Forgotten Soldier (21 page)

"No more than forty-five on board," he barked. "Departure in thirty seconds."

He took another hundred paces.

We all groaned silently. No one wanted to get down; everyone had the best of reasons for staying put. Two or three men were shoved off the back. As I was right in the middle, packed in like a sardine, there was no question of moving. Laus finally took matters in hand. He made half the men on the truck get down. The remainder came to exactly forty-five. The corporal, who was already climbing into the front seat, told the driver to start. Laus gave us a friendly wave. We had received our final orders from him. His last smile more than made up in our eyes for all the duties he had imposed on us. Beside him, the other half of the group called out by the corporal watched with dazed faces as we vanished in a whirl of dust.

This half of the group joined us four days later, one hundred miles behind the front lines, at the rest camp of the famous Gross Deutschland Division. A large part of the division, especially the convalescing wounded, occupied the rustic Akhtyrka camp. The division itself held a mobile sector in the vast Kursk-Belgorod region. Everything at the camp was clean and neatly organized, as in the Boy Scouts, only far more lavishly supplied.

Akhtyrka reminded us of an oasis, surrounded by the trackless steppe.

We jumped down at the corporal's order, and lined up in a double file. A captain, a first lieutenant, and a feldwebel walked toward us. Our plump little corporal snapped to attention. These officers were all dressed with astonishing style. The hauptmann looked like a figure from a costume party, in a jacket of fine gray-green cloth with the red facings of a combat unit, dark-green riding breeches, and gleaming cavalry boots. He waved at us, and then said something we couldn't quite hear to the feldwebel, who was every bit his equal in elegance. After a short conversation with the hauptmann, the feld walked over to us, clicked his heels, and addressed us in a tone which at least was more agreeable than that of the corporal who had come to fetch us.

"Welcome to the Gross Deutschland Division!" he shouted. "With us, you will experience a genuine soldier's life, the only life which brings men close to each other on terms of absolute sincerity. Here, a sense of comradeship exists between each and every one of us, which might be put to the test at any moment. Any black sheep, anyone unsuited for comradeship, does not stay in this division. Everyone must be able to count on everyone else, without any qualification whatever. The slightest error on anyone's part affects the whole section. We want no slackers and no strays: everyone must be prepared either to obey without question, or to give orders. Your officers will think for you. Your duty is to show yourselves worthy of them. You will now get yourselves some new clothes and throw away your stinking rags. Absolute cleanliness is the essential foundation for a decent frame of mind. We do not tolerate any sloppiness of appearance." He took a deep breath, and then continued. "When these preliminaries have been accomplished, this group of volunteers will receive their passes for the fortnight's leave which has been promised them. If there is no counter-order, these passes will become effective in five days, when the convoy leaves for Nedrigailov.

"You may now proceed. Heil Hitler!"

It was a beautiful day. Everything in the camp seemed to be efficiently organized. According to what we'd just heard, one did not trifle with orders, but that seemed a reasonable change, after the universe of shit and horror and suffering and panic we had just come from. And then there were our passes! Hals was jumping with delight, like a young goat. Everyone felt overjoyed.

Our plump corporal had one more nasty surprise in store for us, but we were all in such a good humor nothing could ruffle us. He ordered us to wash our filthy clothes before turning them in to the supply store where we would draw new ones. We found ourselves transformed into washerwomen, standing stripped to the skin in front of long troughs. Our underclothes were caked with filth, beyond hope of recovery. I kicked my shorts into the air, and tore my undershirt into shreds. My last pair of socks, which I'd been wearing since the beginning of the retreat, were nothing but holes and joined my shorts. Then, stark naked, we walked across the grass to the store, to hand in our old clothes, which were soaking wet but neatly folded-and receive new ones. Two women soldiers nearly choked with laughter when they saw us coming.

"Hang on to your boots!" shouted the sergeant, who was not particularly amused by the sight of naked boys. "No new boots here!"

We were given a fresh issue of everything from caps to first-aid kits. However, certain indispensable items were missing-among these, underpants and socks-which in the long run proved to be serious omissions. But our spirits were too high to be disturbed at the time.

When we were dressed, we were directed to a wooden army barrack. A notice in large, legible characters was tacked beside the door to remind us of the cleanliness which was officially obligatory: "Eine Laus, der Tod!"* (* "A louse means death!")

