The War Closes In on Hurlach - Chapter 25 continued

Chapter 25  ... continued

On Easter Day I was given five beautifully colored hard-boiled eggs and a piece of the blessed cake. The only other dessert we ever had here, the specialty of the house, was a jelly roll that tasted like a potato pancake. The blessed cake was sweet and was wrapped in a thin paper.

In the barracks on Sunday evening one Kriegie said, "Did anyone get thin paper wrapped around your cake today?''

"Yeah, why?" asked someone. "Make maps," he answered. "Hey!" shouted the redheaded Irish-American paratrooper in a mock serious tone. "You can get shot for that." He brought down the house.

We folded the thin papers and put them away. During the first two weeks of April we experienced a mixture of expectation, apprehension, excitement, and frustration. Air activ­ity increased over Hurlach. The tension in town was expressed by the Bauers, who gathered in groups and talked in low voices. A few more soldiers appeared in Hurlach; more and more refugees crowded into the manor house. Red Cross boxes were limited to two for thirty-nine men, which meant that either communication lines were being bombed and strafed or the Germans had helped themselves. Days went by without word on the advancing armies; then suddenly there would be a report of significant advances in our direction. I began to notice, or thought I did, a barely percepti­ ble difference in my Bauer's relationship to me it seemed more relaxed.

At ten o'clock on the morning of April 9, 1945, American fight­ ers engaged some German planes over Hurlach. The fight lasted about ten minutes; it was exciting. A plane fell in flames, the pilot parachuting from it. The people of Hurlach were delighted until they discovered that it was a German pilot. An American Kriegie was the first to reach him. The American got the parachute off the pilot and cut away his clothes around a wound. The pilot was dead.

The Kriegie said he was dead when he reached him. The Bauers said the pilot was alive when he landed and told the Kriegie that the pilot was shot while parachuting down.

It was a tense afternoon in Hurlach. The air was charged with excitement. Bauers and slaves went their own way, as it were. In the barracks, there were arguments pro and con, laughter over the Bauers' reaction, rejoicing in the American victory. We had mail call and I got my first piece of mail since I flew from England, Septem­ber 23. I learned that my prison letters had arrived, that my family and friends were, on February 15, 1945, in good health, and that Mavis knew where I was.

Ivan met me the next day, saying, "Bauers say American pilots shot German parachuting down." I knew what they were saying and tried to explain to Ivan that it was not true. Ivan insisted, "Bauers say so," and added, "Germans and Americans nicht Kommrades, yes?'' I answered, "Yes," to that but was unable to convey to him the subtle difference between being an enemy and shooting a defense­less man. I tried to show him that I did not think our pilots had done that.

Ivan was unconvinced when he went off to plow alongside the Bauer. I heard Ivan explain to him that I had denied the shooting, whereupon the Bauer stopped his plowing and showed Ivan where the pilot was hit. Ivan seemed convinced. I thought, Ivan is no better than the Bauer.

At the end of March and during the first weeks of April 1945, I heard a new sound in the air over Hurlach. It was identified as a jet sound. Planes rose from an airfield near us with a frightening scream and with ominous swiftness, quickly gaining great speed and height. Two days after the dogfight, American fighters appeared over Hurlach and were followed by bombers who blasted a target about two miles from us. The black smoke rising high in the sky was a gorgeous sight so long as it was two miles away. The next day they returned and bombed a town ten miles in the other direction. Each time, the German earth shook and Hurlach had the impression that the war was closing in.

On the morning of Friday, April 13, 1945, I was loafing along with an axe, supposedly cutting wood. The Bauer had been by to sharpen my skills as well as the ax. He still had not discovered that I was a professional POW goldbrick. He looked at my toothpick arms, and I knew he felt again how he had been cheated on Kriegie distribution day. He had work to do, so he left. I sat down to rest.

Just before noon a Kriegie came by and said excitedly, "Presi­dent Roosevelt died yesterday."  It was a shock. "What happened?" I asked him. 

226

"I don't know," he answered, "but I just heard it on my Bauer's radio."The news went swiftly through Hurlach. They knew Roo­sevelt. With no facility in German, I had no idea of their reaction. Our first reaction was personal. "Boy, that sure fouls up the war," said one POW. "How d'you mean?" I asked. "I don't know, but we'll never get out of here now," he said.

"I doubt if it has any effect at all on the war," I responded. Another POW said, "I'll bet Truman really makes the war go fast." I had to dig to come up with the vice president's name. In Eng­land I had lost interest in the convention, and I had disappeared before the election. I couldn't place Truman.

"That'll sure foul up a square deal for us soldiers when we get back home, won't it?" a Kriegie said.

There was agreement, as we talked about it that night in the barracks, that Roosevelt had been a great president. Some recog­nized the potential effect of his death on the peace, some felt sad­ness in the loss of him, and some felt his personal loss at not finishing what he and we had been through together. 

Spring was now well underway in Bavaria, and Spring had returned to Wash­ington, as I remembered, and I wrote home in Whitman's words: 

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed

A great star fell in the western sky in the night

I mourn and yet shall mourn with every returning Spring.

