Village of Semlak in Banat

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German: Semlak, Hungary Hungarian: Szemlak, Hungary Official: Semlac, Romania Welcome.... Semlak was already an existing village when the German settlers arrived.  Separated by different Protestant faiths and ancestry, two strong German communities developed in the 19th century.  In 1819, the first of the “Beriners” (Lutherans or Evangelische) arrived primarily from the Hungarian city/village of Mezöberény with a smaller group from Hartau (Harta) and Soldvadkert.  In 1823, the “Gubaschen” (Calvinists or Reformed) arrived from Balmazújváros.  They acquired the label of “Gubasch” because they wore felt capes (guba)—a distinguishing piece of clothing.  Both communities resided in separate districts of the town—and continue to do so even to this day.  It is interesting to note that the two groups even speak different dialects:  the Lutherans speak a Rhenish-francon “fest” developed in Mezöberény; while the Calvinists speak a Rhenish-francon “fesht” version established in Balmazújváros.  Village Coordinator, Rose Mary Keller Hughes Sign the Semlak GuestBook

 

Semlak Chronicles

Lutheran church bells ringing in Semlak (turn on your speakers) Biserica Evanghelica Semlac 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSdBhgkwntQ Since 15 years we also celebrate an Ecumenical Christmas (the beginning was in our Lutheran Church in 1997) - each year in other church of Semlak, with more priests and more choirs. - Walther Sinn, Pfarrer You may look on it on YouTube too (there are 4 parts, each 15 minutes) :   Weihnachtskonzert 2011 Semlak - Teil 1/4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skXgu70spww). Under the recorded film, you may read the following text in German:   "Ecumenical Christmas concerts are organized every year in Semlak rotational by the parish churches between Christmas, according to the Western Church, and New Year,  according to the Eastern church calendar . On Sunday, the 9th January 2011, after the Christmas 3-d Eastern church calendar, already becoming a traditional event was also held this year. Host this year's 14th Edition was the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession. At this year's ecumenical Christmas concert was attended by clergy and music groups from Arad, Nadlak, Petschka, Großpereg and from the host town Semlak. Also present were representatives of the Romanian-Orthodox, Greek-Catholic, Roman-Catholic, Protestant (Lutheran and Calvin), Pentecost, Ruthenian (Greek-catholik) and Jewish church. They were joined by the traditional carol singers of Marosch-valley, called Dobaschi. The annual Ecumenical Christmas concerts in Semlak give faith communities the opportunity to visit other churches and each other to get closer. It's not just about ecumenism but also to multilingualism. Blessed is the same, but one God, and in one voice. The event was supported by the local government Semlak too. Camera and production: Adrian Ardelean, Arad, January 2011" - Walther Sinn, Pfarrer Fifty Years After - Part 1 by George Kaiser, Düsseldorf Fifty Years After - Part 2 by George Kaiser, Düsseldorf Fifty Years After - Part 3 by George Kaiser, Düsseldorf Diary of Deportation by Andreas Toth     Trip to Semlak 2002 by Rose Mary Keller Hughes More Semlak Photos @ Snapfish - must register   Installation and blessing of the little bell in the Semlak Lutheran Church - Photo Collection Weddings in Semlak Semlak Familes of Rose Mary Keller Hughes Researching Wolf and Fendt families - Lori (Wolf-Heffner) Straus Waterloo, Ontario For more excellent information about Semlak, go to the Heimatortsgemeinschaft (HOG) site at www.semlak.de   A model of the Evangelische (Lutheran) church in Semlak.  It is unknown what event prompted the building of the model, but the photo is from the archives of Josef Haibach who born in Semlak. A cousin in Germany Erika Jost and her husband Fredi Jost are a part of the Traunau comedy troup.  They put on plays mostly by one playwright, Stefan Heinz Kehrer, a Banater.  The reason my cousin is associated with the group is because her father originated from Traunau while she was born in Semlak and now lives in Germany.  Her father was a well-loved teacher in Semlak.  In the picture, my cousin is in the middle row, 3rd person from the right.  Her hubby is in the back row at the left.  Another cousin's daughter is in the center in the front row (little girl in tracht).

Fifty Years After By George Kaiser, Düsseldorf Published in the Heimatortsgemeinschaft Semlak Heimatbrief - February 1995, Vol. 12, Pages 12-20 Part 1 - Many thanks for Henry Fischer for his translation from German to English. On August 23rd in 1944, Romania broke its military pact with Germany and stood on the side of the Soviets. In just a few short weeks the Soviet Army overran all the territory that Romania controlled. This was done in spite of the fierce resistance of the few remaining German troops as the frontlines approached the western frontier of Romania by the beginning of September. The Front was already in the vicinity of Arad when the German soldiers appeared in Semlak to facilitate in the organization of the flight of the German inhabitants to the German Reich. Word was spread abroad that the Russians would exterminate any Germans that fell into their hands. While at the same time, a few Romanian Communists as well as some Germans went about the village beating their drums proclaiming the exact opposite. They reported that the Russians were decent people and would not do any harm to us. The new Romanian government also announced the same thing. My father, George Kaiser was the assistant mayor of Semlak, having taking office in October 1943. The German military officials ordered him to secure horses for those German families who did not have any of their own. He was to commandeer them from the local Romanians. He neither wanted to do this nor could he do so because he had lost his position as a result of the capitulation of Romania to the Russians on August 23rd. My father was ordered to place himself at the head of the column of horses and wagons to lead the flight from Semlak. If he refused to obey this order, he was threatened with being shot. Out of fear, our family, along with Peter Friedrich and Christoph Müller’s families fled secretly at night for Nadlak where some Slovak friends of ours hid all of us. On September 15th, the column of refugees with their horses and wagons set out from Semlak in the direction of Pereg towards Hungary. During the night, Peter Friedrich and I went to Semlak by way of the fields and back roads from Nadak. Our journey took us across the Cucu Puszta to the road that leads to Pereg. There we hid under the remains of a roof of an abandoned hut and waited there during the night. We wanted to sneak into the village under the cover of darkness and obtain some food and find out what we could about the present situation there. We trembled at every sound we heard. Suddenly we heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs and wagon wheels turning. We looked through the holes of the roof and saw the column of the fleeing population of Semlak pass by on the Pereg Road. Under the cover of darkness we broke into the house of the Friedrich family, which lay across the street from our house, and we decided to rest there until morning. Because things remained still and quiet, I went to our house and took a smoked ham and a loaf of bread back with me. In the evening we made our way back to Nadlak. We reported that peace prevailed back in Semlak. As a result all three families harnessed and hitched their horses to their wagons and drove towards Scheiding to a Romanian named Trasu, a friend of my father. We sent him on to Semlak to see if things were still quiet there. He reported there was no danger and we risked going back home. About half of the German population of Semlak had fled. Their houses were empty, but their livestock were out in the yards or stables along with the stored grain crops, all of which was a welcome feast for many of the Romanians. All of the houses had been plundered in short order. Each man took what he wanted and them occupied the house of his choice. A few days after the people had fled, the Russians were quick to arrive in the village. On a Sunday morning, I heard a great deal of noise and racket out on the street. As we opened our windows, we looked out across the street and saw a large group of Russian soldiers gathered at the Brezan blacksmith shop where their horses were being shoed. It didn’t take long before a wagonload of Russians stood in our yard. They screamed, "We want wine!" They rolled the wine barrel out of the cellar, shot a hole in it and let it pour into some pails and drank from them. Because they realized we were Germans they forced us to drink with them. They wanted to assure themselves that the wine had not been poisoned. My father knew a bit of broken Russian. A Russian prisoner of war had worked for his parents during the First World War and he had learned from him. The Russians told him, "Hitler is kaput and has had it," and that they were now marching on to Berlin. With the wine barrel on their wagon they noisily passed out of our yard. This was to be my first of many encounters with the Russians. A munitions depot was set up in the house of Michael Rück’s family. Munitions were delivered from here to the frontlines, which by now stretched into Hungary. Only two wagonloads were sent out at a time because of the fear of bombardment by aircraft. My father too had to hitch up his team along with Kajtor Gabor, who I called bacsi (uncle) and they drove munitions to Hungary escorted by several Russian soldiers. When they arrived close to the front my father asked his escort to let him get away. He left him with his horses and wagon, his food supplies and two liters of Raki. The solider then said to him in Russian, "Get going you Romanian devil." A few days later I was ordered to report to the community center with my identity papers and a backpack with food. The cows that belonged to those who had fled, as well as those of others still in Semlak were all brought to the community center and were to be driven on foot to the train station in Petschka. They told me, that I had to accompany them and see to their feeding until we reached the Russian border. I was to be accompanied by three Soviet soldiers. I had the foresight to bring along two bottles of Raki from home. As we approached the main highway, they set aside some time to sit down, rest and eat while the cattle pastured in a nearby cornfield. The two older soldiers sat down beside each other on a pile of cornstalks and the younger one sat next to me. He spoke Romanian but I learned that he was from Bessarabia. After I asked him to let me go free, he asked me if I still had parents. He said his own were dead and had been murdered by the Germans. I offered him the schnapps and the food I had and he later let me get away. I came home in the midst of darkness once more. Once again I had to go into hiding for several days. One day my father was ordered to report at the community center. He was informed that the Russians had lost five cows along the way, and had sold five others in Petschka. Because I had disappeared my father was threatened with having to pay for the ten cows and would be brought to court to face his crime. We waited for the punishment to be carried out every day, but nothing happened. Instead the two of us were taken prisoner on January 14, 1945 along with countless others who were to be dragged off and deported to Russia. We had avoided the flight to Germany, but there was no way for us to escape going to Russia. We knew what was gong to happen that night. Idata, who was the Chief of Police stationed in Semlak, had tipped my father off. We pondered and planned all night long without any positive result. We had no idea of what to do and could not commit ourselves to any form of action. My father looked at his watch, it was four o’clock on the morning of January 14, 1945. It almost appeared as if nothing was going to happen this night after all. It was snowing outside and it was bitterly cold. Peering out from under the curtains of the window facing the street, we became quiet as mice as we heard the sound of marching boots crunching through the snow. The sounds of marching men out on the street paused at our window. Only the crunching sounds of boots in the snow could be heard. We simply waited for what would happen next and suddenly there was a loud knocking at one window, and a voice spoke in Romanian, "George, my dear friend. Open up. We simply want to check your papers!" It was the familiar voice of a friend