The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

by Marion Kummerow

  Heinz stared at the group of people he’d come to care for, until they disappeared from sight. He kept his feet pinned to the floor of the truck in an effort to stop his legs from shaking. He refused to show these men how terrified he was. What would they do to him? Would it be like Dachau? He knew he couldn’t survive another camp like that.

  26

  June 1940

  “Sally, are you in?” Maggie shouted up the lane.

  Sally dropped the clothes she was hanging on the clothes-line and ran outside. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sally love, come in and sit down.” Maggie tried to lead her indoors to the kitchen. “I’ll make the tea.”

  “Is it news of Harry? Reverend Collins promised me he would find him. He also said the government would keep him safe. Was he wrong?”

  Maggie didn’t say anything. Sally couldn’t move, her feet rooted to the spot she stood on.

  “Maggie, tell me what’s going on, you’re scaring me.” Sally put her arms around herself, knowing that look on Maggie’s face. It was the same one Maggie wore when she came to find Sally at school to tell her about mum.

  “Who?” Sally demanded. As Maggie stayed silent, Sally heard the bell on a pushbike. The telegram boy. Ride on past, she shouted in her head but didn’t say a word. She and Maggie stared at one another in silence as they heard the boy put the bike against the wall, the squeak of the gate as he pushed it open. She’d asked Derek to mend the gate but he’d run out of time before he’d gone back. Derek, please God, no! It couldn’t be. Not her Derek.

  Her knees weakened as she heard the knock on the door.

  “Round the back, Ian,” Maggie shouted.

  Ian poked his head around the side of the cottage. “Mrs. Ardle you know I have to give it… oh hello, Mrs. Matthews, I didn’t see you. I…” Ian’s voice got buried by Sally’s scream.

  “No. I don’t want it. Take it away. Go away, do you hear me? Scram. Get on your bike and leave. Take that with you. I won’t open it. I won’t.” The whack across her face brought her back to her senses. For a split second, she held her hand to her face before Maggie pulled her into her arms.

  “Go on Ian, lad. Leave it on the table in the kitchen.”

  “But Mrs. Ardle…”

  “Leave it, lad. Nobody will know that you didn’t put it into her hand. Now go on. Find Reverend Collins and let him know.”

  Sally heard all this from a distance. She couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything, even though she knew Maggie had her arms wound tightly around her. She was glad of that, as she might topple over otherwise. She looked up, the sky was bright blue, birds were singing, the sun was shining. It shouldn’t be like that. The sky should be black, the sun hiding behind the dark clouds, with rain teeming down. That’s how it happened in films, all the time.

  She vaguely acknowledged the boy leaving, the scrape of the bike against the wall, the sound of tires on the pebbles. Maggie led her into the house and forced her to sit down. She heard her put the kettle on.

  Sally glanced at the table, the brown envelope sitting there where Ian had put it. She put her hand out towards it, surprised to see her hand shaking. She held one hand with the other before she could pick up the envelope. She didn’t want to open it, didn’t what to know what was inside.

  “He may not be…. he could just be hurt.” Maggie’s voice broke through her thoughts.

  She tore it open, reading it over and over but the words wouldn’t register. She threw it at Maggie. “What does it say, I can’t make it out?

  “He’s missing presumed…”

  Sally cut off the last word. She didn’t want to hear it. She stood up and started laying the table with plates and cutlery.

  “Sally, sit down and have some tea with sugar in. It’s good for shock.”

  “The children will be hungry. You know what they are like. Liesl will be awake soon. She doesn’t sleep long these days. Into everything, she is, the little rascal. She’s changed so much from the baby she was when she first arrived. She ran the other day. Did you know that?”

  “Sally, sit down now or I’m going for the doctor. Dunkirk was a mess. There are thousands missing. He’s probably a prisoner of war or something. You need to contact the Red Cross. I think they are the ones who find out where the soldiers are, like what camp they are in.”

