The entire story of Roman Stöckleins life - written in German

            Everything which they saw was taken from us: compass, pocket knife, flash light, watch, cigarette case, cigarette lighter.  It was 9:30 AM.  We had to run together holding hands.  We came down to the village, which we had previously seen from above.  There stood the T34’s again ready to go.  The tank crew cheered as soon as they saw us from afar.  As one of the guards reported, the other stood with us.  Two Jewish officers, speaking perfect German, came out of a small house.  They said, “Good morning, comrades.”  We repeated [the greeting].  They looked at us briefly and said to me, “Are you coming from school?”  My comrade was a few years older.  While we were being interrogated, they also asked where we had been fighting because we wore such dirty uniforms.  We had gotten stuck in a swampy hole and had to return over a small wooden bridge.  There was a crowd of soldiers.  After being interrogated by the officers, we sat on a bench for a while.  The entire tank crew can and looked at us.  It was strange to watch them roll cigarettes from newspaper and Machorka [tobacco] and light them with sparks from a dagger and flint.  When they wanted to offer us their products [cigarettes] we took our pack of a hundred cigarettes and a box of matches from our haversack.  Those were commissary items.   Such rations were distributed once a month.

            The two soldiers who had captured us did not look into our haversack.  When we lit one with a match, the soldiers looked daggers at us and said, “Barbarossa cigarette” to each other.  We then distributed the packs and matches, also those of my comrade.  Now they patted us on the shoulder and always said, “Good comrade, good comrade.”  As we left the officers, they told us that we had to make good everything we destroyed and then we could go home again.  A soldier was ordered by an officer to deliver us uninjured to the battalion commander.  He had to verify this with his signature.  We two prisoners were tied together with a rope.  We were beaten with sticks and pelted with stones by civilians and children as we went through the burning and smoking villages.  The motorized reinforcements of soldiers, including women, threatened us with their fists.  Civilians rolled barrels into the street in front [of us].  We walked on into the evening, but still did not reach the battalion.  At night, we were locked into a cellar, which was flooded and cold.  We could only sit on the upper steps.  The next day, around noon, we had to present ourselves to the battalion commander.  He greeted us with a “Guten Tag.”  The guard presented the note, which he had received from his company commander.  With a short conversation, the battalion commander signed [the note], and after a salute, disappeared back again to his unit.  That was on July 21, 1944.  Here were the 3 soldiers who had been separated on July 20, 1944.  They told us that Russian soldiers had grabbed them at the edge of the village.  They too, were delivered here.  We were again a group of 5 and walked until evening.  Here was the first assembly camp, about 400 men.  The guard had given us the opportunity at one point to take along captured food, as we were able.  Bread, butter, cheese, marmalade was in part rancid and spoiled due to the heat.  As we came to the assembly camps and the comrades saw that we had food packs, they begged and we gave.  On the next day, we noticed that everything was in short supply and little was available.  Now we held back.  Every day several prisoners arrived. 

July 27, 1944, Brody

            On July 27, 1944, we made a 3 day march into Brody.  Every two hours we took a short break.  By day we walked along dirt roads.  Nights we always spent in a village square.  Morning, noon and evenings, we had a little glass of water, dried fish and dry bread.