Our thoughts, which were ever westward, were more so that weekend. For every man in prison, for every man in the army, it was not just that Roosevelt was our commander in chief. It was not only that he was the president. It was that he had been the Presence in Washington during thirteen vital years of our lives, the entire last half of most soldiers' lives.

Saturday night, April 21, 1945, the two young Postens came into the barracks and said that our Red Cross boxes and recently arrived comfort boxes must be turned in. We were furious. The comfort box, a sort of suitcase, was distributed one box to five men - they came months late. The Postens left, and we said to ourselves, "What right have they to the boxes? The hell with 'em." We expended our fury by burning up as many as we could and taking an ax to the gift boxes.

The War Closes In on Hurlach: Chapter 25

The War Closes In on Hurlach: Chapter 25

On Monday, March 26, 1945, the Postens came into our barracks at 5:15 A.M. and announced excitedly, "Nicht arbeiten today."

The response was, "No work? Hurrah!'' Half of us believed him; the other half were not sure. Our first hope: the war was over. Our second hope: an airborne landing near enough to rescue us. Spirited conversation followed, with an expanding of rumors and a rehash of radio information. Six o'clock passed. Six-fifteen passed. We were still in the barracks. News and rumors filtered in during the morning. One rumor: a bunch of Kom­mandos had taken off. 

Facts: There was an airborne landing of 45,000 troops. No information as to where. Jubilation, celebration, elation. Breakfast and Essen were brought to us. Could the worm be turn­ing: Could these Krauts be our friends? The windows in the bar­racks were placed so high on the wall that even when standing on tables we could not see out. If there was any local activity, we were isolated from it.

At one o'clock we were sent out to work. Elation over. Rumors again. No invasion at all. No airdrop. Or was there? At night we brought in reports heard on the Bauer's radios: there was an air­ borne attack near Munich. The next day passed and the next; the week ended. No airdrop. Life returned to normal, except that the news, while not spectacular, was good. We and our Bauer knew the Allies were on the march; of that there was no doubt.

It was now Holy Week before Easter. In Hurlach there was bellringing all during the day. On Saturday I watched a ceremony of parading around the outside of the church. Inside, cakes were blessed. The religious activities in Hurlach, considering my situa­tion, were viewed with some cynicism. The significance of Easter was touched with paradox.

More on the Farm (Chapter 24 conclusion)

 After Essen we lingered at the table or outside the house making some land of hashlike conversations. In a fortnight my strength returned. I arrived in Hurlach soft in the arms, weak in the hands, and unable to sit straight without effort. Although I did no real work for two weeks, all the extra food, including a few swiped potatoes, a bed not only free of bugs but also soft and comfortable, the freshness of the air, and the sense of freedom did marvels for my physical and mental health.

Life in the barracks was as noisy as a subway ride. All conversations were shouted, or so it seemed. The actions of the villagers continually amused us. Many of us were city men, and watching women pull wagons through the spring mud, getting them stuck, and watching the men of the village laughing at the women greatly amused us. One POW related how his father, on some occasions, had to take a swat at his mother, as the village men did, "just to put the old lady in her place. You have to swat 'em sometimes."

"Yes," one POW volunteered, "some of these women in Hurlach go about saying what good husbands they have, although the husbands beat 'em up."

One of the POWs was somewhat shell-shocked or just plain nervous as a result of bombings. The appearance of Allied planes or even an alert for them made him jittery. He was frightened to death of being bombed or strafed. It looked as if we'd have a time with the ex-paratrooper if we saw much action at Hurlach.

As my strength returned, I enjoyed working in the fields. It was a blessing to be in the country away from the perpetual sight of destruction, away from bombed Munich. I was alone in the fields many days, and on one such day, I saw the majestic Alps, for the first time. They were, so I was told, sixty to ninety miles to the south. I saw them gray and white over distant green pines, set in a blue sky on a sunlit, clear day early in April. A year and a half before, in August, beyond those Alps, south, and across the Mediterranean Sea, I had stood on the site of Carthage.

Looking north across the Mediterranean, I had thought of Hannibal crossing those far-distant, unseeable Alps. Now, having sailed half the length of that sea, westward around Spain, northward along the edge of the continent of Europe to Saxon Land, and thence to Gaul, I had finally landed beyond those Alps in the land of the "Huns."

Before I realized it, spring came to Hurlach and the world was green again. As the earth warmed and planting continued, I wondered what it would be like to live with Mavis on a farm in America. What I really thought was, Would Mavis enjoy farming in America as she had in Tipperary? What really happened was that our visit to the Markendales, our walk with ]Eck through his plot of ground, came back to me and was tied in with Hurlach. I just dreamed in the warm sun and gentle spring, filled with the hopes of Hurlach. Half of what I wanted from Hurlach, improved health, was accomplished. Only freedom remained. As March slipped into April, my constructive work for the Germans paled, and with the return of my health, I was ready to do useful work for myself. 

