27 January 1945
Throughout that day our liberators entered the camp in small batches: sturdy Russian soldiers on horseback pulling armaments and provisions for the advance. They had little time to be concerned with the welfare of the inmates who remained. We hung around them, watching their every move, but the language barrier between us was too great for any real communication. We sensed they were eager to pursue the retreating Germans. They just stayed long enough to set up their field kitchen inside the compound. Soon there was the delicious aroma of hot potato and cabbage soup bubbling up from the cauldron and we were thrilled when they beckoned us to come nearer and handed us bowls of steaming soup. I could feel the warmth penetrating my body.
Now the Russians had arrived, our little group thought it would be quite safe to move into the quarters that had housed the SS. Late in the afternoon, we four walked through the camp gates. It was an eerie feeling. There were no guards to stop us, no dogs barking, only the sounds of horses neighing and the wind whining.
We came to the hut and tried the door. Amazingly it was not locked and we apprehensively entered Herr Obersturmfuhrer’s living quarters. We inspected the two main rooms. They smelt clean and had the neatness of civilization about them. We all wanted to stay together for safety and companionship so we opted for the room with four bunkbeds, each with clean bedding.
More importantly there was a black iron stove in the centre of the room with its supply of firewood piled high in the corner. We could hardly wait to get it going. We stoked the wood, lit it and stood around watching the flames grow. Then, sitting on the floor in our first snug accommodation, we bathed in the wonderful feeling of at last becoming warm again.
We were thoroughly sleepy by now, mentally exhausted from the tension and excitement of the day and longing to lie between clean sheets once more. The room was glowing with heat and, for the first time in many months, we took off our outside clothes and climbed on our beds. Olga chose a bottom bunk and Yvette the one above it. Mutti slid between the sheets of her bottom bunk with a look of ecstasy on her face. I threw my eiderdown on to the top, climbed up after it and snuggled down in its familiar softness. But I couldn’t get to sleep for ages. I lay watching the shadows dancing on the whitewashed walls convincing myself of what I had hardly believed possible. We had come through. We had survived.
We woke early. Outside the air was absolutely still and deadly quiet. When I looked through the window new snow had fallen during the night.
All water facilities in the hut were frozen and we had no food with us so we delegated Olga and Yvette to hack the ice in the pond for water while Mutti and I went to the stores. This time we discovered more underground rooms packed high with provisions. We filled two sacks with potatoes, carrots, onions and barley until we could hardly lift them and dragged them back across the snow.
Olga already had water boiling in a pan and she soon prepared a delicious pot of thick vegetable soup. When it was ready we guzzled it down like hungry wolves. I could not stop eating and wanted more – and then even more – but Mutti warned me not to eat so much. She was sure it would make me ill yet I could not stop myself. Mutti was right, of course. I was sorry later when, because my body was so unused to digesting food, I found myself doubled up with stomach cramp and diarrhoea. My abdomen had become terribly bloated and I moaned with the pain of it. I implored Mutti to do something to help me out of my agony.
‘Pierce a hole in my stomach to let the air out,’ I pleaded.
But there was not much she could do except help me over to the toilet bucket where I spent most of the night.
After that experience I was much more careful with the amount of food I ate at one time. For safety we took turns in pairs to return to the stores to collect any provisions we needed, often to the background noise of distant gunfire and the overhead droning of Russian planes.
The weather was still bitterly cold, with water frozen solid in the pipes and on the pond and between us we shared the more strenuous duty of collecting water. When it was Mutti’s and my turn we each armed ourselves with a pickaxe. The grey smoke of our breath froze on our scarves as we panted with the effort of hacking the ice away, even though it was a thinner layer that had formed over our hole during the night. It took us a good half an hour each time. We were still weak and quite exhausted and frozen by the time we drew up clean water. We only had one bucket so we had to return several times during the day.
Olga was the strongest of us, attacking all tasks with determination. She was full of enthusiasm and energy. Being Polish she was certain she would soon be returning to her home and family. Yvette, however, was very lethargic and miserable. She suspected that no one in her family had survived. Frightened of what the future might reveal she lay for many hours resting on her top bunk, occasionally sobbing quietly to herself.