of my father who happened to be the richest Romanian farmer in the village, and a friend of the Germans right up to August 23rd. My father opened the door and let men inside and went for his papers that one of the soldiers verified and then stuffed the document up under his coat. It was then when we realized we were prisoners. The soldier ordered us to obey him without question. He said any attempt at escape was futile, because the village was surrounded and the troops were ordered to shoot to kill any who attempted to get away. We were led to the community center and were among the first to arrive there. In the next half hour they brought more and more people, almost all of them Germans, young and old, men and women. It was reported that men between the ages of 17 to 45, as well as women from 18 to 30 years were all being assembled to work elsewhere. We soon recognized that there more and more exceptions to the regulations, because they brought much younger people like myself and Paul Jani and Götz Evi and Kernleitner Maria or older men like my father and Paul Jani’s. Approaching noon fewer and fewer people were arriving. We had been ordered to bring food and laundry with us from our homes to last for at least two weeks. This made us believe we were being taken away somewhere to work for two weeks. In the afternoon at 3 o’clock we had to stand in columns of four abreast with the men and women in separate groups. We formed a total column of about 130 persons and were under guard by about twenty-five soldiers. Our luggage was packed on sleighs drawn by teams of horses. Then an official gave a short speech and informed us of our orders. Those who attempted to escape would be shot on the spot. The doors of the community center were thrust open. There was a short curt order and the sound of crackling gunfire followed as the signal for us to start out. With the very first steps we began to take, the bells in the church bell towers began to toll. Weeping and crying broke out among the people, everyone, young and old, men and women, even some of the Romanians who had come to watch and a young armed guard or two. We set out walking along the main street of the village in the direction of the highway between the two cemeteries. I thought of escape, hoping there would be an opportunity to hide in the cemetery. At the end of the cemetery stood an old Semlak Communist. Whenever he had the chance he would kick or beat us and shouted: "Heil Hitler!" He was fat old Dasu, who every resident of Semlak knew only too well. It had snowed a great deal that winter and in places the snow was a meter and a half deep. Our column moved slower and slower through the deep snow. It came obvious to us that it would be dark before we reached Petschka our next destination. Around 5 o’clock we reached the highway from Nadlak towards Arad. We had to huddle closer to one another so that the column became smaller. Then there was another shot fired into the air, the signal for us to go on. To the right and the left of the roadway there were large parcels of cornfields that had not been harvested. The military activities in the autumn, the flight of a portion of our people had all resulted in less than a normal harvest. Our hearts were beating faster, as we saw the encroaching darkness beginning to cover the cornfields. Would it be possible to hide in there? The columns we formed became broader and longer. Was this our chance? At the crossroads that led to Palota in Hungary, I suddenly heard a loud rustling sound over in the cornfields as a large group of people broke away from the column, and began running for their lives as more and more shots were being fired after them. The escapees were being chased by the soldiers, who ran in and out, among the rows and rows of cornstalks in search of them. A small group was being led out of the cornfield surrounded by soldiers with their bayonets pointing at them. Among them were my uncle Martin Kaiser and his wife Susan. All of the others had managed to escape. My uncle and aunt each received a blow to the head from the butt of an officer’s rifle, which was something they would never forget. The Commander was awfully angry and gave short strict orders and swore to the best of his ability in this particular Romanian art form. The captured escapees numbered about twenty persons and were now relocated and placed at the front of the column and were heavily guarded. There would be no future opportunities for escape for them. I remained very much in the background, guarded by much younger soldiers, who showed very little interest in us. But they did talk to us even though it was strictly forbidden for them to do so. All kinds of schemes and plans whirled around in my head: Flight. Escape. These were my prime objectives, but how and when? I received a nudge in the ribs from my neighbour beside me and he asked, "Are you dreaming?" In turn, I replied, "I’m getting out of here!" A group of people from Scheiding, coming from the railway station in Petschker passed by our column in the darkness. Some of them jumped across the ditch alongside of the roadway and I listened to what they had to say. They were all Romanians. My young guards laughed and said, "Run Fritz or else old Ivan will get you!" (Ivan was an euphemism for Russian). We exchanged only a few words, the last of which I remembers was, "This is an injustice!" Once we were safely removed from the column they told me to hide in the cornfield and I could be betrayed or punished. They told me to wait until it was night before I tried to return to Semlak and I was also aware of the fact that the village had been surrounded. It was already dark when I heard dogs howling from the direction of Petschka in pursuit of the last of those attempting to escape. All kinds of dumb and stupid things went through my mind. I was afraid of being caught or freezing to death because it was terribly cold. Thoughts of whether my father had managed to escape also made me almost crazy because I knew he had been among those who had been most heavily guarded. I couldn’t hear a thing and the silence only increased my fear. I forced myself to get up and stand on my two feet. I was now determined to reach my destination and make my way across the fields to Semlak and home. But I had to be very careful because the cornstalks and leaves were frozen and brushing by them created loud rustling sounds, snaps and cracks. Slowly, I made my way through the deep snow. When I heard dogs howling again later, I became more courageous, because I had obviously not lost my way and I was getting nearer to the village. I had no idea of what time it was, and I must have lost my watch. But by my reckoning it had to be quite late or very early in the morning, because dogs sleep at night. There was no light to be seen and I could just barely recognize the contours of the first houses at the edge of the village. It stood there quietly and did not even dare to breathe. I lingered like this in the darkness for some time and tried to see what I could. I could not hear anything out the ordinary. Shortly, I decided to act and slipped into the clay pits and ditches and the deep holes that had been dug for securing earth in order to build houses. There were many of them behind the gardens of the last houses on the outskirts of the village. Cautiously I crawled through all of them on all fours until I was close to our street. My heart was pounding in my throat. Only one hundred more steps would take me to the corner where our house was located. It was still very cold and the snow crunched loudly beneath my feet as if determined to give me away. But I no longer felt the cold, not now, the opposite took effect, and sweat ran down my whole body. With one large leap I made it over the wall around our garden. As soon as the dogs recognized me, all of my attempts to quiet them were useless. They yelped, howled and jumped up all over me. I finally calmed them down, but they insisted on accompanying me to the kitchen door. When I had leapt over the wall, I thought I had seen a faint light in the house, but now all was dark and quiet. I called out in a whisper, "Mami!" but there was no response. After what seemed like an awfully long time, my mother slowly opened the door and was quietly weeping. I saw immediately that she was not alone. Our neighbours were with her and shared our fate with us. They immediately asked me where my father and their family members were. How on earth could I tell them, since I had left them all to meet their own fate. They wanted to know so much from me, but before I could even begin to respond to their questions the dogs were once again making a racket outside. The light was quickly put out and not a further word was spoken. We were afraid it was our tormenters again who were beginning a second roundup of victims. The sounds of footsteps drew nearer and we were trembling in fear when we heard the knock. I immediately recognized my father’s voice and opened the door as quickly as I could. He stood there frozen at the door with small icicles in his beard. He too had fled under the cover of darkness. He could not tell us much about the fate of the others. He was of the opinion that only a few of them ever arrived at the school at the railway station in Petschka. The Hungarians in Petschka are to be thanked for what they did and provided help and assistance to the escapees as they stole through the town in the darkness. A portion of the prisoners had been under heavy guard and about 37 of them did not find a chance to escape. These unfortunate people were under the direct supervision of the Commander of the troop escort. On January 15th the rage of the superior authorities over the disastrous first deportation effort knew no bounds. They hunted us down like wild animals. My family and I hid out with some Romanians. But after two days we had to abandon our hiding place. Someone had betrayed us. We had to leave during the second night. We went to stay in the cellar of Josif Tocaci a day labourer who had worked for my father. They hid us in the cellar under a pile of cornstalks. These people also provided us with food. They heated up stone bricks and brought them down to the cellar to keep us from freezing to death. Wrapped in our covers we dried our wet shoes and warmed our cold feet. We could not use the oven because the smoke would have given us away. The next evening our befriender came home and was shaking like a leaf and begged us to leave his house as soon as possible. He had learned that those who hid the Germans would be taken away as hostages. He came down to the cellar to us and told us he was sorry but he had to think of his wife and six children first. Around eleven at night we sneaked out of his house and made for the earth and clay pits. Everyone was afraid to take us in. It was cold and it was snowing as much as heaven could spare. That was to our good fortune, because the footprints and signs we left behind us, could no longer be seen the next day. Our former host had twinge of conscience. With a faintly lit lantern he led us out to a pile of cornstalks at the edge of village. Several bundles were stacked together to form a kind of lean-to and shelter for us. Within our shelter there were bundles of tobacco leaves that were stacked together around us up against the cornstalks and packed snow all around us while storms raged outside. The lantern was left with us as a gift. We stood on our feet during the night and stomped our feet on the ground to avoid getting frostbite or freezing: it was a Dance in Hell. We were unable to survive like this much longer; it was as if Judgment Day had already come. My father set out to find a way for us to save ourselves and proved to be successful in his efforts. Even though the German haters were everywhere and in charge of everything, he managed to find us some guardian angels. It was the Denes Bacsi, our butcher and his wife Mileva, who were both Serbs through and through. He came and got us from our hiding place with a gypsy caravan and brought us to his home. No one ever thought about the possibility of Germans hiding in the house of a Serb. We warmed up ourselves and had good warm food. The time passed by so quickly and I was feeling great spending time with the two daughters of the household, Tinca and Marioara and became very close friends with them. Somehow we were betrayed. The Police Chief informed our host and postponed a house search until the next day. One at a time, each of us left the house dressed like an old woman late that night. No one was any longer prepared to provide for the Germans. We were afraid to go home and so we attempted to find refuge with some relatives and friends. We were