STEPOWA ODYSEJA (1)
Death was following our trail. One day, German soldiers set up guns two hundred metres from our barracks, their barrels aimed straight at the windows. Could this mean a final execution and annihilation? An uneasy night passed. Silence.
Hell began at dawn. The roar of firing cannons painfully tore at our eardrums. No one warned or instructed us; the Russian front was simply drawing closer, and the Germans had prepared another line of defence. Fighting continued for Königsberg; strange aircraft with double fuselages flew across the sky—transport aircraft, which we had never seen before. One salvo after another—the shells flew over the roofs of our barracks, eastward. One day passed, then a second and a third. We no longer went out to work; we opened our mouths wide as we watched the preparations for the cannonade—this lessens the effects of a gunshot. More soldiers arrived in a variety of uniforms; the men were driven to dig trenches, dugouts, barriers and barricades on the nearby roads. The roar of the cannonade somewhere beyond the horizon grew louder. We did not hide our joy: the Russians were coming—the Red Army!
One day, the military commandant gave an order, since the estate owner had long since fled the palace: load onto carts and leave for the railway station. Evacuation to the west—the front was approaching, there would be fighting, and civilians would not survive. German families had been evacuated ahead of us, weeping. They treated us contemptuously, but generally avoided contact with us and did not seek quarrels or confrontations. We had moments of small satisfaction: now they too would learn the taste of humiliation and hunger, but time was pressing. Once again, bundles of belongings on our backs and on the road! Once again, a time of hunger and fear, although our parents had prepared a small supply of rusks in advance. Once again, the needless and tragic deaths of small and weak children, the crush on platforms and at passing stations, chaos and shouting, an exodus of the German population unlike anything seen before. We remained in cattle cars, crammed together and degraded, but living in hope of liberation. We almost prayed to the Russians... We travelled slowly, for an unimaginably long time, without information about the stations we passed and without knowing our destination. Resigned, weak, ill and hungry, condemned to oblivion and a slow agony. A tragic journey to nowhere. It dragged on for many long weeks; everyone gradually lost all sense of time.
A stop before a large city. Unloaded directly onto the platform. Urging us on: schneller! Shouts, crying, curses. We were herded into a huge empty hall. Another command: strip naked! The adults exchanged petrified looks: this was the end; they would probably gas us—as in the concentration camps! There was no chance of escape; guards with dogs watched the crowd, there were soldiers everywhere outside, and small children were milling about. Uneasy whispers and consultations in the tightly packed crowd. Someone shouted loudly: run! Where and how? Several men violently opened the doors and jumped out of the hall. Bursts of gunfire outside. Only one returned, clutching his head and repeating over and over: they killed them, they killed them... The crowd no longer resisted. Men and women, young and old, slowly removed their clothes, helping one another, and in an orderly line—whole families together—went through the door into the next room. The first ones were surprised: they were herded under showers and could wash themselves, without soap or towels, admittedly, but it was better than nothing. No one dreamed of luxuries. This situation continued until evening. Everyone received a plate of milk soup with some kind of groats. Many children fell ill almost immediately: too great a shock from the change in diet, or perhaps poison? The Germans could afford it, and people became suspicious.
But there was no time for reflection or exchanging opinions. Once again, families were forced into the cars and sent west. Someone said that we had been mistaken for Stutthof, the concentration camp, and that our lives had been spared. Perhaps the pressure of the front had prevented our oppressors from settling the matter of the forced labourers once and for all—who could know? We travelled west, although the journey was fairly short. The ranks of the forcibly displaced refugees thinned—there were fewer and fewer children among them. Diarrhoea decimated the youngest.