A New Life

By Leon Kostner

Karl Kostner's desires are ordinary - he wants to live with his wife and watch his two sons grow up. But, he's an ethnic German, living in Poland at the start of World War II. Conscripted into the German army when it invades Poland, he deserts but then finds that he's not welcome in his old community. Hunted by the Germans who will shoot him as a deserter, unwelcome wherever he settles. He desperately searches for his family across a landscape that's ravaged by war. This is the story of a man who desperately wants to take his family to freedom. But first… he has to find them.

In this heart-warming tale of struggle against adversity, you can follow Karl's life as he battles to find his family in a world that's going up in flames.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olga Segal
• Release date: Oct 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215031506

Leon Kostner

Leon Kostner has lived in Australia since he was a child. He loves to read books about family history.   This story are his recollections of his parents struggles to forge a new life in a new country.    Leon is forever grateful to his parents that they chose Australia as their home.  

Book preview

Contents

Contents

Dedications

This book is dedicated to my family for

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Dedications

This book is dedicated to my family for

supporting my writing efforts. And to my parents for facing and succeeding the many challenges in their journey to a new life.

Acknowledgements

After the story is created, the editing starts. Many eyes troll through the manuscript to make something that is a garbled mess into a story.

A big thank you to:

Olga Segal for helping me craft this story into something better than it was.

Editing and formatting by Olga Segal

Copyright 2022 Leon Kostner

All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

France, July 1944

Karl Kostner

Karl Kostner lay on his bunk in the barracks he shared with his comrades. Incredibly anxious about what he needed to do in a few hours’ time. He was oblivious to the presence of the other men around him. If it all went wrong, it would mean the end of his life.

Karl stared at the photograph of his wife and two sons, which he carried with him wherever he went. He studied every detail and hoped that this would not be the last time that he would see his family, even if only on a photograph. It surprised him he had not noticed the freckles on Leon’s, his younger son’s, nose until now. Karl was in the army and away when Leon was born in May 1940.

So many history changing events were happening these days that it was easy to overlook minor details. He had been home on leave in Lodz, Poland with his wife and children a few short times since the war started, and the time always passed too quickly before he had to re-join his comrades in arms.

Karl recalled how difficult it was to say goodbye to Paula and the boys on his last leave home in Lodz and return to his unit in France. He had said to her. The war is lost. The Wehrmacht lost about two hundred and fifty thousand men at Stalingrad. Most were Germans, but a few other nationalities fought against the Soviets as well. They tried to keep those numbers secret from us. But, you just cannot keep something that big a secret for long. All that lost and broken equipment will be hard to replace.

He pushed his half-drunk coffee away. He had no appetite for this watery drink made from roasted chicory and acorns that passed for coffee and reminded him of all the ersatz substitutes they endured.

Paula had said. What a waste of innocent young lives. Just imagine all the mothers who will never see their boys again.

Karl nodded. And the wives who will never see their husbands. The children who will grow up without their fathers telling them stories, and teaching their sons to be men. He blinked away a tear. And holding their daughters when they have hurt themselves or when they are frightened.

Paula wiped tears from her eyes. Do not say this. You must come back to us. She put her arms around him and clung to him for long moments.

He hugged her, hoping he would not become one of the victims. This war made everything so uncertain. Don’t worry about me. I feel so sorry for our fallen young men out there, and I ask myself… what are they dying for?

The German people had such high hopes, Hitler and the Nazi Party promised them so much. He sighed. It was a dream that turned into a nightmare, especially for the men and boys on the Russian Front.

Thank God you are not there like my poor brother. He would still be alive today if they had not sent him to Russia. He always said if you are there long enough, a bullet will find you.

In the end, it wasn’t a Soviet bullet that got him, but German bullets. Executed for being a deserter, Karl said.

It has made things difficult for his wife and son. He should not have done this. At least he could have saved his family from the shame.

Karl lit the French cigarette, which he had been lucky to get from one of his comrades. Lately there is a lot of talk about Super Weapons that will give us Final Victory. It is more propaganda. Some of the young ones believe that these Super Weapons will work. But, the older men realize that the war is lost. All they want is to return to their families when this is all over, hopefully with all their body parts intact, or be captured by the British or the Americans and sit out the rest of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp.

