November 1967

November was a hard month on me.  I was in seventh grade at the Canadian School and had a music class from hell.  Mr. Elliot, I have no doubt was a wonderful teacher and a gifted musician but he was unable to understand that there are people in this world whom have no sense of rhythm and can not play a musical instrument!  He literally drove me to a nervous breakdown.

At the same time, father found out that Heisenberg was living in Munich and was very agitated to have learned this.  When the doctor wrote my school a request for a few days off for me to just get away and recover, father threw me in the car and took me to Munich for a long holiday.

It was fun and I naturally assumed that father had gone to see his old professor, when he disappeared for so many hours one day.  Coincidentally, Mr. Elliot did have a nervous breakdown and we ran into each other at the same hotel!

Fast forward to 1984 and I received a letter from my grandmother, it had been written in 1968!  Unfortunately, I already knew she had died in 1974 - I had seen a letter in German laying on the table at my father's house announcing her death.  So, I now knew for sure that father had lied to me for the length of his life about his family.  So, I decided to run his family down and solve the mystery of my father.

At the end of three years, I now knew that father was not whom he claimed to be; I had his real birth certificate and a good piece of his real life's history.

I also discovered that the real man, whose name father had taken back in Wöbbelin - had work on the Italian train system following his release from Wöbbelin and retired to Munich in July of 1967.  He had been murdered the very weekend I was in Munich with my father recovering.

Yet another coincidence in father's life?  Or did father permanently silence the one man whom could unravel father's real identity ... ?

When you hide behind a wall of lies, well, there is no way you can be thought innocent.  Luckily for father, there was nothing ever to tie him and that man together - only in this day and age, with the abundance of information can such a coincidence be ferreted out.

The Subject of Religion

This is the appropriate time to discuss father and his religious beliefs.  Why?  Because you have to remember earlier I told you about father converting to Judaism before marrying Monika, the young female prisoner he had met while interned at Wöbbelin.  So father was circumcised and this knowledge may have lead to a mis-identification of him by the US military.

To the US Military they had a quandary on their hands.   Father was known to have escaped from the advancing Russians, placing him on the east side of the Elbe River.  He was Jewish, that was obviously apparent from his medical examination.  Jewish, eastern Europe, survivor.  That pretty limited him to Nordhausen or Mittelbau.  But, was it possible to have escaped the SS carnage the US Army had discovered before the Russians had advanced on the Mittelbau complex?  This also meant he was a scientist or at the least science labor.  He had to have been familiar with the rocket programs.  So, his enigmatic past drew attention to him he really did not want.  Could it be there was anyone whom could be found whom knew him before his marriage to mother?

Father was really born into a Lutheran family in the small town of Munchstein, in Baslestadt, Switzerland.  The year he ran away from home, to join the Nazi cause, was also the year he went through Lutheran confirmation.  His family, and the church's pastors, all believed father was destined to join the priesthood.

Those Lutheran beliefs were obviously killed by the war - he saw what Lutherans were capable of - first hand.  His conversion to Judaism I am fairly certain was completely based on his sense of national and personal guilt.  What happened in the concentration camps was to have quite an impact on all of Germany and all whom I grew up with.  (And, yes, I understand that it was not the Lutherans whom were running the Nazi Party, but this was HIS take on the situation!  In truth, 7.5 million Christians were sent to the concentration camps for opposing Hitlers agenda.)

Father still held to his Judaism.  When I was born he personally brought in a Rabbi from Sacramento, California to see to my circumcision, on the eighth day, as required.  I was unable to be taken out the hospital for the first several months of life.  Babies of extra young mothers have a great many challenges in just surviving.

As I grew up, father taught me the Law of Moses, how to pray - in Yiddish, God's language of course!, and with a firm understanding that there is God - but you really do not want to know Him since he is not a very good god to his people.  I should say that part was beaten into me more than anything.

As I grew older, into teenage hood, father and mother clashed more and more over religion and food, eventually this brought about their divorce.  But we can look into that episode much later!

Following his divorce from my mother, father became an outright atheist.  Except he knew there was a God, he just did not what any part of him any longer.  So, perhaps it would be best to categorize father as a gnostic for the final fifty years of his life.  And, my becoming a Christian was about the final straw for him concerning me.....

Monika

I know very little about Monika.  I know she was Jewish and had been a prisoner at the Wöbbelin labor camp outside of Hamburg.  Her presence here means she had been originally held in the Auschwitz complex, and was one of the 10,000 women transferred to Wöbbelin.  Seems there had been a female uprising at Auschwitz, with one of the oven buildings destroyed by smuggled munitions being dumped into it.  Those whom could be identified as complicit with the bombing were executed, others scattered to various camps.  Further, her presence in Auschwitz, meant she was originally from a conquered territory.  Dutch, French, or even a Sudetenland Jew are all possibilities.  Since she stayed in Germany after the war, I will go with her being a Sudetenland German Jew.

