by Mark Kurzem
“I sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes just staring into the darkened space. I couldn’t resist the thought of the pajamas, and I decided that it would be safe enough for me to put them on. I told myself that I would have to wake up early the next morning, before the rest of the household, and change back into my uniform. I quietly slipped into them and folded my uniform neatly beside my pillow, within easy reach.
“I was still restless. My eyes scanned the room again. This time I noticed a sliver of light at the far end. It was coming from a tiny window. I went over and drew back the curtains.
“I don’t know how long I stood there, mesmerized by the bright moonlight, but a scraping noise broke the spell. It was coming from the street below. I looked down and made out two figures cleaning the road. Their coats were tatty, even worse than mine from the forest. ‘If only I’d kept the dead soldier’s coat,’ I thought to myself, ‘I could have tossed it down to them. It’d be better than what they’ve got now.’
“Then something else caught my attention. It was like a jewel on the sleeves of their coats. A yellow star visible even at night and from this distance. ‘What are street cleaners doing with such pretty stars?’ I asked myself. In truth I was envious because it was much more attractive than the red badge of Latvia that’d been sewn onto the arm of my uniform.”
My father gave an ironic, almost bitter laugh. “Uncanny. My instinct was to prefer the yellow star to the symbol of Latvia. Soon enough I learned the significance of that star. It wasn’t remotely like a jewel. It was a curse on a people I knew I belonged with.”
My father gave a deep sigh. After a few moments he spoke again.
“I climbed back into the bed and drew the covers up so that even my face was hidden, and that was that,” my father said with finality. “My first night with my new family.”
“Do you think any of them knew the truth about the fate of your family?” I asked.
“I can’t see how they could have.”
“Did Uncle know you were Jewish?” I asked, referring to Mr. Dzenis by the name I had used to address him when I was growing up.
“I’m sure he didn’t…”
“Judging by his harsh reaction to Ausma, it’s a possibility,” I suggested. “He might have heard it from Kulis? Or perhaps Kulis had confided in Lobe, who then told Dzenis?”
My father was clearly perplexed. “Why would the sergeant have said anything when he’d warned me to be silent under threat of death? Besides, it would have been dangerous for him, too, if it’d been discovered that he was harboring a Jew.”
My father shrugged. “In any case I’m sure that Ausma didn’t know about me. How on earth could she?” he asked. “I think she was just using the worst insult of those times against me.”
“Or perhaps Ausma had overheard a comment made in a private conversation between Uncle and Auntie,” I said, “or Uncle and Lobe. Who knows? It’s all possible, Dad.”
I crossed to the sink and refilled the kettle for more tea. “How about later in life?” I asked, resting against the row of cupboards, waiting for the kettle to boil. “Did any of them ever give any indication that they knew you were Jewish?”
My father rose and joined me, leaning lightly against the refrigerator opposite, his hands behind his back. “Never,” he said vehemently but the thought of it seemed to unsettle him. His eyes darted apprehensively, as if he still feared discovery.
After the war the Dzenis family had come to Melbourne, taking my father with them. Even after he had gone his own way and joined a traveling circus as an elephant boy, my father had kept in contact with them. In a sense, they were the only family that he had.
He had lost touch with Ausma, who had remained in Latvia with her mother after the war. Even when he was living on Valdemara Street, he only had sporadic contact with her when she came to the apartment to visit. According to my father, it was obvious that Ausma, like her sister Mirdza, resented his presence among them and the attention Uncle showered on him.
Auntie had passed away in 1970 and Uncle in 1979 in Melbourne, but my father had continued to see Uncle’s other two daughters, Zirdra and Mirdza, who had also made it to Australia. It was natural that my father gravitated toward Zirdra: she had been the only one who hadn’t seemed to resent him. He had spoken on several occasions of how he instinctively liked and trusted her. After divorcing her husband in Adelaide, she’d moved to Melbourne, where my father got to see her more regularly.
