War Brothers

by Patrick Slaney

  ‘Come on Markus let’s go home. I am starving, and your mother will have cooked us our dinner.’

  ‘OK Walter, I just have to get my bag and then we can leave.’

  On the way home, I decided to tell Walter of my decision.

  ‘Walter, I am strongly thinking of leaving the HJ and the Football team as I am finding it is taking up too much of my time and my mother needs my help at home.’

  ‘You can’t do that Markus. They are talking about making membership of the Hitler Youth compulsory so you will have to stay.’

  ‘They haven’t made that law yet so I can leave if I want.’

  ‘But Markus, what about me? You got me back into the Hitler Youth as a drummer, and now you are leaving. I can’t stay on my own without my brother to back me up.’

  ‘I am afraid I am going to have to Walter, and I have made up my mind. I am sorry for letting you down.’

  ‘There is something else Markus isn’t there. What did Stefan Mulder and the Regional Director say to you last night?’ Walter stopped walking and looked straight into my face.

  ‘Nothing serious; they were only asking me to try on a new uniform. My leaving is not as a result of what they discussed with me.’

  ‘OK Markus, but why do you have to leave the HJ and the football club. I will miss you.’

  ‘You’ll be alright Walter, and I will be with you at home anyhow.’ I gave him a brotherly punch on his shoulder.

  We walked on home in silence. I loved the Hitler Youth and all that it stood for, and I also loved my football, so it was going to be a terrible wrench to give it all up. I had nothing else in my life to replace it.

  Chapter 4

  My mother gave me a hug as I went into the kitchen where the welcoming smells of her cooking assaulted our nostrils. Usually I resisted hugs as it embarrassed me in front of Walter, but in my current fragile state I welcomed her affection

  ‘How did it go boys?’ she asked us.

  ‘It was good except for the food, so I am looking forward to a home cooked meal,’ I replied. ‘I’ll just go and put my stuff in my room and have a quick wash.’

  ‘Well your food will be ready in five minutes so don’t be long. How are you Walter did you have a good time?’

  ‘I am totally knackered. We had to play the drums the whole way back to the stadium other than a short break at the halfway mark.’

  ‘You poor thing; anyway go and wash and be back here chop chop.’

  We were both a bit longer than five minutes, so the food was on the table by the time we sat down.

  ‘Markus is leaving the Hitler Youth and the Football Club Frau Bekker,’ Walter blurted out just as we started eating.

  My mother put her knife and fork down and looked at me aghast.

  ‘You are doing what Markus?’

  I gave Walter my best withering scowl, and he immediately saw that he had blundered by telling her.

  ‘I am spending far too much of my time at the stadium, and I want to be at home when you are here mum.’

  ‘What an extraordinary thing to say Markus. Why have you suddenly decided that you want to be at home when I am here?’

  ‘I spend half my life at the Stadium, and the training sessions and meetings go on longer and longer. I have no time to do anything else after school.’

  ‘Well Markus I am finding all of this very strange; however if that is what you want then go ahead and do it,’ she said resigned to the fact that I had made up my mind. I was already proving to be an extremely stubborn teenager.

  I found it extremely difficult to spend my leisure time at home or with my grandad at the bakery. I was used to being out all the time and had only been at home in the past between getting home from school and leaving for the Stadium at 5:30 pm. My mother noted my restlessness.

  One Monday, about two weeks after I had taken my decision to leave the HJ, there was a knock at the door. My mother went to see who it was. I froze, and my stomach hit my boots when I recognized Stefan Mulder’s voice.

  ‘Good evening Frau Bekker. I am worried about Markus as he hasn’t been to the Hitler Youth meetings or the Football. Is he sick or what is wrong?’

  ‘No he is not sick. He decided, for reasons best known to himself that he needed a break from both the activities you run at the stadium for the time being. He said that he was spending all his out of school time at the stadium.’

  ‘Can I talk to him Frau Bekker?’ he asked my mother.

  ‘Come in and I will get him for you Herr Mulder.’ My mother ushered him into the front room and came to get me.

  ‘I don’t want to see him Mum,’ I said to her when she joined me in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t know what this is all about Markus, but you will have to talk him after he has come to the house to see you.’

  ‘I won’t see him.’

  ‘I am sorry Markus, but you are going to have to. It won’t kill you just to meet with him for a few minutes.’

  I was almost in tears, and there was no way that I could tell my mother the real reason that I didn’t want to see him. I just stood there looking thoroughly miserable.

  She put her arm around me. ‘Markus, I can see how upset you are, but please talk to him, and we can discuss the whole thing when he has gone.’

  She brought me to the door into the sitting room, opened it and coaxed me through the doorway until I was in the room. She then calmly turned around, closed the door, leaving me alone with Herr Mulder.

  ‘Are you alright Markus?’ Stefan Mulder said to me as he stood up to face me.

  I wasn’t able to answer but just looked at him with tear filled eyes.

  ‘Is this as a result of the encounter with Herr Schmidt at the camp Markus?’

