Johann and Daniel

by Charles Lacey

Chapter 8

Johann.

So Christopher dropped Daniel and me in München . Daniel's knowledge of geography was good enough to make us realize that we had to get across the border into Liechtenstein, south of Lake Konstanz and thence to Zürich. But now we were actually in Germany, in enemy territory, and in the greatest danger. We had no map, other than what was in Daniel's head, and no knowledge of the city we were in. All we knew was that we needed to travel approximately due West. In practice, this meant having the sun at our backs, at least in the morning. We had no papers other than my identity card, only the few Reichsmarks that Christopher had given us, and knew no-one. The sun was rising, and we moved off together.

A few streets away, we came into a market place where people were setting up stalls. A pair of Nazi soldiers was strolling about. Our hearts came into our mouths when we saw them, as if they had demanded to see our papers all would have been at an end. But we were lucky. A stallholder saw us and beckoned us over. It seemed that his son, who usually helped him, had been called up and he was on his own. We gladly helped him, shifting the heavy baskets of potatoes and turnips from his cart to the market stall. In return he very kindly shared his breakfast with us, just black bread with a little jam, and a cup of bitter coffee from a nearby stall. But it was something in our stomachs, cost us nothing and, most importantly, made us look as if we had business there. At any rate, the soldiers came over, saw us working and went away again.

Several times Daniel touched my hand with his, as if to say, I am still here. My heart went out to him: a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany. The slightest thing could have caused someone to demand to see his papers. If that had happened, all would have been over. At that time we had no idea what was happening to Jews and others in the work and death camps. But we did know already that Jews were being rounded up and their possessions confiscated. By mid-morning we thanked our friendly farmer and moved off. We believed that as long as we stayed in busy places we would be less noticeable.

We followed the movement of the sun with some care, so as to keep our direction westwards. We passed through streets of businesses, of houses and apartments, and finally into what was clearly a wealthy area with large houses standing in their own grounds.

Now we were much more conspicuous. Two plainly-dressed youths, already looking rather crumpled, walking in a wealthy street, were bound to catch someone's eye. By Daniel's advice we looked from side to side, as if searching for a particular address to take a message to. A police car drove along, and we wondered whether it would stop. Fortunately, it did not. We heard footsteps, heavy and regular, behind us. "Quick!" whispered Daniel, "into the next house, as if we are delivering something." He was always a quick thinker.

So we turned into the driveway of the house on our right, and walked boldly up to the front door. The footsteps behind us came closer, then receded. We breathed a sigh of relief. Just then the door swung open and we were confronted with a middle-aged woman who looked at us enquiringly. I thought rapidly, and said, "I have a message for Herr Braun." The woman looked at us shrewdly and said, "go round to the back of the house. Come to the kitchen door."

We skirted the house and as we reached the back a door opened and the woman came out. She looked carefully at me and even more carefully at Daniel. Then she said, very quietly, "you sound Austrian. Are you on the run?" We nodded.

"Go to the end of the garden. There is a little shed there. Wait there for me."

We walked to the end of the garden where there was a little toolshed. There was no lock on the door, so we pulled it open and went in. After a few minutes the woman appeared. She had a dish in her hand with some food and a jug of water with her. "Stay here until it is night," she said, "and then go as quickly and quietly as you can. Are you hoping to get to Switzerland? Yes? Do not try to cross the border at any of the roads; they will ask for your papers. If that happens, you will probably be shot as spies. You must look for a crossing in the countryside where there is plenty of cover. It would really be better to go North and try to cross to France, then back down to Geneva. Anyone moving near the border to the west of here will attract unwelcome attention. Look, I have brought a map to look at, but you must not take it with you as it belongs to my employer."

We thanked her, and ate the food she had brought; it was a kind of stew with vegetables and potatoes, and we drank the water. When it was dark, we crept out and made our way to the road. The city was deserted, of course, because of the curfew. In a way it made it safer, since we could assume that any footsteps would be soldiers. We made our way northwards, and to a broad road. We peered out carefully, and listened, but there was no sound. We crossed the road, and then shrank into a doorway as the slow steps of a patrol came nearer. But this one had a torch, which he flashed into the entrances. There was nothing for it. We gathered our strength and ran as fast as we could. I think we might have out-run the soldier, but as luck would have it, Daniel caught his foot on a raised paving-stone and fell headlong. "Run!" he cried. "Run for your life, Johann." But I could not leave my friend. I helped him up, but by then the soldier had arrived and had fingers of steel in our collars. He marched us up the road, through several streets and into a police station, where we were thrown into a cell. "Your papers!" he said. I produced mine, but of course Daniel had none. He moved close to me and clasped my hand. "It was my fault," he said to the soldier. "I persuaded my friend to come with me."

