Although over 22 years have passed, and I only saw the man for a couple of minutes, he still stands before my eyes as if he were alive.
This happened in East Prussia at the beginning of the first World War. I and a company of Russian soldiers are deployed in the forest. We are preparing a position for our artillery. Our commander, young , very energetic but strict to the point of cruelty, gives orders. Suddenly a soldier from a strange company appears, leading a man in civilian clothing. I look him over: a young man about 30 years old, he moves like a robot, his eyes as if they see nothing. His wasted, tired and pale face, reflects nothing, not happiness, sadness, fear or despair. Only his body shivers as if from a cold shower, and his whole being asks without words for a warm room and a glass of coffee. The soldier, his companion, takes him over to the commander and gives him a note. Our commander reads and a smile comes to his lips. At first I had understood nothing. Suddenly it became clear to me. Our commander ordered that the stranger be guarded and he sent someone for a rope. A shiver went through my heart: our commander is appointed as hangman and this is the victim!
In fifteen minutes the stranger no longer lived.
Who was he? From where? What is his crime? Who knows? And what is the difference?
We are going, more correctly, we are being taken to the front packed like herring in a truck. My friend, a happy boy, talks to me and fantasizes highly. First we’ll rest up after the hard experiences on the front. What do you think? They’ll certainly give us a room for two or three, clean, light and warm – we are traveling in a cultured country! – True, bread is probably hard to come by in Germany. I figure that more than a pound or another half we won’t get daily, but milk, butter, cheese – this isn’t lacking, and what more do you need? A clean room, a bed, food, tea when you want it; you can read, write, walk around and if you have money, you can request a leave and see Berlin…and the war will certainly not last long!
Four or five months later, I and my friend are in prison camp, surrounded by electrified barbed wire, in one dog kennel with another hundred men in one straw bed. My friend is just out of the hospital, having wrestled with death for many weeks, suffering from the terrible typhoid fever. Over 50 die daily. He is left alive. A miracle!
He is privileged to receive a bigger portion of food, dry “gemiza”, or hard beets with water, in order to be cured. Yes, my friend is “rescued”. Unfortunately, something is not right with my friend. He forgets the names of different objects, reading is hard; he has forgotten how to write. It helps him not to wake. On the contrary, everything gets worse, until he has a horrible attack of insanity. They take him away. Later, I learn that my friend is free….He has been sent home to his parents through a neutral country.
His dreams have finally been fulfilled: for him the war has really ended earlier.