The Horse Adjutant
needed to be rooted out and punished. The war ended in May for us, and everybody got drunk, including me. Everyone was singing happy songs. It is hard to describe the happiness. I was happy, too. This would be another crossroad for me; it was an opportunity for Max, as well. He was offered a job as an officer, but declined, telling them, “If you try to make me an officer, I am gonna run away.” For anybody else, this might have been treason, but for Max, it was just a matter of fact. He did not want to be- come an officer nor did he want to be responsible for other soldiers. That would have made it more difficult for him to move around with impunity. He needed the freedom. Egging me on, he said, “Leon, come with me. We are going to start a business.” “Where?” I asked. “We will go to the territory liberated by the Russians,” he said. I had to decline; I was eight years younger, and I had never finished elementary school. For the first time in my life, I wanted to learn something and go to school. Max ended up in Breslau, Germany. When I signed with the army, I was told that when I finish school, they will give me a job. At first, Max’s business was a little dangerous, but very lucrative. Eventually, he was able to go mainstream and earn enough to open a sewing factory in Stuttgart. To get the ball rolling, he sold American cigarettes, smuggling them in from Hungary. To get the product, he befriended an American soldier and paid him handsomely. All the soldier had to do was take his truck to Hungary and get the cigarettes. They all made a small fortune. By repeating the process, everyone around him was making money. Eventually, his trade route dried up, so he moved to Stuttgart. It did not take long for him to find another product: nylon stockings. He ordered them directly from America and, again, this worked out well. Max was a natural businessman, combining his great sense of humor with a determination hardened from years of backbreaking work in the gulag. The only danger was the authorities. The threat of getting arrested always weighed on him, but the authorities liked stockings, too. By the age of 26, Max was Max Blauner
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