As of: February 15, 2024, 2:00 p.m
By: Elisabeth Hütter
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Ensured an entertaining and atmospheric evening: The Munich Klezmer Trio, together with author Robert Domes and actress Simone Schatz at the reading in the Fellheim Synagogue.
© Elisabeth Hütter
The book “Fourth Class Waggon” by Robert Domes tells the story of sixteen-year-old Martha, who searches in post-war Germany for the traces of Alois Roth, who disappeared during the Nazi era, and in the process uncovers the dark secrets of the past.
Through Martha's search for identity and truth, a story unfolds that is still relevant today.
Fellheim – “This story is a gift,” Robert Domes opened the evening.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, he read from his current work “Fourth Class Waggon” together with Simone Schatz in the Old Synagogue in Fellheim.
The evening was accompanied musically by the Munich Klezmer Trio.
The author, who was awarded for his novel “Fog in August,” gave an interview to the Memminger KURIER.
Mr. Domes, how did you come across the story?
Domes:
I didn't come across the story at all, but rather I came across it.
Wilhelm Weinbrenner from Obergünzburg, whom I knew beforehand, brought the story to me.
When he retired, he became involved in a historical working group that began interviewing contemporary witnesses 20 years ago.
They came across that wagon and the people who lived in it.
After intensive research, he came to me in 2018.
Are there original pictures of this wagon?
Domes:
No, actually no more of the wagon itself.
However, I never gave up hope that photos of it would appear, which someone might have taken by chance.
The fascinating thing is that to this day the place where the wagon stood has never been built on.
As if he had been waiting.
Now, on the initiative of Wilhelm Weinbrenner, the community has prepared the square, made it visible and set up a “green classroom” there.
What we discovered, however – and this is a small miracle – is a picture of Alois Roth that was taken in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
I was there for research purposes and when you know how much of the documents were destroyed there before the end of the war, this discovery borders on a miracle.
There is also a scene in my book in which Alois sits in front of the camera and says: “It's all kind of absurd here,” and the photographer is surprised because humor was very rare in this place.
Alois looks into the camera in the same way, rather cheeky and energetic.
There are also some documents about him that show that he was a potato peeler in the work detail.
I think that's why he survived so long - it was like winning the lottery.
You were under the roof and close to the kitchen, which, so to speak, improved life and increased your chance of survival.
The impressive photo from Auschwitz by Alois Roth.
It was taken when he was admitted to Auschwitz in February 1944.
© Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
So Alois is based on a real personality, what about the character of Martha?
Is this fictional?
Domes:
Partially.
I was originally hesitant to write this story.
We then came across a woman who is now 90 years old and who was stranded in the Allgäu with her family in 1948 and lived in the wagon.
She told me her story of escape, expulsion and arrival.
She was so delightful, had retained the Königsberg dialect and her typical sense of humor.
“Let’s eat a bit of Streiselkuchen.”
What was also impressive was that she told one horror story after another with this humorous manner.
She was 14 years old when her hometown of Königsberg was bombed in front of her eyes.
The family was able to escape and ended up in Dresden, which shortly afterwards went up in flames.
She reported on mass rapes by the Russians and the shelling of refugee trains.
Despite all these horrible experiences, she said at the end: “I actually had a pretty good life.”
It is remarkable how resilient this person is.
You can only take this as an example of how she fought her way out of this horror.
After his father was released from captivity, he no longer wanted to stay in the Russian zone.
She told how she and her sister fled across the green border.
They first ran into the arms of the VoPos, who caught them and locked them up.
After they were released, one of the soldiers said with a wink: “If you want to go over to the West, come to the train station this evening.” The girls did that, which was very careless, it would also have been a bad trap could be.
This people's policeman, from the new GDR, took them through the forest to the border.
He continued to write her love letters for a long time.
So she finally came to Obergünzburg.
She talked about life as a young girl in this wasteland and basically my Martha is very close to her story.
What is completely fictional, however, is Alois's discovery.
The real family knew nothing about the resident who lived in that train car before them.
So the fiction is the connection between the two stories.
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To what extent does your book reflect current issues or challenges?
Is it current?
Domes:
For me, the novel has several important connections to today.
He asks highly topical questions: Where can the radicalization of society lead?
How do we treat those who are different and strangers today?
How can the arrival of refugees and their difficult integration be successful?
Last but not least: How do we deal with the truth, what do we ignore, what do we believe?
I think the story picks us up at a very current point.
It is also the first time that a man from the forgotten Nazi victim group of the so-called “anti-social and professional criminals” has been honored in a novel.
It was only in 2020 that the Bundestag decided to recognize these people as victims of National Socialism.
Mr Domes, thank you very much for the interesting conversation.
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