FRITZ ON HIS WAY TO A LABOUR CAMP.

Transcription

1 FRITZ SAWADE S STORY I was born the 31st. of Dec 1922, in the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I don t recall that day but I tell you the advantages of being born the last day of the year. My whole life I had parties on the 31st. with family and friends. The disadvantage is that I always had to wait a whole year, 365 days, until my next birthday and parties. I was the youngest of 5 boys. The oldest is now 96. With older brothers you learn to be tough. When I was 3 years old, I spent a lot of time with a neighbor who had a moving truck and I was allowed to go with him in the big truck on trips in the neighborhood. At the age of 4, I went to Kindergarten. The first day my Mother took me there, it was a couple of blocks away from my home. She asked me if I knew the way back home, which I affirmed. I knew the whole neighborhood because of my trips on the truck. There were no school busses at that time. Public school and secondary school was not much to tell about, except some fights with the boys. My father was a stationary engineer and a tinkerer, he built small steam engines and we kids played with the Meccano set, building all kinds of structures with nuts and bolts and a screw driver, no Lego. In 1930 the first Diesel engine was invented by Rudolf Diesel. My father thought this was an opportunity for me to get in this from the start. I went to a Technical school to learn everything about Motors, 2 years at day school and two years at night school. I started work in an automotive repairshop and after two weeks I got a call from the principal of my school and he said that he had recommended me as a good student to the Dutch Shell. They had a big complex with office buildings and laboratories in Amsterdam. So I started there in the office and spent some time in the laboratories. They not only researched oil products but anything on the market from dentures to baking powder. But then: 10TH OF MAY Early morning the Air raid sirens started, we listened to the radio, German troops had invaded the Netherlands, a neutral country. Airplanes were in the air, bombs were falling. We were living in an apartment on the third floor and had nowhere safe to go. We decided to go downstairs and ask the neighbors if we could hide with them in the basement. The newscasts reported massive troop movements and an ultimatum from the Germans to capitulate or they would bomb Rotterdam. Well they bombed Rotterdam anyway. The Dutch had only a small army and after four days they had to give up. The German troops were marching into Amsterdam. There was no end to the long columns of men and armed vehicles arriving. The first few years of the occupation were relatively calm, then in they started to call up all young men to force them to work in Germany. Also all Jewish people had to wear a yellow star. That was the beginning of the Jewish persecution. They raided the Jewish homes and transported them to Germany and as we later heard, to the death camps. In 1943 I was called up and transported to Germany as forced labor. FRITZ ON HIS WAY TO A LABOUR CAMP. In July 1943 I had to report to the Railway Station in Amsterdam for the trip to a labour camp. At the station I met some old schoolfriends who were in the same age group as myself so we stayed together. We all did not know where they were taking us. We made an overnight stop just inside Germany where we got some soup and bread. The next morning everybody got on the train again. I recognized some of the names of the towns we were passing and late that night I saw a sign for Potsdam so I knew we were close to Berlin. The train stopped and we drove into a strange place. On both side of the railway there was barbed wire, the train drove through a gate then the gate closed behind the train and we had to get off. I felt like a prisoner. We got some soup again and they told us we could sleep in the barracks. I inspected the bunkbeds and decided to stay outside, sitting on a fence since the place was crawling with bedbugs. The next day there was activity in the camp. People were called up in groups of ten over the loudspeakers and each group went with an official to go to work in some factories. I analyzed this during the day and decided to get out of there. 1

