Life's a Scream Read online

  My father had no intention of returning with the SSD man to Berlin if he could help it. When the train pulled in at Gdansk he took a chance and managed to slip away. He returned to us and decided that it would be wisest to lie low with members of my mother’s family in Grodno.

  I have vague memories of life in Grodno, of idyllic, exciting fields to play in. Of course, in the wider world the war was now raging and when the SSD got wind of my father’s new address it did not take them long once more to ‘invite’ him to go to Gdansk with them to ‘discuss’ his contribution to the war effort. He tried to tell them that he had retired but they didn’t want to know about that. Reluctantly he agreed to go with them.

  I was always allowed to sleep with my parents to keep warm and feel safe. They thought if there was any danger they could just grab me and be off. Now I watched my mother stand at the window most of the night, wrapped in her coat, blowing warm breath on the glass to make the ice flowers melt and wipe it clear so she could see my father coming back. She waited and watched but for many nights the road was empty.

  At last one night her vigil was rewarded. My father had been devious. He had agreed with everything the SSD had said. They wanted him to work on long-range rockets, V2s at Penemünde. He told them he had no problem with that. The fact that he would have to work with forced-labour battalions wasn’t anything to get excited about either. They were so impressed that they made the error of letting him come home to pick up his family. He arrived in the middle of the night and, in spite of my grizzling, we were packed and on our way before the sun breached the eastern horizon.

  My mother wanted to go to Vilna where her parents lived but my father was being masterful so we headed towards Bialystok.

  Whenever I think of Poland it’s cold. Cold that cuts into your face like tiny razors and burns out your sinuses. There’s a smell about extreme cold that in small doses can be exhilarating. Day after day, for weeks on end, it gives you an overdose that has a touch of death about it. If you’re fuelled up with food and can occasionally find somewhere warm it can be endured. When you’re near starvation it’s not so easy to be sanguine.

  But the cold was not our worst enemy. My family had no status, no money, no passports, no roots. If we stayed in one place for more than a couple of days our hosts became terrified and made it clear that they wanted us out of their house and miles away.

  At last we found a safe haven with one of my mother’s relatives, who fixed up a barn so that, if soldiers came, we wouldn’t be in their home and they could pretend they didn’t know anything about us. It wasn’t at all bad. It was reasonably draught-proof and clean and, most important, we felt almost safe.

  My parents would leave me in the barn for short spells while they helped around the farm. One morning I was on my own, asleep in the hay, when the door was thrust open and a woman ran in followed by a soldier. She seemed happy enough, giggling and playing some sort of game with the man. I was about to jump up and join in the fun when the mood changed. The woman’s squeals of laughter became shrieks of fear. I knew about fear. You have to keep away from its source in case you were contaminated. I stayed where I was hidden but could see everything. After a lot of thrashing around and moaning in the straw the soldier stood up, pulled up his trousers, buttoned his coat and left. The woman lay on the straw, whimpering to herself. I rushed to the kitchen and told my parents what I had seen. They were terrified. The thought of a soldier so close at hand had them practically in hysterics. They kept asking me over and over what exactly his uniform was like. I didn’t know. I couldn’t possibly know if he was German, Polish or Russian. No one thought to go and see if the woman was all right. They were too busy packing their bags.

  Determined finally to get to Bialystok, we left that night. But whatever decision my parents took they would never be able to outrun the Nazis. They wanted my father and they were going to have him. He had become an ‘enemy of the Reich’ for deserting his country in its hour of need.

  We arrived in Bialystok in the early hours of the morning. By wonderful coincidence my maternal grandparents had left Vilna a couple of months earlier and had come to Bialystok, where for some reason they felt safer, to stay with my grandmother’s brother. My maternal grandparents seemed genuinely pleased to see us. Our obvious distress surmounted the hostility they had expressed when they’d found that their darling daughter, Katja, had married a man so much older than herself. We spent the summer and autumn with them and everyone began to relax. Having my father living with them helped to warm my grandparents’ attitude towards him. It’s one of the happiest times I can remember from my early childhood. There were children of my own age to play with and we spent hours catching crickets and making them jump, and digging up mounds in search of moles. In spite of long hours invested in the sport I don’t think we ever actually unearthed one.

  The fields were surrounded by ditches which were part of an old irrigation system. There were a few small dams at strategic places which could be released if too much water was backing up. It only happened a couple of times while we were there but it was something to remember. Once, the river dried out in places, leaving only small, deep pools. The fish knew about those pools and made for them when the water level started to sink. They should have been safe. But that’s life. Just when you think you are home free something falls on you from a great height. When the water was low it was us kids that fell on the corralled fish. We harvested enough trout and crayfish to keep the table supplied for days.

  German activity in the area had been pretty spasmodic so far. There had been a little detachment of troops bivouacking about two kilometres away in an old quarry but they were generally civil and the few times they had come to the house it had been merely to buy eggs. My father told everyone to treat them like guests in the hope that they might act the part and not embarrass their hosts. The ploy worked for a long time.

