The Mascot (14 page)

“Yes,” my father answered; fortunately he seemed oblivious to my tone.

“But my favorite was the emblem on the collar of the jacket. There was a little black patch on either side of the neck. One had a stripe for my rank as Sturmann, and the other one had a symbol on it—an outline of the sun with three stars inside it, the symbol of the Latvian SS. I loved that one.

“Best of all, though, was the one Commander Lobe had. He'd been awarded one of the highest military medals of the German army: the German Medal—Gold Standard, which he wore around his neck on a ribbon. He would let me play with that, too, for hours on end. It kept me entertained whenever I got bored.

“In fact, Uncle told me that Commander Lobe had traveled to Berlin and received the medal from Hitler himself,” my father added, both ashamed of and visibly impressed by Lobe's achievement.

I was aghast at the predicament of the innocent boy-soldier oblivious to the significance of the medal. The boy had treated as a toy a medal awarded to Lobe for his horrendous crimes.

“It was sometime in the midsummer of 1943 when we left Riga for the Russian front. Our first port of call in occupied Russia was Velikiye Luki. I traveled with the commander up until that point, but immediately after we reached Velikiye Luki, the commander was taken up with serious military business, and I was handed back to Sergeant Kulis.

“I'd become a bit of a celebrity by that stage—I think that an article about me had been published in a newspaper in Riga, where I was pictured with Commander Lobe. So many of the soldiers knew about me. They were always wanting to play with me or simply have me around. Sometimes I'd get overwhelmed by it all. I'd be tired and grizzly and then Sergeant Kulis would keep the soldiers at bay.

“We must have stayed in Velikiye Luki for about a month. It was a base camp for our brigade, and the troop spent time doing extra training for the front line. During the day the sergeant was often involved in military activities away from base camp. When he returned in the evening, we'd sit together on the steps outside the barracks entrance. He would quietly smoke a cigarette, and I'd be by his side, scraping dried mud off his boots.

“I had my regular duties as well. The main one was to tidy our barracks once the soldiers had left for the day's training. But for most of the day I was left to my own devices. I'd chat with the soldiers who were off duty, and on rare occasions, if Commander Lobe allowed it, I would visit him in his makeshift office. He was always pleased to see me, and he'd sit me on his knee and ask me if I was being a good corporal. But when he was very busy and preoccupied I'd be told to sit quietly in the corner.

“There were so many visitors coming and going all day long. Some of them were clearly very important, German officers, for example, who arrived with entourages of assistants. But I can't remember any of their names. The commander didn't usually introduce me to them. I would simply salute them and after that he would dismiss me, telling me to return to my barracks.”

“Eventually we were ordered to move farther north into Novgorod. We stopped briefly in the occupied city, where we then changed trains before heading north toward Volhov. In a matter of days we reached the Volhov area. There was no town or village that I can recall. Simply a train junction that was the end of the line. We had to change over to funny little trains, more like toy trains, on narrow-gauge tracks. There were no carriages as such, only open wagons that we had to crouch in. These took us as far as possible into the swamps of Volhov and then we had to dismount again. From there we made our way deeper into the swamps on foot along narrow wooden planks elevated off the ground.

“It was eerie. We were surrounded by trees that had no branches or leaves. Just trunks standing upright, like skeletons stretching up into the sky. I remember one of the soldiers joked that we were on patrol for ghosts.

“The heart of the swamps was like nothing I'd ever experienced even during my time alone in the forest. It was hellish. Everywhere was covered in mud and the stifling humidity was unbearable. It didn't seem to drop at all, day or night.

“On top of this, the air was thick with clouds of mosquitoes and other bugs so that within hours of arriving every part of our bodies that were exposed to air were covered in bright red bites and swollen lumps, even on our faces. They itched like hell.

“By night we slept in dugouts in small groups of about four men. This was terrible, too—the bottom of the dugouts often contained a few inches of water, which we had to scoop out. But the bottom always remained muddy.

“And then there were the rats that loved the dugouts. We could see their red eyes glowing up at us as we prepared to climb in for the night. We'd shoot at them, or if there were too many of them we'd simply toss down a hand grenade to kill them in one go. Then we'd have to fish them out before we could climb down to get some sleep. All this on top of the humidity and the mosquitoes. Sometimes the soldiers were too exhausted to care and just dropped down on the ground wherever they could and slept.” My father shook his head in disbelief.

“In our crude camp there was an open kitchen that was equipped with an enormous cauldron for cooking. Three times a day, day in and day out, the same meal—a kind of soupy gruel—was cooked in it. It simmered away all day long. Before meals it was poured into a large trough at which the soldiers would line up, as if they were farm animals waiting for their turn at the watering hole. It tasted rancid, and the soldiers would constantly complain about it in low voices.

“The soldiers always put me at the head of the queue. ‘Watch out,' they would shout. ‘Let the little mascot through.' After my bowl had been filled I'd find a place to sit with the sergeant if he was around.

“The soldiers always passed me extra pieces of food from their kits. Our troop had received a small supply of Laima chocolate, and the soldiers would always slip me a chunk from their rations, which they received from Laima, the official sponsor of the Eighteenth and the Second Division that kept them supplied with chocolate.

“Unlike in Velikiye Luki things were now much less regulated and orderly. I would remain behind in the camp, but there wasn't much to do apart from my few duties. I'd try to be of use fetching things for the soldiers or helping them with their laundry. Not that any of us were ever very clean. It was hard to keep your dignity.

