Winter Passing

by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

  Brant kicked the sheets and blankets from his ankles and sat on the floor, the metal sideboard cold against his bare back. The room was more than silent. It was empty just like his life. Suddenly he couldn’t take another day of it.

  He turned onto his knees as he’d done when he was a child. “God, help me.”

  At that instant, Gunther’s voice returned from a fold of memory. “Everyone asks how God could allow such a terrible thing.” Gunther’s voice resounded with spirit in each word. And tonight Brant listened again. “Why does man blame God? For I want to know how man could allow such a terrible thing. God gave man dominion over the earth. If we simply can’t care for one another or stop evil from breeding and growing—”

  “But Gunther, I hear their voices,” Brant had said. “I dream about them.”

  “I’ve struggled as you are.”

  “I’m sorry, Gunther. Of course you have. I lost my mother to a disease, not by man. Why should I complain about hearing the sufferings of others? It should make me appreciate my life, not come to you complaining.”

  “You struggle because you truly care. You don’t merely listen; you feel the words and hurts of others. That’s a good thing, though more painful for you. It’s easier to close your heart to others. But keep it open, Brant, despite how you bleed.”

  “So where is God in all this—if we can’t blame him? You tell me he’s active in individual lives. Where was he?”

  Gunther had faced him then, kindness in his eyes. “And you want to ask, where is he now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do not know all the answers. But I know some things from my own life. I know God is quiet at times, but not absent. He hears our cries but allows man’s business. He allows man his own course.”

  “And evil takes over.”

  “Only the evil that man warrants. That goes for yesterday and today. But still in individual lives and as a collective world, God allows choices. He doesn’t want puppets to seek him. He wants man with a free will. Perhaps he is silent so that man’s work without his involvement can be seen. I do not know. But because of the choice God allows in man, innocents do become victims. While I don’t believe God wants this, he does heal all things and punishes all wrongs.”

  “I doubt everything. I don’t know if I believe God exists.”

  “I must believe in God because I’ve known both evil and love. I’ve tasted evil within myself and by what’s been done to me. This evil is alive, breathing, destroying. Yet I also have known the opposite of evil. I lived with an incredible, enduring love and found truth and hope in ashes. The good is often harder to find. Evil is easy. Love is hard. But one leads to death. The other to life.”

  “How have you survived it all?”

  “My faith in Christ. I see what is not in our vision. I hear what few are willing to listen for. I feel what most would say is not there.”

  “I could never have such a faith.”

  “Do you believe?”

  “I think I do, but my doubt is as great. Sometimes it’s too much for me. How can I live with these stories in my head? How do they live?”

  “I do not understand how the telephone works.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I do not understand how the telephone works. A few days ago, I made a call and really took a look at the telephone. I’ve been told about a huge wire under the ocean or satellites that transmit sound, but still, I cannot fathom how my voice can be spoken and delivered across the world in one moment. Yet I use the telephone regardless. I cannot understand the telephone, or the computer, or a thousand things that are made by man. How can I claim to understand everything about God? Yet can I give up on God because of my ignorance?”

  Gunther had put a hand on Brant’s shoulder then. “One thing I must say to you. I think of you as my son and implore you. You must live, Brant. Live because you can. Live because others cannot. And in that, live for God.”

  The words faded away, and Brant was alone again with only past moments. He wanted the old times he’d had with his mentor, when they’d meet for coffee and sit for hours talking. “Who will help me, Gunther?”

  A breath of answer entered his thoughts. Come to me, for I know all the answers.

  Brant felt like Jacob in the Bible wrestling with God. But he finally had reached the end. He could not live as he was, and so he put his trust in the one he did not understand.

  As Brant bowed his head, he still heard the stories. But a new strength arose in him that told him to live, to love, to breathe.

  The day dawned with glorious greeting. Life breathed in hillsides of green, in clusters of trees adorned with their leaves of many colors, in a windless day of warmth. And Darby was driving to a concentration camp.

  She wanted to tell the day to be ugly and sad, that an eternal cloud of stark weather should cover the land south of Linz. The sun should no longer warm the earth; geraniums should no longer bloom in window boxes. But the design of nature with its tearing and healing of seasons didn’t mind her desire or her destination.

  Darby followed the signs, exited the Autobahn, continued through towns, passing a McDonald’s and a gas station. A wide, clean bridge crossed the Danube, reminding Darby of her grandmother singing the words to “The Blue Danube,” Austria’s unofficial national anthem.

  When Darby turned the car toward Mauthausen, a hillside community, a sudden chill prickled down her back. The sign for the village shared the name of its concentration camp.

  The KZ Mauthausen sign pointed the way. The road wound upward past houses, a beautiful tree-lined curve, open fields, up and up. The road was a perfect place for a Sunday drive until she reached the top. There it stood—a walled fortress stretching across the horizon. Guard towers with pointed tops, a straight concrete wall surrounding it, and a red chimney silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky.

