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.

An office girl came to me in the afternoon. She gave me a large, many-paged brochure and I had to sign a promise not to reveal any secrets, either army or industrial ones. The leaflets dealt with high treason, listing many secrets to be kept, each article finishing with the threat of a death sentence. The hall was patrolled by a fully-armed guard who seemed very bored.
When I finished my reading the Dutchman asked me: "Do you need that pamphlet?"
"狈辞.鈥�
"Can you give it to me?"
"Of course. Are you interested in the contents?"
"No, God forbid, and anyway I know it by heart. But it is printed on fine paper. Very suitable to roll cigarettes. We all finished smoking our papers a long time ago. It is very hard to get cigarette paper in Isny."
I asked him - "Why are they going to all this fuss over these ordinary flapping wings - that is not a military secret."
"What, you don't know?"
"What don't I know?"
The Dutchman looked around carefully, leaned towards me and yelled: "The other hall is making V 1." (Secret weapon -guided missile used for bombing London).
"I thought that this factory was making parts for planes only."
"Not at all. They say so only to stop people looking. Don't ever repeat it aloud." He looked around again and, deciding it was safe, continued:
"We are making the flaps for the Junker JU 78 and the other room is making missile wings for the V1."
This way the pamphlet finished in the pockets of the Dutchman and I was told about State secrets.
Hours dragged. When it started to get dark the boss told us to put the blinds down, checking himself if they were tight and not letting light through. Extremely bright lights, so unpleasant to the eyes, were everywhere. Night watchmen with their lanterns hanging from their trouser belts came to check and tighten the blinds some more. It was nearly 6 p.m. I felt quite exhausted. My head was bursting from the non-stop noise and my eyes were smarting from the dust. It was nearly twelve hours since I had started work. We started to put rivets in the openings. The Dutchman gave me a tool which looked like a large revolver, like a 'parabellum' whose barrel was red hot. This 'Eksposienkolbe' as it was called (explosion barrel) was heated through an electric cable. Pressing the red-hot barrel to the rivet heads caused an explosion. The rivets bursting forth noisily were welding the seams of the aluminium sheet. This way the job to the spine of the wings was finished. Later we had to rivet thirty-six ribs to the wings and then pass the flap to another workbench. There the ribs were covered with plates, again some riveting, then grinding and polishing and so on over twenty-five workbenches until it came to the paint shop where numbers and identification marks were given. The work was repeated the whole time all over again. This day the number written was 50317.
At last the thirteenth and last hour was coming nearer. My head was bursting, my legs from a day of standing were hurting and my eyes were sore and watering. We all looked more often at the clock. The first bell was at five minutes to seven. Everyone grabbed brooms as the benches had to be cleaned every day. Some were brushing, the others putting the tools away while the boss was pointing out dirty places. At last the long-awaited siren. Everyone rushed to the doors. It was already quite dark outside. Calling our numbers to the watchman, we left through the gate of the factory. The town was in complete darkness and we had to grope about looking for the way.
Day did not exist for me. We left the house at dark and returned at dark - no sun was shining for us. I felt utterly exhausted and tomorrow would be a repetition of today.
A few weeks passed. The wind became freezing. The cowbells stopped ringing. The phantom of winter was creeping down the snowy Alpine hills. Our room in the attic was very cold. The bucket of water was covered with ice in the morning and I had to break the ice before we could pour the water into the large dish for our morning wash. The quarter cubic meter (about 100 lbs.) of wood for which I still had the coupons was not available. What should I do? Marushka was coughing more and more. She was getting more restless. At night in her sleep she would jump out of bed and start running, looking for our children and wind up, when colliding with the table, in our small room. I put her back to bed alongside the wall and slept next to her to prevent her jumping out. Neither of us had much sleep. The cold and hunger were depressing. I had to get us at least some warmth in the evenings. I began stealing coal briquettes from the factory, carrying them home in my pockets. Stealing was punishable by death. So what? Death was around the corner anyway. After a hot drink at night, Marushka coughed less and we both had a few hours sleep.
