White Rose Black Forest

by Dempsey, Eoin

  The soldiers shuffled through the snow as they made their way back to the truck, enjoying the moment. Vogel kept his pistol pointed at Franka’s head. And who was going to stop him? This was his world. Soon this whore would come to realize that. It took fifteen minutes for them to reach the truck. The men celebrated with a smoke as they got there. Vogel forced her to kneel in the snow by the side of the road, her hands on her head as he took out the radio to report his success. He’d experienced many great moments in his career, but this was perhaps the finest. He thought of Berkel as he picked up the radio receiver. The justice his murder demanded was coming. Vogel radioed in the good news, making the announcement several times.

  “I’m going to take you back to the local Gestapo headquarters now,” he said. “It will be the last place you ever see.”

  Vogel bundled her into the back of the truck and tied her hands with twine, as he’d forgotten his handcuffs in all the rush. It hardly mattered. She had four soldiers in the back with her. She wasn’t going anywhere. The soldiers sat beside her; Vogel, the driver, and another soldier sat in front.

  “Congratulations, boys!” Vogel shouted once they were ready to go. “You’ve got a night out waiting for you when we get back.”

  The soldiers cheered as the driver started the engine and they began to move off. They had gone no more than a few hundred yards when they saw a figure in front of them, shouting for help. Vogel leaned forward to peer at the sight of a Luftwaffe officer clambering toward them, who was holding up ID papers. His uniform was torn and filthy, covered in snow and dirt. He looked exhausted, maybe even close to death. The driver slowed the truck to a halt.

  “Please, help me!” the man screamed.

  “What now?” Vogel said under his breath.

  The Luftwaffe officer was standing directly in front of the truck, his arms in the air. He was so close that Vogel could see the color of his eyes.

  “I’ve been out here all night. My plane went down on a training mission a few miles into the forest. I thought I was going to die out here. I heard the shots and made my way over.”

  “We have a prisoner to be transported. We’re on important business. There’s a town about two miles west.”

  “I don’t think I can make it. My legs. Please, don’t leave me out here.”

  Vogel thought about it for a few seconds. He might get extra praise for rescuing a Luftwaffe officer lost in the woods, perhaps even a medal—those uppity pricks in the Luftwaffe would have to respect him if he delivered one of their officers right to them. He flicked a thumb toward the back of the truck.

  “We can take you into town.”

  The man hobbled around the side of the truck. Vogel called out to the men in the back that they had one more, and one of them reached down to help him inside.

  Franka didn’t look up at first, but the raising of the tarpaulin at the back of the truck roused her from the state she’d fallen into. She felt the blood drain from her face as John sat beside her in his Luftwaffe uniform, she on his left with another soldier next to her. The other three men sat across from them, their rifles at their sides. The engine started up once more, and the truck rumbled on. John was panting, and he leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs. He put his backpack by his feet.

  “Thank you for picking me up. I owe you my life. Who’s the girl?”

  “A prisoner,” one of the soldiers said. “She killed a Gestapo officer.”

  “And you’re arresting her for that?” John laughed. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing killing one of our beloved Gestapo officers? You didn’t like his black trench coat? You know what they say about Gestapo men, don’t you?”

  “No, what do they say?” the closest soldier said, a smile forming on his face.

  “That the Gestapo are all honest and intelligent, but I have to disagree.”

  The same man answered. “Why?”

  “If a Gestapo man says he’s intelligent, he’s not honest. If he’s honest, he’s not intelligent, and if he’s honest and intelligent, he’s not in the Gestapo.”

  All four soldiers laughed.

  “I know I can get in trouble, but they’re only jokes.”

  “Of course,” the soldier replied.

  Franka was frozen, incredulous. John hadn’t given her any signal. Nothing.

  “I have another joke, if you promise not to tell anyone else.”

  “Of course,” the soldier sitting beside him said.

  “All right, this is a good one,” he said. “What’s the difference between Christianity and National Socialism?”

  “I don’t know,” one of the soldiers said.

  He paused a few seconds. “In Christianity one man died for everybody. But in National Socialism everybody dies for one man.”

  The men exploded in laughter.

  John rose to his feet and pulled his pistols from his pockets. “Franka! Down!” he shouted as he stitched a line of bullets across the chests of the men sitting across from them. The last soldier rose, reaching for his rifle. John put two rounds into his face. The truck ground to a halt, almost knocking John off his feet. He took a second to regain his balance before emptying his weapons, sending bullets tearing through the tarpaulin and into the cabin. He reached down to her. She had the soldiers’ blood all over her face. “Are you shot? Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  John took one of the dead soldiers’ pistols and jumped out of the truck. Franka followed him. The door to the vehicle’s cabin opened, and Vogel stumbled onto the road, an ugly wound staining his chest. He got off two shots before John put him down and sent his body collapsing onto the slush in an ungainly heap. John checked him, and the men in the front. All were dead. John was leaning against the side of the truck. Franka went to him.

  “You came back. You could be across the border by now.”

  “I told you I wasn’t going to leave you.”

  She hugged him, but as she drew back she saw a red stain from where she’d pressed against his body.