  She maneuvered the vehicle between the white, straight lines of a parking space. A few other cars inhabited the paved lot along with a tour bus with advertisements for its other excursions—Danube Tours. Darby shook her head at the irony: One of its stops took camera-happy tourists to a concentration camp.

  With her arms still on the steering wheel, Darby leaned forward, letting her eyes trace the length of the massive blocked wall with five rows of barbed wire on the top.

  It’s big. As big as I should expect, but bigger than I actually imagined. Tatianna, are you here? My family, are you waiting?

  It was time to go in.

  Darby carried her camera bag without the intention of taking photos, but for companionship. She stopped at the iron doorway. The structure towered above with a walled courtyard ahead. She felt small in the shadow of the massive stone walls.

  No signs led her now, only blind direction.

  I feel alone, Darby thought, though she imagined the cries of thousands who hadn’t been alone, only dreamt to someday be.

  She paused in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by the barbed wire–topped walls. Her entire life she’d denied that this place was part of her family heritage. She denied it from entering her life or thoughts. Now she was here. An instant thought told her to run, run, run.

  “I feel a part of me has died too,” she whispered to the shadows watching from every crack and crevasse. “Perhaps that’s why I can’t find love or peace. Part of me died here also—is that it? Not body or soul, but heritage and past.”

  Darby stood a moment longer. She heard voices from the parking lot, and a couple entered the silent courtyard. Holding hands and a tour book, they’d come to learn and remember. Wasn’t that what this place was for—to help people never forget? The interruption brought her back to the place and her mission.

  I’m here for a purpose, she reminded herself. I’ve come to search for information, facts, answers. I’m looking for Tatianna,
maybe my family too. Information is all I seek; nothing else.

  Darby moved toward the end of the courtyard, where wide concrete stairs led upward. Beside them was a plaque in both German and English. She paused to read while the couple passed.

  In remembrance of the members of the Second Armoured Division of the US Army who liberated the camps of Mauthausen, Gusen, Ebensee, and others nearby in Upper Austria in May 1945. Their deeds will never be forgotten.

  She climbed the steps and stopped at the top. To her left, monuments stretched away toward what appeared to be a massive gorge, which broke off as if the hillside had been eaten away. Darby assumed it must be the granite quarry with its “Death Walk” stairway. She wondered if any of her family members had died on that stairway. Had they stumbled under the weight of granite slabs as Nazis bashed clubs against their bodies? Had Celia’s father, brother, or aunt died this way? Anyone against Nazi policy could have been sent here. What did those faces look like? She didn’t know and wasn’t sure if she wanted that knowledge even now.

  Darby turned away from the memorials and quarry and walked beneath another set of stone archways with buildings beyond. A man in a booth sold tickets, tickets to a concentration camp. She understood the need for payment, since the place needed upkeep and financing. But still it made her shiver—she was paying to see where her family was murdered.

  Darby handed the man the schillings and asked for a guide or map.

  “Bookstore,” came his simple reply. She considered asking for more information, if only she knew German.

  Darby entered the main area of the camp, which stretched across the top of the hill. She spotted a bookstore sign beside the structure. When she stepped inside the small room, she saw that several other people were there, perusing books and videos. Darby glanced through the resources too, picked out a few in hopes of finding more information, and bought a guide. On her exit back into the sunshine, Darby held the door for an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Their eyes locked for a moment. Was that sorrow she saw?

  “Merci,” the woman said as she passed. A French woman.

  What’s your story? Darby wondered as she watched the frail woman gaze around the little store. Darby wished she could have Grandma Celia with her, or someone to hold her hand and share this experience.

  Guidebook in hand, Darby tried to refocus on facts. First, get a general overview of the camp, then look for the information needed.

  She glanced from map to buildings and walls. The barbed wire atop the granite wall stretched around the camp on three sides. Another barbed-wire fence, once electrically charged, marked the back. Behind her was the entrance gate, while in front was the camp’s main roadway with the roll-call area—where she now stood. Housing or “blocks” lined the left side of the road. At one time these buildings had been the first in several rows of blocks that housed prisoners. Upraised foundations marked where the now-missing blocks had stood. A kitchen unit, laundry building, sick quarters, and brothel—everything the Nazis needed—were in the front. Behind were the inmates from all over Europe—political prisoners, gypsies, criminals, “anti-socials”—with the farthest from the front being the Jewish block. Darby plodded down the long row to the last foundation. A headstone stood in the center with the Star of David and individual rocks covering the top. Darby reached for a stone on the ground and put it on top of the headstone with the others. She paused, feeling the heaviness of the moment, then moved back to the roll-call area.

  On a granite wall near the bookstore entrance several plaques caught her eye. This was called “The Wailing Wall.” Darby found the irony in the name. The famous “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem, built next to the last-standing remnant of Solomon’s temple, was a place of prayer for Jews. This wailing wall was for tears and death during long hours of torture.

