Rachel nodded, “Yes, please, she needs a doctor.” He probably hadn’t understood, but since he looked so friendly, she let him carry Mindel away and followed him when he beckoned her to do so.
With the help of people who spoke English, the soldier in charge explained to the liberated prisoners that they were going to bring food from the nearby town as soon as possible and would also organize proper accommodations, but this could take some time.
Nobody moaned or complained, because the elation over being liberated ran high in everyone. Rachel stood next to the young American who was holding little Mindel. It broke her heart to see the specter-thin body fighting against the deadly disease. As much as she understood that the Americans couldn’t do magic, she feared that waiting by the train with the others until proper accommodations were organized could cost Mindel’s life.
Together with a woman who spoke English, she approached the officer in charge.
“Please, my sister needs a doctor.”
The officer cast a single glance at Mindel and then yelled to one of his men, “Get this girl to the next hospital right away.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.” A younger soldier turned to her. “Miss, if you could come with me, we’ll take your sister to the hospital.”
Rachel nodded and followed him to one of the jeeps that had come after the tanks. “Where are we?”
“Hillersleben.”
She’d never heard that name and must have looked confused, because he added, “Our next field hospital is in Magdeburg, about fifteen miles from here.”
In the field hospital the doctors and medics did everything they could for Mindel, but she wouldn’t wake. Since their liberation four days prior she’d been in a deep slumber the doctors called a coma and for two more days the fever spiked. Rachel grew increasingly desperate when her little sister kept sleeping even after the fever finally broke on day three.
She rarely left Mindel’s bedside, even though the doctors insisted she must rest. One of the medics only got her to go to the delousing procedure by promising her to watch over Mindel himself.
By day four nobody would give a single cent for Mindel’s life, but Rachel stubbornly refused to believe her little darling wouldn’t wake up anymore. She faked a certitude she didn’t possess, and only when everyone was asleep at night, did she allow her tears to flow.
She cried for the beautiful little girl lying in the bed who had watched her entire life explode into a thousand disjointed pieces. It wasn’t fair that things would end this way. Mindel had her entire life ahead of her and now…
Rachel dropped her head to the bedside, soaking the sheets with her tears. Mindel had been her sole reason to keep going this last year. If she died, Rachel didn’t want to be alive either.
31
Everything was soft and plush. Mindel gingerly moved her fingers across what felt like linen sheets, not a scratchy mattress. She held still for a moment, afraid to open her eyes and destroy the beautiful dream.
It was surprisingly quiet and she missed the constant coughing, burping, moaning, whimpering that had been with her every minute of every night since she’d first arrived at the camp. Something was entirely wrong.
Was this how it felt to be in heaven? Curious, she tried to open her eyes, which wasn’t an easy task. She blinked several times, but it still took a while until the whitish fog cleared from her vision and she finally saw her surroundings.
Now she was sure she’d died, because all the men wore white coats, the beds were covered with white sheets and when she moved her head she felt the plush pillow beneath.
She must have missed her own death and had woken up as an angel. More curious than scared, she lifted the blanket to look beneath and yes, she wore a white nightdress just like the angels did. But much to her disappointment she couldn’t find her wings peeking out from under her shoulders, not even when she rolled onto her side.
They must not have given me wings, because I was asleep. A surge of panic bolted through her body, as she considered the idea that she’d overslept the distribution of wings and would now forever be an angel without the ability to fly.
A white-coated man approaching her with a big smile. “Welcome back. You had us all very worried, young lady.”
“Where am I?” Mindel asked with a cracked voice.
“In a field hospital.”
Mindel took a moment to consider his answer and then asked for clarification, “Where are my wings?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.” The man looked somehow confused.
She scrunched up her nose; how come he couldn’t answer such a simple question? Wasn’t he the one in charge of this thing? She tried again: “Am I dead?”
Now he smiled kindly. “No, you’re very much alive, although we were very worried about you.
“Oh.” Mindel wasn’t sure how she liked being back on earth, but since the man seemed willing to satisfy her curiosity, she pressed for more answers. “Are you going to send me back to the camp?”
He shook his head. “No, sweetie. The war is all but over. There are no more camps. You’ll never have to return.”
“Really?” She couldn’t believe her ears. “You promise?”
“Pinkie promise,” he said holding up his little finger and wrapping it around hers. “And now I want to examine you. Can you sit up?”
She nodded and with his help she sat upright in her soft and white bed while he took the stethoscope from around his neck, placing it in his ears. He listened to her heart and her lungs and then removed the earpieces. “Everything fine.”
Mindel decided she was done with examinations and it was time to address the really important issues. “I’m hungry and thirsty.”