2 At six oclock I noticed that a group of cleaning ladies walked into the camp and went to the office to do their cleaning duties.i soon made eye contact with one of the ladies, and wondered how they got into the camp. I was 19 years old at the time. The next day the same routine, people were called up and left for the factories. At six o clock the cleaning ladies appeared again, and this time Fritz was ready. I asked my favoured lady how she got in the camp; she showed me a piece of paper with her name written on it in pencil. So I asked her what would happen if she lost that piece of paper. She was not overly concerned, so I asked if she could let me have it. There was an exchange of cigarettes and Fritz had her card. Now I had to make a plan to get out of the camp. I had a pencil with a rubber eraser at the end so I rubbed out the lady s name and wrote my own name on the pass. In the meantime the guard at the gate had changed. I made a quick decision; I called my friend and told him that I was leaving and asked him if he could take my suitcase with him. I gave him the address of my brother in Berlin and said wherever he ended up to contact us there. So I walked to the gate, handed over my card and told the guard that I had visited the office. Remember that long barbed wire fence? Well, I had to walk the full length of it until I came to the end. All the time saying to myself, don t rush, stay calm. At the end there was a street and a streetcar passing by. I ran to the stop and jumped on the streetcar. Then I saw the conductor getting closer asking people for their tickets. I did not have any money on me but heard that the conductor spoke with a Dutch accent. I assumed that he was also a forced labourer. When he came to me I told him that I escaped the camp and had no money. He told me not to worry and gave me a ticket and the directions to my brother s address. What a surprise, my brother had no idea that I was coming and he lived with several others in a house supplied by General Electric where he worked in a factory office. In Amsterdam he had worked in a bank and he knew some of his colleagues from his bank who worked in Berlin at a bank. We had some discussion of my situation and the following day my brother and I went to that bank and told them that I was looking for work and had also worked at a bank. My German at that time was not great so my brother did the talking and we had arranged by some signs when I had to say ja or nein. They were interested and said that I could start the following day. There was one problem, they needed my passport but that was still in the camp. I had a quick conference about this problem with my brother. The result of this was that my brother asked them if they could give me a short note in which they told the reader that I was an employee of the Dresdnerbank and to give me the passport of Fritz Sawade. Everything went well so far. The following day Fritz went back to the camp around six o clock, signed in and went to the office; most of the employees had left. One young man was still there and I gave him the letter. He went through piles of passports but could not find mine. Then he said, "Somehow that name sounds familiar to me." He went to a small pile and there was my passport. He said that name was called over the speaker system for the last few days. He gave me the passport, I thanked him, walked past the guard and started working for the bank the next day. BERLIN 1943 I started working for the Dresdnerbank on 16 July, The Dresdner Bank was one of the major banks in Germany with head office in Berlin. I was hired as a bookkeeper in the securities department, (Stocks and Shares). There were three other persons in the department, all older men over 65 who were recalled to work because all the younger men had to go to war.they started teaching me German and always brought me extra coupons for groceries which were available only with these coupons. Fritz lived well. I had enough to eat and lived at the bank in a building across from the main building. The work I had to do, I could have finished in one hour but we stretched it out over the day. Because I was the youngest person in that section of the bank, I was recruited as an air raid warden. That meant that every time there was an air raid alarm I had to go to the roof of the building and watch for firebombs and throw them down into the street. One day in November 1943, while I was in my room, the bank was hit and my windows were all blown out and I was out of work. I was no longer allowed to stay in my room at the bank and a worker from the bank offered to let me stay at his house. I, with several other Dutchmen, had to report to the unemployment office and were assigned to a small factory 2

3 which made precision parts for the German Messerschmitt plane. We had to operate lathes which were set up for us and we only had to insert a new part when one was finished. The lathes were operated from an overhead drive by means of a leather belt. We got bored standing behind these lathes and we started experimenting with the little control wheels on the lathes which we gave a little turn. The result of which was that the drive belt broke. All hell broke loose but we defended ourselves and said that we were only office workers and did not understand what had happened. To fix the belt they had to stop the overhead drive and everybody had to wait until it was fixed. This happened a few more times and then they did not trust Fritz and sent him downstairs in the basement to operate a big circular saw. I only had to insert a long rod once in a while in the saw and then it advanced automatically. I was the only one down there and got bored, so I started experimenting. The saw had a cooling system to cool the blade, so I closed the valve for the fluid going to the saw and watched it get red hot. Before they discovered that the saw took twice as long to cut a piece, the building was bombed. The next day when we arrived for work the building had been flattened by bombs and Fritz was out of work again. In the mean time, my brother got a leave of absence to visit his family because of an sickness. So I was alone in Berlin again. I had found out that when Dutchmen were bombed out and lost their passports they could go to the Swedish consulate and they would issue new papers. In your passport the Germans had put a big stamp saying you were allowed to move only within the borders of Berlin. So I took a match to my passport and burned it so that only my name was still readable. I went to the Swedish consulate, explained what had happened, that I could only save a part of my passport, and asked them if they could help me. No problem. I had to go across the road where there was a photoautomat, I returned with three photos and got a Swedish passport. No more stamps in my passport. Remember Sweden was neutral during the war and was looking after the Dutch citizens while our Government was in exile. Fritz had a new passport and he could go wherever he wanted to go. I decided to leave Berlin and went on my way to Wien, Austria, where another brother of mine was working. TRIP TO AUSTRIA AND THE BLACK FOREST The trains were full and you had to leave the seats to women and children. The doorway of the train was also full and even in the washrooms, dozens of soldiers were standing. When you are a few hours on the road you have to go sometimes, but the washrooms were full. Soldiers had the best system, they peed in their helmets, opened the window and let it go. I had to suffer until finally we had a stop and I could go to the washroom. We finally arrived in Wien, but I had never been there before, so I asked a lady on the street for directions to where my brother lived. It turned out that she had lived in Indonesia and spoke some Dutch. By that time it was getting late in the afternoon and she said if you do not get there on time, you can come back to my house and try it again the next day. I arrived at the place where my second brother was supposed to be working, but he was away on leave. I went back to that family where I spent the next three days and had some nice talks with her husband about the war and the current situation. I packed up again and went back to Germany where I had a third brother working in the Black Forest district. I arrived in Tuttlingen, a town not far from the Swiss border where I met my brother. It was Winter in the meantime and everything looked beautiful. My brother was working in a shoe factory and he asked his boss if he needed someone. His boss immediately agreed because he had to produce a certain number of shoes for the army and an extra person was welcome. So Fritz started a new career in a Shoe Factory. It was close to Christmas and my brother also got leave for a short time to go home. He never came back. 3

