All of us had to board a train on the morning of October 9th for Danzig. There we were told that until the end of the war, we would have to serve time in the German army. All of us were placed in a schoolhouse for the night.
On the 10th of October, we found out that all the men would be sent that night to Berlin, while it was our responsibility to send our families to someplace with relatives or friends. If that was impossible, a spot would be found for our families in Danzig. We knew friends in Vienna and resolved to try that route. Travel to Vienna was not prohibited, and we were given tickets; me with a colleague to Berlin, and my wife to Vienna.
The rest of the day we spent sightseeing and riding the streetcars without destination. We paid with a 5 mk note every time we got on a streetcar, in order to receive change. Drivers would not change notes larger than 5 marks. And banks only changed into 50 mark local currency. The bureaucracy involved in getting even the 50 mark changed was ridiculous, so we rode the cars all day as a substitute for the banks!
The train for Berlin left at about midnight, and the one for Vienna about an hour later. We said our goodbyes and began the next leg in our journey.
From Berlin we had to go 53 km to the south, to a small town called Baruth in Mark. We turned to the local military commander who directed us to a house that bore the sign “Estonians’ gathering spot”. There we found colleagues who had fled our homeland earlier. It was the 11th of October, mid day, and we were to stay at this house until October 14. In those three days, we were visited several times by numerous army and SS representatives, among them Estonian SS commander “Obersturmbannfuhrer” Sandberger. We had to complete several questionnaires covering a multitude of topics. On the 13th of October, the local military organized a nice dinner for us in one of the local restaurants.
We gathered on the 14th of October at the train station, and our guide/officer sent us on our way to Berlin. Upon arrival in Berlin, we traveled via the city line (subway, not streetcar) to the edge of the city, near lake Wannsee. A local constabulary was headquartered there (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). We were greeted there by another SS sturmbannfuhrer Lumm. He gave a short welcome speech. We were all interrogated separately and then advised that each of us would receive a ten day pass to arrange our family affairs. We were all issued travel documents to the destination where our family members were or would be residing, mine of course to Vienna. I sent a telegram to my wife and later that day boarded a train at the Anhalter station. My travel partner was a fellow Estonian. We decided to take the long route through Stettin and Posen (Poznan). The conductor and other train employees complained to no end about our “detour”, but the trip ended happily and we arrived, after a lengthy stay in Breslau, on the 15th of October in Vienna at Franz-Joseph station. My wife was at the station to greet us. She was staying with the couple we had originally contacted, but since they had just one room, which they also used as their kitchen, a longer stay at their place was out of the question.
The next day, 16 October, we celebrated my birthday with them and then began a search for a new residence for my wife. We wasted three days trying to get information at city hall and various other bureaucracies, to no avail. I then got approval from the local commander to use a stranger’s house for the balance of our 10 days. At the end of the ten days, I managed an extension of a further ten days for my wife, and returned to Berlin. I informed my section commander that I had found it impossible to find a residence in Vienna for my wife, and surprisingly, I was given special permission to relocate her to Berlin! Berlin had large sections which were empty, following evacuation of the residents. It was still a target of aerial bombardment. I received another 3 day leave, and a return ticket to Berlin. By the 29th of October, we both arrived via separate paths, back to Berlin. At first we lodged in another stranger’s house, where also some colleagues were staying. I then decided to try to locate a home for my wife in Baruth. That ideal little town had stayed in my memory, and I liked it very much. She traveled there one morning, and arrived back in Berlin the same evening. Finally success! She had found a room in the house of the local forest chief. One less problem to handle!