He knew soon the Red Army would arrive in Lodz. He had to make plans with Paula when that time came. The Red Army will not be kind to anyone that is of German ethnicity because the SS were merciless with the treatment of Soviet Prisoners-of-War and their civilians, starving them and burning down their villages and bombing their cities. There was no point in mentioning any of that. It would only frighten her.

He expelled a smoke ring. Yesterday, I caught the tram on my way to see my father and step-mother. As the tram passed through the ghetto, Paula, the people… they were wearing rags.

My neighbor told me it’s a terrible place, she said. I wish our German leaders did not do this.

Karl grimaced. Paula, what I saw there turned my stomach, people starving, and worse than that, children were just skin and bone. My work comrade from the Brewery was there. I told you about David Goldstein.

Yes, yes. I remember.

He saw me sitting in the tram and shouted out to me and waved. I hardly recognized him. He was so thin he was just a skeleton with skin over it. The Ghetto is so overcrowded, I have been told there were over two hundred thousand people in there, and not only our Polish Jews. They have brought in Jews from Germany and other countries as well. I tell you the place is bursting with so many living in such poverty. The trams that pass through the Ghetto are not allowed to stop and the doors are locked so no one can get on or off. Is this the new world the Nazis promised us? Is that what we are fighting for so that these women and children can starve in Ghettos?

She said, Please, my darling, remember to keep your opinions to yourself. I worry they will get you into trouble.

I will try, I promise. He lamented his wife used to be nicely dressed, but now she too had to make do wearing old clothes as they had little money and there were shortages everywhere. He would make it up to her when the war was over.

Paula frowned at Karl. The war has changed you. I have not heard you speak this way before. You were always joking and making me laugh, and I was the serious one. It was why I fell in love with you.

He looked into her blue eyes. I love you too. We will survive this one way or another.

She nodded, but he could tell she was unconvinced. Before the war, our Polish neighbors’ all got on with us. Now they keep their eyes downcast when they pass us. They are too afraid to speak what is on their minds in case we report them and they end up being questioned by the Gestapo.

Karl thought how he, like so many others, was swept along by Nazi Propaganda. It sounded so positive at a time when conditions were so dreadful in Germany. Hitler got the unemployed off the streets and into jobs, and the standard of living rose dramatically. The building of the Autobahns was a project that created many thousands of jobs. They promised every family a Volkswagen car and the good days were on the horizon.

Karl wondered where had all this money come from to finance all these new projects. The German people were workers and, given a chance, they could work their way out of the disastrous depression that they found themselves in. All the terrible days that followed the end of the First World War were a thing of the past; the German people could see a better future for themselves and be proud to be German once more.

The astronomical high inflation after the First World War, the hunger, the unemployment and the hopelessness were depressing. Then, suddenly, the German people had Hitler. He was practically a God to them, and he acted as if he were one. He believed he knew what the German people needed and wanted. Hitler was a master at convincing and manipulating them. They were his Volk ‘his people’ and he was their leader. He assured them that only he knew the way forward, and if they were obedient and followed him. There would be a glorious future for his Volk.

Like so many millions of others mesmerized by the promises, Karl was swept along by the euphoria. It was almost as if God had spoken to them. People were again proud to be German, not a defeated, hopeless race any longer. In such a short time, the bubble burst, along with the grandiose promises. Unimaginable disaster faced Germany again for the second time in less than 30 years.

No use throwing one’s life away needlessly. For the first time, he knew if the opportunity presented itself, he would desert the German Army. He did not mention this to Paula. Some things are better left unsaid.

He picked up the imitation coffee, drank the brew and looked at his older son, Ernst, through the window playing catch with his best friend, Tadek, the Polish boy from the next building. This is the way it should be… Germans and Poles mixing freely. After all, no matter what our race, we all want and need the same things in life. The Nazis manufacture the distrust between the Poles, Germans and Jews for their own ends. Turning us against each other serves their purposes and makes us easier to control.

