War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 336

Chapter 3

L

ife in the camp was harsh, but at least the worst of the winter was over.

“The Ivan has no right to treat us this way,” one of the German prisoners complained.

Johann glowered at him but kept his mouth shut. The complainer was a former SS man and only alive because he’d given the captors a false identity, claiming to be an ordinary Wehrmacht soldier.

“Yes, how about the Geneva Convention?” another converted SS man asked.

Johann scoffed and now it was the other men’s turn to glower at him. He wanted to give them a piece of his mind, tell them the kind of despicable cowards they were. But he kept his mouth shut, since he didn’t want trouble. The Russians never asked who started arguments, but punished both parties indiscriminately.

After some more complaints, Helmut raised his voice and said, “How can you expect them to treat us better than we treated theirs?”

“That’s because they’re subhumans. No better than animals. We shouldn’t even be here,” the SS man growled.

“

Right, you shouldn’t. You should have a bullet through your head for all the war crimes you committed,” Johann muttered beneath his breath.

Most every prisoner in here loathed the former SS men, but nobody would dare to rat them out to the Russian captors. Even the worst of them were still Germans, fellow prisoners, and compatriots. Ratting out a compatriot wasn’t something a Wehrmacht soldier did. Ever. It didn’t matter how Johann felt about the other man. Their nations were at war and the Russians were the enemy. Full stop. There was nothing to quibble about, despite his personal feelings about it.

Helmut elbowed him and whispered, “Let it go. They’ll get what is theirs one day. If not in this world, then during the final judgment.”

“Hmm.” Johann shook his head. He had no idea how Helmut could still believe in a God of justice. For some strange reason, Helmut derived strength and even contentment amidst the deplorable conditions from reading the word of God.

“Someone should do something,” Johann murmured.

“Not your concern.”

If he weren’t so cold, hungry, and miserable, Johann would at least get angry at the fatalistic behavior of his friend. But instead he leaned back on his elbows and murmured, “They should have to pay for their sins.”

“And they will. But it’s not your job to seek justice for them.”

“How can you be so… so indifferent?” Johann sighed, squinting his eyes against the weak sunshine warming his bones. Deep inside he knew Helmut was right. Collaboration with the Russians was a worse crime than shedding one’s SS past to evade execution. The other prisoners would lynch him, should he turn in one of his own kind.

“I think this place is a very fitting punishment for them,” Helmut mused after a while.

“And what about us? Do we deserve to be treated like this?”

“God’s ways are mysterious, and we should try to find something positive in our situation.”

Something positive? In this hellhole?

Sometimes Johann doubted Helmut’s sanity. Fortunately his own brain was too starved and weak to ponder the greater meaning of his suffering and whether he deserved the punishment doled out by God at the hand of the Russians.

In Johann’s book he’d already atoned for all past, present and future sins by rotting away for months in a Chinese prison for a crime he hadn’t committed. He mentally scoffed. It was a fate of irony that of all people the only one to believe him had been a Jewess.

A Jewess taking pity on a Nazi.

He wondered what had become of her. Had she made it through the war? Did she still live in Shanghai? He would probably never know, but just in case, he prayed for her to be alive and well.

Several weeks passed and spring returned, bringing with it warmer temperatures. A quiet desperation settled amongst the prisoners. Several dozen died each night and were thrown on handcarts to be dumped in the mass graves at the far end of the camp. But a bigger number of newcomers each day replaced those who perished, and the camp was bursting at the seams.

“Line up for roll call!” The command bellowed through the loudspeakers.

Johann dreaded the roll calls. Nothing good ever came out of them. Apart from making them stand motionless hour after hour, the Russians usually selected

volunteers

for whatever tedious task had to be done. Sometimes they offered extra food in exchange, but more often than not, it was simply extra work.

“What’s going on?” Helmut asked as they fell in line.

“There are rumors of a transfer,” said Gerd, who spoke fluent Russian and therefore was usually well-informed.

“Transfer? Someplace where there is more room? More food? A bath?” Johann suggested hopefully.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Gerd answered.

The Soviet guards walked along the lines and ordered groups of forty to march toward the exit of the camp. As usual, no explanation was given, and nobody dared to ask. Even if the Russians were in a friendly mood, communication was severely limited by the lack of mutual language skills.

