Until late winter I occupied a middle bunk. Above me was Stubby. Across the aisle, an arm's length away, was Coppola. We had no free choice of work details in Munich, but Stubby and I tried to alternate days, leaving one behind to protect belongings, pick up information, and warm food when the other returned from Munich.
At 4:30 A.M. the German guards entered the barracks, turned on the lights, and shouted their repellent, "Raus!" Stubby called down to me, "Bill, your morning to get tea!" I crawled out, untied my shoes from the wires above, laced them up, took the overcoat off the bed, and put it on. I pulled a knitted cap down over my forehead, put on a precious, if thin, pair of cotton gloves, and said to Stubbs, "When I get back, do you want some tea?" "No thanks. I can't stand the smell." The tea, which came nearly every morning, was so foulsmelling that few could drink it. Some men washed their feet in the dark, steaming, putrid tea. Since the tea was boiling hot, some men shaved in it. I usually drank some.
I joined a detail of three or four POWs and a German guard. It was now beyond the middle of December, and it was cold. We carried the milk cans of hot, malodorous tea from the kitchen to the barracks. Again the men were awakened by a few forceful "Rauses" or occasionally, later in winter, by the appearance of two aggressive unleashed German police dogs.
"See you tonight, Stubby," I said.
"OK, Bill. Bring some wood if you can," replied Stubby. He was still under his blanket and overcoat and would stay there until roll call at seven o'clock outside in the yard. Unless detailed within the camp, he would spend the day in the barracks, as I would the next day
At 5:15 we went outside to form a column of five or sixes. It was very dark, intensely cold. We waited, already chilled, amid much grumbling and swearing or sometimes in absolute silence. After being checked and rechecked, we marched through the Gates out of the compound a half-mile to the tram.
Fifty of us and two guards got into the boxcar. It was now six o'clock and barely light. In the boxcar there was sometimes a stove, sometimes not, sometimes a stove and no wood. We sat on the floor and waited for the train to take us the fifty miles to Munich. Conversation was nil. Some of us went back to sleep; others managed to converse with one another or with one of the guards, picking up news but mostly rumors. We tried to find out what the work was for the day. We waited. Finally the train started and made a swift run to the outskirts of Munich. There we would stop and let more important traffic enter the city over what few lines were open following many air raids. We would go either a mile or so into the city or all the way to the great glass station, the pride of Munich. No glass remained, and the steel supports had been twisted and blasted to smithereens. Piles of rubble lay all about. Usually only one or two tracks were open. It was a joy to see.
We arrived in Munich about nine o'clock and marched through the city passing what were once tourist sites. We paraded around piles of rubble, passed lines of German civilians going to work or scrounging for food. We went to buildings recently bombed and spent the day passing bricks or junk from hand to hand. We worked in the freezing railroad yard, the coldest place in Munich. We assisted the railroad workers repairing tracks. Small fires were kept going, and naturally the guard's chief job was to keep POWs like me away from the fire and on the job. We usually had two guards with rifles watching us all day. Once in a while we went back to Moosburg minus a POW, he having disappeared during the day. I suppose this was murderous on the guards. Some stormed furiously at us, some did not.
On mornings after severe air raids we would not get into Munich until ten-thirty or eleven-thirty. We ate promptly at noon. Food was one of the reasons many POWs chose to take the Munich detail, for this was additional food to that at camp. Usually the food was distributed at a central point and was the same as at camp, bread, cheese, and soup. Now and then the soup, bean or potato, was good, and when it was, it was very good.
One noon my group of ten POWs was taken by the guards to a restaurant. We sat at a table and were waited on. We each had soup, bread, a small piece of meat, and a mug of beer. The guards paid for it. Most of the people in the restaurant were German civilians. Civilians never touched me or made any attempt to do so. They generally ignored me. We were, along with the Russian workers, the concentration camp workers in their striped uniforms, a common enough sight in Munich.
The civilians I saw in Munich were models of stoicism. They made clear to me that until we overran them they were going to and were able to resist the frightful bombings. Many civilians came in from the suburbs carrying, almost to a man, briefcases containing, among other things, their lunch. Munich was a badly battered city, which I relished. All transportation was reduced to fifth-rate vehicles. Bicycles with trailers, pushcarts, small-gauge trains, small, open freight cars brought civilians in from the suburbs.
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