大象传媒

I, Ivan Novak was born in a village called Cakovec in Medimorje into a family of six children- Elizabeth, Stefan, Ivan, Branko, Maria and Paul. My father worked on a smallholding and all the children went to the local village school St. Anna. Kata, my mother, died in 1940 shortly after the birth of Paul. The family was split up and brought up by different relations. Ivan (myself) went to an Aunt, my mother's sister, in 1940. My Aunt lived about three kilometres away from the family home.

Sent to work in Germany

I stayed with my Aunt until 1943. At this time Croatia was occupied by the German/ Hungarian Army. The law at this time stated that all males of seventeen years and above had to join the Hungarian Army. Boys, like myself, who were younger than seventeen years had to work in Germany. I had to get my papers from the Council and report to Cakovec Railway Station on July 14th 1943, along with hundreds of youths from all over Medimorje. I arrived at the station with a wooden suitcase, some dry bread, cheese and some cake my Grandma had given me. I had one suit, one shirt, one pair of shoes, no soap or towel and no socks. I could speak no German and had no idea of what was going to happen. The whole area was full of crying women and young men, some going to war to the Russian Front; others like me were being dispatched to Germany.

The journey

Cattle wagons were lined up on tracks with straw strewn on the floors. There were two buckets in each corner; one was the toilet and the other for washing and drinking. We were packed tightly into these trucks, and set out for the unknown in the hot midday sun through Slovenia with a stop at Meribor. German soldiers came up to each wagon and sat on sentry duty on top of every fourth wagon with machine gun at the ready. As we reached the Austrian Border we heard gunfire in the wooded hillside. We became very scared; these were Partisans firing at the train. The German soldiers on sentry duty on the trains returned the fire.

As we reached the Austrian Border we stopped as we came to Klagenfurt. We waited on the trucks for some hours. The Red Cross nurses gave us a drink of coffee and a slice of bread. While stationary, we heard sirens and return fire from the ground, which were shooting at planes flying over Klagenfurt, bombing the city. Coming into the station, were wounded soldiers accompanied by the Red Cross. We pulled out on our way to Germany and we saw the Russian/ French Prisoners of War repairing the railway track. As we headed towards Salzburg, we could hear the bombarding of Klagenfurt. We were terrified, some were crying, others screaming, we felt that this was it! We had attached to the train, open wagons with anti-aircraft guns on them. These kept firing at the planes. As we reached Salzburg station we could see the horrific destruction of the bombs. Confusion reigned; trains were arriving with wounded soldiers from Russia, while other German soldiers were on their way to Russia, replacing them at the Front.

We were coming into Germany, not knowing what was going to happen to us.
As we went forward, we could see shot planes diving down. We proceeded to Stuttgart. It was now night time. Bombs, planes, bullets were flying around us, it was scary. As we reached Stuttgart, the Bahnhoff, the same picture of devastation awaited us 鈥� wounded soldiers, and armies on the move. Here again the Red Cross gave us fresh water and dry bread. As we stopped here, more sirens and low flying planes could be seen bombing the city. Here also was the first harrowing vision of a trainload of Jewish people, women and children herded together, screaming - water, water, water, - help us! help us! I can see vividly the picture of fingers clasping at air through the wire meshed little vents on the truck. All along the outside of the doors was chalked Juden - Juden. They could have been bound for either Dachau or Auschwitz, either way it dawned on us that they were going to a concentration camp.