Arriving one morning at the farmhouse, I was informed that at any moment I would be expected to assist at a birth. No army training there. Ivan, the Bauer, and I were seated at Essen when Marie came clumping into the room shouting at her father and Ivan. This was normal, so I figured she was asking her father if he wanted more freshly baked bread. But the Bauer got up quickly and waved Ivan and me to follow him down the hall and into the cow pen. One of the cows needed a little assistance. The Bauer roped the cow's head to the feed bin and tied another rope to the calf, now visible at the other end of the cow. With a rope secure to the forelegs of the calf, we pulled. We pulled and we pulled. And we produced a calf. It was, for me, a traumatic experience. Once in a lifetime, in far-distant Bavaria, deep in southern Germany, I was involved in birth.

Everyone was delighted with our new calf. It would have been fun to have talked to the family about it, but we never surmounted the language barrier. We ate, watched one another, mumbled short phrases, and passed food, and Marie kept coming into the room shouting to the little boys, "What do you want, huh?" The huh came forth with a great jarring and explosion of breath not unlike that of a large animal belching. Once in the room she'd repeated the question three or four times: "What do you want, huh? ... Huh? Huh?"

At the table the two little boys sat across from me. Evan, age four, grew more and more to resemble an incipient Gestapo agent, with ingrown feelings for meanness. One day he grabbed the beer mug his father had finished. He discovered it to be empty and therefore asked for mine. "Komrn, comm," he said in a demanding voice. I instinctively hated him. Although the language barrier was operating, the tone of "Komm; comm," left no doubt that he demanded my mug of beer. We stared each other down. 

One day in the fields I picked a few bright spring flowers and showed them to Evan. "Komm, comm,"  he said, in the same demanding voice. Pour years old and he wants what I got,I said to myself. I pointed to the great field of flowers and walked away. I tried to feel kindly toward the children, Evan and Herman, as I tried to trust those in uniforms. I could not like the children or trust the soldiers.

One day at noon an Essen salesman in army uniform came to the door selling religious pictures. He displayed his wares for the Bauer, who noisily ate his sauerkraut. The Bauer didn't want any pictures, but they conversed for some time, after which the Bauer sent Marie out on an errand. She returned with an egg and gave it to the salesman. He left soon after. Fresh eggs were scarce in cities. I was aware that on Sundays, now more than before, people from the cities came out into the country seeking fresh food or any kind of food they could get. 

Work, war, and the church seemed to cover the extent of the lives of the people of Hurlach. Work was first before the others mentioned. They never seemed to tire. My Bauer worked from sunup to dark.  Activities of the church sent forth the women dressed in sober black. The local priest was forbidden to speak to the Kriegies. Rumor had it that he had been imprisoned six months for doing so.

There was much slave labor in Hurlachz Poles, French, Yugoslavs, Ukrainians, Serbs, and we Americans. Most of the men and women, Americans excluded, were of peasant stock, hard workers. Some of them, in American slang, "had found a home." There was a Russian girl who, it was said, until she came to Hurlach had never eaten with utensils but grabbed her food with her hands and who, when shown her room, didn't know what the bed was for. She, they said, was living better than in Russia and would probably stay after the war Mess her government had other ideas. Some of the slaves had been in Hurlach five years. Another Russian girl worked on the farm next to ours. Her body, short and stocky, was somewhat distorted as if from the weight of too many pitchforks of hay or manure. Her dress was plain, dark, of some heavy material, fitted loosely about her, and hung ten inches off the ground. The dress did not, however, conceal either the heaviness of her legs or their grotesque bow that caused her to weave from side to side as she walked. Her gestures were graceless, jerky, and incomplete. She was ill at ease when I looked at her.

My Bauer had, from time to time, a hired German girl. She said to me, "Americans niche guest arbiter." Although I justen (understood) her, I played ignorant. She insisted on breaking the idea down word by word. "Americans...do...not...like.. . to. .. work. . .hard." So, I answered her, "Yes, Americans," pointing to myself, "do not work hard for Germans." (This was not true of all Amedcan ome worked as hard as the other slave laborers.) She, however, got the idea. After a few weeks myBauergot the idea, too.

On a warm April day Ivan and I rode the oxen-pulled wagon out to cut some hay We leaned back on gunnysacks of pinecones and conversed in Italian, German, Spanish, Yugoslav, Polish, Russian, and English. It was a hit-and-miss affair, one word of one language followed by one word from another language. It was murderously ungrammatical and was greatly augmented by gestures and identification of objects by pointing. As we rode along, I told him about America: big farms, a large country, many automobiles, great freedom, much food, many nationalities, great highways, big cities, and small villages. I also told him for the twentieth time that he worked too hard for the Bauer. I said, "Germans no damn good." He understood and agreed. But it was no use. Once in the field, Ivan swung away with the big scythe while I peeked away.

One of the few laughs I had in months came that afternoon when I attempted to halter the horses. I gave up on the oxen, but I did know about horses. I got the halter near the horse's head. He tried to help by tossing his head into the halter, only I didn't understand this. So Ivan took over. He lifted the halter about even to the horse's head, whereupon the horse, as if he were mad as hell, shoved his head through the halter with one fast movement. I was so surprised I burst into laughter. It was the first belly laugh of the spring.

