Necessary Lies(78)

But Frau Strauss has no pictures of Helmut. None. They all perished. Left in Breslau. No, K?the did not marry Helmut. There was a quarrel. There was a big, big quarrel. When Willi was born Helmut was no longer in Breslau. He never came back, never even saw his son.

“Why did they quarrel? Was it because of Mitzi? Was Helmut unfaithful to her?” Anna’s questions are prompted by her own hurt.

“Who knows what happens between two people,” Frau Strauss answers with a question, shaking her head. K?the didn’t want to speak of Helmut so she didn’t ask. Maybe it was Mitzi. Maybe not. They were all too young. They didn’t know what was coming. This is not what she wants to tell Anna. No, not that part of the story. There are other things Anna should know about. More important. Things about K?the.

“Bombenkeller des Reiches, that’s what we called Silesia. Air shelter for the Reich. Rich and blessed, and safe. The fortress of the German East.

“We never stopped to think what it all meant,” Frau Strauss continues. Not until the first refugees began coming. ‘We are safe here,’ women whispered in stores, on park benches, glancing at the skies. The Breslau cellars were filled with food, jars of preserves in even rows. You had to sort out the potatoes, though, cut out the eyes and sprouting leaf-buds, remove the rotting parts. Sift the flour, to keep it free of bugs. Make sure the bags of sugar were dry.

“By 1944 there were food shortages, of course. R?schen kaffee, we called our coffee, for the brew was so weak that you could see through it, see the little red roses in the bottom of the cup. But that was nothing. Nothing. You know what we used to say then? Enjoy the war — peace is going to be terrible.

“They lied to us. The Gauleiter Hanke, the papers. They all lied. Destruction of the Soviet Armies Almost Complete. Combat in East Proceeds According to Plan. That’s what we read in the Schlesische Tageszeitung. Even at Christmas time, 1944. People were leaving, if they could find a good reason, for you couldn’t just leave. That was called ‘spreading defeatism and panic’ Punishable by death. We were sure everyone watched everyone else. Your servants could turn you in, but you didn’t dare dismiss them.

“At the street corners the Gauleiter’s voice beamed from the loudspeakers: ‘Festung Breslau has sworn its loyalty to the Führer. We will not forget our sacred oath.’ The refugees who came from the east sneered at our cellars and preserves and paid in gold coins for sturdy shoes and strong rucksacks. To the Poles and Russians we were nothing but ‘Hitlerist cannibals,’ they said. There was no mercy for us in the East.

“Mitzi knew she would die. Her mother had bought enough cyanide vials for the entire family, promised to swallow them before the Russians came. All they will find she said, is my stiff body. Mitzi’s father would set fire to his store and shoot himself in the mouth before the flames got to him. I asked Mitzi what she would do. She didn’t know. “They won’t get me, though,” she said. She was wearing her cyanide vial in a small pouch, around her neck.

“We stayed in Breslau and waited. Stayed until the rumble of artillery never stopped, closer and closer with each hour. Until heat was scarce and we were shivering all the time. In December 1944, K?the decided to sign up as a Red Cross nurse. I went along. It was better than sitting at home, worrying. Johann was at the Eastern front. I wondered if I would ever see him again.

“They trained us for twenty hours. Schwester K?the and Schwester Ulrike. We had blue striped uniforms. All we were allowed to do was to make beds, bring bed pans, wash the patients. Nothing glorious. Sometimes we were allowed to hold a limb or a bowl for discarded cotton swabs. Most of the wounded were men over fifty or under eighteen. Volkssturm, the last hope of the Reich.

“Trains were leaving Breslau for the West. Filled, we heard, filled to the brim. At the All Souls Hospital we assisted with the X-rays, took down Dr. Tolk’s orders. We had to run after him as he walked, stopping by the beds for a few seconds, writing down his verdict. We wrote it all down, into their records, trying not to look at their faces. It gave them too much hope if we did.

“In the evening there were lectures in the cellar, ‘Nursing at the current stage of the war.’ We walked down slowly, past the long, tiled corridor with metal lamps, past the laundry with its smell of boiling cotton. ‘This is not the time for compassion,’ Dr. Tolk said. ‘Remember. These soldiers are needed at the front. Our Gauleiter, Karl Hanke, said that we will fight to the last man. There will be no surrender!’ We were warned to look for signs of marauding, for undue attention drawn to themselves. ‘Don’t try to save them,’ he said. A few days before, a nurse who gave one of the men an injection that kept him from being released was sentenced to ten years by the political tribunal. I prayed that if my Johann were wounded, he would be lucky to find a nurse that brave.

“There were bodies swinging from lampposts, when we were returning home. Hundreds a day. Executed by the SS. We were not to pity them. They were traitors.

Wir werden weiter marschieren

Bis alles in Scherben f?llt

Denn heute geh?rt uns Deutschland

Und morgen die ganze Welt...

“I sang this song,” Frau Strauss continues. “So many times, with K?the, at school Only when we sang it we didn’t really know what it meant.”

We will continue marching

Until everything is in pieces

Because today we own Germany