22. WESTWARD

OUR group consisted of six men, seven women, and two children, one of whom was fifteen years old. This was a girl, Nadya, other child was our Nina, who was now eight.

There were two genuine military men in the group, the Cossack captain and the retired colonel, Michael Petrovich. I could hardly be considered military, in spite of my Cossack shirt with the big, unGermanic-looking shoulder straps and the revolver in my belt. Of the women, two were over sixty-five: Zina’s mother, and the Cossack captain’s mother-in-law, a grumpy old woman with an unpleasant character.

Someone always led Fritz. At first it was the colonel and the Cossack captain, but later the others began to take their turn, including Igor and me. The wagon was heavily laden and Fritz had a hard time of it in spite of the good road. For this reason no one was allowed to ride save on the level stretches. Usually everybody walked, stringing out before and behind Fritz for half a mile.

The Cossack captain had by far the most baggage, and I turned out to have the least. I made a remark to the captain about the amount of junk he was taking along, but he replied that he hoped to get another horse along the way, although how he was going to ‘get’ one he did not explain.

We left Vienna before sunrise and skirting the suburbs, where small groups of people were erecting barricades under police supervision, we took the Krems road, deserted at that hour.

Fritz strained with all his might. He was a good Austrian horse, used to hard work. We had bought him for one pound sterling in gold, the coin having been obtained from Ivan Ivanovich, who hoarded money. In all fairness I must say that he charged us only three-quarters of the black market rate for the coin.

By about eight o’clock a lot of people had appeared on the road. Refugees who had been spending the night at various places along the way were now setting out again. We passed some of them; others passed us. There were almost no cars. About half the travellers were journeying as we were, on foot with their baggage on a wagon. The other half had no need of a wagon because they had taken nothing with them. There were a few who rode in comparative comfort, seated on wagons. These were Germans, probably Bauerführer and other officials, who were too intimately tied up with the Hitler regime to risk staying behind.

It was a colourful crowd. There were many foreign workers, among them Russians and Ukrainians, and others of more intellectual background, speaking Polish, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Russian. For some reason I thought of the numerous Ministers who had fled from the countries allied to Hitler, Rumania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, as well as from the pro-Nazi movements in Yugoslavia. I had met many of them in the Hotel Imperial in Vienna: Horia Sima, Salaczi, the grey-bearded Tsankov, Nedich. One day the Croatian Ante Pavelich had appeared there and disappeared the next. Where were they now? Probably already in Salzburg, in Innsbruck, in Switzerland, while their countrymen were measuring the highways of Austria with their feet.

My thoughts turned to Vlasov. The last reports were that the two divisions of the R.O.A. were moving to Prague from Ulm in Württemberg. What for? No one knew. In the last communiqué of the German command was a report that ‘an R.O.A. unit under the command of Colonel Sakharov was thrown into action on the Oder front . . . the operation was a great success and the enemy was thrown back’, and ‘a large number of deserters from the Red Army went over to the R.O.A. ranks during the action’. Had it really happened that way? In any case, it no longer had any significance. The last cards in the great game had been laid on the table a long time ago, and there was nothing left but for Hitler to pay his losses. It was true that he himself did not admit defeat, and on the radio he and Goebbels still spoke of victory and of the terrible secret weapon which was to ensure it; but now even the most fanatic of Hitler’s followers did not take this sort of statement seriously.

By evening we reached a small town on the banks of the Danube, having walked 20 miles during the day. We tried several dozen houses before we found one where we were allowed to spend the night in the kitchen. The attitude of the Germans toward us had improved in these last weeks of the Reich’s existence. Many of them were probably brooding on the swift justice which would come to them as members of the super-race.

I got the whole group up very early, and while Fritz was being harnessed I managed to run downtown for some supplies. In the Verpflegungstelle nobody expressed the slightest doubt of my right to draw military rations. My documents were in order, and no one seemed surprised at my costume. Some men dressed entirely in civilian clothes seemed to be drawing rations there.

The second day was like the first. The same crowd was on the road, headed west as before. We passed several columns of Russian prisoners of war. They were moving without guards at route step, without baggage of any kind, and seemed to be in a gay mood. I talked to some of them. They were part of a group which had come a long way, from somewhere near Breslau.

‘We just keep walking, friend, while our strength holds out,’ said an elderly soldier, wearing worn-out boots and no hat. ‘We’ve been on the road for three weeks now. We’ve been through Slovakia and Bohemia, and now we’re footing it through Austria.’

