The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 48. THE FIELD THAT GROANED WHO that lived through it could ever forget those terrible forty-eight hours when, without pause, the heavy German tanks rumbled through Belgrade, shaking even the three-foot-thick walls of our prison ? They were bound southwards to where, on June 28, the Chetniks had risen, as Vaso had predicted, and thrown off the conquerors. The Chetniks, after a period of deceptive humility, had dug up their buried guns again and had risen. And so, almost three quarters of Serbia was free once more. None of the other overrun countries had succeeded in doing a thing like that. And the Germans, who had sneered at the Serbs as overrated slaves, from that day sneered no more. Their hatred of the Serbs became a veritable passion-an obsession. Against the mechanized might of a Nazi punitive expedition the Chetniks could oppose only their bodies and their rifles. So the Germans surrounded each town and each village. They seized all law courts and all schools. They took every judge, every lawyer, every leading man, every school teacher, men and women. They took the upper classes of every school of whatever grade, boys and girls. The Germans made these men, women, and little children dig trenches. The Germans stood them up facing the trenches, their backs to the machine guns. Then, the brave German officers giving the order, the brave German soldiers mowed them down, so that they fell forward into the trenches. Many have described how the children died crying: "Long live Serbia-we are Serbian children!" Then on the dead and on the half-dead alike the butchers shoveled back a little earth. And drove their tanks over the shallow graves. Dead and half-dead alike: you don't believe it? Let me tell you that I myself spoke to a man, his soul frozen in a horror that would never wholly melt, who told me-and I know he spoke the truth-that as he passed by a German execution field near Belgrade, he had heard that field groaning. People will come after the war whining that "the German soldiers, poor things, only had to obey their orders." I say that if such an order could have been given to our soldiers, not one, not one man in our army, navy, or air force, could have been found to carry it out. Any man who had made a move to obey such an order would have been killed on the spot by his fellow soldiers. It was a national ideal and national wholehearted support that produced this German fiendishness. Hitler himself was a man of the people, produced by the people. I say that every German in Germany is guilty of every atrocity. Nothing was too contemptible, too brutal, too petty, or too mean for the Germans by way of demonstrating their "master superiority." We had in the prison for a few days a stern old Scotch spinster, Miss Jane Allison, who afterwards in internment was my dear friend. She had for years run a small kindergarten in Belgrade. She was released and then rearrested and taken to internment. She could endure her own suffering quietly, but the thing that made her really ill with fury was the German treatment of the Serb peasants, small farmers. They were mostly very young boys or quite old men, since all the strong men were away in the mountains to fight. These boys and aged men were drawn up, chained in long rows in the corridors, their faces to the wall. Then the German officers went along the corridors with loaded clubs, pounding them, with the full strength of their arms, on the neck and shoulders: utterly pointless, since they were in any case to be killed. There was endless screaming, screaming: the prison was filled with screams. But it was not the Serbs. No Serb, not even the smallest boy, ever screamed. It was the Germans themselves, their faces devilishly distorted, who did the screaming. The Serbs stood without cringing and with no sign of fear. They feared only being less than Serbs. Finally the Germans, amazed and beside themselves with frustration and fury, herded them out to the barking guns-the final confession of failure. Calm courage and dignity invariably confused and defeated them. Two fine-looking Orthodox priests were brought in. Quietly imposing, with their thick gray beards, long, black soutanes, and tall hats, they gazed straight into the eyes of their captors. The warders were eager to humiliate them, to kick them, hit them in the face, knock off their hats. I watched Hahn-I knew him so well by now- trying to work up his courage to strike them before us all in the yard. He would scream and run up to them with his arm drawn back. Then, as they waited calmly for the blow, his arm would fall and I could hear him curse as he turned away. How gently, how steadfastly they must have looked at the pitiless guns which soon took their lives tool Only when they were not present could Hahn give