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Sandbostel
Labor Camp air photograph (April 1945).
To continue.
And so during the day we were driven farther, at night -
herded into nearby barns. We would fend for ourselves only by grazing.
Once we were spending the night in a barn that stood near a cattle-pen with
sheep. During the night several animals were torn into pieces. We gobbled
down the fresh-killed meat stuffing our bags tight with what was left. The
trouble is that you can not really chew raw meat. You roll it in your
mouth, swallowing tough pieces and saliva saturated with meat juice
instead. The next morning the Germans spared the punishment, probably
thinking we regained some strength and thus shall move on faster.
Sporadic feeding on roughage made bowel movements
infrequent. So a couple of days later we found ourselves agonized by severe
constipation. No matter how much effort did we put in, we could never rid
ourselves from the stone-hard body waste down in the bowels. Some outside
assistance was needed. I had an aluminum spoon, shaped as a regular wooden
one, its end somewhat pointed. I melted it from a piece of metal cable in
Kovrov. I would use the pointed end to dig the petrified body waste down my
rectum and force it out mixed with blood, badly hurting myself in so doing.
During fifteen or twenty years after the war was over I was still suffering
from acute attacks of hemorrhoids. In these situations some of us would ask
our mates to help.
Day by day dwindling was the column: some were shot, some
fled. Had we had enough strength, we would have managed an escape as well. The
Germans were too exhausted to keep vigilant watch on prisoners.
There was no relief: at night we
were shivering violently with cold, rubbing the freezing feet wrapped into
some cotton cloth to make them warmer; during the day - staggering around –
weary, haggard, barely conscious from hunger.
Adding to the misery, there were lice that sucked out what
little blood we had left. Trying to get rid of that tiny livestock proved
useless. They infested our clothing and body hair, and would crawl up our
faces hanging down the eyebrows.
We went through small German towns avoiding larger ones. I
used to remember for a long time all those names on road posts – Kohlberg,
Teterow, Schweinemünde, Schneidemüle, Greifswald, Strahlsund, and
Rostock… - but now most of them have slipped my memory.
The passers-by would stop and watch us both with surprise
and disgust, and the escort had to shout them away. It was by all means
natural because emaciated people in rags and full of lice could not stir up
any other feelings than those of curiosity and abhorrence.
In one of those smaller towns we were led into a large barn near a
distillery. A German mounted on a cart filled with boiled potatoes, and as
we passed beside it, he lifted some potatoes with his pitchfork - as many
as he could pick at once - and shook them down our overcoats. Some got as
many as ten potatoes, others - only two, but the Germans took no notice of
it and simply urged us on. I was lucky enough to get six or seven large potatoes.
Their peel burst as they were cooked for too long, and through the cracks
delicious starchy flesh came into sight. I peeled and ate them, still
feeling hungry afterwards though. We overnighted right there in that barn,
on its concrete floor. Later that night when darkness fell, the Germans
brought some straw for us to line the floor with. January was almost over;
February was about to begin. During the night the temperature plunged well
below zero, though at daytime the sun gave some warmth. Because the snow
was thawing and there were a lot of puddles, our feet were always wet, and
so it was even colder at night.
At some point I realized my strength was betraying me, and soon it will be
my turn to be shot. Every morning, chilled to the bone, with enormous
effort I rose to my feet barely feeling them and staggered on, as though on
stilts.
Soon we entered the area of Germany that was densely
populated; here and there we would pass small towns and villages. Besides,
the roads were always busy with people often rolling carts with their
belongings heaped on them. Mischa who could easily understand German said
they were the refugees fleeing from towns destroyed by bombing. They no
longer had a place to live and were now seeking temporary shelter at the houses
of their relatives or friends living in the countryside. With so many
people around the German patrols could not shoot those who collapsed before
their countrymen’s very eyes, and so several wagons loaded with “human
wrecks” followed the column. Its size shrank enormously. Some two or three
thousands prisoners had started on the forced march from Torun, now they
were but 500, including those in the wagons. It is not known how many of
them died or were shot along the way, and how many fled. Later the survivors
of that march would call it “the road to death”.