  Sally knew Maggie was trying to be helpful, but she didn’t want her there. She didn’t want anyone in her home. In Derek’s home.

  “Maggie, can you take Liesl to your house and wait there for Tom. He has to walk past your house from school. Can you keep the children there for a while? I have to think. I need to be alone.”

  “Alone is the last thing you need.”

  “Don’t tell me what I need, Maggie Ardle. I want my Derek right here beside me, that’s what I need. But that’s not going to happen now, is it?”

  “Sally, I…”

  “Please, just go Maggie. I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to be alone. I just have to be.”

  Maggie didn’t say another word but went upstairs to collect Liesl. When she came back downstairs, carrying the child, Liesl was squirming to get down. She called for Sally but Sally couldn’t look at the child, she felt numb.

  “Come on Liesl, pet, we are going to see Rachel, Ruth, and Tom. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”

  “Want Tom. Want go school. With Tom.”

  Sally heard the child chattering, as Maggie led her outside, closing the garden gate behind them. Then there was silence, apart from the ticking clock on the mantlepiece. A wedding present from some relative of Derek’s. Sally couldn’t remember the old man’s name. Her gaze landed on Derek’s photo. She picked it up and headed upstairs to their bedroom. Lying on the bed, she cuddled his photograph close. He couldn’t be dead, not Derek. He just couldn’t be. She’d have felt something if he’d died. She’d have known.

  Reverend Collins came by later but she didn’t open the door. She’d pulled the blackout blinds earlier so had no idea what time it was. She heard Maggie come but as her friend climbed the stairs, calling her name, she pretended to be asleep. She didn’t react when Maggie told her she’d got some of Tom and Liesl’s things and would keep them overnight at her house. She closed her eyes and pretended the whole world didn’t exist. There was no war, nobody was dying, kids weren’t being arrested by soldiers with guns. It was just her and Derek. Only, he wasn’t there. She was alone.

  She didn’t know how long she lay in bed, the days rolled into each other. She didn’t eat, bathe, or change her clothes. She didn’t leave the bed unless she absolutely had to. It was safer in her blackened-out corner of the world.

  The sound of crying woke her up. In her dream, a little boy had screamed her name but now she was awake, she realized it wasn’t a dream. It was Tom and he was calling for her. He kept banging at the door, screaming for her to come out.

  She almost fell out of the bed and down the stairs, opening the door to allow Tom to fling himself into her arms.

  “You’re not dead. You haven’t gone away. You’re still here. Promise you won’t go away. You won’t leave us. I love you. Liesl loves you. We need you…” The boy continued repeating, over and over. Sally couldn’t say anything, just held him tight. He put his arms around her neck, his tears wetting her skin.

  “Maggie said you were very sad, as you had a broken heart. People die when their hearts stop working. I thought you were dead.”

  “Tom, darling Tom. I’m not dead.”

  “Why didn’t you come and get us? You left us for days with Maggie. Rachel is really bossy. She hurts my hair when she brushes it and makes me take a bath every night.”

  Sally couldn’t stop the smile at those words. Nobody hated bath time more than Tom.

  “How’s Liesl?”

  “She’s sad too. She was crying over and over but she doesn’t cry now. She says you gone. Sally gone; Sally gone. That’s what she says. Over and over.”

  What had she done? These little children d
epended on her and she’d let them down. She wasn’t fit to be looking after them. A real mother wouldn’t have put her children aside and wallowed in misery, as she had.

  “Can we come home, please? I promise to be good. I won’t get into trouble at school. Please?”

  “Tom, this is your home. I’m sorry. For the last few days, for everything. Just give me a few minutes to get changed and I will come with you to Maggie’s and get Liesl. Okay?”

  Tom wrinkled his nose. “You need a bath. You smell horrid.”

  Sally burst out laughing and gave him another cuddle. This time he struggled to get away.