The soldier looked at us curiously and then swung out and closed the door. We sat side by side on the wooden shelf that did duty for a bed, and I put an arm around Daniel's shoulders. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "It's all up with us now."

We sat there for an hour or more, shaking with fear, and then the soldier came back in. "How old are you?" he asked.

"Fifteen."

"And are you... close friends?"

"Yes", we replied in unison.

The soldier sighed, like a man weary of his work and wanting to be at rest. "At home in Augsburg I have a son just your age, and he too has a special friend. I cannot send you to the Commandant; if he does not shoot you himself he will send you to a prison camp. Listen! When I go the lock will not work on this door. When I knock three times like this" – here he gave three quick double-knocks – "slip out and through the back as quickly and quietly as you can. Try to get to Augsburg, and then to Tübingen. There is a great university there and two young people such as yourselves will be less noticeable."

We had pretty well memorized the map that the kindly lady in München had shown us. We moved by night where we could, and sometimes by day, always trying to look as if we were busy people with a job to do. We used our remaining few Reichsmarks to buy basic food: bread, and a bag of apples. Now and again we took some fruit from a tree, if we could do so unseen. Water we could take from drinking fountains or even from cattle troughs. We slept when and where we could, once in a barn, on a pile of hay; once in someone's tool-shed, on a pile of old potato sacks. Once we slept under a hedge, on the edge of a field out of sight of the road. By a merciful providence it did not rain. In five days we had made it to Tübingen, but we were a dirty, ragged pair by then, and hungry enough to have eaten anything.

Passing a cafe we were so hungry and tired that we had to sit down for a few minutes. The smell of coffee and bread was maddening, but we had no more money. A young man came and sat opposite to us, and looked at us curiously. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Looking for work," we replied.

"Oh. Really? I don't think you will find anything here. Look, come to my lodgings and I will give you something to eat to see you on your way."

We went with him, to a tall house near the river. His room was on the top floor under the roof, and was tiny, but he gave us some bread and cheese, and a drink of milk. Then he looked at us again, and said, "I don't believe a word of what you have told me so far. Why not tell me the truth, and let me see if I can help you?"

Daniel and I looked at each other, and shrugged our shoulders. He seemed a kindly young man. But just then, I saw the corner of a flag peeping out from under his bed. It had part of a white circle on a red ground, and I saw what could only be the corner of a Swastika. "I told you the truth," I said, we are just two boys looking for work. Our house was bombed by the English and ..."

"All right," he said. "If that's the way you want it." He reached into his jacket and produced a pistol which he aimed at Daniel. "You will come with me to the Rathaus , where you will be questioned." Once again, we were under arrest. The student, if that was really what he was, marched us to the Town Hall. We were questioned ferociously by a Nazi officer, and then thrown into a cell. We were given some scalding hot, but very bitter, ersatz coffee, and black bread, and left to ourselves. We sat side by side for a while, and then lay down on the wooden bed. It was dark, and I could hear Daniel trying hard not to weep. We were both trembling with fear; there seemed no possible escape now. I could not bear it after all we had been through together. I put my arms around Daniel and we lay like that for a while. But we could not sleep. As far as we knew, the next day might well be our last. But at least we were together. I felt better, knowing I was not alone.

The next morning a soldier came in and told us to get up. Again, we had scalding ersatz coffee and black bread, then he said, "you will be taken to Linz and questioned there. If you are spies, you will be shot."

We looked at each other. We were handcuffed and led outside to a waiting lorry. There were several more prisoners in there. But an armed soldier forbade us to talk. Back to Linz we went, after all we had been through to get away. It was a bitter disappointment.

We were handcuffed to one of the poles supporting the canvas roof of the lorry, and there were two armed men in with us. One of the other prisoners attempted to have a few whispered words with Daniel, but the soldier nearest to us pointed his hand-gun at him and shouted " Schweigen! Kein Wort! " Silence! No word! With the two soldiers guarding us both armed with hand guns it was clear that any attempt to escape would almost certainly result in our deaths.

The lorry jolted and lurched its way towards Linz. It was a horribly uncomfortable journey, but that was the least of our anxieties. It would be the konzentrationslager for both of us: Daniel as a Jew and I for helping him. My only hope was that we would both be sent to the same one. What we didn't then know was that same-sex couples got even worse treatment than Jews or political prisoners. I'm glad we didn't know that, or about what really happened in the concentration camps, as we would probably have felt that a bullet each as we tried to jump out of the back of the lorry would have been a quicker and easier death than slow starvation and slavery.