These were the only women to have been at Wöbbelin.  I know that father met her here.

In my research I have managed to find exactly 5 photos of females whom were held at Wöbbelin; three of them are of the same woman.  Quite photogenic considering what she had gone through and young.  If anything, father was always drawn to light haired, small, young women.  Could this have been Monika?  Absolutely no idea, but given father's taste in women, a darn good candidate.  As you will see for yourself much later in my postings, ALL of father's wives were not so far removed from this young lady's appearance.  Too much coincidence here for me to believe!  I think he kept marrying Monika.

I have mentioned already that father was haunted by what the SS had done at Middelbau-Dora and Nordhausen, and what he saw.  I sincerely doubt father had much interaction with the prisoner population, other than the prisoner scientists.  But, he probably "knew" many whom were working on the A-9/V-3 project.

So, father is fleeing from the advancing Soviet Army and expects to find shelter at the underground complex.  Only, everyone is dead.  Well, the prison population anyways, the Germans were long gone.  People he "knew" and saw daily had been gunned down, some had been hung.  On the road in he had to have traveled, he would have come across the smoldering remains of a barn which had been stuffed with the "final solution" helpers - some 1,016 prisoners whom had helped and were rewarded with the fiery death of a barn burning by their SS keepers and those whom got out were gunned down as well.

At Nordhausen, where the scientist prisoners had been housed, the camp had been deserted.  Hundreds of bodies lay where they had been felled.  And we will look at this later on.

But, point is, these were the Jews.  He saw first hand the Reich's ruthlessness in dealing with the Jewish question.  It was not a matter of killing those whom could help their enemies, which he could have understood.  No, it was killing Jews, because of who they were.  Genocide was a new concept for him to come to terms with as a teenager in the camp.  In all honesty, he never was able to understand how his Fuhrer could have done this - "..... no, this must have been on orders from someone in the General Staff....".  Always protecting the Fuhrer.....

And then he was to meet a Jewish girl, one of the prisoners for her faith, and discovered that maybe Jews were human after all.  And knowing the way in which my father thought, he saw in her his ability to atone for what his chosen country had done.  He married her.

But, first he had to convert to Judaism himself, a Rabbi found - whom were a little scarce by this time and he had to have some form of support.  I like to think of her as sort of a female version of Daniel, standing for her faith even in the ruins of her life.  I will talk about these things later.

And he did convert, did marry and you guessed it - later abandoned Monika.

I only knew her through her letters.  She wrote father weekly, through the entirety of my young life.  She lived in Frankfurt and that was about all I can say.  When the internet became a reality, I spent many hours a year sifting through all of the Monika's living in the Frankfurt area and eventually did find her - about three months after she had died.  She had never remarried, which I found a little interesting - until I realized there had never been a divorce filing!

I also found she had a daughter, my half sister, and was very surprised she had been named for father's mother.  I thought about striking up a long distance relationship with her - but to what end?  What can you say to someone whom shared the same father, and she had been too young to even have a memory of him?  "Hi, I am your half brother and never knew our father either."  Yeah.  I am guessing the daughter was told he had died.  It would have been far more comforting than the truth.

And I know, as a post-war child of Germany myself, there were darn few children and even fewer men in my village.  No reason to assume Frankfurt was any different.  One thing war is good for is leaving a lot of widows and fatherless children behind.

So, if you are reading this and you are of Hebrew extraction, named Martha, had a mother named Monika - email me! 

Wöbbelin

To me, it is almost a sacrilege to even add comments to these pictures of the Wöbbelin Concentration Camp.  As a German, I have been appalled by the actions of my countrymen.  Lots of excuses but no sound reasons for what they did, save for as a group, they abandoned their Lutheran upbringing to cause chaos and destruction on a scale I hope to never encounter again in my lifetime.

I post these in hopes that by knowing what happened, you too will strive to do what you can to see that politicians are never again trusted with sufficient power to ever repeat what was done to Europe from 1933 to 1948.

*****

On May 2, 1945, the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division encountered Wöbbelin. Living conditions in the camp when the U.S. 8th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne arrived were deplorable. There was little food or water and some prisoners had resorted to cannibalism. When the units arrived, they found about 1,000 inmates dead in the camp. In the aftermath, the U.S. Army ordered the townspeople in Ludwigslust to visit the camp and bury the dead.