unable to find help at Maria Kernleitner’s, who lived at the corner house close to the steam driven mill. She and her mother were terrified to remain in their house alone. We found them at Rosalia Schubkegel. They cried because they had had to leave their hiding place and had no idea of where to go next. In response, my father simply said, "Then come with us." Hearing footsteps outside, everyone headed in a different direction in order to escape. But it was Andreas Schubkegel and he said, "They caught me, but I got away and now I’m running for it." Encouraged by Rosalia’s father, Heinrich Schubkegel who promised to help us hide out, we sneaked away to our house. In my parent’s house there was one room without windows, the door of which could be hidden by a tall cupboard. During the First and Second World Wars, clothes and food supplies would be hidden there when the requisitioners from the army came for supplies. This now became our narrow small hiding place. It was a very tight fit for seven persons. My grandmother Kaiser, who lived only three streets away, was to cook for all of us and my younger brother Joseph, who was just twelve years old, was to bring us our meal once a day along with any news. The food became better and better and the news got worse. Our tormenters increased in numbers, as did the promises made to them and for that reason they became very active. When no food arrived one day, we knew there was something wrong. They apprehended my little brother and brought him to the police station. There were people there in Russian and Romanian uniforms who were armed with machine pistols. They threw Joseph in a police cell along with five other children and seven old women. They had been arrested as hostages in place of their relatives and their teeth chattered from the cold and from fear. Eventually the door opened and two armed Russians pushed the hostages out into the yard and placed them in single file. They were ordered to reveal the hiding places of their family members. They all remained silent. Then they were called upon one by one and had to step forward, but none of them spoke. One of the uniformed soldiers raised his gun and fired a series of bullets and one of the old women fell unconscious to the ground. In response the soldier screamed, "Whoever refuses to answer our questions will be shot just like this old woman." This threat did not fail to achieve its objective. Some were too old, others too young not be believe the threat. Frightened and terrified each in turn promised to show the way to their family member’s hiding place. My brother Joseph came home escorted by two soldiers. We could already hear him crying from inside of our hiding place. He kept pleading, "I did not want to betray you, but they shot an old woman." With our hands raised each of us had to leave our hiding place one at a time. Each of us was searched and afterwards led away. Romanian farmers from Semlak had to drive us on their horse drawn sleighs to Klein St. Nikolaus and the Romanian-Soviet Commission there. We numbered twelve prisoners with six armed soldier guards who had shoot to kill orders. On our way to the Commission we had to pass by the assembly camp. There the soldiers handed us over to the others. The Commander of the camp and his assistant were both Jewish. Our guards, however, had been ordered specifically to hand us over to the Commission. After our papers were authorized, Michael Paul and my father George Kaiser were declared too old, while Maria Kernleitner, Eva Götz, Johann Paul and I were too young and were all set free. But the Camp Commander was not in agreement with our being set at liberty. In spite of that we were sent home with papers and certificates to that effect. On January 25, 1945 in spite of our papers we were again taken prisoner and along with many others were locked up in the Semlak, House of Culture. This time we were guarded by Soviet troops. At our apprehension and arrest we were promised that the Romanian-Soviet Commission would judge our cases on the basis the regulations. Men between 17 and 45 and women between 18 and 30 were to be deported. Day after day, always more Semlak Germans were brought to the House of Culture and locked up with us. On the morning of January 29th a convoy of Russian trucks filled with armed soldiers arrived. We were driven into the trucks and they were covered over with canvas. A portion of the soldiers held their weapons trained on us and the others did the same to those who had gathered there and were weeping because of what was taking place. We were not allowed to say our farewells or speak to one another. We were brought to the barracks in Arad where we were allowed to eat and wash once more. With the breaking of dawn, the prisoners were driven into the cattle cars. I, along with most of the others from Semlak was driven into cattle car number 52 at one o’clock, on January 30, 1945 on my seventeenth birthday. We numbered 82 persons. The doors were locked, the guards took their places inside and then there was the long whistling sound of the locomotive, the signal for our departure. Huffing and rolling along, the train filled with its human cargo set out. The journey into the unknown lasted from January 30th to March 7th, 1945. (I wrote these reminiscences 50 years later on January 30, 1995 in Düsseldorf on my 67th Birthday...GK)

Fifty Years After By George Kaiser, Düsseldorf Published in the Heimatortsgemeinschaft Semlak Heimatbrief - July 1994, Vol. 13, Pages 19-25 Part 2 - Many thanks for Henry Fischer for his translation from German to English.   Up until the departure of the train from Arad, I still hoped that I would be released because I was too young.  It was midnight and January 30, 1945 had begun with us packed inside the cattle car.  It was my seventeenth birthday.  I had become seventeen years old and now officially old enough to be deported.  The fact that many others were in the same position was of little comfort to me.  The way things worked out, the matter of age was actually secondary, the real issue was achieving the quota of deportees that had been set.  Only the sisters Eva and Susan Herber were released in Arad because they were ill clothed to face the gruesome winter ahead of us.  In all likelihood they had a guardian angel whose outstretched arms protected them.    During the last call for those boarding the train the suitcase of Nikolaus Poth, the baker, called “Uncle Bäck” by everyone, went missing.  That was a hard blow for him for it meant that he had lost all of his clothes and food.  Even though this was reported to the sentry, his suitcase could not be found in the darkness.  Uncle Bäck was dependent on the kindness of his fellow villagers during the following long journey and was never abandoned by them.    When all of the men were on the train a group of Soviet soldiers reported in.  They seemed very young to us, between 14 and 16 year olds.  They were children without parents who had been raised in Stalinist orphanages.  They wore fur coats, felt boots and thick bindings wrapped around their lower legs.  The Russian caps they wore had large earflaps and there was a large red five-pointed-star sewn at the center.  They were armed with machine pistols.    After the doors of the cattle car were locked from the outside, they took their post in the area around the braking apparatus at the far end.  These children were to be our guards on this long and tortuous journey towards uncertainty.    Following the sound a shrill whistle the locomotive shuddered and we experienced the train getting underway.  The long endless train set out on its long endless journey, whose final destination was unknown to us.    Some time next day our train drove into Rimnicul-Sarat, a city in Moldavia along Romania’s eastern border.  We all had to detrain here and take our luggage with us.  This was the cause of a faint glimmer of hope for we thought this meant we would remain in Romania and not be sent to work elsewhere.    We were set up in rows and columns of men and women and were led through the city to a camp.  Our guards were to our right and left and onlookers stood on the sidewalk, most of who were men with large black hats and long flowing beards.  We were scolded and spit upon by them and some were successful in landing a good kick at one of us.  They called us Hitler’s swine and pieces of plaster and rocks were thrown at us.  Our Russian guards tried to clarify to the Jews that we were only Antonescu’s stooges, but that did not help much.  This went on all of the way to the camp and when we got to the entrance there was a hostile group awaiting us screaming, “Heil Hitler!”    As we stepped into the camp yard we were met with the steam from huge boiling kettles.  They were filled with bean soup and smoked ham.  It was our first warm meal and we received cold rations for the next day.    On the same day we were once again loaded into Russian cattle cars in the same groups as before.  The guards also remained the same.    In the interior of these Russian cattle cars there were bunks set up at both ends, far too few for 82 persons assigned to the car, so that we only got to lie down on them to sleep, once every three nights.  The others spent the night sitting on their suitcases or other luggage.  There was also a tin furnace in the car, but there was no wood or anything with which to make a fire.  Beforehand, these cattle cars brought Russian soldiers westwards to the Front, but we were now traveling eastwards with them.    Before the train got underway we heard the sound of dogs barking outside and the sound of steps on the hard frozen snow.  It was the last security check making certain that all of the doors were locked.  A salvo of shots was the signal that the security procedure had been concluded and that the train could get underway.    On January 31st, we arrived in Iasi (the capital of Romanian Moldavia) and we were parked on a secondary track.  Next to the track was an open field, where we could relieve ourselves.  Inside the cattle car we had to form columns of men and women in order to be counted and then we had to take a step to the right and be counted again and both lists had to be handed over to the Russians by the Romanians.  During this count it was discovered that three persons were missing.  The count had to be taken several times, but the result was always the same.  We had to detrain again and an officer counted each one of us personally.  It was futile, there were still three persons missing.  Even after several warning shots our total count did not increase.  We had to board the train again.  Shortly afterwards we heard loud swearing and screams of, “Come quickly!”  The door of our car flew open and two young people, actually children, were thrown inside.  They were siblings, the boy was about twelve and the girl was fourteen and they said that they were Italian.   Right afterwards an older man was lifted up into the car because he was unable to do so alone.  He had a long flowing white beard.  He was a Romanian railway worker and was called Vitovsky and spoke German quite well.  The two children were sent home about a month later on a military train.    We received food to eat at Iasi, it would be the last meal we would eat in Romania:  a sentry opened the door of the cattle car and ordered that two men get off the train to go and get some food.  He pointed to me and said, “You Fritz.  Come here.”  I jumped out of the cattle car and landed on my stomach.  After much effort Heinrich Gottschick stood next to me.  We had little trust in the young soldiers because they swore at us so much.    While we were being counted, another cattle car was attached next to ours and had a sign designating that it was “the kitchen”.  That is where we got the food:  80 liters of greasy soup with mutton and a lot of paprika.  We dragged the food to our car in tin tubs.  In order to stir the thick brew we found a stick on the railway tracks.  There was enough soup because only a few attempted to eat this unfamiliar fare, because we still had enough fresh sausage from home in our suitcases.    From a distance we saw some people standing by a well and drawing water.  After several requests we were allowed to go to the well in the company of two guards.  We were allowed to stay for a while.  In order to wile away the time, the soldiers showed us their guns.  Using their machine pistols they shot the glass transformers on a telephone post that shattered into thousands of pieces.  We were then allowed to look through their field glasses to show us how easy it would be to shoot us.  One of the Russians took off my fur cap and pressing his thumbs against my temples laughed and said, “If you try to escape, your head will shatter just like the transformers and you will never see Russia.”  