Read Online The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel - Free Book Online
Authors: Andrea Maria Schenkel
Ads: Link
dead too.
Alois Huber, age 25
Supposing I hadn’t stumbled, maybe we wouldn’t have found them so soon—who knows? There was no light to speak of in that barn. The daylight coming in through the open cowshed door wasn’t enough to make the place any brighter.
First I thought I’d fallen over a stick, a piece of wood, some largish object. It was a while before I took it in.
Me and Farmer Sterzer, we just stood there. If Hauer hadn’t been there to clear the straw away, I reckon we’d have stood there forever. I reckon we’d just have stood there unable to move.
When I saw those dead bodies I felt sick.
Not that it’s that easy to upset me. I saw more than enough in the war, believe you me. Everyone who was in the war saw enough dead bodies to last them a lifetime.
But a thing like that. All of them killed stone dead.
I mean, I’d known them all, they weren’t strangers, they were people you saw every day.
I couldn’t look at them. I was out of that barn double quick, and I threw up outside the machinery shed.
Everything else, it was like the world around me had stopped. All I still felt was that sickness. That horror. Whoever did it can’t be human. Whoever did it is a devil. Can’t be anyone from around here, we don’t have monsters like that in these parts.
If Farmer Hauer hadn’t gone on and on at us like that, I’d never have gone into the house to look for the others. Never in my life.
Farmer Hauer kept pressing us to go in, though. We followed him like lambs to the slaughter. He didn’t lose his nerve. I mean, it was almost unbelievable. He didn’t lose his head like us, like Farmer Sterzer and me. Everything he did, he was very calm and self-controlled. And he was the one who knew Danner and his family best. I mean, he was kind of almost like his son-in-law. Well, he was little Josef’s dad, right?
In his place I could never have kept such a good grip on myself. He never lost his nerve, not for a moment. I must say I admired him for that, for being so self-controlled. Almost cold-blooded, he seemed.
I’ve seen things in my time, back under Adolf they called us boys up at fifteen years old. They put us in uniform, gave us guns, and told us to go and shoot at the enemy. The enemy. What a laugh!The enemy was old men and mothers with their children, and I was supposed to shoot at them.
I was stationed in Regensberg. The Yanks had already surrounded the whole town. We were told it had to be defended to the last man. Better dead than fall into enemy hands, they said. What a load of garbage, none of that mattered now.
This group of mothers with their children and old men, they were walking through the town. They wanted the place to surrender without a fight. Only women and children and old men, they were, the other men were all at the front or taken prisoner.
The Party top brass had already headed for the hills, the filthy cowards. We even had to help them pack their cases.
They wanted to scarper for it quick, those gentlemen. They sent us kids, just kids of fifteen we were, out into the street. Told us to shoot the demonstrators. We were supposed to shoot those old men, and the mothers with their children.
So in all the confusion I scarpered too. Threw my gun away and went down to the Danube. I hid in the cellar of a burned-out house there. That evening I swam across the river under cover of darkness. I’m a good swimmer.
I was scared then. Terrified. I was scared to death.
I thought that was the worst thing I’d ever have to see in my life.
On the other side of the Danube, in Walch, an old woman hid me for three days. She didn’t have anything for herself anymore. Hid me till the Yanks came into the town.
She gave me some of her dead husband’s old clothes, too. Because I still had my Wehrmacht uniform on, and if the Americans caught me wearing it they’d have taken me prisoner. And the Nazis, if they’d caught me they’d have shot or hanged me out of hand for deserting, for
Alois Huber, age 25
Supposing I hadn’t stumbled, maybe we wouldn’t have found them so soon—who knows? There was no light to speak of in that barn. The daylight coming in through the open cowshed door wasn’t enough to make the place any brighter.
First I thought I’d fallen over a stick, a piece of wood, some largish object. It was a while before I took it in.
Me and Farmer Sterzer, we just stood there. If Hauer hadn’t been there to clear the straw away, I reckon we’d have stood there forever. I reckon we’d just have stood there unable to move.
When I saw those dead bodies I felt sick.
Not that it’s that easy to upset me. I saw more than enough in the war, believe you me. Everyone who was in the war saw enough dead bodies to last them a lifetime.
But a thing like that. All of them killed stone dead.
I mean, I’d known them all, they weren’t strangers, they were people you saw every day.
I couldn’t look at them. I was out of that barn double quick, and I threw up outside the machinery shed.
Everything else, it was like the world around me had stopped. All I still felt was that sickness. That horror. Whoever did it can’t be human. Whoever did it is a devil. Can’t be anyone from around here, we don’t have monsters like that in these parts.
If Farmer Hauer hadn’t gone on and on at us like that, I’d never have gone into the house to look for the others. Never in my life.
Farmer Hauer kept pressing us to go in, though. We followed him like lambs to the slaughter. He didn’t lose his nerve. I mean, it was almost unbelievable. He didn’t lose his head like us, like Farmer Sterzer and me. Everything he did, he was very calm and self-controlled. And he was the one who knew Danner and his family best. I mean, he was kind of almost like his son-in-law. Well, he was little Josef’s dad, right?
In his place I could never have kept such a good grip on myself. He never lost his nerve, not for a moment. I must say I admired him for that, for being so self-controlled. Almost cold-blooded, he seemed.
I’ve seen things in my time, back under Adolf they called us boys up at fifteen years old. They put us in uniform, gave us guns, and told us to go and shoot at the enemy. The enemy. What a laugh!The enemy was old men and mothers with their children, and I was supposed to shoot at them.
I was stationed in Regensberg. The Yanks had already surrounded the whole town. We were told it had to be defended to the last man. Better dead than fall into enemy hands, they said. What a load of garbage, none of that mattered now.
This group of mothers with their children and old men, they were walking through the town. They wanted the place to surrender without a fight. Only women and children and old men, they were, the other men were all at the front or taken prisoner.
The Party top brass had already headed for the hills, the filthy cowards. We even had to help them pack their cases.
They wanted to scarper for it quick, those gentlemen. They sent us kids, just kids of fifteen we were, out into the street. Told us to shoot the demonstrators. We were supposed to shoot those old men, and the mothers with their children.
So in all the confusion I scarpered too. Threw my gun away and went down to the Danube. I hid in the cellar of a burned-out house there. That evening I swam across the river under cover of darkness. I’m a good swimmer.
I was scared then. Terrified. I was scared to death.
I thought that was the worst thing I’d ever have to see in my life.
On the other side of the Danube, in Walch, an old woman hid me for three days. She didn’t have anything for herself anymore. Hid me till the Yanks came into the town.
She gave me some of her dead husband’s old clothes, too. Because I still had my Wehrmacht uniform on, and if the Americans caught me wearing it they’d have taken me prisoner. And the Nazis, if they’d caught me they’d have shot or hanged me out of hand for deserting, for
Similar Books