‘Where are you headed?’ I asked him.

‘God alone knows. Somebody said Munich. They say the Americans will be there soon. That’s why we’re going there.’

‘Want to go to America, eh, Pop?’

‘Might go there, too, why not? People live in America, too,’ he laughed. ‘Only, my boots are ripped. I’m afraid they won’t last all the way to America. Our boys, the younger ones, have promised me a new pair. They say they’ll take them off some farmer around here. They’re rich here, they have a lot of everything!’

‘Where’s your home, Pop?’

‘It’s a long way from here, my dear friend, on the Volga. It will soon be four years since I left home. Two years at the front and two as a prisoner.’

‘Was it hard?’

‘Hard, son, very hard. A lot of us have been buried in that time. When we defended Moscow in ‘41 a lot of the boys got it there, an awful lot. The Germans destroy a division, but Marshal Zhukov, may God give him health, sends in another one to take its place. They destroy it; he sends still another. Sometimes a division throws the Germans back only 200 paces and gets used up, but Marshal Zhukov, he’s a man of character, he advances again. Most of those divisions were Siberian. That’s where they found their graves.’

‘Still, Moscow was saved,’ I remarked.

‘That’s right, we saved it, can’t say anything against that,’ the old man agreed heartily. ‘They did right. But they say that a million of our boys died there, the best and the youngest. Maybe Moscow shouldn’t have been defended at all, if it cost so many lives. It’s such a pity. They say that under the Tsar, when the French were marching on Moscow, the generals were careful with the soldiers and saved the army by letting Moscow go. Of course, there’s a lot more people in Russia now. A million more or less, what’s the difference?’

‘Maybe so,’ I said. ‘But the ones that have to die don’t like it now any more than they did then; it will always make a difference to them.’ ‘That’s right, son. A man has only one life. Sometimes it’s a lousy one, but it’s still a life. God damn that Moscow anyway!’ he shouted quite unexpectedly.

‘How’s that?’

‘All the misery is coming from Moscow now. In the whole war they couldn’t find a single bomb to knock off Stalin, may the devils eat him and all his filth!’

‘Why do you think that would do any good?’ I asked him.

‘As if everyone doesn’t think so! You think that way yourself. How can anyone think differently? Look, the war is over. Every man goes back to his own home, the French, the English, they’ll all go home, I’m sure. And we, as if forsaken by God, have to run somewhere, God knows where. Why? Look what I have lost if I go to America or somewhere. My old woman is at home; I’ve got three sons in the army, maybe one of them is still alive. I’ve got a daughter, grandchildren. But I’m going. I’m going because although I’m fifty-five I don’t want to die. I spent five years in a concentration camp, son, I was sent there as a kulak. I had two cows and two horses, so they called me a kulak. I finished my term before the war, but they wouldn’t let me go home. They settled me in Kazakhstan and ordered me to work in a mine. What kind of a miner am I when I spent my whole life, and my father and grandfather before me, ploughing the soil? Let the others believe what they want, but I know. The damned Bolsheviks will never forgive us having been prisoners of the Germans. And I believe that there was an order to consider all prisoners of war traitors to the fatherland. Has anybody ever heard of such a thing before?’

He walked beside me without looking at me. Two other younger prisoners who had been listening to our talk were also silent. Then one of them said, ‘No, there won’t be any salvation for us, not in that Munich and not in America. Because Stalin has acquired great power; he commands in America too. They’ll give us back to him, I feel it in my heart.’

The other nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘We should find a place here somewhere, before Munich, where we can stay. Go to work for some farmer and hang on here. Let’s look around, Vanka, before it’s too late. Let’s walk another three days to get farther away from the “comrades” and then leave the column. Yesterday there were forty men missing already.’

The prisoners in front stopped for a rest. I said good-bye to my companions, giving them all the tobacco I had in my pocket and wishing them luck.

We passed the ruins of Krems. It began to rain. It took us several hours to find shelter, in the barn of a farm. We were wet to the bone. While the others were changing and trying to dry themselves out over a small iron stove, I went to the house with my radio and asked permission to plug it in. Having tuned in to an English station, I soon heard the latest news: Germany was cut in two. The last resistance was concentrated on the Oder. Vienna was surrounded. Soviet troops had reached the Danube west of the city. I questioned the owner of the house, who said that he had heard firing on the other side of the river during the night, and it was not known whether the Germans or the Russians were there at the moment.