A man with a wooden leg had to translate that from Russian for us.    On the night before our departure we received warm unsweetened tea from the Russians as part of their “official welcome to Russia”.  We left Iasi on February 4, 1945.    The doors of our car were locked and as long as the train remained standing still, the cold was unbearable.  The people wrapped themselves in their covers and wore their coats and extra clothing.  As soon as the train got underway and it became night, the icy winds of Russia blew through the windows that provided air in the cattle car.  The people sat packed together on the floor and you could hear people praying out loud or quietly, “Dear God.  Loving God help us.  Save us.”  One would have to ask oneself where all of these gods suddenly came from.  Even those I knew well, who had never acknowledged God, were now calling upon Him for help.  Others called out for their left-behind-loved-ones.  It was all a great clamoring of misery and weeping.  We all now knew that it would be a long time if ever before we would see our loved ones again.  After a short silence, in another corner Swabian catholic women prayed the rosary and began to sing their familiar Marian songs.  This would happen every night and at the same time our guards pounded against the wooden walls of the cattle cars with their rifle butts to drown them out, along with Russian curses and a steady flow of swearing.    After we had traveled for a day and night we were put on a railroad siding and unhitched from the locomotive and train.  Only military trains heading for the front lines traveled on the main track.  Soldiers and munitions were now the priority.  At some point the doors were opened and we were allowed off of the train to meet our bodily needs.  In the deep snow, in the bitter cold, women and men, the told and the young, were packed together in the open field watched over by the soldiers.  We were allowed to empty the bucket we used on the train.  When the train was moving there was no other alternative except to use the bucket, as two people held up a cover to give some privacy.  At first this was very difficult for us, but after a few days it became rather normal and routine.  The biggest distress it caused was the overwhelming smell that we had to learn to live with and eventually we even got used to that.    Once due to exhaustion and cold I could not tell if I was awake or asleep.  For a short period of time reality seemed to escape me and I dreamt that I was helping my mother preparing the bake oven.  I saw myself as a child standing in front of the red-hot bake oven; I watched the rising flames and could smell the burning cornstalks.  In my dream I ate her fresh cheesecake.  How true the old proverb:  hungry geese dream of oats.    As I awoke from my dream I saw a large group of men standing close together.  By looking more closely I noticed that a flask of raki was making the rounds.  Only when I was really awake did I learn what had really happened.  George Brandt, better known as Juri Bacsi, was the man who had brought out the flask of schnapps from under his coat and he probably had very little difficulty coaxing the others to join him so that the Russians wouldn’t get it.  To ward off the cold the men reached out for the flask and after less than three rounds it was empty.  The raki was all gone and Juri Bacsi said, “He who gives little honor, isn’t worthy of any himself.”  He was priding himself of his generosity.    Because our luggage was close by, my father crawled around looking for it and eventually a three-liter jug put in an appearance, which naturally contained more raki.  My father then challenged him and said, “We all know that you are stingy.  You can’t satisfy the whole bunch of us with one liter of raki.”  There was a lot enthusiastic laughter, which unfortunately caught the attention of the guards at the door of the cattle car and they were quickly in the midst of us and they tried to find out what had been going on.  None of the men dared to answer.  After a quick search of several men they got a good whiff of the smell of schnapps and one of the sentries asked if we had any vodka.  Actually one of them screamed at Nikolaus Poth and he replied in great fear, “Not vodka.”  Then my father took the risk and said in Russian, “I have some vodka.”  Hearing that the Russians were really angry and called my father an old devil because he had not ever mentioned that he spoke Russian.  “Because of that you will get a well earned punishment,” they said.  At that moment we heard a loud blast of whistles.  The sentries had just enough time to jump off of the train and lock the doors of our car.  Our train was in motion once more.    An uneasy silence followed and everyone thought about the threatened punishment, until someone came up with the idea that we could bribe the Russians with some of the raki.    After a long night and ice-cold journey our train came to a sudden halt and made the brakes squeal.  We could not see anything through the wooden slats that formed the wall of the cattle car, but we were very much aware of a lot of noise, and concluded that we were at a large railway station or depot.  We could hear many voices and above all a host of orders and commands.  On the neighboring track there was another train that was heading in the opposite direction than we were, heading to the Front either in Hungary or Romania.  A group of soldiers came towards our cattle car and we could hear the crunch of the snow under their boots as well as their singing and swearing, a tell tale sign that they were all drunk.  The sentries opened the door to our car and ordered my father to get out.  We were all very scared.  As he jumped off of the train at the door, he lost his fur cap, which greatly amused the Russians.  One of them held up the cap and said, “Put it back on, before your ears freeze, before you even get a chance to experience a cold Siberian winter.”   It was only now that it dawned on us that they had come for my father to act as an interpreter.  The Russians boarded our train and offered to exchange their Russian money for any Romanian currency we had.  But we were too distrustful of them.  It was only when they offered us cigarettes that we cautiously took out our money.  We believed we actually made a favorable trade with them.    The little Italian boy who had been left with us, cried bitterly and his whole body trembled.  The women had clothed him in whatever they could spare themselves.  When the guards saw him, they asked him how he was doing.  He simply said, that he was very cold.  The older men offered some schnapps to the Russians, but they only drank once my father had first drunk some.  They were afraid that we might poison them.  Their tongues became loosened as they drank and said that they would give us some firewood if we would give them one of the girls.  It took awhile for us to realize that they were just joking.  Eventually they left and climbed down from our car and told us to behave ourselves.  When they returned and opened the door I happened to be standing directly in front of them.  They ordered me, “Get down here with another boy.”  A train loaded with wood stood nearby.  Our guards unloaded six planks, about three meters long and carried them along with us to our cattle car.    An old blackened tin furnace stood inside our car, presumably left behind by the Russian military, but we had not had a fire because we lacked wood.  We were instantly rich:  we had firewood!  What do you do with three-meter long planks without a saw or an axe?  The guards wanted to deal with us and buy tobacco and we asked for an axe in exchange.  Shortly after that we had an axe.  They had confiscated it from the next car that was a kitchen.  They also brought some boards and slats, but they gave strict orders that we only chop the wood during the journey so that the commander would not become aware of what we were doing because if discovered the wood would be taken away and the soldiers would be punished.    We were able to do well with selling our schnapps, and we wanted to buy cigarettes with our money, much of which was actually worthless.  At least a third of it had expired as legal tender.    The six wooden planks took up a great deal of space in our cramped and packed cattle car.  So we set them in such a way that as many people as possible could sit on them.  Now that we had an axe, we chopped a hole in the floor of the car and using some blankets we set up a privacy wall around it and used it to meet our sanitation needs.  This greatly bothered the Russians because they were afraid we would use the hole to escape.    The longer the journey lasted, the deeper we went into Russia and the colder and more frigid it became.  The snow kept getting deeper.  At times we thought the snow was smoke, but we knew that if we saw smoke there must be a village consisting of a few houses and only the stone chimneys were visible in the deep snow.  To the right and left of the train tracks all we saw was snow and destroyed military equipment:  tanks, cars, canons and then more snow.    Our train seldom halted and as a result we received less tea and warm food.  Instead, we received cooked, cold, heavily salted beef.  Out of hunger we ate it.  But it was not the hunger that was bad, it was the thirst that followed after we ate.  There was no water, the wells along the tracks were frozen.  So it was the snow that covered the roof of our car that was our only source of moisture.  We stuck our hands out of the windows as far as we could reach and would scratch as much snow as we could and ate it.  When the train came to a halt once more, we filled our dishes and containers with snow and drank it after it melted if we could wait that long.    Once the train halted somewhere we heard ship sirens wailing.  It was snowing and we had no idea where we were.  We had the idea that now we would be loaded on board ships.  When it was daylight our train started out slowly and we crossed a wide expanse of water.  It was on March 1, 1945.  We did not know what kind of enormous river this was.  When we asked the guards about it they sang the Volga River song.    Gradually it was becoming warmer outside and our cattle car was more bearable.  The train halted less and less and we went on and on.  And always the same sound of the locomotive wheels buzzed around in my head…I am taking you away.    But our sense of well-being was about to be disturbed as each one of us, one after the other became restless.  A strange sensation vexed our bodies and we had to scratch constantly.  At first we were ashamed to do so in front of one another, but we finally had to admit that our underwear was filled with lice.  One morning our train had halted somewhere and the sun shone through the windows of the car.  I took off my shirt and held it up close to the window to catch the rays of the sun.  Like little white pearls the lice eggs glistened in the sunlight.  From them would emerge the many-legged creatures that tormented us and I found three thriving lice that I crunched between my fingernails.  It was much the same for my father.  People formed a line and waited for their turn in the sunlight and carried out the same procedure.  As I write these words now, I can feel the sensations running up and down my spine as if I was back there.  I took off my shirt and held it in the sunlight and exclaimed:  Thank God there aren’t any now…”    At first we threw the lice infested clothes in the hole in the floor, but we soon realized it was useless because the lice reproduced rapidly from one day to another, so that we simply had to accept it and live with it.    We could not determine where the lice had come from.  There was a quick verdict some of us came to, that the source was several young men, of German origin, like ourselves who had been in the Romanian Army and had been packed into our train while we were still in Romania.  Among them was Michael Gottschick (Linkert-Gottschick) who was assigned with us from Semlak in the same cattle car.    Our journey was long and we endured a lot that was unpleasant.  On March 7, 1945 our train halted once more and we did not know where we were, but we had arrived at our destination, deep inside of Russia, in the far and distant Ural Mountains.  And it snowed and snowed.  The thick snowflakes flew into our eyes and we had to cover them with our hands so that we could see.  We stood out in an open field and the wind whirled all around us.  We stood there rooted to the spot facing the unknown in this unending, white wilderness that awaited us.