 

200 Found Dead in 1 Barracks

The Dead and the Dying Found Together

Compulsory Viewing

On May 7, 1945, the 82nd Airborne Division conducted funeral services for 200 inmates in the town of Ludwigslust. Attending the ceremony were citizens of Ludwigslust, captured German officers, and several hundred members of the airborne division. The U.S. Army chaplain at the service delivered a eulogy stating that:

    "The crimes here committed in the name of the German people and by their acquiescence were minor compared to those to be found in concentration camps elsewhere in Germany. Here there were no gas chambers, no crematoria; these men of Holland, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France were simply allowed to starve to death. Within four miles of your comfortable homes 4,000 men were forced to live like animals, deprived even of the food you would give to your dogs. In three weeks 1,000 of these men were starved to death; 800 of them were buried in pits in the nearby woods. These 200 who lie before us in these graves were found piled four and five feet high in one building and lying with the sick and dying in other buildings."

The Funeral Service

The 200 Graves

The death register at Neuengamme indicates that about 40,000 prisoners died in the camp by April 10, 1945. Perhaps as many as 15,000 more died in the camp in the following week and during the course of the evacuation. In all, more than 50,000 prisoners, almost half of all those imprisoned in the camp complex during its existence, died.

Beds made of barbed wire, rags and straw

Forced labor

The Survivors.....

This is the heritage, the legacy, left to those of us whom are the next generation of Germans.  Yeah, try growing up as a child in a country destroyed by war, a heritage of racism and an occupation force willing to make your life miserable because your forefathers deserved execution.   Yeah, as a child, it was galling.

Internment

Internment was not at just one camp for the little group of teenagers, they were split up - each sent to a separate camp in the Hamburg region.  I know that it would be six years before the four of them would be together again.  And even then, conversations were still very guarded and switching between the various German dialects was performed based upon whom was near - for the rest of their lives!

Wöbbelin, when liberated.

Father was sent to Wöbbelin, a part of the Neuengamme complex, an ex-Nazi concentration camp. For father, camp life was very hard.  He was in poor health by the time of his surrender and were it not for the care of a "foster mother" probably would not have made it.  Her name was Irma and I was to know her as one of my aunts.  I will write more on her and her family later on, an interesting rabbit trail.

There was little food provided for those in the repatronization camps.  I doubt there was much in the way of food for the troops guarding them either!  So, there was great incentive for those able to, to work.  The local farmers were contacted by the British to see if any of them would be willing to hire the inmates during the day.  Father was sent to a potato farm to work in the fields with three others.

Father cutting firewood in the Buchholz area.

He was transported each day with another inmate of some stature, Curt Jurgens (in English).  Jurgens had a daily radio program he did and the potato farm was on the way to the radio station.  Father was angry that Jurgens did not have to labor and was given better rations than everyone else.  Jurgens also was not housed with the rest of the inmates.  So, it seems there was a bit of a class warfare problem the British, in their typical fashion, managed to create.

Of course, being a prisoner, and given a little freedom, you will seek other opportunities.  Father was a very good swimmer and loved to dive.  The farm owners of the area all capitalized on this and used him (when the British guards were not around) to retrieve their firearms they had sunk in septic tanks, sewers, ponds and lakes back during the firearms confiscation of 1936.  And they paid him very well.  Farther quickly managed to amass several thousand in new German Marks this way!  With some of those diving tales, I am amazed he survived or was not covered in some form of weird hideous skin disease!

Father remained in the camp for a year.  His release was only due to the release of Irma - when her husband came to claim her.  He had been in an African POW Camp since the surrender of Rommel's army.  I am not sure how well Fritz welcomed the idea of having a teenager, but he was a life long uncle to me and must have accepted the situation with grace and dignity.

A British Interrogation

I have shamelessly borrowed the following testimony of a British Interrogation at the Neuengamme Displaced Person's Camp, from www.dpcamps.org.  My father's new home at Wöbbelin, was part of the Neuengamme Prison complex.

For those of you whom are unfamiliar with this subject, American and British forces were ill prepared for what they encountered when they came upon the first concentration camps in Germany.  Their repulsion and anger should be considered only normal to any human being.  What happened in these camps is without excuse - both before and after the war.....

*****

Subject: British screening centre, the internment camp Neuengamme

I translated this a while back it is worth noting. ANTOH schlega.a@kabelmail.de

Heinz Harenberg, und Rudolf Heinz Beher –

“German Army Cossacks - II Battalion Bergmann“ - A translation from: ‚Freiwilige vom Kaukasus’

One day in a British screening centre, the camp administration announced the dismissal of everyone owning an heavy goods driving licence, and were from the Hamburg area. They were needed to clear away debris, etc. Accordingly, our comrade reported himself for the task and was summoned to the camp management.

