THE IMPOSTURE. .
Maurice Rowdon.


The Russians had moved out' of Graz further south and our
job wa's to OC cupy this city and establish some sort of de-Nazi-
fication system, more lenient than it would be in Germany because
the Austrians had shown themselves less bitter enemies. My
regiment took, billets in a small village outside Graz called
Maria Trost, a quiet place full of wooden balconied + houses and
inns.
The war hadn't long ended. News had come through of the
concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of people had been
+ put in gas ovens, tortured, burned to death, starved and mut-
ilated in experiments.
These included Women and children.
Nearly all the Jewish population of Europe had been- wiped out.
It was nearly the extermination of a Whole people.
We had come to Maria Trost from Carinthia near the Yugoslav
border, where we'd lived in barns, with the harvest going on all
round us. We took our meals, about eight of"us, in the downstairs"
room of a farmyard and used to watch the wheat being brought in,
across the space in front of the house Where two elm trees grew,
with wooden benches and a table under them. At this table,
nearly all day, an old man used to sit, the owner-of the farm.
He also watched the work, saying hardly anything, his eyes small
and bloodshot and staring like grittylittle pellets straight
before him. He said he thought these stories about the concent-
ration camps were ridiculous, and laughed. He said that too'
many reports were coming in from all over Germany and Poland,


from_English, French, American and-Russian troops, for them to
be doubtiul. And there were photographs, we said. There was
also a film being shown at evéry town and village in Germany
to which attendance was compulsory. But this film hadn't reached
Austria yet;
The old man laughed and shook his head. He spoke slowly
to his daughters .and seemed to be mocking us in a quiet way.
He wasn't the slightest bit afraid of us, though we were the
first troops in the area. He told us that
arm
.every
brought its
own propaganda and that this was ours.' Only a fool would believe
it, he said. The Germans had had their propaganda and we had
ours. It was absurd to imagine that Germans.or Austrians would
organise camps in which thousands of people were left to die of
starvation, much less tortured or---of; all things---put into gas
ovens. These were childrens' tales, like all propaganda tales,
fit for simple people and intended for them. But he'd lived too,.
-long and seen too much. We were young, he said., and our cred-
ulity was understandable. His little pellét eyes'didn't change.
They had a certain
side-glancing quality which made me
sly,
distrust
him, but perhaps this was because he refused.to believe in the
camps.
Then we were moved to Graz and Iinever saw. him again. In
Graz there were different stories, this. time about the Russians.
They had raped most of the women, and over ninety percent of the
female population had VD of some kind. In Maria Trost where we
billeted a drunk Russian soldier had emptied a magazine of machine-
gun bullets. int'o the church at the top of the hill and.then fired
four or five shots. into a bedroom where a woman and child lay.
Luckily, the bullets'had missed them. There were piles of
filth in some of the buildings. Over the.city': itself there was


a dry, surfeited air. Everything was pretty and in order,
-the damage was'slight, but a desolation had taken hold. The
present seemed not to be real time but a period.of waiting, for
the future, when peace would really come.
One day my driver took me into Graz in an open jeep---I
had to visit another regimental headquarters. The'end of the
war had made me feel tired. We'd been raced back to Italy for
a. last campaign, then missed it: but our happiness at missing.
it didn't seem to match the occasion. We were just numb.
I even had a sense of disappointment. I'd wanted to do something
remarkable in that last campaign, and Ifelt thwarted of a certain.
prize I would always miss: perhaps it.vas death. I'd already
had.too many lucky escapes for the law'of averages to-favour me
any more.
It was a giddy and ridiculous feeling, of a reliéf-conceivad
in the brain rather than felt, and. a sense of S ométhing mystical
having been snatched away. It made me restless., and. life was
meaningless without war.
But for the first time in two or three years. my. S tomach
felt easy. There would be no more front-line assignments.
Nomore I
of that.special dark smell of rotting cattle which had
pervaded all of Italy. A long time had passed since I'd watched
my batman die with great wounds in his,back. - I hadn't believed
: my eyes. Being young, I didn't believe death was really possible.
I told one of the men to give him a last.cigarette, and he did
so; bending down. The ba tman was lying on his.stomach and took
it in his mouth feebly. But just as someone was about to strike
a macth he coughed and 8 spurt of blood filled the cigarette,
making it swell up, and it fell with a plop to the floor. For