The Eastern Front had still not moved - every day the news was still the same: 'The Front between Bug and Narew is stable - all Soviet attacks are repelled.' I remembered Modlin with its evacuees, its peasants, bundles packed and waiting, the constant fires over Warsaw, the air raids, the heavy shelling. We expected the Front would break any day. More weeks passed. It was now one and a half months since we left Modlin. And again we heard: "From Fuehrer's Headquarters .... all Soviet attacks between Bug and Narew were repelled with heavy losses for the enemy."
In the factory the mood was apathetic. One stopped being interested in the Eastern Front. Only occasionally someone would ask:
"Do you think that the Germans, where you live, would let you listen to the radio?"
鈥淵es, they would."
"Did you listen yesterday?"
鈥淵es, I did."
"Something new?"
鈥淣othing. Blast them. The bloody war seems to go on forever,"
"It'll finish, it will."
"When the S.A. and S.S. will send to the USA. an S.O.S.?"
At home we had only time left to sleep and the toilet in the factory became our recreation room. Here was the centre of the intellectual life of the foreigners employed by Heim. In addition, we were forbidden to meet people in our homes. Here were the political discussions, social talks and our trading post. We smoked here, although smoking was strictly forbidden. Here our ears got some rest from the terrible noise. Here came those who worked all day outside to get some warmth. Best of all, one could sit down for a while and rest. To sit on the toilet seat was one of the rare pleasures of the day. Even the boss left us alone. The few locked toilets were always occupied and so you had to wait your turn until you could sit down on the comfortable seat like in a club chair. In the back were the pipes of the steam heating. What a blissful state - the legs were resting and one could have a smoke. "Dolce far niente鈥� (pleasant idleness). One did not even pull the trousers down. What for? One was standing for 13 hours daily how could one do without a rest?
Sometimes the boss rushed in. Our smokes were then hidden in our sleeves and we rushed back to the halls. He would be cursing and screaming but those sitting locked in the toilets were safe. They now had the privilege to stop even the foreman as the sign on the door read clearly 'Engaged'.
With difficulty, I was able to count all the nationalities in the factory - there were fourteen. The largest group were the Dutchmen who were mainly young people deported through their employment offices. They lived in barracks and usually stuck together. The next group were the Frenchmen who were civilians and prisoners of war. Their group was adorned by a beautiful young girl from Marseilles who was very much in love with a Dutchman. The Polish group needs some explanation as it had two kinds of people - the Poles with a letter 'P鈥� and the so-called 'Volksdeutsche鈥� who, according to Mr. Rosenbergls theory of race administration, could later on qualify to become true Germans, What an odd anthropological distinction between the foreigner, the non-German and the under-German. Some of them were also called the 'race-people' which annoyed the true Germans from the real 'master-race'. Let Mr. Fabian speak about the 'true race science' of Mr. Rosenberg and his followers
Mr. Fabian was a quiet, timid baker from Lodz. He came under the 'race' and was brought to Isny. Now he was working at the V1. Until then he did not know what honour was bestowed upon him, becoming all of a sudden 'pure of race'. Once in the toilet he told us his story: "I had a small business, a bakery in a village near Lodz. I am a master baker. My wife is the daughter of a farmer. She was a Miss Pietrzak. We lived not badly. Until the day the military police came and screamed - 'OUT'! Just you try to imagine - in twenty minutes we had all left. All the business, furniture, house, everything went to the devil. Only what we grabbed in a hurry was ours. I heard later that my place was given to a Volksdeutsche from Russia. We were taken by force and deported from Lodz. We were put into a camp that was terribly crowded. Nobody knew what would happen to us all. Life was bad. We finished all our food. After two weeks came a commission with top S.S. men, doctors and educated people - you know, professors. We were all put in a line and they started to divide us into 鈥楶鈥� and 'Race'.