  “Go and see what you can find to eat. I think Maggie may have dropped off some food. I won’t be long.”

  “I’m starving.” Tom walked into the kitchen and whistled. “Maggie must have thought you needed to eat a lot.”

  Sally put her head around the door and saw her table was covered in small dishes of her favorite foods. Or at least those available on ration.

  Maggie had done everything to make her feel better and she’d pushed the older woman away without a second thought. Good job Derek wasn’t here to see how selfish she’d become. She ran upstairs and shivered through a cold bath. Dressed in clean clothes, she opened the blinds in the bedroom and pushed the windows out as far as they would go. Tom was right, the smell was horrid.

  She came downstairs to find him munching his way through second or third helpings, by the looks of the dishes.

  “Come on Tom, let’s go get your sister and bring her home.”

  His look grazed her from head to toe before he smiled. “You look like Aunt Sally again.”

  “I feel like her too. Just one minute, there’s something I forgot to do.”

  She ran back upstairs and retrieved the photograph of Derek from her bed. Kissing it, she brought it back downstairs and put it back, in pride of place, on the mantlepiece. “Love you always,” she whispered, before turning to take Tom’s hand. Together they walked up the short lane to Maggie’s house.

  27

  Sally pushed the door open feeling shy, which was silly given how long she had known Maggie.

  “Maggie, it’s only me.”

  “Hi, stranger. Feeling better?”

  Sally saw the concern in her friend’s eyes, despite the lighthearted greeting.

  “I’m sorry Maggie. I behaved like a spoilt child. Forgive me?”

  “Don’t be daft. You did what you had to do. The sun went out of my life for a long time after I lost my Reg. Now, what you got there, young man?”

  Tom held up half a slice of cake. “Aunt Sally told me to help myself. I cut a big bit.”

  The adults smiled as Tom stuffed the cake into his mouth probably in fear of getting it taken away. He glanced around and tried to speak, with his mouth full, resulting in a coughing fit and crumbs flying everywhere.

  “Goodness gracious, will you take it easy and settle down young fella?” Maggie admonished him.

  “Where are the girls? I have to tell Liesl we are going home.”

  Maggie bent down to Tom’s level. “The girls had a letter, Tom, and it’s upset them, so I need you to be really kind to them.”

  “Like I was kind to Aunt Sally?”

  “Yes. Just like that.”

  “Who was the letter from?”

  “Their mother.”

  “Oh!” Looking thoughtful, Tom paused before asking, “Are they sad that they have to go back to Berlin? I don’t, do I? My mother can’t write to me. I want to stay here with Aunt Sally.”

  “Nobody is going back to Berlin,” Maggie reassured him quickly, as Sally gave him a cuddle. “Be nice to them, Tom.”

  Tom ran to find the girls while Sally took a seat in front of the china cups Maggie always used for her table.

  “How did Rachel’s mother get a letter out of Germany? What did it say?”

  “It was written in a type of code from what I can work out. For one thing, she used the term Liesl’s mother, instead of Trudi, as you would normally. Sally, I think Rachel’s mother knows her days are numbered and she was trying to reassure her girls she is okay.”

  Sally held the cup but her shaking hands made the cup rattle, so she put it back down on the table. “Why do you say that?”

  “She says a friend of Trudi’s is keeping them in food and they have to all stay in the one place. I think she is hiding somewhere. Reverend Collins says that the Nazis have a policy to clear the large cities of Jews. The letter has a Swedish postmark. Mrs. Bernstein doesn’t give an address. Rachel noticed that but she didn’t tell Ruth.”

  “So, they can’t write back. The poor girls. I think the letter might have been worse than hearing nothing, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know Sally. At least they know their mother was alive as recently as last month. Hope is a wonderful thing. Maybe a miracle will happen and she will live through to the end and be reunited with her family. She did say one of Rachel’s brothers, the one who helped Harry, had gotten to Palestine. The girls were happy about that.”

