The Willow Wren by Philipp Schott (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📕

as it seemed appropriate to do so, Theodor would leave to seek out his friends who were also in town. Mama was often busy with the little ones and would encourage me to go out and see my friends as well. She seemed unaware that my time in the KLV-Lager and the Hitler Youth had not done anything to enhance my social standing and that I did not have any friends to visit, but she also did not seem especially concerned about what I did so long as I returned for our early supper before we had to walk back to the camp.

The Colditzer Forst was quite unlike the forest along the Pleisse in Leipzig. This was a true forest, with no urban noises or smells to mar it. Much as I am told Inuit have multiple words for snow, we Germans have multiple words for forest that each carry a distinct meaning. This forest was technically called a Forst rather than a Wald or an Urwald. (Incidentally, for some reason all nouns are capitalized in German.) A Forst is a forest that has been planted by man recently enough that if you look at the right angle, you will see that the trees are growing in regular rows. These are working forests that provide building lumber and firewood. An Urwald, on the other hand, is an original wild forest that has never ever been logged. These are rare in Germany. More common is a Wald, which was probably logged at some point, perhaps in the Middle Ages, but has regrown in a more or less wild fashion, perhaps with some areas of more recent Forst mixed in. Although the Colditzer forest was called a Forst, I considered it a Wald, as it looked and felt quite wild to me.

Fears about escaped Tommies and Kanaken notwithstanding, I walked past the castle and over the bridge to the west with confidence and excitement. Immediately upon entering the forest the temperature became cooler, the light more diffuse and the smells more of moist earth and pine needles. At first it was silent, as if everything had stopped and held its breath when I entered. Then the birdsong began — first a twitter here, a chirp there, and then the full ensemble. I could have wept. The area immediately around the KLV-Lager had remained an avian desert for some reason, even through spring. And the trees, the glorious trees! As I had expected on viewing the forest from the Schönbach road, it was primarily tall straight firs. In a true Forst these would all be of a uniform age with no undergrowth. But as I mentioned, in my opinion this was a Wald, not a Forst. I stood there, breathing in the magnificent air and listening to my friends, or rather to those I knew would soon become my friends. Theodor had his friends to visit and now I would have mine.

The path into the forest divided into three, running roughly west, northwest and southwest. The path to the west was absolutely straight, as if marked on a map with a ruler, and extended as far as I could see between rows of uniform trees like sentries lined at attention. While this symmetry had its own beauty, I was drawn to the northwest path, which was narrower and began to bend and wind right after the intersection. I could see some oaks, birches, beeches and ash trees scattered amongst the taller darker green firs. There were also more shrubs and small bushes along the northwest path. This was much more appealing to me and I reasoned that it would be much more appealing to the birds and animals.

I was right. Soon the main path disappeared from view and I was truly immersed in the woods. As expected, along this winding path the birds were more numerous. They hopped along the branches, flew back and forth over the path and sang to each other from all directions. The path soon split and split again, but I had no fear of becoming lost. Although the sun was not visible through the trees, I still had a strong sense of direction. My mind automatically mapped the twists and turns and forks in the trail, so I was always able to find my way back without having made any particular effort of memorization. I thought that everyone could do this, that it was a basic human trait, but apparently that is not the case. After one right turn and two left turns I came to a small glade. To the left was a stand of very uniform firs, but ahead and to the right it was a lovely mixed hardwood forest. But what got my full attention was a beautiful cluster of five oak trees, alone on a very slight rise in the middle of the glade. These trees were massive. They must have been very old — not as old as the famous Ivenacker Oak in the north which is said to have sprung from an acorn in the late 900s AD — but since the largest was two metres wide at its base, it was at least 200 years old.

This was it. This was the spot. All it took was an easy forty-five-minute walk from Colditz. Considering the direction and distance, I realized that I was likely only about forty-five minutes from the KLV-Lager, with a line south from the camp and a line west from Colditz intersecting at ninety degrees at the oaks. This realization floated up in my mind like a bright red balloon on a grey day. I found a smooth boulder in the shade under the largest oak and sat down on it. The Hitler Youth could not touch me here. The enemy could not touch me here. The war could not touch me here. That this was illogical magical thinking did not occur to my conscious mind. I felt I had stepped through a portal into another, better world. In