Escape Through Germany

VOLUME 172

NUMBER 2

AUGUST, 1943

86th YEAR OF CONTINUOUS PUBLICATION

by JEAN HÉLION

ON THE fourth of February, I arrived in the office at 8.00 A.M., saluted Herr Jurk with all the respect due a Kommandoführer, and sat down beside him as usual.

I lined the desk with papers, reports, individual cards, and began my clerical work. Jurk seemed to have drunk too much the previous night. Between his elbows, the silent telephone rested like an empty bottle. He was watching a little black spot on the wall.

Around nine o’clock, I rubbed my cheek and sighed. At ten, Lamy, the postmaster-nurse, came in, clapped his heels, and inquired if a package of mail had arrived from the censor’s office.

“No,” I answered, “but have you some aspirin in the camp pharmacy?”

He brought me two tablets. I took one immediately, and the other sometime in the afternoon.

On the fifth of February, I took two tablets again. On the sixth, I took three.

On the seventh, Lamy said I had exhausted his supply, and I asked Herr Jurk if he would allow a whole box to be bought for me by a sentry. I showed him my cheek, which was very red.

“Ja!” he barked.

When, around the tenth, my cheek began to swell, I could see that Jurk expected me to break down and beg to go to the hospital. But I did not. My table was littered with aspirin tablets. Any time that he looked in my direction, I picked up one, broke it carefully in small pieces, mixed it with a little water, and swallowed the medicine while making a face.

But when, on the morning of Friday the thirteenth, I appeared with an enormously swollen cheek, and a mouth so distorted that I could hardly speak, he rose and burst out loudly that only imbeciles or cowards were afraid to have their teeth pulled out. He himself had got rid of most of his teeth. Whether I wanted it or not, I should put myself down immediately for a medical visit the next morning. Now clear out and go to bed!

As a favor I asked permission to stay until lunch time, to finish the most urgent part of my work, the reports. At 12.30 I asked if the new interpreter could take my place that night. Sure, sure! All he wanted was for me to take that obscene abscess of mine out of his sight!

So I arranged my papers, pens, pencils, and little bottles, picked up my aspirin, and pushed my stool under the desk, noiselessly.

Marquet was waiting for me in my corner.

“Everything is all right,” he said. “A comrade is lying on a bunk directly by the stairs. If anyone comes in, he’ll cough; and I’ll pretend to have brought you some water.”

I undid my bed and messed it up carefully. On my stool, I sprinkled aspirin tablets and set two cups. In one, I poured water from a pitcher. In the other, I spat out my abscess that consisted of a good hunk of cotton. It had been almost as uncomfortable as a real one.

Copyright 1943, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass. All rights reserved.

“Fine, Marquet! Now listen to me. Go to the latrines and wait until no one is near you. Poke your hand through the seventh, ninth, and eleventh holes, to your left. You’ll find that packages are hidden there, directly under the board. They are in a net of strings fastened with short nails. Get hold of the package first, then cut the strings and pull. You’ll need your topcoat to hide them under.”

He went, yawning and stretching his arms. “Hell! I have diarrhea again,” I heard him tell someone on the stairs.

I inspected my suitcase: two pairs of woolen socks, two sets of underwear, half a pound of tobacco, and a package of all my wife’s letters. I pushed it under the bunk and set my shoes beside it — not too orderly. Then I unearthed my brief case and polished it. Inside I laid a shirt, shorts, a little tobacco, two recent issues of Das Reich, a new toothbrush, a new razor that Marquet had bought for me in the canteen, a little cake of soap, a towel, two small sandwiches, and a heavy brown package.

Someone coughed. I slid under the blankets, hugging my brief case. It was only Marquet, looking pregnant.

“Here’s one,” he said. “I’m afraid it smells a little. I have to return for the others.”

Then I heard him groaning on the stairs: “Here I go again. I shan’t sleep a wink today. Damn rutabagas!”

I had feared the odor, so I had wrapped my packages in many newspapers, which should have absorbed most of it. It would evaporate quickly, once in the open.

I had never realized before how splendid my overcoat was. Could anyone believe that it had once been a British officer’s coat? Of course I had changed the metal buttons for large wooden ones and sewed them in a different place. I had retouched the collar and the half belt. Dyeing it had not been really difficult, but long. I had paid twenty marks for each ounce of the precious dyeing powder, at the prisoners’ black market, and it had taken me two months to obtain it. Then I had borrowed a large basin and obtained warm water in the kitchen, on the pretext of delousing my clothes. In the night, I had hidden in the tiller room, and with a pail and some stolen charcoals I had improvised a stove.

Now I could see my masterpiece in the open. It had only two regrettable streaks—being lighter in the middle of the back where, perhaps, the material had been greasy. Anyway, I adored it. I had it on when Marquet came back, holding my trousers under his coat as if he had a tummy-ache.

The trousers had cost me only fifteen marks one evening when, a search having been announced, one of my neighbors had become frantic and had offered them at any price. They weren’t quite long enough for me; the seat was far too large and the legs too narrow. The cloth had once been black. Now it wavered between green in the top part and brown for the rest. Fortunately, stripes of light gray, as large as a finger, ran vertically and provided unity to the trousers. They gave the impression of having been painted rather than woven. Even so, the trousers looked good to me as I put them on.

