I shrugged. He did go to some meetings and sometimes would bring people over to our house, but my brothers and I, just like my mother, were mostly excluded from their political polemics. I wasn’t curious about it either.
“Well, I just meant to say that those societies don’t welcome Jews, as my father told me.”
Dalia concluded the sentence with a light and genuine smile, which surprised me greatly. As I found out later, in Linz, where she was born and raised, anti-Semitism had always flourished, despite the town being considered as only second to Vienna in its cultural and educational attributes. As it turned out, highly educated and cultural people didn’t consider discrimination to be something immoral.
“I don’t care if you’re Jewish,” I replied bravely. She smiled wider and said that it would be even more interesting to hide from everybody. From that day on, we pretended that we didn’t know each other at school, but I couldn’t wait for classes to finish so I could follow my friend like a spy back to her house, and wait by the backyard fence for her to let me inside. Her parents took a liking to me, especially after Dalia told them how I had beaten up the most feared school bully to protect her. I was even allowed to go up to her room, where we would do our homework first and then play checkers or giggle over the anatomy textbook she had. Dalia was two grades higher than I and would often show me something that we were considered too young to study.
She was quite fine with laughing over the pictures of the inner structure of the ear or the nose, but would slam the textbook closed as soon as I’d open it on the page related to human anatomy. From the first time that I saw how the olive skin on her cheeks turned crimson, and how she yanked the book out of my hands, I couldn’t stop laughing at her embarrassment and kept turning to the page that she couldn’t bring herself to look at. Every time she’d get distracted by something, with my help of course.
Her reaction of covering her eyes with one hand while trying to grab the book away from me, was probably my favorite amusement. The more she’d try not to look, the more I’d push her hand away, and the second one too, the one that she was covering her eyes with. One time play wrestling with her, I pinned her down to the bed and brought the book right next to her face. Suddenly she wasn’t laughing anymore and only pushed my chest with both hands.
“Ernst, get off me.”
“Why? You’re not afraid of it anymore? Look!” Still laughing, I held the book next to her eyes, but she pulled it away from me with the same serious expression on her slightly flushed face.
“Get off me!” she demanded once again, this time louder. I shrugged and sat next to her on the bed, while she sat up unnaturally straight and put her clothes back in order. She seemed angry for some reason, but I couldn’t understand why.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, while she was fixing her thick bun right above her neck without looking at me. “What did I do?”
“You can’t just climb me like that!” Dalia turned to me at last, still straightening invisible wrinkles on her long skirt.
I shrugged, still uncertain of her sudden reaction and stiff posture.
“We do it with boys all the time.” I tried to justify myself, even though I didn’t understand what I did wrong to cause such a change in her mood. “You see it yourself… in the school yard, when we play ball…”
“Those are your friends.” Seeing my confusion, Dalia sighed and with annoyance in her voice that she had to explain the obvious, she continued. “You’re all boys. I’m a girl. You can’t climb on top of a girl like you do with your friends.”
“Why not?”
“It’s… inappropriate, that’s why! And showing me that picture, that’s inappropriate too!”
I had just opened my mouth for another ‘why,’ but seeing Dalia pursing her lips, decided against it.
“Whatever you say.” I closed the book shut and put it away, raising both hands in mock surrender. She finally allowed a shade of a smile on her face.
It had been almost a year since our secret friendship started, and now, with my father gone, we didn’t have to hide anymore. However we enjoyed hiding it from every prying eye so much that we decided to let things be just as secret as always.
Dalia’s support was immense during the first two weeks he was away, but seeing me unusually quiet and distraught she didn’t know what else to do and hugged me. A little awkwardly and unsure, but firmly enough for me to know that she was right there with me. Except for my mother, whose embraces I considered something natural, no girl had ever hugged me before. I didn’t know what to do or what to say at first, but then I wrapped my arms around her slim waist and hugged her too. It felt a little strange, but at the same time exciting and new. I liked how it felt, to hold Dalia in my arms.
_______________
Prison hospital, Nuremberg, November 1945
I liked having feeling back in my arms and legs. They started gradually lowering the doses of morphine, and, now, even though I was in a permanent sleepy state, I was at least coherent enough to understand what was going on around me, and what’s more important: keep my mouth shut.
I could hear agent Foster’s voice at the doors of the ward and managed to open my eyes to see him talk to one of my doctors. Judging by his manner, the American was none too pleased with my current state.
“What do you mean, such things happen, doctor? I’ve never heard such things happen to considerably healthy, young men.”
The doctor cleared his throat and fixed his glasses. “I don’t know what you’re implying, sir, but the official medical examination showed – and my colleagues agreed with me – that his present condition was caused by stress.”
The doctor tried to pass by agent Foster, but the latter stood in the doors, blocking him.
“And what would be the unofficial version?”
“I don’t understand your questions, sir. Are you suggesting that someone hit him on the head? Well, no one did. He does have a little bump on the back of his head, but that’s the result of the fall after he lost his consciousness.”
