Part 2: Changing at Nuremberg
By mitzi44
- 853 reads
Change at Nuremberg
At Nuremberg we had to disembark in order to take a Soviet train into Czechoslovakia. Dad struck up conversation with a porter enquiring as to some sort of cheap eatery nearby. We had six hours to kill which was a ludicrous amount of time with a couple of kids in tow. Dad spoke German fluently as he did French and English. I suspect Russian also although he never admitted to it. A couple of taxis were hailed and the card-playing group and us all bundled in. As if it were in the here and now, I recall the sight which met my eyes. Nuremberg had been slain. Nuremberg had suffered catastrophe. Nuremberg had been brought to her knees. Large sides of buildings stood out against the night sky, their sightless, socketed eyes looking down. With the moon shining from behind, this great dame of a city was weeping huge tears. The roads had been meticulously cleared and repaired but on either side massive piles of yet to be cleared rubble reared up like slag heaps. Stone upon stone, pile upon pile. Homes that had sheltered sleeping families, dining families, children laughing, the sick, the hale and hearty, the young and the old. Life. Wiped out by a squadron of aircraft and bombed into submission. I thought of the terrifying drone of those engines overhead as one lay sleeping under a goose down quilt; holding ones breathe and muttering a quick prayer; running into parent’s rooms screaming in terror before the fatal hit. I, in my childhood thus far, knew well who the Germans were. They were a dreadful race run by a madman called Hitler. They bombed us night after night. They blew up our ships and stopped our Californian tinned peaches from arriving in port. They were demonized. “Who did this, Daddy?” I ventured. “We did,” was his reply. That was the moment when the cold, thin hands of adulthood descended like a mantle on my shoulders. The moment when realization bit. I already knew in the immature depths of reasoning but, rather like the child who skirts the pertinent questions about Father Christmas in order to avoid the horrible truth, I already knew we did it. Tears stung my eyes and a petal of childhood dropped forever from my flowered halo.
A restaurant of sorts was located, of course, and a meal and a lot of beer was ordered. The owner came in to talk to his strange guests and to warn us what to expect on the other side of the track. Stories of the Russians coming in. Atrocities committed: rapes, street sniper fights, deprivation and starvation. I remember the word “liberation”. The Russians had “liberated the Germans”, this I knew. Hitler lay dead in his bunker with his whore. Some of his henchmen had fled. It was common knowledge, even to the kids playing in the street. What I didn’t understand was why the Russians were fearsome and hated after they had “liberated” Eastern Europe. They had set them free, hadn’t they? Yes they had, but at what cost? I was about to learn.
On returning to the station, we were told to walk down a track to the right and our train would be waiting for us. We stepped from the platform onto some kind of uneven clinker and stumbled along in pitch darkness. My sister and I had only our little rucksacks but dad, along with the other members of the group, sported massive cases which were laden to the gunnels. Not, I might add, with bathers, tropical style shirts, suntan cream, shorts, towels, and open-toe sandals, but with tea, coffee, chewing gum, knitting wool, clothing fabric (in dad's case a bale of Harris tweed for his father) medication, spices… These were the gifts that they would leave. Everyone knew that these countries behind the “Iron Curtain” had been stripped of their wealth, plundered for their resources and the people beggared. This deprivation hurt none more than my babushka who could no longer get hold of her cinnamon for apple strudel; her raisins and sultanas; her fabric for clothing; her tea and beloved coffee. This had somehow been communicated via scanty correspondence which both the reader and the sender knew had been scanned by the authorities. Code messages of sorts had been sent of how “poor dědeček” was looking forward to sharing some delicious apple strudel with us, which somehow my dad had worked out was code for “…but not with Cinnamon”.
Sulking and snorting like a great animal, a massive train stood waiting for us in the darkness. As we walked straight ahead and right up to the broad-shouldered beast and stared full on at the mass, I spotted the red star and the hammer and sickle emblazoned across its mighty chest. A slow throbbing sound which seemed to insist some sort of urgency to board, emitted from the beast’s underbelly. We all felt it and began hastily to board. The bottom step could not be reached by Jana and I, such was its height. Dad lifted me and I grabbed the steel bar to hoist myself aboard. Little sister followed. Nobody, not a soul, was aboard. The stench of a filthy toilet and cheap tobacco filled the air. I recalled a news film I had seen of people being pushed on board some cattle truck trains against their will. Bundled in coats and scarves. Women, children, grannies and grandfathers. Was this how they felt? Like an animal who has never read the tale, who has never seen the killer, who has never yet met with wickedness, a curious instinct kicked in. Jana and I trembled. We were going into unknown territory. We were terrified. And so was dad. Even he whose family had enjoyed one of the highest economies in Europe, who had skied in the Czech Vysoké Tatry mountains in winter, who had holidayed in historical spa towns, who had eaten in the finest restaurants in Prague, who would travel into Vienna for a weekend, who would go to Paris merely to take in a show he fancied and to give his French an airing. Our dad, who wasn’t afraid of anything life would throw at him, gifted in the art of affability encompassed with deep, natural, love of the world and the human condition. I glanced at him with the fag stuck to his lip as he concocted a makeshift bed for sis and me, out of our rucksacks and windcheaters and bid us an airy goodnight whilst he went to form another den of fags, booze and card playing. Nothing serious. The stakes were too low. I knew even he couldn’t fight what was coming to us.
