“When he left me and I found out I was going to have a baby, I came here because I couldn’t tell my family. My mother would have died of shame, knowing I had gotten pregnant out of wedlock.”
“He was a fool. If I ever had a girl like you, I sure wouldn't walk away from her. Some people just don’t realize what they have. But then again, if he had a wife he shouldn’t have been seeing you in the first place. That is insincere in every way.”
The words Kurt spoke touched Helga deeply and she suddenly felt uncomfortable. “I need to be getting back,” she said, then she looked up into his eyes and the slight twinkle of attraction she felt frightened her. Without another word she turned and walked as quickly as she could, without running, back to the safety of her room.
When she arrived she flung her coat on the bed and slammed the door. Helga did not understand the anger that seemed to have taken hold of her. But she took Eric’s picture and threw it against the wall.
Chapter 36
The happier Hermina seemed to be, the more resentful Helga became. Helga fought against the ugly, selfish emotions, but they continued to resurface. It seemed to Helga that regardless of what Hermina had done in her past, Hermina would be redeemed, and when the time came, returned to her comfortable, if not wealthy, farming life. And it seemed now that Hermina had realized her mistakes and changed her mind, she was convinced that a rural existence could offer her far more than the city, with its treacherous pitfalls.
When Hermina’s family came again the following Sunday, Helga remained in her room. Helga felt it best not to stir feelings she might develop for Kurt, a man she would never consider for marriage. Instead she sat alone, gazing out the window, wondering if Eric ever thought about her. The smells of food and the uplifting piano music drifted from the dinning area. Although she was hungry, Helga did not want to see Kurt, so she sat, stubbornly refusing to leave her bedroom. If she ever considered allowing another man into her life, which she doubted she would, he must be rich and powerful. But hadn’t Eric been all she’d dreamed of, and more? Look at where that had gotten her. Confusion turned to anger, and more anger.
Once the music had ceased and the laughter and conversations died down, Helga knew the meal had ended and she began to allow herself to relax. Soon Hermina’s family would leave to return home, and with them Kurt. As she got up from her chair by the window to find her knitting, there was a knock on the door. Helga wished she could just ignore it, but she knew she must answer.
“Yes?”
“It’s Kurt, may I come in?”
She dreaded seeing him, but she could not think of an excuse. “Yes come in.”
Kurt entered the room carrying a tray of food.
“I didn’t know if you might be hungry, so I brought this. Of course…if you are not feeling well, I will leave.”
She saw that his hands trembled as he clumsily put the tray on her night table.
As she studied him, Helga felt bad; he had made a kind gesture and she could not rebuke him for it.
“No, please don’t leave.” She found herself surprised to be saying, “I am actually hungry.”
A big smile spread over his entire face as he timidly pulled the chair out for her. She sat.
“Thank you…it is very kind of you to bring this for me.”
A blush came to his cheeks, giving him a boyish appearance, open and uncontrived, that tugged at her heartstrings.
“May I stay or would you prefer that I go?” Kurt kept his head down, ashamed that his face had turned red.
“I suppose you can stay.”
He sat at the chair by the window while she ate.
“What do you think of this Lebensborn concept, Kurt?”
“Not much…really.” Then he studied her. “Are you sure you want to know the truth?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“I think it is a disaster…I think the entire Third Reich will be a disaster. It is far too radical a way of thinking.”
“You mean the creation of a superior race?”
“Well, yes, that and the removal of all people that Hitler sees as unfit. When we have different types of people, we have a diverse and interesting world.”
She turned her chair to look at him.
“Before all of this began, I had been attending the university. I had plenty of Jewish professors. Wonderful and intelligent teachers, many of them were.”
“But I thought you were a farmer?”
“I am, and I always will be. But I had gone to study agriculture. There is much to learn and I hoped I would increase my production.”
The more they talked, the more Kurt opened up like the pages of an interesting and inspiring book. He had befriended gypsies when they passed through Munich and he told her what he knew of their culture. His acceptance of all people and all things reminded her in many ways of her brother. As Helga listened to Kurt’s views, she began to see him in a different light.
When the sun began its descent from the sky, turning day to dusk, Helga found she wished Kurt did not have to leave. She had not enjoyed a conversation as much in a long time.
Chapter 37
Helga began to look forward to Sundays, when Hermina’s family came to visit. She and Kurt spent their time talking. Sometimes they took long walks; other times, they sat in front of the fireplace. He talked to her about farming and the delicious sweet taste of strawberries, fresh-picked off the vine. She told him about the city and the parties that she had once attended. Helga had never enjoyed reading until Kurt began to bring her novels. He would to tell her the beginnings of the stories in advance, so that she could not wait to open the books and continue the stories.
Margot went into labor late one Thursday night. By the time the girls found out, everything was over. Margot had delivered the baby and left the home without saying goodbye. Rumors spread that the child bore a cleft lip and had been euthanized at birth. Therefore, contact between Margot and the others had been forbidden, lest she start a panic. Imperfections in the newborns would not be tolerated. How much easier those words had sounded to Helga when she had first agreed to her contract at Heim Hockland. That was before this baby had moved within her, lighting her heart on fire with a need to protect it.
