Downed over Germany by Marion Kummerow

Author:Marion Kummerow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marion Kummerow

Chapter 6

After the verdict Tom wasn’t returned to Gestapo headquarters. He observed it with hidden relief, because wherever they took him, no place on earth – or in hell – could be worse than Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.

“Where are you taking me?” He asked several times, but nobody would answer.

Only when he entered through the heavy metal front door of the red brick-and-mortar building, the guard who filled several lists with Tom’s name and crossed it out on other lists said, “Welcome to Plötzensee.”

Plötzensee? The name didn’t make Tom any wiser. He knew that See was the German word for lake.

He was put into a cell with only two other prisoners. The nine-by-twelve-foot space held a chair, a table, a closet, and a three-storey bunk bed, completely equipped with a mattress and a rough woolen blanket. Compared to the Gestapo cellar, this was luxury.

“Hallo.” His new companions nodded in a friendly fashion and the older one pointed his thumb up. “Deins.”

Tom followed the direction. Apparently the bed just a few inches under the ceiling was reserved for him.

“Thank you. I’m Tom, by the way.” He tried a smile, but the man only repeated the thumbs up. Tom tried again in German, “Danke. Ich heiße Tom.”

Another nod. Another thumbs up. Then a chuckle from the other man and rapid conversation in some language Tom didn’t understand. Finally the younger man pointed at himself and said, “Stanislaw.” Then he pointed to the other man, “Dmitri.”

That’s just my luck. Stuck in death row with two inmates who don’t speak a word of English or even German. He climbed up the rickety ladder and crawled into his bunk. The ceiling was barely high enough to roll over, but he wasn’t even able to raise his head. Get used to the feeling of being inside a coffin.

The inmates of Plötzensee prison were a diverse mixture of political prisoners, about half of them German. The majority of the remaining were various Eastern European nationalities, with only a few Brits like himself sprinkled into the mix. The conditions were a lot better than he’d expected – definitely not gruesome like they were in some of the POW camps.

It could have been a relatively comfortable place to wait out the end of the war, if it weren’t for the red piece of cloth dangling from his cell door – a constant reminder that the inmates awaited death by guillotine.

A simple look at that dreaded cloth sent icy chills into his bones that not even the hot and unforgiving August sun shining through his window could dispel. Maybe the worst part was the uncertainty. Every morning he perked up his ears for the steps of the executioners stopping in front of his cell. They always came in the morning, and the inmate taken was replaced by another one that same evening. Tom had no idea how they chose whose turn it was or when it would be his time.

One of the invaluable perquisites in Plötzensee was the vast library. All prisoners were

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