In search of lost time. German prisoner of war camp (part 13). “FRAU FLOWERS FELDGRAU”

2023-12-17 09:30:00

Part 12.

On October 20, 1950, the Brest camp was transformed into a transit and transshipment department. Transportation of repatriated prisoners of war and internees from the Brest station to the Frankfurt-on-Oder station, where the repatriation camp No. 69 was located, was carried out by thirty trains, the so-called. “turntables”. To escort the trains in August 1949, thirteen permanent escort teams were added to the staff of the Brest camp.

In 1948, 434 trains passed through Brest, returning 304,073 prisoners of war to their homeland. In 1949, through the Brest transit camp No. 284, more than 402 thousand prisoners of war were transferred to the repatriation authorities.

By the decision of the leadership of the USSR, repatriation was to be completely completed by January 1, 1950, while war criminals were simultaneously identified and brought to justice.

At the beginning of May 1950, newspapers published an official announcement about the completion of the repatriation of German prisoners of war from the Soviet Union. There were still 9,717 people convicted of particularly serious war crimes and 3,815 people under investigation on the territory of the USSR.

In March 1951, 239 German women convicted of war crimes were concentrated in the Brest camp department. Before their arrival, the camp area was fenced off with a high, solid fence. Here they sat almost forever: German women were not taken to work in the city. They were not visible, but, they say, they were heard: sometimes when they went on strike, they mooed, and this drawn-out “M-mm-mm-mm” sounded as if from the other world.

One of the few who saw these women was Vladimir Nikolaevich Gubenko. In 1951, his neighbor, the head of the camp Lieutenant Colonel Nosov was leaving for Mogilev for a new duty station. Four stalwart German women in military-style jackets and caps were sent to help. Together with the men they loadedand Nosov’s belongings in a lorry that carried things on the ramp on Menzhinskogo.

Among the things was a piano. The men barely lifted one end onto the body and stopped to wipe off their sweat. And then the German woman, smiling, I lifted the other edge and slid the tool into the machine. The guards looked at each other.

Vasily SARYCHEV

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