I hope this sad and dreadful story touched my readers so that next time they hear about Anne Frank, I want them to think about the 13-17-year olds who are described in this small booklet.
During the summer of 1948, some were discharged. While this was in process, some of the condemned from Zone 2 were transferred to Zone 1. They now were able to move around within the women battalion?and were assigned to work details: Tailor shop, laundry, peeling potatoes, doing work for officers, et cetera.
During the next weeks, some of the condemned were also transferred from the Condemned Zone to the Interned Zone; however, they were in separate battalions. This move enabled them to be assigned to work details which also gave them a chance to make contact with others from Wittenberge. Barracks vacated by the discharge action were then refilled with prisoners from Bauzen, Torgau, et cetera.
Bach barrack had 350 prisoners. Five of the prisoners from Wittenberge, who were left behind in Brandenburg, showed up in these transports. Until that time, prisoners in Sachsenhausen had not heard what had become of those condemned to death.
Artur Jungling, Gunther Schultz and Hans Schobe were executed on May 11, 1946, after their petition for mercy was rejected. The day before, Alfred Brabant had died in his death cell as a result of the terrible mistreatment. Prisoners from Weisen could corroborate that they saw his body lying in a corner of the basement. The two mothers, Mrs. Fluegge and Mrs. Mielke, as well as Karin Ruth Klinger, Horst Neuendorf and Gunther Mielke had their death penalty converted and, on May the 7th, 1946, were pardoned to ten years labor in a work camp.
Since summer 1948 or spring 1949, two of our girls were assigned to be so?called messengers within the overall camp. They were able to establish and maintain communication among us, in spite of the danger of getting caught and thrown in the "Karzer" (solitary confinement). Conversations with men were strictly prohibited.
While they walked by, they whispered some information or sometimes greetings from a friend or comrade and even passed a piece of bread which they were able to steal somehow. These seemingly insignificant, small fragments of communication supported the feeling of togetherness and continued to encourage us not to give up.
Who were the people who were jailed here who had to endure the torture and who fell victim to it? Certainly not guilty Nazis and war criminals, as the Soviet occupation force made them out to be. Not one of us who was 14, 15 and 16 years old at the end of the war and not all the other condemned and interned by Soviet military tribunals was a "guilty Nazi and war criminal."
For the most part, they were incidentally and arbitrarily arrested people who were jailed because of a ridiculous charge or because they happened to be present at an absurd "suspicious incident", they fell victim to a denunciation or they were people who deliberately were opposed to new dictatorship and the Sovietization.
They were no more guilty than any other citizen. Of course, there may have been a few really guilty ones among the internees who might have abused their power and committed crimes, but nobody cared to find those very few. And, strangely, they were most likely released sooner than many others. Therefore, the mass arrests, the camps in which tens of thousands died, have nothing to do with the Allied Victors' agreement, "denazification" or "sanction." All age groups were represented in this jumbled mass of prisoners. The youngest was arrested when he was 13 years old, the oldest was 78. Even the family detention used by the Nazis were continued by the New Red Masters.
And then there were the tragic, curious cases. In spite of the dawning of the "New Time," old communists and Jews who had been in a concentration camp under Hitler were again in jail as "dissenting people" or persons who "endangered the construction of the New Socialism."
One day during roll call, Gisela Dormann saw H. Witte, the criminal investigator of the police in Wittenberge who had interrogated her while she was in jail in Wittenberge in a rather overbearing arrogance. Now he was in the camp too.
During January/February of 1950, discharges began. Camp Sachsenhausen was to be closed. Although we all had been condemned to ten years, Helga Stubbenhagen and Gisela Dormann were released. In the middle of 1949, we were given the opportunity to write messages to our families. Now we were able to inform our parents of what happened to us in more detail.
