A man in a greenish-gray uniform, with a squashed face sporting an excessively large crooked nose, led us into the building while two uniformed guards brought up the rear. We had to line up in a bare, dirty hallway and then were called by twos into a room where two men sat behind a wooden divider. We had to identify ourselves and to hand over all our valuables and luggage as well as our jackets, suspenders, belts and pocket knives. I also had to give up my glasses, and from that moment on I could only get around with hands outstretched before me, as I am very nearsighted. Then the short man with the crooked face took charge of us again, leading the way bow-legged, flat-footed and dragging his feet. The fellow was a Jew such as is commonly depicted in caricatures, but his face did not look quite as low-class as the rest of his stature seemed.

He took us to the second story, into a large empty prison cell six double steps long and perhaps four wide. In the time that followed we had more than enough opportunity to walk its measure in both length and breadth. The room had a cement floor; up against one wall there leaned a wooden board, two trestles that might have served as table legs, and a bench. Also, at about head-level, a board was affixed to one of the side walls, with a sort of dowel running underneath.

I was one of the first to enter this cell; the others followed one by one. They looked around the large, electrically lit room in obvious befuddlement. The ride on the jerky, rattling carts that magnified every pothole and rock in the road into hard jolts had been torture in the end; it had been especially hard on the older men. Herr Heinecke from Wybranowo, more than sixty-five years old and with a severe heart condition, had so far taken all the strain and hardships with something akin to humor, but now he dropped onto the bench and put his hand over his heart with a tired, almost absent-minded gesture. We moved the bench closer to the wall so he could lean against it. The Jew – by now we had found out that he was the guard of this part of the prison – had processed the old gentleman last. The endless standing and waiting in the bare hallway had cost him the last of his strength; but the guard had forbidden him to sit even though he saw that he was staggering from weakness.

Exhaustion overcame us all. For a few hours at least, we hoped, we would be safe. We stretched out on the concrete floor and tried to sleep. But barely half an hour passed before there was a banging on the door, rough voices could be heard, a key grated in the lock, and the guard came in. Two uniformed men loomed behind him. The guard looked searchingly through the room on whose floor the prisoners were sitting up, some of them sleepy, some startled, some groaning in pain for the cement floor was hard on all our bones. The guard gestured to Julius Mutschler, yelled at two others to get up and follow him, and after he left the cell with our three comrades the door crashed shut again.

It had been a strange interlude, and the Jew had grinned so nastily. Those of us left behind gazed at each other silently, no-one spoke what everyone thought but we all realized that we shared the same ominous suspicions. A stocky man, manager of a large co-operative, who had been a bit of a braggart and also not always a very pleasant person in other ways before the war – how long ago that seemed, how endlessly long ago that it had been peacetime! and yet today was only the third of September! – this man, therefore, now whispered in horror: "They won't shoot them, will they?" Suddenly he lost his composure (he had demonstrated rather weak nerves before this incident too) and shrieked, "for God's sake, they're not going to shoot us, are they?!"

Angrily, Walter Lemke said, "shut up, Rehse. The Poles don't shoot anyone just like that." But he spoke hoarsely, and his face too was pale. "One time I spent four months in Wronke prison, I know how these things go. They're probably going to interrogate us, or something like that."

What else could we do but believe what Lemke said. But now another faint-of-heart began to lament: "Oh if only I had been different towards the Poles, if only I had learned to speak Polish! What good is being German to us now..."

At that, Lemke, who had been sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, jumped up with surprising agility. The normally so calm, rather slight man was as though transformed; he marched up to the complainer and said, in a voice like ice, he should be silent, for he, Lemke from Luisenfelde, would tolerate not one word of cowardice. He had balled his hands into fists and it was clear to see that he would rather have used them than listen to such weakling complaints.

We stretched our aching joints out again on the cement floor and tried to sleep. But none of us managed. What were they doing to Mutschler? And why him in particular? And Stübner and Kepler? Why those three, specifically? We recalled what we had seen and heard in Hohensalza on the sports field, we remembered the raging mob in Lipno – was that really only twelve hours ago?