            On the second day in oppressive heat, we came to a stream – short, weak.  These were swampy meadows.  We were not allowed to stand.  We had to sit, kneel or lie down during breaks so that the guards could supervise us better.  One guard took my boots and gave me his lace-up shoes, which were too small for me; but I carried them along since it was summer.  We ask the guards to let us get water from the stream, because people cannot endure the march until evening [without drinking water].  Did not allow it, feared we would get sick.  In the swampy meadow, I and others, made holes with our heels so that greenish water gathered in a puddle.  Scooped it up with my hand, raised it to my mouth and slurped it up.  It was not much, but my tongue was again a little moist.  Thank God I did not get sick, but the guards had better not see this.  We were deprived of water to keep us weak and exhausted so we could not escape, because the front was not too far away.  During the heat of the day, at every break, we were instructed by our people.  No lying down, only sitting, kneeling or squatting…  Those who did it anyway would faint or collapse sooner or later after we resumed the march.  Several were always carried along as best we could, but those who remained lying down were shot by a guard, who followed 100 or 150 meters behind us.  For every shot we heard, one dead.  Until now, we had not been registered or counted.  They could have died at the front or been missing in action.  On the third day, the same.  The night was spent in a village again.  In the evening, as we arrived in Brody, we had to stand in front of a fence.  There was a large well in the camp.  Water ran from a big pipe constantly.  Our comrades gave us water through the fence.  As much as we wanted and could consume.  For some it was too much and they became ill.  Whoever got sick from these exertions had no hope of getting help.  Everyone had to care for himself to see that he came through the best way.  At night on July 29, 1944, we were not put into the fenced camp, but rather locked into a neighboring cellar, only a few steps deep.  We had to stand all night, man to man, like herrings, without falling.  There were two small windows with grates.  The heat and oxygen-deprivation hurt us severely.  Those who did not survive the night and collapsed were trampled, so that in the morning they were carried out dead.  The night was not long; otherwise many more would have died.  Other comrades were housed in a barn.  They spent a better night.  Therefore, only one guard was needed.  The next day, we were registered and also counted.  It was a larger fenced meadow with several large trees.  [We] lay on wet grass day and night without blankets and tarpaulins.  Brody was at the end of a rail line.  By day, we had to pick up trash from the tracks.  Here in this assembly camp, several field mess [halls] had been captured and used to cook soup for us prisoners.

August 3, 1944

            Here we were loaded into cattlecars and headed toward Kiev.  48 to 50 men were squeezed into each car.  On a railroad siding near Kiev, we had to endure the heat.  Many were no longer capable of standing up and were trampled up on.  Diarrhea, shat upon, urinated upon.  At the door there was a slanted board where you would do your business.  A couple of men from each railroad car had to bring water from a nearby well.  There was always dry bread and fish.  We made a chain up the steep embankment so that the water could be carefully brought up to the railroad car without spilling a drop.  No second chance was allowed.  Several guards always ran back and forth on the roof of the car.  Because of the heat in the car, we were so weak and tired, that several could not walk to the meadow, so they were taken there in wheelbarrows.  (Football field)

August 7, 1944

            In teams of a hundred each, we were assigned to one of the captured field messhalls.  The area featured spotlights, loudspeakers, and tall poplars.

            In these 10 days we had hot weather in the daytime.  Once at night, there was a severe thunderstorm.  We were thoroughly soaked.  We froze as the temperature dropped severely.  We stood up to keep each other warm.  Because of the restlessness of the lancers, the guards thought we were trying to escape.  Our interpreters explained the situation to the guards, who then calmed down.  Because the days were so hot, we could dry out summer uniforms.  In these days, we were relatively well fed with porridge, tea, and captured foodstuffs, enabling us to survive the march through Kiev.

