Long Night's Journey Into Day: The Death March of Lowicz

By Erhard Wittek

This book from 1940, translated here into English, is the story of a survivor of the September 1939 Death March of Lowicz. The events recounted here stand symbolically for the experiences of any and all of the many thousands of ethnic German victims of Polish persecution before and at the beginning of World War Two.

Erhard Witt

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Scriptorium
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781998785056

Book preview

1

The First Few Hours

Reinhold Wittek from Hohensalza in the Wartheland recounts:

When it became clear that the conflict between the Reich and Poland was escalating more and more inevitably towards war, the Germans in my homeland frequently debated whether it would be better to hold out here or to cross the border into Germany. It was obvious to all of us that anyone whom the Poles found in their country after the outbreak of war would have a hard time of it. But the farmers couldn't just leave their land, their farms, their livestock. So it was really only the city dwellers who could have closed up their homes and left to spend a few months in the Reich. The owners of the large estates could have fled as well; they had reliable and loyal German managers to whom they could have entrusted their property. But – if anyone had even really entertained the notion at all – it was clear that it would be impossible to act in such a manner. The Germans in the cities were the leaders of the German ethnic group in political, intellectual and economic respects. They had stated often enough, both publicly and among their friends, that it was important to remain in the country and thus to preserve the Reich's just claim to these large territories that had been stolen from it while it had been powerless, after the war. And when conversations or even thoughts ever got to this point, the matter was decided for the city folk as well.

We witnessed the daily escalation of anti-German incitement in the newspapers and in public gatherings. The process seemed never-ending. Already it was dangerous to speak German on the streets or in public establishments. In 1919 many of the leading Germans here had already had to spend months in the large internment camp Szczypiorno; we knew that as soon as war broke out we would be locked up again; all of us sensed that it would be a harder trial for us this time than it had been in 1919, and those days had truly been hard enough. The hatred harbored by these people, this nation, who had never in their entire history been capable of any truly great achievements in intellectual matters, be they art or science, culture or statesmanship – who rather had spent their entire time of nationhood constantly faced with German superiority in all such matters – the hatred harbored by these people, this nation, grew from the awareness of their inferiority and was fuelled by the realization that some members of the superior foreign nation were now in their power.

We Germans, in so far as we worried about the future, knew this, or at least we sensed it. And our experiences of the last twenty years had trained us to worry about the future, even if one or the other might have been more inclined by nature to let time and events bring what that might. But time and events had already brought everyone enough these past twenty years, and now they were to bring us the final test as well.

And even though we knew all this, all conversations in the time prior to the Polish Conflict concluded with the realization that we must remain. Nevertheless, when the danger became ever more immediate there were a few who left the country after all, for what people are completely without weak members!

But for the rest, our attitude was decided by the sense that we were a bastion – soldiers, as it were, of our nation: and the German soldier does not leave his post until he is recalled.

So we got ready. We packed our bags. We hid whatever valuables we may have had, and we got a tough pair of shoes ready for when we might need them. –

On September 1, 1939, shortly before noon, I was arrested in Hohensalza, which the Poles called Inowraclaw. Some Germans in the city had heard the broadcast of the Führer's speech in the Reichstag; the news that war had begun had spread incredibly quickly, as such news tend to do. We felt like soldiers in whose vicinity a heavy grenade with a time fuse had just hit: when will it explode? whom will the shrapnel kill?

I didn't have to wait long. Just before noon, with not a word of greeting, a police officer entered the modest office of the small German bank whose director I was; he had a rifle hanging by its strap over his shoulder, and a revolver in his belt. He was red in the face and sweating, excited and screaming at me, and the sight of the angry Pole quickly helped me to regain my composure. Even though I had fully expected to be arrested: now that the moment had arrived, I admit I had needed to lean slightly against the edge of my desk for a few seconds for support. But the Pole standing in front of me acted as though he were the one about to be dragged off, not his prisoner. Oh yes, this policeman knew very well what they all knew and just wouldn't admit to themselves; he knew what the entire Polish nation knew and what it had sought with its insane chauvinism to cover up against its own sight, namely that any resistance against the German Reich would be futile if ever war actually broke out. That's why this man was screaming the way he was, that's why he was so agitated, that's why he had barged in here with a rifle, revolver and threatening scowls – because he, like all the common folk of this nation, would have felt much safer kissing the seam of the Germans' coats than he felt in his present role.

So I talked to him as calmly as I could and tried not to let him break my composure, and even though my heart was pounding wildly enough, externally I became calmer by the second, and eventually the Pole agreed to accompany me to my home so I could pack a suitcase, since the red warrant he had handed to me stated that I had to come prepared with a change of clothes, a second pair of shoes, underwear, various personal items, and food enough for four days. It all seemed like a standard arrest on proper bureaucratic order. Maybe all our fears had been too pessimistic after all?

There was an uneasy parting at home. My wife stood in the doorway, suppressing tears as she watched me carry my heavy suitcase down the stairs; at the threshold I looked back up at her, tried to smile reassuringly, waved to her with my left hand and called, So long, Bertele!

It wasn't far to the police station. The bare rooms of the station already held a few of my acquaintances. We said hello, we shook hands – it was a different handshake than usual; we set our suitcases down and moved closer together, our faces towards the Polish officials, our backs towards the wall or to a fellow German.

As the hours went by the rooms filled up more and more. We stood silently. It was rare that someone whispered a word to his neighbor, it was rare that someone even shifted from one foot to the other. We all knew that this war wouldn't last long; we knew the Polish state too well. Our faith in the power of the Reich and in the Führer's determination knew no bounds. But we also sensed what was in store for us. We were defenseless in the hands of an enemy whose lack of mercy we thought we knew – just as we thought we knew the extent of his hatred. And yet: none of us had an inkling of what was really to come.

Every new arrival was greeted solemnly; every handshake, silently given, strengthened both him and us. Our psychological reserves grew stronger.

Late in the afternoon we were led under heavy guard around the outskirts of the town to the sports field belonging to a Polish club. Here we had to wait outdoors. It was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. On the trees the foliage had just begun to take on fall colors. The air was motionless, and it was hot.

The hours went by painfully slowly. At random intervals, more prisoners arrived, individually and in groups. Many of them were being driven in from neighboring towns, on wagons that stopped at the gates of the sports field. From those gates the new arrivals walked over on foot to join the rest of us.

One was a man who had to be carried by four others. He was unconscious. We saw that he was bleeding from his head, face and hands; his other injuries were hidden under his clothes. We found out later that he had been beaten at the city gates by a gang of teenagers with sticks and fence slats until he collapsed. The policeman standing guard over us sent for a medic.

A woman who was clearly just a few months from giving birth came up to us, eyes fixed blankly ahead. She was leading a nine-year-old boy, who walked alongside her hesitantly and silently and stared up at his mother in horror, never looking elsewhere. The woman walked stiffly, did not look to the right or left, staring straight ahead, her movements were lifeless. She joined the other women already waiting on the sports field. They did not pity the newcomer with loud and emotional words as women are normally wont to do; all of them here shared the same suffering and the same fear, and the words that one may otherwise speak so easily and quickly, were inadequate.

It was growing dark. I saw a man sitting on a small wooden crate. He rested his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees; there was something about his posture that made one's heart contract. I learned that the Poles had shot one of his sons, before his very eyes – a son who had protested against his father's arrest and had offered himself to the Poles in his stead. The man's daughter had jumped in to try to