A Letter From Munich

by Meg Lelvis

  Ah, the power of propaganda.

  . . . . .

  Now, I’m afraid I must stop and bid you goodbye until tomorrow. It tires me out telling our story, but the time has come to bring it out from the shadows and into the light.

  Chapter 14

  Renate – 1939-1940s

  Good morning to you, Herr Sherk and Herr Jack. Hopefully, you had a restful evening and a big breakfast at the Leonardo. You chose a good hotel. Perhaps you two will have time to see Goethe’s garden home and the Schloss Weimar.

  I had a nice evening with Ariana. We ate our usual dinner together, and I told her about your visit, talking about our family. Her eyes widened when I mentioned John Bailey’s name. She stared at me and said, “Yes, yes.” But she often mumbles that, so who knows, but she indicated she understood on some level.

  Meeting you two nice men has brought a change in my life. Stirring up memories from another world, so long ago. I’m not sure of the word, but it’s like I have unburdened myself. And I am lighter somehow. Oh, what’s the word?

  Ah, yes, a catharsis. Of course, many Germans refuse to talk of those years. Too painful for some, and guilt and denial for others. People blame us, but in the end, what could we have done? Even if we had known the horrors of the camps, what were we women and children and people like Papa to do? I’d like the answer. He stood up for his beliefs, he wouldn’t join the Party. Look what happened to him. Did he save any lives or help the greater good? I question you again. What could we have done? Please pardon my emotion. It gets the better of me sometimes.

  . . . . .

  Now we’re settled with coffee, so once again we’ll return to the beginning of the war. Yesterday I told you when it started, people weren’t surprised. Our teachers were happy about taking Poland back, and of course I was just a young girl, and didn’t understand what was going on. Ariana and I kept on with our BDM meetings, and Kurt was gone a lot in the Youth. I assured myself wherever Papa was, he would be against Germany’s invasion of Poland.

  So, life carried on without much change, except we missed our father. But in spite of that, we had fun times. Ariana and I loved going to the pictures, mostly musical comedies. Leny Marenbach was our favorite star. Ah, we wanted to be like her. Our BDM troop marched in parades, and one time they took a trip to Nuremburg for a big rally. Mutti and Frau Hilde said we couldn’t go, we were too young, but Kurt did, which was so unfair because we had to stay home.

  Mutti and our grandparents argued a lot about what to do with Fritz. She refused to send him away. Kurt told us about the T-4 plan where the government wanted to rid the German nation of undesirables, people unfit to carry on the Aryan race. Ariana and I cried and screamed at Kurt that they couldn’t take our brother away, but he said Fritz should go into hiding in Switzerland so he’d be saved. To this day, I’m not sure if Kurt might have secretly been convinced his brother should be killed for the sake of the Fatherland, but he must’ve wished the best for Fritz, since he wanted him safe. With Papa gone, at least we didn’t have to listen to him and Kurt argue about politics and who was right.

  One night, Dr. Schmidt came to our house and talked privately with Mutti and Frau Hilde about Fritz. After the doctor left, Kurt, who had eavesdropped through the keyhole, took me and Ariana into his room and closed the door. Even though Kurt was mean to us at times, he wanted us to be aware of what was going on. His voice dropped to a near whisper. Dr. Schmidt is ordered to turn in names of his patients who are unfit for the Aryan race, to keep Germany pure. That means handicapped people in wheelchairs and people like Fritz. He told Mutti to take Fritz to the sanitarium in Switzerland right now before it’s too late.

  Fearful for Fritz’s fate, Mutti ultimately agreed to send him to Switzerland. All I remember is the next day Opa drove to our house and Frau Hilde hurried Fritz into the car. We only had time for a quick hug goodbye. Mutti was crying and grabbing onto him as Opa and Kurt peeled him away from her grasping arms. Ignoring her and very excited, Fritz chattered on about taking a train trip with Opa, but of course he had no idea where he’d end up. We were aware of the truth. He was sent to Lucerne to a special home for people like him.