“Only once,” my father now explained to me, “when I dropped by to say hello on the spur of the moment, did Zirdra mention the past. Uncannily, she reminisced about the pajamas incident. ‘Why were you so terrified?’ she asked me. I simply shrugged my shoulders noncommittally. ‘You know what boys are like,’ I said. She held my gaze for several moments; there was a shrewd expression in her eyes. But then she let the matter drop.
“We never mentioned the past again—everything remained unstated between us—as if we’d agreed to be silent forever. I was relieved. My secret had remained buried for many years, and I was content for it to continue that way.”
My father seemed genuinely sad as he recalled her death many years ago. “Later in life, long after she’d died,” he reflected, “it occurred to me that Zirdra understood my situation—what I felt inside—more than the others, perhaps even more than myself, without knowing that I was Jewish or any of the details of my story. Perhaps she even sensed that I had a history that might in some way shame Latvians if it ever became public.
“And then there is Mirdza,” my father said. Mirdza was the only one of the sisters still living. With her husband, Edgars, she had also settled in Melbourne and raised three children. Now they lived only a few miles from my parents and saw each other occasionally when my father was in Mirdza’s good books.
There had always been tension between my father and Mirdza. “She’d always been the center of attention, and then I was thrust into the limelight. I learned later that Uncle had always wanted a son, and it was clear from the outset that he loved having me there.”
My father stood cupping his hands around the mug of tea I offered him. Then he sat back in his chair.
“Will you tell Mirdza any of your story?” I asked, joining him at the table.
“God forbid! Could you imagine?” He looked daunted by the prospect. “I’ll have to. Just let me get over the shock I’ve brought on myself with all this…”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Do you regret speaking to me?”
“No,” my father said, “but to be truthful, I don’t want to remember anything of what happened to me. Who in his right mind would? But the bigger truth is that I am more terrified to forget. I am trapped.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE VOLHOV SWAMPS
I just couldn’t settle at the Dzenises’,” my father said. “First, Uncle and Auntie wanted me to give up my soldier’s uniform, which I refused to do point-blank.
“Then there was the matter of school. I’d never attended school before, even in my village. I didn’t want to go; I didn’t see the point of it, especially when I could’ve been out on patrol with the soldiers. While Uncle was willing to compromise on my uniform, he wouldn’t tolerate any resistance to school.
“From the outset school was disastrous. I was disruptive. I couldn’t and wouldn’t sit still at my desk like the other girls and boys, whom I looked down upon as silly and spoiled. Worst of all was that I wouldn’t obey my teacher—I still recall her name, Miss Eglits. As the days passed I became more unruly and more than once drove her to tears of exasperation.
“I’d been at school for just over a fortnight when Auntie and Uncle were called in by the headmaster. He made it clear that I was beyond redemption as a student, if not as a child as well. The headmaster told Uncle that it might be better if I had a private tutor or was even returned to the soldiers. I’d been sitting there in his office perched between Auntie and Uncle, bored and staring down at my boots. But that suggestion broug
ht a smile to my face. I was going to be free of books and ink pens and the sour-milky smell of the schoolroom. I looked up to share my pleasure with Auntie and Uncle, but when I caught a glimpse of Uncle’s reddened and angry face I quickly bowed my head again. Auntie must have sensed my sudden fear of Uncle because she secretly took my hand and gave it a gentle and reassuring squeeze.
“In all the time that I knew him, Uncle never once laid a hand on me, but that day he must have come close to doing so. As we left the schoolyard he said to me in a very hard voice that I’d brought shame on his name.
“Auntie and Uncle talked intently about my situation as our limousine made its way back to Valdemara Street. I knew better than to show how pleased I was at my escape from school, so I sat quietly, staring out at the passing sights, trying to look contrite.
“At one point in the journey, I heard Uncle say the name of Commander Lobe. From the tone of her voice I could tell that Auntie disagreed with whatever Uncle had said and was trying to reason with him. I sensed that she was springing to my defense. But by the time we reached Valdemara Street, Auntie and Uncle had come to a decision. Once we were inside the apartment, Uncle sent me to my room, telling me that I would have to eat my lunch there alone as punishment.