When the Sachsenhausen camp was dissolved, all other prisoners from Wittenberge and the other not yet discharged inmates were transferred as "war criminals" to the authority of the German Volkspolizei (EastGerman Police) for the continuation of their sentences. (This can still be found in newspaper articles). The internees who were not released were put on trial in Waldheim under the title "Waldheim Prozesse'' (Waldheim Trials).
And again a world collapsed for us! Now the penitentiaries were readied for us. First, some of us went to the penitentiary in Untermassfeld. A few found themselves in the former military penitentiary at Torgau.
The whole misery started all over again; it was just reversed this time. The girls were brought to the women's penitentiary in Hoheneck. German language, German thoroughness in the execution of the orders and commands ?? mug shots, fingerprinting ?and from one day to the next, in spite of our emaciated and dystrophic conditions as determined by physicians and arranged in groups of severity of dystrophy, we were assigned to exceptionally hard work in different trades.
For example, at Fortress Torgau, the motto was, "Hold out to the end, because here, too, we continued to suffer from hunger."
Because of the different conditions in every single penitentiary, one can only look at the specific conditions of each. Generalization is difficult.
By means of "jungle transmissions," many rumors circulated about an amnesty. Everybody was hoping for it, but nobody really believed it. Finally, on March 24th, 1951, after five years and three months of indescribable experiences, of unspeakable suffering, witnessing suicides of jail mates who had been driven to despair, seeing many nervous breakdowns of older prisoners and watching the gradual and total loss of ego of intelligent people, most of the boys and girls from Wittenberge were covered by the amnesty.
WE ARE GOING HOME!
Until now, many tears had been shed on our horrifying journey, but now the great joy of having survived prevailed. For some of us, the time of imprisonment, the time of deprivation and fear, had not yet come to an end. Without any explanation, Klaus Adlung and Gunther Mielke were held until 1954. And as mentioned before, Karin Klinger had to serve every day of her 10?year penalty.
13 of our youngsters from Wittenberge, more than half of those arrested, were innocent yet were executed in Brandenburg or died of starvation and tuberculosis in Sachsenhausen. The last one died due to the inhumane living conditions at Untermassfeld. Many of the prisoners were quite ill with tuberculosis at the time of their later release.
WHY ALL THE SUFFERING?
We promised our friends that we will not forget them. These writings shall contribute to our promise to keep the memory of "our boys" alive and to continue the remembrance and the respect they deserve. A terrible, destructive injustice was done to those young human beings.
THEY ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO SPEAK. WE WILL SPEAK FOR THEM
We want to include in our remembrance and our thoughts our schoolmates
Alfred Sanftleben
Karl Waschalski
Sigurd Ruhe
Fred Monski
who suffered under the same inhumane conditions and died at the K.G.B. prison Ketschendorf, Buchenwald or Fuenfeichen of starvation, tuberculosis and dysentery.
NAMES OF ARRESTEES
Klaus Adlung
Alfred Braband - died in his death-row cell
Bruno Flugge
Horst Henning - died in Sachsenhausen
Horst Hintze - died in Sachsenhausen
Gunter Holst - died in Sachsenhausen
Arthur Jungling - died in Sachsenhausen
Herbert Klisch
Horst Klepel
Gunter Mielke
Horst Neuendorf
Horst Peters - died in Sachsenhausen
Erich Radke
Gunter Schulz - executed in Brandenburg
Hans Schoof - executed in Brandenburg
Egon Teichmann - died in Sachsenhausen
Bernhard Tittel - died in Sachsenhausen
Bodo Wegner
Hans Wegner
Hansiurgen Werner
Walter Andresen ? died in Sacheenhausen
Fritz Werner ? died in Sachsenhausen
Frau Mielke
Frau Flugge
Gisela Dohrmann
Anneliese Ilgeroth
Karin Klinger
Ursula Klinger
Fedor Pingel and Manfred Schuren ? (died of ?) were later arrested in connection with our case.
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Thought for the Day:
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
(John Adams)
Back to Table of Contents of the Sept. 2000 ZGrams