It wasn’t long before the prospect of finding a lavatory once again crept up upon me, and seeing Jana asleep, I ventured into the corridor in search. My nose acted as the radar in this case and I had little trouble in locating the desired location. The sight which greeted me made me recoil against the door, which had neither lock nor engaged sign. The floor was awash with fluid which I hoped just came from the constant dribble of water down the pan and leakage from the base. My two feet in their Clarks' T-bar sandals and white socks created a strange composition against the yellowed stalagmites and stalactites pushing up their fiendish broken fingers to the very surface of the offending latrine. It wasn’t as if I had never seen or had to use an appalling lavatory; I had, in my short life, accosted many. The outside toilets in the playground of my Portobello school, roofless by design, open to the elements; the seating area two half-moons of rotting wood, the long chain with a rubber ball attached to the end as a handle. Then there was the well-frequented toilet in our shabby flat, in the middle of the landing, shared with the Kashmiri family downstairs and Mr and Mrs Brogg opposite, all of whom had equal usage rights. Mr Brogg, who boasted a butler sink on his landing, would always put in an appearance as you went inside to start, running a tap until you came out. And of course the Suffolk farm where we visited my dad's friend... the outside box, with wide wooden seat, and a gully dug out to the rear to drain the waste into the little creek. These were just a few of the sanitary horrors that haunt me still.
But this one was in a league of its own. It occurred to me that it must have been in existence for years. That thousands of people had graced its seat. Where had they all been going to? Not on holiday that was for sure. A terrible dread fell upon me and when I returned, my instincts had not been in vain: poor little Jana was being quizzed by two uniformed men. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and plopping, splodge like, on the ridiculous taffeta dresses my mother had clad us in for the journey. (My goodness what must we have looked like!) It was frightening for sure – the cross-examination was not being conducted in a kindly way. I do not know why, but I turned on them in fury and from my soul came the words “Odejít! Nevím nic.” Go away! I know nothing. To my relief they did just that but not until they had let a couple of huge Alsatian dogs off their leash to sniff under our seats and in the corridors. Searchlights beamed into our compartment from a high tower outside plunging us intermittently between blinding light and the blackest of darkness. Peering out the window into the gloom, I noticed that we had begun to slowly, very slowly, move into what looked like a desert of tree stumps. A cut down forest that went on for a couple of miles. Trees cut down in order to open up the landscape in order for those searchlights to pick out anyone trying to leave the Soviet Zone. We had crossed through the Iron Curtain.
A band struck up a merry Slavic tune and beer tankards were raised. I was lifted out the door of the train and held aloft on a platform. Then, suddenly I was tossed into the air like a sausage in someone’s coat. Caught and tossed again like the bumps at a birthday party. That old familiar smell from my early days, of garlic, coffee, pine needles, tobacco and perspiring humans assailed my nostrils. I drank it in, I relished it, I embraced it. I was home again. This party of poor people in their thick old wartime coats and scarves had come to know that a certain train at a certain hour would come to halt briefly at their station. They had waited in silence until the beast appeared through the darkness. The band struck up, they cheered, they kissed us and patted backs. They were saying “Hello lads who fought for your country, welcome home. We have loved and missed you and we embrace you with everything we can give you, but alas, alas we are not what we once were. We are broken”.
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(in dads case [dad's case]
(in dads case [dad's case] Clark’s T bar sandals [Clarks' T-bar]
great story telling. Look forward to more.
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You capture scenes in such
You capture scenes in such detail. Fantastic story telling.
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Really wonderful, vivid
Really wonderful, vivid description. Make sure you stay with the child's eye view of it all (you have so far)
When you do your second draft - here:
'A slow throbbing sound which seemed to emit some sort of urgency to board, emitted from the beast’s underbelly.'
You will need to substitute one of those emits
Keep going!
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out of the ordinary, in a
out of the ordinary, in a good way. full of oddities because that's what life is. write on and let us read on.
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