Fifty Years After By George Kaiser, Düsseldorf Published in the Heimatortsgemeinschaft Semlak Heimatbrief - February 1996, Vol. 14, Pages 11-26 Part 3 - Many thanks for Henry Fischer for his transcribing Skills   We arrived in the Ural Mountains on March 7, 1945.  It was a frigid day at 30 degrees below zero.  Rows of trucks brought us forced laborers to the camp.  We were on the last cattle car and had to wait the longest.  They took the others from the front section of our car.  They were women from Neupanat, Traunau and Engelsbrunn.  In the end, there were twenty-one men left, including me.  It was getting dark, and becoming colder and it appeared as if they had forgotten all about us.  It was only as the train got underway that we were discovered and brought to the camp having to endure their screams and taunts of our guards until we got there.    Our new home was called Kuwandik.  It was Camp Number 1902 and was set up for the likes of us who were being punished.  Most of us in this camp were individuals who had tried to escape from one transit camp or another, or had attempted to avoid deportation as we had.  Now we were informed of our punishment and sentence:  five years of slave labor here in the Ural Mountains.    From a distance we could see the searchlights on the watchtowers that cast light all around us.  The camp itself was well lit too.  We had to undress and be counted in a large room.  Our clothes were taken away and deloused and they then cut off our hair and we had to wash ourselves.  We received our first food at the camp, hot cabbage soup and a piece of barley bread.  Our sleeping quarters were an underground barracks with two levels of bunks made of frozen wood standing to the right and left at the opposite ends of the room.  At the very end of the room stood a stove, the kind we were used to at home.  The roof of our sleeping quarters was level with the ground outside and consisted of frozen clumps of earth.  The whole area around it was covered with thick ice or deep snow banks.  There was no wood or any other fuel available to provide us with heat.    On the second day, the twenty-one of us were formed into an official brigade.  We received warm clothes and on the third day we were taken out to work for the first time.  We were assigned to do clean up work and as we did so we assembled all kinds of wooden debris that we could use to burn in the barracks.  Floors and walls slowly disappeared.  Our covers became damp and our bedding was often wet.    After about a month we were put to work on road construction.  We worked in a stone quarry or we had to carry timber on our shoulder for several kilometers to the river to build a bridge.  In the third month our brigade was disbanded.  Those who were assigned to work in the mines were sent to the central camp.  The others were transferred to two smaller camps.  Those of us who remained in the central camp received other clothing appropriate to our new work place.  In the mine itself the work was done on two levels.  One was hot and dry and the other was wet and cold.  Over the entrance to the mine shaft there was a sign with the words:  “Mednagorsk Copperworks.”    The foreman placed me under the direction of a girl who only spoke Russian who was supposed to supervise me.  My only work tool was a heavy hammer that weight about 10 kilos.  The Russian girl assisted a man with a pneumatic drill and a sorting machine, which removed the earth and rocks and put them in a trough attached to the machine.  There was a meshed metal screen over the trough so that the large pieces of rock and stone could not fall into it.  These rocks were the source of my work and I had to smash them into smaller pieces with my hammer so that they could be scooped up with a shovel and tossed into the trough of the machine.  My woman boss was especially strict and unbending with me and she always made sure that there was work for me to do even when she took her own rest period.  The first week was long and difficult.  My feet felt heavier every day.  And my boss was always after me to do more work to pay for my keep at the camp.  One day, about a month later, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel as two figures approached me.  It was another foreman, a very friendly Russian named Olga and my friend Toni Stengel from Traunau that I had gotten to know during the journey to Russia, who was about my own age.  We sat down and the foreman “baptized” me with a new name:  Grischa.  And I was now allowed to call my boss:  Dusia.  Olga was in charge of Toni and she called him:  Fritz.  She was good to him and brought him tea.  Since he had to work for her she decided he needed the strength to do so.  My rubber boots were always getting heavier and my clothes were getting looser and too big for me.  Eventually my need broke Dusia’s steel heart and she began to bring food for me.  She sometimes made the stones smaller than I was capable of pounding with my hammer.    Sometimes we received permission from the foreman to leave the work place two hours before the end of our shifts.  We used the time to steal firewood while we waited for the guards to come and get us and take us to the camp.  We used the wood to barter for potatoes, beets and melons.  We smuggled the food into the camp hidden in our clothes.  In the camp kitchen cabbage soup awaited us day after day, or soup made out of sour cucumbers with a small piece of barley bread mixed with chaff that tasted like freshly cooked soap and as sour.  Eating so much sour food meant we spent half of the night in relieving ourselves.  When we arrived after the night shift the soup was always cold, because there was no material to burn to keep it warm.  There was not always a ladle and sometimes there was no stick or wood around to use and we dipped in our tin but we faced punishment if we were apprehended by a guard for doing so.    We got along better with our women bosses.  We often relieved them from their work on the machine and drill.    At that time, it was not permitted for photographs to be taken of the deportees, but through the intervention of a third Russian woman this picture that appears with the article was taken.  It was taken in 1946 at Camp Mednagorsk.    A short time after this picture was taken we were separated.  I remained at my job at the old work place, while Toni was sent to a neighboring camp.    click image to enlarge     Fifty years later, my wife and I visited him and his wife in Rosstal by Nurnberg.  Both of us were retired, and both of us used canes as we hugged each other at our reunion at the railway station in Nurnberg.  Neither one of us could speak a word because our tears were in the way.  Both of our wives, who did not know one another, hugged each other and cried too.  In those days we spent together in Rosstal we reminded each other of the misery, hunger and cold, the sickness and the many deaths of those who never got to see their loved ones again.    Along with Toni we visited one of our fellow inmates from our camp, a red-cheeked girl whose name was Rosa Schnell, a good friend to all of us from Semlak.  She is now Rosa Kern.    In the spring of 1947 photographs were permitted and the picture on this page is one of the early ones.  This picture was the first to arrive at home from the camp.  The picture was smuggled home to Semlak by Friedrich and Magdalena Rozsa who were released early.    click image to enlarge       In the Fall of 1947 I was still working as a stone loader in “Level 2” in a very cold and damp room.  Droplets of acid from the copper ore dripped down on me.  After my clothes dried, they simply fell apart into pieces.  Droplets also ran down the back of my neck and ate away at the skin and I experienced constant burning sensations in the wounds.  The broad brimmed rubber hat that I wore in the picture was supposed to protect me against this acid brew.  It was only after long and countless entreaties that I was released from this hellish workplace.  Now I had to pour clay and lime into earthen supports to ensure against cave-ins.  I also worked with the same machinery I had in the past but now at normal temperatures and I no longer had to smash and hammer the stones into tiny particles.  All in all, it was much better work.    I continued to hide firewood in my quilted clothing in order to exchange it for food.  In the camp canteen there was still only sauerkraut soup with a spoonful of cooked millet.  This was too little for young hardworking people and I felt very weak.  I had to carry the wood in the dark of night and often in snowstorms for about two kilometers to an old woman, my so-called Babushka.  The greatest danger was getting lost or being attacked by wolves.  When I tried to tell the old woman that I could no longer come to bring her wood because of the dangers involved, she began to cry because she was afraid she would freeze to death.  Her house stood in an open field and there was not a single tree in the vicinity.  Her wood reserves had already been used up in the previous winter and there was no wood that could be bought.  This old woman had great sympathy for me, often she gave me three times as much as the wood was worth and she often sent my father some tobacco and something to eat in a small parcel that I took back to the camp with me.  Every time I came she was waiting with a bowl of warm potato soup and always said, “I hope it’s tasty enough for you my son.”    As I said farewell this time and extended my hand to her she gave me a kiss and asked me to wait for just one moment.  She brought a picture and stood crying in front of me.  After she calmed down a bit, she showed me the picture and said, “This was my son, Stalin took him from me and sent him to the Front and the Germans killed him.  My husband has also disappeared in this damnable war.  My daughter lives in Moscow and attends a military school there in order to understand all of this that has happened to us.  Do you know why I call you my son?  You have the same dimples as my son when you laugh and you have been good to me just like my son.  When you are here, all of my worries are gone and I feel as if I was born again.  When I meet my friends I tell them my Vanya was to see me and will come again soon.  But all they say to me is, “Dusia you’re just out of it.”    By now it was quite late.  My own thoughts had flown home to my own mother.  No darkness, no howling wind, nor not even thick deep snow slowed down my pace.  Arriving at the main entrance to the camp I was suddenly confronted by a sentry and I tried to explain to him that I had been lost.  He asked me what I had in my pockets.  It was only then when I realized my new little mother had again hidden something in my clothes for my father.  The sentry and now some other guards saw that I was upset and they asked if I had drunk any vodka.  I had to breathe into their faces and then they knew that I was not drunk.  They told me to disappear as quickly as possible and I did.    Lying there in my bunk I could not fall asleep because I could not help thinking about the poor old woman and wondered how I could possibly help her.  My father, who slept in the bunk beneath mine, woke up and asked where I had gone off to again.  I held a finger up against my lips to tell him to be quiet and winked at him indicated he should come closer.  Once I showed him what she had sent he was wide awake and joined me.  Hunger was just always a present reality and it was great.  Another young man, about my age, was also unable to sleep because of hunger pangs that were insistent and demanding.  My father offered him some of what she had sent and it was all gone in a few moments.  The young man was Hans Roth, a Transylvanian Saxon from Bistritz.  He was so weak at the time that he could barely walk.  I suggested that Hans become my partner to help our Babushka.  We thought about it a lot until our heads were swimming.  But the old Russian woman had to wait for quite some time until we had the opportunity to visit her.    Once we were ready, I spoke to Hans at breakfast and said, “We’re heading out tonight!  Get your stomach ready for this.”  “I’m scared,” he answered.  “Today we’ll leave our fear here at the camp and show what we can do.”    At the entrance to the mine there were numerous logs, branches and tree trunks.  When the watchmen weren’t looking and under the cover of darkness we carried a three-meter long tree trunk on our shoulders and made our way into the cold, quiet winter night.  From far away we could see the house of the old Russian woman lit up, unlike it had ever been before.  The tree trunk was heavy and we had to pause several times and catch our breath.  As we got closer to the house things did not seem right.  There were several sleighs and unharnessed horses about.  In the darkness I observed several shapes.     We set the tree trunk down in the snow and got closer.  We did not want to believe our ears as we heard girls singing and balalaikas playing.  We stood rooted to the spot in front of the door and listened, just then the door suddenly opened and several soldiers surrounded us who wanted to know who we were and what we were looking for.  Trembling all over, I said I was Vanya and I had come to see Babushka.  “You wanted to steal our horses right?”  One man yelled at us.  “No, we don’t want to do that, we have just brought the old woman some wood,” I answered, just as Babushka and her daughter and her bridegroom stepped out of the door.  She embraced me and led us into the house.  I introduced Hans as my friend.  We were immediately invited to the table.  Someone brought tin cups and poured vodka.  All of the wedding guests wanted to get to know us.  The bride and groom—a higher officer—remained at the table with us while Babushka busied herself getting food for us, which this time was very plentiful.  The guests were officers.  Most of them spoke some German and were rather mistrustful of us until Babushka broke in on the conversation.  Hans and I saw a wedding for the first time.  The bride wore a white wedding dress and the bridegroom wore a Cossack uniform.  The young men, all of whom were officers, had their Sunday best uniforms on.  We only knew officers who wore quilted clothing and thick felt boots.  The girls wore beautiful costumes as well.  Up until now we only knew girls who wore quilted clothing.    The wedding couple filled a flask with vodka for my father.  