To the Rhine
The church, nothing more than a skeleton… bodies everywhere, groaning wounded everywhere. A nurse gives them water.
An officer speaks to us: “Follow the ribbons, stay low, follow the ribbons, stay low,… Go!”
A few hundred meters, he said, the most dangerous part… everything is in the open and no sky can be seen.
A white ribbon leads us into the void…
Bullets flying from all sides…
‘Follow the ribbons, stay low‘
No way back…
I think of Sarah, my love,… Sarah… The dark and the rain is our salvation…
After just a few steps we hit the ground. Once again under cover… The moaning of cattle… then again silence… a few meters of mud crawling,… around us, dead cows like giant mushrooms, behind which we take cover.
Poor cow, she is still warm… head low, don‘t look, stay rigid, don‘t breathe…
Bullets whistle low over our heads…
Then it‘s quiet? Maybe they are reloading?
Quick,.. quick,.. go!
I look around,.. no one behind me…
the dark spot in the grass is a dead body…
so close to salvation, gripped by death.
I almost want to puke…
Go,.. head low,.. go,… run for it…
there, … the dull mirror of water, the Rhine..
There are hundreds of us… and only a few boats…
Oh Sarah, oh Sarah… I run, I hear the water…
I think Fuck, … I can‘t swim…
Part 1: Leaving Hartenstein
Part 2: Through the woods
Part 3: Out of the woods