The solder driving the lorry was clearly not acquainted with Austria, for he came into Linz to the north of the river, past the M ü hlkreis-Bahnhof, the railway station, and across the newly built 'Nibelungen Bridge'. It wasn't the best route, but we certainly were not going to tell him. We had concluded that he was going to take us to the old Town Hall in the Hauptplatz , the main square, but instead he turned right and along the Oberer Donaulande. Perhaps it's not surprising, as it's a much wider road than the way into the city centre, but it was taking us out again to the west. At least it was a smoother and better metalled road! But before long as we came in sight of countryside, it became obvious to the driver that he had taken the wrong route. He stopped by the side of the road and came round to the back to see if either of the soldiers knew the way.

They didn't. They were German, not Austrian, and to them this was a foreign land. In the end, with much swearing, they turned round and returned to the city. When we arrived they unclipped the handcuffs from the lorry and joined Daniel and I together with one set. "Don't even think of running away," said the soldier as he transferred the handcuffs, "I'd have a bullet in your back before you got ten metres away."

We were frogmarched, almost dragged, into the Rathaus, and lined up in front of a Hauptsturmführer of the Schutzstaffel. He wore a black uniform with, of course, the Hakenkreuz armband, and had the coldest eyes and the smoothest and most intimidating face of any man I have ever seen. He ordered that we be kept in a locked room with an armed guard, and had us in one at a time for questioning.

The two who had been on the lorry before us went in first and second. They went in looking frightened and returned looking even more frightened; one had a great red weal across his face that had not been there when he went in. Then it was Daniel's turn. We could hear the Hauptsturmführer shouting and ranting, and an occasional vague noise that we couldn't place. Daniel was gone about fifteen minutes, and when he returned he was crying. I later learned that he had knocked Daniel over and laid into him with his boots and a heavy stick. We were still not allowed to talk to one another; all I could do was to stretch out my hand, and even then the armed soldier knocked my arm down before I could touch Daniel's hand.

Then it was my turn.

The Hauptsturmführer started by being, according to his own lights, pleasant. He smiled (and that smile froze the blood in my veins) and asked what I had been doing and where I was running from.

"I and my friend had come to Tübingen from München," I replied; "We were looking for work."

"And what sort of work?"

"Anything we could do, to eat."

He picked up his stick and hit me hard across the face, without any sign of emotion.

"You are lying. What were you doing?"

"I said, I was looking for…"

He hit me again, even harder, and the stick caught my nose, making it bleed.

"You were with a filthy Jew. You are a liar and a disgusting Jew-friend. You will be punished."

I tried to answer, but he hit me again, this time over the shoulders. Then he said, "Take him out."

The armed soldier who had been standing by the door dragged me by the arm. I lost my footing and stumbled and he simply dragged me back into the other room. I thought of my sweet Daniel and I was filled with rage. That is why I did not cry; I was too angry for that. I gathered an arm of my shirt and used it as best I could to staunch my bleeding nose.

The second soldier spoke for the first time. "For you," he said coldly, "there is no more war." He gathered breath. "You will be going to a work camp." He went red in the face. "You will work ," he screamed, "Work for the Fatherland, work until you drop dead. For you, now there is only work."

Later that afternoon, we were to be transferred to the city gaol, to wait for transport to the work camp. The lorry had gone, and we were handcuffed together in pairs; Daniel and I together. We started to walk, accompanied, to my surprise, by only one armed guard. But the situation was still hopeless.

Then something happened which gave us just the slenderest of chances. The Germans had been thoroughly indoctrinated that they were the 'master race'; they were, in consequence, arrogant and could not bear to lose face. Face, to them, was all-important. They had reckoned with all kinds of possible attempts at escape, with rescue plots and even possible attacks from armed civilians. What they had not reckoned with was the naughtiness of little boys.

There was a soft plopping sound. A boy – we later found that it was little Fritzi Hoffler, may God and His angels welcome him into Paradise – had picked up some horse droppings (there were plenty of horse drawn delivery vans and the like in the city as the Nazis had taken most of what petrol there was) and thrown them at the soldier's head.

He was, of course, beside himself with rage at this affront to his German dignity. For a moment he was blinded by the mess, which he wiped away with his handkerchief. Then he drew his pistol and raced after where the Pferdeäpfel had come from. We heard several shots and a scream. Then I looked at Daniel. He had very slender hands, with long sensitive fingers, and he spat quickly into his free hand, rubbed it over the wrist with the handcuff on it, grasped the handcuff with one hand and pulled sharply with the other. Incredibly, though it took some skin with it, the cuff came free. I grasped it and we ran.

Du lieber Gott! How we ran. But we were Linzeners born and bred, and knew our city. We dodged through side streets and alley-ways, always with an ear for pursuit. I knew where to make for: Gottfried Federlein's little summer-house. "Follow me," I whispered to Daniel. Ten minutes later, we were there. We lay on the floor, getting our breath back, hiding under an old settee that was there, upside down. For the moment, we were free, though still in the greatest danger of re-capture. Then we heard footsteps and the door opening and closing. I peeped out, and saw, to my unspeakable relief, that it was Gottfried, and it soon became obvious why he was there.

