大象传媒

The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Marushka (Maria) and Zygmunt Skarbek-Kruszewski and George (Jurek) Zygmunt Skarbek.

Coming back to our group at Heims. There was a group of Soviets, numerically next to the Poles. They had to live at the factory and were just the livestock, as the horses were. They were even harnessed to carts to bring wood to the factory. Some of them worked with us. They consisted of different nationalities; Russians, Ukrainers, White Russians and Armenians. The majority of them were young girls and boys deported for labour, the rest were war prisoners allocated to the factory. There was also a small group of Jugoslavs, Belgians, Italians, Estonians and Lithuanians. According to the administration, I belonged to the latter as my only personal document was a Lithuanian passport. I had nothing against it from an opportunistic point of view. As I did not qualify for the 'race' or Volksdeutsche, there was only the letter 'P' left which meant that we had to live in barracks which were dirty, full of lice and even colder than our room. The thought frightened us. Marushka was not well - we suspected tuberculosis and such living would be a death sentence for her. The passport issued in Lithuania saved us. Our small group was generally treated better than the OST. We even had a Swiss man with us. I was never able to discover what made him leave the quiet, neutral, beautiful Switzerland and come here to work for the German Army.
The last were the Germans. They had all the leading positions or worked in the offices. Only a few Germans worked as ordinary labourers. They were a few old men, a couple of dwarfs and a few invalids. The administration personnel was enormous, amounting to twenty per cent of the working force. All those who were bombed out were doing their utmost to be employed by the war Industry as this gave them better living conditions and here they were able to live in considerable peace away from big towns. One was employed for issuing coupons, another one for additional coupons, a third one for checking coupons, and so on. Every German, whatever his position, had at least a few German offsiders who usually had nothing to do. They hid behind shelves or in dark corners to read love stories from sheer boredom. Every few workbenches had a German controller.
In addition to those mentioned we also had the factory police, hated the most by all labourers. They were like a special Gestapo working for Mr. Heim. Being all Party Members, the range of their work was extremely wide. Their powers seemed to be unlimited, not only concerning work - they had the last say about the right to life and death for the civilian labourers. They spied and were allowed to beat and torture. They made sure that people stayed at the workbenches, they prevented talk and the forming of groups. They threw us out of the toilets, they were permitted to confiscate our ration cards, they checked the barracks, they searched private rooms. We especially hated one of our 'guardian angels', the 'black' one was a real sadist. He ferreted for his prey. In the darkest corners and nosed about everywhere. The proprietor of the factory could sleep peacefully in his villa on the hill near the forest for he had his henchmen who controlled his workers.
In the beginning of December I was transferred to another workbench. Here worked an old Swabian who had a pleasant face, Mr. Lange. I was to help him. Our job was to rivet the heavy flaps with the pneumatic press machine and to file them down to smoothness. Lange was a friendly mate. He taught me my job, how to do it more easily, and he never pushed the hardest job onto me as he was fully entitled to do, being a German. He had only two faults. He had received a stomach wound at the Russian Front which healed not badly but he constantly spoiled the air and I felt as though I were gassed. As the table was only four metres long, I could not very well avoid the smell. His second fault was his constant adoring talk about Hitler. To him Hitler was the Ultimate God and 鈥楳ein Kampf' was his bible. He believed implicitly, without reservations. It would have been alright if he had not tried to convert me to his beliefs. This non-stop talk amid the putrid smell became a nightmare. Because of the noise in the workshop, he would come near me and scream in my ear, explaining the providential genius of the Fuehrer. His honest face would touch me and from his mouth came the pungent smell of rotting bile. I would grab a tool and go to the other side of the bench but he would follow me, yelling about the genius and his achievements in war strategy. He stopped only with a new spasm of pain, becoming pale and sweating. In those moments I was truly sorry for him. I used to help him to the sick room and, returning, had to work for both of us.
On the 13th of December we heard that the Germans had started a great counter-offensive at the western Front. The German headquarters announced details of the victorious march, how the German Army was able to recapture in a few short days lands which had been previously captured. Goebbels in the paper 'Reich' was speaking about the new reborn power of the German Army. He even recalled the Hannibal losses at Rome's gates when the reborn power of Rome's legions were able to destroy Carthage. The plutocrats had to leave. London, just like a Carthage of the twentieth century, would lie in ruins.
The polite English gentlemen were thanking Goebbels by radio for his educatory lessons and the suggestive analogy between Hannibal and ... Hitler.
But facts remained facts. It was true that the German Army was advancing in the west, clearing the Siegfried fields.
We became very depressed - we were losing hope in the Allied victory. Goebbels was encouraging his Germans, promising them a Merry Christmas.
Lange was of course very happy and triumphant. Measuring the German advance and calculating something on the wings of the planes, he informed me that by the New Year the German Army would reach the Channel.
At last Christmas came and, with it, two days of rest. The evening was cold and clear, the sky covered with stars. Our room was very cold. The stove, heated only for very short times, could not even melt the ice which covered one wall. When on Christmas Eve the bells were pealing over Isny, sitting in our room a deep sorrow and longing filled us. On the table we had our saved-up food: some bread, a few teaspoonsful of marmalade and a few tablets of saccharine. With whom could we share this evening? Our family was thousands of miles away, our landlady was not friendly. We went to the Guesthouse where the people were also lonely, away from their families. We felt better with them.