The doctor chuckled and summoned a nurse. “This young lady needs some food and a glass of milk. Could you can get her something?”
“I’ll see what I can rustle up.”
Just then Mindel suddenly remembered the march from the camp to the train ramp and how she’d found her sister there. She grabbed the doctor’s coat and asked with anguish, “Where’s Rachel?”
“She’s over there, sleeping.” He pointed at the cot next to her. “She’s been watching over you the whole week.
Mindel followed the direction of his thumb and when she recognized her sister’s face, tears welled up and she decided that maybe it wasn’t all that bad that she hadn’t died. “I want her.”
“I’ll wake her up and tell her that you’re awake. She’ll be very happy.”
Mindel watched as the doctor walked over and gently woke her sister up. Rachel bolted to a sitting position and grinned in Mindel’s direction. Moments later, they lay in each other's arms.
“Sweetie-pie, I was so worried you’d never wake up again.”
“I missed you so much.” Mindel dug her face into Rachel’s chest, happy beyond words that she’d finally found her again.
A young soldier arrived with a glass of milk and some oatmeal. “This will get her feeling better in no time.”
“Hungry?” Rachel asked as she spread a cloth over Mindel’s lap.
Mindel eyed the food, but when Rachel went to offer her a spoonful of the cereal, Mindel refused to take it.
“What’s wrong?”
“You eat first and then I’ll…”
“I’ve already eaten.”
“You have?”
“Yes, they eat well here and they don’t mind sharing.”
Mindel was confused, but she quit fighting Rachel as she fed her the cereal.
“The doctor said I was sick.”
“Yes, you had a fever on the train and went to sleep, a coma, for just over a week.”
“I was asleep for a week?” Mindel asked with big eyes.
“Yes, silly. You scared me, too. I thought you were going to die.”
Mindel smiled at her then and shook her head. “They can’t kill us. We’re stronger than they are.”
“How do you figure that?”
“B
ecause we have each other.” It was all very simple. As long as she was with Rachel, everything was going to be alright.
“What happens now?” Mindel asked after finishing her breakfast.
“The war is still going on and we have to stay here until you’re fully recovered. Then we’ll be moved to a refugee camp.”
Mindel flinched. “Another camp? But the doctor promised…”
Rachel stroked her hair. “It’s a much better place with enough food, real beds, doctors and no roll calls. We’re in good hands with the Americans. And as soon as we can, we’ll find a way to travel home and look for Aaron and Israel.” Rachel removed the empty cereal bowl and hugged Mindel close. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”
Mindel snuggled into her sister’s arms for a long while and until a frightening thought occurred to her. She sat up and hurriedly scanned the surrounding area.
“What are you looking for?” Rachel asked.
“Paula. Where is she?” Mindel began to get agitated.
Rachel laughed. “Paula took a much deserved bath and delousing. I’ll get her for you.”
“That’s good. She was stinky.”
The doctor and nurse overheard her communication. “Things that stink seem commonplace around here. The good news is, your doll is no longer one of them.”
The nurse retrieved a much cleaner Paula. Mindel insisted on checking up on her to make sure she was feeling well, and the kind doctor even let her use his stethoscope to examine Paula.
“She’s much better, but needs to take a nap.” Mindel concluded with a bright smile, although her eyes were drooping.
“Why don’t you lie down with her?” Rachel suggested.
Mindel hid a yawn and slid under the clean blankets. “You won’t go away?” she murmured sleepily.
“I won’t leave you alone ever again,” Rachel promised her.
The End
Rachel, Mindel and their brothers appear in two more books of the War Girl Series. If you just want to find out how they cope after the war and whether they find their brothers after returning to Kleindorf, read Together at Last.
Or start with book 1 of the series: War Girl Ursula and follow the Klausen family and their friends through the war.
https://books2read.com/Ursula
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Author’s Notes
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Stolen Childhood. It was a tough book to write, almost on par with Unwavering, the third book in my Love and Resistance Trilogy, where I was bawling for days on end.
I had the idea for Stolen Childhood almost two years ago when I visited the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen and their temporary exhibition “Children in Concentration Camps”.
The interviews with child survivors were powerful, but it was one photograph of a small girl cuddling a stuffed animal that inspired me. This nameless girl became my inspiration for Mindel. You can see the picture on my website together with an article about my visit to the camp: https://kummerow.info/bergen-belsen-concentration-camp
Due to the harrowing nature of the topic, I postponed the project, but it kept nagging in the back of my head. To understand my reluctance to write the story, you must know that I have a daughter who was Mindel’s age when I first had the idea, and every time I sat down to work on the plot, my heart squeezed into a tight knot, thinking this could have happened to her. But the characters in my head have the annoying habit of pestering me, until I give in and tell their stories.
