Anna At War

by Helen Peters

  Mama didn’t answer. A sick, cold feeling settled in my stomach.

  “Mama? Where is he?”

  She gripped my hand tighter. At the bottom of the stairs, she led me to the back door that opened into the shared garden of our apartment block. She unlocked the door and we ran to the garden shed. Mama pulled me inside and shut the door behind us. She cleared a space among the tools on the floor and we sat down, our backs against the wall. My heart was thumping against my ribs.

  “What if they find us here?” I said.

  Mama didn’t answer. She just hugged me tight.

  I heard glass smashing on the street, and the tramping of boots in the road behind our garden. What would happen if they burst into the shed? I couldn’t think about that. I screwed my eyes shut. The world behind my eyelids flashed red and black with terror.

  “Where’s Papa?” I said, through my half-closed throat. “Is he…?”

  I couldn’t say the word, but she knew what I meant.

  “No,” she said. “No, Anna. He’s just had to go away for a while, that’s all.”

  “They took him away?”

  “Yes.” I could tell she was trying not to cry.

  “Where?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ll find out. Don’t worry, darling.”

  How could she tell me not to worry?

  We sat there in silence, listening to tramping boots, shouting and destruction. I tried just to listen and not to think. I couldn’t let myself think.

  Eventually the boots faded into the distance. “Come on,” said Mama. “Let’s go indoors.”

  “No!” I said, a picture of our shattered apartment flooding my mind’s eye. “I’m not going back.”

  Mama took a deep breath. “Where else would we go?”

  “What if they’re lying in wait for us?”

  “They’ve all gone now. And maybe Papa’s back.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. If Papa came home and found the apartment empty, he would be so worried.

  I could hardly stand up, I was so stiff from the cold and sitting for hours on the floor.

  When we got into the apartment, I called, “Papa! Papa!”

  No reply. Where was he? What were they doing to him?

  Panic overwhelmed me. My throat closed up and I thought I was going to choke. Mama put her arms around me.

  “Stay strong, Anna,” she said. “We must stay strong for Papa. You need to sleep now.”

  I refused to go to bed until we’d searched the whole apartment. Shards of glass from picture frames and ornaments crunched beneath our shoes. The piano was smashed to splinters. The kitchen floor was littered with pieces of Mama’s wedding china. But there was nobody there. And they hadn’t hurt Alfred. They had knocked my bookcase to the floor, but they hadn’t actually destroyed the books. I set the bookcase upright and started to put the poor books back.

  “You need to go to bed, Anna,” said Mama. “You can sleep in my room.”

  “I have to put these back first,” I said, panic rising inside me. I couldn’t bear to see them spilled all over the floor like that, with their spines cracked and their pages splayed and crumpled. “I have to put them back.”

  So Mama knelt beside me and we put all the books back on the shelves. Then we both got into her bed, which hadn’t been attacked like mine.

  I was certain I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but the bed was so soft, and I was suddenly so overcome with exhaustion, that the next thing I knew I was waking up to the sound of birds singing outside the window. I had a few untroubled seconds before I remembered, and my stomach contracted so violently that I had to run to the bathroom.

  The bathroom looked just as it always had. It was the one room the Nazis had left alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  What About Mitzi?

  The next morning Frau Gumpert, my former best friend Ingrid’s mother, came to see us. When she saw the state of the apartment, she burst into tears.

  “I’m so ashamed. I’m so ashamed to be German. I don’t know what’s happened to my country.”

  Mama tried to comfort her. “It’s not your fault. And you shouldn’t be here. I don’t want to put your family in danger.”

  But Frau Gumpert only went home to fetch some of her cups and plates, and bring us bread and coffee. Then she insisted on staying all day to clean up the apartment, so Mama could spend the time making phone calls to find out where Papa was.

  Herr Pulver, from the apartment above ours, also came to see us. He apologised for not doing anything to help during the night.