It was only 3.00 P.M. We still had three hours to go. I washed and shaved. Only at the last minute would I put vaseline on my hair, to hold it completely flat. That would change my appearance and also enable me to stick my hat on.

That hat was a gift of love: it had been stolen expressly for me by a grateful comrade. I had kept it rolled up, but the dampness had penetrated the successive layers of paper, and now it refused to stay straight. It waved around my head like a merry-go-round. It needed pressing with a hot iron that we couldn’t possibly get now. This worried me very much, and I fought with the brim for a good hour. Finally I set it flat on my suitcase and laid my books on top of it.

2

AT 5.30 I dressed completely. My apple-green coat was much too small and certainly the worst part of my outfit, but it wouldn’t show much under the brown topcoat. I put my spectacles in my pocket, and my hat in my bosom. I covered my head with Marquet’s large winter cap. Over my civilian clothes I slipped a large Belgian overcoat, borrowed for the occasion. With my long infantry knickers over my civilian trousers, and my sabots, no sentry would spot me. I paused in the open to see if the stage was set.

The snow had stopped falling. Groups of prisoners were coming in every five minutes. I saw them coming from under the bridge, on Altdammerstrasse, then disappearing behind a barrack, and finally reappearing opposite the camp.

The gate was open now, and the sentry greeted his colleagues when they passed with their prisoners. The incoming column advanced in the yard as far as the kitchen and stopped. Judas, the German clerk who had been warming himself inside, came out with his check sheet and the new interpreter. He counted the men and then dismissed them. The prisoners went to get their soup bowls; the sentries went to their barracks.

As on yesterday, a little group was gathering around the volley-ball ground. Two boys had begun sweeping the snow away with a board. The sentry at the gate was watching them with interest. The teams were forming now, five on each side. A few other prisoners lined against the windows of the Lagerführung, watching the game while they ate.

Someone touched my fingers on the railing. It was David.

“Everyone’s at his post,” he said.

I went down the chicken ladder. I dragged my sabots by the guards’ barrack, reached the latrines, and entered by the only door. There was already a crowd inside, some on the seats, others watching the yard through the small side-windows, set high, just under the ceiling.

Marquet waited for me in the very last cell and handed me my shoes. He had polished them too much, I thought. They shone like patent leather. An amateur shoemaker had bored many decorative little holes on the top piece to disguise the many little patches of different kinds of leathers with which a completely useless pair of civilian shoes had been rebuilt. They were so big that I could wear two pairs of thick socks, which was good. They felt incredibly light on my feet. Could they really pass for shoes? I took off my army knickers and flung the big Belgian coat over my shoulders, like a cape, sleeves free. I held my hat underneath.

Marquet said, “Come on!”

I followed him out. I crossed the whole yard, waited to let a group of prisoners pass, and then joined the little group of spectators lined against the Lagerführung. I set my back between the last two windows. Finot, Marquet, David, and Moineau grouped themselves in front of me.

Six o’clock: the sentry was being replaced. The hateful little Reipsch was taking his turn. He was already in a bad humor. He began pacing the width of the gate, endlessly, from one post to the other.

“The lookout is pulling out his handkerchief,” Finot said.

I unbuttoned the Belgian coat. The volley-ball game was becoming hot. I could recognize Desprez and Duclos, jumping high after the ball.

“The man on the latrine steps is blowing his nose,” announced Moineau. “All clear. Here comes the Brandt group. Get ready.”

The thirty men passed by us. Their sentry followed, a little wearily. Judas, the clerk, came out of the kitchen. Four hands were stretched towards me behind my comrades: Marquet held my brief case; Finot held a wallet with my money and papers in it; Moineau and David held nothing but their fingers. I touched them. They felt rough, warm, and kind. At this moment the ball hit the ground, two of the players slipped and fell, and Duclos ran towards Desprez with his fists raised.

“It’s your fault, dirty cheater!” he cried, and knocked him down brutally. The prisoners began to shout. Judas ran towards the game. The sentry, Reipsch, followed in the same direction.

“Adieu,” murmured David.

“Adieu, everybody,” and quickly placing the Belgian coat on David’s shoulders, my hat cocked over my eyes, holding my brief case tight, I shot out, exactly three yards behind Reipsch.

I began to count, slowly. One ... At two I passed through the gate. At three I walked normally at right angles to the right. Five seconds! They had not seen me! I was now exactly opposite the private exit of the Lagerführung. From the yard I looked as though I were coming out of it.

Joy, fantastic joy, ran through me, a joy that I had never felt before in my life! Why had I waited so long, so long, to feel it? Never had walking been so delicious. My feet balanced lightly under me. The twist of my face that I wore as a mask had no more weight than a smile.

The world around me was so bright, so loud; the steps of another group, coming towards me from the street, sounded so clear: one, two, one, two . . .

I lowered my head so that they wouldn’t recognize me; and I looked at their shoes, their wooden shoes, their torn trousers, the patches of which I knew so well: these belonged to Jacques, these to Martin, these to Louis, dragging snow behind their weary steps; oxen driven back to the stable; slaves pushed back into their jails; my companions, my own companions whom I was abandoning to their fate!

Then I bumped into the sentry in charge of them. He, startled, said, “Pardon.”

“Pardon,” I murmured — but not to him.

3

ONCE on Altdammerstrasse, I followed the sidewalk. A streetcar stopped by me, but not knowing the ticket system, I didn’t dare take it. Also, I dreaded sitting down and offering my costume and my face to two dozen people who had nothing to do but look at my oddities. It was safer to walk normally, not too fast, not too slow.

