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To my family. They are my everything.
‘For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.’
Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke
Prologue
Sydney
June, 2019
The yellow envelope sat on Ingrid’s lap like a lead weight.
‘There’s something I want to tell you.’ The words left her mouth before she could recall them, and her daughter paused momentarily before she replaced the guitar on its stand. The words hung between them for a second.
‘Is everything okay?’ Natalie was a classically trained guitarist, but even the soothing strains of her playing hadn’t eased Ingrid’s taut nerves today.
Natalie joined her on the couch and the flash of concern across her face caused a wave of uncertainty to roll over Ingrid. Natalie was heavily pregnant with her first child. Maybe now wasn’t the time to break the news, but her heart was pounding and she had to continue.
‘I’ve received some news from Germany. From Berlin, to be exact.’ Natalie’s dark eyes darted to the thick envelope on Ingrid’s lap. ‘It’s regarding the deceased estate of my mother… My biological mother. She died two years ago.’
‘What?’ The stunned expression on Natalie’s face was hard to bear. ‘Your biological mother? I don’t understand.’
‘I was adopted by Oma and Opa as a baby. I didn’t find out until I was about twelve.’ Ingrid quickly reached out to hold Natalie’s hand. ‘They didn’t tell me much, except that they couldn’t have children and were overjoyed when they got me. In the early fifties, when I was small, they decided to leave Germany for a better life in Australia. They never talked about the war and their life in Germany, not even to me.’
Natalie gripped her mother’s hand tight and stared at her, glassy-eyed. ‘Did… did Oma ever tell you anything about your birth mother?’
‘She helped me look for her when I was twenty-one, but we found nothing. The adoption laws in East Germany didn’t allow access to information about natural parents. And by the time the Berlin Wall came down I was married, and I had you. It didn’t seem to matter anymore… so I gave up the search.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Natalie let go of Ingrid’s hand and sagged against the lounge, her face white and pasty.
‘I’m sorry, but there was nothing to tell. It seemed kinder to everyone to just let it go. You had your grandparents, and they loved you so much.’
‘But this changes everything.’ Tears spilled from Natalie’s eyes and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. ‘I loved Oma and Opa but I’ve always yearned for extended family and neither you nor Dad could tell me much about my heritage. This might be our only chance to find out more. I want my child to know who she is…’
Ingrid felt her chest squeeze like a vice. She remembered when her mother had told her about the adoption – the bewilderment, confusion, betrayal – and the questions that came after. That single moment had shattered who she thought she was and it took years for her to put the pieces back together. Now she understood how her mother had felt telling her the truth and she wished she didn’t have to put her own daughter through the same turbulent emotions, but maybe the parcel would offer some answers and together they could make sense of their heritage.
Ingrid leaned forward, reaching for her daughter’s hand again. ‘I know it’s a shock, but I didn’t want to keep it from you anymore. Especially with the baby coming.’
Natalie squeezed her hand and gave her a wobbly smile, making Ingrid sigh with relief.
‘Do you want to know about your grandmother? The package is full of letters from her, maybe twenty or thirty.’
Ingrid wasn’t even sure she wanted to open the letters. She had no idea what they contained – and she knew there would be no going back after reading them. She watched Natalie’s face, a faraway expression in her dark eyes, an inheritance from an unknown ancestor. She had to do it for Natalie and her grandchild, if not for herself.
‘I don’t know how I feel, Mum,’ Natalie said softly. ‘I can only imagine what she went through to give you up, but she must have wanted you to know about her, writing all those letters.’ She rubbed a protective hand over her swollen belly. ‘It will never change how I love or remember Oma and Opa, but I think we owe it to her. I want to know our family story before the time comes to tell my own little one.’
Ingrid blinked away her own tears. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. We’ll do it together, one letter at a time.’ With shaky hands she pulled out the papers inside the envelope. A diamond ring, worn with age, spilled out with the letters. She held it in her hand for a moment before placing it on the side table. Natalie leaned across and kissed her cheek and Ingrid swallowed hard. ‘The solicitor has suggested we read her last letter first. I’ll translate as I go.’ Picking up the single sheet, she inspected the delicate, spidery script. This was her mother’s handwriting. The breath caught in her throat as she experienced an immediate and physical connection, like a touch reaching out to her through time. It was unnerving and comforting at the same time.
‘Twelfth of May, 2017,’ she read.
To my dearest daughter,
My name is Susanna Christina Louise Göttmann. I am your birth mother. If you’re reading this, then my years of searching are over. I’ve been looking for you for many years and now at ninety-three years of age, with time growing so short for me, I’ve appointed others to help find you.
I only ever saw you the once, when you were born. You were adopted not long after, by a good family, and I prayed they’d love you as much as I did. I tried to find you, but under the Soviet occupation, and later, when we became East Germany, no rights were granted to parents who had given their children up for adoption, no matter the circumstance. After the reunification, I hoped for another chance to find you but the new laws were just as restrictive. Still, I never stopped hoping that one day I would see you again.