  By this time we were surrounded by a lot of refugees. Nobody liked the danger they represented but to turn them away seemed so heartless that neither my father nor my grandfather nor uncle could bring himself to do it. Unfortunately the increased refugee activity had drawn the Nazis’ attention and they were only too happy to vent their anger over the reverses at the front. These, combined with the Luftwaffe’s inability to clear the skies of British Spitfires and the demoralising raids on Berlin, had changed how the Nazis saw themselves. Before, they had been able to strut around making high-handed decisions under the illusion that they were masters of the universe. Slowly it now dawned on them that maybe the whole of Europe wasn’t going to roll over and play dead. The assurance of their leaders that reverses in Russia, the annihilation of the Luftwaffe and America entering the war were just annoying blips in the master plan was beginning to sound a bit like drowning by numbers. The result was another push to round up anyone who could be called a threat to the 1000-year Reich.

  The troops arrived in their usual impressive manner: a couple of motor-bike outriders to clear the road, a saloon car and three trucks to pick up anyone they came across. They had obviously had a busy day. The trucks were already bulging with depressed-looking citizens stoically enduring the teeth-chipping experience of riding in the back of the rudimentarily sprung lorry. The people were unloaded from the trucks and stood around in the freezing night, waiting for further developments.

  A man in a long leather coat and a smart snap-brimmed trilby knocked on the front door and politely asked my father to accompany him. There was nothing my father could do but agree. He did get a bit of a concession. He was allowed to bring my mother and me along. My mother wanted time to pack but was told there was no problem, she would be back long before she knew what was happening. Nobody believed that but so far everything had been fairly restrained and no one wanted to push at the shaky envelope of safety.

  Outside, the little group of refugees, who had been our house guests for weeks, were made to join the people who had arrived on the lorries and looked pretty discouraged. My grandparents, Al
bert and Melanie, were among them. My father asked the trilby if they could come with us and, unbelievably, he agreed. As we climbed on the back of the lorry and jolted off along the rutted cart track the soldiers started herding the new arrivals and the refugees into one of the barns. I still wonder what happened to them.

  Two

  My father held me under his coat to keep me warm and put his arm around my mother to steady her as the lorry sped through the night. My grandparents had great trouble sitting on the truck floor and my poor grandpa couldn’t do a lot to ease Baba Melanie’s discomfort.

  It seemed inevitable that the truck should finish up at the railway depot. We were ordered to join hundreds of people sitting on the cobbled stones of the station.

  I didn’t really have any idea of what was going on. Why had I been snatched up and taken to this place where everyone seemed to be afraid, where the only sounds were frightened cries and harsh, terrifying shouts? I wanted my father to reassure me, to tell me that it would only last for a moment and then everyone would go away and we could return to our big, warm bed. I kept as close to him as I could but he had other problems: Grandpa Albert and Baba Melanie for a start. All their lives they had lived at peace with the world and they had no way of coping with these unfamiliar harsh circumstances. My father understood this and tried to make them as comfortable as possible, mentally as well as physically. Amid all the noise and confusion he battled to keep us together, to reassure us that everything would be all right.

  We sat on the ground but my grandparents remained standing, their arms locked around each other. The guards were walking along the track-side, shouting at people to sit down and, when they didn’t react smartly enough, giving them a whack with their guns. My father helped Baba Melanie sit down. It was difficult for her. She suffered from arthritis and it was agony having to lower herself on to the damp cobbles. We all crouched around her and when the guard had passed my father disappeared into the building behind us and emerged with a chair. He put it at the back of the track-side area where it was less conspicuous but still in touch with the mass of prisoners on the crowded platform and, with Grandpa Albert, gently lifted Melanie up and almost carried her to the chair. My mother gathered me close and watched the guards. They hadn’t noticed our movements so we crawled back to where my grandmother was now sitting in the chair.

  All around, everyone was talking in whispers. I still didn’t understand what was going on but the atmosphere of fear was subsiding now. We were beginning to be philosophical about our position. The grown-ups reasoned that there was surely no mileage in doing anything nasty to us. It was obviously in everybody’s best interest to buckle down and work in the resettlement camps and show that we could be depended upon to pull our weight.

  A guard walked past and we all cowered down, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible – which wasn’t easy with Grandma Melanie perched above us on the chair. He stopped and looked at her. My father’s arm tightened around me. Melanie inclined her head and smiled at the guard as if greeting an acquaintance. The guard smiled back and moved on. We all relaxed.

  I dropped off to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept on my father’s lap but I was awakened as he shifted his position to claim the attention of the guard who was walking along the line calling his name. Papa carefully transferred me to my mother, then got up and picked his way through the people lying on the ground. I wanted to cry out, to tell him to come back, not to leave me, but my mother put her hand over my mouth.

