explosive bomb hit the platform where we were standing with our useless firing device. The mass of splinters destroyed the firing platform and tore apart my friend Gerhard Schopper, who was standing next to me. He hadn’t got down quickly enough. I stood up as if anaesthetized, blinded and deaf, with only a few splinter wounds in my shoulder and one on my cheekbone. Everyone looked at me as if I were a miracle, someone risen from the dead. I didn’t know myself how I came to be still alive. The others