“After lunch, Auntie came to collect me from my room. She peeked around the door. ‘Uncle has returned to Laima,’ she said in an exaggerated whisper. ‘You can come out now.’
“That afternoon we went into the center of Riga. Auntie took me to my favorite café, where she let me eat as much strawberry ice cream as I desired. I didn’t get it—I’d been expelled from school, and I was being rewarded with ice cream.
“It became even more baffling because after I’d quaffed down a second mountain of ice cream Auntie took me to the cinema. It was a German film—a silly romance of some sort that didn’t interest me at all, although I could understand the gist of what was going on because by then I’d picked up some German. You see, out on patrol we’d cooperated with German soldiers, and quite a few of our commanding officers were German.”
Suddenly my father stopped speaking. His face bore a startled expression, as if he’d just been slapped. “Wait!” he exclaimed, raising his hand. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
His eyes darted about. “Acun?” he said. “No! Not Acun but something like that.”
“What on earth—” I began to say, but my father raised his hand again to silence me.
“Aizum!” my father said excitedly. He repeated the name. “Aizum.”
“Aizum?”
“It’s just come to me out of nowhere,” my father said. “He was one of the German officers. Aizum. He was with us on patrol. I remember being photographed with him.”
“On that day? The day of the massacre?”
My father shook his head. “I can’t say for sure. It might’ve been. He was standing next to me. I was waist-high to him. He may have even had his arm around me. I remember staring at the pistol he had in his belt. He noticed me admiring it. He took it out and tucked it into my belt. But for the life of me I can’t remember when and where this was.”
My father gripped his head in both hands and stared down at the floor. Then he looked up. “It may come to me later,” he said. His frustration was palpable.
My father returned to events in the Dzenis household. “Although the day had started out badly, the afternoon with Auntie had been wonderful, and at dinner that evening Uncle seemed to be in a better mood.
“I awoke the following morning to find the maid in my room. The small khaki rucksack that Sergeant Kulis had given me was open in front of her and she was stuffing my meager belongings into it. Uncle appeared and sat down beside me on the bed. He told me that Commander Lobe had been put in charge of a new brigade called the Second Latvian Division. Uncle explained to me that my old battalion, the Eighteenth Kurzeme, had been incorporated with another battalion that had in turn been divided to form two new divisions.
“Then came the piece of news I’d dreamed of. Commander Lobe wanted me to join the brigade and accompany them on a new mission. I was overjoyed and relieved, too, that my time as a ‘normal’ child was over. I was going to be a soldier again.
“It occurred to me then that Uncle had had enough of me after just two weeks and didn’t want responsibility for me anymore. For a second I felt regretful about my unruly behavior. Auntie and Uncle and Zirdra, too, had been kind to me. For a second I even had a change of heart. While I’d been happy to put on a show of bravado about being a soldier, now that the reality was upon me I wasn’t quite so sure I wanted to give up the comfort of life in Riga.
“‘All your old comrades will be with you,’ Uncle said, ‘so you’ll be better off there. Of course, you shall still come and stay with us when you’re not on duty. Now hurry up and get dressed. It’s time for breakfast and then we’ll be on our way. We don’t want to keep the commander waiting.’ That convinced me. The decision had been made, and I was capable of recognizing that it was the best possible solution. I was getting into such trouble in Riga, and it was better that I went back to a situation that I was used to, no matter how horrible it was.”
“What year was this?” I asked.
“Around the summer of 1943.”
“So you must have been seven, nearly eight years old by then.”
“That’s right.”
My father returned to his story. “When we arrived at Laima Chocolates, Commander Lobe was already waiting in Uncle’s office. I gave him a formal salute, but he waved at me quite casually, the way he did with Uncle, who was an old friend.