The OSS agent pursed his lips and let the doctor pass at last. He shook his head slightly and walked up to my bed. I greeted him with a small smile. The American sighed and sat on the side of my bed.
“So what happened to you, doctor? I was on my way to the airport when I got the news that you were admitted to the hospital with a brain hemorrhage.”
“Nothing happened.” I even managed to shrug under my blanket.
He kept looking at me intently and then finally asked in a straightforward manner, “Did somebody hit you?”
“No, nobody did. The doctor told you the truth, it really is just stress. I’m sorry that you had to delay your trip because of me. I’m fine.”
“Stress doesn’t cause brain hemorrhages at your age. Head trauma does.”
“What do you want me to say, agent?” I smiled at him. “Nobody touched me, really. Don’t you think I would tell you if someone did?”
No, here in Nuremberg no one touched us; that I wasn’t lying about. The guards sometimes amused themselves with playing harmless pranks on Julius Streicher, the former editor-in-chief of the infamous anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Sturmer, but the rest of us were treated with respect – the guards were actually good kids.
“Honestly, I don’t think you would,” agent Foster said calmly. “You’re much too proud to admit it. However, I am still quite positive that your present condition was caused by a head trauma, maybe not recent, but the one that you got in London right after they arrested you.”
I eyed him for quite some time and then said, “No one touched me in London either.”
“See? I knew you would lie about that.”
“Why, you saw me in London on quite a few occasions. Did you see any marks on my face? No.”
“Doctor, I know how my OSS and the British SOE work. They’re not stupid enough to hit you on the face. God forbid they broke your nose or teeth, they wouldn’t get away with it, with the international p
ress later, that’s number one. And number two, more than anything they don’t want the population to feel sympathy for you, war criminals, at the sight of your battered faces. I know they hit only on the body and on the head, causing enough pain to make you talk, but in a way that doesn’t leave any marks visible for the general public to see.”
I looked away, smiling slightly. The American chuckled as well, as if reading my mind.
“Not in your case though. You didn’t utter a word.” I gave him an inquisitive look, and he nodded several times with a grin. “Yes, I saw their report about your interrogation. The prison commandant was boasting before his superiors that he’d get a full confession out of you, but you stubbornly kept to your version, day after day. And then you stopped talking altogether.”
He went silent for a moment and then added after a pause, “He cracked his knuckles on your head.”
I sneered. “Good.”
“Good? Look where it led you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured my American friend with a grin. “He hits like a girl anyway. I wouldn’t die from that.”
_______________
Linz, September 1918
“What if he died for us?” Werner choked up involuntarily, clasping my wrist with an ice-cold hand.
In the course of the four years since our father had left to fight on the front, both of my brothers had become used to looking up to me as an authority figure; especially now that I was almost fifteen and had all of a sudden grown up to a little over six feet tall, with my voice changing into a low and authoritative one, resembling my father’s greatly. For some reason both Werner and Roland were more than convinced that I always had all the answers.
I looked down at the notification from the front, which had just been delivered by a mailman.
‘Dear Frau Kaltenbrunner,
We regret to inform you that your husband, Hugo Kaltenbrunner, has failed to come back from his last operation. As for now, he’s considered as being missing in action. We will inform you immediately upon obtaining any information regarding his fate.’
How was I supposed to show it to my mother? She loved my father dearly and was praying for his safe return every Sunday at mass. It would kill her, the thought that he might be dead.
“Ernst?” Werner tugged on my sleeve again, fighting the tears that were already welling in his eyes. “What if he’s—”
“Stop it, Werner!” I interrupted him in a stern voice. “He’s not dead. He’s missing, that’s all. He might have been taken as a prisoner of war, or be wounded and unconscious in some hospital… It’s not that they recovered his body. So stop your whining, and go do your homework!”
My younger brother was biting his lower lip nervously, looking me in the eyes, as if trying to find confirmation to my words in them. I patted him on the shoulder, gave him a reassuring nod and repeated in a milder voice, “He’ll be back, you’ll see. Now go and do your homework, please.”
He stood up reluctantly and left our father’s study, where I was sitting, still holding the letter in my hands and thinking of how best to tell my mother.
She started crying of course, dropped the bags that she brought from the grocer and threw herself in my arms, saying that those French killed her poor Hugo with their gas, or the British with their planes, and how was she going to raise us alone now, when her husband was her only supporter and provider.
“Mama, he’s not dead, he’s missing.” Stroking her hair gently, I kept repeating the same thing that I was comforting my brother with. “A lot of soldiers go missing in action to only come back later, especially if there was indeed a gas attack. You know how it is, they go blind for some time, they’re all disoriented, they wander around until someone picks them up – either their fellow comrades or the enemy troops – and then they are delivered for treatment. If he was dead, it would say so in the letter.”