That Sunday when Kurt arrived, Helga told him what had happened to Margot.
“You remember Margot? The girl we had lunch with the first day you came to visit?”
“Yes, I remember her…and her family, why?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I heard she had the baby and it was born deformed. They euthanized it.” She sat across the table from him, but her voice remained a whisper. “It’s dangerous for me to tell you this.”
“Come, let’s walk outside.” He took her arm and helped her to get up.
“Let me get my coat.”
It was less than a week to Christmas and the winter chill had set in. Helga’s cheeks took on a rosy hue as they walked.
“Now, what do you mean they euthanized the baby?”
“If children are born defective in any way, they kill them. It is never discussed, but it is an unspoken fact.”
“My God, that is atrocious! When will this monstrous behavior end?”
“What if my baby is not all right? I can’t help but wonder.” She turned to him and tears dripped from her eyes. He took her into his arms and held her as her body racked with sobs.
“I don’t know, Helga. I don’t know. I don’t have an answer. I wish I did.”
She nodded and for a long time he held her.
“Helga?”
“Yes?”
“You must realize that I’ve fallen in love with you?”
“Please Kurt. Don’t love me. I am damaged. I can never love again.”
“I don’t believe that. I think you love me, too. I can’t give you the world the way your Nazi officer could. It is not that I wouldn’t want to. You deserve the best of everything, but I don’t have it. But what I can give you is my heart and my soul. You wi
ll never have to worry about other women. No other woman will ever mean to me what you do. And I will give you children, Helga, children we can keep and raise and love. Please, give me a chance.”
The snow crunched beneath him as he got down on one knee. Out of his pocket he took a small box. His hands, red from the cold, trembled as he lifted the lid. Inside a small diamond ring lay against a black velvet background.
For a moment Helga stood still. She sucked a deep breathe of the cold air into her lungs.
“Kurt, oh, God, Kurt. I don’t know what to say….I’m so confused.” She stared into his eyes, eyes that were filled with hope. Frightened, she shook her head and turned, running back to the house. She did not stop until she reached her room. When she did, she flung the door closed behind her, then turned the lock.
Kurt stayed on one knee for several minutes holding the ring box before he collapsed kneeling into the snow, his tears freezing in the winter wind as they fell upon his face.
Chapter 38
Berlin
“I should have been here with you. I can never forgive myself.” Detrick could not escape the guilt he felt at not having been with Leah on Kristalnacht.
Detrick and Leah lay in her bed.
“You could not have known.” Leah smoothed the hair out of Detrick’s eyes.
“I should have known. Konrad should have told me.”
“Isn’t that your childhood friend who joined the party?” She remembered Detrick mentioning him.
“Yes, it is. Konrad disappoints me so much. I cannot believe that he has become the man he is. When we were young, we were best friends.”
“Lots of people joined the party we never thought would do so. People I knew all my life.” Leah shook her head.
“Yes, I know and they are cruel to their neighbors. I see it all the time. The world has gone mad, Leah. And we are caught in the middle. I would give my life to save you, if it need be so.”
“Don’t talk that way, Detrick. This will pass. It has to.” It felt as if a long fingernail ran itself up the length of Leah’s spine, and she shivered.
Chapter 39
Warsaw, Poland
“Cantankerous old fool,” Karl thought, as he watched his boss, Mr. Heimlsky, count the money drawer for the third time.
“Are we short?”
“I don’t think so, but one can never check too many times.” He watched Karl out of the corner of his beady, accusing eyes.
If you haven’t found anything missing why keep counting? Karl wondered. This, he thought, is what gives us Jews a bad name. He shook his head as he wiped the glass counter top.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“Clean. Keep cleaning until I am all done. Then you can wait until I say you can go. That is what you can do.”
Because Karl seemed eager to leave, the old man slowly checked the drawer a last time. He counted out Karl’s small salary and handed it to him.
“Now you can go. I’ll see you in the morning, and make sure, don’t be late.”
Karl nodded his head as he tucked the bills into his pocket and headed to the tavern. In the corner his friend Joseph waited, sipping a whiskey.
“Karl, over here,” Joseph called out when he saw his friend enter.
The chair groaned as he pulled it away from the table and sat down.
“You’re really late tonight.”
“Yeah, the old bastard got the idea that his drawer might be short and he counted it until his old eyes almost popped out.”
The two men laughed.
“Have you thought about coming to work at the aerospace factory? I could pull for you. And besides, I really want you to come to a meeting of the Bund.” The Bund, the Jewish socialist union, had begun to boycott all merchandise from Germany because of Hitler’s regime.
“I like everything about the Bund except that they don’t believe in Zionism…they don’t think we need a Jewish state. And I’m telling you Joseph, without a Jewish state, we will never be a strong people. The Gentiles will always do what they want to with us. They always have.”
“The goyim, you mean?”