There was more banging at the door, the Jew reappeared. This time he'd even brought a woman along. She peered over his shoulder, puffy-eyed. The guard again yelled at two of us to get up, waved them rudely over to him: "Out with you!" he said. The woman prodded him – now we saw that she too was wearing some kind of uniform – she prodded the guard and pointed to Rehse, who sat pale and panting, staring with horror at the two people who wielded such power over others here. The Jew laughed. "You too!" he yelled, "up, come, quickly!" Rehse shuddered back, but then he pulled himself together, got up, and obeyed silently.

"Lemke, what does all this mean?" old man Heinecke asked.

"How would I know?" the tough little man replied. "I think they just want to wear us down. All of you, be quiet and don't let them see you're worried."

The next time around, the Tschekist – as we had already begun to call the guard – fetched Lemke, old man Heinecke, and me. Outside the door stood two men in uniform, but we saw that they were neither policemen nor soldiers, but wore the same badges as the guard. So they were prison officials. They also had no guns.

We were taken two stories down to the ground floor, through long hallways and down echoing stone stairs. The morning sun shone in, and light and shadows danced on the floor underneath a window outside of which we could see a tree in radiant yellow foliage. A cell was unlocked for us. We entered and – stood face to face with Stübner, Mutschler and Kepler. "What's going on?" asked Julius Mutschler. "What's happening? What are they doing to us?"

"There you are!" the three of us replied, heaving a sigh of relief.

"They brought us here, and then they left us standing. Look at that on the floor – over there!" said Mutschler darkly. His sly smile was completely wiped from his face.

A small iron ring was set in the middle of the floor. Aside from it, the cell, which was much smaller than that in the second floor, was completely empty. The six of us stared at the small ring, so harmless-looking. What did it mean? Is that where they tied their victim when they...? Probably none of us finished the thought. As yet our imagination fought against the thoughts of what fate might be in store for each of us. A ring like that – its only purpose could be to tie something to it. What could one tie to it in a cell that holds nothing, absolutely nothing other than six prisoners?

The morning sun shone in through a small window. The bars cast their patterned shadow on the floor.

Half an hour later they brought Rehse in. He entered, looked around fearfully, saw us sitting on the floor or walking up and down the cell, and could not believe his eyes. "What, what's happening..." he stuttered.

They had taken him to a cell by himself, and left him sitting there alone.

"Didn't I tell you? They're trying to wear us down. It's fine, now we know!" cried Walter Lemke. His voice was no longer hoarse as before, it had its old bright tone again. "Here, smoke, I have some cigarettes left." He took a box of matches. "Watch, you can learn to do this." He took his knife and split the thin match lengthwise into four sections. "I learned that in Wronke. I was imprisoned once before, for political misdemeanors. I think our stay here won't last four months like mine did that time." He started on a cigarette, passed it on, it made the round among us, everyone took a drag and no-one thought it strange to smoke a cigarette that someone else had already had in their mouth. We all sat down on the floor, leaned against the walls, tried to sleep, and greeted, with low voices but shining eyes, everyone who was brought in next. Some two hours later we were all together again in this new cell.

But hardly had we all settled down, crowded closely together, before the door opened again and a guard appeared. This time it wasn't the Jew. But what a face this fellow had! He held his head bent far forward, grinning stupidly and maliciously, peered at each of us in turn as though he were choosing a victim, relishing the doubt in all those pairs of eyes which reflected uncertainty again, and then he gestured to me. "You, over there, come!" But without my glasses I could not tell that he meant me. Also, we were sitting so closely together that Walter Lemke, who sat beside me, thought the fellow meant him, and started to get up. "No, dammit, the other one, beside you!" the guard shrieked. "Move, buddy, or do I have to help you?"

I got up, the door slammed into its lock behind me, the key rattled as it turned. And then I saw, before me in the middle of the hallway, a chair, and beside the chair a man in prison clothes, holding some kind of shiny object. Even though it was only a few meters away it was all blurry to me, all I could see was the glint of sunlight on steel or nickle but I thought, well, they probably won't cut my throat right here in the hallway. I was made to sit down on the chair, the man in prison clothes lifted a tool and – shaved my head bald. I already felt almost like a real prison inmate; and what must my comrades imagine was being done to me, after I had been singled out like I had!

