by David Thibodeau
Our guards in the German prison camp in the Lillienstein Hills hoped to avoid capture by the Russians, so they marched us down the road early in the morning May 7, 1945. Each of the 1200 ragged prisoners got 200 grams of sauerbrot for the trip. We reached Pirna, 19 kilometers to the west, by about 10 AM. Progress was slow as our straggling column got mixed in pell-mell with retreating German army units and civilians with horse drawn carts choking the narrow road. After walking all day, we were led to a big barn for the night. In the morning, our guards had disappeared, and we were on our own. Our direction had turned south toward the Czech border.
Although it was VE-Day and the war was technically over, we didn't know it, and continued the next day in small groups, mingling with the German vehicles and civilians, and were completely ignored by the German soldiers. At one point, however, we came upon smartly-dressed German officers who were setting up an anti-tank gun to command a stretch of road. When I asked one of them for a cigaret, he kicked me smartly in the rear with his highly polished boot.
Russian fighters began strafing the column, so we left the road and followed it parallel through the bordering fields. We came upon two badly wounded Americans who both had been hit high on the leg with 20 mm shells. One of our party, an aid man, volunteered to stay with them.
We slept in a ditch that night after a lady refused us permission to sleep in her barn. In the morning, a steady stream of GMC 6X6 trucks filled with Russian troops were rolling through, and we knew we were liberated, and were no longer prisoners of war. We talked to the Russians in pidgin German, and they told us we were kings in Germany, and to take anything we wanted. We moved into the lady's house then, the one who had denied us shelter in her barn, and had a feast she willingly served up.
We made our way with commandeered German cars, including hers, and horse carts to Teplice, Czechoslovakia, hitchhiking part of the way with Russian vehicles.
After three days of living like kings in Teplice, wearing white shirts, smoking fine cigars, and eating prime sausages, we boarded a train got up by an American lieutenant and took a three day ride to the American First Army to rejoin our countrymen.
They sure looked fat to us scarecrows.