years I carried this memory. about with me. Yet when it was all
over my heart was cold to the relief.
I was even aware of- a slight resentment of peace. Now the
work had been done it would pass unrecognised. Too many people
had been involved in the war for there to be anyone available to
give the recognition: there were no fathers or governments safe
at home to give thanks, as in the old days. Peace was an impost-.
ure! It offered no distinctions as to who had the secret stigma
of suffering on him, who had been there and who hadn't. All -
sorts of proud people would step forward now---like the Jewish
-brigade which had replaced' us as commanders of a prisoner-of-wer
camp full of SS troops in the north of Italy, and had instituted,
with a show of contempt for us, new harsh measures of discipline,
to make the-Germans feel Who'd won the war. Yet that brigade
had done almost no fighting, if any! That was the sort of
bitter thing that happened.
I spent little time at the headquarters and we drove back
slowly. It was finé morning and we had just driven into the
wide avenue on the: outskirts of Graz which led, to MariaTrost
when we saw two figures strolling along in front of us. They
were dressed in British uniforms but they were clearly not
soldiers. I was suddenly furious. They had no shoulder
markings, no signs of rank, no divisional badges, no caps even!
They were slouching like civilians. The uniforms were new. r
I told the driver to pull over to the right and he did so,
bringing the car to a sudden skidding halt. It was absolutely
preposterous that only a few weeks after the war had ended
people should be strolling along in our unfform, which to me
had the stigma of suffering on it. They'd probably picked


it up at an army stores for a couple of dozen eggs or a horse
or a car or a huge bag of sugar. It was- preposterous that so
soon after the war the unfform 'should become meaningless and all
distinctions disappear.
The car stopped at- the kerb quiteiclose to. them. They were
young with fair hair, and quite clearly not English or American.
They were Austrians, perhaps. They were about the same age as
I was. When they heard the skid of our tyres they at once
stopped and took a frightened step back, Close together. I
shouted at the top. of my voice.
"Whère did you get those unfforms?'
They said something in German Which I didn't understand
and I repeated my question, glaring at them. One of them blushéd
and his eyes seemed to grow sightless in a most strange way.
But I went on putting my questions., shouting. Where did they
get those unfforms? They bumped together as they stood on the
pavement, unable to find Words. I noticed for the first time
that they had rather shy, delicate faces. They might have been
students.. And I also noticed that they were looking at me not only
with fear but with horror,, their mouths open slightly, their
expressions almost identical, whereas I had expected, them to
behave in a surly"way, as local people sometimes did. I'd
never seen this look of spell-bound horror directed at me before.
There was a brief S ilence, and my driver tugged my arm
slightly. I was trembling. 'Sir, sir!' he was whisper ing.
I felt. - he was embarrassed for me but I was determined not to
be lackadaisical about this as no doubt he would have been.
'Sir, sir,' he said, 'they say they're Jews. They've
just been released from concentration camp:'
I stared at them and after a long pause said,, 'Jews?'


Then I: tried to smile at them. I put my hand out of the r
loer, though they were standing some yards away, and said with
a ridiculous sort of nod, 'It's all right, I didn't know, I'm
sorry, please go, it's all right.' - But they. went on staring at
me . 'It's all right,' I said, 'I didn't know.' Then, after
another silence, I'told the driver'to move off, and he quickly
put the car in gear and drove away, his head slightly-down.
Even as wé moved away they çontinued to follow me with their.
stares, which were strangely sightless.