For the first time the Brombergers see a sort of mirror image of themselves as they observe a death march column like their own. Certainly they have encountered many others by now, but only ever in a hurried march-past while they themselves were also being herded along. Here they now lie resting on the heaps of garbage and for the first time they really have the time to absorb this devastating sight, never to be forgotten: The first sign of it is a slowly advancing cloud of dust, next they begin to hear the constant yelling of the guards, and only then do the first rows of deportees appear. The first rows are usually made up of those prisoners who are still in the best shape, but the longer the column marches past, the more bent are the backs of its members. One old man hangs with his arms draped across the shoulders of two others, reminiscent of an old eagle with dragging wings; his once clear eagle eyes are almost lifeless and only his bent hook nose gives an indication of what his face may have looked like before all this. Many other men virtually hang in the elbows of their comrades, their legs dragging on the ground rather than taking steps. Many of those who are carried on in this manner by the sacrifice of their fellow marchers move their legs more like puppets, in the air, only skimming the ground with dangling toes. But as long as one even just goes through the motions of walking, his ethnic brothers do not desert him...

When the Brombergers finally also look at the passing faces, there are few among them that do not wonder: do I look like that too? These deportees as well have not washed for eight days, and so the layer of street dirt, grown loamy with the sweat of marching, has formed a finger-thick crust over their features, giving the faces a rigid look, like mummies. Since many also have bleeding wounds from the many blows, this loam is often marbled with blood, and looking out of these rigid masks are eyes which are frequently also suffused with blood, and always badly inflamed for days already. But the gaze from these sick eyes is something the watchers will least forget: In most of them the gaze is already almost dead, vacant as the eyes of the dying, but many still have the expression of hunted game; after all, isn't all this just one huge hunt? Their clothes are also unspeakably ragged; the men's suits are uniformly gray with dust, but out of a poignant sense of decency some still wear their collars, even if for a long time already they have just been wrapped around their necks like gray rags. In a few cases they are even still held together with neckties, like they used to be in better days. As for the women's clothes, except for those traditional peasant dresses of tough linsey-woolsey they are the most tattered of all. The light summer fabrics have been reduced to rags, the older women's hems have been uniformly trodden down, the thin silk of the young girls' blouses is riddled with holes, and bright blood runs down many of the women's bare legs. But the saddest aspect of all are their feet, for most of the prisoners no longer have shoes. And so they have wrapped their feet with handkerchiefs instead, or in many cases only with scraps of coarse sackcloth which they were fortunate enough to find somewhere. All these unshod feet are bleeding from the march and often have been covered in pus-filled sores for days already - no matter how many thousands of steps they must take each day, they still flinch painfully with every footfall...

"So that's what we look like!" Baron Gersdorff suddenly says. He and the column's leaders sit at the foot of a great heap of ashes, reclining against their bulk. Even Dr. Kohnert's lean face that almost always wears an expression of cheerful self-assurance is as though shadowed from within at this sight.

"So that's what we look like!" Adelt repeats quietly. "But unfortunately nobody else sees it, and nobody else ever will see us like this. The English politicians should sit here in our stead and miss one of their Sunday visits to church - maybe just once their unctuous words would stick in their craw and they would realize, even if just for a moment, their own culpability!"

"Or some of those pious Misses who love to go work in the missions to help poor Negroes to the blessings of Christianity!" Dr. Kohnert says sarcastically. "Here they would have a grand scope indeed for their Christian compassion and could earn themselves a choice seat in Heaven..."