  Darby breathed in slowly. What did she feel? Was this even real? She moved on, walking in and out of buildings, looking at photographs and reading the guide. For minutes, she forgot where she was, as if she’d entered a library or museum. The next minute she again heard the deafening silence of a death camp—a scream that yelled, “I was murdered here, right where you stand and hold your guidebook. They murdered us all, and here the world ended.”

  Darby entered a grassy area surrounded by shorter granite walls. The manicured lawn was covered with stone crosses and headstones with the Star of David. No markings rested above individual bodies, since the entire site was a mass grave. Did Tatianna rest here, her body twisted together with Darby’s other family members? Or was she in the ash pile behind the camp, dumped down the hillside slope where grass and flowers and trees now grew?

  An aunt who’d rocked Grandma Celia, her daddy who’d wiped tears from her cheeks—somewhere like this they died. People, real people—parents, teachers, lovers, woodworkers, travelers, photographers.

  Why had Darby never thought of them? In school, her class had done family trees and reports. Several of her friends were fascinated with their pasts and studied at great length. Darby hadn’t had the interest. She did the work required, learned the basics of what had happened, but that was all. History was history and not a place for her to look. You couldn’t take a picture of yesterday, only of today.

  One of her worst school experiences was when her teacher learned she had family who perished in the Holocaust. He was fascinated and wanted her to do a family study for her final report. “You’re a child of Holocaust survivors and victims. Which camps? Were they Jewish?”

  She’d never been embarrassed about her Jewish blood until she met a friend’s surprised questions.

  “You’re Jewish?”

  “A little, just like I’m Austrian, Danish, Cherokee, and a bunch of other things.”

  Darby hadn’t noticed many racial tensions or prejudice in her small town. She’d never quite understood it and became even more confused when she was the victim.

  “Well, I’m glad I don’t have Jew in me,” the girl said.

  “When did I become a Jew?”

  But that was only a passing scene in the myriad of high school and college events. Darby buried it and hoped her classmates did also. She had many friends and was involved in student government, French club, the yearbook—as photographer, of course. Yet as she stood in the place where her own flesh and blood had died, she finally wondered and wanted answers. Was it simply self-absorption, or a partial reaction to the unspoken silence within her home about past events? Or had Darby herself somehow resisted, knowing the steps she now took were the requirement for such interest?

  She wished she could travel back in time and help the ten thousand individuals in each mass grave. That she could tell them, “Stay alive, stay alive. In sixty more years, you’ll see that Mauthausen and all the other camps are only museums. Tours will walk through and point to your grave unless you can keep living.” And then make it happen.

  After walking the length and width of the camp, Darby entered the museum. Two exhibitions were displayed in the long, narrow building. She sat with several others, watching the Mauthausen film that played every hour with different languages in different rooms. The images and information numbed her as she wondered if one set of those hollow eyes that stared from the black-and-white screen would recognize her as their descendant. Did they point and say, “There’s my great-granddaughter. She’s come to save us a few decades too late”?

  Darby left the dark viewing room for the exhibit “Austrians in the Nazi Concentration Camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, and the Theresienstadt Ghetto.” After that, it was the exhibition on “The Mauthausen Concentration Camp and its Sub-Camps.”

  All of a sudden Darby wondered not about the victims, but about the men in SS and Gestapo uniforms. Germans, Austrians, farmers, banker’s sons, poets, and woodworkers—they were men just like their victims and yet not like them at all. Darby stared at the photographs.
Frozen eyes stared back.

  Where are you now? Are you burning in some kind of hell? Did you finally see yourself before you died? Or are you still living, still hating, or still hiding? Maybe you there are the old man in Hallstatt raking his leaves. Or maybe instead he’s the one you didn’t get to kill.

  Desperate to find something in their eyes—an evil or darkness, or even a glimpse of shadow—Darby moved closer. But the photographs—what she trusted to capture the moment—failed her. For there was nothing to be found. Nothing to distinguish an SS from Gestapo from soldier from civilian. Nothing to show a higher or lower degree of guilt or hatred. One man waved at her from the back of a truck; a mischievous grin sparkled from his face. In life he could be someone who’d flirt and ask her for a date or throw a football with the neighborhood children. In the photo he sat in the back of a truck brimming with human corpses.

  Numbers, statistics, and maps depicted the facts, but the faces in the photographs argued it couldn’t be true. They were just men and boys. They couldn’t have experimented with that man’s life or tortured that poor woman’s body. Darby read a quote by a United States colonel, Seibel, about the camp’s liberation: “Mauthausen was a reality . . . as was the brutal and inhumane treatment of human beings by human beings.”

  Examining each photo, she read in her book the English version. When she saw a display titled “Guard file cards,” she stopped, remembering the information Sophie Gerringer had given her. She took the paper from her purse and searched the chart.

  There. Darby couldn’t believe it. There was the name. Bruno Weiler. It was difficult to understand what must have been guard information, and she could not find an English version. But she did find his name and “Hallstatt, OS,” meaning he must have been from Hallstatt. There were several dates on the file, including 1940 and 1943. Did that mean he’d been a guard here during that time?