When Time Stopped

by Ariana Neumann

  I added cautiously, “The widow needs protection during the bombardments, sir.”

  He looked at me with repulsion. I could tell that he despised me, abhorred the fact that I was different. He wanted me to be scared, and this was enough to make me defy the fear that took hold of me when he first mentioned Traudl. He snapped the pen down onto the desk. “Go, Šebesta, out!”

  That night in the apartment, Traudl burst into tears and said that she too had been called in for questioning about her living arrangements.

  In March 1944, to compound the assault on Berlin, the U.S. Air Force started to execute raids during the day. At night, the British attacked. The Allied assault on German cities was unprecedented. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed between 1943 and 1945. Each raid by the Royal and U.S. Air Forces consisted usually of a thousand bombers, each dropping tons of explosives and incendiaries. It would have been impossible for my father to know what to wish for, more bombardments that heralded death but also the defeat of Germany, or a hiatus from the bombardments. My father was forced to join Berlin’s effort to soldier on.

  The day after the first daylight raid, the political commissary of Warnecke & Böhm called Zdeněk and me to his office. He never bothered with niceties and went straight to the point.

  “Tůma, Šebesta, you should be honored. The Allies, in their desperation at losing the war, have taken to bombing defenseless cities. We do not have enough firefighters in Berlin, so I have chosen you both. I have volunteered you to represent the company. You are young and strong and should continue your tasks as you have been doing them, with the same working hours. But whenever you are needed you will make yourself available to work as firefighters as well.”

  Just as we were wondering if we would get paid for this honor, he said wryly that we would each be rewarded with a weekly pack of cigarettes.

  It was not clear why we had been chosen. We were indeed young, and I am tall, but neither of us was particularly strong. Zdeněk and I debated the reasons for the “honor.” Perhaps it was because as Slavs we had cohabited with German women, even if, officially, it had only been for a couple of months. Or perhaps it was revenge for refusing to say “Heil Hitler” despite the rules. I wanted to be thought of as a slightly mad scientist, uninterested in anything political, focused simply on his formulas and experiments.

  Now I was going to have to be a mad scientist who fought fires.

  The father I knew was softly spoken, but it masked a relentless tenacity. His underlying boldness and strength of purpose were inviolable. Despite this, I never saw him as someone who was physically brave or daring. The strength he embodied was in every way connected to his mind and had very little to do with his body. It was not that he particularly lacked physical strength. He was tall and rangy. He jogged, played tennis, skied. As he approached sixty, he would carry me on his shoulders and twirl me in circles in the garden. He loved to play. When he was closer to seventy our massive rottweiler would pick up a long fallen branch from one of the dozens of tall palms that bordered the garden, and my father would join in a tug-of-war with him, leaning back with me against the weight of the determined dog.

  Still, I cannot imagine him as a firefighter, as for that he would need a physical strength that was devoid of caution and fear. My father was always dynamic and brave, but also careful and considered. Any risk was taken after a prudent weighing of the potential benefits and costs. Perhaps he knew that his stint as a firefighter would be surprising to me; perhaps he felt the same need I do to prove his story, to me, to others, to himself. And so, once again, he left me a document that did just that.

  A letter from Warnecke & Böhm stating that my father was part of the volunteer fire brigade

  This letter, dated three days before the Germans officially surrendered in May 1945, confirms that my father was a valued member of the fire brigade for fourteen months starting in March 1944. It was signed by the manager of defense and the medical officer of the company, who noted that Jan Šebesta had to stop after suffering a severe concussion while on duty.

  The explosions threw us off our feet. The air pressure hurt our ears. The thumping was so deafening that I failed to realize the chaos around me. I shouted for Zdeněk because I wanted to know that he was alive, that I was alive. People were screaming, pushing, and running away from the plant.

  I ran toward the destruction.

  I could see a small fire being put out through a smashed window. There were wounded to take to the hospital. My eyes found Zdeněk’s in the crowded and smoke-filled corridor.

  We were among the lucky ones.

