Christal
Cooper
Christal Cooper
Death in a Polish Woods
by
Wayne Lanter
Legend tells of a German soldier who, rather
than kill innocent Polish civilians in a
woods on a November afternoon in 1939, took
off his uniform and stood with the condemned
and died with them.
These
fifty-five years I think of him since that
imposing
gray
Polish afternoon when as a child on this side
of
the world
I
was spared by time and space and history the
depravities
of
war, where all of life is thrown into sharp relief,
a
matter
of
either/or that some may live a lifetime
and
never face
or
have to endure, the torture of splitting
in
moments
what
the balance may contain of fortune, future,
of
good
and
bad, right and wrong, in which mistaken choice
or
failure
can
derange a mind so thoroughly, so without repair,
it
may wander
for
a life-time the pitted regions of loathing, of
self-abhorrence,
rotting
with rancor and despair. And of this man,
this
mensch,
what
is there to say? The story claims he wasn't
the
youngest
soldier
sent out that day, and so we should not speak
of
youth
and
ideals alone, nor was he known for bravery.
He
was older
than
most but not an elder. His understanding of the
"larger
picture"
was
slow, at best, he suspected little, believed his
superiors,
held
faith in the Fuhrer's grand design to bring
all
of Europe
beneath
a common mind, the plan inscribed so
unmistakably
in
Hegel's absolutist hand. So we should not think
too
much
of
wisdom and guile. Physically small, even
as
Bavarians
of
that time go, not handsome, unmarried, no intentions
to
speak of,
given
on occasion to introspection, taken from
a
mountain
village,
inducted into the army, his training
was
brief
but
thorough, a good soldier, he obeyed, by no means
a
fanatic.
Competent
but taciturn, he arrived in Poland
on
a notion
soldiers
would show less concern for languages
they
did not know.
That
he spoke low German may have proved the reason
why
he was
dispatched
that chilled November morning with the
Schutzpolizei
to
guard a prison-labor detail. That day as a child
of
seven
I
played in sanctuary longitudes, the sun hung
heavy
in a haze,
the
hemisphere of innocence edged by ancestral woods
where
a hawk
huddled
with a broken wing beneath a fallen hickory
hooked
my hand
with
her beak when I tried to touch her, opening
a
splash
of
bright blood. I screamed the hawk's scream.
They
filed
away
from camp sometime after six o'clock on Polish
Independence
Day,
twenty-six
civilians with picks and shovels, thirty-
three
in all,
the
guards at a distance to either side, three miles
to
Poznan Woods
and
there as directed on a line marked out between
the
trees
they
began to dig. All morning they continued. The work
was
slow,
backbreaking,
warm despite the chill. One by one
they
paused
to
remove hats, vests, their worn and tattered jackets,
or
shirts.
They
wore civilian cloths, thin black street shoes,
trousers
of
business men, ministers, lawyers. One man, a dentist,
stopped
entirely
to
rest on his shovel, and cried. A boy, maybe fifteen,
fell,
prodded
to his feet by a Mauzer muzzle. His hands
blistered
and peeled.
The
shovel handle was slick and red with blood. Then
no
one spoke.
The
only sound a thud of picks, the scrape and pitch
at
the shovel's edge
as
dirt raised on a ridge beyond the trench. At noon
the
sun
came
through the clouds and far away to the north
he
could see
fields
already dressed in winter coats of snow.
A
hawk hung
above
the valley on invisible currents. And then
it
seemed he
was
farther from home than he had ever been. But
what
moment
it
came to him these men were truly condemned,
would
not live
out
the day, there is no way to say or fathom,
even
if
he
recognized it as such. But surely he did. For
he
had seen
the
handbills stuck to kiosks and lamp posts
in
the town,
the
lists of those chosen to be hanged or shot,
their
offenses
real
or invented. At lunch with three comrades
he
walked
into
the woods from where the prisoners worked
and
there
removed
from his rucksack his issue of bread and wine
and
ate
in
silence while the others talked. One noticed that
he
watched
the
prisoners, and made light of the entire affair,
pointed
to
the workers in the pit, drew his finger across
his
throat
as
if it were a knife, and grinned. By early
afternoon,
he
began to calculate what he might do and live,
or
how
he
might die. The trench was already waist deep
when
he approached
the
officer in charge, saluted, requested permission
to
speak.
"These
men do not deserve to die," he said. "They
harmed
no one.
The
Fuhrer would not agree." The answer, "Yes,
the
Fuhrer
would
agree. They will be treated fairly for what
they
have done.
Deutschfeindlich
gesinnt. Long live the Reich."
The
Captain
directed
him resume his post and so he did,
we
might assume,
somewhat
assuaged, his faith in the Fuhrer renewed.
Surely,
he
believed, they would not harm civilians. These
were
not men
of
arms, but villagers, taken from bed at night,
interred
with
the excuse that they would be used in the war effort.
After
all,
it
was said, the Reich needed every working set
of
hands
it
could find. There had been stories of such killings,
but
he could not
get
in his head the greatness that was all of Germany
would
condemn
innocents
to die for no reason but accidents of birth.
He
continued
to
think, to brood, on paradoxes. The chill, the sun,
the
men, the boy,
the
hawk, the fields sloping away from the woods.
It
seemed to him,
in
how they worked, the slow falling arch of picks,
deliberate
placement
of each shovel as it struck loose earth,
the
prisoners
knew
something he did not. And it came to him again
that
men
with
rifles have but one purpose. This stuck in his mind
and
multiplied
with
uncommon rapacity and then, in late afternoon,
the
order came
to
collect the picks and shovels. The trench by then
was
nearly
deep
as the tallest man and the anguish of his
speculation,
the
weight of the impending afternoon, came full circle
in
his mind.