When the man was finished, a different inmate took me to a supply room where I was given a striped shirt, a blanket, towel, spoon and bowl, for which I had to sign in a big book. Then I was taken back to the large cell in the second story where we had all been before. In one corner of the room lay a pile of straw sacks. I counted them. There were more than thirty. So everyone would get one. It seemed we had been deemed worthy of some basic creature comforts.

In the course of the next few hours one comrade after the other reappeared in this cell until we were all reunited without exception. Then the guards even brought us our food which had been confiscated on our arrival, and at the same time we got a new cellmate, a Pole, who entered with a bucket of drinking water. The newcomer, a short, lively, energetic man with a sly cast to his eyes, was introduced to us as our overseer, who would ensure order and whom we were all to obey. "Aha, the Cell Senior!" said Walter Lemke, who was already familiar with how things were in Polish prisons.

While we ate and drank, the Pole inquired about the various inmates. He had sat down on the bench beside me, pointed first at one, then at another, demanded to know their names and civilian professions. "Oooh, a manor owner?" The Pole opened his eyes wide. "So, how much does he own? I mean, how many morgen of land?" "Well, probably about five or six thousand." "And that young one, is that his son?" "No, that's a landowner too, he owns 960 morgen." And so he asked on and on, and his astonishment grew.

"So, so; they're all noble gents, big men. Well, whenever I get out of here, and I come to see you all, you'll help me, won't you, hmmm?"

"That depends," I replied, cautiously and in the same clumsy way the Pole himself spoke. "If you, you know, if you're not mean to us... But what's your story?"

"Oh, me, I have nothing. My father has four morgen land, I work for him."

"But why are you here in prison?"

"Ah, well, was a dance in the village, were other fellows there too, we played around a bit with knives, someone died. Ah, well, someone had to go to prison, they picked me."

Suddenly he lifted his head and called angrily: "What are you doing? Can't you drink properly, do you have to spill? Take a rag, right now, wipe it up! It'll leave spots, and the pan przodownik¹ will be mad!"

Old man Heinecke was the culprit; he had spilled a few drops of water while scooping with his cup from the bucket. Young Meister took a rag. "Don't worry, I'll take care of it!" he said and rubbed the floor until no damp was left. Panje Killer, who had "played around a bit with knives", inspected the floor to make sure it was dry again.

Then he stood by the door and said, what counted was to earn the pan przodownik's good will. Everything had to be neat, cleanly swept, no dirt on the floor, no spots, nothing. When Mr. Warden came we would all have to line up in rows of two and greet him, and when he left we also had to greet him. And he would practice it with us. Then he roared: "Attention!"

He lined us up in order of size and said, this was how we would always have to stand as soon as we noticed the door being unlocked. And the greeting was, "Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku!"² He would practice that with us too. "Attention!" he yelled. And we all said, "Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku."

That was children's blabber, not a greeting of men, said Mr. Killer, "louder!"

"Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku!" we yelled.

Yes, he said, that was better, but one of us said it slowly, the other fast. We should watch his hand, he'd give us the beat.

"Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku!" we now roared, in unison.

Good, he said, but we needed to practice. Again!

"Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku!"

Again! And again! And... no, not loud enough. Again!

"Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku!"

Yes, now we were all laughing. That didn't bother him, said our dear Mr. Killer, but when Mr. Przodownik arrived, none of us must laugh or even twitch our lips. Mr. Przodownik had no sense of humor. So, one more time, all of us together now:

"Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku!"

And so we repeated the greeting over and over again, at the top of our lungs, until suddenly the key was heard turning in the lock. The Pole raised his finger, we squared our shoulders – after all, almost all of us had been German soldiers at one time – the door opened, and in came a guard with a prisoner carrying a steaming bucket of food. The greeting was unnecessary. "Eight portions," said the guard, "for those with the red warrants. The others provide their own rations." The eight stepped forward, held out their bowls, the inmate put one scoop into each bowl, but the guard – the first person we had seen so far among all the personnel who had a decent face – said that he should fill the bowls all the way. And in this way each of us got a bit of warm soup, for just as we had shared our provisions in the morning, the eight soup recipients now shared with everyone.