  For the next several years of the war, our BDM troop worked for the German effort. At first, we wrote letters to the troops, knitted wool gloves and socks, even made straw slippers for soldiers in hospitals. Kurt was trained to be an air raid warden, which was an essential job as Allied bombings on the larger German cities increased.

  Ariana and I volunteered as Red Cross nurse’s aides in the Schwabinger Krankenhaus in Munich. During the week, we stayed with our grandparents, whose large apartment was only a few blocks away. We walked back and forth from hospital, except when it got dark and Opa picked us up in his car.

  Looking back, the years all blended together. But gradually, optimism, spirit, and what is it called, ah, national pride faded. People’s faces looked downcast, gloomy. Shouts of victory grew dim, replaced with silence. The raids and destruction escalated. All of Munich seemed to turn gray. The sirens wailed their anguish, then we’d scurry to the underground shelter, huddle close with Oma and Opa, the odor of human waste assaulting our nostrils. Soon strangers became friends, all of us bonded together by one cause: survival. The cries of babies and terrified children clinging to their haggard, fearful mothers still haunt me to this day.

  Mutti begged us to come home to Dachau because the bombing wasn’t as bad in our village, so we agreed, and stayed with her and Frau Hilde for a month or so. We never saw Kurt, and no one was sure where he was, which caused Mutti to wring her hands in despair. Ariana and I missed Fritz and prayed for his safety. We were Catholic, but hadn’t been to Mass for years. Walter Gunther came around wanting to be with Ariana, but she wasn’t too interested. He’d taken a shine to her years before. A nice person, but she liked him in a brotherly way.

  We stayed in the house, knitting and sewing for the soldiers, but it was boring. Ariana said as nurses, we did much more good for the war effort.

  One day a leader from the BDM knocked on the door. She told us to return to the Munich hospital because things were getting worse for the Reich, and our girls’ youth organization was falling apart. They need you ladies, all of us, young and old. More of our soldiers are coming from the east—Stalingrad, Smolensk, they’re broken, frostbitten. Ach, Frau Schröder, you must allow your girls to serve the Fatherland.

  So Mutti reluctantly let us return to Munich and the hospital. We took care of many more patients than before, and we were given more responsibility, the same as real nurses. We had to change dressings on bloody, open wounds, and other things I hate to mention. Ariana, perhaps because she was older, had more of a stomach for it than me. Oh Renate, you’ll get used to it. We all have blood and innards. At first, I ran to the toilets to be sick, but later not as much.

  But it took a toll on us. We witnessed grizzly sights of burns, amputations, more. One night Ariana called me to help her with a poor soldier just brought in. Gott im Himmel, his insides were outside his stomach, his soiled hands moving upward on his sides, as if he was trying to press it all in. It looked like a family of bloody snakes curled around each other over his torso. Ariana’s arms were bathed in red. She tried to hold his shoulders down. And the stench. Like sewage with an odd tinge of almond. Oh, why did I look? The poor man couldn’t stand the searing pain, and screamed, begged us to kill him. My eyes floated to the ceiling. I was lightheaded. Blackness surrounded me.

  When I came to, Ariana and Stefan, our burly medic friend, knelt beside me on the floor, and helped me sit up. The soldier still yelled piteously, Gott, lass mich gehen.

  Ariana led me to a corner where I sat in a chair, my head in my hands. It’s okay, Renate. He’s in septic shock. He won’t last much longer.

  I’ve never spoken of
that poor soldier begging for the mercy of death. Someone’s son, his mother like Mutti perhaps. Or perhaps he was a husband, a young father? And he was just one. One of thousands.