August 16, 1944

            Early at 4 AM, the propaganda march through Kiev in rows of ten.  Loudspeaker announced that about 18,000 German prisoners of war were involved.  There were several assembly camps and assembly points from which the march participants were taken.  Everyone up to the rank of colonel had to take part.  We were guarded by sentries and riders.  The road was slippery as a playground slide from all the urine and muck.  It lasted 8 hours for the soldiers.  On August 17, 1944, we were divided amongst the labor camps around Kiev.  We walked along the Dnieper River, where it was rather wide, but not too deep, except for the canal.  First we walked ankle deep in water, as it became deeper, planks were nailed together with boards.  We had to walk slowly and carefully.  In spite of that, the water lapped over the strong planks left and right, where the planks were fastened to pontoons.  Motor vehicles could not cross on them.  As the water depth was reduced no more planks were available.  We walked on, ankle deep in the water, until we stood on solid ground again.  When we arrived at the Darniza I camp, there were already Hungarians and Rumanians there.  All together about 600 men.  First we registered: Name, address, grade, branch of service written on newspaper or cardboard.  It was to be important later, that you always gave the same address, grade and branch of service.  Hair was cut since it was dirty and greasy.  We were examined by a woman doctor for work suitability, as we marched by in a single file outside and along the barbed wire fence.  We were classified into five categories.  By pinching one’s buttocks and according to how much tone the skin had, we were classified.  The first and second group had to work 8 hours, the third four hours and the fourth were camp workers (cleaning barracks, getting wood and water for the kitchen).  The fifth group were the sick (distrophy – death candidates).  Such scarcely had hope.  Outside the camp was a street which the Russians used to go to work in a factory making tank parts.  Later I worked there for a while.  When the Russians walked by and saw us naked, they shouted “nix kultura.”  In this camp there was a rough grave covered with a hammer and sickle.  The camp commander told us that Hitler had shot captured Russian officers, here in the large forest near Darniza where we were working.  We must now atone for that and do much work in the forest.  Decades later, it became known that Stalin had shot Polish officers here because they had insufficiently resisted Hitler.  At first, about 150 men worked in the large forest.  Almost all the trees in the upper forest were cut down, had their branches removed, and were then cut up according to the measurements done by the Russians.  Piles of heavy sticks were gathered by hand for loading onto a tractor-trailer.  Once, shortly before the end of the  work day, a tractor-trailer arrived for loading.  The guards had forbidden it.  After much discussion back and forth, the driver gave the guards a small package on Machorka [tobacco].  The truck was hastily loaded.  Because the forest was already dark at this time of year, the guards were not agreeable.  They were severely punished if a prisoner fled; but where was one to go?  With all haste, guards and driver included, all went quickly.  The forest roads were bad with roots up to 20 cm. high on either side.  A truck could easily tip over if it went too fast.  And so it was.  From a distance we saw the light of a vehicle shining.  As we came closer, we saw that the truck had turned over.  As luck would have it, the ropes holding the logs were still intact.  The driver had already fastened two ropes to the other side.  All who could grab on to the ropes did so.  Others were way at the rear.  Even the guards helped; they were stronger than we were.  The driver said the rest should grab the pants of the ones with the ropes and pull.  A few heave ho’s and the trailer was again on its wheels.  The driver said a friendly “Than you” and said that when he comes back, he will bring a bag of Machorka with him.  When he returned, he kept his word and even brought two loaves of bread.

            Because the water soup was meager and thin, we followed the suggestions of a Mongol guard and added acorns and the white roots of a flower to the soup.  We recognized the leaves of the flower but could find very few.  We ground up dried leaves and smoked them.  Nothing was like the real thing, but [we did] anything to suppress feelings of hunger.  Lunch was from 12 to 1 pm.  Everyday the guards also cooked their potato soup and had a piece of bread.  We always alternated going to them to beg for potato peels.  The Mongol was the best, always giving them to us.  The others scraped ashes with their boots on to the potato peels.  We put them in a tin box, pushed the top down and threw it into the fire.  There was enough dry wood and the guards allowed us to have it.  