Open Writing

As it happened, Boguslav (Halina N.'s lover and my former boss) had some useful connections in the Arbeitsamt. This was the German body responsible for dispatching Poles for work in Germany. When he learned of my predicament, he offered to intervene on my behalf.

As soon as possible we went off together to the dreaded office. There we were received by a Polish lady employee, an old friend of Boguslav. She was very cooperative. Without a hitch she promptly processed my false papers. Within days I was notified of my impending trip to the Reich as a 'Freiwillig' (volunteer) Polish worker. This was the highest status to which one could aspire under existing conditions.

The great majority of Poles were destined for slave labour in Nazi Germany. They were caught in the streets or trapped in a variety of other ways, always against their will, and immediately and unceremoniously transported to camps scattered all over the country.

I soon discovered that the so-called 'Volunteers' were either women in my unenviable situation or persons in trouble with the German authorities or straight-out collaborators. One who truly 'volunteered' would have had to be mad.

One early evening in May 1943, as soon as all formalities were over, I took my leave of my good Polish friends. I was setting out on a journey into the new unknown, well aware, that with every passing hour my existence in Warsaw would have grown more perilous.

I had never before been abroad; now, due to such an exceptional state of affairs, I was absolutely terrified of the journey ahead of me. The following morning I turned up with my bundle at the dispatch centre. It was located near some railway yards - a sort of less gruesome Christian equivalent of the Umschlagplatz.

I found myself in a building overflowing with women. They were mostly young. Many of them were peasants. Their features were obscured by the familiar headscarves. Most of them were loudly lamenting their fate. Some just went on sobbing quietly.

Many forlorn inmates-in-transit wrote letters of farewell to their loved ones on the whitewashed walls of the large 'reception' hall. Some expressed loathing, despair, or provided warnings and advice to the prospective victims that would follow. Most messages were scribbled in pencil, but amongst them those written in blood stood out. They spoke of struggle and torture. Several blood stains, clearly visible about the place, bore further witness to the activities that must have been going on there over countless months.

After we progressed through a very thorough screening process, at long last we filed out of the building on to the station platform. The 'Freiwillig' were kept together in a small group, undoubtedly to enable the authorities to scrutinize our motives more closely. Our very willingness to actually relocate from our native Poland to the Reich must have aroused the authorities' suspicion.

Once again we were lined up. This time German soldiers were assisted in the operation by some Polish officials in civilian clothes. The Polish officers were the real experts at detecting Jews. They carefully examined our hands and asked questions on Catechism and the Lord's Prayer.

Dear Babcia, bless her, by trying to make me feel authentic at the Sunday mass we used to attend together, had unwittingly trained me just for such an emergency! I was admirably versed in all of this. Even now I can still recite 'Our Father' in Polish.

Next to me stood a lovely dark-haired, well-groomed young woman. It was obvious that she had been well pampered in her life. Her unblemished white hands and lacquered finger nails drew the Poles' instantaneous attention. They pounced on her and declared her to be Jewish. She was pulled out of the queue and no doubt executed soon after that.

My working hands, so callused and scarred by soldering, were most suitable for the occasion. Yet prior to being whisked through the gate, I had the odd feeling that at least one of the Polish officials guessed the truth about me as well because he winked at me knowingly, though thankfully in a friendly way!

At the last gateway before we boarded the train stood a Polish priest. He offered each departing member of the flock a blessing, a loaf of bread, and a rosary. From that moment on we were guarded by a small group of regular German soldiers. The distinction that formerly existed between 'the masses' and the 'Freiwillig' seemed to have magically disappeared.

Our captors led us into our respective compartments of an ordinary passenger train. Once all the carriages were full they locked the doors securely. Our guards addressed us by 'du' instead of the more formal and polite 'Sie'. Thus they gave expression to their contempt for us without, however, any suggestion of brutality.

These guards were the older members of the Wehrmacht. Some were slightly disabled. In the main they were no longer suitable for active service at the front. Their approach and attitude to the conquered were strikingly different from the vicious Nazi thugs in the Ghetto.

It might be helpful to recognize that this epic journey of mine followed the fall of Stalingrad in February 1943, the earlier German defeats in Egypt, and the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. Throughout 1943 the heavy bombardment of German industrial centres by the Allies in and around the big cities brought about the very gradual but general demoralization of the German Army. In some small way all of these events must have affected the highly reputed efficiency of the German Railways.

Our convoy of female workers took about a week to reach its destination. We sat upright for most of the time, probably ten to twelve to a compartment. We were tired and scared. We did not talk much; there was not really much you could say. The soldiers kept watch along the passageway of each carriage. Some girls prayed; others chewed on their bread. Now and then one dozed off, leaning on another's shoulder. Some simply stared at the deserted countryside.

The train stopped at stations along the way, but our guards kept us locked in our cabins. Once when it was already dark the train came to a halt somewhere near Poznan. The guards let us out onto a station and into a large waiting area. There, we sat for some hours on the tiled floor. It felt warm and cosy. We gulped a welcome soup provided by our captors.

Meanwhile, the soldiers sought solace at the bar. The more they drank the noisier they became. Unexpectedly, I heard a man's voice calling out 'Christa'. In the distance I saw the German soldier from our carriage. By then he was rather tipsy. He had a glass of beer in his hand. Instantly I gathered that he meant me. On the Warsaw station platform he had asked me a question. It was stupid of me, but I let it be known that I spoke German. Now he was looking for me amongst all those women.

