The Horse Adjutant
God is With Us
Chapter One The Wehrmacht
Late in the year 1939, a 12-year-old boy named, Leon Schagrin, stood on the side of the road as everyone waved and handed flowers cheering the arrival of Tyrolean troops from Austria into his small town. Dressed in light blue uniforms they arrived with music blaring. He saw men with feathered caps marching in a procession of horses, mules, motorcycles, field kitchens, and foot soldiers. This was the German Wehrmacht, a grand army. Upon close inspection, their belt buckles were engraved with the words, “Gott mit uns,” God is With Us – all of this was heady stuff for a boy. Victorious, they were occupying Poland and Leon’s hometown, Grybow. Grybow, for hundreds of years, was occupied by both Jews and Poles. The Jews called the town Gribov. It is located in southern Poland below Krakow in the region of Galicia. The excitement of the day overcame any fear the town folks may have felt. The soldiers were friendly. They tossed candy to the children as they passed. When they settled down, they shared soup and stories with their hosts and allowed Leon to touch their rifles. When he went to bed that night, he dreamed of joining them. Six soldiers bivouacked at the family home. One of them was an old comrade of Hersch Schagrin, Leon’s father. They served together in the cavalry of the Austrian army during World War I. One month before the occupation of Grybow, the Nazis invaded Poland in a Blitz- krieg maneuver combining overwhelming force with speed. When the war started, Leon and his family, including his four sisters, and his mom, who was 9-months pregnant, went to their grandparent’s farm in nearby Tarnow. His dad went the other direction towards the fighting to join up with the Polish reserve. While the family was at the farm, his mom gave birth to their sixth child, a son named, Naftali.
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