Bridges are dangerous spots, It is on bridges that, at given hours, the policemen begin asking for credentials from everyone. I dared to look at the officer on duty on the Hansabrücke. He smiled at me and said, “It’s cold.”

“ Ja! ” I answered. It helped me. I was all right if policemen smiled at me. Das Reich, neatly folded, stuck out of my pocket. Who but an excellent citizen read Dr. Goebbels’s prose?

Beyond the bridge I should turn to the left, or was it second left? For an instant I feared I had confused the way. I had studied it on a map and verified it the last time I had been in the city; but it didn’t look the same, now that I walked on the sidewalk instead of in the gutter and no guard held me on a leash.

I arrived at the railway station at 6.45. The train I meant to board left at 6.55. I went to the ticket window for main lines and waited behind a young man. He held his identity card. I could see the large violet stamp with a stiff broad eagle holding a swastika in its claws, but I couldn’t read the name.

“One way to Metz,” he said when his turn came.

“Sorry,” answered the employee, “the train for Berlin is full. No more tickets for the capital, or any point beyond, until we know there’ll be room in another.”

“When will that be?”

“Probably tomorrow morning at 5.50. Come early.”

“Merde” said the traveler, as if to himself, withdrawing from the line. I followed him and asked: “ Why do you say Merde? ”

He looked at me — an open face with laughing eyes.

“Merde is what we say in Alsace, in such a case.”

“That’s what we say sometimes in Antwerp, though it would be more usual in Liége,” I answered him in German, and we began to talk. I helped him out of the way with his numerous pieces of baggage, and he informed me that he was going home on his semiannual leave, for ten days only. I told him that I was in the same case, but going in the direction of Brussels.

“Then,” he said, “we’ll travel together as far as Berlin. Let’s have a glass of beer.”

Did the Alsatian really mean what he had said: “At 8.30 by the Catholic church”?

I tramped alone along the river. What a pity! Anyway, I wasn’t caught yet. I had foreseen this possibility. Ever since December the Pommersche Zeitung had given wide publicity to successive reductions in the railway traffic, but it was a poor beginning for me.

A shadow by a door; it’s a man, a civilian. He’s looking at me—at me only. Danger! Fool, what have I done? I marched straight towards him, for the fight.

“Good evening. I’m glad to meet someone at last. Could you tell me what time it is? ”

“It’s eight o’clock,” he answered, “but what are you doing in this forbidden area?”

“I? I work for the Hafengesellschaft, on the Reiherwerderhafen pier, on the other side. We’ve been unloading Swedish ore today. I’m going home to Antwerp, on leave — in Belgium, you know. But I missed the evening train — it was full. Now I must try to catch another tomorrow at . . . at . . .” and I pulled out my wallet. The man turned on a flashlight. This yellow sheet . . . no, this is only my permit. I opened it enough for him to see the police stamp on it.

“It must be this; yes, 5.50 A.M. Isn’t that painful? So I’m going to meet a friend at 8.30, by the Catholic church, and we’ll spend the evening together. As I’ve never worked on these piers I was looking around a bit. Fabulous cranes. They must lift at least one hundred tons, don’t they? I hadn’t realized this was forbidden area. I didn’t see any sign. Anyway, I’m getting cold, and would rather have a drink. Could you tell me where I can find a little Bierhaus with good pre-war stuff?”

“Blame it on the British,” he laughed. “The beer isn’t what it used to be; but there’s a fairly good place where I go myself. Come along, I’ll show you how to get there.”

“Thanks. Won’t you have one too?”

“I wish I could, but I’m on duty around here until midnight. You’d better clear off these grounds soon, anyway.”

I didn’t need any more warning. The beer was fair. I swallowed it slowly, in case he changed his mind and followed me. Then out again.

Pacing up and down the wide street, from the church to the bridge, and from the bridge to the church, was risky. I’d wait only five minutes more. . . .

Not until nine o’clock did the Alsatian arrive. With him was another man.

“This is my Flemish comrade,” he introduced me.

“How do you do?”

We shook hands, went quietly along the street, entered a door, climbed three flights of steps, and sat in a warm little room under the roof.

“Men, you’ll be better off waiting here for that early train than having to return to your barracks on the other side,” said our host. We chatted pleasantly about our work — I about the Swedish boats, they about the factory where they were mechanics. Then the Alsatian engaged in a private discussion with his friend and I didn’t listen any more.

4

SUNK deep in a cheap armchair, I was exhilarated. My imitation of a Nazi police stamp was good if it had fooled a plain-clothes man. I had copied it from documents in the office, but nothing is more dangerous than a flashlight shining obliquely. The streaks left by the indelible pencil show up then, even when they have been softened with a wet blotter.

My speech had gone well. I was listening to it as if another person had spoken for me. A policeman is like a fence: in order to pass, you have to walk up to him unhesitatingly. You mustn’t allow him to form an opinion of you before you have told him everything he would ask you: why you speak with an accent, where you come from, and where you are going.

The clock on the mantel struck eleven. This was the moment when Jurk made his last round of the prison. He would find my bunk empty, but normally so. It was messed up; half a dozen aspirin tablets dotted my stool. My shoes lay in the way. He should conclude that I had gone to the night privy. On the shelf, he could see my military identification booklet, a bunch of letters from my wife, a package of American tobacco, a razor, a toothbrush, and a small cake of soap. These were precious items.