I was mortified. In my terror I ran to the toilet and locked myself in. In the spirit of solidarity none of the girls gave me away. When we returned to the train I moved to another compartment and kept a very low profile indeed.

A changing of the guards after that incident removed the menace. Once again I felt relatively safe and resolved never again to divulge my understanding of the German language.

Eventually we reached Poznan (Posen). This was the last Polish city we would see before we headed west into Hitler's realm. Like Lodz, Poznan was also officially annexed by the Reich.

We were led from the station in formation along the city roadways. As we marched to our transit camp, I caught a glimpse of the defeated, subdued population and of a few, seemingly barren shops. Eventually we were housed in very poorly constructed barracks. The chambers comprised three levels of bunks made of bare wooden planks. Every girl was allotted a bunk.

We moped around in the splendid weather with nothing whatsoever to do with our time. Some peasant girls felt too despondent to leave their bunks. Others solved the problem of boredom by searching for lice through each other's hair, and then picking out and squashing them.

We spent about three days in that camp waiting to be processed. Our rations were pretty skimpy. For the first time in my life, in that very camp, I was introduced to margarine! As I deduced after the event, the point of the exercise in the transit camp was to get us deloused, spruced up, and medically examined before we were allowed to enter the Reich proper.

At last our great day arrived! After a compulsory shower and a spray of a smelly disinfectant we were assembled in a large building (possibly a school) for our medical examination. We were ordered to strip and then, stark naked, to file slowly in a single file around an exceptionally long oblong table on all sides of which more than a dozen white-coated German male doctors were seated on high stools with their backs to the table. Each of us had to pose in front of every one of them.

Each doctor apparently had his own individual field of expertise. Depending on that area of expertise, he would select the appropriate part of our bodies for special attention. With an appropriate instrument our heads would be measured and our eyes, ears, nose, throat, and lungs inspected. Inevitably the examination took on a downwards direction. By the end of the ordeal nothing was left to the imagination.

During the entire procedure very few words were spoken. They prodded us, poked us, turned us around, made us to bend down or straighten up, and so on, as if we were some kind of puppets. This macabre process of filing past each doctor took ages to complete. By the end of it we were all frozen stiff as well as deeply humiliated. Some women were detained on medical grounds.

One day in May, we finally left Poznan.

After long hours of travel our next stop was Berlin. On alighting from that train, I was overwhelmed by the thought of becoming forever cut off from my old world. I knew no one there. I felt terribly alone and deadly scared.

Once more the guards marched us in formation. We cut across the Nazi capital to go as far as the holding centre. In the streets women, children, and elderly people mingled with uniformed men on leave. Everywhere portraits of the Fuhrer and his henchmen were inescapable. Innumerable flags with swastikas abounded in shop windows, on fences, and on walls. Ironically, these dreaded symbols of Nazi supremacy offered the only splashes of colour to the otherwise uniform greyness of the buildings.

The hated, guttural language invaded one's ears. Even amongst humble housewives the greeting 'Heil Hitler' was commonly used.

This was still May 1943. Our stay in the Berlin transit camp was mercifully brief. The camp appeared to be a major distribution centre from which the deportees were dispatched to their prospective labour camps throughout the Reich.

On this one occasion the 'Freiwillig' clearly had the upper hand over all of the others; we had the right to work for a private employer. Some women were sent to help on the farms or in German households, deprived of the help of their menfolk. I was selected to work in a German hotel as a 'Dienstmadel' a kind of ‘Bonne a tout faire'.

By that time we had all been already issued with our new insignia. They were in the form of small square yellow patches of material set off by a mauve boarder and an equally mauve capital letter 'P' for Pole stuck very prominently in the centre. I have kept one of my Ps as a souvenir! At all times, we were expected to wear this insignia on the upper right side of any outer garment we wore. In my eyes, it became just a variation of the yellow Star of David which was to be displayed front and back in Lodz at the very outset of this seemingly unending nightmare.

And so with the formalities completed, wearing my 'P' in the correct position and carrying my small bundle enhanced by the loaf of bread and the rosary, I was led away with what was by then a very small contingent of my fellow 'Freiwillig'. We were on our way to board a Braunschweig (Brunswick) bound train. This town is to the southwest of Berlin and southeast of Hanover.

On this stretch we were entrusted to some women guards in civilian clothes. Their good manners and unexpected politeness encouraged me to use my German once again.

At the Braunschweig station, where we had to change trains yet again, my female guard and myself were the sole occupants of the compartment. I understood then that I had reached the last leg of my lengthy journey. Our final destination was a township northwest of Braunschweig. I had mixed feelings of bewilderment, relief and timid anticipation as I stepped out on the platform and read the sign: Rotenfelde-Wolfsburg. That was it!

I found myself, at long last, far, far away from the place I used to call home, which without warning had become a living hell.
It was a fine spring day deep in Germany. As my guard and I walked from the station through the modern housing commission estates, the sun was already setting. It gave the distant countryside a golden glow. Before long we reached the Hotel-Gaststatte 'Am Hochenstein,' Arndt Strasse 12. I was introduced to my new employer, Frau Hagemann, as 'Christa die Polin'.

Who could have foreseen that she was to shape my destiny for the next two years?