We passed three days in this relative safety and comfort when towards night-time, after we had decided to bed down early, we heard a commotion outside and the door was suddenly kicked open. We sat up in our bunks, clutching at our covers, gasping in alarm, all our fragile sense of security immediately shattered. There in the doorway stood two strapping men dressed in long fur-lined leather coats. Great fur hats half hid their faces and their eyes glowered out from under their frost covered eyebrows. Here were two more of our Russian bears standing transfixed at the sight of us.
After our initial fright we jumped down from our bunks and rushed over to pull them into the warmth of the room. Olga spoke to them in Polish, offering them food and trying to get information from them, but they hardly responded. They were utterly exhausted. They told her that all they wanted was sleep. We indicated they were welcome to use our beds and quickly rearranged our own sleeping places; Olga and Yvette sharing a top bunk, Mutti and I the bunk underneath. Mutti pushed me against the wall and lay protectively on the outside. Deep down we were all quite scared of these men because we had heard so many stories of Russians raping women. But we slept soundly enough through the night and when we awoke next morning both Russians had disappeared.
We saw no more soldiers until two days later when the main vanguard of ten lorries and about a hundred men made camp near the house. The Russians were wonderful to us. They always shared their hot camp food with us while we sat around their fire exchanging stories. Contrary to the rumours we never felt sexually threatened by them. They were honest, decent men who treated us with respect. We knew at last we were with friends.
Some could speak Polish, some German, and we heard horrific tales of what the Germans had done to their people. There was a thirteen year old in this first line whose village, including his whole family, had been wiped out. He was determined to take his revenge. Every Russian was filled with thoughts of vengeance and they couldn’t wait to lay their hands on the first Germans they came to. They vowed to terrorize all the German towns and villages they came across in return for the atrocities committed against their dear ones. It seemed to me they needed to alleviate the guilt they felt for surviving and it was a way to justify their hatred.
The first batch stayed near our camp overnight and were gone the next day. They had faced tough fighting all the way in their advance and were bound to encounter more. But they were immensely optimistic and resilient and I grew to have nothing but love and respect for those brave Russians.
Throughout the next few days groups of advancing Russians appeared intermittently. Some were on foot, some in motorized transport, some on horseback. They camped for a day or two, shared what they had with us in the way of food and news and then moved on.
Following along behind the soldiers there were always boys trying to help in any way they could. They hung around the army, waiting for tasks, so I would wrap myself up in my quilt and go and chat to them. Some spoke broken German and somehow we managed to talk to each other. They were filled with intense and unquenched hatred for the Germans and kept repeating stories of Nazi atrocities in their home towns.
One evening, during a lull in the advance and just as we were about to go to bed, we heard a timid knock on the door. No Russians that we knew knocked timidly on doors. We didn’t know what to make of it. We all crowded together and opened the door very carefully. As we peered out we could see a tall man in his early forties dressed in striped prison uniform. He asked in a very shaky German voice if he could come inside.
He said he was an escaped prisoner and that he was starving and freezing so we let him in. We gave him bread and soup which he guzzled down, thanking us in polite German which made us feel that somehow he wasn’t authentic. He looked too healthy to have suffered long deprivation. We were highly suspicious of him although he was obviously terrified.
His story was that when the SS had ordered all prisoners to march away from the camp he had hidden and managed to escape the forced march. He pleaded with us to let him stay for a while but we were all adamant that he could not. He kept asking if we had seen any Russians and which way they had gone. If he was genuine we were sure the Russians would look after him so deliberately we gave him wrong directions which would take him into their hands. We felt sorry for him because he was so nervous, but we were scared enough to turn him out into the night.
The next batch of Russians arrived the following morning. With them was our night intruder, who was now their prisoner. His hands were tied behind his back and he was being roughly pushed along. We were very disturbed that the Russians were treating him so harshly and told them so. We made such a great fuss about it that eventually, in exasperation, a Russian officer brought him to our door, undressed him in front of us and lifted up his arm. There underneath his armpit was a tattoo, positive proof of his SS identity. Oddly enough we weren’t pleased in any way, we were extremely upset. We should have been immune to any kind of suffering but we were not. It sickened us to imagine what was going to happen to him. It was a strange emotional reaction.