We received our soup every day from a Russian civilian.  He brought it from the kitchen in two crude oil barrels.  The civilians lived in a bunker near the forest of Darniza.  A little later we noticed that there was less soup.  A talk with the camp kitchen and the two barrels were full again as before.  Thereafter the Russian was observed.  Everyday he drove by his house and scooped out some soup out of the barrel for his family and he even gave some soup to his pig.  After that he was relieved of his duties and the barrels were full again.  There were two NCO’s in my brigade – Early September.  Once they told us that they had been here before during the advance and knew the region well.  Because of minor wounds, they returned to Germany, first as instructors and then back to the old unit.  They had both won the Iron Cross 2^nd class.  Now they are here in the “Kessel” [encirclement] with us in captivity.  They said and thought once that the German troops could have beaten back the Russians and are in the neighboring village almost 3 months later.  They thought that if they went through the forest at night, they would again be with German troops.  That was a big mistake.  Once they intentionally went out to relieve themselves and disappeared behind the giant brush pile.  The guards were immediately notified.  The resulting search by the guards was unsuccessful.  As a result, we all had to go back into camp.  The forest was surrounded by guards and dogs; civilians were notified also.  They could not escape from the woods.  We really did not know anything about them.  After three days, they were finally caught.  In the evening they had to walk out ahead, chained together.  Our brigade followed.  Both of them were very thin and were often beaten by the guards until they fell down during this march into the camp.  Back in the camp, they were bound to a barbed wire post.  On our way to the latrine, we always had to cross the main square and passed by them.  All of the prisoners had received orders not to speak to them or give them any bread or water.  A guard on an elevated platform had them clearly in view.  Anyone who violated the order was immediately shot.  At night, flood lights were trained on them.  After 1 ½ days, they fell over and hung on the post.  They were only removed when the smell of putrefaction set in.  That was to be a deterrence for us all.  They had to pay gruesomely with their lives..  After this case, the camp officer would frequently show us the location of the front-lines on a large map in one of the rooms.  Several of us did not want to believe it, but it was reality.  Because of the escape of the two NCO’s, we received only half-rations for three weeks on the orders of the Russian camp commander.  The rations were so meager that I and others became so emaciated that we dropped to work group classification three; working four instead of eight hours daily.  Because of the horrible hunger pangs we often had crying spells.  Every month our clothes were deloused.  At that time we had the opportunity to wash ourselves.  The dirt on the back of my hands was like scales on a fish.  After delousing, our clothes were so greasy and stiff that they could stand up.  They did not keep us warm anymore; we froze the whole day long.  During the 1 ½ years I spent in the Daniza Camp, we lay on bare wooden planks, without a straw mattress, without pillow and without blankets.  We slept and worked in the same clothes.  Only every four weeks, for purposes of delousing, could we briefly take them off.  We had to drag the death candidates to the delousing station to wash them, even though they died after two or three days.  One time it happened that a Romanian stole my shoes off my feet while I was sleeping.  When I jumped off my [wooden] bunk, I did not have any luck.  In the large sleeping barracks there were three storied racks and a light bulb painted blue.  When one came into Romanian or Hungarian territory, one didn’t have any rights to anything.  One even got beaten up.  They only made shoe soles from tattered auto tires themselves.  Therefore, they were called “slipperfixers.”  In the morning, when we had to go to work, I went to the camp commander with my brigadier.  When all the work brigades reported for duty, I saw them [my shoes] again on a Romanian.  He was severely punished and put in detention with a deprival of food.  When we arrived in the camp at Darniza on August 17, everything made of metal was taken from us.  Because we still received whole loaves of square bread at that time, we secretly kept something to cut with such as, ID tags or a small piece of tin.  Once the camp leader saw us cutting a loaf of bread and became angry and said to us in German, “We could make a tank out of 10 kitchen utensils.”  We were subject to more frequent inspections.  When someone was caught, it did not go well with him.  More work and less food.  He said, “Jesus also broke bread.”  [They] Still were very afraid of the Germans.