 The plump little corporal who had accompanied us from Kharkov waved us inside. We looked curiously around our new room, which was rough but impeccably clean.

"Ruhe, Mensch!" shouted the corporal. We instantly fell silent. "Since there isn't a noncom here, I am going to put one of you in charge."

He worked his way through our ranks, with his eyes half-closed, as if he wished to surprise his choice-who of course would not want the responsibility-or as if the decision were somehow significant. Finally, with a sharp cry, he selected a fellow who didn't seem to have anything special about him:

"Du"

The man he pointed to stepped forward. "Your name?"

"Wiederbeck!"

"Wiederbeck, until further notice, you will be responsible for the order of this room. You will go to the Warenlager to pick up the divisional patches which everyone must sew on his left sleeve. You will also . . ." He enumerated a list of duties, each of which made poor Wiederbeck's head droop a little lower.

A few minutes later, we each received the famous insignia of the Gross Deutschland division, with its divisional title in silver Gothic letters on a black ground. This band remained on my sleeve until 1945, when the rumor ran through our scattered ranks that the Americans were shooting any man wearing a divisional name instead of a number. And at that moment of hasty judgment, they might very well have shot a nobody from the Gross Deutschland or the Brandenburg as easily as a hero from the Leibstandarte, or the Totenkopf. But that time was still far in the future. We were then in the spring of 1943, on the territory of a conquered country. The weather was marvelous, and as a finishing touch we all had two-week passes in our pockets. After everything we had been through, this new life seemed like a dream.

Except for morning and evening roll call, we were free to wander about and entertain ourselves as we pleased.

Akhtyrka was a curious place.

Between the houses or groups of houses, which were built in an agreeable Russian peasant style, the grasses and wild flowers of the steppe grew with vigorous abundance, making a kind of thick lawn, which was often nearly three feet high. These plants and grasses, which all turned brown at the end of summer, were scattered with enormous daisies and a variety of aromatic plants which the Russians collected for seasoning their food and preparing drinks. Fields of rough, light-green gherkins were set off by enormous sunflowers. The groups of houses were inhabited either by members of a family, or by friends, who built in clusters to reduce the effort of paying visits.

The Russians-especially the Ukrainians-are very gay and hospitable, and ready to celebrate almost any occasion. I remember several pleasant gatherings at the homes of these enthusiastic people, during which everyone managed to forget the rivalries of the war. And I remember the girls, shouting with laughter when they had every reason to hate us-on another human scale altogether from the affected Parisian beauty, obsessed by her appearance and her cosmetics.

Each group of houses also had its own burial ground, which was never a sad place, but always a beautiful flowery plot, with wooden tables where people often sat and drank, and an ornamental signpost with an affectionate variation of the place name: Beautiful Akhtyrka, Our Town, Akhtyrka, Sweet Akhtyrka.

Four days after our arrival, the second section of our group of volunteers joined us. It seemed they really had to sweat to make it: almost the whole journey had been on foot.

At last, on the fifth day, we took our places in the convoy for Nedrigailov. Our passes would not become operative until we reached Poznan, which was another thousand miles to the west. After that, there would be six hundred miles to my parents at Wissembourg. I would therefore be traveling for several days. We drove across a huge expanse of country which was absolutely flat-without the slightest trace of hillock or hollow. Here and there, we could see military tractors being used for agricultural work. We were able to maintain a decent speed as far as Nedrigailov, on a road which had been rebuilt by the army engineers, and which, every three or four miles, was littered with the wreckage of hastily abandoned Soviet materiel. We had driven for about 150 miles when our attention was attracted by some tiny shapes outlined against the distant sky. Their black silhouettes were marked by little white clouds, and the sound of explosions.

The two trucks ahead of us slowed down, and then stopped. As usual, the feld responsible for the convoy jumped down from the first truck and stared through his field glasses. As usual, we waited for an order before plunging to the ground. Everyone was quiet, watching the feld attentively, trying to fathom his reactions. Only the sound of the idling engine broke the stillness. The joy which had transformed our faces these last few days slowly faded as our anxiety grew. A few voices cursed our bad luck.

"I thought that by now we were good and far from any trouble." "Goddamnit!"

"What do you think it could be?"

