The last leg of the journey was the longest. He’d reminded his fellow soldiers that they were British prisoners of war and that Germany had a duty to uphold their welfare under the Geneva Convention, but it was hard to keep up morale when their empty stomachs had given up rumbling long ago. He was a lieutenant and, due to the lack of more senior officers, the others had begun to look to him for leadership. He wondered if he was up to the job.
He peered through the ventilator slits again. There was a hint of chilled air speeding by outside, yet he wasn’t getting the full benefit of it. He squinted as he scanned the horizon. It was hard to tell where they were when the only sight was of the monotonous countryside. After a while the noise of the train’s wheels changed and iron girders passed his view. They must be crossing a river — a wide one. He tried to recall the map of eastern Germany, wondering if the rumours were true. Was it the Elbe or the Oder, perhaps? If it was the latter, they might be close to entering Poland. Time dragged on and the exhaustion he had refused to acknowledge finally overwhelmed him. His eyes began to close and block out the foreign landscape outside. The young woman on the platform was waiting for him behind his eyelids and he did not have the energy to evict her.
* * *
The cattle wagon stopped moving and he woke with a jolt. He blinked, confused. People were shouting outside and he was surrounded by trousered legs.
‘Rise and shine,’ quipped a voice beside him. His predicament came flooding back.
‘Have I been asleep, Tubs?’ he asked needlessly as he accepted the soldier’s outstretched hand. He ought to have said ‘Private Turner’, but by now nobody was being formal.
Tubs nodded. ‘You slid down the wall like a drunk. By the time you hit the floor you were well gone.’
Sam pulled himself to standing. ‘Thanks.’ He wasn’t sure he wanted to be described as a drunkard. A soldier had standards and he wanted to uphold them. He saw the private’s crooked smile and couldn’t help but return it with one of his own. They had travelled together since being captured yet he knew little about him.
‘I’ve never asked, what’s your first name?’
‘Edward.’
‘So where didTubscome from?’
Tubs shrugged.
Sam persisted. It was an odd conversation to be having, but it made a change from talking about food, or the lack of it. ‘Is it a nickname for something?’
‘Not really. Edward was a mouthful. It became Ted, then Tubs, and that sort of stuck.’
Sam nodded. It was a good enough reason. ‘Thanks for not standing on me while I napped.’
‘You stood guard for me when I slept. I was just repaying the favour.’
Sam smiled his thanks again. If all the prisoners looked out for one another, as they were trained to do, and kept their dark humour, perhaps they might just get through this together.
The doors abruptly slid open and bright light flooded in, temporarily blinding them. They were ordered out of the wagon at gunpoint and soon their guards were marching them away from the station, along cobbled streets and out into the countryside. The news soon spread that they were in Poland, the message passed from man to man until it reached the end of the line.
Their destination was a prisoner-of-war camp that was spread across a series of nineteenth-century forts on the outskirts of a town called Torun. The forts had been designed for defence, but the high banks, tall gates and dry moats would hinder escape attempts, too. Being split up and out in the countryside would make a large breakout difficult, thought Sam as his group was ordered into one of the buildings.
Their accommodation was dark, with a curved brick ceiling and one small window that did little to help ventilate the area. Bunk beds, in tiers of three and softened with mattresses stuffed with straw, looked more welcoming than they were inreality. Sam and his fellow prisoners were soon lying upon the beds, hoping to sleep off their exhaustion and regain some self-respect.
Within a few days they were herded to the administration building, each soldier photographed holding a board across his chest with the name of the camp and a prison number on it. Next, they were given two flannelette foot-squares, the size of a large handkerchief, to replace worn socks, and a metal disc with an identification number and prison name stamped upon it twice. Sam learned three things from this organized administration process: that his prison was called Stalag XXA, that the German army were efficient but had odd ways, and that if he died, there was a good chance his family would learn of his fate. He knew his parents and Moira would rather receive half of his identity disc, torn off by the hand of the enemy, than stay in an abyss of torture and hear nothing at all.
Chapter Three
January 1945, Gollnow, Pomerania
Elsa stared at the burned-out synagogue, the only reminder of the town’s once vibrant Jewish community. It was one of few damaged buildings in the town: despite the war hardly any bombs had fallen here, and Gollnow, crouched behind the medieval wall in the heart of the pinewood forest, was still picturesque. But for Elsa the town was tainted: once the home of so many fond memories, it had become a nest of suspicion. And now it was changing again, to become a temporary respite for fleeing refugees. How had it come to this?
The night-time attack in 1938 on the Jewish community had been beyond anything that had gone before and had marked the beginning of a new chapter. The message had been clear. Jews were not welcome and their businesses, possessions, even their very presence would be targeted in every way possible. Elsa had later learned similar attacks had erupted all over Germany and were far more organized than she had first thought. Tired of years of discrimination, many Jews who could afford it had left the country.
Things had changed on the international front, too. Four months after the mob had dragged Rabbi Rozenblum away, German troops had entered Prague. Elsa had held her breath, fearful of another war. How could she not think it was possible when relentless newsreels had begun to prepare the people for such an event? Her friend Helga had thought war might be a good thing as it would curb Hitler’s power. Elsa had been horrified she dared voice such thoughts openly and told her so.
Then Hitler had ordered the invasion of Poland. Although the battle was over in a month, the world war they had all feared was finally declared — yet, strangely, nothing happened.No bombing. No civilian deaths. Elsa began to believe there was no war at all and she was not alone in her thoughts. Even her mother had hoped it was so.
But it was not to be. Hitler’s army marched across Europe. By October 1940, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France were in Germany’s control too. Elsa and her family watched, bewildered, as newsreels celebrated the German army proudly marching through Paris. Why did the Führer want so much territory? Paris, the reels announced, was glad to see the German troops and the French quickly signed an armistice pact, but Elsa wondered how that could be true. She dared not speak her mind. To think differently was to question Hitler. To question Hitler would mean that he had lied.
However, the denial of war could not last for ever. Bombing raids on Germany had forced civilians to witness and experience the true cost of war. Over the next four years the war touched everyone’s life.
Gradually they had learned that many of the Jewish men of Gollnow who had been arrested that night in 1938 had been sent to work in Lublin, Poland. And in early 1940, the few Jewish families who had remained in the town were deported to Lublin without warning. Elsa’s mother had only learned her friends Margot and Josef were among them when she knocked on their back door and found they had gone. Later that evening, Elsa noticed her mother’s voice trembling as she tried to reassure herself they would be all right. ‘They must have sent them there to work with the other Jewish people,’ she had said.