The mother packed some food and tobacco for him.  Because we were not used to drinking vodka we found it more difficult to get back to the camp than it had been when we carried the tree trunk on our shoulders.  When we arrived at the camp, we had great luck because there was only one watchman who did not appear to even notice us because his lantern had gone out, but when he saw us he scolded us for not moving through the door fast enough.  Understandably he managed to get some of our booty because the Russians didn’t have much food either.    We slipped back into our personal hell where my father waited.  He couldn’t sleep for worry and hunger.  As soon as he saw us, he sprang up from his bunk and preached us a sermon on what could have happened to us on a dark Russian night.  But as soon as he saw the food we had brought and the little bundle of tobacco he became speechless.    Days before we had all received new underwear and my father had the good fortune to exchange a new shirt for a pail of potatoes.  We locked up the food we had brought in a suitcase along with the potatoes and planned to eat them the next day.    When we came home from work the next day, we saw a large fire in the camp yard.  A huge column of black smoke rose to heaven.  In front of the kitchen there was a small pile of potatoes, melons and beets.  They were delicacies we had saved for bad times ahead.  Then we noticed that the doors to our barracks were standing wide open and all of the suitcases had been broken into and all of the food and provisions and other valuables were missing.  After a long hard day’s work, the disappointment we felt was unbearable because we had looked forward to eating the food items we had saved.  We went to the eating hall rather sorrowfully where to our astonishment, for the first time, we were given pea soup in which we found small pieces of fish.  It was like a festive meal.  In spite of that we were sorrowful that we had lost our reserves and only one person seemed to be happy about it.  It was the German camp commander Hermann, who came from somewhere in Bukovina and had total power over us.  We could only refer to him as, “Herr Hermann,” while on his part he called us Schweinehunde…dirty pigs...swine.  He had reported to the officers that the guards and sentries did not control us enough and threatened that in the future he would see to it himself.  From then on, no one could go through the gates without being strictly searched.  It was a constant, “Trousers up, trousers down.”    One evening around nine o’clock my father asked me for my new shirt.  The searchlights on the watchtowers shone alternately on the camp yard and the area just outside of the camp.  The fence around the camp yard consisted of three rows of barbed wire that reached as far as under the watchtowers.  As the searchlight shone outside of the camp, my father quickly crawled under the fence as far as the watchtower where the searchlight never shone.  He cut the barbed wire with a pair of pliers and crawled under the fence into the dark night.  He returned just around midnight.  I stood outside in front of the barrack as his shadow moved.  He had luck again, and had exchanged my new shirt for a pail of potatoes.  We baked half of them in the stove and left the rest for the next day.  The night was short, but our stomachs were full again.  That is how we lived our lives and survived from day to day.  During work we thought of nothing but the potatoes because the daily pea soup was too thin to satisfy anyone who suffered from constant hunger.    As soon as we came from work, we immediately went to work to bake our potatoes.  We sat on our bunks, my father below and I above, and we ate our potatoes with gusto just as Herr Hermann created havoc in the barracks.  Swearing at the top of his lungs he lunged at my bed and punched me in one ear and I fell off of the bed and lay sprawled down on the floor.  The small pot of uneaten potatoes landed on the floor next to me.  Once Hermann saw that, his rage turned into fury.  He stomped on me with both of his feet.  The pot with the potatoes crumpled beneath the onslaught of his boots.  He then grabbed me by the collar, pulled me up on my feet and pushed me to the door and outside.  My father only received a kick in the behind.  Out in the yard there were others who had experienced the same treatment.  “Line up, you pigs!  There are two wagons filled with wood that need to be unloaded.  All I want to see is you fellows moving quickly,” Hermann screamed at us.    It was midnight before we had unloaded the wood.  On the way back the guards shouted, “Quicker!  Quicker!”  Using the last ounce of our strength we could not go any faster.  Our wooden shoes became heavier because of our hunger and exhaustion.  When we were finally back at the camp, we were told we were not allowed to get anything to eat which was the punishment that had been ordered by Herr Hermann himself.  We stepped into the barracks and each of us mumbled, “You pig!  You’ll pay for this some day!”  We had sworn revenge a long time before.  If we could not get him before we were on our way home, we would toss him off of the train.    On three occasions my name was placed on the list of those to be transferred to Siberia to cut wood in the wilderness Tiago.  Those who went there:  died there.  Hermann had all of this under his command and control.  A corporal, a Jew from Poland, struck my name off of the list all three times and thereby saved my life.  As a result, Hermann swore to my father that he would see to it that my skin and bones ended up in the earth of Russia.  He stormed around the barracks in a rage in search of revenge for what the Jewish officer had done for me and gave me a kick and sent me to the kitchen to chop wood.  When I was finished with that, he tossed me in the punishment cell.  It was a large wooden cupboard in which a man could only stand and was unable to move about.  The man’s feet would freeze in it in the wintertime and one’s whole body shivered in the cold.  With the opening of the door, the man would fall down on the floor like a rigid piece of wood.      Often the Russians had more sympathy for us, especially if we stole something, even though there were strict penalties.  Often our “own” had us locked up and the Russians would set us free.  In Mednagorsk, as well as the distant regions in the Urals and Siberia, there were exiles from all of Russia.  They were Russians, Volga Germans, Tatars, Kiresians and Gypsies.  Things did not go any better for them than for us.  Right from the beginning they were very hostile towards us.  All we had to do was leave the camp under guard when the others would toss rocks at us.  In my thoughts, I can still hear them even today as they screamed after us, “Hitler’s pigs!  Heil Hitler!”  “Hitler is kaput!”  They were strictly forbidden to speak to us.    During this first period of our imprisonment, we were interrogated by agents of the NKVD (Russian State Secret Police).  This usually occurred at midnight.  These were political interrogations, but we were not physically abused or blackmailed.  But there were some people among us who wanted to blacken the characters of others because there were those persons among us who had been in the Waffen-SS (battle formations) or had been functionaries in the German Folk Group organization.  But the betrayals had little or no real results because there were always other inmates who contradicted their testimony.    After another comprehensive search of our barracks, we were placed under heavy guard.  For days nothing happened.  One evening, my father set out again to do something to meet the needs of our raging hunger.  As usual he crawled under the barbed wire fence out of the camp and made his way to the gardens of the local inhabitants in search of potatoes.  He was not the first to have rummaged around in this garden for potatoes.  He was caught at it and was bludgeoned to unconsciousness with a wooden shovel by the owner and then brought back to the camp.  My father was placed in a punishment cell for ten days and given 200 grams of bread daily.  Every day the Jewish officer that I mentioned before brought him a piece of additional bread.  Along with that the officer permitted our countrymen, Heinrich Hay, who was an invalid from the war who had been assigned to do lighter work in the camp, to bring my father some warm soup and millet.    After my father served his punishment, the camp doctor, who was also a Jewess, designated him to be a “second class” worker.  This meant that he was no longer able to work in the mine and that he would now be given lighter work.  He was placed in charge of a horse and wagon to deliver limestone from the stone quarry on the mountain down to the limekiln in the valley.  Then an accident occurred.  The wagon collided with a rock formation and overturned and injured my father.  He broke an arm and several ribs and was taken to the hospital.  Sick and weak, no longer able to work, he was placed on the list of the sick to be on the next transport to be sent home.  After three and one half years he was to be allowed to return home.    I was also on the same list of the sick along with my father, but just as the transport was about to leave, it was decided that there was not enough room for me on it.  This was a terrible blow for both of us.    During 1947, starvation raged throughout the Urals.  People died like flies.  I was already chosen by death to be its next victim and I weighed scarcely 40 kilos.  The doctors declared me to be “marginal” and therefore exempt from work.  In spite of that Herr Hermann assigned me, along with three others my age, to be gravediggers.  He said I was strong enough to do this kind of work.  They took away our work clothes and in their place we received rags that were soiled and rotting.  When we went to eat we wrapped covers around us because we were ashamed of our stinking rags.    The camp cemetery was about two kilometers distant from the camp on a hill and was surrounded by a ditch.  It was said that there was a grave there reserved for each of us.  All day we hacked away at the stony rocky soil to dig a grave to a depth of about our knees because we could not penetrate the bedrock.  At night we took the dead from the morgue and conveyed them on a flat wagon pulled by an old schimmel (grey horse) to the cemetery.  There we placed them in the grave and covered them with whatever earth we could find.  The idea of placing a cross or providing a coffin was not possible in these terrible times.  If a corpse still had a shirt on, it was taken off, and quickly exchanged because of the terrible hunger we suffered.    During that summer two of our countrymen also died.  Heinrich Maleth died out of desperation and homesickness.  He drank a brew made with tobacco in the hope that he would become sick enough and sent home.  But instead it resulted in something else.  He was unable to withstand the poison and died.  Julianna Schmidt was thrown from an open truck and as a result of her injuries and lack of care died.  Had she lived she would have been my mother-in-law because after I returned home to Semlak I married her daughter.    After awhile Hermann decided our work was too light and we did not earn our own keep.  He kept finding more unpleasant things for us to do, cleaning the latrines for instance.  But because of his chicanery with us his relationship with the Jewish officer got worse.  Soon we were transferred to a neighboring village and handed over to a woman commander.  There was hardly any work to do.  We spent most of our time in a hayloft, reclining in the hay but with churning empty stomachs.  The woman commander hardly gave us anything to eat, but let us work in the gardens of the local inhabitants for which we received something to eat.  In this way we were able to recover our strength and health somewhat.    During 1947 a commission came from Moscow.  When they discovered the catastrophic situation in the camp, all of those in charge were dismissed.  Among them was Herr Hermann.  I myself had recovered and had to go back and work in the mine.  But already on the second day I had an accident.  They made me aware of the danger of working if there was smoke or gas in the shaft.  But in order to meet my work quota for the day for my rations, I kept on working.  I became exhausted from the smoke.  I sat down and fell asleep.  When the foreman, Steiger found me, I was unconscious and he thought I was dead.  He informed the camp officials that I had died.  But they brought me to the hospital anyway.  After several hours they brought me back to life.  After a week I was allowed to leave the hospital.    About a year after my father left to go home I suffered greatly from homesickness.    Almost every night I dreamt of home.  In terms of my health, things were not going well.  I received a Red Cross postcard from my friend and neighbor back home, Martin Schaeffer.  He informed me that my girlfriends Julia and Katy had both found some Romanian friends, but I should not feel too bad about it because there were still many young girls in Semlak.  You couldn’t learn much from one such post card.  They were only allowed to consist of twenty-five words and they were censored.    A very good man whose name was Karl Kappler, an old time Communist from Temesvar, filled Hermann’s position.  Often when I was in need, he took the place of my father.  Slowly, I began to earn more money, but received only 200 Rubles.  Apparently, I had a debt of 7,000 Rubles, and my father had also left as much of a debt behind him that I was to pay back.  On Christmas’ Eve I decided I would not work.  I simply lay down and fell asleep and dreamt of a small Christmas tree all aglow with candles surrounded by children.  I heard bells ringing, our Semlak bells, and Christmas songs and organ music.    Suddenly it was bright before my eyes.  It was the harsh lift of the lantern of my foreman.  His fat fist hit my bony face and my safety helmet fell off of my head.  He beat me unmercifully and threatened that by his word of honor he would report me to the camp officials.  To my good fortune, he did not keep his word of honor and did not report me.    I was really afraid that he would do it and when I was called to the camp office on Christmas Day there was no longer any talk of punishment.   I stepped in and saw a young man sitting next to the foreman.  