There
was nothing now that could be said, no word
to
stay
the
execution. Here he might have made a soldier's
show
of it.
No
doubt, if he had chosen to turn his weapon
on
his comrades
several
more would have died. He considered this,
leveling
his
rifle first at one, then at another. But
it
was killing
that
appalled him, and so he did not. Instead, as if
to
dispatch
an
enemy with a bayonet thrust, he brought his Mauzer
down
forcing
the muzzle deep into the hard ground,
leaving
the
weapon standing point, a single sentinel. With great
deliberateness,
meticulously,
he was a tidy, well-trained man, he unbuckled
his
belt,
took
off his overcoat and hung it on the rifle stock.
He
settled
his
kettle helmet on the sagging coat, creating that
ominous
scarecrow
of
war, the remnants of metal, wood and cloth that testify
to
the true
rewards
of men gone surely mad that warns off no one.
As
if to keep
a
vigil, behind the scarecrow facade he sat on fresh earth,
pulled
off
one
boot, and then the other. The boots lay where
he
dropped them,
flat,
pointed opposite directions. His shirt and trousers
he
unbuttoned
and
discarded without much care, for now, we should know
he
had been so outraged,
his
heart so thoroughly betrayed, his honor damaged so,
by
what he knew
was
surely to transpire, that there was nothing left
in
him
that
he would want to save. His small possessions
that
day
were
a Mauzer rifle, an overcoat and helmet, his
ammunition
belt,
boots,
a rucksack with half a bottle of wine, a bit
of
bread.
The
trousers and shirt he stripped away as if to expose
his
heart,
to
show, what there was of the world gathered in the woods,
on
that hill
that
late afternoon, the soul of the man the cloth had
meant
to control.
The
soldier to either side regarded him with alarm.
One
took his arm.
He
wrenched away, tears in his eyes, but he did not
break
or cry.
Clearly,
they thought he would run to the deeper woods
and
they
would
have to shoot. "Think," one said, "think of your
family.
What
will the people say? Da ist nichts zu befurchten."
"I
have been
thinking
all day," he replied. "And this is what I thought.
Todeskandidat."
The
conversation ended with a command. "Auchtung."
The
soldiers
froze
at port arms and he stepped forward dressed
only
in socks
and
shorts, a gray undershirt, and slid into the pit
to
take his place
in
line. And there he stood, for a time, exposed,
shaking
in the cold.
I
removed my coat and settled it on the hawk that did not
struggle
now,
but
permitted me to carry her the half mile home across
exhausted
fields.
The
dentist took his hand. In brief the Captain
considered
what
to do. Insubordination would encourage desertion
and
death.
With
this the prisoners, too, knew fully well what all
that
day had hung
in
their heads. Several dropped to their knees to pray,
to
beg,
others
cried, their screams and wails echoed across
the
barren snow
encrusted
countryside. By week the hawk grew stronger,
in
eventual time
set
to wing. The November of my scarred hand healed,
but
even
today
burns red, inflamed with the volition and design
of
the hawk's mind.
In
a frail voice the boy began to sing "God Who
Protects
Poland."
One
by one the others stood and joined in. The dentist
held
his hand,
but
all those miles from Bavaria, he could not understand
the
words
of
this song. The Captain raised his hand, called to
the
firing line,
hesitated
again, then reports of rifle fire filled the woods.
The
anthem fell
silent
by degrees, one third, half, the song ended. And
possibly
because
some in the squad had served to execute civilians
before,
their
accuracy was less than true. In keeping with orders
the
Captain
drew
his revolver, walked along the trench, sich einsetzen,
and
shot those
who
were not yet dead once in the head. Then all in the pit
were
silent,
motionless,
lying where they fell, to be buried in the grave
they
dug that day,
expect
for one, who went unyieldingly to what others
prepared
for him,
not
as a gift, but accepting it, to compensate
the
outrage,
his
grief at having fallen to this dark wood,
this
desolate
and
desecrated ground, bound as he was by what
he
could not be
and
therefore what in the horror of his mind that afternoon
he
had become.
They
died, as it was said "Ausgezeichnete Haltung."
The
Captain
took
the rifle, helmet, ammunition belt, the rucksack,
overcoat,
his
boots. The picks and shovels were collected
by
another
detail.
The trench was filled and spread with pine
needles.
And
because no one who survived the afternoon
would
soil
his
hands, or consort with a deserter, an enemy,
those
relics
of
heresy, of failed conversion and death, the clothing
was
left.
It
shriveled down, encrusted in the mud and snow, and
finally,
with
a complement
of seasons,
rotted into the ground.
Deutschfeindlich
gesinnt - to be of a hostile mind towards
Germans.
Da
ist nichts zu befurchten - there is nothing to fear.
Todeskandidat
- a doomed man.
Ausgezeichnete
Haltung - excellent conduct or bearing.
Sich
einsetzen - to put into action or to do one's self.
*excerpt from If the Sun Should Ask http://www.amazon.com/If-Sun-Should-Ask-Parables/dp/0983841225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415848276&sr=8-1&keywords=if+the+sun+should+ask
by Twiss Hill Press
Copyright granted by Wayne Lanter
Photo Description and Copyright Information
The German Disillusioned Soldier
Photographer Unknown
Date of photograph 1944-1945
Public Domain
