Flight Into Terror
Flight Into Terror 2. My Last Days as a Prisoner of the Nazis in Germany By Leon Blum MY wife had hurriedly thrown to - gather a few belongings. She and Joachim managed to get gome clothes en me...
...Our ear continues to climb...
...We wait there three mortal hours, expecting moment by moment some word as to whet our fata is to be...
...Dim figures bearing flashlights emerged from the dark and inspected us...
...The truck draws up on the village square with oar car dote behind...
...All that I can recall it that I was finally rammed Into a corner of this conveyance and that I remained there for nearly 24 hours...
...We heard the sound of voices...
...It had been little talked of up to that time,* though It deserves the same sort of evil reputation as Buchenwald, Auschwlz, or Dachau...
...As Leon Blum started oa hta jaaraey far Washington, the papers at Paris editorialised seriously a boat the purpose and prospects af hie visit to the United States...
...It is clear that we made the hard trip up to Floasenburg only to add this strsngs vehicle to our convoy...
...After a time we went through Jena...
...Every feature of the countryside had the feel of Bohemia: the lands^ap', the architecture, the villages, the costumes, and the names on the sign-boards...
...My agony, was continuous during the long journey...
...Very soon we discovered that our theory was incorrect...
...It must have been 11 o'clock when our caravan at least was set in motion...
...As soon at the other cart were ready, their driven came up for consultation with lam...
...We can easily identify them by their miserably ragged blouses...
...The automobile which had been provided waa neither an ambulance nor comfortable...
...Everything about the place breathed of misery, suffering, and death...
...If my reasoning and my sense of direction do not deceive me, we are again approaching the Czechoslovak frontier in the region of the Sudetenland...
...In Nasi Germany, contrary to the widely advertised reputation for efficiency, .nothing happened on time...
...We made, my wife and I, the same guess...
...It sounded as if names were being called...
...To connect with the autostrade which leads southward toward Nuremberg and Munich, it was necessary to turn to the right at this point...
...The driver starts the car...
...Then the dim figures climbed, one by one, on the running-boards of the cars and they disappeared...
...Things began to look worse and worse for us...
...Boon groat buildings come into view...
...We passed through Weimar, which was more than half destroyed by the bombardment...
...Would it not have bam bettor oven to have been Incarcerated in the sinister prison of Floisaaburg...
...She was told that it would be taken eare of in the luggage compartment of the bus...
...It is called Flostenburg...
...Deported political prisoner* died here by the hundred in the torture cells or were mowed down by firing-squads during the last hurried weeks of Nszi power...
...But enough of that...
...In vain I tried to pierce the darkness, to make out a single road-sign...
...We could easily imagine that they—like us —were being snatched away from the oncoming Americans—though for quite different reasons...
...She and Joachim managed to get gome clothes en me without removing me from the bed...
...We knew that tome wjeks earlier there had been received at Buchenwald several hundred officials of the SS General Staff who had bean evacuated from Berlin...
...Just how this was accomplished, I'cannot pretend to know...
...Will he resume his seat, or are wo to dismount...
...Mapa were brought out...
...Some of the SS men went up to the truck, slid back a sort of door in ths steel wall, and men came out...
...What could this mean...
...Arc they preparing a place /or us In this camp...
...It was a long night, and it was not till the break of dawn that I got an idea of our whereabouts...
...Statisticians will present convincing figures...
...Additional chapters will be published in early issues...
...The whole region has a sinister look...
...We were soon to learn the name of this ramp...
...But these workers are prisoners...
...We could make out silhouettes ef men, women and children...
...Thomas, former Quartermaster General of the army...
...i ToWARD 9 a. m., after our scattered convoy had been painfully assembled in a village, our car suddenly shot out ahead of the others snd tore along the highway alone and at top speed...
...The SS man in charge of the convoy took his place beside the driver of our car, for we were the last in the long line...
...The itinerary was being set...
...A prisoner who was hsld here immediately before our visit told of hearing the fusillades every day and for hours on end...
...We were being carried south, in the direction of the fortifications Where the Nazis would make their last (tend...
...It was as we had anticipated...
...They were, like us, prisoners, but prisoners who had been herded for long months in the caves—and I use the term advisedly—of Buchenwald and who, on this dark and threatening night, were •merging for the first time...
...There is a prison camp among these secluded hills...
...At the same moment we see emerge from a side lane a strange vehicle...
...A rushing stream murmurs at the bottom of a gorge...
...But here, suddenly, we swerve off from the msin highwsy...
...Borne down by the weight of sacks which they carried, tugging after them the phantoms of children, they would emerge on the highway and then disappear...
...The least jar was insufferable...
...We follow...
...Others were hitched up like animals under the whip and forced, trembling and heaving, to pull the carta loaded with stone...
...They carried me to the waiting car...
...Where will this end...
...Lm Null** (conservative and independent) remarked that Andre Philip Minister ef Finance, had placed the national deficit far the current year at 300.000,000,009 franca...