4 There was only one other person, a young man from Belgium working in that factory; the rest of the workers were older men. I was invited by an older worker to his house one day and there I met a nice girl (Edith) who rented a room there. She was also far from home and we understood each other very well. We spent a lot of time together and decided to get married after the War. Her parents home was in eastern Germany and towards the end of the war the Russian Army on their way to Berlin passed through her Village and destroyed everything. The war was getting closer to our town (Tuttlingen) and we could hear the cannon fire. The French Army occupied our town and installed some prisoners of War in the administration of the Town. I had made friends with some French prisoners of war during my stay in Tuttlingen who then took over the administration of the town. One of my friends became the Mayor of the Town. They asked me to join them in the local French Police force. I was given a gun and was involved in guarding German Nazis and some other local people who were under arrest for several offences. While I was guarding German prisoners I got acquainted with German Red Cross nurses who prepaired food for the Prisoners in the camp, I got married to my German friend and we were provided with a nice car from the army and a chauffeur and all the Red Cross nurses in town attended our wedding. They felt sorry for us because none of our parents could attend our wedding. In late 1945 we decided to go to Holland were my parents lived. We had some problems because my wife did not have a Dutch passport and we were stuck for a few weeks close to the Dutch- German Border and had to wait before we got the necessary papers and could finish our trip to Amsterdam. My wife s father died in the meantime but we could not attend his funeral. My wife s mother fled her home when the Russians went through her village and we did not know if she was still alive. There were no communications at that time. In Holland we were well received by my family and friends but Holland was recovering from the German occupation and there was no accommodation to be had. During the war they could not build houses so we had to stay at my parents house. 4

5 MY HOUSE IN TUTTLINGEN WHICH I PARTLY DESIGNED AND BUILT CAPTURED BY THE RUSSIANS During the last month of the war, my wife had not heard from her mother and family, and then coming to a strange country (Holland) she was very concerned whether her mother had survived the war. Her hometown was close to the German-Polish border where there were heavy battles between the German and Russian armies. So Fritz decided to go and find her mother. I had to cross the Dutch-German border and the German-Russian occupation border. We had made a plan and I allowed myself three weeks to return to Holland again. As I came closer to the German-Russian border I met several people who wanted to go home or were looking for their families. The border was guarded by the Russians and they had made lines with cans hanging from them with clappers in them like bells. When you stepped on the line or touched it they heard you coming. At midnight a group of about twenty people decided to go over the border. We all walked in line one behind the other so when you noticed an alarm line you would step over it and pass it over to the person behind you. I kept at the end of the group and found that they made too much noise, so I separated from them and went on my own trying to get over the border. It was very dark but in the distance I could see an elevated railway line. I stopped for a rest and decided to eat something. While I was stopped there eating a piece of bread I suddenly noticed a small light on top of the railway line; it disappeared and twenty feet further I saw it again and again. What could that be, I waited and it came back again. Then I knew some one was there smoking a cigarette. I waited until he had passed me and then behind his back I crawled over the line and was in Russian occupied territory. From there I still had a few days to go to where my wife s mother was supposed to live. In Holland we had rehearsed what I would find when I reached her village. I would pass a school a church on the left and a railway station on the right, and when I saw a cemetery, I would be out of the village again. I arrived at the cemetery and there were no homes or people in sight. Everything was destroyed. In the 5