  “Oh no,” she said, ice running down her spine. “Show me.”

  He lifted his arm to reveal a gunshot wound on the right side of his chest, level with his elbow.

  “It’s not so bad,” she lied.

  “I can make it, but we need to go now. More soldiers are coming.”

  “Wait. I need to get something first.”

  Franka ran to the cabin of the truck and opened the door. The Wehrmacht soldiers were slumped forward like rag dolls, their blood spattered all over the shattered windshield. The driver’s body collapsed onto the road in a formless mess. The medical kit was on the floor. John was sitting on the snow as she returned to him. She cut off some gauze and wrapped it around his chest in an attempt to stem the flow of blood. The top of his pants was already soaked red. He took off his Luftwaffe jacket and threw it on the snow.

  “Hold this on here.” She handed him a thick bandage. “Keep as much pressure on it as you can.”

  John nodded, but his face was china white. He reached into his rucksack for a civilian coat and just managed to slip his arms into it. It was wet with blood in seconds.

  “We have to get out of here right now,” she said.

  Franka took the map from his pocket. They had traveled several miles from where they’d planned to journey to the border. Once back there the cliff face awaited.

  “I can make it,” he said. “Get the body out of the truck, and let’s drive back to where we were.”

  Franka moved around to the passenger side of the truck, where she pulled out the other soldier’s body. She helped John to his feet, placed his arm over her shoulder, and led him to the truck, where he was able to pull himself up and in. The engine was still humming, the keys untouched in the ignition. She turned the truck around and sped down the road, the cold wind blowing in their faces, the carnage of the dead bodies they’d left on the road far behind now.

  “You’re going to need a doctor, and soon.”

  “Get me a
cross the border, and we’ll figure the rest out later. You saved my life once. It looks like you’re going to have to repeat the trick.”

  They drove for a few minutes before reaching a point where the cliff face seemed lower, the tree line closer. He put his arm over her shoulder as they abandoned the truck, not bothering to cover their tracks. The border. Freedom. She took his rucksack and dumped out as much as she could before taking its weight on her back. They moved together, him leaning on her, a trail of crimson in the snow behind them.

  “I can make it,” he repeated.

  Trees limped past on either side in the foot-deep snow. They came to the cliff face once more. It was twenty feet high.

  “Get the rope. Anchor it around a tree, and lower me down.”

  Franka reached into his pack for the rope and looped it around a sturdy tree. He wrapped it around his arms and gripped it with both hands as she lowered him inch by inch. John kept his feet on the rocks as he went. She knew how tired he was now but knew also what sleep would bring. Franka climbed down after him. He was sitting against a rock, barely able to keep his body upright, when she reached the bottom. She picked him up again.

  “Let’s go, marine,” she said in English—just as he’d taught her.

  She heard the soft rushing of the stream and pushed through the trees to find it. It was frozen at the edges, the flow of water free through the middle.

  “This is it,” she said. “We can do this.”

  “I can hack it,” he said, but his voice was weak, as if any step could be his last. He stumbled again, and she reached down to pick him up.

  “Come on, John. We’re nearly there. Just a little farther now.” They kept moving along the stream bank, one more step, and then another. His feet began to cross, and he tripped again, bringing her down on top of him. He moaned as she tried to pick him up, but she ignored him, forcing his arm over her shoulder. His grip was slackening, but still they kept walking. Somehow.

  “We’re so close. Don’t give up on me.”

  Several minutes passed as they trudged forward, until his grip faded and he fell to the ground. The customs building appeared through the trees. It was only thirty yards away.

  “We’ve made it!” she cried. “We’re in Switzerland. We’re free.”

  “You’re free,” he whispered. “Thank you, Franka, for everything. Take the film.”

  “No!” she shouted. “I won’t let you die, not while we’re so close. Now get up. Do you hear me? Get up. I’m not leaving you behind.”

  She reached down, put her arm around him, and took his full weight onto her shoulders.

  “We can make it. We are going make it. I am not letting you die,” she said over and over as she lumbered toward the small stone-gray customs building, the trees of the Black Forest so thick above her that she couldn’t see the sky.

  Chapter 15

  The countryside outside the city of Basel, Switzerland, October 1945

  The setting sun dabbed the horizon red, orange, and purple. Franka stretched out the muscles in her back while she leaned on the garden hoe in her hand. In the distance the hills and trees of the Black Forest were discernable as dark shapes against the sky. The evenings were cooler now, the heat of summer dispelled by the coming of the autumn air. Neat green rows of potato plants covered the earth for several hundred yards in every direction, their uniformity broken only by the figures of the other farmhands returning from their day’s work. Franka bent to pick up the bucket of weeds she’d pulled and began to make her way back toward the barn. Rosa Goldstein was waiting for her by the tree they often had lunch below and greeted her with a smile.

  “I didn’t think you’d still be here, Franka. I thought you were going home.”

  “I’m still here,” Franka said. “I don’t know why, but my trip home was delayed. Today is my last day on the farm. It seems ridiculous, but I’m going to miss this place, and all the wonderful people I’ve met here.”

