Paul and Karl Heinz are returning home from school, the ‘Graue Kloster’, one of the very few still operating in Berlin. Karl Heinz has brought his bike, an absolute treasure these days, and though it looks like something retrieved from a dumpster, the tires are intact and the seat is rusted in place at the right height. He carries the pump in his backpack.
They have been lucky to find a ‘Dogs and Outsized Baggage’ car, the kind that sports few seats but offers lots of room in the centre. And people inside move away from the wall to allow them access with the bike. Karl Heinz drags it into a corner and tips it up.
“Whew,” he says, “my lucky day.” He will bicycle forty minutes to his aunt’s house just outside the city limits. She had called to offer potatoes and beets and it was his turn to go.
“How’s your uncle?” Paul wants to know, remembering happy summer weekends at the farm when they were allowed to help feed chickens and collect eggs and ate green beans off the vine. “Is the leg healing?”
“They don’t know if he’ll walk again, without the crutches, but for now my aunt is just so happy to have him back and wants him to take it easy. So now he hobbles around and sits outside. They still have the two Belgian PoWs, and one speaks German. So far so good. They are farmers themselves, so after a while they kind of took over. So lucky for everybody.” “Yes, really lucky,” says Paul.
“How many days do you figure we’ll have to make two transfers to get home? What a mess…” The S-Bahn pulls into Stettiner Bahnhof. The platform is packed. A number of people leave the car, as others push towards the doors to enter.
They stop. There is shouting ahead. Two uniformed guards appear in view and yell at everybody to leave this car at once. “Stand back. Stand back!” to the ones outside, pushing the crowd to the back of the platform.
Swearing under his breath Karl Heinz unhooks his bike, tips it down when there is room to move and pushes through the doors, Paul is outside attempting to make space.
And then they see them.
From the far entrance a grey mass appears, shuffling forward in small steps, eyes to the ground and in complete silence, men in striped prison garb, ruined shoes, some wearing glasses. There must be eighty to ninety men. Two more guards appear at the rear, yelling, shoving.
The train waits.
At the ‘Dogs and Outsized Baggage’ car the first guard raises an arm. The grey men enter, pushing all the way to the back. No one sits. Those in charge count, “Two, four, six…” The doors close and the train pulls out.
For several minutes no one speaks. “They use the subway system now?” “Not enough of the ‘green minnas’ to transport this crowd, I guess.”
“What were they doing down here anyway?”
“And where are they going?”
A quiet voice now. “They are no ordinary prisoners. I’ll bet they came down from Oranienburg.”
“So? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The concentration camp. There’s a big one up there. I’ve heard they send these skinny guys out to repair tracks.”
“They looked scared someone would talk to them…”
The man holds up his hands, he will not answer any more questions. He walks away quickly, angry with himself for having spoken.
Paul and Karl Heinz stand in silence but will talk about this day for a long time to come.
They had seen them.