  “I’m a coward. I was too afraid of what they’d do to my family if I tried to stop them.”

  “Of course,” said Mama. “It’s not your fault. You can’t put your family in danger.”

  “How can I help?” he asked. “What do you need?”

  “There’s no need,” said Mama. “You mustn’t take risks for us.”

  But he was desperate to do something, so Mama asked him to repair the front door. Herr Pulver hurried off to fetch tools and wood. It soon became clear that he was no carpenter. After several hours of sawing and hammering, the mended door looked like very bad patchwork, but at least it had no holes in it. He fixed a padlock on the outside and bolts on the inside.

  “Thank you very much,” said Mama. “It’s good to know we’ll be safe now.”

  We all looked at the door. And I knew, with a certainty that came like a blow to the stomach, that the strongest door in the world would be no use at all any more.

  After hours on the phone, Mama discovered that Papa had been taken to a concentration camp called Buchenwald. I had heard of concentration camps. They were prisons for people the Nazis didn’t like.

  “He’ll be back soon,” Mama said. Her hands were shaking.

  “When?” I asked.

  “Soon.”

  “But you don’t know that, do you? What if he doesn’t come back?”

  Mama looked stricken, and I felt bad for saying it. But I was angry too. She shouldn’t say things if they weren’t true.

  At five o’clock Frau Gumpert went home to cook supper for her family. She came back in the evening and told us there had been attacks on Jews all over Germany and Austria last night. Thirty thousand Jewish men had been taken to concentration camps. Almost every synagogue and thousands of Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed.

  The Nazis said they had done this in revenge for a Jewish man shooting a Nazi official in Paris.

  It became known as Kristallnacht. The Night of Broken Glass.

  The next day Mama found out that Uncle Paul had also been taken to Buchenwald. It sounds awful, but at first I actually felt glad. At least he would be with Papa. At least they’d have each other.

  Then I felt dreadful. Poor, poor Uncle Paul. Now he wouldn’t be able to go to Paris.

  Suddenly a terrible picture flashed into my head.

  “What about Mitzi? We have to go and find her.”

  “We will,” said Mama. “Later.”

  “Not later! Now! What if they hurt her? What if she’s trapped under something? We have to go now.”

  Mama looked at me. “All right. We’ll fetch her now.”

  Uncle Paul lived in a sunny, high-ceilinged apartment on the main street, next to Herr and Frau Heinkel’s drapery store. The Heinkels had had that store since Mama was a child. Mama always took me there to buy coats and shoes and dress material. I loved choosing the fabric for my summer dresses from the rolls of pretty cottons.

  As we walked up the street, I gasped and grabbed Mama’s arm.

  “Look!”

  The windows of the Heinkels’ store were smashed to pieces. All that was left were a few jagged shards around the edges. Inside, the shelves had been pulled off the walls and the shop was completely bare except for torn scraps of paper and trampled ends of ribbons on the floor.

  As we stared in horror, the door from the back storeroom opened and Frau Heinkel came out. She looked frail and old. She s
tared blankly for a moment before she recognised us and attempted a watery smile.

  Mama stepped through the hole where the plate-glass window had been and hugged her.

  “I’m so sorry, Vera. I’m so sorry. Where’s Manfred? Did they take him?”

  Frau Heinkel nodded. “Did they take Walter?”

  Mama nodded too. Then she looked at Frau Heinkel’s wrinkled hands, which were criss-crossed with little red cuts and scratches.

  “Oh, Vera, what did they do to you?”

  “After they’d destroyed the shop,” Frau Heinkel said, “they ordered me to clear up all the mess. There was so much broken glass.”

  “Did they steal all your stock too?”

  Frau Heinkel shook her head. In a small, tired voice, she said, “Our neighbours came and looted it all. The police stood by and watched them. All our customers. Half those people, Manfred’s been giving them credit for years. I suppose they thought they could just help themselves to the rest.”