Doing my research into child survivors of Bergen-Belsen I glimpsed into the mind of children, which are so different from ours. I certainly don’t want to trivialize the Holocaust and the experience of imprisoned people, but to paraphrase Ladislaus Löb, an Hungarian Jew who was ten years old during his time in Bergen-Belsen: The children bore the hardships better than the adults, mainly because they were not aware of how desperate it really was. He admitted to being afraid, but at the same time feeling like being part of an exciting adventure.
Ladislaus and the other children mentioned in his book Rezsö Kastner – The daring rescue of Hungarian Jews: A survivor’s account became the inspiration for Laszlo.
Rezsö Kastner was a Hungarian Jew working closely with the Nazis to save as many Jews as he could. Thanks to his negotiations 1,686 Hungarian Jews bought their “free passage” from the Nazis and were shipped from Hungary via Bergen-Belsen to Switzerland.
The scene with Obersturmbannführer Krumey in Chapter 11 actually happened, although not in the Star camp, but in the adjacent Hungarian camp, where the first batch of 300 people were chosen to be sent to Switzerland. Obviously, everyone was desperate to get onto the first transport, since waiting for an elusive second transport might be in vain. 318 Jews travelled from Bergen-Belsen to Switzerland in August 1944, while the remaining 1,368 (including Ladislaus Löb and his father) arrived there in December 1944.
The female guard Susanne Hille is a real person. She worked in the KZ-Außenlager Tannenberg bei Unterlüß, which is why I sent Rachel to work there in the ammunition factory. In reality, this subcamp only functioned between August 1944 and April 1945, so I bent the timeline a few months to keep the story moving.
Susanne Hille is remembered by many survivors for her exceptional brutality. Before the British arrived, she escaped together with the other Tannenberg camp personnel and for many years it wasn’t clear what had happened to her. But it was later found out that she made it all the way across the Elbe river, where she died on May 7, 1945, one day before the capitulation of Germany. The exact circumstances of her death are unknown.
Starting in 1957 several compensation lawsuits against the Rheinmetall Berlin AG were instigated and apparently every woman who mentioned the orange hair and skin or the glass of milk, was immediately acknowledged as having worked for Rheinmetall and given compensation without further evidence.
The most infamous guard of Bergen-Belsen was Irma Grese, who was one of the very few women executed for her crimes by the Allies. I didn’t mention her in the book, because she only came to Bergen in March 1945, having been in Auschwitz and Ravensbrück before that.
You probably have recognized Bergen-Belsen’s most famous inmate Anne Frank and her sister Margot. They arrived at the end of 1944 on a transport from Auschwitz. The exact date when the two sisters died is unknown, it’s only clear that they became sick with typhus and perished in February 1945. According to a former inmate, “one day they simply weren’t there anymore”.
Hanneli Goslar is also a real person, who had been a classmate of Anne’s in Amsterdam. She managed to communicate several times with Anne across the fence, and she threw a package to her friend, which was stolen by another woman. Two days later she threw another one, which apparently was received, but that was the last time she and Anne had contact. Hanneli survived the war and later emigrated to Jerusalem, where she’s still living in 2020.
About the Author
Marion Kummerow was born and raised in Germany, before she set out to "discover the world" and lived in various countries. In 1999 she returned to Germany and settled down in Munich where she's now living with her family.
Her books are filled with raw emotions, fierce loyalty and perpetual resilience.
She loves to put her characters through the mangle, making them reach deep within to find the strength to face moral dilemma, make difficult decisions or fight for what is right. And she never forgets to include humor and undying love in her books, because ultimately love is what makes the world go round.
You can find all of her work here:
https://kummerow.info/
The Aftermath
Ellie Midwood
Contents
Synopsis
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
&nb
sp; Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Note to the Reader:
About the Author
Synopsis
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” (T. Roosevelt)
Berlin, 1945
Tadeusz Baumann, a recently liberated Auschwitz inmate, joins forces with the American intelligence service to hunt down Otto Neumann, a high-ranking SS official, who has the blood of thousands of innocents on his hands. Their only hope of finding Neumann is that he might contact his daughter, Gerlinde, before disappearing forever.
However, Gerlinde, a former BDM girl, refuses not only to cooperate but even acknowledge that her father did anything wrong, writing off the OSS agents’ accusations against him as enemy propaganda. Tadeusz and Agent Morris must convince her that the elite Nazi upbringing she had is tainted by evil and horrors beyond her imagination and persuade Gerlinde to cooperate before their quarry makes his final escape.
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII Page 14