It was still winter when Paul's final ordeal began. He was given
clothing from the huge piles collected from the hundreds of the dead.
After being confined for months in his bed he almost had to learn to
walk again. The prisoners still able to work were sent to another
labor camp. Paul and the couple dozen infirmary survivors were loaded
into another of the now familiar box cars. Fortunately the weather
turned mild. Paul also encountered the prisoner in charge of the
labor camp's kitchen. He gave Paul an entire loaf of the dark bread
that was part of their regular ration. Since the usual portion was
only a quarter of a loaf, he was able to sate himself with food for
the first time in many months.
Word was passed down from the guards that Paul and his group were
going to an Erholungslager -- a convalescing camp. By
then Paul was no longer fooled by this type of talk. In Auschwitz the
veteran prisoners converted the propaganda from the gate of the camp
to Arbeit Macht Frei, Durch Krematorium Nummer Drei --
Work Makes Free, Through Crematory Number Three. He knew
that his next destination was meant to be the end of the road.
Camp Wiesengrund started out as one of the construction sites for
housing the jet planes that were to turn the tide of war in Germany's
favor. But continuous Allied air raids forced the abandonment of the
project. Wiesengrund was turned into a camp for prisoner no longer
able to work. The sick and dying prisoners were brought from the
other labor camps of Nazi Germany. The camp's secluded location in a
valley required little effort to hide its horrors. A nearby abandoned
quarry provided a final resting place for the dozens of prisoners who
died each night. Prisoners still able to work toiled in some other of
the futile construction projects of the demented war efforts of the
Nazis.
After a day's travel in the slowly rattling train, Paul arrived at
his destination. Paul knew that the usual starvation rations and his
weakened condition did not bode well for him. But his luck finally
changed. He was unexpectedly saved by the courage and charity of a
German woman. Using her political influence, Irmgard von Neurath --
related by marriage to a former high ranking government official --
requisitioned prisoners to work on the family farm. She then provided
them with extra food to help them to survive. The day after his
arrival Paul was selected to be one of the laborers. The work was
easy and he received extra food rations that enabled him gradually to
regain his strength. The unseasonably warm weather also helped. Was
there perhaps a chance to survive the horrors of this existence? Will
the German military engage in a final round of killing the witnesses
to their depredations? Paul did no dare to hope too much.
With the recovering of his physical strength Paul also started to
regain his faith in humanity. After the ordeal of the genocidal
machinery of Nazi Germany he learned to distrust everything that was
German. He met Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death at Auschwitz. Now he
met a veritable Angel of Life, who risked her own existence to save
at least some of the unfortunate Jews condemned by racial and
religious hatred. The other Germans who worked on the farm also
showed some kindness. One day he heard a teenager twisting a popular
song into a statement of hope: "Everything shall pass, even Hitler
with his Nazi party." Paul now realized that many of the Germans were
also victims, like he was. Perhaps they were fooled by the Nazi
propaganda; perhaps they felt helpless before the power of a
totalitarian state. Rumors were passing through the camp about the
Allied advances into Germany. The war was coming to an end.
Paul still had to surmount one final ordeal. The unsanitary
conditions caused a typhus epidemic to rage in the camp. He
contracted the disease and he again found himself in an infirmary
without medical care. His body became covered with red spots. His
eyes were glassy with fever. He totally lost his appetite, as his raw
lips only demanded water to quench his thirst. At the end of a week
he sank into a delirium. As he was losing consciousness Paul heard
the sound of distant explosions. Am I dying, he was wondering, as he
felt his consciousness slip away.
Suddenly he woke up in the familiar surrounding of the infirmary.
Some of the beds still hid the twisted bodies of the sick, or even
the dead. But many of the beds were empty. His head felt clear, and
his body without the devouring fever. As he weakly lifted himself
from the bed one of the prisoners was slowly moving through the
aisle. "The Germans left during the night." Paul could not believe
him. Is this part of my delirium, he wondered. Then his body's need
to relieve itself made him realize that he was both alive and
free!
Paul was lucky, after all. Had he been healthy he would have been
compelled to accompany the guards to still another camp, perhaps to
be killed. This way he surmounted the crisis of his sickness during
the night while the Nazi guards evacuated the camp. Paul dressed
slowly. He again felt hungry, and ate some of the bread he hid at the
beginning of his sickness. Sluggishly he walked through the now open
gates of the camp. He saw some of the soldiers of the French army who
liberated him. He watched some of the other prisoners going toward
the nearby village. Paul followed them, for he wanted to thank the
lady who helped him to survive. With his physical weakness even
walking was an ordeal, but the joy and the emotions of freedom and
the end of suffering kept him moving. He was now ascending the hill,
leaving the camp behind. A sense of elation possessed Paul. Will the
resurrected dead feel this way when the Messiah shall come?
The surviving prisoners lingered around the camp, waiting for their
evacuation from the hell hole. They were joined by a few healthy
prisoners who hid while the guards were moving out. Since there was
still a war on, nobody was getting any medical care. The extremely
sick continued to die, and the procession of corpses was still
carried to their mass grave. In the end 2,500 of the victims found
their final resting place in this additional monument of man's
inhumanity to man.
Paul now had a chance to become exposed to the values of America.
Some officers visited the camp, and started to document the horrors
found there. As Paul was standing around with several of his
comrades, an officer wearing a different uniform joined them. He
introduced himself as an American liaison officer attached to the
French army. As he spoke German he was able to communicate with the
survivors. He said he was Jewish and from Texas. This surprised Paul,
for his movie stereotypes made him understand that all Texans were
cowboys, and who ever heard of a Jewish cowboy?
Suddenly a procession joined the group. Some of the survivors located
one of the German civilian supervisors of the construction projects.
This German viciously abused the prisoners in his charge, beating and
punishing them mercilessly. Now they returned him in kind the
torments he gave. The German was horribly beaten. One of his eyes
hung out of its socket as he collapsed at their feet. The American
was outraged. He bawled out the tormentors. No matter how bad crimes
the German committed, they must not administer the punishment. He
must be punished under the legal system, and not by this type of
primitive justice. In spite of his own beatings and punishments Paul
found himself agreeing with the American. The survivors must never
sink to the level of the Nazi criminals. This was Paul's exposure to
the principle of due process.
Paul now became a ward of the United Nations. Again he moved from
place to place, until he was finally placed in an orphanage-type
institution. The war ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender
of Germany. A few months later Japan also surrendered, after an
incredibly new weapon -- called the atomic bomb -- destroyed two of
their cities. To Paul, there seemed to be no end to the horrors of
war.
Normal life was returning to Germany. That country was no place for
Holocaust survivors. He did not want to return to Hungary, for he now
feared and distrusted that country. His relatives died during the
Holocaust, and he had no ties to anyone. Paul briefly considered
going to Palestine. But news was emerging about new strife and
killings between Arabs and Jews. He longed for peace and quiet, and
the end to turmoil. He was now given an opportunity to come
America.
Paul eagerly accepted. Here was his chance to see at first hand the
opulent life styles of the Americans, the endless prairies of the
West, the land of limitless possibilities. After a mysterious routine
called immigration processing Paul was on board of a ship, the first
ocean voyage of his life.
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