Only when he retired would Desprez and Duclos arrive, take away my letters and photographs to burn, and my tobacco and underclothes to divide, as they had already shared the other pieces of my uniform after their mock fight at the volley-ball game.

Until a quarter to six in the morning, nothing would happen. Then the Slobberer would look for me to line up the sick for him, as usual, and would be told that I was going along to the medical inspection. By six o’clock, at the latest, Jurk would be hollering around the camp, his pistol drawn. The greatest danger would begin then. I should be sought everywhere.

The Alsatian stirred me up around 4.30 A.M. Without realizing it, I had dozed in the chair. He had shared his comrade’s bed. We didn’t disturb him. I carried some of the Alsatian’s luggage, and it gave me poise. The street was very slippery, and our steps echoed against the walls. At five o’clock we stood in line for our tickets, behind many others. The woman at the window hardly glanced at my yellow paper, stamped it, and gave me a ticket direct to Antwerp, for 38 marks 50.

The gate to the platform was closed again. The blackboard above said the train would be thirty minutes late, because of the snow, of course; but what a catastrophe! I hated waiting in this hall where so many men I knew could come: officers going to Berlin, overseers coming to work from the suburbs, sentries going to, or returning from, leave. It was a slim chance.

At six o’clock sharp, we were admitted to the platform. At 6.20, the train hadn’t arrived. I knew what was going on in the office at this very minute. My neighbors at the camp had admitted that they hadn’t seen me since last night. Jurk wouldn’t search any more. He would go through the regular routine that I had witnessed before. My green identification card in one hand, and the telephone in the other, he would call up successively the Kontrollstelle, the Stettin Police Presidium, the Railway Police, the Highway Police, and the Stalag via long distance. He would give a succinct description of me; the Stalag would send out copies of my photograph and of my fingerprints. The late edition of the Pommersche Zeitung would contain this notice: —

“Warning. French prisoner of war at large. Jean Hélion, 5 feet 6, 140 pounds, speaks German and English; presumably in uniform. . . . Report all suspects immediately to the nearest police station.”

While waiting for the Kontrolloffizier, Jurk would fill out the “Notice of Escape” in triplicate. Along with the circumstances of my disappearance, the reason for the flight would be given. A reason —was it naïve or humorous?

At 6.30 the station loud speakers roared “Attention! Attention . . .”but it wasn’t yet about me. It was only to say that the train now entering the station was reserved exclusively for the Wehrmacht. My companion swore loudly. I didn’t say anything.

At 6.50 another train arrived. I couldn’t believe I’d ever board it, for crowds fought at every door. Greatly hindered by the Alsatian’s baggage, I finally got in, last of all.

Someone on the platform was saying: “Happy trip.”

A happy trip — to whom?

The train started. I heard only “Attention! Attention!” echoing from the loud speaker. The rest was lost in the noise of the steam and of the wheels.

People surged from the car ahead of mine and pushed me back irresistibly towards the middle of the corridor. But no train is ever so completely packed that a little room can’t be made after patient adjustments.

The Alsatian was four removed from me; I could see him telling something about her suitcase to a rather pretty girl. We were in the center of the train. With the condition of the corridors, neither the controller of tickets nor the controller of identification papers could advance more than a car length an hour, I should think. This was a non-stop express, due at Berlin in two and a half hours — let’s say three, with the snow. If my speculation was correct, they would arrive at me only when nearing the capital.

I repeated my name to myself, and remembered that I had lost fifteen years from my age and was now only twenty-three. Did that mean I was born in 1919 or 1920? I couldn’t remember, to save my life; and it’s a favorite trick of policemen to ask you, when they are holding your papers: “Born on?”

I could read mentally the whole paper: “Josef Vanuytrecht, crane driver, unmarried, living in Antwerp, now working for the Hafengesellschaft in Stettin, on leave until February 22, born on 2. 17. 19” — or was it 20?

I had to make sure at once. I pulled out my wallet and reviewed my weapons: my yellow ticket of leave had already been under fire twice; it should be all right, now that the Stettin station stamp was on it, even if I hadn’t known about a serial number required in a corner, or some other detail. I had paid 100 marks to have it stolen from a shelf in the barrack of the food overseer. A comrade had watched for an opportunity for two months, and then snatched it. It was well worth the money. It was easy to fill it out according to the printed indications. Where it said “Police stamp” I had copied a Stettin police stamp, of which we had several samples on various documents in the office.

I was more worried about the other credential — the passport — though I felt warmly about it. It was a gift from David. Every morning he took coal to each office. He had seen a stack of civilian workers’ passports (just handed in after their return from leave) on a table, and had taken one behind his employer’s back. This he had presented to me on February 3.

“Why don’t you keep it for yourself, David?”

“No; I’d feel like a thief if I kept it, instead of feeling proud. I want you to have it, if it can be of any use to you.”

That was just like my David — ready to escape on certain conditions only, and not at any price.

Desprez had spent hours every night copying exactly every little line. We had unglued the tax stamp from one of the oldest visas and transferred it to the new page. On the night of February 12 the job was completed, and it wasn’t bad. What was bad, very bad, was that the description of this man couldn’t be changed: he was twenty-three years old while I was thirty-eight; it was written in several places, and an erasure would have been very obvious.