One afternoon, the Bauer and I took a long horse-and-wagon ride to a nearby village. There was a rise in the road, and I had a view of the surrounding countryside. It was dotted with Hurlachs. The essential pattern was repeated across the green and variously patched rolling valley: a cluster of buildings; small, neat checkered divisions of land, some green, some newly plowed, a few timbered. The impression was the very opposite of the United States: no lonely farmhouses set beside or off from the road; no large, sprawling acreage; no, or few, roaming cattle, nary a wasted square yard. From the distance I could read the time on one of the two sides of the church tower of Hurlach. I used to wonder what the farmers on the non-clock side did about the time of day.

Riding back to Hurlach, the Bauer and I passed the House of the Cat with Three Paws, where Marco lived. Marco was a delightful spaniel who knew all the Kommandos and spent several nights in the barracks.

As I rode along, it seemed to me that the houses of Hurlach were pleasant enough. Some had grotesque little religious statues placed in niches in the walls. Each house in Hurlach bore a number; I saw some in the nineties. As we rode into town, the church bells chimed the quarter hour and later the half hour. I was keenly aware that more soldiers had come to Hurlach and were quartered in private homes like Hessians during the Revolution. There was also an increase in refugees. The additional soldiers and refugees, combined with the ominous increase in air activity over Hurlach, was rapidly bringing to an end the pastorate peace that had been mine in Hurlach.

 -- end of Chapter 24 --

The Farm: Chapter 24 [Part 2] The Bauer's wife and Ivan the Realist

 The Baue's wife lay in the graveyard across the narrow road

from his farmhouse/barn. He had three children. The daughter's

age I couldn't determine, she was a coarse, crude young woman

weighing about 170 solid pounds. Standing in her bare feet or in felt

shoes she was about five-six. When she moved, she was like a

steam-driven locomotive, with great power and much noise. When

she spoke, it was a shout. Her name, for some unfathomable reason,

was Marie.

There were two small boys. Evan, a four-year-old, was very

small, self-reliant, aggressive, selfish, and crude. He was wire, like

the Bauer. The other boy, Herman, age three, had a painful limp or,

rather, a twisted leg, which he dragged slowly as he moved. He was

irritable, seemingly a little stupid. He sometimes shouted loudly.

Herman was heavy like Marie.

There was a fifth member of the family-Grandmother. She

was old but well preserved, wore long black dresses, sat at her own

table, and was immaculate in her eating. She was a submissive

Frau. She never initiated conversation, never spoke until spoken

to--and then only briefly, with moderate animation, modulated in

tone and rather pleasant. Mostly she sat in her stiff-backed chair

silently sewing, reading, or eating.

The last member of the household was Ivan, who lived in the

Bauer'shouse. Ivan was twenty-two, a Yugoslavian prisoner of war.

He had two brothers in the village, also POWs. Ivan was likable,

husky, of medium height, well built, rather handsome, and keenly

curious about America.

On my second day in Hurlach, my Bauer, carrying a pitchfork,

motioned me to join him, and we walked a half-mile beyond the

perimeter of the village to one of his several small fields, which bordered

on other strips of cultivated land. He skipped the nomenclature

of the pitchfork and went right to work demonstrating its use

to me. He then turned and said, "]a?" I reluctantly took the pitchfork,

said, "la," and went to work spreading manure. He watched

me for a few minutes, then, rather sadly, turned and went back to

his barn in the village.

As soon as he was out of sight a feeling of exhilaration swept

over me. It was the first moment in six months that I was not either

behind barbed wire or watched by a German soldier. I was completely

alone...almost free. For two hours I puttered away at the

manure, but mainly I enjoyed the aloneness and the sunshine and

the blue Bavarian sky. It was a kind of preview of days to come.

At 10:30 Ivan came for me and we walked into the village to the

Bauer'shousefor Brotzeit-bread and a bowl of milk. After Brotzeit,

I worked around the barn with Ivan.

From the first day I gradually informed Ivan that I had not

come to the farm to work-not really-but to eat and grow strong.

Ivan laughed at first and now and then tried my way of life but kept

slipping back and working like a slave.

At 12:00 noon by the golden clocks on two sides of the church

steeple everyone in Hurlach got back to the farmhouse for Essen. At

Essen all the family sat down to eat: at my table were the Bauer,

Evan, Herman, Ivan, and I. Marie, clodhopping like a ponderous

bull, finally charged in and threw her huge body into a chair.

Grandmother sat quietly at her small personal table apart from us

by six feet. The Bauel's three cows ate away in the barn fifteen feet

from us. There was no need for music at meals, there being plenty of

other sounds. At Essenwe had sauerkraut, dry spaghetti, potatoes,

or rolls, but no butter or jam, which was frustrating, since I had

been trying for months to get those three, rolls, butter, and jam,

together.

I spoke no German; they, no English. Ivan spoke Yugoslav but

by now could communicate with the Bauer in German. One day at

Essen, Herman, age three, refused to shut up while the Bauer was

talking. His father warned him, but Herman hollered on. The Bauer

warned him again. Herman hadn't learned to talk yet; he just

shouted. The father slapped the boy across the cheek. Herman

screamed. The father said something to Herman about keeping

quiet and raised his hand to slap him again. Herman choked up. He

continued to blubber, letting a tear run down his dirty red coarse

cheeks-but he barely cried. That was my first illustration of

parental discipline German peasant style.

