as well and they were my closest friends. So one day we were told that we should get everything ready. Quick, quick, quick. These things always happened at night, everything happened at night. We could already hear the Russians guns in the distance and of course we were very, very, very happy.
Many of the girls who were working at Siemens were Communists. Not only Czech girls, there were many French, many Poles, Russians, very few Germans and Dutch. Many amongst them were Communists and were in prison because they were Communists and so they were all quite looking forward to meet the Russians. And I myself was, of course, being together with them all the time, I had quite a lot of Communist ideas myself and was quite happy with it. So one day at night the Gestapo men came with their dogs and said, 鈥淨uick, quick, quick. Everybody ready, everybody ready. Within 10 minutes we are leaving.鈥� So there was pandemonium but we all were mentally prepared for it already. Immediately we were put 5 and 5 in rows and counted and off we marched. And we came to the main road and we walked. Of course, we had no idea where we were. The little town near the camp was called F眉rstenberg and we knew it was north of Berlin, but we had no maps, we had nothing. Most of us had been years and years away from liberty, away from civilisation. We had no idea what was going on, where we were and we just marched. It became morning and we could see that all the roads wherever we came were full of people, not only us but also German people who were running away from the Russians. And all the time we could hear the Russian guns in the distance. The Gestapo was driving us. We had to really walk very fast because the Russians came nearer and nearer. We were not allowed to stop and those who couldn鈥檛 walk fast enough were just shot. So everybody just was running for their lives.

ESCAPE
This march took a long time. The three of us were together, kept together all the time and waited for the moment where we could disappear, which was not easy at all because we had rows and rows of Gestapo behind us and next to us and in front of us. Every so many hours, we didn鈥檛 know, nobody had a watch, we didn鈥檛 have anything, so every so often we stopped and they shouted that the whole column should stop. Screaming stop, stop, stop! Everybody had to stop and they started to count again. So we decided as soon as we come into a sort of woody area we are going to disappear. We are going to pretend we go and spend a penny and we won鈥檛 come back and we鈥檒l see what the situation is. So the next time when we came through a woody area we just went behind a tree and waited. Our hearts were pounding. I鈥檒l never forget that. And that moment a big shout, 鈥淐olumn - Stop!鈥� So our hearts fell again and we had to go back because they immediately would have found out that we were missing and would have looked and we were only half a minute away from them. So back we went into the column and marched on and it became night again. By then there was already a lot of things going on, on that road. As I said, the Germans running away from the Russians, and slowly there also came military vehicles and soldiers, who also were fleeing. One didn鈥檛 know anymore who was who but still the Gestapo was driving us and everybody looked at us as if we were ghosts or something. It became night again and at night we were allowed to rest for 2 or 3 hours. As we were we were just dropping down and sleeping and after a few hours we were woken up again and we had to go on. And this went on again for a whole day. Running and running and being pushed and shouted. We were, naturally, you can imagine, not having had food for so many years, and of course all the older ones dropped out completely. Through my whole concentration camp life, I always thought of my mother. If all these things happen to her, how can she ever survive? I only could because I was young. I was very young and even if I was weak I could still stand it.
So the second night approached. It got dark and we could see already on the horizon the red flashes of the guns and there was more and more. And our Gestapo people got nervier and nervier and shot more and more and pushed us harder and harder. So we decided with my two friends that when we are going to stop again at night to sleep for a little while, then we are going to escape. And that鈥檚 how it happened. At night we stopped again and everybody was lying down and we were lying next to the road and there were columns and columns of German armour and everything was rolling on that road, away from the Russians, who were very near. Our Gestapo people were starting to drink and getting merrier and merrier and I was the only one of the three of us who spoke German and I was listening to the German soldiers on the road who were passing by. And I recognised that it was Austrians. I said, 鈥淕irls, it鈥檚 a good thing. The Austrians are much easier going. We are going to ask somebody, in some vehicle, whatever it is, whether they can take us along.鈥� And that鈥檚 how it happened. A Red Cross van came along together with many other vehicles. That whole road was full. And I crept up to them at a moment when none of our drunken Gestapo people looked and I said, 鈥淐ould you give us a lift?鈥� and they said, 鈥淵es, sure, come. Hop in.鈥� So the three of us hopped into the Red Cross van, and just before we did that we quickly changed into our civilian clothes. So naturally they didn鈥檛 know who we were and they thought we just belonged to all these other people who were fleeing. So we dropped on the beds which were in the truck and all three of us of course immediately fell asleep.
When we woke up it was daytime. Actually, we didn鈥檛 wake up, they woke us up and they said, 鈥淕irls, that鈥檚 the end of the road. Here you get off because we are going somewhere else.鈥� And just pushed us out and we thanked them very much. There we were, the three of us, all of a sudden in the free world in the middle of a war, not knowing at all where we were and what was going on, what one talks about, what money is like, what one buys, what one does, what one doesn鈥檛 do. It was a very queer feeling.
