Hunger Winter

by Rob Currie

  They started jogging along the side of the road. “Slow down,” Anna soon begged.

  “You have to run, Anna. They’ll come looking for us any minute.” It had been a few minutes now since they’d heard a bomb explode.

  Anna’s breath surged in ragged gasps, and soon they both slowed to a fast walk.

  If they see us, we’re both too weak to outrun them. “We need to find a farm,” Dirk said.

  “Why?” Anna asked.

  “Farms have places to hide, and they have food,” Dirk said.

  “Oh.”

  In the distance several people riding bikes headed toward Dirk and Anna. He motioned for Anna to hide behind a bush. He wanted to ask them for directions to a farm, but no one would risk arrest by helping two people in prison uniforms this close to a work camp.

  It was a race against time. If they didn’t find a farm quickly, they would be overtaken by a search party. Would they shoot even kids for escaping?

  A few minutes later, Dirk spotted a military vehicle driving in their direction. He pulled Anna behind some heavy bushes and lowered her to the ground. She gasped when the German truck roared past. A minute later he helped her to her feet.

  “I’m cold, and I’m hungry,” she whimpered.

  “I know it’s hard without a coat,” Dirk said, “but the sun is out, and it’ll warm us a little. We’ll find a farm soon and ask for food.” He watched for more vehicles. It was his fault they’d gotten caught in the razzia near Tante Cora’s. He wouldn’t let anything like that happen again. They resumed walking.

  Thirty minutes later, Anna said, “Look! Up there.” She pointed ahead. When Dirk followed her gaze and saw a small barn surrounded by fields, he smiled.

  “We have to get there without anyone seeing us,” he said. He stared at the barn. A farm promised shelter, safety, and food—everything they hadn’t had since Tante Cora’s.

  The low rumble of approaching vehicles grew louder, and Dirk glanced over his shoulder. Germans! He grabbed Anna and dove for cover into the tall weeds behind a large tree. Two trucks skidded to a stop on the road fewer than ten meters away. Why did the soldiers have to come now when we’re so close to safety?

  Dirk and Anna lay motionless on the ground. If he had seen the trucks as they approached, the soldiers might just as easily have seen them, but maybe they were just guessing that escaped workers would hide in the tall weeds. Dirk’s heart thumped, and his palms got sweaty. Is this what the Jews feel like when the Nazis hunt them? His throat tightened.

  “What’s happening?” Anna asked. Dirk glared at her and held his finger to his lips in a silent “Shh!”

  “Schnell! Schnell!” a gruff voice barked. They heard soldiers jump from the trucks and hurry toward them.

  It’s the sergeant from the gun factory. Dirk froze. He heard the scrunch, scrunch of boots on gravel and then a quiet swish of trousers brushing weeds. He shuddered as the steps came closer and closer. Anna clung to Dirk.

  Dirk detected a distant drone that quickly grew louder. Another truck? No! He strained to hear. A plane!

  “Achtung! Fallt zu Boden!” the sergeant shouted. Following the order, the soldiers lunged to the ground, grunting as they landed. Dirk pulled Anna closer to him and kept his head down as the plane approached from the other side of the large tree near them. It’s diving! The fighter’s guns chattered. Bullets raked the weeds, ripped bark off the tree, and stirred up dust. Amid the roar of the attack, several soldiers cried out. Dirk put his hand over Anna’s eyes to shield her from the light debris that showered them.

  The plane zoomed overhead. Probably a British Spitfire or an American P-51. Without raising his head, Dirk chanced a quick look up as the plane banked in a tight turn. Papa had taught him to identify planes, and this one stood out against the blue sky with its black-and-white checkerboard nose and the big white star on the side. P-51 Mustang. Dirk buried his face in the weeds. Come back. You have to come back.

  The Germans scrambled to their feet and shot at the retreating plane. Dirk watched as it flew away. Come back!

  The sergeant barked orders, and the soldiers resumed their search pattern. No! Dirk held his breath as a soldier drew nearer. He and Anna clutched each other more tightly.

