Espinosa Aristizábal Juan Felipe, War-Torn Diary

WARTORN DIARY

Written By Juan Felipe Espinosa Aristizábal

When I was a child, a group of boys was caught stealing from the local shop. My father was furious when he found out and he accused me to have taken part in this act but I said to him insistingly;

“I didn’t take anything” “Maybe not, But…you were there.” He said. My name is Erich Wagner of the 64 Infanterie-Division, and I was there when I was drafted, my father asked if I was truly ready to go to war. He told me that; “a good soldier kills without ever thinking about his enemy as a human being.” At this moment he sees himself as a fellow man, he is no longer a good soldier, And I am a good soldier.

I was drafted into the army in the summer of 1944, I was just 17 years old at the time. But my training was cut short and I was sent to Normandy when the allies invaded in D-day, it was my baptism of fire. My division barely escaped annihilation and we were able to retreat to Alsace in the border with Germany. There we were able to hold the US third army but at last, had to retreat in the winter after our failed counterattack in the Ardennes. Now we were tasked with holding the key bridges that crossed the Rhine river. If the allies were to capture one of these, the heart of Germany would have been cracked and the dream of a 1000-year Reich would have been shattered. Our story begins here, we were not just fighting for our families and fatherland but to keep the dream alive, the dream promised to be fulfilled by our führer, we were fighting for a cause we believed in, for our ways and our glory.

It was a lovely day in spring. I was thankful for the gentle touch of the sun that had been absent through that infernal winter. But I was worried about the beautiful sky because a beautiful sky only meant one thing —We were going to get bombed by the allies.— Wolf the captain of the squad

told me to get my equipment ready and to listen to the Sturmscharführer because he was going to deliver a speech.

I knew the guy; his name was Fritz Weber; he was one of the most prominent officers of the SS in the sector.

“Sons of Germany! we are here today to make the statement clear to the allies, we are invincible! United and with faith in the führer we are going to defend our fatherland and make the allies crash against a wall of fire, we are going to make a defense so great that at the end we are going to push the allies back to Paris!”

He ended his speech with; “Sieg Heil!” We all cheered and cried out “Sieg Heil!”

A fellow member of the SS named Dutch asked me if I had any spare mags. “I will spare none,” I said to him. He smiled and went to look for more ammunition. Wolf told us to get moving, we were going to march into the city of Cologne to defend it. All the troops were scrambling to get their equipment ready and get going. We had to cross this huge metal bridge across the Rhine to get into the old town. We were marching through the bridge hungry for a fight and Horst began singing.

“The cry resounds like thunder’s peal, Like crashing waves and clang of steel: The Rhine, the Rhine, our German Rhine, Who will defend our stream, divine? Dear fatherland, no fear be thine, dear fatherland, no fear be thine,”

We sang all the way, looking for a place to establish our defense in the city. We reached the main square, there Wolf said that we were going to defend a house with a strategic position overlooking the main road in the old town. Hans brought the mg42 and looked for a position between the rubble because the city had already been bombed and the house next to the

one we were in, was hit directly by a shell. We were building our barricade when the sirens of the city began to ring. It was another air raid. The whole sky was covered with planes, there were so many of them they covered the soft rays of the sun and they cast a shadow that made us feel at night in the ground. We rushed for cover in all this commotion and I reached for the basement and I let in Horst and Wolf. My body tensed with the situation, and I braced a hundred times for impact and I started to feel the bash of the bombs in my chest and hear the thunderous bombs beating the ground as if it was drummed then I passed out. When I woke up it was already night. “Ah you are awake,” said Wolf. When I tried to stand up, I found rubble everywhere, the city was in flames and I could feel the burning in my face of some buildings a street away. I stepped outside and found Hans lying dead in the street with a wooden beam and debris covering his body. I could not almost recognize who he was. At that moment I heard a shot and it flew past me. I took cover in the debris.

Wolf shouted; “Americans! up the street.” We began to rain fire and calling for reinforcements, but Horst’s radio was damaged by the bombing. We held them for a while until the fire died down.

Wolf said; “We cannot hold alone here, we will just die trying, we have to look for reinforcements”

“But if we kill enough of them, we can hold or if we have to, we die trying!” Horst responded.

“It is futile, we will serve Germany better if we live another day.” Wolf contested firmly.

So, we picked up our equipment and went down the street looking to reach the bridge whose silhouette could be seen from all over the city. In our way, we heard screams coming from a burning house. We went there to see who it was and we

found a woman trapped between the rubble. She was blond and young but had a string of blood coming down in her face. “My baby! Hannah is upstairs” she cried desperately.

Meanwhile, Horst, Dutch, and Wolf were helping her, I went upstairs. The whole building was on fire and collapsing. I tried to walk through the hallway in between the debris and heard a baby crying coming from a door, but the door was blocked, a wooden beam had fallen from the ceiling and was blocking it, I tried to push it aside but I couldn’t move it. I fire my gun at the wall trying to make a hole in it, after a small burst, I went in. I found the baby in a crib and I held her in my arms and went downstairs and told everyone to go outside, the boys lifted her and we all went outside running, after reaching a few meters away, the house collapsed from the flames. She woman thanked me while I handed her the baby.