I’d love nothing more than to look at you and hold you in my arms again, one last time before I die, but if it’s not possible, I want you to know that I’ve never stopped loving you and thinking about you every day of my life. All I can do is tell you my story and hope you learn a little about me. And I wanted you to have something from me… this precious ring.
Ingrid put the letter down with trembling hands and picked up the ring, glancing up at Natalie, who was staring at her, wide-eyed.
‘She kept searching for you all those years.’
Ingrid nodded, feeling dazed. She had always wondered whether she’d been unwanted and abandoned; it had left her feeling that perhaps she had never been good enough, despite the love her adoptive parents had lavished on her. She curled her fingers around the ring in her hand, her mother’s ring. It was warm to the touch, as though her mother had slipped it off her own hand and placed it in hers. Ingrid didn’t know much about her mother except that she’d never stopped searching and that proved she was determined, persistent and tenacious and that she loved her.
Natalie hugged her tight. ‘She loved you and she wanted you. That must feel good to know.’
‘It does,’ Ingrid whispered. Relief coursed through her, and more tears sprang to her eyes, but there was somet
hing else too – excitement tingled in her blood. Ingrid wanted to know more. They had to keep reading.
She wiped her eyes and turned the page over. ‘From the age of seven I grew up on a large estate outside Berlin, belonging to my godparents Georg and Elya Hecker,’ Ingrid continued, her voice shaking.
Gut Birkenhof was three hundred hectares, about seven hundred and fifty acres, and named for the ancient birch trees rooted into the hillside near the manor house that many locals believed had guarded the estate for hundreds of years. It was beautiful, straight out of a fairy tale, nestled between the forest and the Dahme River, and a magical childhood home. After my parents, Walter Gottfried and Anna Christina, and my ten-year-old brother Friedrich were killed in an automobile accident in 1931 I went to live with Onkel Georg and Tante Elya there. Elya and my mother had been best friends since school, and she and Onkel Georg treated me like the daughter they’d never had. Their son Leo, who was the same age as Friedrich, took me under his wing and was kind to me, teaching me about the farm, how to milk a cow and look after the horses; practical skills that kept me busy and distracted me from my grief and made me feel part of the family.
Like my parents, Onkel Georg was from ancient landed nobility, a ‘Junker’, and a very successful timber merchant, but the estate also had a substantial dairy operation, providing milk and cheese for Berlin. It also produced crops like wheat and barley. It was the largest and most productive estate in the area and the main source of work for locals.
Those were carefree days. Then I learnt about Hitler in school and how the Jewish people were considered unclean, corrupt and enemies of our great nation. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 decreed that those with four Jewish grandparents were considered full Jews and no longer eligible for German citizenship, and those with two Jewish grandparents were ‘mischlinge’, mixed race. It came as a great shock to me – my beloved Tante Elya was a Jew, originally from Russia, and this meant Leo was of mixed blood. One day, Onkel Georg brought Leo home from school after a terrible racial attack and our innocent childhood days were over.
The pogroms of Kristallnacht erupted three years later and war was waged on Germany’s Jewish citizens. I realised my beloved homeland was no longer safe for anyone who did not conform to Nazi views and policies. The mood in Germany was dangerous, and dark times were ahead. Trouble was brewing for our family.
1
It was January 1943 and Tante Elya and I were finally alone in the parlour.
‘We have to write that guest list if we’re going to have your party in April,’ she said, pouring a second cup of tea from the teapot, kept hot on top of the samovar. It was a beautiful vase-shaped silver urn, with a central pipe filled with slow burning pine-cones that heated the water used to dilute the tea. The pot was intricately decorated with brilliantly coloured enamel paint, like a delicate jewelled ornament. It had been her mother’s and her grandmother’s before her, and reminded Tante Elya of her childhood in Russia. Drinking tea in the afternoon was a daily ritual for her, carrying on the tradition from her family. When I was home I always enjoyed it with her, finding a few moments of peace in an otherwise busy day.
‘I don’t want a big party,’ I said, mortified and excited at the same time. I had been away on my national service when I turned eighteen so Tante Elya had insisted on celebrating my nineteenth birthday in style, despite the news filtering back about our army’s terrible losses in Stalingrad on the Eastern Front and talk that the war was not going well for Germany. It was now grinding into its fourth year and all hope of a quick war had been lost. Even the relentless Nazi propaganda machine couldn’t paper over the reality of Germans living daily with stiff rationing, continuous bombings, the loss of their menfolk and the bone-deep fear that the war would never end. It didn’t feel right to be lavish, and yet it was exciting to be planning my first grown-up party.
‘Don’t be silly, myshka. We have to make the most of what we have and enjoy the company of those we love. None of us knows what tomorrow will bring.’ Water flowed into the china cup from the tap on the bottom of the samovar, tempering the strength of the dark brew, and Tante Elya placed a sugar lump on my teaspoon before handing me the delicate cup and saucer. She was indulging me – with Onkel Georg’s contacts, we could still get luxuries like tea and sugar, but Elya ensured we used them sparingly.
‘Besides, you’re the only girl I have and I want to spoil you a little.’ She reached across the table and grasped my hand, her skin still warm from the teacup. ‘Your mother would’ve done the same for you.’