Having left Rostock behind we approached the mouth of Varna crossed by a
pontoon bridge. The road post said “Kil”. Not far from it there was a hill
from which seaside could be seen. The column was stopped there to take a
rest. At some distance from the road the fire was laid, a big cauldron,
like the ones they use in Central Asia, filled with steaming hot slop,
above it. It turned out to be watery soup with semolina. I got a ladle of
it into my dixie, and found a great pleasure from eating it – it just
seemed to be the most delicious meal I have ever tasted. However, it only
made craving for food grow stronger on me. As darkness fell, we could make
out flames blazing as far as the horizon, flickering beams of floodlights
and volleys of antiaircraft guns exploding the night sky. Distant roar was
wafted to our ears. Some large city, maybe Kil, was being bombed by the
allied air forces.
And once there came a day when I reached the end of my strength and could
not rise to my feet. “Schiessen Sie mir, aber Ich kahn nicht weiter
laufen!” (“You may shoot me, but I cannot go further anymore”) was what I
said in my fractured German to a guard who came up to me. I was put beside
other “human wrecks”, and the next several days – I lost count of them – I
was wheeled in a wagon.
My strength sapped, I lost the opportunity to search for food myself,
though these days the Germans handed us out pieces of bread, sometimes even
with margarine.
I was barely conscious during the last days of this
odyssey, and from time to time I would pass out completely. The last thing
I remember about that last stage of the journey is how our frazzled mates
on their last legs were loading us into the freight cars. Those still alive
were piled up on the car floor side by side with corpses.
My memories about the journey itself and its duration are dim. Half -
conscious I felt as though I was rocking on some waves of lice, that
crawled away from corpses onto my body, the body of someone still alive. Then
I was enveloped in complete darkness.
Still alive!
First I came round on a concrete
floor under streams of hot water. After I was given an injection or
something to smell, I regained consciousness again, this time leaning on
the glass surface of the X-ray apparatus. Two orderlies were trying to prop
me against it, but I slipped down all of the time anyway.
When I came to my senses completely I found myself lying
naked on an overcoat spread over the lower part of a two-story bed covered
with my rags. It was bliss not to be bitten by lice anymore.
I immediately started to examine and finger myself here and
there. I discovered I could not move. My back was numb with pain because of
stiffness of the bed. But I was too weak to turn around or tuck my overcoat
in a more comfortable way. It seemed to me that my legs had a chain and a
ball attached to them, and there was no chance I could lift them. My arms
felt weighed down as well, and it took an all-out effort to make them move.
I still cannot feel my legs; my right foot and toes of the
left one are black, most likely injured by frostbite. Somebody fetched me a
piece of glass. My face, reflected in it, was beyond recognition. A
skull-like face with hollow eyes was looking at me. My nose shrunk to a thin
bridge of cartilage protruding above drawn-in mouth with no cheeks and no
chin around it. Grey wrinkled skin that covered the skull was way too loose
for it. Having examined myself I realized my whole body looked no better: a
bundle of bones - all of them quite observable- in a loose gray sack of
skin.
My buttocks’ fat was used up long ago, so there were just
pelvic bones with nothing else to them. My leg near at the hip joint was as
scraggy as my wrist – I could make my thumb and my forefinger meet around
both.
I did not feel hungry, though I was often tempted to close
my eyes and let myself be engulfed in insensitivity. Taking all my will
into a grip I was fighting these invitations.
I could hear my ward mates talking near by. At that moment
they were discussing my return to the world of the quick. I said something
too, discovering my voice was unrecognizable as well. It sounded like
raucous descant.
I was put into picture.
It was yet another labor camp called Stalag X-B situated
near a small town of Sandbostel that is not far from Hamburg. The camp was
an international one: I am pretty sure its prisoners came from almost every
part of Europe. A small block intended specifically for Russian war
prisoners was isolated from all the others and had very tight security
measures.
They said Stalag X-B was the only camp under the auspices
of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Through its Swiss society,
the agency managed to organize within the camp a well-equipped hospital. Medical
supplies and dressing materials were delivered there from Switzerland. This
was the hospital I was taken to.
Two doctors - both of them war prisoners - came in. One of
them, wearing a navy overcoat, was Russian. I remembered I had seen him
during my X-raying. The other one was Italian. He spoke Russian mangling
the words to such an extent that he was difficult to understand. It turned
out he was in charge of our ward. His name was Lorenzo Gradoli; he came
from Rome.
