Free Brothers Beyond Blood by Don Kafrissen Page A

The Army has a hospital set up in Augsburg. That’s as close as I can get you. It’s about ten or fifteen miles from that camp. You know the camp you’re heading for was a concentration camp, don’t you? How do you feel about that?”
    I shrugged, “I have come from Kefferstadt, sir.”
    He said nothing, just looked appraisingly at me, frowning.
    I felt he deserved more. “It was an extermination camp. There were fewer than one hundred of us left when the Americans came.”
    The officer put a hand on my shoulder, “I’m sorry, kid. It’s a screwed-up world.”
    “Yes sir.” What else could I add? Even I knew what he alluded to.
    “You see that medical tent there, kid?” He pointed to the large khaki tent with the huge red crosses on fields of white painted on the canvas. I had helped take the wounded soldiers there. It was a very busy place. Though the German soldiers were nearing their end, what fighting that was still going on was fierce.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Well, you be in front of it at,” he looked at a large wrist watch, “fifteen hundred hours. That’s three o’clock for you civilians, okay?”
    Since the war had started, we Germans had kept the twenty-four hour time.
    “I’ll see you get a ride out of here. If I’m not there, just tell them that Major McReady said it was okay.” With one last squeeze on my shoulder, he pushed by me and strode into the Rathaus.
    This would probably be my last ride. I went off to find some food and something to drink. A dining tent had been set up for the medical personnel, and I walked into it. Of course I used Major McReady’s name and got a heaping plate of some kind of pinkish meat, mashed potatoes and some green beans from a long serving table heaped with food. Against the side wall of the tent was a table holding a large silver container full of coffee and thick mugs. I was in heaven. All this food would have fed everyone in our camp for a week.
    At the appointed hour I stood before the medical tent, two apples in my pockets. The Major spoke with a thin redheaded man with the now familiar Red Cross armband, and I was motioned to the rear of an ambulance. The Major shook my hand and wished me luck.
    Inside the truck were four soldiers on litters. Two had no legs, just bloodstained bandages. One was swaddled in bandages from his chest to the top of his head and the fourth had a shiny cream on what was left of his burned face. His hands were tied to the sides of the litter, probably to keep him from scratching at the wounds. He moaned incessantly. I should have been horrified, but after what I’d been through at Kefferstadt, I think I was immune to human suffering. What did that make me?
    The countryside was a combination of blasted holes, toppled and burned trees and peaceful farm country. The small villages were fairly normal but the larger towns had been bombed and attacked by heavy artillery. I saw a few bodies, and, in one town, a man’s corpse hanging from a street sign. In another town I saw several women being herded by a mob and pelted with stones. Their heads were shaved and their clothes torn. I heard one man yell, “Collaborator!” In almost every village and small city, American soldiers wearing armbands with the letters MP on them were acting as police, traffic controllers and generally bivouacking troops, usually in the largest and fanciest houses. To the victors belong the spoils. I would never know. I had never lived in a Germany that had won a war. The only spoils I ever saw my good German neighbors making off with were the possessions and property of the Jews.
    Late the next afternoon, after getting two more rides, I stood in front of the gates of the DP camp at Landesburg. Across a wide road and dirt field, I saw the barbed wire and gates of the guards’ camp. It looked remarkably like my old home, Kefferstadt. After all, it had previously been a concentration camp.
    The DP camp was very busy, and all sorts of people were coming and