We travelled through the night, stopping at stations, hearing foreign languages, but not knowing our fate. Young lads were crying, some seemed mentally unbalanced. Our food was running out, so we started to share what we had in the pitch dark. Eventually as we reached Frankfurt-am-Main, we could see in the early dawn complete devastation. The station was just a heap of rubble, bombed out of all recognition. Loud guttural German voices were shouting 鈥� 鈥渉eraus, heraus鈥� (get off), the doors were opened, we were ordered off, to stretch our legs and a Croatian interpreter appeared. He told us that the train wouldn鈥檛 go any further because the track was blown up. We were told to collect our baggage and stand by the train, sixteen per wagon. We then had to put a tag on our chest with the name of our destination on it. The Interpreter said to us, "Write your name on the tag and tie it on." Two groups of thirty-two moved together from the Station onto the broken railway track. We set off on foot along the railway track with the Interpreter as leader. We side-stepped open bomb craters and moved past lines and lines of workers - prisoners of war- Jewish, Russian, French, Polish etc, who were dressed in prisoner of war jackets, with their nationality written across them. German S.R. guards with guns and dogs kept them working. They were like skeletons, hardly able to lift the shovels. As we walked along, fear gripped us, we had witnessed the sorry plight of these poor people - what was going to be our fate? I got a nudge to look across the track, there were bombed wagons with scattered limbs lying around, but there was no time here to attend to half dying or dead victims. As we were three to four kilometres from Frankfurt, the Interpreter told us that we would get a train to Mainz. We boarded this train at Maine to go to Mainz. As we came to Maine the prisoners of war were repairing the track and the station again was reduced to rubble.

Our group was divided here, sixteen were ordered to remain at a bombed station, to be collected, the other half, which included me were put on a train for Mainz with our Interpreter. It was now evening on the second day and the bombing started again. Mainz, which we were heading to was alight, they sky was full of bullets, firing sounds and hit planes, we were scared to death. At Mainz the same human horror awaited cattle wagons of Jews bound for concentration camps. The wounded were being tended by Red Cross, with crying wives and families bidding husbands and fathers goodbye, as they went to fight on the front. We moved forward on this civilian train, sitting on wooden seats, hoping we would be lucky again to escape being bombed. The train stopped and four of the group were ordered off to await collection. The train pulled out again, our minds were consumed with terror, we now felt the end was near and we had no idea what was going to happen to us. At Bodenheim another four got off, this time I was devastated, as my mate was one of the four and I now felt I was all alone. With four of us remaining we eventually arrived at Neirsteiner, an important wine-growing district. This was a small station with the river Rhine flowing by. Here we were told to get off, we were the last group. At the station were several big fat farmers on horse and carts, awaiting our arrival. We were 'looked over' to see whether we were strong enough to slave on their farms. A huge cigar smoking, red faced, crew cut German ordered me into his cart. He threw my wooden case ahead and kept muttering away in a foreign language. I really felt this was the end. I was now definitely on my own. The fate of the other three was similar, each of us looking at the other, wondering if we would we ever meet again, or would we ever see our families and homeland.

Work in Germany

I arrived at a huge house with gates, in the village. I got out of the cart. The farmer鈥檚 name was Herr August Kessle. His wife came out, as did a young Ukrainian girl Anna and an Italian P.O.W. She took charge of the horse and I was led into the house. I indicated by gesture, that I was starving. I was shown a bed in a room in the loft and brought to the kitchen to eat. I ate, and ate, watched by the farmer, his wife, all the P.O.W's and Anna. I felt sick, the culmination of anxiety, terror, lack of sleep and food had caught up on me. The farmer thought 'he had better sleep' - so passed my first day on the farm in Deutschland.

Next morning I arrived in the kitchen for my first German breakfast. Then my work began - the cowshed, with about fifty cows lined up, were there for the milking, mucking out etc. How would I cope? The Bossman - August Kessle, stood over me as I handled the cows and cleaned out the manure - this I did in my bare feet, to his complete amusement and surprise, you see he didn't know that I was of farming stock and knew all about farm animals and milking. I was patted on the arm and told I was "gut" (good). This was my first release from all the tension and worry I had sustained. I was free now and knew what I was doing. One day followed another as I worked away with the cows. Just on the edge of the village was a big P.O.W. Camp with many nationalities- French, Italian, Polish, Russian- these men were frog marched to the vineyards each morning with soldiers toting guns. The vineyard owners would shout out their labour requirements for the day, these were then set to work. At nightfall all the P.O.Ws would be accounted for and returned to camp. The sound of wooden soled boots, which they wore, were a familiar noise as they went, 鈥榗lunck, clack鈥� on the cobbles.

