Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story, Part Eleven. Another Dark Day

Chalet in Schruns, Austria

The days grew shorter and the snow became heavier. Ralph's room opened onto a balcony facing the mountains. He had a record player and ran long wires from it to speakers he had placed outside. Sometimes he played Beethoven as loudly as he could. He would sit on the balcony with a glass of vodka and listen to the music carry across the valley. In these moments he could think about something other than the war.

---

There had always been pressure at the cement works to put in longer hours. Then an order came down that the accounting records had to be brought up to date. Kapinski was troubled by it.

“What they want is impossible,” he told Ralph.

A short time later, two German officers arrived with instructions from their superiors. After meeting with them, Kapinski returned to the accounting office. Ralph could see that something was wrong.

“You know how far behind we are,” Kapinski said.

“So we're getting more help?”

“Actually, yes.”

Kapinski told him they first had to organize the records so they could be transported somewhere else. Ralph asked where.

Kapinski didn't answer. He told Ralph to be at the office at five the next morning.

---

When Ralph arrived, two German soldiers were waiting for him. They told him to load the boxes he and Kapinski had prepared the day before into a jeep. Ralph climbed into the back seat. Boxes were stacked beside and behind him. They left before daylight.

Neither soldier answered when Ralph asked where they were going.

For more than two hours they drove through the mountains. As daylight came, the terrain gradually changed. Ralph believed they were traveling north. After passing a border checkpoint, he knew they had entered Bavaria.

Eventually they approached a large compound surrounded by walls and barbed-wire fencing. Watchtowers stood at intervals along the perimeter. The jeep crossed railroad tracks and stopped at another checkpoint where the Germans showed their papers. A guard directed them through a gate and along a narrow enclosed roadway. Stopping near a brick building, Ralph and the soldiers unloaded the boxes and carried them inside. The boxes were placed on carts and rolled down a corridor.

They entered a room containing a long table. Several gaunt men in striped prison garb were seated there. Ralph had never seen men who looked like this.

The men stared at him as the boxes were placed on the table. Another cart containing ledger books was brought into the room.

A German officer entered and the soldiers snapped to attention.

The officer told Ralph that the prisoners were Jewish bankers and accountants. They had been assigned to help him bring the records up to date. The work, he said, was important to the German war effort. The men would be given a meal at noon.

Then the soldiers left.

Ralph began opening the boxes. He didn't know where he was. He also didn't know what to say to the prisoners. From their point of view, he had arrived with the German soldiers and was one of them.

They went to work.

---

By noon they had made considerable progress. Food was brought into the room. Ralph thought the portions were small, but the prisoners ate everything they were given.

After a while the room became quiet. Ralph noticed several men looking in his direction. It dawned on him that they weren't looking at him. They were looking at his plate. Ralph had eaten the potato but left the skin.

One of the men spoke. “Aren't you going to eat that?”

“Potato skins are bitter,” Ralph said. “I don't eat them.”

The men continued looking at the plate.

“You want this?”

The man across from Ralph and reached for it. Another man pushed his arm away. Someone sitting beside Ralph grabbed the potato skin first and ate it.

Several of the others cursed him for not sharing it.

Ralph said nothing. He remembered his mother telling him years before not to throw away potato skins.

---

They returned to the ledgers after lunch and worked through the afternoon.

It was late when the German soldiers drove Ralph back to Schruns. He still did not know where they had taken him. Only later did Ralph learn that the place was a sub-camp of the Dachau network.

CONTINUED

Located in the Montafon Valley of Austria's Vorarlberg region, Schruns was famous throughout Europe for its skiing. It was here during this period that Hemingway reworked his breakthrough novel, The Sun Also Rises.

RELATED

UPROOTED: Intro and Part One

UPROOTED: Part Two

UPROOTED: Part Three
UPROOTED: Part Four
UPROOTED: Part Five
UPROOTED: Part Six

UPROOTED: Part Seven   

UPROOTED: Part Eight  

UPROOTED: Part Nine

UPROOTED: Part Ten

Uprooted is a true story about a man with a singular quest: Freedom. This longing for freedom is one of the primary reasons people leave their homelands, often at great personal sacrifice.