  A colleague from the lab, the head of another section, a tall man, gloomy but sympathetic, had died in the bombardment. His lungs exploded with the pressure, his face and torso were so disfigured that he was unrecognizable. Two German workers placed his body in a sack to be collected in the morning. I watched as they closed the bag with a double knot of thick string and attached a tag. They also attached a note saying Do not open, ensuring the parcel would pass the security guard stationed by the warehouse door without interference. Once they were done with their grisly wrapping, the men made a careful record in the lab book, accounting for the materials that had been used.

  The tag attached with string around the sack read:

  From: Warnecke & Böhm. Berlin.

  Contents: Dr. Ing, Carl Kemph.

  Weight: 78 Kgs.

  It struck me that these were the tags we used when we sent out packages of lacquers. But I don’t think the Germans found this strange. They simply called the relevant office for the collection of corpses. Somehow the phone lines were working still. Everything that could be fixed after each bombardment was efficiently put right. The Germans were remarkable that way. Water, electricity, transport, phone lines. Everything that could be mended would immediately be repaired. It was a clear order from the Reich and the Germans were good at following orders. It was one thing at which the Nazis, especially, excelled. So a few hours after every bombardment, life carried on as if nothing had happened. Everything that could be repaired would function again.

  Except for Dr. Kemph.

  Sadly, poor Dr. Kemph could not be put right.

  * * *

  Each time, the bombardments seemed to grow in intensity and duration. The cars in the city had all been adapted so that their lights cast light no more than two meters ahead. In homes, lights were seldom used unnecessarily, and curtains or blackout sheets were secured with tape around the windows to control the escape of light. As soon as the sirens howled below, and the engines roared above, everyone turned everything off. Each squadron’s pathfinders marked the areas to be targeted with colored flares. We called them “Christmas trees.” The planes then carpet-bombed the marked area in waves.

  As firefighters, Zdeněk and I had to go toward the Christmas trees and guess whether we were inside or outside the targeted square. He was as terrified as I was. More often than not we found ourselves inside the square.

  The destruction in some parts of town was unimaginable.

  Now that we were “volunteered,” we had to leave our shelter even when bombs still rained down all around us. But our dismay at the “honor” bestowed upon us did not last long. On the first night we realized that by directing the water hoses we could control the fire. We could try to stop it or allow it to propagate. We could effectively direct it. If there were no people in danger and no one was watching, Zdeněk and I would allow the flames to dance from building to building. As there were fires everywhere and “volunteers” were scarce, we were often quite alone. Sometimes, even in the stench and roar and heat it felt that we were Hans and Zdeněk, sixteen and in Prague again, dressed up in our outsized uniforms and heavy hats playing a game of make-believe. Our initial fear at being unsheltered was temporarily overwhelmed by the simple joy of playing at fanning the fire, but the harrowing reality would soon pierce the smoke and ash and end the game. People were dying all around us and we had to rescue them if we coul
d.

  A huge bomb had completely demolished a building a few meters away from where we lived. Clouds of dust and fire rose up from the pile of shattered cement that remained. We could hear wailing and shouts from beneath. Chunks of concrete and metal barred the exits from the air raid shelter there, and the living were trapped with the dead inside. Peering through the cracks, we realized that a wedding party had reached the shelter before the raid began. The bride and groom were still recognizable, their elegant clothes covered in blood, soot, and dust. Through a small hole I thought I could see them holding one another, sobbing. Bodies, people writhing, bricks, and beams lay strewn all around them.

  We started moving the rubble by hand and scraped around the cracks, but soon realized that we were making no progress at all. The building had been rendered into immovable chunks of stone, millions of pebbles and dust. We ran for help through smashed streets. The bombing continued, but we managed to keep on moving, shielding ourselves when we heard the deafening clamor and whistling too close. Everyone hid underground in the shelters and the streets were deserted. We ran toward the center of the city in the hope of finding other firefighters.

