1. September 1948
1 Sep. A transport of repatriates. Again only sick and weak. - Apart from Benno von Knobelsdorff, there is only one other officer of high nobility among us: Franz Graf von Spee. One evening in conversation we come to talk about the smoking habits of women, and I explain: “I find women who smoke cigars rather strange.” Then Count Spee says, “Why? My mother smokes a pipe, for example!”
A lapsed Catholic tells how he crossed himself markedly every time he entered a farmhouse in Poland, whereupon he was always hospitably treated by the pious Catholic women and mothers.
Even more disgusting were the sex stories of a compatriot who had once forced his way into our circle. That would have been an interesting case for research into the connections between face and soul: The man had the physiognomy of a pig. His face was the mirror of his soul.
We still have an SS man among us. At the moment he is once again sitting in the karzer because he had once again gotten cheeky with a Russian. He is tall and strong and absolutely fearless. The karzer, a tiny one-room house, stands in the middle of the camp yard and is surrounded by barbed wire. A mini-prison within the prison. When we go out to work in the morning, he sits at the wired window and waves at us.
If the Russian doctor isn’t there, no one can get sick leave. The German doctor is not allowed to concede it, so sick people have to go to work. For the Russian, only someone with a fever is sick. Recognising other symptoms of illness is perhaps beyond his diagnostic abilities.
Every holiday that falls on a weekday is made up on Sunday. - The German doctor tries to keep a list of the deceased. - The men start addressing us officers as “Sie” again. - “Fascist” is the biggest and most used swear word for the Russians.
September 1948: A delegation of the “Democratic Women's League of Germany” from the Soviet occupation zone of Germany is expected in the camp. Days before, the camp is cleaned and decorated. Flowerbeds are planted at the edge of the camp yard. The yellow sand is dug up and planted with flowering herbs that the lumberjacks have brought from the forest. One of the forest detachments has even brought a few small birch trees, which are also planted. Finally, everything is watered thoroughly. The previously bare sandy square now looks really friendly. It creates an atmosphere of contemplative calm, contentment, a modest spa garden. You have to give it to the Russian: Deception and building Potemkin villages is his great strength. The friendly sight of the campsite will certainly not fail to have an effect on the wifely disposition of the red manesses. - They come. They are interested and friendly and talk to the compatriots. Of course, the Russians do not leave their side. And just what can this prisoner of war tell the women who will be gone tomorrow, while the prisoner will then be at the mercy of the Russians? And what do these simple women know of the craftiness and propaganda skills of the Russians! And what more with the Marxist attitude of these women, for whom the Russian is the exemplary big brother anyway! - Now the women are gone again, and all the blossom magic too. Even with the most loving care, no flower can survive in this sand, especially as it is already September. Even the birch trees are drying up. The place shows its true face again: barren, lonely, desolate.
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