War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 359

Chapter 26

March 1953

N

ews of Stalin’s death reached the camp and a sigh of relief surged among the prisoners. In the following weeks countless Soviet forced laborers received an amnesty and were sent home.

“Do you think they’ll amnesty us too?” Johann asked.

“Who knows? They’ve promised as much for years, but never once kept their word,” Martin answered.

“But, today at work, the Kazakh people whispered

Skoro domoi

, every time they saw me,” Kurt said.

“And you honestly think some civil workers whispering

going home soon

is proof that these red bastards will actually do it this time? I have stopped counting the times they’ve crushed my hopes. I’m not believing any part of this, not until I’m sitting on a train westward,” Martin said.

In theory, Johann agreed with Martin. It was better not to get hopes up, just to be disappointed again. On the other hand, he could see the writing on the wall, that this time it might be true.

Thoughts of Lotte invaded his heart and he sat down to write a letter to her – of course, carefully worded to not leave a single phrase open to interpretation as criticism of the Soviet system. It was quite funny, actually. Since care packages were allowed and reached the camp mostly without losses, the

plenni

led better lives than many of the locals.

The civil workers in the rail tracks factory had nicknamed the camp

kapitaliza

, for the abundance of food and other amenities the prisoners received from back home. The

plenni

didn’t even need to work extra time anymore in exchange for a slice of dark Russian bread or a bowl of soup.

On the contrary, the local women suddenly saw attractive men in the German prisoners: men who were better dressed, better nourished and apparently kinder to the hardworking women than their Soviet counterparts.

The camp doctor, a prisoner himself, almost went out of business with the appearance of regular care packages; and in the previous two years less than a dozen prisoners had died, mostly in work accidents, whereas in the first years after the war, several dozen died on a daily basis.

Life could have been good, if it weren’t for the omnipresent nostalgia and the fact that they weren’t free men. Johann’s fate could change any moment on the whim of a bureaucrat who’d send him back to Vorkuta or another camp in the wastelands of Siberia. Hell on earth was always just a step away.

About a week later, important visitors graced the camp with their presence. Laurenti Beria the new Minister of the Interior and head of the Soviet secret service, sent his commissars to interrogate the remaining German prisoners of war.

Johann had a queasy feeling in his stomach when he was called to the interrogation office. The last time, many years ago, they’d fabricated thinly veiled lies from his words and used them to sentence him to twenty-five years of forced labor. Those political commissars couldn’t be trusted.

Deep in his heart Johann hoped the rumors were true and the visitors from Moscow had come to Kazakhstan to prepare the release of all the

plenni

, but one could never be sure. So he didn’t allow himself to get his hopes up and was determined to watch closely every single word he uttered during the interrogation.

“Good morning, can you please state your name and rank?” the commissar said in passable German. Johann was fluent in Russian, but he preferred not to disclose this fact.

“Johann Hauser, Leutnant.”

After some apparently random chitchat, the commissar asked the first loaded question: “What will you tell about the Soviet Union once you return to West Germany?”

Johann was alert and had anticipated such questioning. He put his answer into careful words: “I will cast off my time in prison like dirty clothing and never once think back.”

The commissar continued to poke. “Will you say that your conviction was unjust?”

Johann scratched his chin. He wanted to scream out.

Of course it was unjust. Your whole phony trial was a made-up farce and I have every right to tell the world about your inhuman system

. But he knew that those words would send him back to Vorkuta faster than he could blink.

He opened his mouth and said, “I believe that the committee on my trial stuck to the rules and laws of the Soviet Union, giving me due process.”

“So, you agree with your conviction?” The commissar seemed surprised.

Careful, that’s another trick question.

“I’m sure you’re aware that I was given the opportunity to appeal the sentence. But the higher court in Moscow refused my appeal.”

The commissar made a note and then asked, “Will you go to the Americans and criticize us?”

Johann shook his head. At least this question he could answer truthfully. “I don’t know any Americans and I certainly don’t plan to talk with any one of them about my time as a prisoner of war.”