  A man in a long leather coat came over to Papa, asked him a question and checked a detail in a sheaf of papers. My father shook his head and pointed to us. This did not suit his interrogator. He took my father by the arm, but Papa pulled away and again pointed towards us. The leather coat wanted my father to go with him but Papa was desperate. Rashly he grabbed the man’s arm in an attempt to detain him and, although the guard tried to shrug him off, my father wouldn’t let go. Without warning, the man took out his Luger and smashed it across my father’s head. For what seemed an eternity Papa stood and stared at the man with the leather coat, then he crumpled at the knees, fell on his back on to the cobblestones and lay very still. I screamed and clung to my petrified mother who, wisely, didn’t react. The man nodded to my mother as if they were acquaintances acknowledging a chance meeting and walked off.

  Mascha dropped to her knees beside my father and cradled his head on her lap. She tried to see how bad the wound was and looked around desperately to find something to staunch the bleeding. I was shrieking my little lungs out. The blood covering my father’s head was something I couldn’t cope with. Mama opened my coat and tore my pinafore off me, folded it and pressed it to my father’s head. Someone tried to comfort me but I wasn’t having it. Without warning my father’s eyes opened and he looked solemnly at me for a moment or two, then smiled reassuringly and opened his arms. I threw myself on him and sobbed hysterically.

  It was almost light. A train arrived with a haunting blast of its whistle, then set about shunting the cattle trucks around until the guards were satisfied that they occupied the exact position designated for them. Then, with their dogs, they began to round us up and force us aboard the train.

  The man in the leather coat was standing near our group. He obviously had a problem with my father. As Papa desperately tried to get to his feet, he roughly pushed him out of line and snapped questions at him. My mother tried to stay with him and my grandfather also attempted to help but the night on the cold ground had been too much for him. He could hardly move and Grandma Melanie was even worse. My mother, half carrying my father, tried to assist her parents but it was impossible. The guards were shouting and shoving everyone on to the train. Grandfather Albert told Matka to help my father to the train. They would follow. My mother hesitated but Grandmother gave her a reassuring smile and waved her away. I clung to my father’s coat and went with them. When I looked back Baba Melanie was sitting like a queen on a throne and Albert was at her feet, his back resting against the chair leg, holding Baba’s hand. They saw me looking and gave a wave and a reassuring smile. It was the last I ever saw of them.

  We were pushed on to the train. My father’s dazed state saved him. The man in the leather coat tired of not getting a coherent reply and pushed him roughly towards the door of the cattle truck. Mama elbowed the people getting on the train out of the way, held her position in the entrance by force and practically hauled my father aboard single-handed.

  More and more people were hustled into the already packed cattle truck. A cacophony of shouts and shots fired outside cut into the screams and cries. Abruptly the doors slammed shut and bolts crashed home. It was pitch black inside. I couldn’t see anything but I could hear the mass of people crammed around us pushing against each other, moaning and cursing. I started crying again. I was terrified.

  The train began to move, very slowly at first, then gained traction and speeded up. But it was not long before it stopped again. We could just make out that it was snowing and we were standing in the middle of nowhere. A freezing draught blew through the slits in the wall and it was better not to look out. But the doors didn’t open. With a lot of grumbling and shuffling everyone settled down again. The train stood and stood. Matka had managed to worm her way into a corner. She acted as a comfortable buffer against the cold wooden walls. Poor Mascha, her back must have been frozen. She held my father’s head on her lap and cradled me in her arms.

  It was daylight again when the doors crashed back and a metal container was heaved on board. Everybody instantly started shouting questions and making demands. They fell on deaf ears. The doors were slammed shut, bolts driven home and there was the shrill cry of a whistle which signalled that we were about to continue our journey.

  The train finally came to a halt at a small provincial railway station called Stutthof Waldlager. The bolts were pushed back and the doors opened. It was night time but glaring lights blinded the semi-comatose prisoners on the train. Freezing wind drove snow into our face
s as we tried to obey the shouted orders from the guards: ‘Raus! Raus!’

  The guards gave their dogs a bit of slack to help the lazy ‘Yids’ to get a move on. Huge black shapes jostled and pushed at me. I was too terrified even to whimper. My hand was welded to my mother’s but it didn’t seem to help. I wanted to run away somewhere, anywhere. For a moment I was out of the crowding figures and in the glaring light – and that was even worse. The shouting and crying was horrendous. Everyone was running, stumbling. A number of times I would have fallen and been ground into mincemeat underfoot if it hadn’t been for my mother’s strong hand. I was crying now and, in my fear, trying to sit down. My mother knew something I didn’t and wasn’t allowing me to give way to my terror. And I wasn’t her only concern. My father’s head was bleeding again and in spite of his determination to keep on his feet it was touch and go whether he would make it to wherever we were headed. A couple of times we found ourselves on the outside of the bustling crowd. Even I knew it wasn’t a good place to be. There were men in daunting black uniforms with sticks and dogs with sharp teeth.

  My father, seventy-two years old and suffering from the blow to his head, sank to the floor. Torn between helping him and keeping me close, my mother was desperate. Her anxiety was transmitting itself to me through her fingers. I was screaming and trying to wrench my hand from the vice-like grip. Relief came just in time. The soldiers called a halt and everyone sank down where they stood on to the snow-packed ground.