  Then a shadow making deep, horrible noises advanced toward us, blocking our way forward. A small man, pushing a crooked wheelbarrow, emerged though the thick smoke. In the basin was a tiny body wearing a dress. Like a forgotten marionette, it lay with its limbs broken, deformed and immobile. It was obvious to Zdeněk and me that the child was dead. The noises we had heard were the man’s guttural animal howls of grief.

  The only light on the street came from the crackling flames. Everything else seemed to disappear and we were left alone with his cries and the explosions. Zdeněk was still next to me, but neither of us could speak. We stood paralyzed, watching, as he slowly made his way toward us on the sidewalk. Then, as if out of nowhere, a wall crumpled and collapsed, burying him and the girl. We ran toward the mound. There was nothing but a pile of brick and debris. Still dazed, we shifted the bricks to one side and hauled at the rubble. The man’s face emerged, his eyes closed, his hands still holding the handles of the cart which carried his child.

  Then there was silence. There were no more planes, no more screams. Even the crackling of the fire seemed to have stopped. Only quiet dust, settling everywhere like snow, covering the devastation. I don’t remember any more details or how Zdeněk and I made it home that night.

  It took two days and a dozen of us to get to the wedding party. When, exhausted, we managed to dig a hole large and safe enough to crawl through, the corpses of the bride and groom were on opposite sides of the shelter. Somehow, among all the horror, that is what surprised me.

  I don’t know if they had moved or if I had just imagined seeing them together.

  * * *

  The weeks passed, but no day was like another. The raids seemed to happen more often. Buildings crumbled all around us.

  One evening we were summoned to Langhansstrasse. Fr. Rudloff’s apartment building, where I had spent my first night in Berlin, had also been destroyed by the direct impact of a bomb. No one managed to escape the inferno that ensued. The fire brigade couldn’t even attempt a rescue. Zdeněk and I got there soon after the bombs hit but were kept back by others. We couldn’t do anything but watch it burn. I prayed Helene Rudloff died instantly. Despite her severity, she always was so courteous and proud, I could not bear to think of her distressed.

  She had not managed to rent the room after I moved. People were going away from Berlin. No one wanted to be in the city. No one was moving in. Despite my departure, Fr. Rudloff had allowed me to store a suitcase in the cupboard of my old room in her apartment. She had promised to keep my things for me as long as I brought her some of my alcoholic brew every week. I had lost only some clothes and shoes. Now my brown fireman’s suit had become my second change of clothes. I was grateful to have it. It was thick and warm and easy to clean after a night’s work. If I used it without the helmet, it looked quite smart.

  * * *

  It had been two consecutive nights of sirens. We had worked in the factory all day. The fire brigade operated in a rotation and that night we had been allowed to rest. As the sirens blared, Traudl and I hurried out of the apartment and ran into Ursula in the hallway. When the three of us entered the shelter, Zdeněk was not there. The whistling and explosions surrounded us. The shelter filled with people, and Ursula huddled up to Traudl and began to cry. Zdeněk was supposed to be in the apartment that night, waiting for her. He should have been with us by now.

  “I’ll get him,” I said as I scrambled my way out.

  I ran to the building, bounded up the stairs, and pushed open the door to their apartment as I screamed his name. There was no answer.

  “Zdeněk!”

  The sirens still moaned, and I could hear explosions to my left.

  “Zdeněk!” I shouted, trying to make my voice heard as I paced the apartment. I was about to give up when I noticed something through the cracked bathroom door. It was the dark silhouette of Zdeněk in the shadows, sitting on the toilet. I ran in. He was completely naked and shivering.

  “What are you doing? Did you not hear the sirens?” I shouted.

  “Handa. I am so tired. I didn’t hear anything. I was sleeping. I didn’t have a chance to put clothes on. I just came to sit here. I can’t do it anymore.”

  He was looking at me steadily, but he was not himself. His usual dark, darting eyes were slow and wide and vacant. I took up a knitted blanket from the bed to wrap around him and stop the shivering.

  “Zdeněk, it’s fine. But why are you sitting there?”