Furthermore, I had no suitable photograph of myself to substitute for his, even if the stamp, in relief, on it could be successfully imitated. With my hair oiled flat, I could perhaps be considered as having been flattered by the photographer, if only a quick glance were cast on the picture; but who would ever believe that I was six feet tall when I lacked six inches? Only when sitting could I pass.

Another impossibility was the date: how could a man, back fourteen days ago, according to the last immigration stamp, be going on leave again?

That passport was a good-looking document but should never be looked at closely. I didn’t hope to pass the border with it, but it might prove sufficient to justify my presence on a westbound train.

When I came out of the washroom, the controller was already there, sooner than I’d expected. He held out his hand. I put everything I had in it, ticket and papers. I smiled as bravely as I could and felt that the end had come. Instead, he only tore off part of the ticket and handed me back the papers, saying: “Show them to the policemen over there.”

There were two, coming from the rear, fighting their way slowly from compartment to compartment. They spent several minutes on each person. I had no chance to survive such an attentive examination. The train slowed down, the brakes ground, the Alsatian called to me: “Give me a hand again, please! I’ll pass you my bags through the window.”

I was the first one off the train. It hadn’t even stopped entirely. The policemen didn’t yell after me.

5

I REMEMBERED this railway station. I had taken breakfast in this beer hall ten years ago. Now, full of soldiers, it was as dark as ever, but more noisy. We sat right in the middle of the room.

“What will you have?" the Alsatian asked the pretty girl he had met on the train.

“Coffee,” she said, without laughing.

“And two beers,” he told the waiter, without even asking me. I had carried all of his luggage, while he had carried the girl’s. She was young and fresh, with a large black hat slightly raised in front. He was courting her rather ardently. She called him Peter, and he called her Truda. He had already told her about me. On the pretext of washing, I left them alone for ten minutes and ate one of my two sandwiches so that my head would stop turning. This was ahead of schedule, and the next day would be one of complete famine.

When I went back, they were talking to three or four policemen and laughing loudly.

“Here he comes!” cried Peter, indicating me. “And I’m sure he’ll give you more than i can afford to.”

So the policemen turned towards me with large smiles. The first one pinned a beautiful swastika, in ersatz copper, on my chest — would I have believed such a day could come? — while the second shook his collection box under my nose. I dropped two marks in it, and the third persuaded me to buy the respective portraits of Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Rosenberg, Von Schirach, for one mark each. For Himmler, I positively refused.

“I’m ruined,” I insisted, but they were quite pleased with their business at only one table, and explained that this whole collection would be for the exclusive benefit of the police forces fighting in Russia.

I had never felt so friendly towards any police before. They assured me that they had much sympathy for the Flemish workers coming to the rescue of the German factories. While all this bargaining went on, another party of policemen had asked for papers and they were now going away. Remember this theorem: “The best defense against a policeman is another policeman.”

Peter telephoned for me to the two stations, inquiring about trains to Cologne, and I learned, to my disgust, that there would be none until possibly 11.00 P.M. He himself had decided not to leave until the next morning, perhaps because Truda was counting on spending the day shopping, and returning to Stettin late in the night.

“Why don’t you two come shopping with me?” she said.

So Peter checked his luggage. I wouldn’t part with my brief case. We took the subway and I found that my railway ticket entitled me to free transportation.

On Potsdamerplatz, what was once the biggest Jewish store had been rechristened with a vague Aryan name. Small posters, at every door, said: “Entrance forbidden to all Jews. Between 5.00 and 6.00 P.M. Jews will serve Jews at gate so-andso exclusively.”

Passing the photographic department, I inquired about the possibility of getting a quick picture. It wasn’t done any more, but they could send me the proofs anywhere I wanted, within four days. No, that wouldn’t do, for it wouldn’t fit in with my foolish desire to send a picture of myself, taken in front of a naïvely painted view of Berlin, to Herr Jurk, with a little dedication, such as: “Souvenir de voyage,” with a discreet number of five figures as signature.

At lunch time I left the cooing duo counting their ration tickets. I had none, and knew nothing about what could be got without them, if anything. I fought hunger with more beer, and followed Leipziger Strasse, Unten den Linden, Französische Strasse, any street whose name appealed to me. My poise was now good. Every half hour, by my watch, I walked up to the nearest policeman, told him I didn’t know the city, was on my way home to Antwerp on leave, and could he indicate some interesting buildings in this vicinity to look at?

At four o’clock I entered a barber shop and asked for a shave and a haircut. An hour later, passably fresh, but angry with my stupid hunger, I met Peter and Truda in the same department store, and we had a funny-tasting herb tea. They looked like honeymooners and I had a hunch that they were. How kind of them to tolerate my company. We wandered from café to café. Not one seemed to offer the kind of cozy corner they wanted.

Peter and Truda saw me to the station. It was a bit demolished on the side, but the black-out was complete. At 10.45 they couldn’t wait any longer, and decided to leave. Peter told the girl that as I was a good friend of his she ought to give me a kiss, which she did without hesitancy.

“Look here,” he said to me, “if you don’t find things the way you want, wherever you go, how about paying me a visit in Metz? Every Alsatian would be glad to receive you, and to help you, you understand?”

As I looked up, thoroughly surprised, he added, very low, in French: “Quite a joke, a German girl kissing a strange Frenchman good luck, isn’t it?”