6 distance I saw a light and went there and they told me that my wife s mother was alright and living in another house. She was living in one room with ten other family members. I stayed a few days to get acquanted with my new family and went on my way back to Holland again. I tried to follow the same route I had come but in the meantime the roads were covered with snow and the going was harder. Close to the border a man joined me; he was a German soldier who also wanted to go to the west. We waited until midnight and crawled close to the railway line. Suddenly a voice yelled Stop, and a Russian soldier appeared; he had been hiding behind a snow bank. He took us to a farmhouse and there he opened a door and gave us a push and we landed in a basement. It was very dark down there but we heard other people breathing and we heard their stories. They had taken all our possessions and we had to wait until daybreak. The man who had walked with me was taken outside and when he came back he was very concerned. He had a little map on him telling him how to get over the border; the Russians found it and they thought he was a spy. We had to do some chores around the farm and at night we were rounded up into one big room. The following day I was called to the commanding officer and he asked me to go with two soldiers to the village and look for the man who had been caught at the same time as me, because he had escaped. I walked with the two soldiers into the village but could not find him. Of course if I had seen him I would not have told the soldiers. We got back to the farm and later that day I had to go to the commanding officer again and was told that because I had helped them look for the escaped man I was free to go. They had taken all my possessions from me, so I told the officer that I wanted my things back and he sent someone out who brought back my possessions. I also asked for some bread and then I was free to go but still in the Russian Zone. I made it to another area, crossed the border and arrived three days later back in Holland. Soon after, the papers for my wife arrived and we traveled to Amsterdam where we were welcomed by all my family and friends. END OF MY JOURNEYS Back in Holland I got a job at a Dutch Government Department in the Hollerith Department, (1946). There, with the use of IBM Machines, we had to find out which possessions were stolen by the Germans and recovered after the war by the Dutch so we could match them with the claims from their original owners. Because of my experience in Germany with Stocks and Bonds, I got familiar with the IBM System and soon was called upon to fix problems with the registration of lost or stolen financial items. Since the war no new homes were built in Holland so we could not find an apartment. I had contacts with Swiss friends and they invited me to come to Switzerland to live and work. I was, in the meantime, an expert with the IBM machines and got a position with a large Machine Factory to set up a payroll and a material control system (1948). After a few years I became the Assistant of the chief and we enjoyed living in Switzerland in a nice apartment. After that time we got Interested in Canada and arrived in Canada in 1954 where I had a few positions and retired on July 1, 1986 as a Management Systems Analyst with the Ontario Government. MY HOUSE IN ORILLIA 6

7 SUMMARY OF THE WAR IN HOLLAND 10 May 1940 The Germans invaded The Netherlands. In Most young men living in the big cities were obliged to work in Germany. 17 Sept The Allied forces landed in Arnheim. Operation Market Garden. This was a disaster Nov.1944 The Germans picked up 50,000 Dutchmen and transported them to Germany. At the end of 1944 they transported another 150,000 men to Germany. The winter of was very cold and there was a lot of snow.temperatures between c. There was no supply of food or heating material. People had no gas, no electricity. no telephone, no radio, no mail, no papers, no school and no public transportation. Everything had stopped. My father had made a small stove from a soup can and chopped up every piece of wood in the house, the doors the mouldings, into small pieces to boil some tulips as food. Food: In 1944 one got 1600 calories per day on food coupons until it was reduced to 250 cal. and then to zero. Everything had stopped and people were starving. More then 200,000 people suffered because of lack of food and more then 10,000 died of hunger. My own father died of the aftereffects of hunger. Then at the end of 1945, every man born between 1904 and 1928 was obliged to report to the authorities and they were shipped to Germany. In late 1944 the Germans started the program of flying bombs (V1) and began in 1945 the (V2) which they sent from Holland to London, England. Many misfired and caused a lot of damage among the population. Because of the shortness of food all kinds of sicknesses started and many died. The Germans destroyed the harbours of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. On the 29 th. of April 1945 the Allied forces dropped the first supplies of food from the air. And then on the 5th of May 1945 Holland was liberated by the Canadian Forces. Many people did not return to their normal lives. It took many years before everything was back to normal again war veterans took part in the liberation celebrations in Holland. In 1945 they left 5,000 War babies behind. 250,000 Dutch people died in the war, one in every 35. I had many small experiences. You know that was 67 years ago. I never forgave the Germans for stealing several years of my youth. I remember those days like it was yesterday. But remember if someone does you wrong it is stored in your memory and their punishment comes eventually, one day or another. Fritz Sawade 7