(10) The Reiche factory and my "helpers"

I could tell that the war was getting closer to us, it was 1943/4 and the bombing in the vicinity was increasing in frequency and level.

One morning the postman brought a letter to Herr Rottlander. This contained rail tickets and a letter saying I had to report to Overath Rail station, as I was to leave and go to the Reiche factory.

Next day, I packed up my few belongings, said goodbye to the Rottlanders and reported to the station as ordered. The journey took a few hours, and I arrived at Reiche in the mid morning.

We were pointed to our huts. They stank and were cold. I looked at my bed. I'd never seen a mattress that moved on its own. I looked at the old guy in the next bed and he said

"Don't you know what that is? It's lice doing that"

A German came in, looked me up and down and took me to the office to register. You had to register, there were over a thousand people working there.

At registration they asked me where I learned to speak German.

"Well I learned it at High School"

"Why did you learn German?"

I just told him the truth, it was our second language where I came from. We didn't learn English, because we knew very little about England in those days, we learned German. There were a couple of Frenchmen there as well, one said "Bonjour." I said "Bonjour, comment allez vous?" and continued to introduce myself in French. The German said "Oh you speak French as well?" "Well yes", I said, "and a bit of Russian and Czec as well".

After registration, a second German took me and started to show me round the factory, showing me what I was expected to do. I was told that I would be working on a furnace melting metal. There were three furnaces, It was so hot the sweat ran from you all the time. You took the molten metal on a crane, and cast in to ingots. I looked round at the men working there, they were only skin and bones. I longed to be back with Rottlander on the farm.

After a few days there, another German, sidled up to me he looked me up and down. He said to me,

"What about your tongue? Is it a rubber one?"

I said "I don't think so, what I hear and what I see, I keep to myself"

"Oh that's good!" he said. "That's good, come with me."

He then started to show me round the camp. Rows and rows of barracks, double wire netting fences topped with barbed wire, and a ditch filled with water outside that. Around the perimeter were lookout towers with machine gun emplacements. This was a real high-security unit, unlike anything I'd been to before.

He said "Why did you learn so many foreign languages?"

I said that in School in Poland before the war, we just learned languages, and I liked languages.

"What did you learn Russian for?" he asked.

I explained that my father was a Major in the Tsar's Russian army.

"Oh, so you were in the Russian area of Poland then?"

I told him that where I lived was now the Russian/German frontier.

"Come with me" he said.

"Look, there are four guard posts on each corner of the camp. The SA man these. If you try and escape, they'll shoot you.

Every hour, the guard changes, OK?

Look, there are 30 or more barrack huts here."

"Come with me," he said

"See this one here, look at the barbed wire fence, about one metre from here, there is a shadow where the guards can't see you. It's the only place on the fence where the view is obstructed.

He said "what're you thinking about?"

Well I couldn't really say what I was thinking as I'd no idea who this fucker was! They might have been trying to find out if I was reliable and could keep my mouth shut.

He said, "You got it?"

I said,,"Yes, so far, it's a blind spot for the guards".

He went on, "And you see that wire netting and barbed wire? And you see the ditch? The other side of that is a forest, there's a road, a railway line, and a big forest. He said it again "You got it?"

"I'll leave you now, another bloke'll come along, you have a chat with him, eh?"

Sure enough another bloke came up to me.

"So you're the one who speaks so many languages are you?"

I said "well, yes, I've been around a bit (actually I said "on the Windmill and the electric mill" which probably translated badly from Polish...)

"What're you talking about, grinding corn or something!" he replied

"No, I mean I've been through the Education mill"

He looked pointedly at me and said "What did you learn all those foreign languages for?"

I said that I just did them at school, I learn languages quickly.

"Oh come now," he grinned, "there must be some other reason! You're not just an ordinary person! You are a Somebody.
I just smiled, I thought I'd better play along with these people. I was intrigued.

So he said, "is your tongue rubber, or do you keep it inside your mouth?"

I told him that I kept it inside my mouth

"What do you think about the war and the Germans?" He asked, "We'll win the war you know".

I said "Well good luck, I'll stay here for good in that case."

"Oh that's good" he said. "Did you come here by train?"

"No" I said, "I don't really want to travel, I'll work on a farm or in a factory, I don't mind."

"Did that man show you the the fence?"

"Yes."

"What do you think about that?"

I said, "well I don't think much really…"

"Did he show you the one blind spot in the fence by the barracks?"

"Yes."

So he looked at me and said nothing, just looking me up and down, up and down, remarking that I was not very skinny. Working on the farm meant I eat quite well.

I think they must have thought I was some sort of spy.

He said "look, give me your hand," and he gave me a pair of wire cutters and said "I don't know you and you don't know me do you? Right? There will be another man coming to see you.

By now I wasn't sure what the hell was going on, here I was, expecting them to make soap from me, and they were encouraging me to escape!

Then another German came up and told me that there was a train past every day at a quarter past midnight. "Here are some tickets".

I now had the information, the tickets and the means of escape. but I was unsure whether they were trying to help me or kill me.