"What keeps going through my mind these days," Adelt suddenly bursts out passionately, "is this, first and foremost: Whatever may happen to Poland during this war - whether all her cities are destroyed by it, whether her entire intellectual elite is wiped out in the various battles, whether a third of her people die in the iron hail - I cannot imagine any consequence of war that would strike me as somehow unjust: If a people can deal in such a way with unarmed fellow citizens, none of what it may receive in return can be undeserved, and any and all it does receive is only just! And when the great humanitarians from abroad come along and throw up their hands in horror and cry: poor Poland, look at what all was done to her - it is up to us to point out calmly as often as it takes: it was all fair and just - whatever was done to her! For what Poland herself did here, what she has done to countless civilized human beings which she herded through the country like so many heads of cattle, how she drives us here and others there, that is such an incredible crime against civilization that there can be nothing, nothing at all which this nation may ever have the right to complain about in the future, for her own actions have disqualified her from the elite of civilized nations! And after all, when the time comes that she pays the penance for her actions, she will not pay it for the acts of individuals, since the entire people, the entire nation was to blame for this gruesome mass murder and participated in these inhuman tortures of innocent people, beginning with the Marshal of this State, to the vaivoda and professors, to the teachers and down to the most uneducated peasants, from the officers down to the last soldier! Neither the women nor even the children of this 'chivalrous' people have remained free of blame for this mass murder - all of them have soiled their hands with this blood and reveled in the torments of the defenseless! Neither the world nor this nation herself had better complain about the penance it will one day have to pay for its sin against humanity - God himself will not hear it then, for these deeds have also defiled God! And if philanthropists of all colors should one day turn to bestow their care on this nation, then speak to them of nothing but these deportation columns - if you tell it right, and tell nothing but the truth, then no doubt they will soon see for themselves that this people, this nation is no longer deserving of love and that their good deeds are better served on anyone else than on Poland!"

They are all somewhat surprised by their comrade - it is generally not his way to come out of his shell with such passion. And then they turn their gaze back onto the new arrivals. Their column is slowly nearing its end - it has been led onto the same dump site, by the way; perhaps they will even continue their march together?

"All of this is true," Dr. Kohnert finally says. "But I already know today exactly what the other nations will say to all of this: Hardly had the war broken out before the Germans staged a huge ethnic uprising, for they had been well armed by the Reich! What else could the poor Poles do but get rid of them as quickly as possible - seeing as now they were being attacked not only from the front, but also from within! The fact that their anger at this treacherous attack led to some excesses, well, who could possibly blame them for that? A small nation fighting for its survival in the same situation will always act like this!"

"My God in Heaven!" Adelt cries out in shock. "Now it's suddenly become clear to me why the arrests were always accompanied by searches for weapons, why they claim the Germans shot at them from every house, and why they planted rifle cartridges wherever they could! Your explanation shows the overall plan, prepared in advance from higher up, and with every means at their disposal... That's the story that was put about amongst the entire population, and most of them probably honestly believe it..." He stops, devastated, and puts his head in his hands. "Isn't that horrible?" he asks softly. "Have there ever been statesmen before who did something like this, so lightly? We are not the only ones who have to suffer so terribly under its consequences - the Polish people will also have to face dreadful repercussions. And all of it is lies, just a satanic deception...?"

"But nobody will believe us, and that's the bitterest part of all!" Dr. Kohnert speaks up again. He has discovered a broken spoon among the rubbish and pockets it as a valuable discovery.

"But that's impossible!" Adelt objects, agitated. "After all, everybody knows what oppression we endured, that it was impossible for us to have weapons, that almost daily house searches had not left us in peace for half a year already, and that the discovery of even a makeshift weapon meant months in prison! And also that the borders had been hermetically sealed for months already and so even smuggling something in would no longer have been possible! How should we have managed to arm ourselves, when all old weapons had long been confiscated and new ones were not to be had? It's simple fact that not one of us could have shot at the Poles because none of us Germans had a single weapon left - it's a perfectly clear-cut case - the truth has to win out..."

"Well, I still doubt it," says Dr. Kohnert, unimpressed. "In our century the truth is no longer absolute, but rather a function of who has the greater propaganda apparatus..."