6

THE train didn’t leave until midnight. I wasn’t impatient any more. I’d been late everywhere, and it hadn’t been for the worst. I found a compartment with plenty of soldiers in it, and asked them if they would mind a civilian.

“Not at all,” they assured me. That was my chance to tell them what they should know about me. I even offered them one cigarette each, from a package of twelve that was soon as empty as it had been when I had picked it up in the office wastebasket three months ago. It had taken me all this time to fill it up, one cigarette at a time, with what the most polite overseers gave me when I made a list for them. Cigarettes were scarce inside Germany, and considered very valuable presents.

We joked a little. I wasn’t afraid of soldiers. I knew their uniforms. I had spoken to so many of them for twenty months that I was accustomed to their habits. These looked like so many others I had met — fine boys, fond of a laugh, and relieved that no top sergeant was in sight. I saw only smiles; heard only polite words; comments on the latest movies; many things sounding new to me, and happy. These Germans said “we.” There were no barbed wires around me to rouse their fear and anger.

Do the barbed wires render all men on earth fierce, whether they are on one side of them or the other?

Germany, when I used to look at it from the yard, had been as unreal as a picture. Now it looked open, and so different. This compartment scene around me was fine and peaceful. I was still very tense, ready for trouble, but a certain reflection of the outside tranquillity shone inside of me.

If only I could cat a little. The night was going to be hard to spend.

“Boys,” I told the soldiers, “I’m feeling mighty sleepy. Will you wake me up when the controller comes? My name’s Josef. I guess you’ll have to yell, for I’m hard to rouse.”

They laughed and I, smoothing my hair to make sure it was as flat as the picture on my passport, sank into my turned-up collar and curled up in my corner.

When they all started calling “Josef! Josef!” and pounding me on the back, I jumped—really startled.

“Time to get up, Josef,”they said, as if they had known me all the time. I yawned painfully while looking at the inspector, pulled out my papers all at once, and presented them, at arm’s length, very near his face. There was everything he could want, mixed up with much he didn’t want. On top was my ticket: that was good. Underneath was the photograph of Adolf Hitler. Let no one tell me that that wasn’t very good. Third came the first page of a real passport.

The photograph on the following page was not mine, but how could he tell when I was yawning, trying in vain to open my eyes, and spitting in my handkerchief? And at the page of the visa were my permit, already identified, and Mr. Goring’s paunch, more decorated than mine, supplemented by the smile of Mr. Rosenberg. “Police Day” said the inscription across the glorious photographs.

“Good!” said the inspector, and he gave the whole pack back to me. I went to sleep immediately— that is, apparently.

“Good!” sang my head, “Good!” sang my heart, and I celebrated with my second and last sandwich. But I went to the corridor for that. I was afraid one of these soldiers might once have been a sentry and would recognize the two sardines, laid on my bread, as identical with the sardines-inoil that prisoners received from the French Red Cross and that the guards coveted so much. I had been reminded early that night that the least detail counts. Hadn’t I given myself away as a Frenchman with a single word said to Peter in the station at Stettin?

Dear Peter! Peter the Alsatian, who had known all the time the risk he was taking in letting me spend the night with him, and hadn’t even let on until the last minute!

The rest of the night cost me 2 marks 50 more. One whole hour couldn’t pass without a new policeman waking everyone up in the name of the glorious police forces fighting in Russia. It was monotonous, and disquieting for many reasons. In vain did I show them the row of poisoned flowers on my coat — they thought I needed one more swastika, and kept on shaking their metal box until another coin had been dropped inside.

Since ten o’clock yesterday morning, I had spent 25 marks on them; 10 marks on beer; 3 marks 80 at the barber shop; and my capital had been reduced to a mere 60 marks. How far should I go with it?

But Cologne wasn’t very far away, and the border was only fifty miles beyond. Even if I were taken now, my failure wouldn’t be ridiculous. I had crossed the better part of Germany.

In Cologne I had to change trains and wait three hours. I wouldn’t hang around the station as I did yesterday. I wasn’t traveling in the shadow of a German girl any more; and the less I showed my papers, the safer it would be. I wandered in the city.

It was dark at first, and foggy later. No shop seemed to be opening, and that reminded me it was Sunday. Sunday should be a good day. Everyone should feel lazy, even the policemen; but I felt depressed. I wanted sleep and food. My nerves were beginning to weaken after thirty-six hours of constant tension. Not until I found a few demolished houses did I cheer up.

7

AACHEN was famous for its police. It was the last city before the border. Every hour or so, the whole station was carefully combed. The Germans paid a higher price for the betrayal of fugitives than the latter could pay for being smuggled into Belgium. Now women and school children were constantly on the lookout for any stranger in the vicinity.

Our train was unbelievably full — mostly Belgian workers, talking loudly in either Dutch or French, and obviously going on leave. Very few of them wore Nazi insignia; and I felt, with pleasure, that mine were not too popular. I removed the most conspicuous as discreetly as I could, but it was too early for a thorough cleaning.

I engaged in conversation with a couple from Brussels. Both worked in Cologne — he as carpenter, she as factory helper. I learned from them that this train went as far as Herbesthal, and that all inspection of passports would be done there. It would be quite a job, they said, for they had never seen such a crowd in one single train.

We passed Aachen. It was time to get ready. I opened my brief case, extracted the heavy package that was in it, and put it in my pocket. Now the train ran very slowly, then stopped.

