The Red Army leadership were great improvisors. While the fighting was still going on in Berlin, they were busy organizing everyday life in the suburbs. That was why my path to freedom went by way of a meat and sausage factory. It was in Friedrichsfelde and I had walked past it hundreds of times before. All unsuspecting, I was doing that very thing one day when a squad of Soviet soldiers stepped out of the gates and stopped me. I was caught unawares and reached for my passport; I still had my Alien's Passport. They forced me into the factory yard with their pistols drawn and handed me over to another soldier. At first I thought it was just an ordinary identity check. But he barked out the order to unload a truck full of part-butchered pork and beef carcasses. I was clearly not the only person to whom the Russians had issued a similar “invitation” to work; there were already a number of men standing in and around the truck. There were also some Italian former forced laborers or POWs there who had worked in the factory when it was still producing for the German war effort. They were also living in the plant.

Some of the chunks of carcass – halves of pigs and quarters of cattle – were still frozen. It was a mystery to me how they could be kept frozen under those conditions. But Rummelsburg power station hadn't suffered much damage and the Russians had managed to get it up and running very quickly. When the truck was empty, I had to do other work, like clearing rubble. In the course of the morning more US-made Red Army trucks full of meat arrived, and we had to start unloading again. Under the supervision of the Russians, the Italians immediately processed and canned the meat and stacked up the cans. The sight of all the cans waiting to be transported onward made my mouth water. It was clearly rations for the Red Army.

There was an excellent soup for lunch and we could have as many helpings from the big cooking pot as we wanted.