            At the beginning of November, 1944, we briefly had to help with house construction.  It was a day to learn about work records set by the Russians.  There was a worker who could lay 10,000 bricks a day.  The mortar was brought up to him; all the bricks were handed to him.  He only had to put them on the mortar.  His helpers set them in place according to the plum line string guide.  We had only procured the mortar.  Close by, Russian women were shredding white cabbage.  The outer partly frozen leaves of the cabbage head were thrown away, but we retrieved and ate them.  In the camp, we then received our evening soup, which I drank.  A short time later, I got unbearable stomach pains and a stone-hard stomach.  I thought my stomach would burst.  The medics who were called in gave me a massage.  Only after several hours was there a slight improvement.  After that I was classified as disabled.  While I was lying in the infirmary, I contracted other diseases: malaria, scabies, jaundice, on the right leg (infection under the skin).  During the winter of 1944-45, one or two prisoners died daily in our camp from malnutrition or edema.  My leg was as red as fire, swollen hard and felt burning hot, from my ankle to my knee.  Our medic bathed it with cold water, put on a salve and bandaged it.  After a longer time, the tension eased.  With time, the bandage grew darker and browner.  Often I told the medic to take off  the bandage.

            “Yes, you’ll get your turn.”  Several days later, I felt it beginning to itch under the bandage.  I told him again and he told me he did not have a bandage.  Days later, I noticed suddenly that white maggots were slipping out from under the bandage.  Now he finally came.  The first layer of cloth came off.  The cloth inside was so chewed up by the maggots that only lots of small cloth bits remained.  He had to remove the cloth remnants from the wound with a pair of tweezers.  The maggots had eaten the skin so that the raw flesh showed.  The maggots could feed on the secretions.  You can still see the scar today.  At the same time, there was a comrade lying in my bunk, with for others on the top shelf.  He had difficulty with water.  He was a pastry baker with his own business in Halle.  He always spoke of his baking talents.  He was a very stocky man.  He only received the same daily ration we did.  The amount of water in his body continued to increase.  Still he only complained, until his heart stopped.  In the morning, we noticed that he was dead.  When we received our water soup and a small piece of bread, the medic had to lift his tray up and we took for portions off it.  The one portion we divided into three parts.  Later when the medic pushed up the tin again, we told him that someone else had died.  Every hour he grew bigger and bigger.  Normally, the severely ill lay on the bottom level, but this was an unexpected case.  Yes, how were we to take him down from up there?  All were ill and had no strength.  The medic had an idea.  He went into the kitchen and fetched a rope.  We made a sling around his neck, pushed him slightly off the top level so that the medic could grab his legs, and let him down slowly.  When the medic reported it and had taken off his clothes and shirt, the camp officer looked at him and scolded him in Russian, “Look at him, that stuffed Nazi pig.”  The water in his body made him round as a ball.  He kicked him with his boot so that he rolled over once.  He said to the medic, “Much too much to eat, this loafer.”  This was in January of 1945.  For Christmas 1944, the medic had planned an evergreen branch and a little candle on a small table.  When the camp officer came in and saw this, he kicked the table over with his boot and shouted, “Nazi Christ!”  He was much feared.  People stayed out of his way wherever he was.  When I recovered somewhat from my disease, I was released from the infirmary at the beginning of March, 1945.  At first, I was still on the sick list.  At the next examination, I was classified as part of group 3 with four hours of work per day.  Next to the work camp there was a small bread-baking house for the camp.  Here was a small place where we had to cut roof shingles on a sawhorse.  Also straighten out nails.  There was a comrade in the baking-house from my brigade with whom I had worked in the forest.  He was lucky to have gotten the job as baker in this baking-house.  Since I worked next door, he always slipped me and the others something.  Scraps of bread, also soup.  There were only four of us. 

Beginning of May, 1945

End of the war – a freight train with 10-12 cars arrived on the single track rail line to the tank factory loaded with war booty.  Our prison camp was located on the main street.  We were taken away from our workplaces, as were others in the camp, and set to unloading the railway cars.  All the cars were full of household goods (plates, spoons, glasses, toys, tables, chairs, wardrobes, sofas, beds, large clocks, jewelry, bicycles, motorcycles, clothes and much more).  A pair of men were assigned to each boxcar.  When the doors all were opened, we saw that a couple of cars had lots of small things in them.  The large unbreakable things were soon unloaded.  As we all helped unload the small things, we put them on the ground and seldom was anything broken.  Unexpectedly, an officer came and shouted because a couple of boxcars still weren’t finished.  We carefully laid it out on the camp square so nothing got broken.  He went up into the boxcar and kicked out the fragile dishes sitting near the door.  Everything still in the corners was to be taken out, he shouted curses in Russian “Everything out, quick, quick, dawei, dawei.”  We said to him, “Why do you ship these goods here when you break them?  You should have left them in Breslau.”  He screamed, “I need the empty boxcars immediately.”  If we had known that, the boxcars would have been emptied sooner.  Women went home from work and only shook their heads.  After the cars were emptied, we went back to our usual work places.