“More often than not the soldiers wanted me to simply sit and talk with them. They'd tell me stories about the villages they came from, or they'd talk endlessly about their families or girlfriends or school. To tell the truth, behind their camaraderie many of them seemed very lonely and frightened by their situation. And some of them seemed almost as young and childish as me. I couldn't equate these young men who were my friends with their savagery as soldiers.

“Sometimes I would be left alone for hours. Nobody watched me, and I'd venture outside the camp and often stray some distance away. But I always kept within earshot of the sound of gunfire and used that as a bearing to find my way back to camp.

“I often came across dead bodies as I had done in the forest. Some of the corpses were badly decomposed—they must have been there for months—and judging from the scraps of uniform that clung to their remains, some of them were soldiers. They'd been left where they had died, without even a burial in an unmarked grave. I'd become bigger and stronger by then, so I had no difficulty in turning them faceup in order to check their pockets.

“Then I'd sometimes come across a photograph of a loved one or an ID card, which I'd gently place back on them. It felt wrong to take anything from them now that I was being cared for.

“I'd put a twig or two over the body just to pretend that it was buried. I thought of it as my special secret duty. ‘Nobody in my battalion needs to know about this,' I thought. I performed this ritual on every single corpse I came across regardless of whether they were soldiers or not. I guessed that some of them might even have been the enemy
partizani,
but I did the same for them.

“I always made my way back to camp before the light faded. I didn't want any trouble.”

“One day when I'd ventured away from the camp, I was taken over by a sort of madness. ‘Here's your chance,' I thought. ‘Nobody will miss you. Just keep heading into the swamp and away from the brigade.' I was sure that I could survive, since I'd done so before in the forest.

“The afternoon wore on and I trudged deeper and deeper into the swamps. It was hard going. I kept falling down in the mud and struggled to get myself up again. The sun was behind me, so I knew that I was heading east. Gradually the sunlight grew thinner, but I didn't stop nor did I look back one single time.

“When I'd been alone in the forest before, I had grown used to it, despite my fear and desperation. But this was different and somehow unnerving, with the strange skeletons of trees that rose out of the swirling mist and noises of a sort I'd not heard before—creaking and whooshing sounds. There wasn't even the noise of birds. Perhaps the war had frightened them away. I started to think that my attempt to escape had not been such a good idea.

“I panicked. I turned and ran back in the direction of the setting sun, hoping that I would eventually reach the soldiers. I scrambled on and on through the swamp and the broken trees with their withered arms.

“It was almost twilight when I stopped for breath. There was still no sign of the camp, nor the sound of gunfire, and I hadn't been able to locate any of the markers that usually pointed me in the right direction. I realized then that I was completely lost.

“There was nothing to do but to keep on walking. To calm myself and keep myself company I chatted to myself in Latvian and sang songs that came to me.”

My father hummed a few words in a soft voice. The lyrics were in a language I did not recognize. Nor could I identify the melody.

“Where did you learn that?” I asked.

“I don't know. I just know it.”

I was intrigued by my father's recollection. Had it been something he had picked up from his mother? But my curiosity went unsatisfied as my father dived abruptly back into his story.

“Then I noticed something in the distance,” he said. “At first I thought I was imagining it. In that gray wasteland of dead wood I saw what seemed to be a clump of green trees.” My father gave a small laugh.

“As I made my way closer to it, I realized that I hadn't gone mad after all. It was real. I was relieved. I knew how to take refuge safely in a forest.

“I plunged into the rich undergrowth, then I stopped. Once again I panicked. ‘What if this forest is ruled by those ghostly trees outside? What if this is a trap,' I thought, ‘to catch me and devour me?'

“By the time night had fallen I'd reverted to my old strategy. I'd climbed a tree and tied myself into a fork in the branches, this time with the leather belt from my uniform. Nothing came that night to frighten me—the trees did not come to life, nor were there any sounds of wolves or bears or other predators.

“In the morning I remained where I was, perched high up in the tree, and looked all around, trying to get my bearings. I was surprised because through the tops of the trees I could see the outline of a city in the far distance. I thought that it must've been Leningrad because Sergeant Kulis had spoken of how close we were to ‘the greatest of Russian cities.'

“I decided to make my way out of the forest and head in the direction of Leningrad. ‘If I can see it,' I thought, ‘then it cannot be too far away.' I unbuckled my belt and clambered down the tree. I wanted to reach Leningrad as quickly as possible. I took my bearings from the rising sun and headed off in what I estimated was a northerly direction.

“I'd taken no more than a dozen steps when I heard voices and footsteps nearby. Whoever they were, they were almost upon me. I scrambled back up the tree and held my breath. Then almost directly below me I saw about six people come to a halt. They were carrying guns. There were men and women, all quite young and speaking in a language I recognized—Russian.”

“You knew that you were Russian?” I asked.

“I didn't think of myself as being any nationality, but I recognized some of the words that Kulis had tested on me and that he'd told me were Russian. And the other soldiers had kept insisting that I was Russian.”

“How did you feel about your false identity?”

My father shrugged. “What could I do? Even though I knew it wasn't the truth, part of me accepted it as such. In any case, I had no clear idea who I really was, so what was the point of protesting against the identity they'd given me?”

“But you knew at least what had happened to your family. You realized that you were Jewish. Wasn't there anybody you felt you could confide in?”

“Not a soul. That would've meant certain death. It was clear Kulis didn't want to talk about it. I was an enemy of the Nazis and the Latvian people.”

After several moments my father returned to his story. “I sensed that these people standing below my tree were the
partizani
that the soldiers were always cursing. One tiny move and they might discover me; if they saw my SS uniform, I would be shot on the spot. But then suddenly it also occurred to me that if they were the enemies of the Latvians, then perhaps I should be on their side.