  Then a familiar noise returned. The plane approached from a different direction, so Dirk and Anna scrambled to remain shielded by the tree. The P-51 dropped low, and all six guns blazed at the enemy who huddled on the ground. Something exploded, and the plane roared overhead and flew away.

  The sergeant shouted orders, but they were hard to make out over the noise of other soldiers’ talking and groaning. A truck roared to life, boots scuffled on the pavement, and then the truck drove away. After a minute of silence, Dirk raised his head and stared at the flames which devoured the second German truck on the road.

  “You can sit up,” he told Anna.

  He scanned the road left and right. It would feel good to stand near the fire and get warm for once. But they would be in plain view on the road, and they couldn’t risk being near the truck if it blew up.

  “We have to get in that barn before another vehicle comes by,” Dirk said. “The crops were harvested a long time ago, and that means anyone will be able to see us from the road.” They walked to a wood fence which marked the farm’s border.

  After they crawled through the fence, Dirk stood, checked the road again for vehicles, and took a deep breath. Everything was on the line now. He had to pick the right time to run, or they would be caught by a passing patrol.

  “Ready to run as fast as you can?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go!” He nudged Anna and jogged behind her.

  Halfway to the barn, she fell and clutched her ankle. “Ow! I twisted it.”

  Not now! He shot a panicked look toward the street. Nothing there. Dirk crouched in front of Anna with his back turned toward her. “Climb on and hold on tight!” If an enemy vehicle appeared while they ran across the field, he would drop to the ground and hope that at this distance, the soldiers wouldn’t notice.

  Dirk sprinted toward the barn. He shot a look over his shoulder, then ran as fast as he could without stumbling, keeping an ear toward the road. He faltered a few times where the ground was bumpy but kept his balance. Carrying Anna on his back, he tired quickly. His lungs burned, and his legs ached, but he forced himself to keep up his pace. Keep going. Almost there.

  When they reached the barn, Dirk set Anna on a bale of hay. He dropped next to her, chest heaving. A few chickens pecked for food on the other side of the barn, but the stalls were empty. Thanks to the Germans.

  “Hide behind the hay bales while I get us a drink,” Dirk said. He glanced back to be sure she was out of sight, then grabbed a metal cup from a shelf near the barn door. He looked both ways and dipped the cup in a rain barrel. After he drank the first cupful, he refilled it.

  “Here you go,” he said, bringing the cup back to Anna.

  She gulped it down. Then she frowned.

  “What’s wrong? Still thirsty?”

  “No,” she said. “I have to pee.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  GESTAPO INTERROGATION CENTER

  OOSTERBEEK

  NOVEMBER 22

  HOW LONG had she been in prison? Ten days? Els wasn’t sure. As November trudged toward December, her cell grew steadily colder. But she would not break under pressure. Each night she clutched her pebble to her chest. “Heart of stone,” she whispered before falling asleep. She whispered it again when she woke up, and when she returned the pebble to its hiding place in the corner before going for questioning. They’d never get secrets from her.

  But while Els’s spirit remained strong, her stamina declined. Her undernourished body shivered, burning energy she didn’t have to spare. She couldn’t believe how thin her arms and legs had become and how much effort walking now required. Though she remained resolute in her determination to keep secrets from the Germans, now it was a quiet determination because she no longer had the
energy she’d had when she was first captured.

  First thing in the morning, after a few scraps of bread and a bowl of watery soup, the daily assault on her ears and emotions began. Most days it was questions of every kind about Papa. They demanded to know where he was, who his friends were, where he hid the Jews, and how he helped Allied pilots to escape. Always Els responded to the questions with evasive replies or silence.

  One day the tactic was eight straight hours of insults, with a fresh interrogator every two hours. One criticized everything that was Dutch. “The Dutch army didn’t even last one week against the might of the German army, because the Dutch people are weak,” he began. “The Dutch winter is too rainy, and the Netherlands’ art and literature are pathetic compared to the greatness of German culture.” He went on to ridicule Dutch licorice, dikes, canals, and windmills.