            At the end of May, 1945, we 30 men from Group 3 came to a collective farm to work.  It was located east of Kiev toward Charkov.  At first we worked in groups of five cutting grass with scythes.  The rest turned [the grass] and calculated that these were gigantic areas.  The ponies which we had ran around on the meadow.  The front legs were bound together so they could only hop around and not run away.  When we needed them, we took the ropes off.  For shelter, we made a tent out of hay in the open.  In the evening, we always made a small fire because of gnats, mosquitoes and other bugs.  The dry hay was tied up in small piles and then dragged to a larger haystack with a pony.  One man stood on the rope in the rear and pushed on the hay with his hand.  The second man led the pony.  The haystack grew to a huge size.  We also had very nice and hot weather.  We knew that there were German agricultural machines of all kinds in Kiev.  We asked the manager of the collective farm if we could get such a reaper.  After much persuasion, the Russian from the collective farm and our brigadier brought us a mowing machine on a small delivery truck.  We hitched three ponies to the mower and in one hour, cut more hay than 15 men did in a whole day.  The old men and women were astonished.  Later, we harvested tomatoes and yellow and red beets.  Women picked them.  We transported the boxes.  In September, we had to harvest potatoes.  The guard measured the [land] surface with a compass to calculate the quota required of the workforce.  Wagons, baskets and sacks were there, but only three spades.  We said to him, we need more rakes.  He said he has no more.  We began with three men with spades digging [the potatoes] and three men sorting, alternating until evening.  We had harvested half of the acreage as had been measured by compass.  When he came and saw it, he said, “Bad work.”  Because of that, we only received 70%; that was fine with us because we could always rustle up enough extra.  We said again that we needed more rakes.  Answer: he had none.  There were also no tools there.  On the second day, we harvested what we should have finished on the first day.  In the evening, he said that if we did not work better tomorrow, we must return to the camp and he would get others.  On the third day, he measured off the same piece of land.  We knew from the women, they also had to harvest potatoes, with which we were together while picking tomatoes.  In the morning, around 11 o’clock, our brigadier walks through the neighboring little woods.  As he went, he saw how simply and primitively the local women were harvesting the potatoes.  We must form two lines, pull out the greens, throw the potatoes into the basket.  Those which are still visible in the hole are taken along also.  The hole is then covered back over.  We did not all go into the potato rows.  The rest began at the other end.  We were already finished shortly after 3 pm.  There were not more potatoes in the sacks.  He did not look, nor seem interested.  It was really nice, black, sandy soil for potatoes.  He was happy and said that we had been afraid of going back into the camp.  We inquired why it was done this way.  The women said when we take something from an unharvested field and someone see us and reports it, the father of the family is sent to Siberia as a forced laborer; but it never got that far because the leaders and “Natschaniks” [political officers] were also involved.  On the next day, the women and children were there to dig out [the potatoes].  Finally we worked several days in the swampy meadows.  There were frogs and other small water animals.  Barefoot, we cut reeds, and carried them out in bundles.  At the beginning of October, we went back into the camp and worked at various places including forest duty, construction and work at the tank parts factory.  In part, unable to work because of small accidents.  Several large industrial machines were brought here into the factory from Kiev.  The latter had to be cemented into the floor with long screws.  The holes were not so large that the long screws could be inserted into the machine.  The lathe was raised up with two iron rods, so that the screws could be installed by hand from the bottom into the hole in the machine.  Once it happened that th e iron rods slipped and fell down.  My right hand was mashed a little as I was inserting the screw into the hole of the machine.  It was even necessary to have a small operation so that the wound did not heal too quickly.  In this camp, we Germans were always the oppressed.  Through the war, we pulled the Hungarians and Romanians in.  They always had the best working conditions, whenever there was something to be rustled up.  During the examination, the woman doctor had determined that the Hungarians and Romanians look better and are stronger than the Germans.  Through inquiries in the camp, it became known that the chief cook was a Hungarian and that the chief of the work brigade was a Romanian.  He made the decision where each brigade had to work.  Only the camp administration determined how many men had to be at each construction site or workplace.  Whenever the camp administration searched for individual craftsmen or specialists, the Romanians or Hungarians asked for their own.  We Germans were not even asked.  With time, the Russians determined that those did not prove to be such good craftsmen.  Because of that the “Natschanik” of the camp asked the German brigade leaders whenever they sought craftsmen.  After they noticed and saw that the Germans were masters of their trades, the Hungarians and Romanians no longer had a chance.  A German master and specialist knows his work and does it correctly.  After that, we were regarded better and the hoarding of the Hungarians and Romanians was over.  The woman doctor had determined that the Germans get sick more and die.  Except for the four months of collective farm time, the Daniza Camp was similar to a concentration camp.  Beatings, beatings and more beatings from the Romanian Brigadier.  He always had a rubber whip in his hand, especially at mealtime.  Because of him, I had to spend 8 days in detention.  I went to him and told him that during ration distribution, a Romanian had taken my bread allotment.  He denied it and said that I had taken his bread away.  In spite of this, he believed his countryman more than me.  I had comrades who saw it.  I went to the camp officer with my comrades and brigadier and told him of the incident.  He allowed the Romanian brigadier and his countryman to come to explain this case.  It turned out that they both lied.  Now the Romanian had to go into detention with me.  These two days with him went well.  We had little odd jobs in the camp.  During mealtime, we both sat in the corner of the dining hall while the Romanian brigadier brought us soup and bread.  It was double the normal portion.  He asked us also if we wanted more.  Naturally, we did not refuse and said yes.  Here he showed his good side, also because his countryman was involved.

