Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

Author:Thomas Buergenthal
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Autobiography
ISBN: 9780316070997
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER 7

Into the Polish Army

THE BIG SACHSENHAUSEN GATE WAS OPEN. Marek and I walked through it, under the administration building with its tower and the now-empty machine-gun nest near the area where some of the SS guards had been housed, and left the camp. We did not look back, either because we were afraid that some SS guards would suddenly give chase or because we did not want to be reminded of what lay behind us or both.

It took us a while to reach what looked like a major road or highway. It was teeming with tanks, military trucks, and horse-drawn wagons, carrying men and supplies. The men were waving to us and shouting. “Polish soldiers,” Marek said, and we waved back, calling out to them in Polish. They threw us loaves of bread as they drove past, chanting anti-Nazi slogans and singing “Long live Poland!”

We had been told to travel away from the front, which was moving closer and closer to Berlin. That meant that we had to go in the direction from which the soldiers were coming. Along the way we met inmates from other camps. There was much waving and cheering, with everybody wanting to know what camp we came from. For a while the road resembled a street carnival. A Polish military truck offered us a ride to a nearby German town. “Most of the houses here are empty,” the driver told us. “The Germans ran away because they are afraid of the Russians.” Then, acting as though he owned the town, he added, “Move into any of these houses, and take anything you find there, compliments of the Polish Kosciuszko Division.” The soldier laughed and drove away. As we walked down one of the streets, we met three Jewish girls from Hungary and two young men who had also just been liberated. They asked Marek and me to join them in the search for a house.

It did not take us long to come upon a large two-story brick house with a garden in front and a large backyard. It must have been abandoned on very short notice because the kitchen table was set, and there was even some food still on the plates. “Let’s continue the dinner,” one of the girls suggested. The cellar was stocked with canned fruit, vegetables, and even canned meat. We carried some of it up, and the girls started a fire and began to cook. What a wonderful dinner it was! My first real meal in years. The trouble was that while it all looked marvelous to me, I could barely swallow more than a few bites. Marek claimed that my stomach must have shrunk during all those years of near starvation. I did not know whether he was right; all I knew was that I could eat very, very little. Rather than stay at the table, I remembered the chickens and rabbits in the backyard; it had taken some persuasion on my part to save the rabbits from our eager cooks.



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