Franci's War by Franci Rabinek Epstein & Helen Epstein

Author:Franci Rabinek Epstein & Helen Epstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

22

Compared to all the previous places of detention, Neugraben was beautiful: a small camp with only four barracks set against a wooded area. But, alas, no visible neighbors except for the cluster of houses occupied by the new Kommandant.

He was an old man who looked like Captain Hook, but was actually a retired stationmaster hurriedly put into an SS uniform. His bark was worse than his bite, and he loved to give sermons at Appell, especially in the rain. Most of the old Wehrmacht guards had come along with us. Work was again clearing rubble and loading and unloading sand and bricks, but now the women were farmed out to different places each day and had to march anywhere from one to two hours each way.

They worked on the outskirts of Hamburg, sometimes in residential, middle-class neighborhoods, a circumstance that afforded more opportunity to “organize”—a euphemism for steal—all kinds of things in the half-destroyed houses on the way to and from their destinations. One could find all sorts of useless objects in the houses, seldom anything to eat. But one could dig for forgotten potatoes in the harvested fields one passed, or turnips. The guards were tired and did not pay too much attention when someone fell behind for a while.

One day one of the details passed an apple orchard on the way back to camp. There was some unpicked fruit still hanging on the trees, and in a second a few girls were up in them, throwing down apples to their comrades. By the time the group was brought back to camp, there had been a telephone complaint to the Kommandantur by the owner. This upset Captain Hook greatly, and outraged, he called an immediate Appell. Pent up with fury, he walked up and down the rows, unable to speak for a while, and then it came.

WHO has ever seen anything like THIS? JEW WENCHES on apple trees. Have you gone crazy? Hah, I will show you. YOU are going to swing LIKE SO from the trees. And then I’ll shoot you personally. And then YOU’ll be surprised and astonished.

The back rows were choking with laughter while the front row had to keep a straight face and the assembled guards broke out in uncontrollable fits of coughing.

From the German point of view the situation had seriously deteriorated, and some zealot sent in a report to the higher echelons. Only a few days later old Kraut told them that a dozen of the guards were being replaced by SS women and that Captain Hook would be exchanged for a new SS Sturmbannführer. The party was over.

The new Kommandant arrived a few days later with twelve SS women and made it immediately clear that he considered the state of the camp a stinky mess, and that reorganization would start forthwith. His name was Spiess.* He was a carpenter by trade, with a face like a squashed turnip and a mouth full of evil-smelling stumps, which caused a shower of spit to come out every time he spoke.

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