The Horse Adjutant
When he heard this, he shook his head in knowing understanding and seemed to ponder the depth of the disaster I had been through. As a way of commiserating, he shared his own grief with me; he told me he had lost one son on the Eastern front, and another on the Western. With this, he was very sad, and you could tell he was deeply reflective. That was the whole conversation. It was the most I ever spoke with him the entire time I was in his care. Maybe it was his sons he was thinking about when he gave me those extra morsels of food? Or maybe it was his sons he was thinking about when he contracted the SS for labor and asked for a teenager? Caught up in the war, one of the few ways the Nazis could save the Jews was to give them a job. Maybe this was his way of repenting because the little I knew of him, he was a good man. Even though the bombing was relentless, we kept on working and trying to meet deadlines. The whole complex was crumbling as the SS stepped up their patrols and aggressive behavior. They were very concerned about escape or worse, a slave re- volt. There were many more of us than them. I saw them checking hâftlinge looking for anything that did not belong, especially civilian clothing or weapons. Bursting into Walter’s area, one started to check me. He pushed me aside and started to pull things apart. When Walter saw this, he became forceful in his speech. With author- ity in his voice, he said, I am responsible for this junge. He has no civilian clothing or weapons. By his word alone, they stopped searching and left. The sustained bombing in our area started in August 1944, and it did not stop until Christmas Day, December 24th, 1944. The entire region was saturated. The factory took a pounding. The bombing seemed to bypass our barracks. The Americans con- sistently bombed during the day, and less frequently, the British bombed at night. Once, I tried to count the planes. I lost track quickly. The planes were flying in formation. They looked beautiful from my viewpoint. Every time they got close anti-aircraft guns pounded the sky. The Americans lost a lot of planes during these raids. But, they owned the sky. I did not see any of the Nazi’s planes attempt to challenge their supremacy. By the time the bombing stopped, the entire Buna factory complex was in ruins. It was a miracle I was not killed. More of the prisoners in Buna died from friendly fire than from the guards or malnutrition. Safe inside my barracks or at least as safe as anyone could be with bombs dropping. I saw a bomb drop nearby in the field outside my window. With all the destruction going on around me this one bomb, the one that would have surely destroyed us was a dud. It did not detonate. If it ex- ploded as intended, I would not be here today.
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