When the rain had stopped and we set out once more, I kept looking at the other bank of the river, thinking that maybe there, a half mile away, were our countrymen, and no worse fate could happen to us than to fall into their hands.

We conferred as we walked. I reported the latest news and the Cossack captain became very excited.

‘If that’s the case, we’ve got to find a new road, somewhere north. If the Reds are on the other bank they can cross with no trouble at all and then we’re kaput.’

Michael Petrovich, the retired colonel, agreed with him.

‘I know this region. In about three miles there’s a detour through the mountains. The road isn’t so hard, and we’ll make better time there because there won’t be a crowd. We won’t get back to the river until Linz.’

We decided to take the mountain road. In a little while the colonel was proven right: the road divided and we took the right fork. There was no crowd, but our Fritz’s task became a great deal harder. We all had to help him on the steep inclines. We decided to spend the night in a small village beyond a military airport.

While we were having supper I said to the captain, ‘It’s a tough road and the horse is using up its last strength. You promised to find another one. If you don’t, we’ll never get to Salzburg.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll take some money and go look for one. There are a lot of horses here in the village, and some of the refugees may be willing to sell.’ He set off on his errand.

We lay down on the floor in a row and went to sleep. A roar overhead and a knock at the door waked me. Jumping up, I opened the door and saw the captain.

‘Get up, get up!’ he shouted. ‘American planes, they’re going to bomb the airfield. Hurry up! I’ve hitched up the horses.’

‘What, did you find one?’ asked Michael Petrovich incredulously.

‘Yes, I bought one, a good one. It’ll be easy going from now on. Hurry up!’

Everyone was fully awake and on his feet. We trooped out of the yard, the captain leading the horses. The hum of the engines became stronger.

The bombing started just after we had cleared the village. The bombs fell whistling and exploded with deafening roars. The air was in movement all around us.

We had put all the women on the wagon and had to jog to keep up with it. The road ran downhill.

We slackened our pace only half an hour later. The horses were breathing heavily. From the top of the next hill we looked back. Something was burning. It was the village where we had spent the night.

Dawn broke. We decided not to rest until noon. The women took turns sleeping on the wagon, which the two horses now had little trouble in pulling.

It was a bright day. At noon we rested by the side of the road in a quiet spot. A few refugees passed by, but not many. A soldier in uniform came up to us. He was pushing a bicycle with a baby carriage attached to it. He hesitated a minute and then said, ‘Excuse me, please. Could you give me something to eat? I haven’t eaten for twenty-four hours. I have a child here . . .’

Zina gave him some bread and a piece of meat. He thanked us, and going to the baby carriage took out a little girl, not more than six months old. Then he took a cup, put some water in it, and began to mash up the bread with a spoon. Zina offered him a little sugar and some canned milk. The Austrian was immensely pleased.

‘Oh, thank you, thank you very much.’ he kept saying. ‘Maybe my little girl will live through the trip. I’m going to the Tyrol with her; we have relatives there.’

I went up to the carriage. The baby’s face was terribly pale and drawn. She was crying in a thin little voice. Her skin was transparent, her bright blue eyes wide open. I thought to myself that she would never make it to the Tyrol. Having fed her, the soldier gulped the meat and the rest of the bread.

‘I’m from Krems,’ he told us. ‘My wife was killed in the bombing four days ago. Everything we had was destroyed except the bicycle and the baby carriage. They’re all I have now.’ He got up, put the baby back in the carriage, and began to wheel his bicycle on up the hill.

A few minutes later we started on ourselves.

Night caught us on a particularly desolate and lonely part of the road. There had been no trace of a house for several miles. We were forced to spend the night under the open sky. It was cold; a thick fog wrapped us around, and we all slept badly. The old book-keeper, who had been coughing for the last two days, had finally come down with a bad cold, and we had to put him on the wagon. His daughter Nadya was worried that he might not be able to continue the journey, and begged us not to abandon them on the road. I comforted her and told her that none of us had any intention of doing that.

I was walking with her about 100 paces behind the wagon when suddenly there were cries up ahead. I quickened my pace. The wagon stood in the middle of the road and two Austrians were arguing hotly about something with the Cossack captain. Coming closer, I gathered that the Austrians considered the horse which the captain had bought that night near the airfield as their own.