Next morning I went with Marushka up into the hills. We were climbing up the Black Grat, now quite white, covered deep with snow. The higher we climbed, the harder it became. On one of the humps of the Grat stood a farmhouse.
The large wooden patio overhanging the cliff was the pride of the farmer. From here one could see the Bodensee from which the Rhine was feeding its stream. Looking down, above the firs one could see the blue of the sea, separated by a line of the Alps from the blue of the sky. In the north the open valley seemed to be without horizons and the earth and sky appeared to join each other. The uneven and hilly scenery changed to gentle slopes which farther down became quite even and smooth, receding from the sky.
The back of the house was hidden from the world by the Black Grat, overgrown with snow-covered firs., We stood at its foot but its towering top was tempting. I decided to try and reach it. Asking the farmer how long it might take, he replied laughingly: "In summer it shouldn't take more than half an hour but I doubt if you could make it in five hours without skis."
I wanted to go but Marushka did not. I went alone. Going along the track near the farm buildings it seemed child's play. The farm buildings finished, a sign for tourists pointed to the left. The going became harder. I was falling up to my knees into the snow. It was not pleasant but quite bearable. I reached a clearing. A bit further away I saw some firs sticking out of the snow. I thought they would be new seedlings and continued. Within seconds I was in snow above my waist. When I tried to free one leg the other fell even deeper. What I took to be seedlings were fir trees about my height. Looking up I could see only tops of trees and understood my mistake, When in Isny the wet snow was falling and melting immediately, here the same snow was cut by wind and frost and built up harder surfaces on which later new snow was packing. When in the meadows of Isny the snow barely reached thirty centimetres, here it was over 11 metres deep. Moving in a slow crawl, using hands and feet, I managed to creep free. An hour later, wet and tired, I returned to the farm without even covering one-fifth of the distance. The farmer was right and I had learned my lesson.
Coming back down the valley it was becoming dark. White smoke was playing about the snow-covered roofs that looked pink in the last sunrays. It was a landscape like paintings on sale at fairs. Nature loves the sweet, cheap showoffs.
After Christmas the factory police became quite persistent that Marushka should start work in the factory. They were yelling that now it was time for work and not for holidays, health reasons or not. No talk helped. We had to think of something as Marushka would certainly not survive any length of time in the factory and its thirteen hours hard work. Marushka heard that the guesthouse, 'The Stag', was looking for a waitress. She applied and was accepted. She got her working card, signed by the employment office. In this way, instead of being a factory worker she became a waitress.
Now we were leading a truly proletarian life. After work I hurried to The Stag for a bowl of soup. Marushka, in white apron, was already serving, carrying plates and large beer mugs. She greeted me with a knowing smile, placing a bowl of soup in front of me. Not for nothing was I the husband of a waitress. Soup could be served without ration cards. After tea, when all the guests had left and the rooms tidied up we returned home. There she would toss her bag on the table and count her tips. She had changed since she began work. In the beginning she would not accept any tips, then only reluctantly, but now she was counting the small change happily.
"Look, Zyg, these two marks I received from the Estonian. He never takes the change due to him. Ten, twelve, fourteen! That is twice as much as you are earning in the factory. Just look what I can do." She was proud and happy, hugging me. When the lights were out and we were nearly falling asleep, I heard her murmuring: "If only foreigners would come to The Stag I would receive probably twenty marks. The Germans are rather careful with tipping. Just a few lousy pfennigs.鈥�
There was an extra bonus at her work. When cleaning all the rooms, she carefully gathered all the usable butts of cigarettes and cigars and we had some smokes at home, shredding the tobacco and rolling it in newspapers.
The Allies intensified their air raids over Germany, more towns were bombed. The bombed-out people were fleeing to the hills. The population of Isny increased from day to day. All hotels were overcrowded. The people came not only from nearby Munchen, Nurenberg and Stuttgart, but also from Berlin, Cologne, Koblenz and Essen.
The German counter-offensive, so blown up by Goebbels, started to fade. Although the news from headquarters was still speaking about some hard-to-describe success and about hundreds of airplanes being destroyed on the ground, the number of evacuees kept increasing. Some people started to realise that all this loud talk of the counter-offensive was just hogwash.
The cold January of 1945 arrived. The narrow streets were covered with snow, sometimes reaching the windows. It was impossible to go outside the town without skis. This was quite normal for the Allgau. Near Isny stood a pole with various markings and dates. In 1907 the snow was three metres deep.
One morning, going to work, I looked at the thermometer of the chemist, near the cloister. It was 25 centigrade below freezing point and a cold wind was blowing from the hills, stinging the eyes. People walking to work had their collars up and were clapping their hands together. The group of French war prisoners walking through this snowstorm were a sorry lot, trying to push their heads into the narrow collars of their loose coats like Napoleon's grenadiers returning from Moscow. The first and the last of the prisoners carried a lantern, shining feebly on the ground. Behind them walked a German guard with a machine gun. I passed this sad procession. For the first time I thought with pleasure about the factory. It would at least be warm there.

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'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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