The young man had red cheeks and looked at me in a friendly manner.  “This is my son Mischa.  He is studying in Berlin.  And this is a German that we call Grischa.  In your absence he will take your place as my son.”  We had to speak to one another in German.  The eyes of the father began to glisten as tears ran down his cheeks.  “You two are very much alike,” he commented.  In fact both of us had the same large blue eyes and were about the same age.  But compared to me he was rather much better nourished and probably had double my weight.    A sumptuous breakfast was unpacked and we ate as if we were all members of the same family.  In recognition of bringing me into the family we drank some vodka quite freely.  Afterwards I received a ration card for the noonday meal in the Russian canteen for one month from this now good man.  In addition I received a camp ration card for meat: about the size of sugar cube, an egg and 50 grams of sugar and an extra portion of millet.    A few days later a letter came to the camp that declared that I was to be recognized as a Stachanowisten (a Soviet title of honor for an industrious worker).  Immediately, I was transferred from the barracks to a room with thirteen other “industrious” workers who were already living there.  This room appeared homey and cozy.  A piece of linen served as a tablecloth and a vase with flowers stood on the center of the table.  A woman in the camp saw to the cleanliness and order in the room.  The food was very good and not served to us in portions.    The new camp commander Kappler exerted a lot of effort to better the conditions of the prisoners.  There was no longer a place for old “boss” Hermann.  He did not last at anything for longer than three days.  His bedding was stolen and sold and all kinds of mischief were perpetrated against him.  The chief cook, Frischmann, who was once one of his cohorts, now no longer supported him and there was no longer extra rations for him.  He would simply say, “The dirty pigs have eaten everything,” when he came for his food.  There was an empty bed next to mine.  The woman who looked after us said, “We’ll give this bed to your friend, Hermann.”  I answered, “Then I’ll throw myself in the Ural River or take my life in some other way.”    I was re-assigned in terms of my job in which I earned about 4,000 Rubles.  I was promoted to blaster.  Holes were bored in the tunnel and filled with dynamite and covered with clay.  Then it was lit and the earth was blasted.  At the workplace it was rather warm, at times around 50 degrees Celsius, and we worked completely naked.  Outside at the same time it was very cold.  On a steady basis various materials, machinery and other things had to be brought in from the outside.  Women were excluded from this work because they refused to work naked or around men who were.  After searching for some time, I found a girl who was prepared to do this work.   She was the youngest in the camp and her name was Margaret Schumacher and did not speak a word of German.  She had been deported because of her beautiful German name.  She came from Moldova where there are no longer any Germans.  She now received more wages and rations.  All of this was only possible due to the goodness of our new commander.    One night I came home from the night shift and wanted to go to sleep.  I could not believe my eyes.  Herr Hermann was there in the bed next to me.  I thought over whether this was the right moment for me to murder him.  But I remembered that we were now always talking about the possibility of going home and that would not make much sense placing myself in jeopardy over him.  In fact, the guards had been saying lately, “You’re soon going home.”  I lay still in bed so as not to wake Hermann and besides I did not want to see his eyes.  The next Saturday night as he entered the room in the dark, a blanket was thrown over his head he was punched, beaten and pummeled from all sides.  He never found out who had beat him up.  The Russian camp commander threatened us with sever punishment if anyone ever did it again.  From then on, Hermann was quiet as a lamb and had to work just like the rest of us.    There were more and more Russians coming to the mines and we had to train them in their jobs.  Many of them were criminals.  One day I was assigned a former soldier.  We quickly became friendly.  When I learned that he spoke Romanian, I wanted to know where he learned it.  He told me, “I was in Semlak, a village close to the Hungarian border for three years in house number 739, where I was quartered with an old woman with the name of Eva Schmidt.”  She was the grandmother of my wife Katharine and my brother-in-law George Schmidt.  To prove that what he said was true he told me that there were five churches in the village and a large mill with a steam-driven engine.  When I told him that I was from Semlak he was quite surprised.  I told him where my parent’s house stood and he immediately interrupted me to tell me that he knew the house and also knew my mother.  He was at her house just the previous year and she had given him a large piece of smoked bacon as a gift because she was such a good and kind woman.  Later, after I was back at home, I asked my mother about him.  She said that it was exactly at Easter in 1947 that a drunk Russian soldier with a pistol in hand had come to her and demanded the hind quarter of a smoked bacon.  She only wanted to give him half of it and he then threatened her with his gun and fired it off into the air.    In 1948 a theatre group and a choir were formed in the camp.  Julianna Bartolf (nee Ledig) had much to do with both and she was able to encourage the young people not to give up hope for the future.    Because of that we were open to life again and not simply survival.  The Russians got hold of an accordion and we had dance evenings.  Juli Nene (Hungarian for auntie) together with her husband Adam were both in the camp and she loved to dance.  But they would not be able to enjoy the dances for long.  There was an accident and she broke her leg and had to go to the hospital.  Only a year after we were released was she able to come home.    On a morning in November 1949 we were all ordered by loudspeaker to remain in camp that day.  Like the first day in 1945, we had to form rows and columns in the camp yard.  The camp commander announced loudly,  “The long awaited news has come.  As of today you are all free persons!”  We wept with joy and the commander could not hold back his own tears.    At our departure, many of the local people came to the railway station to say farewell because after five years many friendships had developed.  But there were also many who had suffered greatly during the German occupation, who shouted to us, to go to the devil.  I did not bid my Babushka farewell because I could not get to see her because things had moved so quickly.    We journeyed through Poland in the direction towards home.  In a small town our train was halted at a siding.  A Jewish officer greeted us officially.  He had been appointed by a commission in Moscow to welcome us.  In our honor there was a choir and a Polish dancing group along with wonderful food and even some beer.    In those days the trains did not travel to Semlak and so we had to detrain in the neighboring village of Petschka.  The bus to Semlak was not running again and we made our way on foot for the last leg of our journey.  Along the way we met Michael Osatzki who was driving his wagon to Semlak and took us along with him.  This included:  Michael Gottschick and his wife Katharine (nee Schubkegel), the brothers Adam and Heinrich Gottschick as well as Maria Kernleitner.    On reaching home I went into the room that had been our hiding place along with Michael Osatzki.  My parents then stood there and next to them there were three tall young boys.  My mother asked, “Which one of these do you think is your brother?”  I did not know how to answer.  The three young men were Karl Friedrich, my brother Joseph and Heinrich Maleth.  It was December 23, 1949, one of the most beautiful days of my whole life.

"Diary of Deportation" by Andreas Toth A Portion of the Diary of Andreas Toth From the Heimatortsgemeinschaft Semlak Heimatbrief - February 1995, Vol. 12, Pages 21-29. Many thanks for Henry Fischer for his translation from German to English. (Andreas Toth was born in Semlak, Romania on September 16, 1928, the only child of Andreas Toth and his wife the former Julianna Bartolf.  Following his completion of Public School in Semlak, he went to the Trade School in Temesvar and High School in Detta.  He died in the deportation to Russia on September 13, 1946, three days before his eighteenth birthday.) Thursday, September 14, 1944: Hungarian soldiers appeared in the village in the forenoon…a patrol.  In the afternoon the Hungarian soldiers (border guards) came to the market place along with four German soldiers with the terrifying order:  Take flight immediately!  I was just having an afternoon nap and it was around 2 o’clock.  I rushed out to our fields, later went to the druggist, but he was closed, and then went and took a look at the soldiers.  They had set up artillery piece in front of our Lutheran Church pointing towards the west. At our place out in the yard:  We were just separating the sunflower seeds from the large pods.  The wagon came and I helped unload it and we continued to work and then Aunt Kathi came.  She shared the news of the coming threat and the happenings that had taken place in the forenoon and then we went out to the fields in our wagon again.  Later I had to hurry and call her parents.  Our old Aunt Susi did not want to go back home and she would hear nothing about fleeing.  She stubbornly refused to change her mind.   The wagon drove into our yard and Mari immediately came for her child. While we unloaded the wagon my father told them that in the meantime he had heard information to the effect that it was not really that bad after all.  We believed that the Russians would soon be here and would have a free hand and massacre all of us.  That is why every ethnic German person would soon be evacuated to the Reich in the soon to be arriving German army trucks that would be sent for us.  But in reality it was not really that bad, even though the outlook was not that good!  It was all probably just an exaggeration, the kind that happens in a situation like this. We were to hear the official word in the evening at the local dance hall and we went there, but the military officers were late in arriving.  Have patience!  Soon a Storm Trooper arrived and gave the word.  With a few short sentences he declared that this was an emergency situation---flee---the rules to follow on the journey ahead and well as the route that would be taken were given.  I went to bed at about two in the morning. Friday, September 15, 1944: Packing.  Rushing around.  Everything:  bedding and food.  The journey by wagon ahead of us was estimated to last three weeks.  Father went to look for a wagon.  After he found one, he had to give it to another man.  In the meanwhile, I was promised one, but it was taken from me on my way home.  We heard the noise of moving wagons from inside of our house and went outside to the street to watch.  There were several Romanians on the wagon with a Hungarian solider and they were heading home.  Our Hungarian brothers!  All of our efforts were in vain.  Only those that had their own horses and wagons were allowed to set out.  We had a lightweight carriage and if I remember rightly we had a rocking horse somewhere.  If that is all one had, one could easily become discouraged. The wagons were set out at five o’clock.  The column of wagons as one would expect started out punctually.  It upset me and I did not want to be there to see them start out.  Did I have to see all of the crying and weeping, and listen to the complaining and whining, lamenting and swearing, and witness the misery and sorrow? It was estimated that there were ninety wagons.  They could travel at night and in the twilight hours and dawn.  A three-week long journey!  Every hour the rain threatened under a dark sky.  Most of the wagons had a roof covering of some kind or an enclosed roof for the driver.  According to what we heard from others, the soldiers were rather rough with the people.  They tried to force the onlookers to go with them. Father encouraged us:  “Not all could be accommodated in one transport, other wagon columns will be set up and who knows we might not have to leave at all.”  This is what my father thought, but I did not agree.  Did I suddenly have the right to say something about such life wrenching questions and the possible consequences?  Am I of age? Independent?  The head of a family?  But I began to notice that what my father thought and what he actually did become more and more obvious. While the others were busy packing, I took the time to speak to some Hungarian soldiers.  What the net result of that was, I can leave to your imagination.  It is clear that a soldier simply thinks and acts like a soldier.  Who would protect us after the Hungarians left?  Perhaps the rumor that the Hungarians were still here was supposed to do that?  Or was it the flowers that they wore one their chests and would leave behind? Saturday, September 16, 1944: The calm before the storm: that is a fitting description for what is happening.  What were the people supposed to do?  The people who had fled out of fear with their horses and wagons on Thursday and Friday came back home because the German army escort troops had actually gone before they arrived at their meeting place.  Some of them rested up while others went back to work to kill the time and to forget the whole thing. I began to write and got nowhere.  I began to read and that didn’t work either.  I went for a walk but that did nothing for me.  It appeared to me that I would simply do what I always did and just leave it at that.  Even eating and sleeping fell into that category. The events of yesterday had no impact upon us. Sunday, September 17, 1944: Only the morning of this day was peaceful.  The Hungarians soldiers left yesterday.  The Germans had left with the first columns in flight.  Later, still before noon, the Storm Trooper or an officer along with five men returned to the village.  Like a grass fire the news spread all around:  They wanted to assemble a second wagon transport.  