We continued to reach the bridge with her. She told us that her name was Erika. We were about to cross the bridge when suddenly we heard a bang and Dutch fell to the ground.

“Dutch!” Horst screamed.

He was dead, there was nothing we could do. In those fateful seconds, everything stopped I could feel the bullets pierce the air around me and I couldn’t think I just ran, I forgot about everything, our mission, I just thought about the others, I wasn’t even thinking that I could be the next one to fall. We sprinted across the bridge seeing the bullets bounce in the concrete of the road beneath our feet. In the end, we reached the other side of the bridge, but there were just two guys, the rest of the army was gone.

“Where is everybody,” I asked them

“We are blowing up the bridge, the rest of the 64 th division is still in the city or retreated with the 43 rd .” He said

“But we found no one else, we came here to look for reinforcements,” I said hurriedly.

“Then everybody else is dead or deserted,” the other one said.

“Traitors! they deserve death for leaving the cause” yelled Horst.

We told Erika to continue the main road to the countryside, that she was safe now. She said goodbye and went on the road. We helped the boys to finish with the cables. If there was someone left in the city, he would have gone down fighting because there was going to be no escape for him. It began to rain, this was good because it meant bad weather for the night, and no more bombings. We exploded the bridge, it flew up in the sky spreading its iron skeleton all over the river banks. We weren’t going to have the big defense, but we had negated the bridge to the Americans. We stayed silent admiring the spectacle, we couldn’t do anything else, we had to look somewhere to stay for the night. We went down the road out to the outskirts of the city and into the countryside. We found a farming house no to far since we had left the city. The house was occupied and we were not going to break in so we settle inside a barn beside the house, it had some holes in the ceiling from which the rain fell but we could finally rest.

The next morning, we woke up with misty fog everywhere. It was still early but we had to continue. We continued up the road passing by endless fields of wheat and berries. A convoy of trucks loaded with wounded soldiers passed by. We aren’t going to win this war I thought. I never said something like that because you can get hang for misconduct and creating dissent in the army. But I think about it. I wasn’t sure anymore if we were going to win.

“All of my friends had died for what?” I said to myself.

We were retreating again, and we also had heard, a few days before that the Soviets had crossed the Vistula river and

had captured Warsaw. “Was everything falling apart?” I asked myself but I still had hope.

“Do you think we can still win?” I asked the group

“Of course! We have never been defeated in battle, we have just moved to better positions” said Horst.

“Look kid” spoke Wolf “I am sure we have done our job and we have served well our country, don’t worry about it,” said Wolf.

We reached some woods where the road went through and found a checkpoint, it was Fritz. Captain Wolf briefed him about what had happened. Nevertheless; he seemed uneasy about something. he mentioned a Jew that had escaped and Fritz believed he was in the area. As we continued some kilometers down the road we saw something moving through the woods so we went after it. The three of us ran through the woods to catch it. After some time, I got lost, but then I heard. “Steady or I shoot!” in the distance. I tried to follow the sound and I found that Wolf had captured the Jew that had escaped. the prisoner seemed wore down from running; he looked like a spaghetti stick, weak and skinny. His face appeared as if life was sucked out, physically, he was dead but inside, he was still alive. He had a tattooed number in his arm “654321” it said.

Then Horst arrived and he shouted; “shoot him,” “No,” said Wolf with empathy. and he added; “He deserves our help, he deserves it, he escaped after all...” before he would finish, He was interrupted by Horst; “What are you talking about, he is a Jew! He is not less than a rat”

“Is their fault Germany lost the first time, they will eat you!” Horst added angrily. “The war is lost! Can’t you see it? We have fought through all these years for a wrong cause” Wolf claimed.

“A wrong cause! Are you crazy! You were the first to join” Horst said. “Maybe I did… but now I can see that I was wrong” Wolf continued; “the least we can do is help this man” “Well, then you are lost!” Horst argued. “I will kill him!” he said. Meanwhile, all of this was happening I was there looking like a rock sculpture perplexed at the situation. Horst drew his machine gun, He closed his eyes that were anyways blind by rage and pressed the trigger. Wolf jumped to stop the bullets to save the man. Then he fell.

“What have you done dirty fucking Jew!” yelled Horst. “This is your fault now you are going to pay!” claimed Horst pointing his weapon at the Jew to shoot again. I was enraged by what had happened so I pointed my gun at Horst.

“What’s the matter kid, are you going to shoot me?” those were his last words.

After a sudden burst from my gun, Horst’s smile disappeared and he closed his eyes instantly before falling to the ground. I didn’t think about what I had done, I just did it. War can be like that. It is dirty and once you are trapped in it, it is impossible to get out. I went to see Wolf and to get the Jew to help me but Wolf wasn’t going to make it, his last words were; “Get this man to safety Erich…after all these years of war it is time for the world to see a little…humanity” He passed away on the spot. I had a new mission and I had decided to do it for Wolf. But then Fritz came by and said;

“What the hell happened here?” He asked furiously.