“Herbesthal” said huge letters on a low building.

“Everyone out!” yelled German employees in German, while the Belgians yelled it in French.

A fence divided the platform in two, and the only opening in sight was the door of a low building marked “Passport Examination.” On the other side was Belgium. It was good to see it, if only for a little while.

As everyone fought his way out of the car, I discarded the brown paper and held the object in my sleeve. It was a hammer. My idea was to entrust my overcoat, my hat, and my brief case to someone else, on the pretext of going to the toilet. Then I’d lose myself in the crowd, return to this train, and begin tapping the wheels with my hammer, as if it were my job to see that every one of them was sound. As I should be bending my head very low there was a chance that no one would notice that I had no cap on. It was worth trying. I would follow the train from wheel to wheel, to the last wagon, and then mix with the men unloading crates over there, trusting that the Germans would take me for a Belgian, and the Belgians take me for a German.

There were other trains, waiting on the Belgian tracks; and once on their side, I would promptly disappear.

So I followed the Belgian couple, to give me countenance, for a while. They concluded that I was trying to stay with them, and asked me to carry some of their luggage. They knew their way around, and in two minutes I was incorporated with them in the line before the passport office. That, however, didn’t suit me so well.

“Could you tell me where the lavatory is?” I asked the man.

“They won’t let you go there now,” answered his wife, and calling the nearest policeman, she inquired.

“No, you’ll have to wait until you’re on the other side,” he informed her.

I hope I didn’t show that little woman how exasperated I was with her for trying to be helpful out of turn. There was no use getting out of line, now that she had attracted attention to me. The policeman would stop me, or follow. The scheme was ruined. Curses on her! I wanted to crack her on the head with the hammer, but instead, I pretended to tie my shoe and abandoned it under my feet. And now wouldn’t the woman stumble over it!

“Look,” she said to her husband, “someone has lost a hammer.”

“You don’t have to let everybody know. It’s a good one and has found an owner”—and he pocketed it.

Meanwhile the line advanced slowly, dangerously so, and a new collection plate was passed under my nose. I dropped only a small coin in it, and the fellow wasn’t pleased. He said so. These collectors knew it was their last chance. A very tall one, well over six feet, with his cap cocked on the side, pushed to the head of the line and shouted: —

“Listen, everybody! There’s a big crowd today, and you’ll have to wait a long time. Whoever will give five marks — five marks for our heroes in Russia — will pass right now. Who’s first?”

Twenty feet behind me an impatient man shot out of the line, a five-mark bill in hand; another; three others; and the big German thrust them inside, while calling to his colleagues: “Look, pals! I’ve collected twenty-five marks in one second.”

They thought it was a good joke and laughed, but the crowd was all the more impatient.

At last my turn came to get in. I threw my papers on the desk, exactly as I had shoved them in the inspector’s face, photos and all. At the page of the picture that should have been mine was a fivemark note. When the officer saw it, I made the gesture of taking it back and said: “Excuse me.”

“What? No, that won’t do,” he said. “Give it to me in a hurry.”

“ But, officer, look at my chest! Look at all these photos! I’ve spent a week’s salary on you since yesterday.”

“Come on,” he retorted, “you can well afford one more fiver; you make a lot of good money in Germany—you all do.”

“All right, you win! Keep the bill.”

“Good boy,” he laughed. With one hand he stuck the bill in his box, and with the other he stamped my visa. He hadn’t even read the name on it.

I was out of Germany. This time the little woman had saved me.

8

BEYOND this office was another one, opening on the Belgian platform, and a sign saying that here one could exchange a maximum of 300 marks for Belgian or French francs, according to the passport.

I was getting my money ready before presenting it, when a man of my own age, a little smaller, with no overcoat, and a broad cap, put two ten-mark bills in my hand and said: “I, too. Please.”

I changed 70 marks in all, and received 840 Belgian francs. The other followed me in the train. I gave him his money and he laughed softly.

“The worst is over,” he said.

“I don’t know. Better be careful.”

His coat had once been part of a Norwegian uniform. I could recognize it by the shape of the pockets and the thin little stripe around the sleeves, though he had built up a civilian collar in front, and had dyed the whole a dark green. His shoes were French military shoes, but he had cut off the copper clips on the sides that make them so easy to spot anywhere.

“I had a coat exactly like yours,” he said, “but I’ve traveled on the axles from Aachen and ruined it. I had to leave it on the tracks, and I hope we’ll leave before it’s found. I was already standing on the Belgian platform when you came out of the inspection room, and I spotted you on account of your British coat. I wasn’t sure, though, until I saw you turn towards the wall with medals on your chest, and turn again without any.”

He had escaped inspection by walking openly along the tracks with a lantern he’d taken down from a post, until he found a way out of the station. Later he had entered it from the Belgium side. He knew about the money exchange, and had waited until he saw someone he thought he could trust.

Getting rid of the swastikas would have cost me my freedom if any German had noticed it; but instead, it had brought me a companion.

I was not through with the couple from Brussels. The man and his wife arrived, after looking for me in the various compartments, and she addressed me in Flemish dialect, instead of German, as before. I couldn’t make out what she wanted. She laughed and told me, in French, it was clear to her who I was, for she had seen my Flemish passport lying on the desk. A little reluctantly I admitted it.