At that moment, a prisoner arrives whom one can just barely recognize as a clergyman. Two surly Poles accompany him. He is the Reverend Krusche, the leader of the newly arrived deportees. They hurriedly discuss the most important things, but are forbidden to speak further; nonetheless they have guessed it anyway: both columns are to continue their march jointly from here on. Meanwhile the leaders of the Bromberg deportees have recovered enough that they can tackle the most pressing matters their role as leaders entails. Dr. Kohnert has a guard lead him to the Commandant, whom he asks for permission for some of the prisoners to buy some bread, with their own money. Strangely enough, the Commandant permits it this time. Zloty are hurriedly collected again, and the hope travels like wildfire: "There's going to be bread, we're going to get some bread..."

By now the newly arrived deportees have settled in, and now there are almost two thousand people lying among the trash. Even though most of them lie still, a cloud of ash constantly surrounds them, since even the slightest movement stirs up the dust. Many of them kneel among the garbage, poke through it searchingly - maybe there's an old crust of bread to be found, or even a head of cabbage someone has thrown away? These wretched figures grubbing through the filth are the most devastating sight of all; over here, one gnaws greedily on a moldy crust, over there another one has found an old tin can, which he happily attaches to his jacket with a piece of wire. Now he finally has a drinking cup - all that's missing is the water! But most of them lie among the piles of garbage as though struck down, only moving their pus-encrusted eyes when someone else drags himself past, and moaning with parched, split lips for a drop to drink.

The dump lines the street along its entire length and is separated from it only by a guardrail surrounding it on all sides on three-feet-high posts. To the right of the street is a tall board fence which evidently encloses a sawmilling square; to its right are a few sandy hills, with some wretched peasant shacks standing on it. Not far from this little ridge of hills, on the other side, stands a Protestant church, and not far from that stands a small house, just across the street from the dump. Here, it seems, lives an ethnic German family that has not yet been expelled.

And from this house they receive the most marvelous gift they could imagine under the burning midday sun: Suddenly a petite woman steps out of the doorway, her straight black hair falls in page-boy style to her shoulders, and at her side there walks a brightly chattering little girl - in either hand, however, the bashfully smiling woman carries a bucket of water! There is almost a stampede among the prisoners, and it takes the leaders' combined energy to prevent them from simply running the little woman down...

And so they drink, almost all of them, and even though each only gets a mouthful, that mere sip goes far towards reviving their spirits. For three hours this diminutive woman - she is the wife of the sexton Wiese, who has fled - carries her heavy buckets from her house and across the street, and when the prisoners' purchase of bread also arrives from the city, the general happiness almost knows no bounds.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, far too early for everyone's liking, the order is given to march on. Once again the deportees organize themselves into columns and rows. The group from Bromberg is the first to leave the dump site, after which the group from Pommerellen heaves itself out of the garbage as well. A cloud of stench follows them for a long time yet - a reminder of the time they spent lying among the trash. They march along close to the banks of the Vistula river, towards Wloclawek, which they just manage to reach by nightfall. Eyes wide with surprise, they see that many houses here have already been shelled, and again they nurse some hope of being liberated soon after all. All of them are crowded into a gymnastics hall, but no matter how large the room is, once again there is not nearly enough space for all of them to stretch out on the floor. But here at least there is no garbage mixed with human excrement on which they must huddle, and there is no stinking street dirt mixed with sharp glass shards on which they must stand barefoot.

Very early the next morning the march goes on, but no longer eastward - suddenly they are directed to move south. Could it be that the Germans are to the east, that they have already blocked off the roads? Dr. Kohnert manages to obtain one more concession, namely that some ill men may also ride on the carts along with the sick women. But when seventy-year-old Superintendent Aßmann, a dignified minister with the best of reputations, asks for the same privilege, it is difficult to preserve him from bodily harm. "Look at this gangster," the Commandant yells, "how harmless he acts, and yet he's the most dangerous of all!" And so two young men take him on their arms again and all but carry the exhausted old man this entire day as well. Finally the entire column is moving again as before, with dragging feet, enveloped by dust clouds, beaten in every village they pass through, spat at - or more - by everyone they pass...

