It was a magnificent June day when we stepped through the gate of the goddamn camp… A Sunday.
The POWs put on a show. Needless to say, I didn’t bother… We were able to wash, buy cigarettes at the commissary, eat soup, drink warm beer, and sleep on a board in a hut.
Filthy French zwine!
I remember that an old lady approached the barbed wire and spit at us.
In no time, the first “scuttlebutt” started to circulate within the camp: “Regular as clockwork! In three days, we’ll be liberated! They can’t keep us here. There are too many of us.”
Scuttlebutt?
Crunchies?
Fake news. The sound of a pot clanking against a mess tin. The crunchies are always cooking up some scuttlebutt.
My morale was zero, and I wasn’t the only one. I often crossed paths with a tall, skinny fellow—a young, talented doctor—who also didn’t seem keen on our lamentable, yet grandiose, loss.
We didn’t exchange a single word during our stay in Trier. I was far from imagining that we were destined to see each other again a few decades later and that we would then recall our memories of captivity. After his company blew up a bridge, they had been captured. His passing through Strasbourg, a dead city, had left an impression on him…
He was obliged to work outside the Stalag, at a military hospital, before being sent home in 1943, to Lyon, where his wife and two daughters were waiting for him. I couldn’t know that we would meet 40 years later, on the steps of Town Hall in the 9th district in Paris in June—the 18th!
No church wedding for us!
At this point in the story, I can’t yet know that I’ll marry one of the doctor’s daughters, at Town Hall in the 9th district in Paris, in June 1983. Dominique is only four months old, and I’m not born yet!
The officers were separated from the troops and carted off to the Oflags. We didn’t see them again, except for the doctors and dentists, who were few and far between in the camps. I wondered again how this shitty army could function with the segregation that existed between the officers and troops. An army led by aristocrats, essentially. The officers didn’t put much effort into mingling with the soldiers, only speaking to them when absolutely necessary.
But papa, the army didn’t function.
After three or four days at Trier, we left the camp to go to the train station.
We got on the train under the same conditions as the first time. The Fritz, who had so kindly welcomed us, didn’t even offer us a glass of Moselle wine!
As soon as the train headed out of the station, we began carving up the shit holes. This time, we had the tools to pry open the sliding door, which hadn’t been pinned shut. We succeeded after several hours of effort.
You had to wait for the rails to curve in the right direction and the train to slow down to open the door and jump onto the ballast. But these conditions were rarely met. A few jumped, but the whole car couldn’t fly the coop.
While I awaited my turn, the train slowed, braked, and stopped. Our guards had caught on to our scheme. They closed the door, and pinned the bolt in place. The Krauts assigned someone to each car to catch the would-be escapees, who, they said, wouldn’t get far. The fall guy, if he were caught, would pay for the others. At each stop through the countryside, they checked the locking mechanism.
Two days and three nights under lock and key, avoiding the major rail lines used by the Wehrmacht. We saw the names of the stations through the gaps in the door. Without a map, we weren’t exactly sure where in Germany we were. Heading south, we bypassed Berlin and crossed the Oder River.
The train stopped. It was still night. They forced us out of the cars. Again, a concert of rifle butts and gummis. These grunts always had a detestable obsession with using rifles and billy clubs on our backs!
A rubber tube filled with sand and capped at each end.
Wehrkreis II—Military District II of the Reich—Pomerania, Baltic Coast. Pomerania was a region of old Poland. We weren’t far from the village of Hammerstein. In all, there were seven camps in this rathole, two Oflags and five Stalags. Mannschaftsstammlager IIB, also known as Stalag IIB, that was where they locked us up. Goddamn it!
This time, I realized how trapped I was. I cursed the army, the priests, teachers, bureaucrats—especially the bureaucrats! Every institution—not to mention Hitler, men, everyone! I wanted to destroy the whole world!
Papa, you already said that.