‘He stole it from us,’ cried one of them, a tall stout man, ‘this scoundrel in officer’s uniform!’ He made for the horse and began to unhitch it. His companion helped him. The captain tried to prevent them, protesting that the horse had been bought and paid for. He was having a hard time proving it, since he knew hardly three dozen words of German and possessed no papers of any kind on the deal. I broke into the conversation, but the Austrians refused to listen and became more furious every minute. Suddenly I became so angry myself that I almost lost my self-control. I whipped out my small revolver and fired a shot into the air, yelling for the men to get away from the horse immediately. But they turned out to be no cowards. The tall one pulled a revolver twice as big as mine out of his pocket. The captain got frightened and began trying to persuade me to calm down and let them have the horse.

‘What do you mean, give it back, damn you?’ I yelled at the captain. ‘Did you buy it or didn’t you?’

‘I did buy it, for 3,000 marks,’ he answered.

‘From whom?’

‘I didn’t ask the man’s name. What do you expect, anyway?’

‘Did you get any kind of receipt?’

‘No.’

The Austrians were looking at us with curiosity. One of them kept on unhitching the horse.

‘Can you prove the horse is yours?’ I asked the captain.

‘It’s mine, I bought it, damn it! But we can’t defend it against these bastards and we’ll have to give it up.’

‘Listen, I’m telling you for the last time, if that horse is yours, we’ll find some way of keeping it. There are soldiers passing by all the time and they’ll help us. I’ll go for help right away. But if the horse is not yours, they’ll have the right to hang you on the nearest tree for horse stealing! Is that clear?’

‘Well, the hell with them! Let my money and my horse go! Let them take their damned horse!’

I had no more doubts as to the ownership of the horse.

When the Austrians had taken the horse and gone, roundly cursing us all, I said to the captain, ‘Tonight we’ll be out on the big road by the Danube again, and you’ll have to find some new arrangements for yourself. Fritz can’t pull a load like this.’

That is what was done. When we got to the shore road again we took half of poor Fritz’s load off the wagon and left the captain, his wife, and his mother-in-law to find new means of transportation. The captain promptly went into a tavern, bought himself a handcart, sold most of his cargo, and continued on foot. His wife kept screaming at him and his mother-in-law even offered to use her fists on him.

We did not see them again. Everyone supported my decision and was indignant at the captain’s conduct.

Before long we reached Linz and crossed to the right bank of the Danube. Keeping in touch with the war situation on the radio, we knew that the Soviet troops had been held up soon after taking Vienna and were no longer a direct threat to us. At Linz we split up. Zina, her mother, her daughter, and I boarded the train for Salzburg, taking some of the baggage with us. The others, under the leadership of Michael Petrovich and Igor, set out for Salzburg the old way, with the wagon carrying a much lighter load.

The train was packed with soldiers, and we had a hard time finding places. For the first time I heard German soldiers and officers damning Hitler and the war. But even now there were still some who defended the Third Reich. One of them, a wounded soldier apparently, who was covered with decorations including the Ritterkreuz on his neck, was silent for a long time while the others tore into the German leadership, and then suddenly became hysterical.

‘Shut up, you cowards and bastards! The Fatherland is dying because of you! The Führer led you from one victory to another. You stuffed yourselves, you drank, you raped, and sent bales of your loot back to your brides! You were happy and you always shouted “Heil Hitler!” And now when our country is perishing, thanks to the treachery of our allies and some of our generals, you yell, no, you hiss, that the Führer has led us to a dead end, that we’re all finished; you surrender to the Americans after the first shot, and you still have the nerve to wear military uniforms! I’ve always said and will say to the end of my days, “Heil Hitler!” ‘ The man trembled all over as he poured this out. Nobody answered him.

In a low voice I began to talk to the infantry captain sitting next to me. He turned out to have been born in Latvia and had been through the whole Russian campaign. We changed to Russian so that the hysterical soldier opposite us would not understand what we said.

‘Let heroes like that one criticize us,’ the captain said, ‘but after all we should admit our failure some time, if only at the end of the war. Of course there was a time when we all felt ourselves to be heroes, when the whole of Europe from the Atlantic Ocean to the Volga belonged to us. But that time is gone, and no power in the world, no secret weapon, can change the situation. It’s too late. There’s nothing left for us to do except surrender. The diplomats in Berlin have always been bad. There hasn’t been an outstanding figure there since Bismarck. The only diplomacy they know there is the diplomacy of the fist. It’s our fault that we missed the moment when a separate peace could have been made with the Anglo-Americans.’