Ernst, born in 1934, was now ten years old. Karl remembered the birth of his son as the happiest moment of his life. Karl had an important position with the Keilich Brewery and the future for the family had been so promising. He was the proud owner of a motorcycle and a block of land on which they would build a house in the next year or two. Paula had her own corner grocery shop. Life was running smoothly. Friends and relatives had been green with envy at the life Karl and Paula shared. When the war started, everything changed so quickly.

Life for the Volksdeutsche of Lodz appeared to be going on as normal. Many of them believed they would be safe and somehow the Wehrmacht would never let the Soviets come close to Lodz. The Wehrmacht would turn the Red tide back and they could get on with their lives. But, they were living in a fool’s paradise.

However, the Polish people suffered many deprivations for being Polish. They locked the Jews up in the Ghetto. Their lives were anything but normal. The Poles hoped the Wehrmacht would soon be driven out of Poland, and they would get their country back again. However, the wiser ones were uneasy at the thought of being liberated by the Soviets.

Karl heard Stalin had long-range plans for Poland. The fewer Polish Army Officers and intellectuals there were, the easier it will be to implement communism in Poland after liberation. When the Germans occupied the Katyn area, some locals showed the Germans the mass graves of the people killed by the Soviets.

German propaganda ensured the Polish people knew the fate of thousands of Polish Officers, doctors, professors, teachers and lawyers who were murdered at Katyn on Stalin’s orders by the NKVD, the Russian Secret Police in April and May 1940 and buried in mass graves. The Soviets denied responsibility and blamed the Germans for the murders.

The Jews in the Lodz Ghetto, suffering unimaginable horrors, did not care who liberated them as long as they were still alive, and not sent on a train ride from which no one ever returned. The Volksdeutsche were constantly being told that the Wehrmacht were about to mount an offensive that would change the course of the war in Germanys’ favor. Many believed the disinformation, the few intelligent ones saw it for what it was, just propaganda.

Chapter 2

France, July 1944

Karl knows there is no turning back.

Karl asked himself repeatedly how could it all have come to this, as he lay on his bunk with the photo of his wife and sons still in his hand.

He, a German soldier in France, planning to desert the army. If captured, they would shoot him. The thought scared him. There were brave people who were involved in his escape plan. They were risking their lives for him. He doubted he would have the courage if the roles were reversed.

As a small boy, his step-mother was always so cold and dismissive and cruel to him. His dream was to grow up and find a girl that he could love and that would love him in return. When he met Paula, he knew his prayers had been answered and their life together would be wonderful.

On his last leave home, when he was stationed in Belgium, he bought a beautiful cream-colored coat and knee-length black leather boots. It cost four weeks of his army pay, but he always liked to spoil her. Paula, thirty-three years old, was an attractive woman. Marrying Paula made his life complete.

The classy present brought tears to Paula’s eyes. You should not waste your hard-earned money on such things for me.

The gift was worth it. You are, my darling. The only one I think of when I go to sleep every night. Please put them on.

When Karl saw the boots and coat on Paula, he knew the present was worth every Pfennig that he had saved. She had thrown her arms around him and hugged him tight.

He placed the photograph back in his wallet. Tomorrow, he would no longer be a German soldier. He would either be free of the German army once and for all, or he would stand in front of a firing squad waiting to be shot. This was at the forefront of his mind while he lay on his cot.

He perspired even though it was a cool night, and had difficulty controlling his fear. He had to master it or he could make a fatal mistake that would cost him his life. The next twenty-four hours would be the most important ones. These hours would either give him a new life or death.

If caught and shot, Karl would not be there to guide his sons and see them grow into respectable men. His wife might find love again. But, to Leon, his four-year-old son, he would be just a vague memory. The notion was so upsetting that he initially considered giving up his escape plans. However, to secure a better future, he had to go through with it.

He tried to doze and turned from side to side, to get comfortable. Soon he realized there would be scant or no sleep that night.

He had some guilt about leaving his comrades behind; most of them were good men, men manipulated by ambitious, ruthless leaders. They brain-washed these young men who still screamed about the final victory. The men swore to give up their lives for the Fuhrer if necessary. It was dangerous to reason with them as a word by those fanatics to the right people could get one transferred to the Eastern front to fight the Russians. It was often a death sentence. Much wiser old heads ignored them, knowing the defeatist talk was punishable. These battle-hardened older men realized the game would soon be over.