“Yes, anyone who isn’t a Jew.”
“Do you really think they are all bad?”
“Now, don’t you? I mean, haven’t you seen how they treat us? They’d kill us all if they could. If we had a state of our own… a homeland...well, then, we’d always have a place to go…somewhere to turn.”
“But we live here now…let’s try to defeat them here and build strength for our people in Poland.”
“I agree with you in that respect and I will attend the meeting, but I still think we must aim for our own land.”
“Even so, until Palestine becomes a reality, Poland is better for us than Germany, yes?”
“Yes.” Karl lifted his glass and the two drank in agreement.
Chapter 40
The smell of sweat permeated the air as the leaders of the Bund took the podium. A tall, heavy-set man, with thick gray hair and a coarse gray beard, came forward.
“Have any of you heard about what happened on Kristalnacht?”
A buzz of whispered conversation caused him to raise his hands in protest. “Quiet please; only one of us must speak at a time.”
In the back of the room, a man stood. He wore a black suit far too big for his puny frame. “In Germany, the Nazi Party attacked the Jewish businesses. People on the streets got hit with clubs, and the Nazis also shattered all the windows and burned the synagogue. From what I understand, all Jews must wear yellow arm bands with the Star of David, to single them out. The Nazis have set a curfew and all Jews must register, as well.”
“How long ago did this all happen?” Another voice from the corner of the room chimed out.
“Only one year ago. But from what I am hearing, things are getting very difficult for our people in Germany, and there is talk that Hitler plans to expand his empire even further, maybe to Poland.”
“I don’t believe he will come here. Poland is too big and powerful a country.” Another man stood; his throaty voice rang through the hall.
By the end of the night, Karl could think of nothing but his family. He wished he could visit and be sure they had not been harmed.
As he walked along the dark and quiet streets of Warsaw, Karl felt overcome with loneliness. Without his family, and with only a few casual friends, the world appeared vast and empty. Inside, he secretly longed for love, but the vulnerability it might cost him hardly seemed worth the price. Perhaps he would go to the aerospace factory and apply for a job. He’d grown tired of Mr. Heimlsky and his precious hardware store.
Late August brought occasional cool nights, but on this night no breeze broke the sweltering heat and Karl felt a ring of sweat form in the armpits of his work shirt. He wondered when he might risk going home. Although his relationship with Jacob had been strained due to his fighting and radical beliefs, Karl found that he missed his father most. As a little boy, Jacob centered him, giving him confidence and purpose. Only once the Nazi takeover shattered their lives, did Karl find his relationship with Jacob to be a challenge. Their differences made him angry, and instead of discussing his feelings, Karl had shut his father out. He resented that Jacob still kept that goy, Detrick with him, even though Karl saw Detrick as just another Nazi in the making. Now Karl smiled wryly, and thought regardless of their differences, he would have given anything to see his family again, especially his father.
Yes, tomorrow he would apply for a job at the factory. It was time for a change.
Chapter 41
On March of 1933, near the quaint Bavarian town of Dachau, the first real concentration camp was established. At first, it housed primarily political prisoners.
Built on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory, this facility would later be established as the model for future camps. Thirty-one thousand reported deaths are attributed to the Dachau camp, but the true death toll is thought to be considerably higher.
Chapter 42
At a little after four o’clock in the morning, a shooting took place at the Polish/German border. On the 1st of September, under Hitler’s orders, a group of Nazis rounded up prisoners from Dachau and dressed them in German uniforms. Then they transported the captives to the border, where they shot them, crying out, “Poland has invaded Germany!”
Now Hitler had his excuse, through another deception, as he declared war on Poland and the German troops marched across the border to take over their neighbor.
Chapter 43
Berlin
Wilfrieda thumbed through her magazine and puffed on a cigarette as she awaited the arrival of her next client. Konrad Klausen had proved difficult in his prior visits, but well worth the effort and discomfort, at least financially.
Prostitution is an art, she told her self time and again. Men like Konrad only served to reinforce her conviction. She had found his quirk quite accidentally. He had come to see her several times and been unable to achieve an erection. She'd begun to wonder why he continued to frequent the district. On one occasion, she'd spoken with another girl Konrad had visited, and she had admitted that regardless of what she'd tried, his manhood had remained limp. Then one evening, he came to see Wilfrieda following a fight with his superior officer. He insisted that she join him in a drink, and then another, until they both had become inebriated. The two had been laughing and embracing. Things felt warm and ripe, so she'd taken his manhood from his pants and placed her lips around it, sucking deeply. He had remained flaccid, but his attitude changed and his face grew red with anger.
“You stupid, good-for-nothing slut! You ugly whore!” he spat insults at her, and as he did, he threw her against the bed frame. With one hand, he tore her dress open and ripped her panties. Now fully erect, he entered her and pushed her hands up over her head, forcing himself inside of her roughly.
Once she learned what he needed, she knew how to play him. For a long time the mock rape had satisfied him. But as of late, he had been requesting to tie her arms and legs to the bedpost.
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