Herman, who with a moderate amount of manners could have

been a sweet boy, was at three developing two distinct gestures

almost similar. Which gesture came first was hard to say. Herman

would throw an arm up over his face to cover his eyes. He did this

almost instinctively when you moved or looked in his direction.

Herman never approached adults in a gentle or childish manner

but belligerently, with his arm raised in the second gesture, which

offered you the back of his hand. For a three year-old Herman was

quite strong.

Most of the afternoons I worked with Ivan, but sometimes I

accompanied the Bauer out to the fields. Once or twice I worked

with Marie planting potatoes. We cut the potatoes and planted the

eyes, of course. I found bending over time after time wearying.

Marie worked on without a stop, puffing and steaming but tireless

as an iron machine. We plowed some, and I hitched oxen to a wagon

and drove out into the fields. I was never very successful with oxen

or with plowing. We pitched hay, but I was never very successful at

that, either. We sawed wood, but I soon tired doing that. My old

skills as a goldbrick were serving me well, and I would disappear

until the Bauer discovered my absence and sent Ivan to look for

me-in the hayloft usually, searching for eggs. I became adept at

getting the egg before the hen announced her presence. Later in the

spring I got an egg back to the barracks every other day. They were

marvelous. While someone watched to see that the guards didn't

come in unexpectedly, I soft-boiled the eggs. The stealing and cooking

of eggs, or of any other food from the farms, was strictly forbidden.

The fresh eggs were the first I had eaten since North Ireland,

fifteen months before.

I always showed up around five o'clock, when we had

Brotzeit-bread, cheese, and butter (occasionally jelled meat).

Sometimes we had beer. It wasn't very strong, and there wasn't

much of it. It came as a complete surprise. At some Brotzeits it was

every man for himself, Marie included. A large pan of potatoes was

set in the center of the table, bread placed beside the potatoes, and

beer in mugs at our places. At some secret signal the boys, Marie,

the Bauer,the Yugoslav, and I went at 'em. And it was every musketeer

for himself, with spoons flashing and no plates allowed. Marie,

like a hungry sow, sopped up the potatoes and bread, somehow

drawing a watery sound from solids. (How she did that I never discovered.)

Evan and Herman's noses running, the Bauer shouting,

Ivan getting in his licks, me mine, and all the while Grandmother

sitting calmly, sedately, at her table eating.

After Brofzeit we got the cattle in, if they were out, which they

seldom were, there being little grazing land. I managed to fool

around doing some nontaxing job until Essenat seven-coffee and

bread. It was a tiring day-all those Essene and Brotzeits, all that

dodging of work, all that trying to get Ivan to slow down and stop

killing himself for the Germans.

Ivan was incurable. He was, in fact, afraid of the Bauer. Ivan

had plenty of strength in his back, but he lacked something in other

ways. He was of a single mind about the Russians. "They'Il win the

  war," he said, "and then they won't cooperate." I waved him aside.

Ivan may have been in a sense a slave. He was also a realist.                                

The Farm: Chapter 24 [Part 1]

 The Farm: Interlude Pastorale

Early one morning in the middle of March 1945 I walked out of Stalag

VIIA for the last time. The walk itself was an act of freedom.

Rumor informed us that on joining the Kommando we'd be given

new clothing and two American Red Cross boxes. We were offered

a pair of cotton mittens, two British Red Cross boxes, and 100 cigarettes.

The ten of us argued for American boxes. We took the British

boxes, the mittens, the 100 cigarettes, two Postens, and

headed for the Gates with the double set of guards. In a column of

twos, lugging three precious boxes roped over my shoulder, two in

the front, one in the rear, feeling my notes rubbing next to my skin, I

walked past all guards, a mile beyond the gate, to the Moosburg

railroad station.

I have no remembrance of looking back to Stalag VIIA or of

having any thoughts on the matter. As usual, it was first things first:

roping boxes, forming a column, marching. Reaction to Stalag VIIA,

even a backward glance, like most experiences, had to wait upon

reflection.

I sat down on a bench outside the railroad station and rested in

the early morning sun. Six schoolboys arrived to take the train, possibly

as far as Friesing. They were about twelve years old, dressed

alike in blue serge coats and trousers, each with a small peaked cap.

They spoke English. I asked them where they had learned it. In

grade school, they said. My conversation with the children was

another small step to freedom.

A passenger train arrived, we boarded it, took seats, and rode

in comparative luxury over the familiar route into Munich. Another

small step to freedom. In the battered glass-domed station we transferred

to another train, and we rode out of Munich and transferred

again and then again. By noon it was apparent that our Postens were

lost. That was humorous, except that lugging three heavy boxes

tired me.

In the middle of the afternoon we left the fourth train and

walked about ten miles--in the wrong direction. The twelve of us

wandered through a small German town, winding up at the railroad

station, where we spent the night lying on benches. I ate dinner

from my two British boxes, much to the obvious envy of

civilians who came and went from the station.