When one of the more accessible guards came to their group, counting down the line from one to forty, Johann elbowed Gerd and whispered, “Ask.”

Gerd mustered all his courage and said something in Russian. The guard seemed surprised to have a prisoner speak his native tongue and a short conversation ensued, before the group was marched off.

“What did he say?” Johann was dying of curiosity.

“He said we’re being moved to another camp. A better place. In Mother Russia.”

“That sounds promising,” Helmut said. As always, he was a role model of optimism, refusing to surrender to the hardships thrown at them.

“I don’t believe a single word they say, and you shouldn’t, either,” Gerd said, hurrying to keep pace with the man in front of him as they marched out of the camp.

After about an hour they stopped in front of a train station. An endless cargo train with dozens upon dozens of cattle cars stood on the rails, waiting. The locomotive sent clouds of steam skyward like someone puffing at a cigarette. Johann had never been a heavy smoker, but now he longed for the comfort of a stub.

Batches of prisoners were shoved into the cattle cars and whenever a dozen or so wagons were filled and sealed, the locomotive moved forward. Another dozen carts pulled into the train station, opening their empty bellies to swallow up another bunch of miserable POWs.

The whole scene had a surreal touch to it, and Johann would have laughed if it weren’t so drab. He dreaded setting foot inside the train destined for Russia. But any kind of resistance was futile and the only way he’d stay in Plonsk would be as a corpse.

He stuck to Gerd and Helmut, climbing into the car, and hoping that being together with his comrades would bring a modicum of consolation. It was incredibly crowded inside and a few of the men started screaming, as the doors closed, and twilight settled over them.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Johann asked.

“Not more than a few hours, I’m sure,” Helmut answered.

Johann couldn’t make out the expression on his friend’s face, but Helmut’s voice was as calm and composed as usual. He clung to the words, hoping Helmut was right.

There wasn’t enough room to sit, or lie down, and for lack of ventilation the air soon became thick, fetid and oppressively hot. Fortunately, Gerd’s foresight had pushed the three of them against the outer wall. At least every time the train moved along to load new prisoners, a breeze of oxygen hit their noses, reinvigorating their brains and cooling their bodies. After endless hours of waiting, the train finally left Plonsk and huffed and puffed eastward through the Polish plains.

Night fell, dawn rose, and they were still moving at an excruciatingly slow speed, halting every now and then for undisclosed reasons. Given the devastated state of the country, their halts were most likely caused by damaged rails or other obstacles.

Delirious with thirst, his legs cramping, Johann almost wished the Soviets had forced them to march again.

“This one’s dead,” someone said.

“You sure?”

“Bloody sure I am – there’s a fucking corpse leaning on my shoulder.”

“Let him fall down,” another man suggested.

“And how exactly am I supposed to do that?” the first one sneered. “We’re like sardines in a tin.”

A short conversation ensued, and one man took it upon himself to coordinate the others. On his command everyone swayed in one direction and the corpse fell to the floor. As more comrades died, the surviving men had more room and settled atop of them. After three days and three nights, the train stopped and the doors opened, the men nearest to the door toppling over and falling outside.

Johann squinted against the blinding sunlight.

“Out! Out!” the guards shouted, and thirty men stumbled outside falling over each other.

Johann spotted a barrel and dragged Helmut and Gerd along, hoping to find some water. The water was stale and filthy, but after three days without a single drop of liquid he didn’t care. He scooped the water into his hands and drank greedily, before he was shoved away by other thirsty men.

Someone distributed bread to the prisoners and Johann flopped to the ground carefully chewing the hard, black bread.

“It’s a wonderful day,” Helmut said, admiring the spring sunshine,

Johann stared at him, aghast. “How can you be so… content? We barely survived that dreadful journey.”

Helmut shrugged. “But now we’re lying in the sun, a piece of bread in our hands. The sun is shining, and the birds are singing.”

“You’re positively insane,” Johann murmured. “Where are we anyway?”

Gerd glanced around and deciphered the Cyrillic letters on the half-destroyed station building. “Brest-Litowsk. I guess that’s why they let us out.”

Johann searched his brain and remembered that the Russian railway system used a broader gauge than the rest of Europe. Brest-Litowsk was the border town between Poland and Belarus where the two different systems met.