“We heard shots…oh, I see that you have captured the Jew, good!” he said. “Yes sir” I answered. I noticed that he cared more about

the captured jew, rather than the fallen soldiers, as he didn’t even mention them, and he said; “Good get him inside the truck and let’s go to the train station”. I had to go with them they were the SS for goodness sake, they killed for fun. Once we got to the station Fritz said to me;

“For the capture of the Jew and the efforts in defending Cologne I will give you the Iron Cross, for your service to Germany”.

An improvised parade was held at the train station plaza in my honor and Fritz gave me the medal. Once it finished, I went to the bathroom with my new shiny medal hanging from my neck. Meanwhile looking at the mirror, I decided to honor Wolf’s last words and save the Jew, it was a new cause, a good cause I believed in, not for my country this time but for the humanity in this world, to try to save the little that was left. I threw my medal in the gutter and went to catch the train that was going to transport the Jew back to Haddamar, a close-by correctional center. Later I would know that it was, in fact, a concentration camp. I ran through the rail yard in pursuit of the off-going train and I was able to catch it. When I got on board, a guy congratulated me on my medal but I interrupted him and asked him where was the Jew.

“In the cattle wagon,” he answered. When he turned around, I grabbed the keys in the wall of the wagon without being noticed. I went to the cattle wagon and I found him imprisoned and beaten up. I told him I was there to rescue him but he seemed unbothered by what I was trying to do. He said that he was a lost cause but I had enough of lost causes. I opened his chains and helped him out. I had to carry him up in my back to the next wagon. We had to escape somehow, but the train had already left the station and we were moving quickly. Our only option was to jump. We passed

through some cargo carriages but the door of the hallway at the end was opened, and a man said;

“What are you doing” there I realized that it was Captain Fritz who had opened the door.” I drew my Mauser and fired at Fritz, then he fell. I could see his astonished face with a string of blood coming through his mouth looking at me. I felt… I had done the right thing. I didn’t think of it more after that until this day. I opened the door of the wagon and helped the Jew climb the external ladder. It was really difficult because the train was going fast and he was reeling from one side to the other tying to place his feet correctly to climb to the top of the train. I heard screams and shouts coming from the hallway. The guards had found the corpse. I had to rush up the ladder, thankfully the Jew was already on the top and extended his hand to help me. Once I struggled to get on the top of the wagon, I saw that a tunnel was coming after a bridge… I knew what we had to do.

“We have to jump!” I told the Jew hastily.

“We have to jump in the coming bridge into the river, we could survive the fall in the way” I continued.

“Could!?” say the Jew “I don’t know how to swim!” he said.

I heard shots coming from below. I just grabbed him and pushed him over the bridge then I jumped. I struggled to get some air amid all the water. The equipment I was caring was holding me down, I couldn’t breathe. In this desperation, I looked for the Jew, but he was nowhere to be found. Finally, I got some air and then dip down to look for him. I couldn’t find him. The river was running wild like a horse in a race. The rapids pushed me against the rocks and to the bottom, I fought to stay breathing. I looked to the front and saw the Jew holding a tree trunk, he had been dragged by the current. I grabbed myself to the same trunk and went floating downriver. After the rapids I helped the Jew get to the river bank it was

really difficult to swim carrying him and all the equipment I had at the moment. When I reached the shore I stumbled and fell, I was exhausted. The Jew stood up first and dragged me to a tree line. He then went into the woods and left me there. I just closed my eyes and got some rest.

Belatedly after, I was woken up by a man in a US army uniform. I tried to reach for my Mauser but it wasn’t there. He said something in a foreign language and then laughed I couldn’t understand it. Then two more guys arrived and discussed something. Then one of the guys that arrived pointed his Thompson at me. I knew that I was done for. Suddenly the Jew arrived yelling and spoke to them in a foreign language… they lowered their weapons and then they grabbed me and put me on a jeep with the Jew.

They drove us through a windy road along the woods and we ended up on an American camp. We stopped outside a big tent, then the driver said something to me and made the gesture signaling the tent. I got out of the jeep and went in. There, the commander expected me. I spoke to him in German he seemed to understand my situation. Then he made the Jew come in. The Jew spoke with the commander and then he told me to leave, they both stayed inside. After a while, the Jew came out and told me.

“I explained to them what you did for me, they were going to kill you for being a Nazi, so I think we are even, you saved my life and I saved yours” he then laughed.

Then I laughed with him and in a moment that the world lacks these days we shook hands out of respect and went separate ways. I turned around swiftly and said, “You never told me your name”. “Paul, but I will always remember you, Erich, you saved my life,” said the Jew.

We parted our ways, the war was over for me and soon it

would be for Germany. I was sent to a Pow camp, they treated me well there. Days later I learned that the mustache man, the fascist leader of this madness had shot himself. I had learned we were wrong and all the pain we had inflicted in humanity. That’s why I was thankful for what I did, I learned that belief is not a matter of choice but of conviction.