rein to his spitefulness. A Bible was sent in for one of the priests. Hahn pounced upon it with glee. "What's this?" he shouted as guards gathered round for the fun. "Ha," he snarled, "Ha ha! Hebrew folklore, fairy tales for idiots!" He opened the Bible, spat upon it like a monkey, and tore it ostentatiously into pieces. "Into the garbage can, where such stuff belongs!" he screamed. A young guard, holding his nose to the raucous merriment of the rest, ran and threw it into the garbage. At our next round in the yard, L. and I slipped aside to the cans, got it out and carefully cleaned it. It was in three pieces but only torn down the back. We hid it under our clothes and later succeeded in smuggling it to the priest, who used it, I hope, to comfort all in his cell. About this time another Orthodox priest came into the prison. He was blind and could only move about under the guidance of a friend, who was a Jew-the Orthodox Church is admirably tolerant. Under the Germans all Jews had to wear yellow armbands as well as great yellow stars front and back, and I don't know what other "decorations." Among other restrictions, they were not allowed to use the streetcars. The blind priest, walking one day with his guide to a distant call, met a high German officer acquaintance who asked where he was going. Upon being told, the officer said: "But that is far. Why do you not take a streetcar?" "I cannot do so," replied the priest gently, "for I have a friend with me, and he is a Jew." "So," shouted the German, "because of your dear friend, a Jew, you must walk?" "Yes," said the priest, "because of my friend who may not use the cars, I prefer to walk." "Ha ha," laughed the officer. "If you love him so much, this Jew, it's a wonder you wouldn't want to kiss him publicly!" "Certainly," said the priest. "Gladly will I kiss my friend!" So there, in the crowded main street, he embraced the Jew and kissed him. Strange to say-one likes to tell even a fairly human thing about a Nazi-the next day an order came out that the Jews could ride at the back of the streetcar trailers. But soon the Jews were all hounded away to the ghettos-to death. Now I must mention what became of Igon, once the chatty partner in the two-man business of keeping a watch on me. When the Germans arrived in Belgrade he immediately rose to high position: he became, in fact, Gestapo Commissar for Jew Control. Probably he still remembered how he had led a Jew to his death. At any rate Igon distinguished himself by his leniency and so earned the gratitude of the wretched Jews. His own servant was a Jewish boy. Igon used to lock him in his apartment, taking the key with him when he went to his office, so that nothing could happen to him while he was away. Nevertheless, one morning Igon went off to his work as usual and -was never heard of again. He simply vanished as other Germans vanished and will continue to vanish from Serbia. After his disappearance, the treatment of the Jews became much more inhuman. The Serbs loathed the German persecutions of Jews, against whom there had never been the slightest feeling or prejudice in Serbia. At first, when they saw their Jewish friends forced to do street work beyond their strength, they joined them and helped them. When they were forbidden to do so, the Serb women shouted curses at the German soldiers and had to be driven away with gun butts. At last they were so severely punished that they had to think of their own families. Then, in winter, when rows of Jews were made to lie down and make ridges in the snow with their noses for the amusement of the Germans, all Serbs immediately withdrew. Many Jews are at this moment being hidden by Serbian families at the risk of their own lives. I hope the Jews of the world are aware how loyally the Serbs tried to stand by their countrymen of the Jewish race. Here again the Serbian record is, I think, remarkable. I may be accused of exaggeration in constantly reverting to the heroism of the Serbs. But it was all of a piece with a national character that showed most brightly in the blackest time of misery. There is that steady fortitude about them as of men long inured to war. There is no braggadocio, which is usually a sign of secret uncertainty. Indeed they are curiously humble, knowing themselves to be lacking in sophistication; simple, if you like, but impervious to subtly reasoned side issues. It has been often noted by trained observers that of all Europeans the Serbs were least affected by the nervous and cloudy isms of the postwar period. They know with undeviating, unquestionable certainty what they want. They have known it for a thousand years. It is settled. They want freedom. They are satisfied to be just Serbs. And to them the word "Serb" is only another word for courage. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel