or so of us had already been thrown to the ground, all of us bruised, some kicked and concussed. He leapt on the stallion and rode him until he was foaming at the mouth, sweating and breathing heavily, then eased his grip on the reins, shouted at him and gave him a pat, at which his steed stood still and let himself be led meekly away. One of the old hands told me the secret was that you must never let the horse see that you are as afraid as he is. I once saw him first yell at and then punch an untamed horse, which then obeyed him.
It took me weeks to discover why we were looking after the stallions in this way and what the Germans intended to do with them. Their planning for the future was invariably meticulous. They had discovered that the condition of the roads in Russia, or sometimes the complete lack of roads, meant that horse-drawn transport was much more efficient in winter than motor vehicles, whose diesel could freeze at temperatures of minus 40 centigrade, as it did at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad in 1941. That was why Edek had been taken off the previous summer and why they were using Polish slave labour to build roads with clinker and logs. They were obviously intent, even now in the middle of the war, on ensuring a supply of high-quality horses. In the spring, starting at the end of February shortly after I arrived, they began to send out two or three stallions at a time, accompanied by as many keepers, to every part of the Ukraine and eastern Poland, where they would travel from village to village for the local farmers to bring their mares for insemination. That way they would not have to trust to chance or what the local population could provide but would have thousands of good young work horses each year.
The other boys talked of Kiev, Vilnius, Minsk and the Carpathian Mountains, and it was planned that the mating season should continue until July – thus next year’s foals would be born between February and June. In three years’ time there would be a regular and plentiful supply of horses for use in the east; no matter that three years later the Nazis would be beaten back into Germany, they planned for the long term. I began to count the days until I would be sent off and I hoped it would be somewhere near Hrubieszow. As it turned out I was not disappointed and they despatched me to a belt of villages 30 miles from my family town. No one was sent to a more westerly location; luck was still on my side, as the area east of the Bug was where the Germans had their main problems with transport and which they made the main focus of the breeding programme.
When we set off at the beginning of March, we trotted for two to three hours at a time, slowing down for a quarter of an hour to walking pace to let the horses rest a little. A lorry with basic provisions waited for us at appointed places along the route and checked that we were still on course. Before leaving, we were told that any attempt to escape would be punished by execution and I was not stupid enough to try anything until it was safer. The snow had all but melted, everywhere was dripping wet, and so the weather presented us with few problems, but the cheap leather saddle cut right through me and every muscle in my body began to ache. My legs were so sore that I could hardly walk at the end of the day and my backside felt as if it had no flesh left on it.
The German soldier in charge of us was in his late fifties – this was not a job for young, able-bodied men – and once we had got as far as Wlodizimierz he could not really care what we did. He just wanted to get back home to his family, like the driver who had given me a lift to Kremenets. He tried once to show me photographs of his grandchildren and clearly wanted someone to talk to, but I was not interested. There was widespread hunger in this region in 1943, as there had been the previous winter, because of German confiscation of goods and livestock. In the summer the peasants had been so hungry that they harvested wheat before it was ripe. This year they would be lucky if they managed to plant any at all. Nevertheless, from all the nearby villages they brought in their mares to be inseminated by the stallions.
Escape would be simple, I thought, as we were not guarded and all I had to do was wait until my legs had recovered enough to be able to walk and then I could set off. But escape to what? I had been away for a total of four months, the war had entered a new phase after Stalingrad and the Germans were now retreating on all fronts. For Poland that meant only that the violence was about to intensify. A Pole in the village told me of fresh Ukrainian massacres of Polish civilians east of the Bug. I had no idea whether massacres had already started, or were about to start, on the western side and neither did I have an idea of what to expect if I got back home, how many of my family would still be alive.
It was a journey of only about 30 miles and I thought I could do it in a couple of nights’ walking. The curfew never applied properly to rural areas and I was careful to travel at night and to stick to the fields and forests. I had a little suitcase I had picked up in the stables which contained not much more than a dirty towel and I tried to drop it to the ground if anyone saw me so as not to arouse suspicion and make them think I was just an agricultural worker plodding his way home. Once I reached the Bug, though, there was nothing for it but to cross the river by one of the bridges, and this meant confronting the German guards who were stationed on both banks.
‘Hands up!’ the first one shouted. My suitcase fell to the ground.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Hrubieszow,’ I replied and there followed a few more words in German that I did not understand. I knew he could shoot me there and then if he felt inclined to do so, but something told me he was not the sort to do that. Instead he led me into the barrack room to see the sergeant who was sitting at his desk fiddling with his papers and I prayed that my student card would do the trick yet again. The German respect for documents really is unfathomable. He stared at it, noted it was stamped in Hrubieszow, then stared at me, not quite believing that anyone, even a filthy Polack, could be quite as dirty as I was. I had several months’ grime ground into every pore of my face and no doubt I stank too; my clothes were black and threadbare; it had been four months since I had bathed or changed. He then opened my case and prodded around with his stick, evidently afraid of soiling his hands on what he found there. Apart from the blackened towel, I had a kilo or so of yellow tobacco leaves I had carried from Kremenets, hoping I could get some money for them somewhere. He seemed more bewildered than curious and reacted as if I represented a life-form he had not previously encountered, perhaps only read about in books.
After checking once more where I was heading, he asked where I had come from. I said I had been visiting an aunt whom no one in my family had seen since the Bolshevik invasion and retreat. He accepted this, perhaps reassured that I had relatives like other human beings, but still wanted to know why I was so filthy. He then gestured in the direction of the river and, calling me a ‘filthy Polish pig’, suggested that I wash myself. This made me seethe with anger. I thought that if he had slept rough for as long as I had and then walked and ridden as far as I had, then he too would be filthy. He then escorted me onto the bridge, picked up the phone and informed his comrades on the other side that they should let me pass. The cross-examination had been painless and much quicker than 1 had dared expect. I was free to move on and not far from home, but for some reason the insult hurt me and I had difficulty swallowing my pride and anger.
Back in Hrubieszow I had two choices of accommodation: my Polish landlady with her Ukrainian lover or Uncle Edek’s. My family had all survived: Kasimir, Stanislaw and Anthony were all still alive. The Germans had changed, though, and there were still lots of black armbands to mark the defeat at Stalingrad. Returning after a lengthy absence meant I noticed the decay and devastation more than I had previously. By this time there were very few Jews left in the ghetto; those who were left were too old and infirm to escape and they did not seem to be guarded properly any more.
In May my mother insisted I go to Zakrzowek to lie low after another batch of Poles had been taken hostage and shot. My grandmother gave me a suitcase full of meat to take to my father’s family, who, despite their estate, had far less to eat because of the German overseer. Ironically, peasants and small landowners had more food at their disposal than the owners of larger farms, say over 100 acres, which the Germans administered themselves. My maternal grandmother had plenty, as she could always declare fewer piglets to the German authorities than actually arrived in the litter. She wanted me to take my father’s family more than the five or six kilos of bacon that fitted into my case.
I took the train to Lublin, where I met Aunt Sophie who was setting off for her parents’ farm because of the danger posed by staying in Lublin. We found various members of the