The next morning we set out on foot. At 10:30 we arrived at

Hurlach, a village of five hundred. We went immediately to a large

building that was sort of half-castle, half-manor house, located near

the center of town. We met the Kornmunderfiihrer, the German soIdier

in charge of farm Kommando 4065, who took us on to our quarters,

where two American POWs were in bed, feigning a fever. Our

two Postens from Stalag VIIA and the Fiihrer left us and the POWs

took over. Quickly and with relish, they wised us up to life in

Hurlach, our work there, and the news of the world, explaining, as

initiates to novices, what they had picked up in six months onKommundo.

We who were underfed were a scrawny lot. In contrast to us,

they looked like superman.

I came to the Kommandowith with high hopes. In spite of many past

disappointments, I hoped I was going to a farm where there would

be food, sunshine, and a release from confinement. We entered our

new barracks through barbed wire, and that was a disappointment.

The news that we'd be locked up together at night was a disappointment.

But the information that during the day we'd have five

meals(Essens) sounded good. The obvious health of the two Americans

was encouraging.

Our barracks was either a former stable or a carriage house.

There were a number of double bunks, a few chairs and tables. It

was clean and orderly. We ten new men picked out bunks, dumped

our three boxes on them, first testing the beds for comfort. It felt

good.

In the afternoon two young soldiers, our new Postens, came

into the barracks and told us to follow them. Our door led into a

barbed-wire enclosure about twenty feet square. Once we passed

through the enclosure, we were in Hurlach. I followed the guards

through the village, which centered around a Catholic church with

a single four-sided steeple pointed at the top in a triangle-shaped

liI<e praying hands. I was delighted that it was a Catholic community.

That meant many holidays and no work.

The village lay against the side of a small rise in the ground, so

that as I walked through the town I could see stretched out far to the

south a great fertile plain. On clear days, I was told, I would see the

Alps. The church was the pivot of the town. Hugging it and

enclosed by a high brick wall covered with cracked cement was a

graveyard. Moving in concentric circles with interwoven lines were

the farmhouses, barns, stables, and dirt roads or lanes leading out

to all the fields.

As I walked past the houses of Hurlach, they seemed of a pattern,

brick covered with cement and whitewashed or, in some cases,

washed with pastel brown, rose, or cream. Nearly every house had

green shutters and red-tile roofs. The tile, I later discovered, was

laid across rafters and secured by hooks on the reverse side. The

barns, sad ancestors of the great red barns of the United States, were

unpainted.

My first walk continued through the village past a few stores,

but into no store section. The bakery, creamery, blacksmith, and

garage formed a part of the owner's farmhouse and was subsidiary

to his main occupation: farming. All the ground about the house

was cultivated to the last inch in gardens, both flower and vegetable.

A few Windows had pots of flowers, which bloomed later in

March and April. Most farmhouses turned out to have wood piles,

manure dumps, homemade wagons, bicycles, oxen, horses, cows,

chickens, ducks, a great urine pump piped from under the floor of

the stables, pits of potatoes, cabbages, and beets.

There was a schoolhouse separate from the church with two

steeples topped with onion-shaped cupolas. As I walked through

Hurlach, it was clear that the largest building in town, other than

the church, was the one to which our barracks was attached. It had

the appearance of a feudal manor house, although it bore the date

1896. (I have since learned that Hurlach was founded in A.D. 1140.)

It was a three-storied square, awkward building housing a number

of families, most of whom seemed to be refugees from cities. In the

stables or carriage houses were thirty-eight American prisoners of

war forming Kommando 4065.

The two young Postens led us in an informal group past a

dozen farmhouses and finally stopped at one. The Bauer (farmer)

came out from his work dressed in a dark shirt and trousers and

exchanged a few words with the Postens. We lined up and the Bauer

looked us over, like a Roman of old surveying Grecian slaves. In

some ways the world changes but little. What he was looking for in

a slave I don't know, but surely physical strength was important. I

was not selected. We passed on to the next Bauer, who repeated the

actions of his neighbor. Again I was not chosen. Somewhere near

the end of the line a Bauer selected me. On what basis he made his

choice I can't imagine. I was noticeably thin, and if he'd seen my

arms, which resembled straws, he would have been utterly dismayed.

But after all, I was cheap labor - five meals a day.

I followed my Bauer into the barn, where I met a young man,

Ivan, who conveyed to me, in a hodgepodge of German and English,

the Bauer'swishes. Ivan, a Yogoslav slave, and I soon became

acquainted. At five o'clock we moved from the barn into the adjacent

house, sat at a table in the front room, and joined the Bauer at

Brotzeit (a word I learned immediately)-cheese, bread, and butter.

Ivan and I went back to work, and at seven o'clock I was givenEssen

(a word I learned that morning in the barracks)-coffee and bread.

The Bauer gave me a blanket and a large feather comforter. One of

the Postens came by, and I joined other POWs and returned to the

barracks.

By the time I got to the barracks, most of the men were back

from their farms. The room was very much alive. late from my Red

Cross boxes, exchanged experiences, and, from the resident group,

learned that several Bauers had radios and, although strictly forbidden

by the Nazis to do so, were listening to Allied broadcasts. The

U.S. Army was again on the move and one day soon would be at

Hurlach. At nine o'clock I was instructed to put my trousers and

shoes outside the door of the barracks. Who would think of escaping

without his pants? The door was locked, the trousers and shoes

carried into the guard's room, which adjoined ours, and lights

turned off.