"Crying and screaming started. Everyone wad afraid to be put for the 'race' especially the young girls. We heard that those who look pretty belong to the race but who knows, later on they might be sending these girls to the Front for the soldiers, brothels, pardon me. But nobody would listen. We were divided into separate groups and that was the end of it. Those with the letter 'P鈥� were sent immediately to another camp and we were to come under the 'Race鈥�.
I interrupted: "How were you divided?' According to what?"
"On the looks of course. They looked to see if the bones were solid if the face was alright and, in general on the clothing too. Those who were dirty and in rags went under the letter 'P鈥�. To tell you the truth they somehow did not take many into the race. You see none were well dressed because who would dress well for travelling? A few days passed and we were all very frightened. You see, we all knew what to expect with the letter 'P鈥� - Poles but here with this 'Race', that was different. None of us spoke German and we could not find out anything. Everyone was thinking, all right, a race is a race but what do they want from us? Some said that it was a good thing; that we would be given better ration cards for food and clothing. The others said that we were all to be taken into the army because all Germans belong to the race and once we are of pure breed we would have to fight for their country. I am telling you my head was bursting with all this thinking. Then we were all called to the true commission - they even had scientific tools. My God, what they did with us!!! They looked at our teeth like we do with horses. They pawed our anatomy they measured our faces and bones with tools and looked into our eyes. I was told immediately that I have the race but my God, they stopped my wife. You understand they did not want to let her through the race, saying she was not suitable, that her bones and her anatomy are not true. I explained to them that she is the daughter of a good farmer, not a girl born under a fence, but they only say 'No'. I lost my temper. I told them she is my wife, I will not part from my family take me out from the race and put me into 'P鈥�. They talked between themselves and said 'Gut' and granted her the race. They gave us German papers and sent us to Isny. They call us here Volksdeutsche but in reality we are the racial people. We will not change our Polish religion. We are working the same as the 'P' but it is true that we have better coupons and don't have to live in camps,鈥� concluded Mr. Fabian.
In Isny there were many like Mr. Fabian 'people of the race'. I loved talking with them about the 'race'. I became a lover of the race question, an anthropologist!
During power failures when we had to wait for repairs we could sit down. What a heavenly opportunity for tired feet. I used to sit near someone from the 鈥榬ace鈥�, asking them for their stories. One girl from Lodz who went through the scientific race business in Litzmanstadt as the Germans had renamed Lodz. She was telling me about a song which was born in the First World War and the words were made up now in the race camps called the song the Ballad of the Race:
During a dark night
The police knocked once at the gate.
Polish lass was sleeping here
And she was quickly taken out.
She had to go to Arbeitsamt
And from there to Lakowo.
And in a short three hours time this maiden was of Pure Race.
The Commission of the Third Reich for the Strengthening of Germanism was throwing its nets into far seas, trying to catch some fry among the Slavonic masses. It had to populate its ponds for the future Germanisation of the conquered countries. The all powerful Chancellor Hitler already had these dreams long ago. After taking Sudentenland, Memel-land and other 'lands', he was dreaming about Donau, Dnieper- and Wolga-land. The names of these countries were taken from the rivers and hills and not from the people which populated them. Everywhere were potential Volksdeutsche ready for production according to the science of the Third Reich. The theory of race came into being supported by biological laws justifying the proper selection based on the philosophy of 鈥榖e or not to be鈥�. When this myth was dressed up scientifically, according to the need of the twentieth century, the selection came into operation. On top of the hierarchy of the pyramid was HE - the highest, the Untouchable, the Total. He was resting on the shoulders of his Party members and below those were the 'Reichsdeutschel鈥� - citizens with full rights then followed the four classes of the Volksdeutsche. The last group consisted of those who could be candidates for the Volksdeutsche who, with time coming, might develop into true Germans, The rest was a mob of slaves and villains, good only for manual labour. Jews and Gypsies had no right to life. They were converted to fertilisers, soap and other useful materials such as stuffing for mattresses made from human hair, lampshades made from human skin.

颁辞苍迟颈苍耻别诲鈥︹赌�
'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.'

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