"Aha!" said Walter Lemke, "it's the first Sunday of the month today, that's stew day." Our mood had mellowed during the meal, even though the broth in the bowls looked rather suspect. We tried not to think about what the state of cleanliness in the prison kitchen must be. But it was a warm meal, the first warm meal for all of us since September the first. And today was already the third day of our imprisonment, the fourth or even the fifth for some others.

"Eat up!" said Lemke, "leave nothing over. We'll need our strength."

Some time after the meal the door was unlocked again. "Twelve men!" yelled the guard. And our Killer added in explanation, "Anyone who has to go badly, go first!" (He put it rather more bluntly.) In the corner behind the pile of straw sacks stood a bucket with a tight-fitting lid, but it was only to be used in emergencies, as Killer Senior had warned.

We were ordered to bring our towels and food bowls along. The wash room had twelve taps and we all washed up with abandon and downright delight; it was the first time since our arrest. The food bowls also had to be cleaned on this occasion. But each group was given a mere ten minutes.

"Psia krew!"³ Walter Lemke said respectfully when he returned, "such strict porzadek.⁴ This place is a real luxury hotel." It soon became apparent in this prison that Lemke, a slight, short man, a farmer from near Hohensalza but with small, slender hands like a woman's, had a calm fearless nature and almost serene composure that made him equal to anything.

Time passed. Some began to tell stories of what they had experienced, and soon the room resounded with jokes both good and bad. But none of us dared mention the war and how it might be going; we did not trust the Pole. Who knew if maybe he understood German after all.

But the Pole in question suddenly began to scold loudly: what a mess, he said. Hadn't our mothers taught us neatness? "Look at how the towels are flung across the bar! Just like that! No, no!" And he showed us how it should be done. He folded a towel lengthwise by a third, took it in his hands by either end and drew it back and forth across the table's edge a few times until it got a sharp crease, as though ironed. Then he folded the other long edge over as well, so that the entire towel now had only a third of its original width, and drew it over the table edge a few more times. Then he folded it in half and hung it over the wooden dowel that ran along the wall under the shelf. And everyone should remember which spot was theirs! (He had taken the first spot, of course.)

We had watched our teacher closely and now stood around the table busily ironing our towels. Then Walter Lemke arranged them dead straight on the dowel, making sure that none hung lower than any of the others. We were quite pleased with our work, another fifteen minutes had passed, and we had to admit to our Killer Cell Senior that yes, it looked much better now.

In the afternoon I happened to be standing by the door, scooping some water from the bucket that stood right by the entrance, when the door opened and another inmate entered the cell. There was a general Ah! of greeting.

"Here, take!" I said to him in German and held the water scoop out to him, for I knew that they were all thirsty and of course I believed the newcomer was a German too.

But he said proudly, "Od niemcza wodę nie bierę!" I don't take water from a German.

Whoa, I thought, here's one who is better than we are. And I was right. He later introduced himself to our Killer Senior as a vice-Starost, in other words, a government official.

"Well, what do you think he did," the Cell Senior said when I asked him later. "He got caught. You know there are two kinds of officials in Poland, those who got caught and those who will. Well, he's the first kind. He probably helped himself to a bit from the cash box, a bit too much I'd guess, since they don't care about small amounts in our administration."

There were other such characters among us in this prison. For example the inmate who had recorded our personal data the day we'd arrived had been First Secretary at the Wloclawek District Court!

Afternoon passed, it grew dark. The warden stopped at our cell on his evening rounds, we heard the key turn in the lock in time, lined up, and shouted our greeting:

"Dzien dobry, panie przodowniku!"

He grinned maliciously and asked our Killer if anything new had happened; the government official had to report. "Ah, a vice-Starost!" said the przodownik. "A fine gentleman. We have other fine gentlemen here. Helped yourself to a bit from the till, hmm?" The starost replied with a noncommittal shrug; clearly he would have liked to deny it because we were there, but didn't really dare do so since the przodownik knew the reason for his arrest perfectly well. When he left we roared after him:

"Dobra noc, panie przodowniku!"⁵

The fellow really did nothing worth mentioning to us while we were at that prison. But his furtive gait, the gloating look on his face, his eyes that never looked straight into ours – all that made him less than popular with us.