This day as well soon grows hot, almost like a summer's day, and the sun beats down mercilessly on the traveling prisoners. As they have had nothing to drink since leaving Nieszawa, by noon their thirst approaches lethal degrees. Often there are large water tubs standing by the roadside; these have been thoughtfully placed there by farmers for the passing soldiers - but the prisoners are forbidden on pain of death to drink from them. This midday the death threat no longer has its intended effect; an old man is the first to suddenly throw himself over such a water tub and, forgetting everything around him, he drinks insatiably. But even while he is still drinking, and others are about to follow his example, the nearest guard leaps towards him with his gun barrel in hand, takes a huge swing, and already the rifle butt crashes into the back of the old man's head. The man does not make a sound; his head, half-crushed, sinks into the water, and his upper body slowly follows while the clear water turns red with his blood. "Have you got enough now, you damned water guzzler!" the policeman screams at him. He does not even permit the lifeless corpse to be pulled out - no, it is to remain in the tub, as a warning to others...

Towards evening the first cases of delirium occur; some of the prisoners begin to hallucinate. "Over there, that's my estate, and at the gate, my Elisabeth, she wants to give me a pitcher of water, just let me go to her for a moment!" a young farmer keeps crying out. If one of these unfortunates does not happen to have someone walking in his row who still has the strength to hold him back, his remaining lifespan is measured in seconds. For anyone who takes even one step out of line is immediately beaten to death by the guards.

More and ever more of them begin to see hallucinations - marvelous rivers with waterfalls, surrounded invitingly by shady stands of trees: "Just a few more kilometers! You can already see it clearly, just up ahead," they say to their comrades, in all seriousness. "Muster up just one more time, we'll be there in half an hour!" Around five o'clock these delusions become so strong for some of them that they suddenly break ranks and run with long strides towards a nearby hill. Immediately, wild shooting begins, and none of them make it farther than ten meters. After they fall, every one of them is stabbed to death with the guards' bayonets; in his rage one of the guards even jumps on top of one of the prisoners, stands on him with one foot on his throat and one on his private parts, holds his carbine reversed and aims one stab after another into the writhing body. Three strelzi wearing their heavy nailed boots jump the prisoner who made it the farthest towards his hallucination, and viciously trample his face until there is nothing left of it but a bloody pulp...

One after the other drops back from the foremost ranks, falls back row after row until finally he has arrived at the back of the column. There, the nearest guard seizes the opportunity to kick him in the back - if he holds up under this he may live a little longer - usually he collapses under the third kick, which tends to follow the first very soon. That, however, is the signal for his liquidation, and thus he ends the same way as all the others before him, under a rifle butt. Forty-four of the prisoners already half dead from thirst die in this manner this day...

But things are still progressing too slowly for the Poles. Which of them would ever have thought that these Germans would be so tough? Just outside Chodez the Commandant runs into an officer, a well-dressed, well-manicured first lieutenant from a Warsaw regiment. He dismounts his horse for a moment, exchanges cigarettes with the Commandant, and finally the stranger says, with a tilt of his head: "Why are there still so many of them? On the entire march here, haven't you even had the time to clean up a bit among these pigs?"

The Commandant just laughs and squints his eyes. "That's all still to come, don't worry. I prefer doing it slowly!"

At that, the other laughs as well, and presses his horse on: "That's right, that way they'll get more out of it too, those damned Hitlerowzi..."

At long last the sun sets, dusk falls. "Just a bit more patience," a young farmboy among them keeps repeating to himself, "soon the first dew will fall..."

But even before the dew falls and they can lick it up, they arrive at their day's destination, the large sugar refinery in Chodez.

Death in Poland
The Fate of the Ethnic Germans