Ch9: What next ?

After registration and interviews were over, life in the camp became routine. In the morning we cleaned the hallways in our building to get meal tickets. After that I was free to look for work. It was not difficult, there were many jobs available around Zirndorf.  My first was in the local brewery.

It was mainly heavy work like loading cases of beer onto trucks.  The job paid a little more than others and there were some benefits like free beer! At least that’s what I thought. The brewery had an evil way to weed out freeloaders, drunks and alcoholics. My first job was on a filling station, capping bottles. Bottles had a wire clasp cap attached to the throat. They came down on a conveyor and I had to grab the bottle, position the cap over the top of the bottle and snap it shut. There were three people on the line capping bottles and we could easily handle the work. The other two guys were Croatians so there was not much conversation between us.

  Wow, free beer was passing by me! I picked up one bottle and put it to the side. It was a good beer and soon I was sipping on a second bottle. The beer was strong. When I was in my third bottle, I noticed that the filling line was running faster and I had trouble keeping up. But when I started to stagger a bit, I realized that the line was not running faster, it was me getting drunk! The other two guys didn’t show much sympathy. If I could not keep up, they would stop the line.

After the coffee break the foreman came to see why the line was slowing down.  He stood for a while behind me and if I missed a bottle he would cap it. Then he gave us a shit. I didn’t understand German but I got the message. We couldn’t stop the line just because one of us was getting drunk. Then he told me if I got drunk again, I would be fired. Luckily it was close to lunch time. Across the street a butcher shop was selling freshly made, still warm, meat-loaf.  I bought a big hunk with two crusty buns and I swear that I have never eaten anything so delicious in my life.  A one hour break gave me enough time to recover and I never got drunk on the job again.  

Beer smuggling could be a wet business

The brewery had no guard at the gate so at the end of our shift we would smuggle two or three bottles into the camp to sell or barter. One guy got greedy and started smuggling six or more. Four went into a hand bag and few more he shoved up side down into his pockets.

                                                                             

.One day as he was walking across the yard, the cap of one bottle in his pants came loose. A stream of beer ran down his leg, leaving a foamy trail. The plant manager happened to be standing in the yard watching the unlucky smuggler marching by. He didn’t say a word, just looked on with scorn. Needless to say that was the end of big time smuggling.    

Zindorf beer since 1674

One of my roommates worked in a kitchen for the US army in Nuremberg. Every day he would bring home food and exchanged it for beer. Then he got the Fremdenpass and had to leave the camp. He asked me if I would like to take his job. Of course I would, it was better than lugging cases of beer. Every morning a big American station wagon arrived to the camp to pick up six people working in the kitchen. I was impressed. “Even the Czech president doesn't ride in car like that” I wrote home.

 We were the kitchen help. We washed dishes, cleaned tables in the dining area, mopped floors and whatever else kitchen helper did. There was more to write home about the American style kitchen.    The dishwasher was a big machine that was loaded with dirty dishes on one side and clean dishes came out  the other. The food was served on a tray, cafeteria-style, and there was no limit on the quantity of food loaded on. For desert there was ice cream, pies, salad, exotic fruits and more.

On a counter were machines dispensing various drinks like Coke and Pepsi. On my first day I was unsure if we were allowed to drink this heavenly liquid. I waited until no one was around, got a glass and put it in the machine. Nothing happened. Like a hillbilly I kept looking for some button to push but there wasn't any.  What do you do?  Suddenly CLICK !  and Coke was filling my                                                         glass.  There was a little lever, Americans are so smart! 

We were cleaning tables and I could not believe how much food was left on trays untouched. All that food was supposed to be dumped into bins to feed pigs. What a waste. We skimmed the best pieces into plastic boxes to feed refugees in the camp. But the gold mine for leftovers was the mess where the generals ate. They had waiters serving food and some generals were very picky, leaving steaks, barbequed chickens and other goodies untouched. Never mind, it would be more appreciated in the camp.            

One day I received a letter with the court date when my refugee application would be assessed. I was sure that I would only get the temporary Fremdenpass but it didn’t matter, I only wanted to stay in Germany until I could immigrate to some still-unknown country.

The easy life was coming to an end, it was time to look for a job. Franta was lucky; he spoke passable German and was trained to operate a lathe and milling machine. He was hired by a machine shop. They even offered to move him and find him place to live. 

I used to work as a mechanical draftsman but without speaking German my chances of getting a job were slim.

Then on the bulletin board there was a note that the British Army has job openings and would be coming to interview people. It looked interesting so I signed up for the interview. The recruiting officer wore a spotless uniform with two rows of war ribbons. I tried my English on him but his accent was strange.  He was a Polish officer who had been serving in the British Army since the war.

“Our unit transports tanks. We need drivers and mechanics. You will live in army barracks and be treated like soldiers. The first week we will teach how to march, turn, how to salute an officer and how to shoot an FN rifle. Then you will have the option of going to school and learning English. It is a two month course, and on the completion you should be able to communicate in English. After that you will take a four week course to learn how to drive a heavy truck. You will be employed by the British Army and can quit your job any time. Many people wanting to immigrate found this work very convenient.”

I could not believe my luck, I didn’t have to look for a job or place to live!  On top of that I would learn English in school. It could not be worse than the Czech Army. I signed the application without any hesitation.

The time came to part ways with Franta. Our dream about trekking in the Himalayas turned out to be just a dream. It would not work anyway, we had different personalities. Franta was a fatalist. “What is supposed to happen will happen” was his motto. In my eyes he was a risk taker and stubborn. When he made up his mind, nothing would change it and I had to go along with him. The time had come to strikeout on my own.

One day we had a visit from another roommate that had left the camp couple of weeks after our arrival. He now worked in Nuremberg and came to show off the car he had just bought. “Let’s go for a drive somewhere, or for a trip, just find some interesting place we can visit.” He was tempting us.        

 “I want to see mountains, let’s go to Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany, it is only 150 km away” Suggested Franta.  There were five of us wanting to go: the driver, his buddy, Franta, Vojak and me. It was too late to make it to Zugspitze but we were keen to go somewhere. Franta still wanted to see Zugspitze so we decided to drive there at night. 

After a couple of hours we got hungry and stopped in a restaurant for bratwurst with sauerkraut and a couple of beers.  Everyone was having a good time, especially Vojak. Usually he kept to himself and didn't go out too much.

“The German police told me to be very careful, not to go out in the evening and to stay away from people I didn't know. The Czech government could send somebody to kill me or even worse to kidnap me and smuggle me back.” 

2

We kept driving, stopping in a few pubs along the way to stretch our legs and to have a couple beers. By midnight we were fairly drunk. The driver was the worst kind of drunk. He insisted that he could handle driving, that it was his car and refused to pull over. The car was all over the road and the co-driver had to keep grabbing the steering wheel. We were scared. 

After one close encounter with a guardrail, Franta, who was sitting behind the driver suddenly leaned forward and grabbed the ignition keys. The car stopped. There was some drunken pushing, shoving, yelling, arguing and then silence. We all fell asleep. I woke up early the next morning, cold and sore. I got out of the car to stretch. I looked around and could not believe my eyes. 

Rising above the morning mist was a fairytale, an enchanted castle, with turrets and towers and windows. Was I dreaming? No, the castle was there. What was it? Where were we? None of us knew. We had made it to Zugspitze but the castle remained a mystery. Some fifteen years later that I saw a poster of it in a travel agency. It was the Schloss Neuschwanstein build by the crazy Bavarian King Ludwig II in 1870’s. Hundreds of thousand visitors come to see the castle every year. Even Sleeping Beauty of Disneyland chose to live there.