  During the last fall and winter of the war, rumors were rampant about Germany losing ground, and people weren’t sure our country would become ruler of all Europe. Air raids intensified, and the city turned into sooty rubble. The food shortage worsened, with rations severely cut. Women waited in long queues winding around blocks from the marketplace, hoping for a loaf of stale bread, eggs, biscuits, or whatever was left. Several women brought stools to sit on as they waited. Ariana and I longed for Frau Hilde’s roast beef, potato dumplings, Apfelkuchen, but those days were gone. The only available meat was bully beef, like corned beef, which we got sick and tired of. Neither Ariana nor I ever cooked or ate that beef again.

  More folks tried to escape to the country, and once again, Mutti begged us to leave the hospital and come home to Dachau. Stefan announced that the Allies invaded Germany on the Western Front. They crossed the Rhine, occupied Düsseldorf, Cologne, heading for the Ruhr area, to shut off communications. Ach Gott, they’re going to take the Rhineland before long. Stefan babbled on about tanks, General Bradley. I thought he’d never hush up.

  By March of 1945 most city streets were piles of wreckage and rising dust from the bombs. Opa could no longer drive to Mutti’s, so we were forced to stay put in Munich. Businesses and government alike were unravelling, and Ariana said it was like we were on another planet with no rules. What’s the word? Anarchy, yes, that’s it.

  People walked about in a daze. Some lived in the bombed-out shells of their former homes, the water either contaminated or turned off in many areas, and power outages were widespread. They used generators at the hospital. You’d see women and old men on the streets, cooking over open fires, trying to boil water. Our noses got used to the smoky stench wherever we found ourselves. Mothers tried to force stinky diluted soup made of rutabagas down their children. To this day, I can’t look at rutabagas at the market, much less eat them.

  I’ve blotted out memories of the final weeks of the war; just flashes of scenes now and then pop up. Ariana remembered more of our time with the sick and wounded, her memory once sharp. Sadly, a far cry from today.

  A young soldier she took care of fell in love with her and begged her to marry him. Field doctors had amputated his right leg a week before he came in on a stretcher. The wound festered, and Ariana willingly tended to him. I couldn’t bear the sight or putrid smell, but she was older than me, more grown up.

  She gently told him they couldn’t marry, not because of the leg, but she already had a beau. That wasn’t true, even though Walter Gunther was sweet on her. You see, men were attracted to Ariana. She looked like an American movie star, I don’t recall the name, with her creamy skin, wide-set sapphire eyes and ash blond hair parted on one side, the other swept down in a pageboy. Me, I was all right, but not the beauty Ariana was. In time, she discovered being beautiful back then could be a curse.

  Those days reminded me of another fairy tale, “Flying Robert”, a boy who disobeyed his parents and went out in a rainstorm. The wind caught his red umbrella. Now look at him, silly fellow, Up he flies To the skies. No one heard his screams and cries… Only this one thing is plain, Rob was never seen again!

  The Struwwelpeter stories Papa told us years ago have embedded themselves in my mind.

  Many times he had warned us to stay inside after dark, especially when the world around us turned perilous. But in those chaotic times, rules and habits shifted, disappeared, nothing the same. Toward the end, it was every man for himself, except for those with families. Ariana and I spent many hours at the hospital, and after work we’d walk to Opa’s place, sometimes after dark.

  Exhausted, Ariana said we needed to keep helping the sick and wounded, even though doctors and nurses were quitting the hospital, abandoning the sinking ship. Stefan said he had nowhere to go. We must stay here, Ariana. They need our help and it gives us something to hang onto. A reason to keep living. We mustn’t lose hope.

  . . . . .

  I don’t remember the exact date it happened, but rumors were flying around the hospital that day. Chaos erupted all over Munich. We were gulping down a lunch of bread and bacon we’d snuck from the kitchen when the doors flung open. Several policemen barreled inside shouting dire warnings. Prisoners escaped from the BMW plant, they’re on the loose. Be careful. They hate all Germans, no one’s safe.

  We realized POW’s were used as forced labor in factories, but we never sensed danger until then. One red-faced officer flailed his arms helplessly. Guards are evacuating people at work camps all over the country, want to hide evidence, everyone fleeing right and left, no law and order.

