Ivan Klíma - Judge On Trial

5

I discovered his journal many years later: a school exercise book with red covers. The label bore Father’s name, now scarcely legible, and above it the inscription:

ELEKTR. ANMERKUNGEN —

March — April 1945

I turned the first page. I had never been able to understand a single sentence or equation of all the tens of thousands of sentences and equations that Father had so far written and solved; I opened the book purely because of the date on its cover. Inside the cover, Father had drawn his own calendar for 1945; the days were methodically crossed off as far as 12th April, his birthday.

The opening was algebra. Lambda one equals zero five, lambda two equals one point zero eight phi. Father had used the backs of printed forms from an airport for drawing his diagrams and graphs and stuck them into the notebook somehow. The forms had columns labelled: Flugweg nach… Frontansflug um… Uhr… Fronteinflug… Zeitänderung um… I found it odd that Father should have been making calculations during those last days in a German camp, and I thumbed through the book page by page. The days were carefully marked and as usual I could make no sense of the calculations, until it came to 12th April when the calculations abruptly stopped and in their place Father had written: ‘It’s my birthday. If only I knew that my loved ones were alive. I wouldn’t want to face the future without them. But I’m sure we’ll soon see each other again well and free. For my birthday I have 200 gms. of bread for the day and this evening I’ll probably get a litre of soup, 50 gms. of margarine and 20 gms. of honey substitute.’

And with a different pencil, apparently that same evening, he had added: ‘Around 14:30 we had an air raid. The building next door burned down. I was lucky enough not to end my life with an exact age.’

This was followed by regular diary entries. Father used to keep note of the food rations, and of the Wehrmacht news bulletins, from which he tried to deduce the movements of the Red Army troops.

On the twenty-first of April at two o’clock at night they were issued with a loaf of bread, a quarter kilo of salami, a tin of ersatz coffee and some tea. Father also packed ‘my blanket, the photos of my loved ones, my slide-rule, notebooks, spoon and knife…’ Then they were herded northwards.

By evening they had walked twenty-five kilometres and Father and his friend G. slept out in the woods under the sky. He ate a quarter of his bread and a third of the salami. He was a methodical man and had decided to spread his meagre food ration over three days. Next morning they were roused at dawn and had to walk non-stop for half a day. Only in the afternoon were they given an hour’s rest. ‘I am lying on my back thinking,’ he wrote. ‘Everything possible is going through my head. What has become of the family? Are they still where they were? Perhaps they’ve been driven out too. I reassure myself that the front isn’t moving towards them and they are therefore safe. But what about when the front reaches them? Did they get sent to Auschwitz? Then I think about myself. What if I don’t make it? It would be a shame not to be able to publish my work on the bimotor theory. I think I’ve made a good job of setting it out. It suddenly strikes me that it’s wrong to be thinking about something so insignificant. The main thing is that the Germans should lose the war. Yes, that’s easy to say, but even so I wouldn’t like to finish buried here in the sand. I don’t want to lose right at the very end! I have eaten my piece of bread and salami slowly. It’s disappearing terrifyingly fast!

‘We’re still moving. It’s starting to rain and a cold breeze is blowing, most likely from the sea; perhaps we’re almost there. I put the blanket over my head. It’s awfully windy here. Walking is difficult. My coat and blanket weigh a hundredweight; I don’t know how to carry them. I’d sooner chuck them away — but what about the night? And what if it doesn’t stop raining?

‘No stopping. We’ve already done at least 25 kms. How far do they want to go? There’s a village on the horizon. Maybe there. No. Onwards again. We pass through several more villages until late in the evening the SS mark out a square in the forest. It’s dreadfully wet, everything is sodden. I threw the blanket off me and thought I’d fall on my face. There are three of us trying to find somewhere a bit dry to sleep. G. and I rake together leaves and I look for a wire or stick to prop up an awning. I make the awning out of a blanket and a few sticks tied together with bits of string. One blanket goes on the ground, one goes on top of the three of us, and the third is supposed to shield us from the rain. When I’m finished I eat a mouthful of bread and go to bed. I don’t even have the strength to think. At night it rains. An absolute downpour. I’m proud of my awning. It’s miraculous: the water runs off the blanket as off a tent. My mind went back to scout camps. I wouldn’t have dared do anything like that then. Sleeping out on the ground with just a thin blanket for a tent. In the middle of April! And 35 kms. a day on an empty stomach. But we saw one little boy who couldn’t go any further. He was left behind in a ditch with a red hole in the middle of his head. I don’t want to end like that! I mustn’t! I must withstand everything! The Germans have already lost the war, I don’t want to lose it too. I’ve got big plans still.

‘23.4.1945. We’re making tea. There wasn’t enough time; I only managed a swallow. I ate a piece of bread and some of the remaining portion of salami. We trudge along waterlogged and muddy tracks again. The first evening, I swapped my shoes with a Pole for some high boots of a larger size. They are almost too big for me. I’m getting blisters on my feet and they hurt at every step. The leader is constantly haranguing us for dawdling. It’s already noon and no break yet. Why all the hurry, since we can’t be going anywhere in particular? I’m feeling the effects of hunger and thirst. I chew at some plant that grows in the ditch and tastes like leek. We’ve already gone at least 35 kms. since morning and we straggle through the meadows like a wounded snake. My legs and feet hurt terribly — like walking through fire. I walk. Left. For a long time, nothing, then: right. Nothing again, then: left. Just pain. Even so we managed to reach the village without a single loss of life. Most of the lads had been receiving parcels from home and are therefore fit. I’m one of very few out of those five hundred really to have gone hungry for the past month and lived entirely from my own body’s reserves.

‘They divided us between two barns. We had straw and a roof. I almost fell on the ground. For a while I just lay there, then I ate the last morsel of bread but it only made me more hungry.

‘24.4. In the morning we get up and wash at the trough. Starting the day without anything to eat? So I go to the guards in the yard — an SS-man is looking for people to do a job. I volunteer in the hope of coming into contact with locals and getting a chance to trade the only thing I have: the tin of coffee. We’re going to fetch drinking water. There is some Pole sitting in the doorway eating bread. I expect I looked terribly envious because he took pity on me and called out to ask the SS-man if he could give me some. So I dashed over to the Pole — the slice was almost whole and spread with dripping, which even contained bits of meat. I gave half to G., and ate the other half myself. I never tasted anything so good in my whole life. In the end the farmer filled our hats with hot potatoes and we immediately had the feeling we were winning.

‘About eleven o’clock we set off again and walked for several hours through a sandy wasteland before we caught sight of an SS camp in the forest. Everywhere there are cars, lorries, cases, field kitchens, prisoners, horses. We are approaching a forest of tall trees growing out of the sandy soil. All the camps from the Berlin area are now assembled in the Mecklenburg Forest. Possibly 40,000 people.