Many thoughts and memories were racing through Karl’s mind. He thought back to how at twelve years of age he started working on his father’s hand-looms.

Two noisy hand-looms shared a room with a kitchen table, a stove on which his step-mother cooked their meals, which also provided some heating for the family. Karl and his two stepbrothers and stepsister slept among the looms, while his father and step-mother slept in a small adjoining bedroom.

Karl’s family was part of a large industry of home-weavers that were self-employed. Most families had one or two hand-looms that shared their limited living space. These families scraped by from day to day. The few business minded men, like Karl’s brother-in-law Gerd, were the exception to the rule, tough and alert to trade opportunities, wherever they presented themselves. Gerd eventually had fourteen looms and ten people working for him. He was comfortably well-off by Lodz standards.

The teacher, Simon Silberstein, a serious man with a black beard, never smiled. He would look sternly at any boy caught misbehaving. Karl was the only student that soaked up information whenever he had the opportunity. Mr. Silberstein often would let Karl stay on a little longer, even when his ruble had been used up.

He remembered pestering his father for money to give to the teacher so that he could attend school. When his father could afford it, he would give him a Russian ruble, so he could go to school and take part in lessons. Lodz, at that time, was the second largest city in Poland and was under Russian rule until after WW1, when it again became an independent nation. And until Karl’s father paid more money, his education was over.

Karl, while working on his father’s looms, would often have a book in front of him and would glance at it whenever he could; reading about faraway places, just to break the monotony of the boring, uneventful life his parents forced him into as a twelve-year-old.

My father could not afford to send me to school, and I have so far gotten through life without an education. Karl’s father said. At least you go when we can afford to send you. I was not as lucky as you are.

His step-mother, Maria, would chime in. We have more important things that we need to spend money on than your schooling. Your father and I were never schooled, and we got this far in life. At age twelve, Karl had decided that he did not want to spend the rest of his life working behind a noisy loom. All the young men and women, with few exceptions, followed in the footsteps of their parents and became weavers. Textiles were the major industry in Lodz between the two World Wars. His parents and their friends often referred to Lodz as the Manchester of Poland after that city’s vast textile industry.

Karl went to night school as soon as he was old enough, and had saved up sufficient money to pay for a book-keeping course.

At twenty-two, Karl applied for the position of bookkeeper at the large Keilich Brewery. There were forty-two applicants for that job. Herr Keilich interviewed Karl, the youngest applicant, first. After interviewing Karl, the owner sent the other forty-one hopeful applicants home without an interview. He told Karl some time later that there was something about Karl that impressed him.

Karl’s father made no comment when told of his son’s new job. But he did smile, which told Karl that he was pleased one son had risen above being a weaver.

He knew his father would be sorry to lose one worker.

Is this how you repay your father? His step-mother screamed at him. You work for somebody else and leave your father in the lurch.

He did not know why he thought of his step-mother at a time like this. His natural mother died when he was only four years old. He remembered her lying in bed, being very thin and very pale. One image of his mother stuck out in Karl’s mind. Before she died; she beckoned Karl to get into the bed beside her. She put her bony arm around him and whispered in his ear. Du bist mein kleiner schatz. (You are my little treasure). I love you more than anything in this whole wide world and I always will no matter where I will be, and I want you always to remember that.

She died shortly after. Her words were a comfort to him always.

When Karl got older, he heard someone say that his mother died of a broken heart. His father was having an affair with a young widow and it upset his mother, till in the end it affected her health. She developed cancer and in less than six months; she was dead.

When Karl was only five years old, four months after the death of his mother, his father remarried. Karl’s step-mother did not accept him. From that day forward, he promised himself to make a success of his life. And he would do it for the memory of his late mother. Had it not been for the war, he was certain he would have achieved this.

He thought of his half-brother Hubert, whom he resented as a child. His step-mother always spoiled Hubert and her other two children, yet totally ignored Karl.