            1946

            In February we got away from here and went to the “Bunker Camp” near Kiev.  The name came from the many bunkers, half buried in the ground.  From that point, new brigades were formed.  The old and sick stayed here or went home.  Those two weeks, we had to work every day.  But always at different locations.  This time of year it was very cold.  Early one morning we went to a construction site.  There was a very strong head wind.  Snowflakes, large, the kind we never have at home.  The snow did not even get to lie on the ground.  After a half-hour, we arrived at the building under construction, which was yet without windows or doors.  We were supposed to do the outside work, but that was not possible.  Now we had to carry the snow out of the house.  Because of the strong wind and snowfall, the snow had collected in the shell of the house.  Whatever we carried out was blown right in again.  It snowed all day, only the wind let up.  We were all snowmen, which would have been worth a photo.  We were freezing.  This day – labor was useless, but it got us out of the camp.  Another example.  In the bunkers, it was so stuffy and warm because there were straw mattresses and so at night we could take off our quilted jacket and pants to let them dry out a bit.

            Sawmill – Camp 8

            Here all three nations were together again.  The sawmill was like an island.  A branch of the Dnieper flowed around the sawmill and carried the log rafts.  Here they were pulled on to the bank with ropes and then stacked according to diameter.  A single railroad spur crossed the river and carried cars with loads of timber.  We always unloaded after day’s end or on Sundays.  Ten were assigned to each of the eight to ten cars.  We Germans were always there in full strength.  It was the Hungarians and Romanians who were missing.  So we came, in columns of five (about 100 men) from the camp to the railcars.  The first ten men were assigned to the first car, the second ten to the second, etc.  The cars were various, some with side stanchions, others without.  It was often the case that the thickest logs lay at the bottom of the boxcars.  With them, one always needed a half-hour longer.  Whoever emptied his car could go back to the camp.  Once we had a car which still had two large logs in it and we could not get them out.  We said to the guard, “We are leaving these.”  They went into the car themselves and said, “We can’t allow that.  The logs are all numbered.”  They lent a hand while cursing all the while.  The fitness exams by the woman doctor determined, as had been done at Camp Daniza already, that the Germans looked worse than the Hungarians or Romanians.  She asked us and we answered “Germans always get the extra work, at mealtime only the water from the top of the wooden vat.”  Each brigadier announced his group at the soup counter.  When their own people come, the vats are immediately switched, so that the thin watery soup is skimmed off.  One could already hear the plopping into the food kettle.  Otherwise we had to exterminate the bed bugs in the wooden barracks with their wooden sleeping shelves using resin.  Once a man went missing in the camp.  Neither the guards nor we knew anything about him.  In the evening at roll call he was not there, in the morning he was gone.  The guards were outraged.  All searches of the camp were in vain.  Behind the kitchen and our sleeping barracks, there was a small primitively roofed wash area and latrine.  There was only a single rail to sit on in the latrine.  Several prisoners got the idea that maybe he fell in backwards.  They cleared everything away with a stick and sure enough they found a man.  He was a Romanian.  The hole was completely filled.  The Russian guards were much relieved.  In August 1946, we were allowed to write 25 words on a Red Cross postcard.  But none of the prisoners received mail from home.  There were large, deep grenade and bomb craters at the sawmill.  The surrounding field had not been cultivated.  Orach and stinging nettle grew there in abundance.  We asked the camp administration whether we could pick the leaves for the kitchen, for thickening the soup and making it creamier.  With the permission of the doctor, we were allowed to pick a small sack of leaves.  Alternating, always, a pair of men.  They always had to be fresh.  Only salt was always in short supply with the Russians.  In the shops, boards were produced.  Lathes and slats of all sizes.  The beams were immediately taken for construction.  Work was done in two shifts in the shops.  The Hungarians and Romanians worked there.  I worked in this sawmill as a board driver.  In November 1946, I had an accident.  I stood on the truck and had to slow down each turntable with a heavy stick.  One of the turntables did not have the tracks aligned properly.  I had to stop that turntable completely each time.  The tracks were slippery because of the snow and frost.  In addition, during this shift, 8 meter long beams were cut.  The truck was, therefore, overloaded and teetered.  The wheels stood still and the truck slid forward on the slippery tracks and derailed.  In ended up with my left leg in the frame of the truck, the boards fell down, exactly on the side where I stood.  I fell on my left leg and hip, so I was pinned down and could not free myself.  Also my co-workers could not help me by themselves, so they got other comrades to help.  They cleared almost all the boards away until they could finally free me.  They carried me into the camp hospital where I lay until mid-February 1947.  It was determined that I had suffered a severe hematoma from knee to hip as well as bruises and contusions.  I only received cold compresses.  Because of being bedfast so long, I also developed chills.  In mid-February 1947, I had to yield my bed to other patients, even though I was not yet well.  With two homemade crutches, I moved back into the barracks in my poor condition.  At the beginning of March, another examination for work-fitness was conducted.  A large pile of slats were stored next to the camp.  They had to be stacked up pyramid-style in order to dry.  I was not allowed any work duty by the Russian doctor.  In spite of that, other handicapped prisoners and I were ordered by the camp commandant to do this work.  I had no shoes, only foot rags.  Moreover, snow still lay on the ground.  Because we did not have to walk around, but only stood to stack of the slats, I also froze my left foot and toes.  I still suffer from that today.  The Romanians made slippers from old rubber tires, which one could wear with the foot rags.  Many of them wore them.  In the spring, I was put in work group three.  Cleaning off bricks, clearing away sawdust, straightening out boards.  In the summer, I had to work full-time again as a board-driver.