My mother. The last memory I had of her was lying in a field of wildflowers – red poppies, and blue cornflowers the colour of her eyes vibrant against her long golden hair. She was laughing at my father chasing after my brother and me as we played hide and seek. Then I was beside her and my father was tickling my cheek with soft stalks of grass. We’d spent much of the summer in East Prussia, at our property in Marienwerder. We lived in Berlin, where my father had a thriving architectural firm, but we travelled to Marienwerder whenever we could. A little while later, I was lulled to sleep by the sound of the car as we travelled back to Berlin that night only to wake to screeching tyres, a loud bang and a feeling of weightlessness. There was nothing after that until I woke up in hospital to learn that my family was dead, taken from me in those few moments after our car had hit a lone deer on the dark road.
At the age of seven, I inherited everything – a more than tidy sum of money and the property that had been in my mother’s family for generations. As my mother’s parents had died long ago, and her brothers during the Great War, I was all that was left, but for a long time after I’d wished that they’d taken me with them.
‘Come, she wouldn’t want you to be sad,’ whispered Tante Elya, her dark, expressive eyes misty. I knew she missed my mother terribly too – they’d been as close as sisters since Elya had arrived in Berlin as a young girl, having just lost her mother herself. Now she kissed my forehead and smoothed the long blonde hair from my face, her hands soft against my skin. ‘Your parents would be so proud of you.’
All I could do was nod, quickly gazing out the large window that overlooked the garden, blanketed in white after the heavy snowfall the day before. The pale rays of afternoon sunshine sparkled on the icy branches of the trees, making me smile. It reminded me that even in the darkest moments, there was joy and hope to find. The death of my parents and brother had brought me my new family, and I loved them fiercely.
Tante Elya pushed a few sheets of writing paper across the table to me with a fountain pen on top. ‘Think about who you want on your list while I jot down a few ideas for the menu. Then we can go through them together.’
I stared at the blank page while I sipped my tea through the sugar cube. My best friend Marika was the top of my list and I thought long and hard about which of my school and university friends I wanted to invite. I was in my very first semester at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, studying history, languages and literature, and had made friends quickly with other students who lived on campus with me during the week. It was much like boarding school, which I’d attended since I was twelve, but although I enjoyed the excitement and bustle of the city, I was always glad to be home for the weekend. Despite the persistent bombing raids over Berlin, the city had sustained little damage and the rich cultural life of the capital was unchanged. Berliners were resilient and refused to let the war disrupt their daily lives.
But I had seen another side to the war. For six months before starting my studies, I’d served with the Red Cross at the Beelitz Sanatorium just outside of Berlin, nursing horrifically injured soldiers from the front line. I’d never forget the soldier, little more than a boy, who’d lost half his cheek and jaw from a bullet shot. He’d undergone multiple surgeries in an effort to save what was left of his face, but he still couldn’t talk afterwards and had to be fed through a tube in his nose. I knew he’d never kiss his mother again. And the signs in Berlin banning Jewish people from cafes,
restaurants and parks – from fully enjoying the city and all it had to offer – so common that they had become invisible to most, were constant reminders to me that the Third Reich was also at war with its own people.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933 Berlin had been home to the country’s largest Jewish community – 160,000 strong, about a third of Germany’s entire Jewish population. After the pogroms of Kristallnacht in 1938, tens of thousands of Jewish people fled Germany, migrating to places like France, the Netherlands, Palestine, England and North and South America. By 1941 over half had left Berlin and we’d heard it was similar right across Germany. Those who remained – including Onkel Tedi, one of Tante Elya’s beloved brothers, and his family – were ‘resettled’ in ghettos in German-occupied Poland to the east: Warsaw, Lodz and Krakau to name a few.
No matter how benign the Nazi government was trying to make such a mass expulsion, it was clear Germany was getting rid of its remaining Jewish population any way it could.
Onkel Tedi had smuggled out letters telling us of the horrible and cramped conditions in Lodz. The ghetto was surrounded by barbed wire and brick walls, the gates and perimeters monitored by armed police. Prominent quarantine signs were meant to isolate them further from the rest of the city but became self-fulfilling prophesies when poor conditions within the ghettos led to outbreaks of disease. They were forced to work long hours in factories making military uniforms or electrical equipment, their only payment small rations of food barely enough to keep them alive. They were being left to die in their ghetto prisons.
At first we sent parcels of food, clothing, blankets and money to him, but when we heard they hadn’t arrived, we used an intermediary to smuggle small items into the ghetto from time to time. It was all we could do to help the deplorable situation he and his family were in.
Those few Jewish people who remained in Berlin – only a small fraction, perhaps 10,000 – were protected because of their level of skill and expertise, or, like Tante Elya and Leo, were protected by marriage. But I wondered for how much longer. I had begun to hate being in the city, at the heart of it all, the seat of the Nazi government, and I missed the river, the forests, the open spaces and tranquillity of life on the land, the welcoming smiles of the staff, the warm embraces from Tante Elya, Onkel Georg’s updates about the farm, and Leo’s dinner-time questions about my studies.
Letters from Berlin Page 1