Leaving the Italian to take care of me, the Russian doctor
said he pulled me out of heap of dead bodies piled onto the platform after
discovering I was still alive. After sanitization I was thoroughly
examined; my medical data were entered into the card lying on the table
beside my bed. He said I had good chances to stay alive and it all depended
on how much I wanted it. Then he left.
Many years later, probably in 1977 or 1978, as I was
leafing through the magazine called “Novy Mir”, an article printed in small
font on its last pages caught my eye. It was entitled “Universities in the
West”. The author was a former war interpreter, who served in the camp for
higher rank German prisoners undergoing “correction program”. The camp was
situated in a small town lying on the Latvian – Estonian border. The
Estonians referred to it as “Valk”, while the Latvians called it “Valga”.
Among other doctors working in the camp hospital there was
a former naval medical officer previously held captive in Sandbostel camp.
At once did I recognize my
savior. I got his address at the “Novy Mir” editor’s office and sent him a
letter. I learnt from the reply that my doctor’s name was Dyakov and he
lived in the town of Skhodnya not far from Moscow. He died several years
before.
Way too late did I learn who was the person I credited with
saving my life.
With orderly’s assistance doctor Gradoli had my wounds
dressed right in the ward, thinking it was rather dangerous to carry me to
the surgery. He was questioning me for a quite a while trying to find out
whether I had “Trya Sutscka”. I failed to understand what it was that he
wanted.
Seeing that, he fetched me a German-Russian dictionary and
I realized that by “Tryasutscka” he meant “fever”. No, I had no fever
(tryasutscka), but my chest feels as though it is ablaze.
While my feet were being dressed, my right toes black from
frostbite fell off, leaving sticking out foot bones in sight. The doctor
said he would not press ahead with surgery. I could keep my foot - it may
be of some use to me - provided it does not turn gangrenous. He slid a needle
into my arm, and sudden warmth spread over my throat. I fell asleep.
I was woken up for dinner. The soup was no better than in
any other camp. I swallowed it, my appetite unwhetted. Soon doctor Dyakov
came into our ward again accompanied by a Frenchman, judging by his
uniform. He said I was in the last stage of dystrophy, and my stomach no
longer produced gastric juices necessary for digestion. Besides, I needed
to replenish my fat stocks, but what little fat I was getting with camp
food was insufficient. The Frenchman gave me a can of fat that I was
supposed to eat in two days. If my stomach handles it and I do not die from
diarrhea recovery can be hoped for. He believed I stood a good chance.
My doctor left, and the Frenchmen sat beside me. He turned
out to a French Armenian (I had already met an Armenian from France once). I
remembered his name, the name of someone who saved my life – it was Mesrop
Avyetisyan. He came from Rostov, like me. In the twenties he emigrated from
Nakhichevani, which is near Rostov, to France.
I immediately remembered about a tradition of landsmanship
and townsmanship, venerated by all soldiers. The very first question that
we asked each other was “Where do you come from?”
I still can easily conjure up this picture.
A column of war prisoners is approaching a transit camp. Both
“new arrivals” and those inside the camp start calling out: “Someone from
Ryazan’ (Kursk, Rostov etc)?” After newcomers meet “old-timers” frantic
search for landsmen and townsmen starts. Those coming from the same town or
region are almost kin and they feel it is their duty to help each other as
much as they can.
As for me, in Sandbostel I was kin to a “rich man”. It is
to doctor Dyakov and him that I owe my life.
Next day I opened the can. What was inside looked like
lard. In the morning I spread it generously onto my bread and added some
spoons into dinner soup.
Unlike other camps, in Stalag X-B in addition to a regular
portion of bread we would get a lump of margarine, spoonful of sugar, and a
small cube of canned meat, each face being one centimeter long. I was done
with fat in two days, probably not without some aide of my upper bunk
companion. He died from diarrhea after liberation in April 1945. What a
quirk of fate.
Mesrop came to see me several times and even smuggled some
bread for me, until the guards found out.
One day there came a person asking my permission to paint
my portrait. He said he had a large collection of sketches already, and
this is how the posterity would learn about hardship we had to go through
during the war.
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