Every Sunday we were allowed some free time. The P.O.W's would sit in the Camp with the doors open, but couldn't go anywhere. We were allowed to go two kilometres up the road; surprisingly we got some pay, one mark every three weeks. Some of the lads would get a beer in the village for this amount. I began to pick up a smattering of German and this helped. After a week or so on the farm I was allowed to write one letter, the only letter home. This I wrote to my Grandma, telling her I was alive, well, and where I was staying. I eventually heard from her with family news, but it was only one letter, though she may have written many.

鈥淵ou can go home!鈥�

My papers, as did all the passports, identity cards were lodged with the Village Burgermeister, at the local Hall. In 1944 Herr August Kessler called me into a room and said "come with me, you will be going home, we must first go to the Burgermeister to get your Passport." I got my passport, and amid tears and being togged out in ill-fitting clothes by Frau Kessler, I said "goodbye鈥� to my farming career and the friends I had made, they were happy for me, and so was I to know that I was now going home.

Another sentence

Alas, this was not to be. I boarded a train and met again with the other three from my group, we were excited and jubilant at our pending return home. The train went south, the same route as we had come. The stations were just, if not worse, as that of our outward journey. We stopped and collected another group of four until we had fourteen in total, two were missing, no-one knew what had happened to them. The route changed, we suddenly arrived in Graz in Austria, we were ordered off the train by an Interpreter, who announced, "You are not going home!" "You are all going to work in a factory in Kafinberg." Our hearts sank - another sentence was passed on us.

Factory life

We found ourselves in on of hundreds of wooden huts, sixteen to a hut with bunk beds and minimum of bedclothes and sanitation. Part of this encampment was barricaded, and housed Russian/French/Italian/Polish P.O.Ws likewise; a similar number housed these nationalities of women. We were classed as civilian, but didn't have any extra privileges. Our day began at 6am, where our washing routine took place in a huge open room, with a sink like trough with cold water. We proceeded from here to a main kitchen; we lifted a tin can and mug. Breakfast was a small slice of bread, which we carried to the next counter for some margarine, and on to get a spoonful of jam, this was all for the next six hours.

In the factory, which was geared to the war effort, I worked on a drilling machine, which finally became axils for German tanks. Other areas of the factory produced the finished tanks. The place was vast, the work back breaking, noisy, hot and all the time in the line of fire from Allied bombing. Lunch at the factory was just half an hour, the food was poor, scant, just like pigs swill, but had to be eaten, no matter how sick, or how ill we felt. At 6 o鈥檆lock we went back to base camp and had our last scant meal of the day- a plate of disgusting sauerkraut, maize, and if we were lucky, a tiny piece of some indefinable meat. I often felt like keeping a bit back, say a piece of bread for starving times, but many a fight was taught over stolen crumbs, secreted away for a 'rainy day.' Exhausted, hungry, emotionally drained, with an air of hopelessness, we finally slept intermittently, trying to keep the 'hunger pains at bay.' Weeks, months went by, I saw life in the raw. My embarrassment at the physical sight of either male or female ablutions/toilet or otherwise, soon became part of my shocked knowledge of human nature, minus any of its niceties. There was no privacy for either sex, and even though in name we were segregated, this was not the reality. The sanitation was a misnomer; conditions were appalling, resulting in lice eating into every fibre of your being. Anything that could be caught, such as cockroaches, cats, mice were pounced on and eaten. One's whole mentality was consumed with staying alive. Clean clothes were an impossibility, if you chanced to wash a shirt or trousers; you stood naked, and washed them in cold water, but how to dry them! You had to stand over them, or they would be pinched, often times you put them on wet.

Nightly raids were continuous, bombing, machine fire and terror reigned throughout the camps. There were always armed guards on duty, overseeing our every movement, we were counted in an out all day and all night - no escape. As 1944 moved on to 1945, the war effort hotted up. The German Front was being pushed back on all sides, in the retreating army the conscripted Hungarians, Russians, Ukrainians, Croatians, Latvians and Estonians retreated also and brought with them their families, hoping to finally seek refuge in the American Zone.

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