"Gottfried," I whispered. He jumped, and there was a slight sound as he re-adjusted his clothes, then he said, "Who is it?"

"Johann," I replied. "Johann Stresemann, from school."

" Krass! " he said, "I thought you'd been taken by the Verdammte Nazis."

"I was, but we escaped."

"We?"

"Yes, this is my friend Daniel."

"You'd better come into the house," he said. "Mother will look after you. Wait for a moment while I check that there's no-one around. I usually only come here to... when I want to be alone."

We followed Gottfreid into his parents' house, and Frau Federlein did indeed look after us. She treated the bruise which was now developing on Daniel's face with arnica, and dressed the raw patch on his wrist where he had pulled it free of the handcuff. She sent Gottfried to get some of his old clothes for us, and gave us mugs of hot soup, bread and coffee. Then she said, "You'd better go and hide in the loft. The soldiers may come looking for you. Pull up the ladder after you so that it doesn't look as if there is any way up there. My husband will be home later; we will discuss what is best to be done. But don't worry, we will not give you away."

Gottfried took us upstairs and showed us the way to get into the loft, through a small trap door in the ceiling. We pulled up the ladder after us and closed the hatch. It was pitch dark except for a few places where light came though chinks in the tiles, and very dusty. We lay down as best we could across the rafters. It was very uncomfortable, but a thousand times better than being in a prison with German guards.

An hour or two later we heard voices, and then Gottfried's voice telling us his father was home, and we were to come down, but leave the hatch open and the ladder in place in case we had a visit from the police.

Herr Federlein was a big, fair haired man with a strongly marked, determined face. He was a merchant of some kind, with a company trading along the Donau. Frau Federlein and Gottfried had already put him in the picture. What we didn't then know was that he was a leading figure in the Resistance. His reputation as an honest businessman stood him in good stead, and of course he had visitors in and out of his offices and warehouses all day long, so it was easy for him to meet other Resistance workers and pass messages to and fro.

He looked at me, then at Daniel, and asked, "are you Jewish?"

"Yes," replied Daniel, looking down.

There was a moment's silence, then Herr Federlein said, "It's not important. What is important is that you are Austrian, and from our own city. Now, what we are going to do is this. First of all, you can stay here until we can get you away safely. We have some friends who can help with that. Keep the loft open in case we have unpleasant visitors – in fact, you must not be seen by anyone, so be sure to keep away from the windows. It would be better for you to be upstairs as much as possible. Now, Johann, come with me; we must get that horrible thing off your hand."

He took me out to his garage – he had a very nice Peugeot car which he maintained himself – and fixed the handcuff in the vice while he sawed it off with a hacksaw. I got a couple of small cuts on my wrist, but I didn't mind that! Then we went back into the house, and Herr Federlein went out. While he was away, Frau Federlein gave us more food, bread and cheese, and apple dumplings. When he came back, he smiled at us and said, "I hear you know my friend Alicia."

We looked at him, astonished.

"Yes, the Resistance is very strong in Linz. One way and another, we have managed to get quite a lot of people to safety. Alicia is arranging transport for you to a neutral country. You must stay here until it arrives. And, whatever you do, don't let yourselves be seen."

We stayed at the Federleins' for three days, mostly staying upstairs in their small spare bedroom which had only one small window which looked out over the garden. It was furnished plainly but comfortably with twin beds, a cupboard for clothes and a wash-stand.

Then early in the morning Herr Federlein woke us up. "Get ready quickly! There will be a car coming to pick you up in half an hour. Get dressed as fast as you can and eat some breakfast. You can keep those old clothes of Gottfried's, he has outgrown them. I will arrange for your clothes and the remains of the handcuffs to be dropped into the river. If the Germans find them, they will think you either drowned in the river or escaped by water."

So we stirred ourselves, ate a quick meal of bread and cheese and coffee, and waited as Herr Federlein told us, just behind the front door. He went out, walking briskly as if he was going to work. Then he stopped, turned round, and we heard him sneeze and blow his nose loudly. That was our signal. Outside the front door was a big car; the street was otherwise deserted. Herr Federlein had picked up his briefcase and walked off briskly down the street, as if he had forgotten it and gone back home to pick it up.

We jumped in to the back, of the car and to our surprise and delight, the driver was the same Christoph Waldmann who had driven us before. He made us lie down under some big bundles of cloth while we made our way out of the city, and then he let us sit up, though it was a very tight fit.

We told him about the adventures we had had since he had dropped us off before, and he said, "We are going to drive straight to the border. I am going home, flying from an airfield in Switzerland, and I rather think the plan is for you to come with me. You certainly can't stay anywhere in occupied territory, they would catch you up sooner or later. And you don't want that to happen."

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