  Mama’s eyes were filled with tears. “I’m so sorry, Vera. It’s just terrible. Where are you going to go? You can’t stay here on your own. Do you want to come and stay with us?”

  “That’s very kind, Edith, but I’m going to stay with my daughter in Frankfurt tomorrow. She’s trying to get us all visas to go to Palestine. Where are you going to go?”

  Mama shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.”

  “You have to get out,” said Frau Heinkel. “You know that, don’t you? You must get out.”

  Mama nodded slowly. “We didn’t want to leave. Walter was so sure things would get better. But now…”

  She left the sentence unfinished, and she and Frau Heinkel said a tearful goodbye.

  “We won’t leave before Papa gets back, will we?” I asked, as we stopped in front of Uncle Paul’s apartment block. “We’ll wait for Papa?”

  “Of course,” said Mama.

  Always before, as our friends and family had emigrated one by one, I’d been glad we were staying. I didn’t want to leave our lovely apartment, with my cosy bedroom and all my precious things. But now, all I felt was relief. It was obvious we couldn’t stay any more.

  I wondered where we’d go. I hoped it would be England. I had seen the pictures of King George VI’s coronation in the magazines and newspapers. The king and queen and the little princesses had looked so splendid in their jewels and cloaks. It seemed like a different world.

  Mama had brought her set of keys, but Uncle Paul’s apartment was unlocked. The front door wasn’t damaged though. Maybe he’d let the storm troopers in before they smashed the door down.

  I was terrified of what we might find, but the apartment hadn’t been destroyed as badly as ours. Cupboards had been opened and ransacked, and all the papers pulled out of Paul’s desk, but the furniture was still intact.

  To my joy and relief, Mitzi was curled up in her usual spot on the window seat. I gave her a big cuddle before I went to fetch her wicker basket from the kitchen.

  As I crossed the hall, there was a sharp knock at the door. We froze. The contents of my stomach turned to water.

  “Heil Hitler!” barked an unknown voice. The door opened and an SS officer stepped into the hall, in black uniform with gleaming buttons and boots. He frowned at Mama. My teeth started to chatter. I tried to clamp my mouth shut but I couldn’t control it.

  “This is not your apartment, I believe,” he said.

  Mama had turned very pale. “It belongs to my brother.”

  “My commanding officer needs this apartment. He will be taking possession of it tomorrow morning. Give me the key.”

  “But what about my brother’s things?”

  “You will leave everything as it is. Take nothing with you. Give me the key. That is an order.”

  Without a word, my mother handed the front door key to him. He turned it over in his palm, then tried it in the lock. Once he was sure it was the right key, he thrust out his arm again, said, “Heil Hitler!” and ordered us to leave.

  “I have to get Mitzi,” I said.

  My mother shot a terrified glance at the officer. He said nothing. I went into the living room and scooped Mitzi’s warm, furry body up from the window seat. Mitzi liked being cuddled and she snuggled happily into my arms.

  “Aren’t you a beautiful cat?” the officer said, in a soppy voice, as I carried her through the hall to the kitchen.

  He reached out and stroked her. Was he going to take Mitzi too? I tightened my hold on her. If Paul came back and found her gone, it would break his heart. I put her in the basket and fastened the straps around the lid. Mitzi hated going in the basket. She started to yowl.

  “Shh, be quiet,” I whispered. “You won’t be in there for long.”

  I remembered that Paul always put food in the basket to keep her quiet. Too late now. I had to get her out before the officer ordered me to leave her behind.

  I held my breath as I carried her through the hall. But the man said nothing. He waited for Mama and me to leave the apartment, and then he locked the door behind us and pocketed the key.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jews Are Not Wanted

  I was nervous and jumpy all the time now. What made it worse was that I could tell Mama was frightened too. She tried to pretend everything was fine, but she jumped whenever the phone rang or there was a knock at the door.