Jews wearing the British uniform sat waiting for him in the office. He was asked for his Service and Identification book (Soldbuch). An officer spoke good German, and leafed through a thick book. 

Suddenly this Officer pulled a whistle out of his pocket and blew in it loudly. Two soldiers with machineguns (Sten’s) at the ready stormed into the room.

Then everything happened very quickly. Hands up! 

He was taken to be jailed in the nearby village fire station.

There he was met by another two British Army Officers, and a physician.

Our comrade, a corporal, wearing the tropical uniform, already a prisoner seem to make them curious. When the door closed and they were alone, one of the Officers took our friend aside and wanted to know why and how he, a corporal was arrested.

After explaining ‘Bergmann’ etc. This Officer gave our man a tip; to immediately destroy his service book and say at the next interrogation that he was found without identification papers in the camp, and this was the reason for his imprisonment.

After three hours passed, a German Paymaster, two SS Officers, and a Captain, were locked up with him. 

That afternoon, the door of the fire station opened, and four British Soldiers with Sten guns were standing outside. They commanded: “Hands up, and come outside!”  

The men were told to sit in the back of a Land Rover, and were driven away.

Where? They couldn’t tell? A tarpaulin cover blocked their sight, and three British Soldiers pointing their Sten’s, accompanied them. In the midst of an open road the vehicle stopped.

Then they were commanded to surrender all their valuables and money they had on them.

One of the SS Officer’s resisted the order with a determined No! 

He was told to dismount. And all feared for the worst.

This Officer was relived of all his valuables with force.

The journey continued, and through a gab in the tarpaulin they could see they were in city of Hamburg, but damn it, the vehicle didn’t stop. It drove on. They wondered where they were going? Where they being taken to the Russians? What a frightening thought. 
Conversation was strictly forbidden, and a depressing atmosphere arose.

An hour's drive later they stopped.

Shrill commands of unintelligible speech, and a spotlight glared on the vehicle as they dismounted. All around them they saw Barbed wire.

Rifle butts rammed their backs, driving them on like cattle, then singled out for interrogation. 

ing could be seen. Only a bright spotlight, and the questions came in broken German.

Where? Which unit? In which countries did you serve?

Suddenly a sharp pain was felt in our comrades back, and again the same questions were repeated.

His answer was always the same, “I was found in the prison camp with no identification papers. My last unit was Kraftfahrabteilung 10 Hamburg.” (Transport Company 10, Hamburg.) 

Then more blows. Then a roar, "You SS pig! You’ll hang!" 

Afterwards, solitary confinement. A dark room with a concrete floor, and wearing only light tropical uniform.

Every hour or so, he was dragged back out in the spotlight. The same questions, with the same answers. Again and again, solitary confinement, and darkness.

Approximately 3-4 days the same torture continued, and nothing to eat.

Although the torturers did not believe our comrade, finally they gave up and went away.

He was taken into the POW community. Thousands of soldiers and civilians in huge wooden huts with concrete floors.

Neuengamme

Now they could talk, but only softly so no supervisor could hear them. He found out that he was now in the former Neuengamme concentration camp, close to Hamburg.

Every day there was food. A few pieces of turnip swimming in hot water, served in mess tins. with a fist sized piece of bread, half of it mouldy. At morning roll call, which always lasted about three hours until they were all accounted for, they were told that mould was healthy for them.

The Electric Fence

Those who collapsed from weakness, or showed signs of a cold, were placed between two narrow electrified barbed wire fences. Those who fell, died. 

In the evenings they were locked up in the barracks by 6 pm.

Large bins were placed around the rooms where they had to do their necessities. It didn’t take long for them to fill and spill over. Then they had to lie in the faeces, all through the night. A savage stench of sewer soon filled the rooms.

Again and again, they were taken for interrogation. And, again and again, they were returned to the stinking mass piles. 

During the day they were allowed only to walk in the yard surrounded by barb wire, though only in silence,. 

Those who cracked up, ran against the wire and were immediately fried. Prisoners were constantly shoving barrows, wheeling away the corpses. 

Our comrades neighbour, a young raw recruit from Munich had only seen four weeks of service, 190 cm tall, caught tuberculosis in his lung and died.

Cripples with one arm, or one leg, the elderly, soldiers of every genre, they was all there, packed together. 

Our comrade was subdued to this drama for about four and a half months, then it was all over.

He was dismissed without a penny. But before leaving he had to sign an agreement that he would not testify about his experience in the screening centre, Camp "Neuengamme.”

Finally he found his freedom. But there is always the fear of re-incarceration, and with this comes a great silence.