It was immediately apparent that the men I now lived with

were in great health. They had plenty of food, cigarettes, and rest.

Consequently, sex was back in the conversation. In fact, I was back

with the same discouraging lot of men that I had known all over the

United States and Europe loud and childish. I was struck by the

fact that this group was a sort of club and that the men were playing

at being grown up, much as children play house. They were men

grown too rapidly old and touched, therefore, with a certain theatricality. 

They felt they must be men now that they had truly been

through so much and were so independent. Depending on one's

perspective, they could seem sad or comic.

A young man from North Carolina spoke about his Bauer with

such a mixture of dialect and poor English as to sound almost foreign.

Five or six exuberant men from New York exchanged banter

across the room, delivered at full volume, devastating in its Brooklynese.

All the resident POWs exhibited a certain rambunctious

good fellowship. For the benefit of us anemic ones and to assure us

that good things lay ahead, we were let in on the fact that some of

the local Fraulein were available. But be careful! Life was almost

good again.

At 5:15 A.M. the Postens turned on the lights and came in to

awaken us and return our shoes and pants. We responded slowly

and were finally moving at 6:00. We walked out of the barracks

through the barbed wire in a haphazard column, peeling off at our

Bauer's barns. The Postens, once this duty was completed, disappeared

for the day My daily life was spent with the Bauer and/or

Ivan. Most of the Kriegies (for some reason the word Kriegie, prisoner,

was used more on Kommandothan at the stalag) had been

doing the same thing for six months and were like one of the villagers.

I soon learned my routine of duties. I started the day working

with the Bauer cleaning out the cow pens, gathering some eggs,

pitching hay, or cutting wood. At 7:15 we sat down at the table for

Essen--coffee and bread.

My Bauer was about forty, slender, with hard lines in his

weather-toughened face. I became his greatest disappointment.

Once he had a better look at my arms I could read his thoughtsnicht

arlbeiten, aironworker. He was so right. I did well to pick up a

shovel, much less carry anything on it. He spent a good deal of time

getting and keeping me on the job and stopping me from corrupting

his "hired" hand, Ivan, the Yugoslav.

215

End of Chapter 23 - After Christmas 1945

 We had few visitors in South Lazar, but every few days a

young Serb came through the barracks dressed in a green-and-red

uniform with a GI knitted cap giving, in his limited English, a

cheery greeting: "How do you do, goddamn! How do you do, goddamn!"

One evening a POW got the biggest laugh of the winter. He

arrived from Munich with the detail and while fully clothed called

for attention from the top of a table. In the presence of those near

him he started to unload. He dug into his coat and turned up five

loaves of bread, piling them neatly on the table. The audience

increased as he pulled from his jacket, one at a time, five more

loaves, piling them on top of the others. From inside his shirt, like a

magician, he produced six or seven more loaves, the pile now taking

on the proportion of a pyramid. From inside his trousers, by

now shouting and lolling himself with bravado and us with laughter,

he drew forth four or five more. Eventually he stacked up

between twenty and twenty-five loaves of bread. I have no idea

whether he dealt directly with a bakery or with several Germans. It

was a fantastic performanceout of The Arabian Nights.

Going and coming on the Munich detail, I passed a compound

housing troops from India. The yard beside their barracks was used

to dry their turbans, which they strung like colored streamers crisscrossing

the area. It was an extraordinary sight to come upon in

prison. The men walked about the yard in twos and threes conversing

while worldng with the bright and many-colored wrappings,

their long black hair released and falling below their shoulders.

Many American POWs, ignoring or being unaware of, or indifferent

to, the fighting reputation of these men, thought they were

funny as hell.

In the small yard beside our barracks, walking was not especially

inviting. One February morning, after days of darkness, the

sun broke through the overcast sky and fell brightly upon the eight foot-

high barbed-wire fence. The fence was covered with a deep

frost. The sun softened that cruel thing made by man. The barbed

wire glistened in the shining sun of a bright, clear morning. The sun

and the wire formed exquisitely lovely patterns running around the

yard. It was nature's way of beautifying while humanizing man's

ugly invention. The prison fence that had hitherto been too brutal to

handle became for a few moments an object too tender to touch. I

was enchanted by its crisp loveliness, a loveliness so fragile that li1<e

thin blown glass a man's warm hand might destroy it, so delicate

that his warm breath would dissolve it. The barbarous bits, sinister

and cruel, now encased in frost and sun, made a delicate fabric and

changed our inhuman enclosure into a dainty trellis that might

serve to bound a fairyland and not a prison.

Deep into February the temperature fell sharply and the nights

grew intensely cold, so cold that the stars seemed frosted in the winter

sky. The sky itself seemed colder, a blue-black cold with white frosted

red-fringed globes for stars. Under this boundless sky a

sharp wind whipped the prison yard, while a chilling moon

flooded the compound, highlighting the shiny black-tarred roofs of

the barracks. I stood in the moonlight and thought of Mavis and

reflected upon our secret code-"moonlight on the roofs of Ballyemena"-

by which she would know that I was in combat. It was five

months since silence had fallen upon me and since I had heard from

her. I had no idea if she knew anything at all about me.