  “That’s good news. What about the other one? Where is he?”

  Maggie shrugged her shoulders.

  “I wonder where Harry is, Maggie. Reverend Collins can’t locate him. I wrote to the Red Cross but they didn’t answer. I promised him I would find him. I don’t want him to think I’ve forgotten him. I wish he’d write to us.”

  “I guess he will when he is settled.”

  Sally stirred her tea, trying to find the right words.

  “Sally, you will wear a hole in my cup. Take the spoon out and drink the tea, love.”

  “Maggie, I’m sorry. For being rude and…”

  “Sally, be quiet. We’re family and that means we stick together through good and bad. You needed some time alone. Now you need your family and those children need you.”

  Sally smiled, her eyes full of tears. Maggie’s tears glistened, making her Irish eyes bluer than normal.

  “I’m so lucky to have you, Maggie. I don’t know if I could ever live without you.”

  Maggie reached over and squeezed Sally’s hand. Neither of them spoke for quite a while.

  Later, Rachel translated the letter for Sally and Maggie.

  My darling Rachel and Ruth

  How are you, my dear daughters? I hope you have found a happy home together in England. I wish I could give you my address but it is not safe. Should this letter fall into the wrong hands, we would pay a high price.

  I am living with Liesl’s mother and some other friends, it was easier for us to keep one apartment. Liesl’s mother knows someone, who gives us food and other things. I don't know who he is; it is safer that way. I think he may be one of them.

  I had word of your brother. Gavriel made it to Palestine. I pray Izsak is with him.

  Things are difficult here in Berlin but they are not as bad as they could be. We are still here and not shipped off East. They sent some people, including your father’s friend, Mr. Stanislaus, to Poland. They say he is Polish, as he arrived in Germany when he was six-months-old. It doesn't matter that he has been living here and running a successful company for forty years. His manager took over the factory without paying a single pfennig for it. So many families you know from school have left. Some to England, some to Palestine, some to America, and other places. Your uncle is in Holland. He tries to help me. Maybe there will be time for me to move there.

  I know you tried to find me a job in England but it wasn't possible. The war came too quickly. I don't know if you will get this letter but I pray you do. Liesl’s mother’s friend may have a way to reach you.

  I have to go now.

  Rachel, look after your sister and Ruth, be good.

  I love you both and I will see you again when the war is over.

  Mama.

  Rachel folded the letter carefully, placing it in her pocket. “Ruth kissed Mama’s signature before running upstairs. I followed her but she wanted to be alone.”

  “I’m sorry things are hard
for your mother, Rachel. What can Maggie and I do?”

  “Nothing but thank you for asking. There was a note from Trudi too. I don’t know if you want to tell Tom. I didn’t say anything.”

  “What did she say?” Maggie asked.

  “Dear Rachel, I hope you get this letter. I pray you are near my darling baby and her brothers. Please give them a kiss from me. I hope to see them again.”

  Sally waited for Rachel to say more. When she didn’t, she asked, “That was it? No signature or anything.”

  Rachel handed over the note, but it was written in German.

  “It is odd, isn’t it? Almost as if Trudi is hiding more than Mama. Maybe she is better known? Dr. Beck had many wealthy, Gentile patients.”

  Maggie sniffed, blew her nose in her hanky before saying, “let’s hope some of those patients are helping his wife survive.”

  28

  August 1940

  Sally pushed the hair from her eyes, her back aching. She missed Derek every day. Harry too. Especially on days like today when she had gardening to do. The front lawn didn’t exist anymore. Harry had started to dig it up before he was taken away and she’d finished what was left. They had to plant vegetables. Dig for Victory the government called it. Given the pain in her back, victory couldn’t come fast enough.

  The children loved to play in the newly turned turf, as the birds flocked down to grab worms and bugs. She loved listening to Tom and Ruth’s giggles as they ran, sending the birds flying away.