  But the first man seemed to be just a warm-up act for the next one, who targeted her family. “Your father left home because your mother was extremely ugly. He hates you and your siblings for being nothing but brats. Your little sister, Anna, is stupid, and your brother, Dirk, is now collaborating with the Germans.” They would say anything to get Els to say something, even if it was an angry outburst in response to some insult splashed in her face. But she told them nothing.

  The next day no one came to unleash angry questions or abrasive insults. They were setting her up for something. But what? Everything they did was geared to force her to talk. Everything. So this was part of that plan. But what would they do?

  Els guessed that since the Nazis couldn’t wear her down with words, they had changed tactics to isolation. She relished the relief from their constant verbal bombardment. She rested near her cell door, and every time she heard footsteps, she moaned about how terrible it was to be alone and not see another human being. As soon as the passerby was out of earshot, she resumed dozing. Then she started saying the same things when no one was near, in case they had tiptoed to her door to be sure it wasn’t just an act.

  But what if during her solitude they were planning something more awful than she could imagine? She bit her lip.

  The next day she was alone all day until after she had eaten the bits of food which the Germans called her dinner. A hulking guard yanked open the door to Els’s cell and pushed a woman inside. “We have had many arrests, and all the cells must now hold two prisoners,” he told Els. He shoved the newcomer to the center of the room, and it seemed that the cell door clanged shut even before the disheveled woman crumpled in a heap on the floor.

  Els had been dozing, but she sat up with a jerk and studied the new arrival. The woman didn’t move. The only sound that came from her was a faint moaning, as if she didn’t have the strength to produce anything louder. The woman’s face was crumpled in pain, and her breathing was labored. Poor thing. What terrible things had the Nazi goons inflicted on her?

  Els moved to her side and slid her mattress—the only one in the cell—next to the newcomer. “Do you want to lie on this? Can you roll over?” she whispered.

  “Ohh,” the woman said after a pause. She rolled over onto the thin mattress but winced and clutched her left leg below the knee.

  “I wish I could do something to help you feel better,” Els said, looking into the woman’s eyes.

  “Thank you,” the woman managed to get out.

  Els watched the other woman in silence for a while. It would be good to have someone to talk to who wasn’t accusing her or slapping her in the face.

  “What did the moffen do to you?” Els asked gently as she reached out and lightly touched the woman on the shoulder.

  “Everything,” the woman said through clenched teeth. She groaned. “We hid Jews in our attic, but their baby cried while a neighbor visited. Two hours later the Gestapo came. So the moffen did this,” she said, pointing weakly to her lower leg. “I think it’s broken.”

  Els shook her head. “Ohhh. That’s terrible.”

  The woman took several deep breaths. “What’s your name?”

  “Elisabeth,” Els replied without hesitation. It was the standard name she gave to people she didn’t know well. It was her mother’s name, and with the way the Nazis were after information about Papa, the fewer people who knew Els’s real name, the better. Besides, it felt good to say her mother’s name again.

  “I’m Roos,” the other woman said with a great deal of effort.

  Els nodded.

  “How long have you been in here?” Roos asked Els.

  “About ten days, I think.”

  “What’s it like in here?” she asked, her head still on the mattress and her eyes closed.

  “Every morning starts with stale dark bread, mostly made of sawdust.” Els snorted. “Those few pieces of food are followed by hours of harsh interrogation. What they call supper is bread and so-called soup—water with a few potato peels and some rotten cabbage. And then it’s time to sleep on this skinny mattress.” She shook her head. “The next day it starts all over again.” She leaned closer to Roos and whispered, “What’s happening with the war?”

  Roos grimaced, looked at the small window in the cell door, and said, “The Americans are moving across France.”

  “Oh, that’s good.” Els smiled. “Any other news?”

  “The British sank the German battleship Tirpitz.” Roos was quiet for a while, then asked, “Where are you from?”

  “Duindorp.” It was another answer she often gave to people to protect her true identity. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes. It’s near Scheveningen.”