  His usual stutter was much more pronounced when he was nervous. He stammered, “Have you not noticed, Handa, that when the buildings crumble under the bombs, the toilets all remain attached to the walls? Even when everything else falls down?”

  I held his gaze and held his face in my hands as he sat hunched, wrapped in the blanket.

  “You are right, Zdeněk. But I need you to come with me now,” I said urgently.

  Zdeněk was correct. I had noticed it too. As the buildings were obliterated, the toilets withstood the bombs almost always unharmed and exposed. We had noticed and had laughed together at the randomness of it.

  “Come, Zdeněk, come with me to the shelter.” I grabbed his freezing hand and tried to lead him out. “It’s still safer than the toilets.”

  He continued to be frozen and looked at me without understanding. I put my hands under his legs and shoulders to carry him down. He was short and very skinny, but I was still surprised at how slight he felt. As we made it to the bottom of the stairs by the entrance to the shelter, he wrapped his arms around my neck and shook and sobbed.

  “Remember, it’s Jan, not Handa, here,” I whispered.

  As Traudl and Ursula made space for us I realized that I was shaking too.

  Luck was still on Hans’s side. The world in which he lived continued to forge the haphazard boy poet into the robust and controlled man he had become by the time I came along. Others had always taken care of Hans—his parents, Zdenka, Lotar, and Míla. Lotar was the responsible older brother; with their parents gone, it fell upon him and Zdenka to keep Hans safe. Now, at twenty-three years of age, Hans was alone with a solitary friend, living among enemies in an unfathomably dangerous city. He had scarcely fed and clothed himself unaided before arriving in Berlin.

  At times, he had to take care of others too. He had to help rescue victims of the bombs. He also had to be strong for Zdeněk. For the first time in his life, he could count only on himself. The sickening fear created by his life in Berlin must have been relentless. I had always thought my father’s nightmares had to do with Czechoslovakia, but as I read his writings about the war, it seemed to be his nights in Berlin that were the stuff of terrors.

  The days brought a different kind of fear as Hans continued diligently to seek information that might usefully be passed on.

  The Dutch student and I met again, and as we walked to the
cemetery, I explained what we were working on with Högn. He said it would be best to get actual documents that he could get to the right people. The information was technical and most easily communicated in written form. It was tricky to get actual papers. I figured that I could take notes of conversations or transcribe documents. I started walking around the office with a notebook, a detail which I thought would be in keeping with Jan, the quirky Czech work-obsessed scientist. I constructed a plan to access material.

  All the important documents were in a locked file in the office of the head of laboratories, a Prussian aristocrat named Von Straelborn. He had a secretary, Frau Bose, who sat in an anteroom to his office. I had heard colleagues say that she was unmarried. They had also mentioned that she was a racist and a ferocious Nazi. She had, however, flashed me a shy smile a couple of times when we passed in the hallway, so I retained hope that she might be open to a bit of flattery. She seemed to me to be my only way of accessing the information. The real problem was that all in the company knew I was spending time with Traudl, and starting a conversation would be tricky. But then everything fell into place. There had been a rumor that the company would be moving some operations to the plant in the south in Bavaria, away from the bombs. A few evenings later, Traudl cried as she told me that she was part of the team being moved. She had to pack and would leave with the others in the next days. She said that she was worried about me and made me promise I would visit her apartment. She wanted me to take care of it and also wanted to ensure I had a place to live. Sweet Traudl. We drank a bit of brew. It burned our throats but helped assuage our fears.

  As soon as Traudl left for the south, I stopped by the desk of Frau Bose and asked her for help locating a file with the name of a compound for one of my experiments. At first she seemed suspicious and didn’t talk much. I started stopping by her cubicle every other day with one excuse or another. Eventually, the strategy began to work, and she told me to call her Inge. A few visits later she agreed to come with me for a Sunday stroll. It took only a few Sundays and a couple of beers to get the friendship established. She no longer found it odd that I lingered around her desk, which was always filled with interesting papers. I sensed that she finally trusted me when one afternoon she asked me to help her fix some loose floorboards in her apartment.