We put the straw sacks on the floor one beside the other and lay down to sleep. But our Cell Senior called two of us over to help him reassemble the table in a corner of the room so that it stood lengthwise along the wall, and then he nonchalantly selected the best-stuffed straw sack and displaced the comrade already sitting on it – I think it was Rehse. Rehse had to get himself another one from the pile, while our Killer Senior placed his on top of the table. That's where he slept, three feet off the floor and higher than the common folk. But before he retired to his perch he did five minutes' gymnastics. He stood with his back to the wall, gathered his strength for a moment and then started on a high-speed march through the cell. Staring fixedly at the floor before him, he walked with small, fast, firm steps to the opposite wall, turned quickly around, walked back, turned again, and repeated the maneuver some twenty times more. We watched him with a fair bit of astonishment. When he felt he had done enough, he went to his bed, took off his shoes, laid down on his straw sack, covered up with his prison-issued woolen blanket, and was sound asleep just a few short minutes later.

We had watched in baffled amusement. Lemke, whose straw sack was on the floor next to mine, now said softly: "Well, he needs it. He's got six years left to go. For us it probably won't be more than another six days." And with that, he too stretched out. "Like I said, a downright luxury hotel," he added with an almost hedonistic growl. "There's even a blanket! A first-rate establishment!"

We had all begun to feel that even though the strange mixture of cold, malicious threats and bureaucratic order was oppressive, we were not in imminent danger in this prison. Lemke's accounts – the voice of experience of one who had already once spent four months in a place like this and had on the whole come through them just fine – had done their part to restore what courage we might have lost after the events at the Lipno train station. The murders and abuses which we had been told about must have been random cases... Later we learned that on this selfsame day, September 3, Bromberg had seen its day of bloodshed. It was a good thing that we did not know of these events at the time, for our home town was only a few hours away from Bromberg. We believed our loved ones to be safe; if we had known of the atrocities being committed on those left behind, these days of our imprisonment would hardly have been bearable for us.

We had spent the first night lying on the floor of the cattle cars or huddling on our suitcases, the second on the rattling boards of the panje carts; this night we hoped we could actually sleep through until morning. The straw sacks seemed to us more delicious a resting place than our beds at home, and our aching bones felt the relief of a softer padding. One must not forget that of all of us, Meister was probably the only one under forty years of age, and about half of us were over fifty.

The light was turned out around nine o'clock that night. Now it was dark in the cell, and we soon fell asleep. We were awakened several more times that night whenever newly arrived inmates were sent into our cell. Almost all of them were men we already knew, such as Reverend Duebal from Graudenz, the landowner Rust from Woiczin, and others. There was always a lively welcome. We saw how the new arrivals breathed more freely when they saw us, and how their confidence grew. They all had gone through some more or less fear-filled days, and we thought we could assure them that there would be no more overly horrible things in store for them here at the prison. Our Killer Senior, who had been a guest of this establishment for several months already, had told us a few things that served to reassure us.

Towards midnight, when we had once again had a half-hour's sleep, the lights were turned on again from the outside; we woke up and heard the key being turned in the lock. Killer Senior jumped off his bed-perch and roared an order, we got up and arranged ourselves in drowsy rows of two, the warden came in, and we bellowed our greeting: "Dobra noc, panie przodowniku!" Behind the Pole, a single man entered the cell, tall, wiry, slim, a man with nothing out-of-the-ordinary about him. He came in calmly and with embarrassed curiosity, and our Polish greeting visibly took him aback. Further, the air assaulting him in our hot, overcrowded room was not exactly roses. He opened his rather sleepy eyes for a surprised survey and his nose wrinkled. I forgot where I was, and cried loudly: "Man, Udo Roth!"

He looked at me, startled, then grinned and recognized me despite my three days' growth of beard and lack of glasses. Delighted, we shook hands. Killer Senior, shocked by such a lack of discipline, made move to separate us, but the przodownik only grinned in magnanimous disdain and shuffled flat-footed out the door again. He was probably tired too.

Udo Roth shook everyone's hand and, having understood the situation right away and being thoroughly exhausted, he took a straw sack from the ever-shrinking pile and made move to lie down among us. Never in my life will I forget the moment when he stood there before us, his left hand holding a corner of the sack hanging down to the floor behind him, when he suddenly raised his right hand slightly and said: "Gentlemen, they're already at the Vistula, coming from Pomerania!"

