Inconceivable Escape

It was January of 1935 in Hamburg, Germany and I was asleep in my cramped apartment until I heard the high pitched shriek of a woman. I immediately sprung out of bed to see what was the matter at this time of night. I looked out my frosted window to see red stains of blood on the newly fallen white snow around the corpse of a woman. Nearby two Nazi soldiers were herding crying men, women and children into a military transport. The soldiers were making the prisoners get into the transport at gunpoint and if they disobeyed they would be killed, like the fate of the dead woman. I had heard about Hitler's belief in an Aryan superior race, but I thought it was just more propaganda piled on top of a tower of lies and not a real threat or issue.

Seconds later, I looked out the window once again and saw a man probably about my age making a run for it from the transport and the soldiers. He got no further than a few yards before the soldiers opened fire and shot him multiple times. He crumpled to the ground and the snow around him started to turn red from blood. The soldiers finished loading the others into the transport and drove away as if nothing had happened.

Without delay, I raced to my closet to grab my coat and ran down the six flights of stairs to the ground level of the building. I raced through the soft snow to the wounded man, picked him up and carried him to my apartment. He was very skinny and his clothes were tattered and ripped. I grabbed towels to stop the bleeding, a bottle of whiskey to disinfect the wounds and needle and thread to sew the wounds up. The man was definitely unconscious but still breathing. He was shot in his upper right leg, his lower back and left hand. Once the bleeding was slowed I applied the whiskey to the wound on his hand. He immediately opened his eyes and yelped. I assured him that he was alright and safe now.

He weakly asked "Where am I?... cough... ,and where is Monika!?"

I told him, "You have been shot multiple times in you attempted escape from the Nazis and their transport, I don't know who Monika is but I'm sure she is alright." I looked at him again and noticed that he had the Star of David sewn on the sleeve of his shirt, he was Jewish.

I could not leave him to die in the snow, so I carried him up the six flights of stairs into my apartment and laid him on the sofa. I let him rest, but a few hours later my curiosity got the best of me.

I just had to ask, "What is your name?"

He calmly replied "My name is Gabor and I am looking for my sister Monika, who are you?"

I added, "My name is Dieter Schmidt and I think what the Nazis are doing is wrong. I am a friend not an enemy" Gabor then told me that him and Monika were in their apartment when a Nazi soldier broke down the door and threatened to shoot them if they didn't follow him out. They complied not realizing that they were to be taken to a concentration camp and most likely killed. He said that Monika was still on the transport in the hands of the Nazis.

Gabor then asked me, "Will you help me save Monika?" I thought over my options and decided that I would help Gabor save Monika as soon as he was healed.

In the meantime, Gabor's wounds began to heal and he started to hobble around the apartment. In the time he was healing Gabor told me more about his life. He was an apprentice to a blacksmith before his master ended the apprenticeship because he was Jewish. Gabor then said that his sister Monika was recently evicted from her apartment in Berlin because she was Jewish, so she came back to Hamburg to live with him. Gabor also told me that both his parents were killed in the Great War (World War 1). His mother was a battlefield medic for the Germans that was shot through the head when she stood up in the trench. His father was a General in Kaiser Wilhelm II's army that was killed by the French on the western front. Gabor and Monika both stayed with their Grandmother while their parents were fighting in the war. Gabor said he has very few faint memories of his mother and father because when they died he was only a toddler. His grandmother died last year and now Monika is the only family that he has.

After hearing about his hard life filled with loss I understood why he wanted to save his sister even though his chances of saving her would most likely get him killed. I honestly felt bad for him and wanted to do whatever I could to help him save his sister. Three days later Gabor said that it was now or never to go and save Monika, So at nightfall we assembled our supplies: 2 Luger P08 pistols, ammunition for the pistols, a slingshot, ammunition for the slingshot (small rocks) and a pair of wire cutters.

Quickly, we loaded our supplies into two satchels to carry them out of town without anyone getting suspicious of our intentions. At the stroke of midnight we crept out of the apartment and quiet as mice made our way down the six flights of stairs. Once we were at street level Gabor pulled out the slingshot and shot the street lamp bulbs out one by one. We took this precaution because of the curfew that the Nazis had put on the town. It took us nearly an hour to get out of Hamburg unnoticed but we did it. Now that we were out of town we could run along the frozen dirt roads toward the infamous Neuengamme concentration camp. Even though it was pitch black we could still see the outline of the fence and the guard towers moving their searchlights around the perimeter of the fence.

In contrast the easternmost guard tower was not moving their light like the other towers were, theirs was brightly shining on the interior of the wall at the camp. I informed Gabor to have his pistol ready and to shoot at any moment, I then took the wire cutters out of my bag and began to cut a hole in the barbed wire fence. It took a few terrifying minutes to make a hole big enough for us to fit through. As soon as the hole was big enough, Gabor said that he would go through first and to follow his lead. I followed him as we crept along the dusty perimeter of the fence. There were dozens of small buildings about the size of my apartment that Gabor told me were called barracks and held the prisoners. He said that Monika was in one of the ten barracks along the eastern fence that were for the women.

As we approached the first barracks and peeked inside, Gabor crept silent as a mouse along the rows of bunks looking at each woman, looking for Monika. After checking each bunk he whispered that Monika was not here, so in single file we crept to the next barracks. The second Barracks had one woman who was awake inside, she said her name was Christa. Then she told us that she worked in the same assembly line as Monika and would tell us which barracks Monika was in if we took her with us in our escape attempt. We agreed to take Christa along and she told us that Monika was in the last barracks along the eastern fence. We thanked her for the information and then she asked if she could come with us to get Monika. We decided there was no harm in her coming along because we would just have to come back for her. As we passed the barracks before Monika's we saw a light coming around the corner of the last barracks along the eastern fence.

To avoid being spotted we ducked into the shadows and prayed like the Pope on a Sunday that we weren't discovered by the guard, Gabor and I loaded our pistols just in case. As the security guard passed by and kept walking, I let out a silent sigh of relief. Gabor approached the final barracks and less than a minute later he emerged hugging a woman who I assumed to be Monika. Then out of nowhere a guard dog on the perimeter of the fence angrily barked at us alerting the soldiers to our presence.

We crept away from the dog but it was too late, a blazing midnight sun had already shined upon us. As soon as we realized that we were spotted in a guard tower spotlight we did the only thing we could, run for our lives! We ran toward the hole in the fence as bullets rained down on us. I looked around and saw other prisoners both male and female awakened by the commotion run out of their barracks toward the fence. Soon there were hundreds of prisoners in matching blue and white striped uniforms running to the hole in the fence like a herd of stampeding wildebeests. While running we saw more and more carnage the closer we got to the hole in the fence. There were also bullets whizzing by our ears almost whispering, telling us to lie down and give up.

As soon as we got to the hole, we saw hundreds of desperate prisoners clawing through the hole as if they were wild animals. Others were even climbing the tall barbed wire fence. Once we squeezed out of the hole I made sure that we all made it out. I looked around and counted only three of us: Monika, Gabor and myself. Where was Christa?