  Panic stricken, Ariana gripped my arm. “Renate, I’ve got to go check on Oma and Opa. You stay here where it’s safe. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Wait, we can call the landlord—” I’d forgotten telephones had long-ago quit working. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No, I can go faster alone. I know a short cut. You stay and help. You’re needed here.”

  Before I could speak, Ariana ran off, racing past patients, nurses, equipment, and out the door.

  Stefan told me not to worry, that Ariana was tougher than she looked.

  Of course, I was aware of that, but I was jumpy and nervous about her out there running around alone. I dropped a bed pan, made a fine mess of it, no sooner cleaned it up and I spilled much-needed cough syrup down a little boy’s chin. Fewer soldiers came in the hospital, but there were more women, children, and elderly needing treatment for bomb injuries, not to mention dysentery, impetigo, scabies.

  Children cried, women moaned, all needing care. But I only thought of Ariana alone in a world of turmoil. Wondering why she hadn’t returned, I asked Stefan what time it was. He assured me that only a couple hours had passed, she’d be back soon. How I wish he had been right.

  Chapter 15

  Weimar

  Jack noticed Renate’s lips quivering as she stared at the floor. He glanced at Sherk. “Does she need a break?”

  “Most likely. I’ll check.” Sherk leaned toward Renate and spoke. She answered, her voice fluttering, soft as a feather. He turned to Jack.

  “Renate’s reaching a painful part in the story, and would like a short rest. But she wants us to stay. She’ll go to her room and catch up on phoning her sewing group, so I’ll update you on the story so far.”

  Both men stood and stretched. Renate offered more coffee and sweets which they declined, and she brushed Sherk’s hand aside when he reached for the tray. Still shaken, she returned the dishes to the kitchen, the tray trembling, cups and plates nervously clinking until their harrowing journey drew to a close. On the way to her bedroom, she gave a quick wave to the men as she departed on little bird feet.

  The sun had disappeared, stealing the brightness from the living room. Jack wandered to the piano, polished to a sheen, and studied the Schröder family photos again. His eyes settled on Fritz, staring into space, eyes vacant. Jack hoped the kid survived.

  He flopped on the sofa, pulled out his phone, and read his messages. “Nothing earthshaking. A text from Jenny mentioning Ma hopes I’m getting enough to eat. Where am I? Cub Scout camp?” He sighed. “And Tommy wants an update on the Ariana story, so I’ll email him tonight.”

  Sherk sat down, and eased his gangly legs under the coffee table.

  “How much longer will it take Renate to finish the whole story?” Jack jiggled his foot.

  “Hard to determine. She stopped right before the end of the war.”

  For the next hour, Sherk summarized Renate’s story, stopping now and then to clarify details.

  Jack kep
t silent, his anger sparking when Sherk mentioned the fate of Fritz.

  “It still blows my mind how those bastards murdered little kids who were handicapped or mentally disabled or so-called impure German people.” He again glanced toward the picture of Fritz. “Especially when it’s somebody so close and personal.”

  “Yeah, the T-4 plan officially lasted until 1941 when Hitler publicly put a halt to it. It was an open secret, and a lot of citizens objected.” Sherk cleared his throat. “But it was sustained in a more concealed manner and lasted till the end of the war. They gassed or euthanized not only the mentally and physically ill, but elderly patients as well. Renate didn’t mention that, but she must now be aware.”

  Jack shook his head in disgust. “So Fritz was sent to Switzerland. Did he survive?”

  “Renate didn’t comment, but according to my previous research, he lived to his forties, and the documents also said Kurt died in his sixties.”

  Sherk carried on with more details, and was nearing the end when Jack interrupted.

  “So in March of ‘45 the Allies invaded Germany. Wonder if Pa was involved in that. He refused to talk about the war except when he was drunk, and then his words didn’t make sense. Damn, wish I would’ve quizzed my uncles more about it when they were still alive. They said his regiment reached Dachau, but there were several other units too.”