Letters to David\nIrving on this Website

Unless\ncorrespondents ask us not to, this Website\nwill post selected letters that it\nreceives, and invite open\ndebate.

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Bernhard B.\nin Australia\nrelates, Wednesday, July 11, 2007, what his mother\ntold him of her brief stay in the Auschwitz camp,\nDedcember 1944.

Auschwitz:\nan unusual view

MY MOTHER spent a few days in the Auschwitz\ncamp in December 1944.

Aged 24, and a Ukrainian school teacher of Slav\nlanguages, she had married my father, a German\nLeutnant who had been stationed in the\nUkraine in a small army detachment concerned with\nagriculture who employed her as an interpreter. Six\nmonths or so earlier that year, Father’s CO, a\nCaptain Nagel, committed suicide, leaving\nhim in charge. The men had been agitating the CO\nabout getting out of Ukraine before the Red Army\narrived, but Nagel stubbornly refused.

Now that\nNagel was gone it was quickly decided to get out as\nfast as possible. They took no mechanised\ntransport, just horses and a number of nimble,\nsmall buggies called (I think) ‘Britschkas’ in\nRussian. They drove these across the huge Dnieper\nriver and the vastness of Ukraine and Poland until\nin late 1944 they arrived in Germany’s most eastern\nstate, Upper Silesia, by this time all the Horses\nhad long gone.

Now on German soil, they faced a hard decision.\nMy father had absolutely no intention of\nre-connecting with what remained of the Wehrmacht.\nHe knew it was futile and Germany had been\ncomprehensively defeated. He also knew what the\nRussians did to German officers. They decided to\npart and all being well, to meet at his Brother’s\nhome (if it still remained) in Halle an der Salle,\nnear Berlin after the war.

Father was lucky enough\nto ‘find’ a perfectly functional ‘Moped’ (made by\neither Zundapp or Puch) a bicycle with a small\n’helper motor’ over the front wheel.

His plan was to ride all the way down south west\nto Adenau in the Rhineland near the old Nurburgring\nmotor racing circuit, where another older brother\nhad a house and if possible, surrender to US\nforces. But first he had to visit his Brother Josef\nin Halle to inform him his wife and a new baby\nmight soon be arriving. This he did, riding mainly\nat night, sometimes even on the autobahn.

After\nnumerous and even some funny attempts to surrender\nto the brave AMI’s, he and a small group of like\nminded deserters and stragglers finally succeeded.\nHe was taken to a US POW camp in France, which he\nalways maintained was by far the most dangerous\ntime for him during the war. Long after Germany’s\nsurrender in October 1945, he arrived at Josef’s\nhouse in Halle an der Salle having\nWALKED all the way from the\nPOW Camp in France and having lost nearly half his\nbody weight.

He looked like those Aussies and Pom’s\nin Changi prison, I kid you not I still have a\nphoto of him seeing his new baby for the first time\never, me.

While all this was going on, my mother was left\nto her own devices in a strange country, losing a\nterrible war and six months pregnant. She joined a\ngroup of about 25 women all fleeing west, in that\ngroup were about six or seven Nuns. In late\nDecember 1944 one freezing afternoon, the women\ncame into a small township in which were what she\ndescribes to this day as , ‘many Factory Buildings’\nwhich was the Auschwitz\ncamp.

The Nuns asked the SS Guards if it were\npossible to spend a night or so there. They were\nwarmly welcomed by the guards.

In 1997 I visited my Mother down in her Moss\nVale (New South Wales) home. With her memory still\nclear and sharp, I did my best at documenting her\nwartime stories which even included several months\nin late 1942, nursing wounded German soldiers in\nHospital Trains leaving Stalingrad, until the\ntrains stopped coming. But I was particularly\ninterested in her experiences at Auschwitz,\nour conversation went something like this:

Her words, from memory:

“It was very cold, snowing and getting\ndark at 4 O’clock in the later afternoon.The\nNuns approached the SS Guards and were very\npleased to say we could all be sure of a warm\nand dry place to sleep. But we were told we\ncould not stay long, we had to move on after a\nshort time (2 or 3 days I suspect).

I remember\nit was close to Christmas and there were some\ndecorations, we slept on a wooden floor and it\nmust have been near a bakery, because I remember\nthe sweet smell of Bread. I swapped a Vienna\nLoaf for a pair of fine leather shoes with\nsomeone.”

I asked her about the SS Guards:

“They were ‘alte Herren’ old\ngentlemen, some quite old and extremely pleased\nto see the nuns. We were invited to dine with\nthem at a large table, we were very well treated\nbut one thing on which they were firm was we\nwould not be permitted to stay there, we had to\nmove on’.

I asked her if she remembers what was spoken of\nmost of all:

“What everyone, without exception\nwanted was simply to go\nHOME. The SS men even\nspoke of AN ARMISTICE (my\nemphasis) They all felt a negotiated peace like\nWW1 would be arranged and that all would be as\nit was before the war”

I asked her if there was anything she saw which\nmight suggest millions of people had died there in\nGas Chambers. At this, she says something\nincomprehensible in Russian or Ukrainian and spits\non the floor, her facial expression now serious,\nshe looks me in the eye and says:

“Look, I was there, 25 of us were\nthere, women talk. In our group there was a\nDoctor, there was a Chemist, the Nuns were\nTeachers, I was a Teacher and let me tell you if\nthere had been anything suspicious there we\nwould have known. If there had been millions\nkilled the entire communities around this region\nwould have known and would have talked about it\nto us.

Remember rumours were everywhere, there\nwas no TV and by then no Newspaper where ever we\nwent locals would ask us about the where the\nRussians were or if the fighting was coming\ncloser”

“The fact is none of us saw anything, heard\nanything or even suspected anything unusual about\nAuschwitz.\nThe suggestion that the tired but extremely well\nmannered OLD gentlemen of\nthe SS who treated us so decently, murdered\nmillions of people in Gas Chambers is an\noutrageous, monstrous lie”

And that, so help me, was what she said ten\nyears ago to me. Her mind was as sharp as a tack\nback then. She’s 87 today and I’m afraid early\nsigns of dementia are showing.

In March 1945 in a Town then called Konigshutte,\nonly a few Kilometres from Auschwitz\nshe had a son, me. She carted me at just weeks old\nthrough the terrible goings on in Breslau where the\nstreets were on fire and a very young German\nsoldier pleaded with her to pretend they were man\nand wife, so he might avoid certain death. She\ndeclined and moved on. She walked through Dresden\nafter it was firebombed, eventually finding Halle\nand der Salle and Josef’s house.

In October my\nFather arrived from France, all of us at least\nsurvived the war. Much later in 1956 and living in\nAustralia, she learned that of her four sisters\nALL FOUR lost their husbands\nduring the war serving in the Red Army, one Sister\nlost BOTH her husbands. She\nmarries a German soldier who lived on for many good\nyears.

Score: Germans 5, Russians 0. Let us hope the\nevil bastards always behind these wars are never\nagain able to propagandize European citizenry into\ndoing these terrible things to each other. You sir,\nhave educated millions of people in this regard,\nmay you long continue.

Bernhard B.
Queensland, Australia name and address\nknown to this website

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