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| Photo courtesy of Walter S. |
A Story From the Life of Walter Schubert
Ghostwritten by Evelyn Holman
Rudolfsgnad
The bodies piled up in the road. That is my most vivid memory of those years I spent with my grandma in the concentration camp called Rudolfsgnad. I still see it to this day. It is something I will never forget, haunting me in my daily life. Each time I look at an egg, I remember the ghosts of those lost.
I woke up one day in the fall of 1947, with the usual hunger knotted deep in my belly, knowing fully well that there was nothing I could do about it. The rats had bitten and scratched my face, and my lip was swollen because of them. I’d grown used to waking up like this.
I remember walking outside, seeing the normal routines of the others in the camp. The women were taking the desperately needed clothes from the dead. They shoved the bodies into sacks to be collected and dumped in the clover field where, in the spring, my grandma would collect clovers to make me spinach, and in the winter, we would collect cow droppings to fuel our fire.
I often wondered about my parents while witnessing this. I didn’t know much about the whereabouts of my mother and father. I knew my mother was working in a coal mine in Russia and my father was fighting in Yugoslavia as a German soldier, but were they still there? Or were they lying amongst the dead, being robbed of their possessions because the living needed them? I stared in horror at the fifty new bodies being collected, unable to look away, the only thing bringing me back to the present was my grandma calling me inside to eat my soup.
I was in our small house savoring my meal when it happened. I quickly slurped up the remaining swallow because they only gave us a thin soup twice a day, and I didn’t want to waste a drop. When we heard the commotion, my grandma and I rushed outside to see the International Red Cross standing outside in the bright afternoon sun. It was an unusual sight. Although there was no fence trapping us in the camp, no one came or went. The Red Cross ordered everyone out of their houses, although most people were already outside since it was such a nice day. They sprayed us to get rid of the lice and quickly departed. We had to go about our usual days wondering why they came.
It was only a few weeks later that we were freed. I was outside playing in the sun as I saw the Yugoslavian soldiers approach. It was quick and uneventful when we were finally released. They simply walked up to our camp and gathered in the middle of it.
“Residents of Rudolfsgnad. You’re free to go. Take this train and head to Etschka.”
It was unreal. I was scared to leave, but also relieved. We were finally free, but what would I find when we left? I hadn’t been to my home in Gross Betschkerek since 1944, over three years ago. I was almost afraid of what I would find when I returned to the home I hadn’t been to since I was three.
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| Photo courtesy of Walter S. |
“Are you ready, Walter?” My grandma inquired. I looked into her caring eyes. She had always been there for me, took care of me, and made sure I always ate. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have survived.
“Yes. Let’s go.” I said as I took her bony hand in mine. Together we boarded the train that would take us back to Etschka, never to return to Rudolfsgnad, a place filled with nothing but desperation and death.
My experience in Rudolfsgnad has forever altered my life. I have a different view of everything. Nothing was easy, and we were very poor. Because of this, my life is very different than others’. The sight of dying Germans constantly swims in front of my eyes. I still remember my first bite of an egg, maybe because it was something I didn’t have as I child. I feel a jolt of recollection each time I sink my teeth into an egg, reminding me of my first bite of the odd, rubbery substance. I guess it’s the fact that I remember the first time I had one. Something as simple as that sticks with me, revealing that my life has been forever altered. It serves as a reminder that life is as fragile as an egg. Once it’s broken, it can’t be fixed.