It seemed to me as though we all staggered a little at that moment. I felt my knees trembling, and had to sit down. A stiff silence suddenly filled the room, but inside we were in uproar. It was a good thing that our Killer Senior picked that moment to say a few words to the vice-Starost, otherwise we would no doubt have forgotten ourselves. But even so I couldn't help myself, I had to ask: "Udo, where?" It was said quietly, and he, understanding right away, replied just as quietly: "Near Kulm."

Measured by the course of the Vistula river that was some 120 kilometers away, but only 80 or so as the crow flies. Even though we did not know the exact numbers, we all knew the location of the larger cities and towns of our homeland. Now our thoughts stirred and longing awoke and there was probably not one among us who didn't try to calculate how much longer it might be before "they" would arrive in Hohensalza and then in Wloclawek. We had probably all assumed that the first advance would be through the Corridor in order to establish a connection with East Prussia. But now, belief had turned to certainty. I don't know how Udo Roth had heard the news. It was the only news to reach us during the entire time of our imprisonment. It strengthened us immeasurably.

Finally our overtired bodies demanded rest, and we all slept deeply and without dreams.

By Monday the population of our cell had grown to thirty-two men. Killer Senior told us that a second cell on the same floor as ours held another forty Germans. In the morning and around noon, the following days as well, we were always taken twelve men at a time to the wash room. Monday morning we were led into a large shower; we had to strip naked and soap up – partly ourselves, partly each other, depending on orders – and then got a lukewarm shower. Meanwhile our clothes were taken to be deloused in a steam-boiler which the German administration had evidently installed in this prison during the Great War, for the boiler bore an iron plaque with a German inscription. I recall it said "Main Delousing Facility" and the name of a city in the East.

We slept through the night from Monday to Tuesday without interruptions. We recovered our strength a little during those days, as we still had food and received enough water. Our Killer Senior saw to that; being an old-established inmate, he had a good relationship with one of our guards and was even able to smuggle a few boxes of cigarettes into our cell, for hefty payment of course.

Incidentally, the inmate who had shaved our heads was a brother-in-law of our trusty Killer, and, as the latter told us proudly, the women's section of the prison also housed a blood relative of his. One can see that he was from a very busy family.

On Monday the bomber alarm sounded repeatedly; through the two small windows we would hear the confused chatter of Polish anti-aircraft fire, which seemed very loud in our small cell. Bombs did not appear to have fallen that day; we suspected that it had been reconnaissance flights by our Luftwaffe.

On Tuesday around noon the sirens went off again. We knew that the German planes would not drop gas bombs and therefore refused to constantly close the two windows of our cell; one of us always had to climb onto the shoulders of a strong comrade to do so. Our three Poles, however – a Polish merchant had joined us in the meantime – always screamed and shrieked in fear, and so this time our comrade Harmel from Strelno decided to close the two hatches. Hardly had he climbed down again from Udo Roth's shoulders before we heard a deafening howl descending on us like a hammer blow from the sky, followed immediately by an explosion; the just-closed windows burst, a hail of small shrapnel sprayed over us, the entire old building shivered and shook, plaster crashed from the ceiling, large parts of the wall plaster also broke off and fell on us, and at the same time the room was bathed in a flickering red fire glow that turned the clouds of dust and dirt filling our cell into a reddish fog. When the glow had faded we saw through the windows some thick, toxic-black columns of smoke rising from the square outside. At that moment probably all of us thought the prison was on fire.

When the bomb fell I had sat near the doorway mending my stockings. My first reaction was to get away from the outside wall, to the pile of straw sacks. I took a flying leap to the other corner of the large room, stumbling in the process and tearing all the skin off the top of my toes on my right foot. The move had been about as fast as a soldier can throw himself to the ground when a grenade hits. Others dropped to the floor, still others leaped away from the outside wall like me, or at least into the room's corners, because the likelihood of the walls collapsing is less there. It was a massive confusion, and I think we all yelled or screamed in the first moment of shock. In any case I can attest that it is a horrible sensation to be locked up in the cell of a stone prison during an air raid.