We first went into a little eating place where we asked for some food and I always had to do the talking. It was very risky because I didn鈥檛 know how to ask for it and what to ask for because most of the things didn鈥檛 exist any more and probably for years hadn鈥檛 existed. So it all had to be done very carefully. But it all worked all right and we had something to eat with the money which we had. There were some German soldiers there as well so I told them that we were three girls who were working in Germany, we are foreign workers, which there were thousands of, and that we were also running away from the Russians and would they show us a map, lend us a map for a while. So we looked up and we saw that we have been, I forgot already, but miles, and miles, and miles, and miles away from Ravensbr眉ck. Very far up north in Germany. So we must have been driving with the van for 6 or 7 hours. So we felt a bit better and stronger and so we immediately, according to the map, decided we are going to go and join the Russians, my two friends having been Communists all their lives and myself not being against them then, and then we will be in allied hands. So we walked along the road and there still were quite a lot of people but there were less and less people and all of a sudden we were walking all alone, just the three of us, along that road in the middle of the country. There were planes overhead. Of course, we had no idea what planes looked like; whether they were Germans, or English, or American, or French, as we had never seen any before.
I remember that when we were marching in a column the previous day, there were attacks while we were on these roads but they were either English or American planes which recognised us. Who knew by then that, as we were huge columns of people in striped outfits, that we were people from concentration camps and that鈥檚 why they didn鈥檛 bomb us. But now we were just the three of us alone and there were these planes. Always coming and going and coming and going to the town and we heard some big explosions and they came back again. Then we met two German officers. That was the only uniform I knew because I had seen them before in Czechoslovakia when they occupied us. And they came running towards us and they said, 鈥淎re you crazy to walk in the middle of the road here? This is no-man鈥檚 land. The Russian troops are within minutes from us!鈥�
Almost at the end of that sentence, a plane, which was overhead, came diving down right at us and we threw ourselves next to the road into the ditch and covered each other with each other. And there was machine gun fire coming just next to us 鈥� ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat 鈥� a few inches next to our bodies. And we were huddled together there and we said, 鈥淣ow isn鈥檛 it awful, now at last we鈥檙e out and free and nobody will ever know that we died here in freedom and not in the concentration camp.鈥� But, fortunately, this machine gun fire didn鈥檛 hit us. We would have been killed by our own allies. These planes came down again and again but then they saw that it鈥檚 only the three of us. The officers, they were lying in the ditch and waited and waited. When this all had finished, we turned round and went back again because by then we were terrified. Having lived through all the concentration camp, when it came to the shooting we thought we had better go back into the town where we came from. When we walked back and came near the town, believe it or not, it sounds silly, there was no town. It was just rubble and there was smoke coming out of it. Lots of smoke and nothing but rubble.
So now we had to decide what to do. The two girls still said we should go and wait. Either go and meet the Russians or wait until the Russians are coming now to this town. And I, as I wasn鈥檛 such a committed Communist, all of a sudden had an uneasy feeling and said I personally would prefer to go and see where we can find the English or American line. Which, of course, we had no idea where it was. And as I was the only German speaking part of our little group, they had to come with me. Which was very fortunate for us because later we got to know that quite a few others of our group, of our escape group there, got into the hands of the Russians and had the most terrible experiences there. Not only that some of them were shot but all of them were raped and had the most terrible time. So then we were glad we didn鈥檛 go there. And now we were really completely on our own in the middle of nowhere and didn鈥檛 know where to go. So we just walked on in the opposite direction from where we came. And that was all we knew. We had no map, we had nothing. We walked and walked, we had no food, we had nothing, until we came to the next village. From then on we went on with our story that we were foreign workers. We said that we were from Czechoslovakia and that we were foreign workers, having worked in Berlin. So we went from village to village and asked for food and asked to stay somewhere overnight, which invariably was in either the lofts of farms or in stables. Actually, the first night we spent in a pigsty. But we were so tired of walking all the time and not having any food and being March or April. So it wasn鈥檛 very warm either. We walked on, and on, and on, and on, and very often we had to work for our food on farms. We were walking again on one of these main roads near a forest and we could hear shooting in that forest. So we got apprehensive and we were wondering what was happening in there. And out of the forest came soldiers, some on motorbikes and with their guns pointed at us, and it turned out to be Germans. They dropped their guns when they saw we were women and they said we shouldn鈥檛 go into the forest because there鈥檚 a big battle going on with the Americans. So there we knew that the Americans were near. So we walked on and, again, stayed overnight somewhere. I can鈥檛 remember details anymore. And eventually came near a town. We could see from far on the horizon that it was a larger town and we came to a major road and there came huge trucks and tanks on that road with big white stars on it. And my heart sank. I said, 鈥淣ow, after all this, we are again in the hands of the Russians.鈥� Because of the stars. I didn鈥檛 know that the white stars were American, the sign of the American Army. But then when we saw some of the soldiers standing in the tanks whose skin was black, we knew it was the Americans and then we heard them talk. So we were very relieved and we just walked along that road and many of them already shouted at us and said, 鈥淲here are you going? Who are you?鈥� and so on. So we said who we were. Again, I was the only one who spoke the language. The two others only spoke Czech and therefore I always had to do the talking for them.
Then something very, very unusual happened. We came into an opening and there was a vast, vast plain through which the main road led and there were thousands, and thousands and thousands of soldiers, all German soldiers, who were on that plain. And the ditch next to the road was full with valuables, with watches, and golden chains, and rings and cameras. You name it, it was there. And then behind that there was a long, long, long space full of armour. So we realised that these thousands of German soldiers had been already taken prisoners by the Americans and they had to throw away all their belongings into the ditch next to the road. And we were walking there and we thought poor us, we don鈥檛 own anything in this world and what would it help us? It wouldn鈥檛 help us at all. So we just looked at it and walked on. All we were concerned with was our life, as were these soldiers.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.