  “That’s right,” Els said with a slight smile. After a brief silence, she asked, “Where are you from?”

  The woman was slow to reply, as if even talking took energy out of her. “Arnhem,” she finally said.

  “I’m sorry for bothering you. If you’d rather rest and not talk, I understand,” Els said. “It’s just so good to have someone to talk to.”

  “I like . . . talking too,” Roos said. After a pause she winced and added, “It takes my mind off the pain.”

  “The last time I visited Arnhem we saw the Doorwerth Castle,” Els said.

  The woman nodded slightly.

  “It’s hard to believe it hasn’t been damaged by the war,” Els added.

  “There is a lot of Dutch history in that building,” Roos said.

  Els nodded. “Before the war, my papa delivered food from farms to families in the area. He made a lot of deliveries to the castle.”

  Roos’s eyes opened. “Your papa must have met a lot of people with a job like that.”

  “Yes, he did. He has a way of making customers feel like friends.”

  With effort, Roos scooched to the nearest wall, grunted, and partially sat up, leaning on the wall for support. She looked at Els. “Where is your papa now? I hope he’s all right.”

  “I hope so too,” Els said. “But you are not from Arnhem. Doorwerth Castle was badly damaged two months ago, and everyone in Arnhem knows it. The Nazis put you in this cell to get me to let something slip about Papa. A lot of other things gave you away, but I won’t tell you what you did wrong, because I don’t teach traitors how to fix their stories. You want to know about my papa? I’ll tell you this. He taught me to read people like a book,” Els said, glaring at the other woman, “and yours has an unhappy ending.”

  “That isn’t true. I’m not a collaborator,” Roos said with a furrowed forehead.

  “It is true. I am done talking to you about anything.”

  “You have to believe me,” Roos said with pleading eyes. Els said nothing. She just folded her arms and glared at the other woman.

  The two women were quiet. Five minutes later the cell door opened, and a guard motioned for Roos to follow him. She clambered to her feet and walked out, showing no sign of her former leg pain.

  Els stared at the cell door. The Nazis would stop at nothing to get information about Papa. Cruelty had failed, so they’d resorted to treachery. She smiled. That meant Papa was a re
al thorn in their side. And they still had no idea where he was.

  Roos, or whatever her name really was, thought she might fool Els. But that woman was too well fed to be in the Resistance, she showed too much interest at the first mention of Papa, and she’d mispronounced Scheveningen, the way Germans do.

  Els jerked the mattress from where the impostor had lain on it and shoved it back to its previous position. She brushed the surface with her hand; she wanted no trace of the betrayer left on it. The moffen had tried and failed again to get her to talk.

  She picked up the pebble in the corner and mouthed, “Heart of stone.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FARMHOUSE NEAR DRIEL

  DIRK STUDIED THE HOUSE for several minutes, but no one entered or left. “I’m going to knock on the door now, Anna.”

  “Wait!” Anna said. “What if they give us back to the Germans?”

  Dirk glanced at the work uniforms they still wore, and a chill shot up his spine. “There are a lot of good Dutch people, Anna, and most of the people who were helping the Germans are scared to do that now because the Germans are losing.”

  “But what if they take us back to the gun factory?”

  Dirk’s right hand twitched, and he thrust it into his pocket.

  “Well,” he gulped, “then we’ll just have to escape again. But sometimes you have to take a chance, because it’s the only chance you have.” He kneeled in front of her and looked her in the eye. “If they promise to help, then I’ll come get you.”

  “And they’ll take us to Oma and Opa’s house?” Anna squealed.

  “I hope so,” Dirk said. “How is your ankle?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Good.” He walked to the barn door and stared across the field. He motioned to Anna. “Come over here. Do you see that next house?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Here’s what you need to do.” His voice cracked. “If I don’t come back to the barn . . .” He turned away and took several deep breaths. He turned back to her and said, his voice still shaky, “If I, uh, stay in the house, I want you to hide in this barn until dark and then walk to that next farm.” He pointed with his left hand. “Ask them to help you get to Oma and Opa’s. Understand?”