Once the first excitement had died down we saw that Walter Milbradt lay bleeding beneath three other comrades. We went to help him but were distracted by a screeching, piercing, incessant screaming. Our Killer Senior clung like a spider monkey to one of the two windows, he clutched the iron bars with both hands and howled and screamed Polish prayers and half-sentences without seeming to pause for breath; we kept hearing the words Matka boska, Matka boska! and Jaschka kochana, Jaschka kochana! I have already mentioned that the Cell Senior was a short fellow. It was a mystery to all of us how he had managed so suddenly to reach the window, for as I said we others always had to climb onto another man's shoulders to open or close the hatches. Strangely enough, the sight of the writhing body, the squawking cries of the Pole calmed me down. No, I would not act as crazy as that.

Udo Roth bent forward and called, "come on, Harmel, get up, look out and check what's going on." Short, tough Harmel understood right away what Roth meant; he climbed up on his back and looked out the second window.

Now a man hung from each window. But while one shrieked and lamented, the other surveyed the scene outside on the square as best as possible and then gestured in calm dismissal. He climbed back down. A small wooden shed nearby was burning, he said, that was all.

Walter Lemke had been one of the first to regain his composure after the initial fright; he said – though he did speak a little more excitedly than usual – that the prison building was still standing and the cracks in the walls didn't seem bad enough to indicate an imminent collapse. So, quiet, everyone!

But we were far from quiet yet. The two other Poles which we had all but ignored until then were acting like madmen. A roar of screaming voices was to be heard from the neighboring cells, we heard inmates banging on the doors and also heard dull pounding blows from other parts of the building. Evidently the frightened prisoners were trying to batter down the cell doors with benches or wooden blocks. In one case they must have succeeded because suddenly we heard noise and shrieks of fear in the hallway and the sound of many running feet. Our Poles were seized by the same idea, they picked up the tabletop board and tried to ram down the door with it, all three of them together – for by then our Killer Senior had dropped from the window like an overripe apple, had scraped his hands and knees on the wall as he fell, and this had not served to calm him down. In a piercing voice used to giving orders, Udo Roth suddenly roared at the three of them like I have rarely heard a man roar, not even my sarge twenty years ago, and we grabbed the Polacks and forced them into a corner. We had no desire to break out and then be shot for it by the guards.

Finally the three Poles calmed down, but our Killer Senior was very quiet from that point on and the vice-Starost did not lose the crazed flicker in his eyes for hours. We swept up the fallen ceiling and wall plaster and the glass and waited to see what would happen. Our comrade Milbradt from Altreden had a deep cut from one of the glass shards; others were only slightly injured. After a time a guard appeared to assess the damage. He took the injured men with him and they returned half an hour later, properly bandaged. They told us that the Polish guards and the infirmary personnel were terrified beyond words and that the orderlies' hands had trembled while they bandaged the injured.

Even hours later, our cell was filled with a cloud of dust that settled so slowly that we had to keep our eyes, mouth and nose covered with handkerchiefs. Nonetheless we coughed and sneezed until well after dark.

In the evening we heard from one of the guards that the grenade had fallen about two meters away from the wall of our prison, into the square where it had collapsed the wall of the prison kitchen and cost our "przodownik" his life. We had to keep a tight rein on ourselves so as not to show our satisfaction at that bit of news. Aside from the first night, when he had tried to break us psychologically, the man had not harmed us. The bureaucratically ordered routine of prison life had not yet given him the opportunity. But all of us had dreaded the thought of being left in that man's hands if, perhaps, the approach of the battle zone incited the people's hatred of us even more and the regulations in place for our prison were once broken. To date, despite many a petty harassment, we had no cause for serious complaint; after all, Wloclawek was not one of the infamous Polish torture institutions such as Bereza Katuska or Sieradz.

We hoped for a quiet night. Since the grenade had damaged the electrical wiring, we had to lie down to sleep in total darkness; even this night our Killer Senior had not forgone his elevated bed on the tabletop.

¹The prison warden: Mr. Warden. ...back...

²"Good day, Mr. Warden!" ...back...

³Polish curse; literally, dog's blood. ...back...

⁴Order. ...back...

⁵"Good night, Mr. Warden!" ...back...

Long Night's Journey Into Day.
The Death March of Lowicz.
Erhard Wittek