1947

            At the end of September, we returned to the bunker camp in Kiev and thought we were going home.  Here a convoy was assembled.  The young and able-bodied were taken by freight train to Stalino near Odessa on the Black Sea.  The Hungarians and Romanians could go home.  Now it was only us Germans.  In the Darniza Camp and Kiev Camp 8, we were always together.  We were disadvantaged in work and food rations, as mentioned before.  On the trip from Stalino we had a longer stopover in a freight yard and could see through the little hatches in the cars how the Russians were piling up wheat in the open using conveyor belts.  When we asked what was to happen to these great piles of wheat, we were told they would remain uncovered through the winter.  The first 10 cm. of grain got spoiled, but the rest is good.  Covering is too much work and there are not enough tarpaulins.  That is how a planned economy works and we have nothing to eat and neither do the Russians.  When we arrived in Stalino and were taken to a camp, we got a two-man bed frame (bunkbed) with a straw mattress and blanket.  Once a day, early, we received a glass of tea.  Whenever we finished our shift and returned to the camp, we could shower, wash, and also had a second set of clothes to wear.  The daily soup and the dry bread was still the same.  Whoever chose to, could be photographed, but the few pictures we had with us were taken away at Brest and Frankfurt/Oder when we went home.  Some were lucky, who had sewn pictures into their fur caps.  Here we were searched twice because of the SS.  A couple were recognized and had to go back.         

Coal Mine – Stalino

            First I worked in Mine #70.  The coal was very good and hard.  You could use the large chunks of coal as mirrors when you turned off your miner’s lamp.  It was used in steel mills, iron foundries and for the best purposes.  The height of the coal tunnel was so low that we could work only all bent over and on our knees.  That was just manual labor with pick, chisel and shovel.  We wore waterproof outfits because the water trickled constantly from the roof.  After a short time, the mining of coal was stopped because the quantity was too small.  We were also very happy because that was really convict labor.  The name 70 came from the 70 centimeter height of the tunnel.

            Mine #41

            Then I came to Shaft #41.  An old hole, but dry.  There we lengthened the tunnel.  The loosened rock was shoveled into the carts and three or four carts were pulled by a pony to collection point.  Here they were emptied into larger wagons and taken to the surface.  Such a pony never came out of the mine and stayed until it was unfit to work.  It had a miner’s lamp hung around its neck and a little bell so that one could hear it and the cart coming.  The pony walked between the rails.  The path was always the same.  We stood at the back and between the carts and rode along.  In this mine we had to walk down and back up between shifts.

            Shaft #22