A few more questions about the general conditions in the camp, as well as Johann’s opinion about communism and fascism followed. Just when Johann began to relax, the commissar asked, “Will you invade the Soviet Union again, when given a weapon?”

In the first moment, Johann thought the commissar was joking. But no, the man’s expression was serious. “Definitely not. I’ve had enough of war for the rest of my life and I certainly never want to experience this again.”

“Well, that’s all for now. Thank you.”

Johann got up and stumbled out of the interrogation room, unable to assess whether his answers had satisfied the commissar or not.

“How did it go?” Kurt asked him upon his return to the barracks.

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re asking all these loaded questions and I believe I dodged the lurking landmines, but who knows?”

“Oh my!” Kurt said, suddenly nostalgic. “I really, really want to return home, but I’m gonna miss Katinka.”

He shouldn’t have worried, because in June 1953 the people in East Germany staged a violent uprising against their Soviet-installed government. Soviet tanks suppressed the uprising two weeks later, but it had already wreaked havoc on the

plenni

in the camps east of the Ural Mountains. Release preparations came to a halt.

“As much as I admire their guts in going up against the Soviet occupiers, they couldn’t have chosen worse timing,” Martin complained.

“You can be sure the Russians won’t release a single man after what happened,” Johann added. The mission of the day was to discourage further revolts in the many occupied

brother

nations of the new Soviet empire. The fascist government had to be worshipped as the best innovation of mankind since the wheel – by believers and critics alike. Since the

plenni

understandably leaned toward being critics of the system, they had to be kept under lock and key.

“Another hope down the drain,” Martin said.

Told you not to get your hopes up

. Johann was too depressed to voice the thought lingering in the room. He shouldn’t be surprised that the Soviets had betrayed them once again.

Over the next days, more news came in. Beria, the man behind the release plans, was arrested. The mood in the camp reached a new low point and the

plenni

stopped caring about anything at all.

Including work. Their souls heavy with shattered hopes, they worked only the bare minimum to reach the quota. It wasn’t a coordinated action, or any kind of slowdown strike, it was simply the certainty that nothing would ever change, and they were cursed to spend the rest of their lives as slaves, never to see their homes and families again.

Johann often wondered if this limbo was better than the hell in Vorkuta. Because right now he believed that even if he survived the twenty-five years of his sentence, the Russians would find another phony reason not to let him go.

For a few weeks he fell into a depression deeper than the one after his conviction. How much was life worth when you were stripped of your freedom and all hope of ever regaining it?

Four weeks later the tide turned again, and the camp commander announced that release preparations had been resumed.

“I don’t believe a single word he says,” Johann uttered and most everyone agreed. And unfortunately, he was right. Ten thousand German prisoners were sent home in 1953, but none from the camp near Almaty.

Pravda

celebrated the generosity of the Soviet government in returning ten thousand convicted war criminals. Johann had a fit of rage and pummeled his fist against the concrete wall until he was delirious with pain.

“Whatever happened to you?” the camp doctor asked, dressing the wounds.

“Nothing,” Johann pressed out between thinned lips.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me.”

Johann rarely ranted about the Soviet system, because one was never truly safe from prying ears. But the doctor had proven his allegiances many times, and nobody else was in the room. “Louts! Nothing but lies! Lies, broken promises and cruel misanthropy!”

“Now I get it,” the doctor said. “I’m afraid the knuckles are broken, but we need a good excuse if I’m to write you up as unable to work.”

“Pah. You know what they say?”

“You really shouldn’t read

Pravda,

it’s not good for your mental health,” the doctor joked.

“A delegation of the East German people has negotiated with Moscow, and since there’s so much goodwill between the two brother countries…” Johann spat it out. “Are we talking about the same good people who protested against the Soviet oppressors and were mowed down with brutal force?”

“Shush… you don’t want to be transferred to Siberia.”

“I came from Vorkuta. Siberia doesn’t scare me,” Johann said boastfully, but deep down he was afraid. Despite everything, his life in Kazakhstan was supportable.

The doctor didn’t acknowledge Johann’s remark and said, “I’ll write in the report that your hand got caught beneath one of the rail tracks.”