Everyone fled out to their fields with their horses and wagons or went into hiding. Sunday, September 25, 1944: It’s all over!  The Russians are here. September 26, 1944: My birthday?  The cannons are speaking.  Their sound gets louder and louder and we work at the river building a bridge.  It rains, we work in mud and water and we do forced labour.  What does “Dawaii” mean in Russian?  I am forced to learn much more Russian. September 30, 1944: Forced labour every day.  We alternate, one day we work at the river and then a day on the roadway.  And how much longer is this going to last? October 10, 1944: The two week long sound of cannon fire is over.  The windows shook day and night.  The frontlines have moved further west and we have been left behind here in the east. November 1, 1944: Underground rumors.  Verschleppung?  (Translator’s note:  the word means to be dragged off to slavery by force against your will.  The word “deportation” is not an accurate description of the word’s full intention.) November 30, 1944: There is a sinister calm.  Every day there is forced labour.  And just when is Sunday?  I am completely unable to write a single understandable sentence.  I feel like I’ve been beaten to death. December 25, 1944: Christmas.  Silent night, holy night!  What will the New Year, 1945 bring with it?  What can I wish for my parents today?  My throat feels like I’ve been choked.  Just thoughts…I wish you a happy New Year! January 6, 1945: It is really not true, there won’t be a Verschleppung, and it is all simply propaganda.  We are now allies of Russia…There have been so many rumors about locked railway cattle cars filled with people who speak Hungarian and German.  But they come from the west, from across the border in Hungary and the trains are rolling towards the east. January 9, 1945: It is true after all.  Our attempt to escape is successful and we are fortunately here.  Had it not been better to flee the previous September after all?  Now we sit here in hiding like a mouse in its hole.  But no one knows except for mother. January 25, 1944: It’s all over!  All over!  The Russians have arrested my mother in place of me.  Father isn’t here and I don’t know what to do, but one thing I know, that I cannot let my mother take my place in the Verschleppung.  I will report voluntarily so that they will release my mother.  I do so in the Name of God.  And now onward, come what may. The train wheels roll on relentlessly towards the east.  Donbas in Russia.  Woroschilowgradskoe Oblasty, Woroschilowki Rayon, Parkomuna vis-à-vis from Zsiladel. Hard labour.  Cold.  Hunger. September 1, 1946: “Janosch” has not let my father in to see me here in the hospital for a few days and I have such a great longing to see him.  Anything, just anything, as long as I am spared from scrubbing the floors.  In fact he doesn’t let anyone in.  But father still managed to sneak in.  But what can one say to one another in a few seconds.  Just shake hands…I will write a note and maybe “Joschka” will be kind enough to give it to my father.  He is a rather brave guy. The fever has gone down and it’s about time.  For two weeks I did not get anything to eat because I did not work and I received 200 g of water daily along with two cups of coffee or tea.   I really can’t tell which this reddish brown brew is. September 2, 1946: “Janosch” promised me that if my fever did not return I could go out into the sun early tomorrow morning.  O dear sun, I have only been able to see you through the window in the evening for a few minutes before you disappear. How clever “Janosch” really is.  He turned around the number 13 on the door to my room so that it cannot be read, but he will not be able to fool me.  Why have I been put in this room number 13?  I’m not happy with that. September 4, 1946: Yesterday I was so fortunate.  I sat out in the sun for a few minutes.  My father saw me right away and came to me.  We sat together on the bench and he had sent me a cup of milk for breakfast.  How wonderful it was!  But the devil sent  “Janosch” to drive my father away because he was sitting next to me.  Do I have some kind of communicable disease?  Why can he not sit beside me?  Why did my fever rise to 40.5 yesterday around noon?  Today it is a normal 37.5.  It must be a result of the milk.  Milk is like poison for me. September 5, 1946: I don’t trust the whole thing.  Suddenly there in 15 minutes they wrote up a list of names of all of those to be sent home.  The transport could leave at any hour.  They only do that, so that my roommates and I keep up our courage.  “Janosch” let them put my name on the list.  September 6, 1946: Father has given up on his plan to have me transferred to the city hospital, even though I had been lying here in bed for a half a day in my clothes, ready to leave.  I really don’t want to leave here, because the kind of treatment there in the large hospital is miserable and father would not have been able to come and see me because he cannot leave the camp. I don’t know what’s wrong with me; I am just losing all of my strength.   This morning when I stood up and took a few steps I collapsed.  “Joschka” picked me up.  Obviously the few spoonfuls of soup I get have too few calories. September 7, 1946: Father told me that the tall lieutenant assured him that it was certain that a transport would be leaving for home.  Oh, to be home again!  Perhaps I will still have enough strength to survive the journey.  If only I had some sugar water it would help and at home I know I would get better.  That is where the famous woman physician, Dr. Moga is.  If anyone can help me, it could only be her. September 8, 1946: I always hope that I am getting better, but the few spoonfuls of soup I am able to swallow, half of it comes back through my nose into the bowl.  I told father not to send me any more small green branches to swat all of these flies.  I can no longer hold them; they are too heavy for me now.  He should also not bring me the Bible that he borrowed from the professor.  I can no longer hold it.  It is too heavy for me.  I have no more strength.  I will try to write another poem… September 9, 1946: Everything is too much for me to bear, except to keep my eyes open.  Nothing came of my going home.  Yesterday I promised father I would not leave him.  He knows the way I think…Tonight when he comes I will give him all of my papers because my room-mates take everything they can lay their hands on and I can’t keep watch all of the time.  They even take the green branches when I sleep. I was often sick at home!  But in comparison to here it is a matter of heaven and hell.  At home mother looked after me…home...Oh Mother September 10, 1946: I no longer have the strength to walk.  Oh the pain.  The Pain.  Going home.  Going home.  Mother my dearest I am coming.  I will soon be there…and everywhere.  Just a few days, but these minutes last an eternity. September 11, 1946: Forenoon.  Father understands my speech with great difficulty.  Soon, soon, just to hold his hand, what good fortune that would be… September 12, 1946: (Whatever Andreas tried to write is not legible.) Andras Toth died in the night of the 12th and 13th of September, 1946.  His father, Andreas Toth, who was also in the same camp wrote the following: September 10, 1946: Until New Years in 1946 Andreas worked alongside of me in this camp and then as a wagon builder in the Konyuscha Kolchose (Translator’s note:  Collective Farm) about 500 meters distant from the camp.  He had a good job and foreman and was never sick, except in the months of March to May in 1945 because the rations here were so bad.  Then, like all of us, he became very weak, but slowly recovered much better than most.  We finally had enough to eat or all of us would have died and been of no use to them. September 11, 1946: The pain!  The pain!  He said that at least ten times today when I was with him at eleven o’clock.  On August 15th he came down with a terrible illness and for several days before he complained of being constantly tired and experiencing pain in the area around his kidneys.  But now he no longer has any pain and for two days he has had no fever.  He was allowed to go out into the sun for half an hour.  With the permission of the doctor I gave him a half-liter of milk this morning, and since he enjoyed it, I gave him another half liter in the afternoon.  A high fever developed by evening and all they did for him was cold compresses and quinine.  Later, he received other powders and injections of grape sugar.  Then he could no longer eat anything and drank just water and coffee or took a few spoonfuls of soup.  For several days we noticed that he spoke with great difficulty.  His tongue and mouth were dry and cracked from fever.  Because of dysentery he received less and less water and became thinner.  The day before yesterday he complained that he was losing his strength and had to sit to urinate.  I spoke to him and challenged him to eat and drink, which he promised he would do.  I said:  One word, one man?”   He answered, “One man, but one who is weak.” Andreas did not believe he would return home, but once he discovered I wanted him to be transferred to the city hospital he begged me to leave him here.  When I asked him the question about going home, he said, “Yes.  Going home.  Yes.” Today in the forenoon when I was with him, he was often unconscious for short periods of time, but never more than a few minutes.  We prayed together, which appeared to make him feel better.  At five o’clock in the afternoon I was with him until seven.  When I entered his room he was conscious, but he did not know me.  After a few minutes he asked me who I was and who was in charge here and when he got up he would go to Africa.  Then the attack was over.  After this he drank some coffee and sat up. We talked about some things.  He complained again that he felt so weak and whereupon I encouraged him that he had been weak most of his life to which he admitted had been true. To the question as to whether he would have another injection in the morning, he answered that the one he had received that day was the last, because by tomorrow it would be over.  He told me that he lay there without his underpants, had no shirt, was naked just like when he entered this world and he would leave it in the same way.  He told me that he had to die and knew what he was saying.  Then he suggested I leave and we said farewell to one another.  I winked at him and he winked back just like we did before we went on a long journey together. Around nine o’clock in the evening I visited Andreas again.  He was lucid and knew me but asked the same thing ten times.  I did not know if he was unable to hear or whether he was just depressed. Then we prayed the Lord’s Prayer and Andreas asked me to pray for him that he might have a restful night. September 12, 1946: I went to see Andreas at nine o’clock in the morning.  He seemed quite lively, but had not left his bed for two days now.  I asked him if he had eaten breakfast and how he responded indicated he had not understood me.  With regard to the question of whether he wanted coffee or water, he made a sign that he did not want to go down from the bed.  I moistened his lips and tongue that were cracked and dry. When a truck suddenly arrived to pick up some of the patients, he became very upset.  As a sick Polish patient left the floor, Andreas pointed in the direction of the door indicating he wanted to go home as well.  In response to my question of whether he would rather stay here with me until he felt better before he set out on such a long journey, in which he could easily die, he answered, that he would rather go to see his mother one more time.  Then I told him that today the Polish inmates were leaving and the Hungarians and the Romanians would leave a day later on another transport.   But because the sick Hungarians in his room remained and the Polish patient was brought back, he became upset again… While he moistened his lips himself, I said to him that this was a good sign and that he was getting better and that he should keep it up.  He was visibly relieved and no longer had a fever, but his pulse was weak.  I remained until 12:30.  He had not eaten anything nor did he want anything. In the afternoon around two o’clock I returned again.  Andreas was cheerful but not as lively.  I moistened his lisp and then he told me he would like to rest.  At 4:30 I returned to be with him and stayed until it was almost eight o’clock.  He was becoming more and more weak and around evening became unconscious.  When he regained consciousness I took his two hands and placed them over one another on his chest and spoke to him that he had to be strong and steadfast now.  I spoke to him of God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, about eternal life, the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection and that God the Father had cared for him to this day and that all things happened according to His will.  After a few seconds he spoke so clearly and loudly, in a way we head not heard him speak for days, “Amen”.  It was his last word.  He closed his eyes and lay still.  His pulse beat, but it was weak.  I had to go, the others had eaten and the hospital closed. Andreas died in the night of 12th and 13th of September.  Shortly after midnight he was restless for a short time and the nurse gave him some water.  Then he fell into eternal sleep. (The following poem was written by Andreas on September 8, 1946) Donbas In Dombas life is so difficult and hard Father come home, I won’t leave you here any longer. I will be your shield and protector As we walk in God’s appointed way. I have always obeyed my father, Do the same and provide for yourself. I will never abandon you, I have promised you that, Believe me, I have never broken my word to you.   And even if I am tired and weak And am lying here in misery! Soon I will be the Victor! My Victory:  Death will never come again.   Life on earth was like a dream. Soon my life will begin in eternity, The Lord Himself provided for my new beginning, Have I done anything to deserve it with my life?   The Lord takes His own to Himself, Whatever is left over is what I am! My body is weak and wants to go to rest And I close my eyes. Father, Mother, I will smooth your way, And lead you to everlasting life, In God’s beautiful garden in heaven, Where we will see each other, just have faith.