The German Wife(103)

“Millions,” he corrected, and then to my horror, he choked on a sob. “And they plan to murder them all.”

“The logistics of that would be impossible,” I said urgently. “You must be mistaken, Jürgen. This simply cannot be.”

“They have developed a gas that suffocates in minutes. Men, women, children—it doesn’t matter to the SS. Thousands of people die at one time, and some camps are executing them around the clock.”

“You can’t be sure. This can’t be real. Not millions of people—”

“Sofie. I’m sure.”

I had been turned inside out—my nerves left raw and my breath shallow. I started to cry, big heaving sobs of shame and confusion and grief. War was always ugly. What Jürgen spoke of was different—a scale of cruelty and violence that was impossible to fathom.

Maybe I had assumed that Germany would fall and the normal rules would apply again—that Mayim would come home or that I’d meet up with her in Poland, and Jürgen might be a prisoner of war, maybe he’d even go to jail, but that eventually, there would be an after.

But we were playing by a different rule book—the scale and depth of the Reich’s depravity changed everything, and the impact on us was the very least of it. The world would never be the same.

“I’ve known for months and I did nothing. How many people have died in that time? How many lives could I have saved if I just made different decisions along the way?” he whispered, almost to himself.

My limbs had turned to jelly. I sank onto the bed, my head fell onto the pillow, and I curled my legs up as my sobs came harder. For a long time, we lay like that. Me on my side, facing Jürgen, him on his back, crying silently as he stared at the roof. The light outside shifted as the sun moved overhead, until shadows were falling over the snow, and the room began to grow dark.

“Given everything that’s behind and before us,” Jürgen said, after a while, “I know you will understand why I cannot join the SS.”

My throat was raw from crying, and my eyes swollen from the tears.

“When will the war end?” I whispered, reaching up to touch his cheek. His hand lifted, and for one startling moment, I feared he would push mine away. But instead, he caught it in his, resting his palm over my hand as I touched his face.

“We are losing ground, slowly but surely. I’ve visited some test sites around the Reich in the last few months and there are signs our troops are deserting already—even our equipment is crumbling. But there’s still a long way to fall back before the Allies reach Germany. It may be some months.”

I nodded slowly.

“Only a matter of months,” I said hesitantly. “And you think...”

“I told you. They will hang me.”

“But surely—”

“Sofie,” he interrupted me, his voice raw. “If you saw the conditions at Mittelwerk, you would understand why I will hang.”

“And if you decline the SS invitation—”

“Whether I wait and surrender to the Allies or refuse to join the SS now, the outcome will be the same. This final line is one I can refuse to cross. It is too late to make one shred of difference to the people we have failed, but at least I will have the dignity of knowing I made one right decision.”

“Have you thought about what happens to the children if you refuse to join the SS? They will be pariahs,” I whispered hesitantly.

“I’ve thought of nothing but that since last night,” Jürgen said abruptly. “Things will be difficult for them until the war ends, but they will recover eventually.”

Stricken, Jürgen pulled me close, and I pressed my face into his neck and I wept.

“Hold on,” I pleaded, between my sobs. “Just play the game until the war ends, Jürgen. Just buy us a little more time for a miracle.”

“We are the last people on earth who deserve a miracle.”

“We’ve made mistakes, but we aren’t bad people.”

“You have no idea the things I’ve seen. The things I’ve watched happen, without ever once speaking up. You have no idea if I’m a bad person.”

He started to cry then in a way I’d never imagined my strong, brave husband ever would.

“I miss Aunt Adele,” he choked out, his voice hoarse.

“Me too,” I whispered.

“She would know what to do.”

It’s not always the strongest trees that survive the storm. Sometimes it’s the trees that bend with the wind.

I knew exactly what Adele would tell us to do, but I was no longer sure it was the choice we should make.

We checked out of the hotel the next morning. My eyes were puffy and my throat sore from crying, and Jürgen seemed every bit as tender as I felt. We made the final leg of the journey back to Nordhausen without a word. The privacy of the hotel was gone, and neither one of us seemed in the mood to playact. That night we stayed in at the villa, in the home that I now knew once belonged to a Jewish businessman. And just like Jürgen, I felt that man everywhere. By the time the sun went down, I couldn’t bear another minute of it.

“I need to go to bed,” I told Jürgen, my voice hoarse. Through all of this, he was doing what he’d been doing all afternoon—sitting at the dining room table, marking up diagrams with notes in pencil. He glanced at me, as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Can you come too?”