The Abbeville Boys
Chapter 12: Joseph Gets a Morale Boost
While Kurt was enjoying the benefits of being a Luftwaffe fighter pilot. Joseph was wallowing away at Dachau. Day after day was a grind trying to stay alive. The news from the outsiders coming into the camp was not good. The Germans were taking over everything. The news about the allies attacking the Germans was premature. They were starting to seem invincible. This could be the end for Joseph and all Jews. No one could hold out in this atmosphere for years. Joseph was beaten down. All is lost. He didn’t know what was going on with Kurt or Hilda. Maybe they were already dead.
Joseph had resigned himself, there was no hope of escape. One day, however, a friend he had grown close to who worked in the kitchen, Daniel Fisher, went missing. The first thought was he had been taken out and shot. After a few days word got back to the camp he escaped. He hid himself in a garbage can from the kitchen and was loaded onto a truck and taken out of the camp. Once out of camp he crawled out of the garbage can when the truck stopped for gas and ran into the woods. That’s the last time anyone saw him. The Germans searched the area but were unable to locate the prisoner. The people who talked to Fisher before he escaped said he was going to try and make it to Switzerland. It wasn’t far and with help from the Austrian resistance he could make it.
The Austrian resistance came through and he made it into Switzerland. The resistance was not organized at all, and it took a while till he reached the Swiss border.
He went to the British embassy for a meeting. Daniel met with an embassy bureaucrat named John Davis. Daniel sat down and began to explain, “The Germans have built concentration camps all over the country. They bring in Jews and undesirables to do slave labor. The people who can’t work are gassed and burned. It’s gotten to the point where they’re killing hundreds every day. Something needs to be done.”
Davis sat there staring at Daniel, “You’re telling me the Germans are killing hundreds of people every day. I don’t believe it. Even the Huns aren’t that brutal. I’ll check it out through proper channels.”
That was political speak for don’t call us we’ll call you. Daniel sat there a second, got up and walked out. It was time to take care of himself. He spent the rest of the war in Switzerland working at a restaurant. A few years after the war was over, he migrated to Isreal to live out his life.
Back at Dachau the Germans never said anything about Daniel, which gave hope to the other inmates. He must have made it out or they would’ve been parading his body up and down the compound. Now, everyone was looking for a way to escape.
The men in the housing barracks were coming up with all kinds of ideas. Joseph needed a way out of the ditches. Just the fact they were talking about getting out made him feel better.
Another way the inmates could tell Daniel got away was the guards were cracking down on everything. If a guard came up and heard anyone discussing something about the outside of the camp, they would shoot him in the head. The body would be dragged off and burned in the oven. It was deadly to get caught talking about escape.
In the evening the men in the barracks would talk about mundane things going on in the camp. Then, for a few minutes they would whisper about getting out of the ditches. They had other inmates watching for guards coming around the barracks listening to what they were saying.
Plans were discussed for a diversion in the ditch and some of the inmates would overpower the trustees. The other chosen inmates could then run off while the guard’s attention was on the diversion. They could head south and get help going to Switzerland. It wasn’t far and the weather was good.
After more detailed plotting several days later the inmates decided to implement the plan. They picked several men for the diversion and several for the actual escape. Joseph was not picked for the diversion or the escape. Morale was high among all the prisoners. Daniel most likely made it, now it’s their turn.
The next day the inmates went to the ditch. After a few hours’ work the plan started. A trustee came up behind a worker and hit him on the head with a cable, killing him. He was close to the designated diversion team. The three men jumped the trustee and beat him to death with his own cable. The SS guards were stunned as men began scattering. There were three men back down the cable line who made a break for it. They climbed out of the ditch as the guards ran towards the disturbance. The escape team cut through a small barrier and into the woods. Since the cable work was remote there were no back up guards.
The SS guards converged on the scene and began randomly shooting prisoners with machine guns. Men were falling all over. Some of the prisoners attempted to overpower the guards but were killed before they could reach them. Joseph got down in a low part of the ditch behind the cable. Bullets bounced off the cable protecting him. The guards finally stopped shooting as an officer ran up and ordered them to stop. The officer knew if the guards killed the prisoners there wouldn’t be anyone to lay the cable, which was essential to the German war effort.
After the shooting stopped Joseph came up out of his hiding spot and the guards ordered everyone back to the barracks for the day. Several hours later the inmates were buzzing about an SS truck coming into the compound. The three escapees got out and stood in front of the truck. They were shot in the head. As they lay on the ground they were shot numerous times. The Commandant of the camp then announced to everyone, “They will now be taken to the ovens and burned.”
Joseph returned to the barracks and thought, ‘What a stupid plan. Twenty, maybe thirty men died today. That’s all there is here is death. Sure, Daniel might have made it. Even if he did it was a fluke.’ His morale plummeted.