‘But wasn’t such a peace offered and refused?’

‘Yes, because it was offered not by diplomats but by corporals. They are not all idiots in London and Washington. Churchill at least understands that the victory in this war belongs exclusively to Stalin. Sooner or later after the war he’ll take over all of Europe. A separate peace was impossible, that’s true, but at least he might have organized our defeat. We might have made it easy for the British to take Greece by invasion, we might have handed the Balkans and Poland to them and prevented your countrymen from coming into Germany. We might have saved our country from their revenge, but none of this did we do.’

‘I don’t think anything like that would have been possible,’ I answered. ‘In the Allied agreements it must have been decided who would occupy the Balkans and who would get what part of Germany. England couldn’t have broken those agreements.’

‘Bunk. Churchill is a realistic politician and saving Europe from Communist seizure means more to him than any piece of paper. But it’s all useless now. We’ve lost the war with a bang, and now we’ve got to get ready to pay off. The surrender will come any day now and then it will be every man for himself. I would fix myself up, but this uniform makes it hard.’

‘That’s no problem, it seems to me. Your uniform isn’t glued to you. You should be able to get rid of it.’

‘That’s not so easy. Right now the military police are being very energetic about rounding up deserters, although nobody can understand why.’

A thought flashed through my head.

‘Would you like to change clothes? It happens that I need a uniform.’

‘Why do you need a uniform, for God’s sake?’ The captain was very surprised.

‘I’m on my way to Italy, with military documents but no uniform. They might hold me up on the border. I have about a dozen friends with me whom I have to get into Italy. A uniform would come in very handy.’

‘Can you give me any kind of Russian documents?’ the captain asked. ‘I can speak Russian fluently, as you can see.’

‘As many as you want. I’ve got all the necessary equipment, typewriter, forms, seals.’

‘Fine, we’ll get it all done in Salzburg.’

Leaving Zina and her family at the Salzburg station, I went with the captain, although Zina was afraid that this might be a trick and tried to persuade me not to. The captain took me to a friend’s apartment, and there we promptly changed clothes. I gave him a certificate on the forms of the committee’s branch in Vienna, so that the Germans would not take him for a deserter.

‘Well, now I’m an Ostarbeiter,’ said the captain, shaking hands with me. ‘I’m going to murder the German language and await my liberators from the east.’

On the outskirts of Salzburg the three women and I found the barracks at which we were supposed to meet the others. We left our baggage there and went to town to have dinner. Then we began to look for General Kramer’s headquarters. The first thing we saw when we found it was two R.O.A. sentries at the door. They refused to let the women through, but my captain’s uniform stood me in good stead. With a bold step I entered the building which housed the offices, and in the very first room I met one of Kramer’s friends and helpers, Colonel Zolotov. His eyes popped when he saw me.

‘What you? We were all sure that you had stayed in Vienna to greet the Soviets. And in uniform too! So you decided to run for it after all.’

‘I came here to see the general and find out how things are going with you.’

I took a few steps toward the door on which there was the sign ‘Chief of Staff of the Separate Corps of the R.O.A.’ The colonel jumped up and tried to bar my way. I dodged him and walked into the office. Kramer was sitting at a desk in full general’s uniform, talking to an aide. Upon seeing me he raised his eyebrows very high.

‘Hello! I’m glad to see you. Have you been here long?’

‘I haven’t been here long and I’m not staying. I’m just passing through. I came in to say hello.’

‘Wait, wait!’ The general jumped up. ‘You’re in uniform! And a captain at that! That’s amazing! What kind of a masquerade is this, anyway?’

‘Oh, General, is there any point in noticing such trifles? In these times everyone amuses himself as he can. I, for instance, love masquerades. You probably love farces. How are things with the corps? Have you recruited a lot of soldiers?’

Kramer frowned. ‘Everything here is going excellently, excellently! It’s possible that in a month’s time our corps will go into action. And where are you bound, if it isn’t a secret?’

‘It is a secret, General, a deep secret. I’m on a special mission from the High Command of the German Army. At present I’m on my way to Geneva, and then to other places. I’m sorry, but I have no right to discuss the details.’