Personal relationships in South Lazar labored under the pressure

of darkness, within and without. I found everyone around me

annoying. There developed in me an unwillingness to care anymore

about friendships. Weeks of sunless days, each day with the

threat of further reduction in rations, each trip to Munich more

hateful, drove me into a desperate need for change and for freedom.

I volunteered for a farm Kommando and waited each day for the

authorities to let me know.

In the meantime the constant darkness, the shortened tempers

sparked by emptiness, the long dreary days arguing with Lynn

Smith and being nettled by everyone slowly pressed me to the point

of wanting to scream out and to run into the yard and plow through

the barbed wire. Anything to get out of the barracks, out of the

enclosure, out of prison. I felt inside me that I was about to crack up.

I feared a nervous breakdown unless something happened to get

me out of the darkness. Days passed and there was no word about

theKommando.I gave up hope. I wasn't even sure anymore I wanted

to go. The isolation, the frustration, and the confinement had

brought me close to a nervous collapse when suddenly, one day in

the first week of March, the glorious sun appeared and the tension,

like a passed sore stabbed by a lance, collapsed. The next day I was

notified that my farm Kommando would leave immediately.

210

After Christmas as a POW: Growing despair

At the beginning of February a flood of POWs poured into Stalag VIIA. The German breakthrough in France and Belgium accounted for the increase. The event had no name then; now it is known as the Battle of the Bulge. I was aware only of the overpopulation. As the men crowded into Stalag VIIA, I was suddenly separated from Stubbs and Coppola and moved to another compound called South Lagar. Although uprooting and dislocation were by then a way of life, I missed the companionship of Stubby and Coppola. 

South Lagar was a hole. The floors, unscrubbed for weeks, were dirty Heavy population forced the bunks to be placed eighteen inches apart. The narrow aisles were cluttered with blowers, wood, and personal belongings. There were no books to read, no entertainment. There was no electric light. Our single source of illumination was a carbide lamp a German guard made out of a coffee can. There was one heat stove about four feet high. There was no stove for indoor cooking, and the one POW who had a stove refused to allow others to use it. Those of us who preferred to heat water or cook hot food for dinner went out into the yard to do so.

The Windows of the barracks were boarded halfway up against the cold weather. The interior of the barracks was therefore dark and dreary, which made for severe confinement. The effect of this gloomy environment on us was immediate; normal irritation bounded into aggressive annoyance. Some of us became as untouchable as thorn trees.

A POW who bunked next to me named, Lynn Smith, was as prickly as the fruit on top of a Tunisian cactus. He seemed constantly on guard against the human race. I found no smooth and easy way to converse with Lynn. He talked endlessly about the books he'd read, which he probably had, except that he never seemed to have absorbed them. According to the Stanislavsky method of animal identification, Lyme was a porcupine, easily ruffled, a humorless and selfish man; no length of acquaintance or shared affliction altered these attitudes. Even though he made a fairly presentable first appearance, it was strange how the men somehow got his number and stayed away from him. He constantly apologized for his young wife, whose picture he showed me, accounting for her inadequacies by way of the differences in their ages. He was self-conscious about his marriage and, although he talked on many subjects, wound up being crude about them all. It is entirely possible that Lynn Smith was a nice guy, but circumstances altered cases.

The coming and going of the Munich detail in South Lagar was a dreadful experience. Once the lukewarm soup was distributed, in the evening, I gathered up some wood and went outside to cook my dinner. More and more it seemed important to protect my health. Many of us brewed coffee, cooked Spuds chopped up in Spam in a blizzard of snow. In the blowing wind and snow, frantic for fear that I, or someone near me, would tip over the tin of food and jittery while carrying it inside avoiding bumping into someone, I finally got to my bunk, removed my shoes, set up a box, nervously poured the hot water, and buttered the toast while at the same time passionately vocally spitting out my hatred of all Germans who made it necessary for me to eat the miserable dinner.

The daily tensions under which we lived in South Lagar produced additional tensions. The misery of waiting for the end to come, waiting to go home, day after day, week after week, month after month, through the cruelty and exposure of winter was trying in the extreme. The accumulation of unproductiveness packed the waiting days with waste, emptiness, and exasperation. We could not see the end. 

About the first of March, the food radon was visibly reduced. There was but a dribble of mail. Some POWs had received ten letters, some eighteen, some none-I had yet to receive one. Distribution of Red Cross boxes was uncertain. But the hunger in February and March was not for food and mail alone. It was for music, for newspapers, for bed sheets, for magazines, for money, for a change of clothes, for light, for a chair, for plates, knives, and cups; for a bed, for warmth, for affection; for sympathy; for love. Lice and fleas were, naturally, more abundant in South Lagar.

We developed a skin disease that started at the ankles and ran eighteen inches up the leg, appearing also at the base of the spine, in the crotch, and on the wrists. Scratching only raised welts and produced sores. Festering rumor was a disease in South Lagan. Our faith in the war's end was like a weathercock in turbulent winds: now all hopeful, now all despair.