...This is the second part of Leon Blum's slory of his final experiences as a prisoner of the Nazis...
...In reverse we pass all the scenes which we viewed earlier in the day...
...Often the convoy would be broken up, only to ha got into line again after interminable waits...
...Every move-meat sent excruciating pain through every fiber of my body...
...Leon Blum will remind us of the precious gifts which France has bestowed upon the world, gifts which cannot be reckoned either in dollars or francs...
...But who were our traveling companions...
...The plan, of course, is to hide as hare in this prise* far from the beaten track...
...An uncertain light would •rots oar vision, and we would make •ut moving forms...
...We drive through the gate, and oar ear halts before the main baUding...
...My wife asked about our baggage...
...Our chauffeur, who was, of course, an SS man, remained at the wheel...
...There was no possibility, of stretching out or changing my position...
...It is a high truck with a completely enclosed metal body, something like a patrol wagon...
...No one," it said, "is more qualified than Leon Blum to restore French-American relations to their natural climate of mutual confidence...
...It remained for Le Periten Libert (Independent Socialist paper) to sound a different note...
...This windowless affair passes us...
...Behold us, then, in a little town named Neustadt...
...A sign told me that we were on the way to Kattisbonne, 200 kilometers away...
...Fmmc-Tireur (progressive) remarked that France ia not a had risk, since she has often given proof of her extraordinary powers of recovery...
...Leon Blum, 73 years old and ia precarious health, has not been called upon to make the long journey in order to preaent or elucidate the unstable financial position of the French...
...The roofs and spires of Neustadt appear below us...
...CM Mr (Socialist evening paper) referred to the trade advantages that would accrne to the United States if France is restored to prosperity...
...Among them were generals of the highest rank: Falken-hausen, former Governor General of Belgium...
...They were prisoners who had been transported thus like animals in a cage...
...We speed along a narrow road which climbs more and more steeply and takes on Anally the character of a moutain track...
...We watch his movements and expression with shudders of fear...
...The poor prisoners whom presently the SS guards shove past us in a melancholy column took even more miserable, more emaciated, more like corpses than those whom we saw at Buchenwsld...
...From toft 4m right the editors soberly asaeeaad the financial predicament af their government...
...It was only by the sternest exertion of will power that I kept from groaning...
...What fate could ha 'In store for us...
...We were, then, to form part ef a convoy...
...There waa a complete absence of the cart af sentimentaliting which many Americans associate with the.French character...
...Why their execution had been postponed, I never learned...
...This was a tragic ML i exodus in the shadows...
...At 8:90 p. m. the SS man came to take us away...
...Half the distance to Rattis-bonne lies behind us...
...Is this to be from now on oar place of detention...
...It waa raining, and the night was already dark...
...We leave the camp, return along the mountain road, past the quarry, down the gorge...
...It was a small car with four narrow seats...
...Soon enough we were enlightened...
...The problem was to get me wedged into my seat in an upright position...
...Our car proceeded only a little way and then stopped in a sort of' clearing...
...Slowly we rolled along through the dark Without the help of headlights...
...Our.car bumps along through a landscape which grows more and more wild with every passing moment...
...We hear the sharp clatter of their wooden shoes...
...They were murdered In the mass, efficiently snd in haste...
...About each one of these the ghostlike figures gathered...
...All of this was being carried on in whispers, but I caught the names of towns, ot Jena, then of Nuremberg...
...The figures which we had dimly described were not those of SS higher-Bps...
...There are in the French delegation in Washington plenty of economists, statisticians, financial experts...
...It was only later that we found out who they were...
...There Wat a halt at every crossroad...
...Haider, former Chief of Staff...
...We were at the western boundary of Saxony, near the Czechoslovak frontier...
...These were the civil and military suspects who had been picked up wholesale after the attempt on Hitler's life on July 20,1944...
...He opens the door, takes hit place beside the chauffeur—and all without uttering a sound...
...L'Awrort (moderate aad independent) took into account that the United States, Britain and France are iater-depend-en and that the financial position of USA gives it international responsibility...
...Instead we continued straight onward toward the east...
...We were, then, reaching the south by means of a wide detour...
...But, at last, the officer comes down the steps and approach »z our car...
...It is a discovery which bodes ill for us...
...A large car without lights rolled into the range of vision, then a second, a third...
...He has been cent to us because he represents the highest qualities of the civilization which Americana have always honored and loved...
...But look) Suddenly the landscape is peopled...
...We can make out a great quarry, a narrow-gauge railway, cars, groups of workers trimming blocks of stone...
...Here we were carried along In the company of prisoners *flccdy guarded and charged with the most serious of crimes...
...Ws expressed our concern In whispers...
...Without a ward the officer leaves us there la the ear with the chauffeur...
...There were, too, certain laymen attached to the staff of the Cardinal Archbishop of Munich...
Vol. 29 • March 1946 • No. 12