"Partisans," muttered Hals, who had already taken part in a "man hunt." There were several other conjectures as well.

"Whoever they are, I'm not going to let the bastards wreck my leave."

"I wonder what we're waiting for. Why don't they just tell us to go ahead and shoot them?"

Each of us had already picked up the Mauser which soldiers on leave in an occupied country were required to carry at all times. The idea that somebody or something might prevent us from going home made us feel savage. We were ready to shoot anyone at a moment's notice if that's what was needed to keep moving west. But the order to fire never came. The feld climbed back onto his truck, and the convoy started off again. We stared at each other in confusion. When, some five hundred yards further on, we ran into a group of twenty German officers carrying shotguns, we felt so surprised and delighted that our assumption had been mistaken that we cheered them as if we were driving past the Fuhrer himself.

At last, we reached Nedrigailov, where we left the convoy, which turned south. We went on to Romny, the gypsy paradise, where we were supposed to be picked up by another convoy moving west. At Nedrigailov, our ranks were swelled by other men on leave from various parts of Russia, until there were nearly a thousand of us. However, the supply of available trucks had to be used for many purposes other than simply transporting men on leave. The few trucks for Romny took on about twenty fortunate souls; the rest of us were left to mill about in front of a field kitchen equipped to feed barely a quarter of our number. Although we were famished, we decided to walk the thirty miles to Romny, and set off despite the lateness of the hour, in the best of spirits. About twenty fellows who were considerably older than the rest of us and belonged to the Gross Deutschland Division came along. There were also seven or eight fellows from the S.S., who sang at the tops of their lungs. The others took swigs from bottles which they passed from hand to hand. They must have emptied several cellars: every one of them seemed to be carrying a generous collection.

We had instinctively arranged ourselves in threes, as if we were going up to the line, and were proceeding on the double, consciously reducing the distance which separated us from Romny. Evening was slowly falling across the endless green, rolling landscape. Our uniforms, so perfectly matched to outdoor colors, seemed to take on the tone of the surrounding landscape, like chameleon skins. After the first ten miles, our high spirits faded somewhat, leaving us more inclined to contemplate the immense panorama of the Ukraine. The earth, engaged in the processes of spring germination, exhaled a subtle but nonetheless powerful odor, as the horizon faded into the boundless emptiness of the darkening sky. Our uniforms grew darker as the earth darkened, almost as if by magic, and our footsteps seemed to be setting the rhythm of the whole mysterious universe. The blackness of night was spreading behind us, and we fell silent, hushed by the respect which immensity imposes on simple men. Our group of soldiers, members of an army hated throughout the world, was seized by an indefinable emotion. As one sometimes jokes to hide sadness, we began to sing to avoid thought. The favorite song of the S.S. rose up like a hymn to the earth, offered to men:

So weit die braune Heide geht

Gehort das alles wir . . .

Then darkness engulfed us-a darkness which, for the first time in months, seemed made for nothing more than watching over us. Although we had begun to feel our exhaustion, no one suggested a halt. The road home was long, and we didn't want to lose any time. For me, hoping to reach my other country, the road was even longer. Although our leave did not officially begin until Poznan, the idea of getting home overrode every other consideration, and enabled me to endure the painful condition of my bare feet, rubbed raw by my boots.

Hals, who was having the same sort of trouble, cursed the storekeeper at Akhtyrka for failing to supply us with socks. After about twenty miles, we were forced to reduce our speed. Naturally, the veterans who had joined us, and whose feet must have been made of iron, treated us like crybabies. But they gave us their own socks, so that we could go on. For a few of us, however, this was not enough. Our feet were too lacerated, and the three additional miles we were able to manage cost us too much pain. As the rest of the group kept on despite our cries pleading for a halt, we decided to try walking barefoot on the dewy grass. At first, this seemed like an improvement-but not for long. Some even thought of wrapping their feet in the new undershirts we had been issued, but the possibility of an inspection made them hesitate. The last few miles, as we hobbled through the growing daylight, were torture-a torture refined by the first military police we met on the outskirts of Romny, who made us put back our boots. They said they wouldn't allow us into town looking like a bunch of tramps. We could nave murdered them. Further on, we asked some gypsies to take the worst cases as far as the Kommandantur in their carts. They were prudent enough not to argue.