  I nodded my head; still unable to speak.

  ‘It’s because you are such a strong and resilient character that I chose you Markus. I also felt that you would be able to deal with whatever he might do to you. I stupidly thought that it would be beneficial for you to be in the director’s good books. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  He put his hand on my shoulder and guided me to sit down opposite him.

  ‘Why are you not coming to the meetings Markus?’

  ‘I am afraid of it happening again and the rest of the group labelling me as a homosexual and ostracising me,’ I finally managed to say.

  ‘They don’t know anything about what happened in that tent,’ he said in a comforting voice.

  ‘Yes they do, and I suspect even Walter has heard things about me. Don’t forget that Boris saw what happened.’

  ‘I have talked to Boris and backed up the story you told him about the modelling of the new uniform,’ he added.

  ‘Yes; but as you know there is no new uniform sir. They are not idiots.’ I was starting to cry again.

  ‘Stand up Markus I need to clarify something for you.’

  I stood up, and he embraced me so as I was now weeping on his shoulder.

  “Markus I am so sorry for what happened at the camp. Kurt Schmidt ordered me to get one of my troop to come to my tent, and the only person I thought that I could trust was you. I now realize that I was totally wrong for giving in to him. I should have stood up to him.’

  ‘I felt so humiliated standing in front of both of you with no clothes on,’ I sobbed.

  ‘I didn’t think that he would go that far Markus. I had heard rumours about him, but I was hoping for the best.’

  ‘But you even watched me sir and saw me naked.’

  ‘I can never apologise enough for what happened; I only stayed to try and protect you from him as he was clearly getting carried away.’

  ‘And why did you encourage him?’

  ‘I didn’t encourage him, in fact, I was horrified at the way he was handling and
touching you. Don’t forget that I was the one who told you to get dressed. After you left us, he was extremely angry with me for spoiling his fun.’

  ‘I wish that I could believe you sir. From where I was it looked as if the two of you had decided on how you were going to embarrass and humiliate me.’

  ‘Markus I am sorry that things turned out the way they did, but I can give you a guarantee that nothing like this will ever happen again. You have been coming to football, and the Hitler Youth, for a number of years, so a lot of trust has built up between us. It would be a disaster if I lost one of my better members over this.’

  I almost said to him that he should have thought of that before they sexually abused me in their tent.

  ‘I will think about it sir and go back if I feel that I can.’

  ‘Well Markus I want you back for highly personal reasons. I am particularly fond of you and miss having you around. He gave me another hug. I showed him to the door and let him out.

  I went straight back into the sitting room to avoid facing my mother until I had the story that I was going to tell her worked out. She must have been waiting for me to let Stefan Mulder out for she immediately came into the room.

  ‘Markus I think that you and I need to have a chat because there is something going on that I am not happy about.

  ‘Everything is alright Mum. Something happened at camp and Herr Mulder was sorting it out. That is why he came around.’

  ‘Everything is not alright Markus. I have seen what you have been like since you came back from camp. You won’t even go to the meetings and your football practice which you love.’

  ‘It’s all sorted Mum, and I will probably start going back to the HJ and playing for the football team again.’

  ‘I am going to get to the bottom of this whole matter, no matter what you say. Something happened to upset you, and I want to know what it was.’ I could see that she wasn’t going to give up on this and wanted answers.

  It had been traumatic enough exposing my private parts in front of the two men at the camp, but what was I going to tell my mother. I had never talked about sexual things to her before in my life and would be highly embarrassed in discussing the incident with her.

  ‘It’s nothing Mum and something that I don’t want to talk about,’ I said as casually as possible, looking past her at a picture of Jesus that hung on the wall.

  ‘Markus I talked to Walter the other day as I was worried about you, and he told me that there is a story going around the group that you were sexually abused at the camp by Stefan Mulder and the Regional Director Kurt Schmidt. Is that what happened?’

  I couldn’t stop the tears coming and found it impossible to answer my mother. The deep shame of the incident just overwhelmed me, and I sobbed uncontrollably.

  ‘So the rumour is right Markus. I can see by your reaction, that what they are saying did actually happen,’ my mother said as she came over to sit on the arm of my chair and put an arm around me. ‘I am not going to ask you any more about it as it must be terribly embarrassing for you, but I will report it and get those men thrown out of their positions. I wish that you had a father around to sort this out.’

  ‘Mum, I don’t want anything done about it as I am fearful of what they will do to me in retaliation for having told on them. I am especially fearful of Herr Schmidt.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t just ignore what has happened Markus. It is far too serious to allow it to go unchallenged.’

  ‘But Stefan Mulder has been like a father to me over the years. He mustn’t lose his position as coach of the football team and leader of the Hitler Youth because of this. It wasn’t his idea, and he was ordered to do it by the director.’