“ I’m so glad,” she said with a kind smile; and her husband shook hands with me. We made friends, though I can’t say I felt comfortable about her. Impulsive as she was, what would she do next?

The train started painfully, with much grinding of wheels and a succession of jerks; and then we had an accident. We were standing at the end of the corridor, when the coach behind us became disconnected, and those who had been on the platform fell on the tracks. My new comrade caught the woman by the arm just in time to save her. How much the others had been hurt, we couldn’t tell — they had disappeared under the wheels. With almost enough noise to cover the shrieks, we stopped. It took half an hour for the German and Belgian policemen to get the bodies out; and not until another half hour was the train on its way again.

“ You’re so pale,” said the woman, “Are you sick? Are you afraid of blood?”

I was feeling sick, but it wasn’t the blood of the others, but my own luck: this magnificent luck not to have been standing a little farther on the platform, wounded (if not killed), and taken to the hospital — in other words, back; a luck that seemed to me more incredible than anything I had gone through in the last thirty-six hours. It still seems so.

We spent, the night in Brussels. There was no question of going to a hotel. You couldn’t do that without first getting a permit from the German police; and I didn’t feel strong enough to fool them once more. The couple insisted that we have a glass of beer together. We had several. Then they told us to wait an hour for them.

When our friend returned, we followed him out to the house of a friend of his. This man operated a truck for the Germans and collected various products from other cities. He could take us along in the direction of the border, but wouldn’t hear of any payment. We should walk to a given corner. He would drive by slowly, but not stop. It would be up to us to jump inside his truck unseen. If it proved impossible, he would come back a little later. We shook hands with both of them, cordially. The carpenter gave me a little package, long and heavy. My fingers recognized my hammer under new wrappings.

“Take it along. It’s a good weapon,” he said.

The plan worked all right. We hid inside, behind a generous stack of sacks. At the south gate of Brussels, the truck stopped for inspection. We heard the driver talking, about his orders and various papers, in German. A sentry poked his head in the back and didn’t see anything wrong. I was so choked then, on account of the fumes from the charcoal stove replacing petrol as fuel, that I could hardly refrain from coughing.

Three hours later, after much bumping and rattling of gears, the driver tapped on the partition panel and said we were nearing Tournai. He would slow down again, and as soon as the coast was clear, we should jump out. Good luck to us!

We followed the road until we found a café. For five francs a little glass of yellow alcohol with a pretention to the taste of applejack did us good. In the next café we drank beer, and waited another half hour without meeting any customer. In the third we took alcohol, with no more luck. We were fighting drowsiness when the owner of the fourth place, an old woman, sat down with us and quizzed us a little.

She could see we were French and looking for something. She was Belgian. We had nothing to fear from her. Why not tell her what our trouble was? We did. She took us to her back room, kissed us both, and showed us the photograph of her son, who was a prisoner somewhere in Austria. We told her the details, not too disheartening, about life in the camps — for instance, what we had to eat — and it sounded reassuring to her. She had feared much worse, but it was better than what most people got around there.

She cried, all the same, and we couldn’t console her. To take her thoughts away from her own sorrow, we told her we had money and would pay any price for food. She put a scarf around her shoulders and left us alone in the house. She came back after a good while, with two pounds of potatoes she had bought for forty francs. She fried them with a little grease she had left, and ate them with us. They tasted so good, and it was so civilized to sprinkle salt over them, out of a salt shaker, that Émile and I began to cry, too. Perhaps it was because we needed sleep so badly and were almost drunk.

At 4.00 P.M. a cousin of hers arrived, and she told him who we were and urged him to help us cross into France that night. The quicker we went the better. “Fine,” said the cousin, and we left the good mother. We boarded a streetcar going in the direction of the border only ten miles away. We left it a few stations before the end of the line, and began another wandering tour, from café to café. Fortunately they are very close to each other on this road. Almost every house has a counter: it’s an extra occupation for the wives, between washing dishes and raising sons and vegetables.

We drank French wine at ten francs a glass, because it was the most expensive drink and our only way to reward these kind people. We stayed longer in each than we wanted; their rhythm was not so fast as ours, but we had to bow to it. They wouldn’t let us out on the road again until someone smoking a pipe outside had said that no German was looking this way. In the last place, the owner changed what was left of our Belgian francs for French francs, which were a little cheaper. We received 700 francs between us. When dusk had fallen, we shook hands with everyone around, and the hostess kissed us good luck.

“ Vive la France!” she said.

“ Vive la Belgique!” we replied, in a very low voice, like a secret.

Then she threw over her shoulders the knitted scarf that no woman between the Somme and the Meuse can do without, opened the back door, and endeavored to lock her chicken house while we crawled at her feet. She disturbed her flock so conscientiously that its cackling covered the noise we made along the garden hedge. The ground was frozen, with little spots of snow, and hard on our hands.

Sixty yards to go, she had said, but it seemed so much more. When at last I reached the end, I passed my head very cautiously through the hedge, at ground level, and looked around. There was a dirt road. Ten yards to the right it turned between two houses.and was stopped by a gate. Fifty yards to the left, the German patrol was tapping its boots around a little hut. Opposite us was another hedge, and behind, the gable of a small house.

Émile got in position, and we both emerged at the same time, holding our shoes in our hands, and tiptoed across. The Germans didn’t see or hear us, but a dog growled, and they swore loudly at him.

Their oaths echoed against the wall where we were now crouching — on French soil.