The general was obviously in doubt whether to believe me or not. Apparently he considered me capable of anything. In any case he adopted a friendly tone and began to tell me about his personal affairs, avoiding the subject of the corps of which he was chief of staff.

After half an hour’s conversation we said goodbye. In the corridor I bumped into Nikolai Ayrov, who had left Vienna a couple of days before we had. He was in civilian clothes and cursing loudly. Taking his arm, I left the building with him.

‘Aren’t you in uniform yet?’ I asked. ‘How come? I’m sure they could find a suitable job for you here around the headquarters.’

‘The hell with all of them!’ he said. ‘They’ve started a side show here! The staff gets bigger every day; they salute and call each other “excellency”. But in the corps itself there are only 100 officers – all White emigrants from Serbia – and two soldiers. You saw them standing at the gate. The commander, a friend of our Kramer, sits in his hotel lobby all day and receives callers. He’s smart and sly. He’s in civilian clothes. He says he hasn’t accepted command of the corps yet, that he’s waiting for instructions from Vlasov.’

‘What do you mean to do now?’ I asked him.

‘We’re going to Munich in about three days. Here it’s still dangerous, the Soviets may still get here. Kramer has a car ready for him at the back door day and night. What about you?’

‘I’m going to Italy. And my advice to you is to come with us. It will be better there when everything goes to hell.’

‘No, I’m not going to Italy. Our friends the Cossacks have distinguished themselves so much there fighting the partisans that every Russian will have to avoid Italy for a long time to come. The partisans will be in charge long after the end of the war. They’ll take care of all the Cossacks, and it wouldn’t be too good for us, either. It’s better to go west.’

‘No, the south is better. With Italy considered allied to the Americans and British there won’t be an occupation there and life will be easier than in other places,’ I insisted. The conversation led to nothing; each of us stuck to his own opinion. We set out for our barracks, near which was the wagon belonging to Ayrov’s group.

On the evening of the next day Fritz arrived together with Michael Petrovich and the others. Lying on the floor on straw pallets, we discussed the next part of our journey. Suddenly I became aware that Ayrov’s propaganda had taken effect on the members of my group. All of them voted to join with the other group and set out for Munich in a solid front, with two wagons. Zina was a particularly vehement defender of this point of view.

‘In times like these,’ she reasoned, ‘it’s particularly important to be among one’s friends, among one’s own people. In Munich there will be about 50 of us, all of whom know each other well and will always be willing to help each other. That’s the most important thing of all.’

Igor observed strict neutrality. He was willing to go in either direction, finding reasons for and against each of the alternatives. The argument went on and on until it was midnight.

Tired of repeating my reasons, I announced decisively, ‘Fine. Go to Munich. I’m going to Italy as I said before. And I’m going tomorrow, because I want to have as much time as possible to get south out of the northern regions where the Cossacks have been operating. The Americans have already reached the Po Valley. I’ll have to hurry.’

‘Well, go ahead, and we’ll go to Munich,’ said Zina. ‘We’ll all be together and you’ll be all alone.’

‘I’m not standing in your way; the sooner the better,’ said I, having the last word and pulling the blanket over my head.

Upon waking up in the morning I collected my small amount of baggage and threw out a few things that I could do without. After breakfast I began to take leave of my friends. However, they had apparently talked things over among themselves and changed their minds again, because after a weak attempt to persuade me not to part company with the others Igor suddenly said, ‘The hell with it, we’re going to Italy with you. We’ve got a good little group, better than any. We’ve travelled through the whole of Russia and half of Europe together; this is no time to part company.’

Zina was silent. Michael Petrovich and two others were still for going to Bavaria with Ayrov. Our group now consisted of seven, the Gorsky family, Ivan Ivanovich and Nadya, and myself. We decided to leave Fritz with Michael Petrovich, since our road lay across the mountains, where there was still snow and the going would be rough. In addition, there was no point in travelling with a horse when the trains were still running. We were not passionate lovers of hiking.

There were many reasons why we had to hurry. The bombings were still going on and railroad communications might be cut at any time. Therefore, after a farewell dinner and saying goodbye to those who preferred to remain in Germany, we took our things to the station and left for the south that same evening.

I think that those who stayed were very uncertain as to the correctness of their decision, inwardly agreeing with many of my arguments. I had no doubts at all. I was sure that the road I had chosen was the best of those that remained to us.