War Diaries (May 8) (nonfiction)
War Diary quotations for May 8.
Quotations
Mister Park: August 24, 1943
Diary of a Japanese Military Brothel Manager is a book of diaries written by a clerk who worked in Japanese military brothels, also known as "comfort stations", in Burma and Singapore during World War II. The author, a Korean businessman known only as Mister Park, kept a daily diary between 1922 and 1957.
I went to the official in charge of business at the Peace Preservation Section of the Singapore Police Department and applied for employment permits for the workwomen.
Sisi Wilczek (May 1945)
Sisi Wilczek (now Countess Geza Andrassy) wrote the diary notes below about events she experienced in May 1945. These notes appear in Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov, known to her friends as Missie.
Vassiltchikov (or Vassiltchikoff) (11 January 1917 – 12 August 1978) was a Russian princess who witnessed the effects of the bombing of Berlin, and the events leading to the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler in the 20 July Plot.
In early May 1945, Missie and Sissie lived in the Königinvilla, near Gmunden in Austria, near Bavaria. General George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army reached Gmunden on 4 May 1945; the following day saw the surrender of all German forces in Bavaria. Four days later, on 8 May, the war in Europe came formally to an end. There is a gap in Missie's diary during this time, but Sisi wrote about their experiences.
One day an American jeep with two officers drove up to the Königinvilla. Since neither the estate manager, Herr Stracke, nor Fräulein Schneider spoke any English, Missie, who was working in the Cumberland Hospital across the park, was summoned to interpret. The two American officers visibly took an instant interest in Missie and, allegedly because the Russians were advancing and they wished to protect her from them, tried to persuade her to drive away with them. She refused, saying that she wouldn't leave me in the lurch; it was agreed that they would return in a couple of days. Meanwhile they forbade us to leave the house. Two days later they re-appeared and again urged this time both of us to go away with them. We refused. Whereupon they again forbade us to leave the house, saying that otherwise we would be shot. We now realised that the story about the allegedly approaching Russians was a sham and that they had something quite different in mind. Luckily we never saw them again.
Shortly thereafter we both came down with scarlet fever and, loaded onto a horse-drawn uncovered ambulance, were driven down to Gmunden, where we were installed, the two of us in one bed, in the isolation ward of the hospital in which I had until then been working, almost completely oblivious of what was going on around us. At some point there was the noise of many vehicles grinding to a stop outside, of shouting, of orders being barked — in American. Then some soldiers in unfamiliar khaki-colored uniforms and helmets and bristling with weapons burst into our room; and were pushed out again by some of our doctors and nurses. A few days later we were told that the war was over.
I remember very little of the time we spent there. I recall dimly, for instance, that one day we found a cookery book with reproductions of bread, rolls, meat, etc., and tried to picture ourselves partaking of all that. Another time I crept down into the hospital garden and stole a glassful of red currants. One of the nuns caught me red-handed and scolded me, calling me a thief, while I, still clutching my precious glass, scurried back to our room, where we instantly gobbled down the berries before anybody could retrieve them. After about six weeks were were released — in a state of total starvation.
When we got back to Königinvilla, we found that the main house had bee requisitioned by the American C.I.C. Counter-Intelligence Corps, headed by a Major Christel. Of the period that followed, what I can remember most vividly is, again, the constant sensation of acute hunger. From the Cumberland Hospital (to which, though on no convalescent leave, Missie was formally still attached), we would get our rations of horse meat and the like, which we were allowed to heat up in the Americans' kitchen. I still recall how our mouths would water at the sight of all the delicacies being consumed by our 'house-guests'. Finally, out of sheer desperation, Missie and I resorted to a trick. Just about the time when the Americans sat down toe at, we would creep up to the windows of the dining-room and start fussing around with the flowerpots, pruning the roses, etc. And, sure enough, we would almost invariably be invited to share their meal (for in those early post-war days any form of 'fraternisation' with Germans was still officially banned!). And after downing mouthfuls of peanut butter and bowls of real coffee, we would stay bolt upright all night, quite unable to sleep!
Major Christel turned out to be very nice, courteous and considerate man. He went out of his way to see to it that the constantly changing personnel under his command behaved towards us correctly. This was all the more necessary — and appreciated by us — inasmuch as the house was soon turned into a weekend 'recreation centre', with all that this implies. We only realised what was going on at night in the ground-floor apartments as we were about the leave — to be demobilised.
In this latter connection Major Christel worried especially about Missie. She had told him about her Berlin experiences, particularly the 20th July period, and he feared that this might cause her to be detained for further interrogation. Fortunately, his fears turned out to be unfounded.
One day we were loaded on a convoy of open trucks and horse-drive cars and, together with a group of quite young boys in S.S. uniforms, taken under heavy guard to Mauerkirchen, where the screening took place. The S.S. kids were released almost immediately — it was clear that they had been called up in the very last weeks of the war and stuck into S.S. uniform without even a by-your-leave. The rest of us had to pass through the hands of a veritable chain of interrogators installed in three railroad cars, who asked u hundreds of questions and kept comparing our names with voluminous lists to make sure that we had not been prominent Nazis. Missie, needless to say, was a mystery to them, starting with her flawless English and the fact that she claimed to be Russian. If so, they kept asking, why wasn't she in Russia? They had, apparently, never heard of a White Russian refugee! Finally we were allowed out of the last railway car, given a daub of white paint on each leg — to show that we had been 'whitewashed' — and, after a further long wait, told that we were free to go wherever we wished. For both of us, at long last, the war was truly over.