  As I talked to my mother, it became very clear to me why I had been so upset by what had happened. Growing up had been tough without having a father around and Stefan Mulder had been the only father figure that I had known. I believed him when he said that he had a soft spot for me and that he had been forced to invite me to his tent by Kurt Schmidt. I didn’t want to lose Stefan Mulder as my father figure as he had been such an influential person in my life. I was willing to forgive him for what happened in the tent, provided a similar situation never happened again.

  ‘I will go and see your leader Stefan Mulder tomorrow Markus and get the whole thing sorted out. I have to do something about what happened; otherwise more children are going to be abused.’

  I could see our little chat was at an end. She gave me a hug and then returned to the kitchen, leaving me in a decidedly confused emotional state. I never thought that Walter would have told her what he knew. My mother could be remarkably persistent at times, and he obviously hadn’t been able to avoid her direct questioning.

  I felt immensely relieved that it was all out in the open now and that my mother knew. I had been very apprehensive about what she would do if she heard about it and also if I had to tell her the details of what exactly had happened.

  Chapter 5

  My mother went over to the stadium the following day after she got off from work and was home by 5:00 pm looking extremely pleased with herself.

  Walter and I had got home from school, starving as usual, only to find that the smells of dinner didn’t hit us as we came through the door. My mother wasn’t even at home.

  ‘Sorry boys,’ she said as she came into the house. ‘I did that job that we talked about last night Markus on my way home, and it took a bit longer than expected. We will talk about it later.’

  She cooked the dinner and about two hours later she invited me to join her in the sitting room.

  ‘Well Markus let me tell you how I got on. It went a lot better than expected, and I am quite pleased with what I have agreed with Herr Mulder.’

  ‘You actually talked to him Mum.’

  ‘Yes Markus I certainly did.’

  ‘Did he take it seriously as he must have been quite surprised?’

  ‘If you give me a minute Markus I’ll tell you. Stop interrupting,’ my mother replied irritably. ‘To summarise what was agreed between us; he is going to report Kurt Schmidt for what he did and make sure that it never happens again. In exchange, I said that we would support his story that he was made to do it and didn’t participate in any of the abuse.’

  ‘How did you get him to agree to that?’ I asked.

  ‘I told him that if he didn’t do what I asked then we would implicate him in the abuse, and that would be the end of his job working with the youth. That seemed to focus his attention on what I was saying.’

  ‘Will I have to give evidence mum?’ I was anxious that I would have to stand up in a court of law and give my account of what happened which would be highly embarrassing.’

  ‘I have checked on the procedure Markus, and, because you are under age, the judge would hear your evidence in private and not in an open court.’

  ‘Thanks Mum; you have done a terrific job in sorting it out.’

  ‘I surprised myself Markus, and I am confident that Stefan Mulder will stick to his word.’ She got up, terminating our little meeting.

  I went up to my bedroom to consider the implications of what she had told me. I was very relieved that Stefan Mulder hadn’t been implicated, and, in fact, my mother had been clever in using him to expose the real villain in the piece, Kurt Schmidt. My father figure was still in place and I felt confident in returning to the stadium now without the risk of being sexually abused again. It still would be difficult being in Stefan Mulder’s presence as he had seen me naked and suffering something that I was highly embarrassed about, but I suppose that I would get over that in time.

  I returned to the Hitler Youth the following day and also started attending the football practices. Two weeks later I was called into the office during training to see a very intimidating man who was wearing an SS uniform. The SS had a reputation for be
ing unscrupulous and very aggressive, so I feared the worst.

  ‘I am told that you are Markus Bekker, is that correct?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  I want to ask you some questions about what happened at your recent camp?’

  My heart dropped to my boots, and I suddenly felt extremely nervous.

  ‘Markus, I don’t want you to feel anxious as it sounds as if you have been put through enough drama recently,’ he said in a friendly voice. I was surprised by his casual tone. ‘I will try and make it as easy as possible for you and I can also tell you that I am reasonably certain that you won’t have to appear in court.’

  ‘I don’t want to give details in case they take revenge on me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, the culprit won’t be around to harm you. We have had a report from your Hitler Youth leader that he was forced to invite you to his tent where you were subject to sexual abuse. Can you confirm that?’

  ‘I was asked to go to my leader’s tent after the evening sing song and Herr Schmidt asked me to undress and then he touched me sexually and fondled me.’

  ‘Did Herr Mulder participate at all in what was going on?’

  ‘No; he just sat there watching and I saw that he was quite upset by what Herr Schmidt was doing.’

  ‘Was that the only time you have been sexually abused by these two men or either of them on their own?’

  ‘Yes, it has never happened before or since.’

  ‘Have you ever been involved in sexual activity with the other boys in the group?’

  ‘No, I have never even heard of something like that happening in our group or in the football team,’ I truthfully replied.

  ‘How well do you know Herr Mulder and do you trust him?’

  ‘Herr Mulder has been a father figure for me as I have been growing up. He has always been in charge of the football club, and he then took over the role of Hitler Youth leader when that started. My father was killed in France in 1916, so I have never known a father at home. I totally trust Herr Mulder and know that he wouldn’t do anything like this if he hadn’t been forced.’