  “The war is over. The Nazis are gone. It’s time to get on with our lives, whatever might be left of them.”

  The two young women walked together. Others joined them as they went, and by the time they reached the barn, the group numbered more than twenty, each wishing her the best as she said goodbye.

  Memories of Hans came to her as she washed up before dinner in the bathroom she shared with the ten other women she knew as sisters now. His words had lived beyond the brevity of his own life. Hans, Sophie, Willi, and the others who’d given their lives in the cause of freedom would soon be held up as the heroes she knew them to be. She went back to her room and sat on her bunk bed. The dorm was empty, all the other women outside enjoying a drink in the evening sun. She pulled out from under her bed the case that constituted her belongings. The leaflet was folded in the side pocket. She took it out, as she did often these days, and read its headline:

  THE MANIFESTO OF THE STUDENTS OF MUNICH

  It was the sixth leaflet of the White Rose, smuggled out of Germany by a lawyer, and duplicated and dropped in the hundreds of thousands over Germany by Allied bombers. Sylvia Stern, a Jewish refugee from Ulm, had carried it across the border with her and given it to Franka as inspiration when Franka first arrived in the camp in winter 1944. Franka never told her, or anyone else, that she’d been there the night Hans, his sister Sophie, and best friend Willi had penned that leaflet. She didn’t tell her that she’d helped distribute it, or that she’d spent time in jail for the words on that piece of paper. That memory was theirs now. They deserved that honor alone.

  She folded the leaflet, tucked it back into her suitcase, and went to the window at the end of the row of bunk beds. Franka peered out at the Black Forest, miles in the distance. What was she going back to? The Nazis had been destroyed, and their Reich, which was to last a thousand years, had too. But what was there for her now? Everyone she’d loved most was dead. Only their memories remained, bathing her in comfort and sorrow, and immersing her in love. She still spoke to her mother, still felt her father’s arms around her, still saw Fredi’s smile in her dreams. They would always be with her, as long as she lived.

  She still thought of John. She could still feel the weight of him on her shoulders, the warmth of his blood spread over her, and the look on the customs man’s face—somewhere between pity and incredulity—as she burst through the door with him on her back. The customs man had tried to convince her to give up, that John was dead, but she’d refused to believe it. She forced him at gunpoint to drive them to the hospital three miles away. She was sure they’d lock her up for that. But they didn’t. The US consulate stepped in. The microfilm was smuggled back to the States, and the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She’d never know how much she’d contributed to the horror of those days, but the war was over now. The Americans said that those bombs saved hundreds of thousands of lives. It was best to think of it that way, for the alternative hurt too much. Perhaps the role they’d played in ending the war was the legacy that one day she could come to terms with. It was enough to know they’d contributed.

  She’d been confined to the safety of the camp after he’d entered the hospital, hadn’t seen him since that day, and had only been informed by letter of the miracle of his survival. He’d sent letters thanking her for saving his life through the sheer force of her will, asserting over and over his promise to return to her, but somehow she still felt alone. She couldn’t bring herself to believe him, and the hope within her faded as the flow of correspondence between them dwindled to a trickle.

  Night was drawing in, the light of day little more than a glow above the Black Forest in the distance. She hadn’t turned on the lamp in the corner. The room had darkened around her. There seemed no point in lighting a room she was about to leave. It was time. There was no avoiding it now. Her suitcase sat by her bed. She went to it and packed the last of her possessions. It was barely half-full as she closed it. She picked it up and in one hand felt the weight of what was left of her life.

  She heard the
soft sound of the bedroom door closing. “I told you I’d come back for you,” came the voice from behind her—a voice she’d heard only in her dreams these last months. She moved her hand to the lamp in the corner and flicked it on. Golden light enveloped the room, illuminating where John stood at the door, in full military dress, a bright line of medals across his chest. He took off his hat and put it under his arm. “I’ll never leave you again.”

  “I’ll never let you,” she replied.

  He came to her and took her in his arms, all other words lost in their embrace.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank my wife, Jill, for her belief in me and for being my all-purpose sounding board. I want to thank my beta readers for their work in sifting through the rubble of my early drafts: Jack Layden, Shane Woods, Betsy Frimmer, Carol McDuell, Chris Menier, Jackie Kosbob, Nicola Hogan, Liz Guinan Havens, Morgan Leafe, and of course the beautiful Jill Dempsey. Thanks also to Dr. Liz Slanina and Dr. Derek Donegan for their technical help. Thanks to my fabulous agent, Byrd Leavell, and to my editors, Jenna Free, Erin Anastasia, and Will Champion, who made me laugh out loud many times with his colorful language in the edits. Thanks to Jodi Warshaw and Chris Werner, my fantastic editors at Lake Union, and all the staff there who are so friendly, responsive, and kind.

  Thanks to my brother Brian for keeping me honest, and my brother Conor for helping to instill a love of all things historical in me. Thanks to my sister, Orla, for her constant support, and of course to my parents, Robert and Anne Dempsey, for making me this way. And thanks to my beautiful sons, Robbie and Sam. You are the keys to everything now and the main force driving me onward in my journey toward becoming the writer I one day hope to be.