“Erni, son, what am I going to feed you all with?” She sobbed, as I sat her down by the kitchen table and got busy preparing coffee for her. I didn’t even ask her if she wanted it, but I didn’t know what else to do with myself to escape her tears. I couldn’t stand it when someone cried in front of me; it would always make me feel guilty, as if it was me who had made them cry. “How will I pay for your school? It’s the three of you, I can barely make ends meet now with the money that your father has been sending from the front, but now what am I going to do?”
I concentrated on the dark brown liquid bubbling on the stove so as not to see her tears.
“Don’t worry, Mama, we’ll get by. I saved some money this summer that the farmers paid me for helping them with the harvest. I wanted to save it for college, but you can take it. It’s not much, but should be enough to keep us afloat until I find a job.”
“Oh, Erni… How can I burden you with taking care of the whole family? You’re still a child yourself!”
I caught my reflection in the glass of the cupboard, where we kept all the dishes and silverware. After working all summer in the field in my native Reid, my own neighbors didn’t recognize me when I came back during the first days of September. Every day, fourteen hours a day, I performed hard physical labor, my arms, shoulders and back becoming so big and strong that I could kill a bull with my bare hands if I wanted to – the farmer’s words. The old man was most certainly exaggerating, but, the point was, I definitely looked anything but a child anymore.
I chuckled, poured coffee for my mother and myself, and put the cup in front of her. “Do I really look like a little boy to you, Mama?”
She had to raise her head high to look at me as I stood next to her, wiping my hands on the towel and smiling.
“You’ll always be my little baby.” My mother finally smiled back at me with her warm hazel eyes. “And I will always love you, no matter what.”
Chapter 5
Prison hospital, Nuremberg, November 1945
No matter what the doctors said, I got up from my bed and against all their arguments replied with my most menacing look that I would crawl if I had to, but I was going to bathroom by myself. It was on the other end of the long corridor, but seeing that all their threats, about how I would just fall again and hurt myself even more, didn’t work, they finally waved their hand dismissively and allowed me to use the one for the personnel, much closer than the other. However, they still provided me with a guard for support.
He followed me along the wall patiently, holding my elbow and ready to catch me if I became lightheaded again. He held the door open for me, and, after making sure that there was no glass or anything sharp that I could pick up and slit my wrists with later, let me inside. Since it was a staff bathroom it had a lock on the door, and the guard stood still for a moment, pondering if he could trust me to go inside alone.
“I’ll give you your privacy if you promise not to lock yourself in there and do something stupid,” he finally said.
I was just going to ask what I could possibly do in my condition, but decided not to test my luck and just nodded. As I closed the door I suddenly smiled at the memory of how Annalise and I found ourselves in the bathroom as well, back in 1943.
We were walking along the hallway of the RSHA building and play arguing about the advantages of the Russians using women as snipers.
“That is just not fair from their side!” I declared in a theatrically indignant tone. “Our poor soldiers, all alone there, no women whatsoever, and all of a sudden our sniper sees their sniper. And she’s a girl, and a very pretty girl, right? So what do you think is going to happen next?”
“What do you think is going to happen, Herr Gruppenführer?” My beautiful secretary laughed. “The Russian sniper girl will shoot him in the head while he’s ogling at her, that’s what’s going to happen!”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying! That’s not fair warfare tactics!” I finally broke my playfully serious demeanor and laughed along with her. “You women are ruthless. We fall in love with you, and you kill us in cold blood for that.”
We turned around the corner, heading to my office. She started jestingly protesting something, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying as I stopped in my tracks, noticing my adjutant Georg speaking with the man I was trying to escape meeting by all means – and had done successfully so far. I recognized him right away by his peculiar profile; dark wavy hair and the particular way he always held his hands clasped behind his back – hands which were now holding a folder. Thankfully, the man was shortsighted and was so absorbed in the conversation that he failed to notice me. As soon as my adjutant looked in my direction I quickly started making signs for him to pretend to not notice me. At the same time I grabbed Annalise’s elbow and hastily dragged her to the closest personnel bathroom, luckily within a few steps from us, locked the door without turning the lights on and shushed her, despite all her protests.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed at me.
“Shhhh! Nothing. Just stay quiet for a couple of minutes.”
There was a little crack going along the side of the door through which I could see in the hallway. Not well enough by all means, but at least I’d see him as he passed by to leave.
“Who are we hiding from?” Annalise whispered again, this time with amusement in her voice.
“No one.” It would be too embarrassing to admit to my own secretary that I was hiding in the bathroom from one of my subordinates, but if she only knew what that particular subordinate was in charge of, she wouldn’t blame me. I decided to make something up instead. “I just wanted to be alone with you in the dark.”
She sneered almost inaudibly. “I would’ve believed that if you had actually started doing something to me, but, judging by how you’re giving all of your attention to the hallway, I assume that you have an ulterior motive.”
“I can do both things at the same time.” I hugged her by the waist and pulled her close without taking my eyes from the crack in the door.
The Austrian: A War Criminal's Story Page 6