  It was worse, too, because I couldn’t go to school any more. Jewish children were now banned from German schools, and the nearest Jewish school had been burned down on Kristallnacht. So I had to stay at home all day. We only went out to buy food and essentials. I insisted on going with Mama every time she left the apartment, even if she was just going to buy bread. I knew it wasn’t logical, but somehow I felt she would be safer if I was with her.

  But Mama had a great idea.

  “Let’s learn English,” she said. “We can surprise Papa by speaking perfect English to him when he gets back.”

  “When he gets back” was a phrase we both used a lot at that time. I had trained myself not to think about what might be happening to Papa. It felt as though I had a little box inside my head, where I locked away all the things I didn’t allow myself to think about.

  We had learned a little bit of English at school. But when Mama was a child, her parents had wanted her to learn the language, so she’d had an English nanny for a while, and she had kept all her English workbooks.

  My new best friends were two little leather-bound pocket dictionaries: a red one, which was German to English, and a blue one for English to German. I became completely absorbed. When I was learning English I could forget about the horrible world outside, sometimes for hours at a time. I made Mama test me on my vocabulary and at mealtimes we would try to speak in English. She had forgotten a lot, but it came back to her quite quickly, and she could correct my pronunciation.

  Learning English and having Mitzi to keep me company made my new life indoors more bearable. In any case, even if we had gone outdoors, there was barely anywhere we could go. Jews were banned from parks, swimming pools, theatres, cinemas and ice rinks. The notices were everywhere: Juden Sind Unerwünscht. Jews Are Not Wanted.

  Then, three weeks later, I woke one morning and heard a man’s voice in the apartment. My stomach clenched. Rigid with terror, I listened.

  It wasn’t shouting. It was a quiet voice. It sounded like…

  No. It couldn’t be.

  Could it?

  A gentle knock at my door.

  “Anna?” my mother called softly.

  I sat up in bed, holding my breath.

  The door opened. A figure stood in the shadowy doorway.

  “Papa! Oh, Papa!”

  I leapt into his arms and hugged him and hugged him. He hugged me back tightly and I laid my head on his chest, flooded with happiness.

  But when we finally let each other go and I stepped back and saw him properly, I was shocked.

  He looked stooped and thin and much, much older. He h
ad bruises and cuts on his face, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. His hair was greyer and thinner and his hands trembled.

  “Oh, Anna, it’s so good to see you. You look so well. I’m sure you’ve grown.”

  “Sit down, Walter,” said Mama gently, and we all sat on the bed, Mama and I on either side of Papa. He put an arm around each of us and we snuggled up together, my head on his shoulder.

  “It’s so wonderful to be back with my girls. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “You’re so skinny,” I said. “What did they do to you?”

  He shook his head quickly, as though trying to dislodge the memories. “Let’s not talk about that. Tell me all about you.”

  “But—”

  He took my face in his wrinkled, shaking hands. They were like the hands of an old, old man.

  “No more questions, Anna.”

  “But—”

  Mama gave me a warning look. “Anna, you mustn’t ask. Really. They told Papa that if he says anything about what happened there, they’ll come and get him again.”

  I turned cold. What had they done to him? What must his life have been like in that camp?

  “Anyway,” said Papa, “now that I’m back, I just want to hear about you. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

  He was clearly making a huge effort to seem normal. If he could be that brave, after a month in a concentration camp, then there was no excuse for me not to be brave too.

  “We have Mitzi now,” I said. “We went to Uncle Paul’s flat and fetched her. I made her a toy from a cork tied to a piece of wool and she loves it. When I pull it around the apartment she chases it and pounces on it like it’s a mouse.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Paul will be pleased.”

  “Did you—” I began, and then I stopped. I had been going to ask him whether he’d seen Uncle Paul in Buchenwald.

  “Mama says you’re learning English,” Papa said. And, relieved to have found a safer topic, I told him about the irregular verbs I’d learned yesterday.