Since he didn’t expect the Russians to have fancy gauge conversion tools for the cattle cars, the prisoners most probably would be herded into different trains. A cold shiver ran down his spine thinking about another dreadful journey ahead of him.

But then he decided to do as Helmut did and not worry so much. Instead, he relished chewing on his bread and soaking up the sunlight.

Looking back toward the long train that spewed prisoners onto the platform, he noticed that some of the men had been tasked with piling up the corpses and cleaning the cars of feces and other human waste. It seemed Helmut was right, and a silver lining could be found at any time. They hadn’t been burdened with that ghastly job.

He must have dozed off, because shouting woke him, and he saw that once again the prisoners had to register. Struggling to his feet, he took up his place in the line. He’d never understand the strange predilection of the Soviets to put everything into lists and then never to consult those lists, but to make new ones with the same information.

“They’re asking for occupation. I wonder what for,” Helmut remarked.

“Who knows?” Gerd said. “I may understand their language, but I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on in their heads.”

They observed how the Soviets formed groups of prisoners according to the stated professions.

“I’m guessing they need skilled people for some kind of work,” Helmut said.

“Too bad I never learned anything but the trade of a soldier,” Johann murmured.

“I’m a carpenter,” Gerd said.

“And I’m a master locksmith. Tell them you’re one too, when they ask,” Helmut offered.

Johann stared at his friend. “But I have no idea about this stuff.”

“I’ll teach you. It’s really not that hard.”

When it was Johann’s turn to register, he did as Helmut had told him, and much to his surprise, it worked. He was moved to one group with locksmiths, carpenters, brick masons, and electricians, while farmers, bakers, and butchers where moved to a second group, and other professions to a third and fourth group according to some secret master plan.

As night settled trains arrived on the wide-gauge rails and, group after group, the prisoners were shoved into the trains. Before long, Johann heard the locomotive starting up. The wheels clattered along as they gradually gained speed over the metal rails.

This time, the cars were slightly less crowded and, in the middle, stood a huge plastic barrel with water to drink and a much smaller empty bucket in one of the corners to relieve themselves.

There was a tiny window in one of the walls, through which they discarded their dead comrades. Johann flinched every time at the sound of a corpse hitting the gravel and shivered uncontrollably when a body was squashed beneath the wheels of the train. Once the Russians found out about the unconventional burial method, they nailed up the window with a wooden plank.

Now the corpses stayed, befouling the air inside and staring at their living comrades with hollow eyes. Every day or two, the train would stop. The bucket was emptied and the barrel filled. And sometimes loaves of bread were hurled inside.

One week passed and then two. The cattle car was comfortably empty by now and the water barrel actually lasted the entire day. By the time the third week arrived, Johann was sure he’d never leave that cursed train again. The oppressive heat increased exponentially during the day, just to drop below freezing point during the night. The stench was nauseating.

“We’ve stopped again,” Johann murmured to Helmut, who was propped up against the rough boards.

He listened for footfalls, blinking rapidly when the doors slid open a few moments later and Soviet soldiers commanded them to exit the train.

“Seems we have arrived,” Johann murmured.

“I don’t think I can walk,” Helmut said.

Johann wrapped his arm around Helmut’s waist and together they stumbled out of the car on wobbly legs. He had no idea where they were, but it probably didn’t matter. He just hoped it wasn’t Siberia, for he had heard the most awful things about that godforsaken place.

“No ice, so that’s good,” Helmut said, seemingly having the same thoughts. “I heard there’s ice in Siberia all year round.”

Gerd staggered behind them, rasping in a rough voice, “That’s a stark exaggeration. There’s like six weeks of summer in Siberia.”

Usually, Johann would have made some kind of joke, but right now he was too exhausted to utter unnecessary words. He focused on making his legs obey the commands of his brain. The guards were in a hurry to get the prisoners away from the train station to their final destination, and mercilessly pushed them forward.

“Where are we?” Johann murmured, but nobody knew the answer. About an hour later they reached the POW camp. After another registration the

Altgefangene,

the German POWs who’d been here since 1942, filled them in.

“Welcome to Voronezh,” the barracks’ eldest, Karsten, said.

Karsten looked older than Johann’s own grandpa, but it turned out he was barely over thirty. While Johann was considerably shocked at the sight of the emaciated man, Helmut said, “So it is possible to survive three years in Russian captivity.”

“I sure hope we won’t be here for that long.”