“The commander was in a good mood. He patted the spot next to him on the sofa so I sat down. He gave me a slap on my knee as if we were longtime friends, too. Then he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded it and spread it out on the low table in front of him. It was a military map.
“‘See, here is Riga,’ he said, pointing, ‘and here is Leningrad. And this is where we’ll be going—it’s called Velikiye Luki. What do you think about that?’ I grinned to show the commander that I was pleased, but in reality I didn’t have any particular opinion about it. I’d heard of Leningrad, which I’d been told was in Russia. But I had no idea where it actually was.
“When I heard the next piece of news I was overjoyed. ‘I’ve decided to promote you from private to corporal. You are now Corporal Kurzemnieks.’ I was so proud of myself. I thought, ‘Imagine! You are only a boy yet you are a corporal.’”
My father beamed with pleasure as he recalled this moment.
“But I could sense that Uncle had had a change of heart and like Auntie and Zirdra was not entirely happy about my fate. ‘The boy is too young for this, Krlis,’ he said, but the commander was dismissive. ‘The boy won’t be in any danger,’ he countered. ‘We’ll keep him behind the front line. His job will be to boost the morale of the troops. Like a puppy, that’s all.’
“The commander rose, telling Uncle that he was taking me to SS headquarters for the fitting of a new uniform—an SS one. I was to be SS Sturmann Kurzemnieks.”
I was appalled to hear what they had done to my father, and my face must have betrayed my sense of horror. But my father must have misread its source, and he sprang to his own defense.
“I did not volunteer or choose that,” he insisted. “A decision was made to assign me to the brigade. There was no choice involved. I had no say in it.”
Yet even as he spoke his voice lost its usual melodic vigor, as if with my reaction I had accused him of complicity. He sighed deeply. I watched as he struggled to take up where he had left off with his recollections.
“Uncle accompanied the commander and me as far as the foyer of Laima. As we were on the point of leaving, he pulled out a small parcel from his pocket. ‘Chocolate bars,’ he said, passing the package to me. ‘A gift from Laima. Don’t eat them all at once. Ration them.’ Then he added, ‘And don’t let your comrades steal it from you. They have their own
supply of Laima chocolates.’
“I shook Uncle’s hand firmly. He told Commander Lobe to take good care of me. The commander reassured him casually and then looked at his watch. ‘We have to be off, Jekabs,’ he said. Taking me by the hand he ushered me briskly out onto the street so that I barely had time to turn and give Uncle a wave.”
“The headquarters of the SS turned out to be quite close to the factory, so we walked there. En route Lobe put his arm around my shoulder and smiled at me, saying, ‘One more thing, Corporal, you’ll be with your comrade Sergeant Kulis in the Sapira Troop.’ Sapira means pioneer.
“When I heard this, I forgot my anger toward Sergeant Kulis. I pictured myself alongside him on patrol as in the old days.
“When we reached Lobe’s headquarters, the commander took me directly to a small office where his secretary was waiting. He passed me over to her care. She took me to a neighboring room where I noticed a box on a low table. It held my new SS uniform. Immediately she tried to remove my jacket. I adopted a no-nonsense, haughty attitude: I turned my back on the secretary, dismissing her with the words, ‘You may go now.’
“‘Very well,’ she said and then left me alone to put on the uniform.
“Several minutes later I returned to the office in my new uniform. The lady gave me a flirtatious pout and told me to wait for the commander, who would be back shortly. When he returned, Commander Lobe was carrying a full-length black leather overcoat that had been tailored especially for me. He held it open and I slipped my arms into the sleeves so that I was reminded for an instant of my dead soldier’s overcoat: it was so heavy that I could barely move, and its hem dragged slightly on the floor. But it felt so much more elegant.
“The uniform was light khaki, but the design wasn’t much different to the other ones I’d worn. And, of course, I still had my long riding boots, which I wore over my jodhpurs.”
My father squinted. It was as if he were staring into his past, at an image of himself in Lobe’s office. Then he nodded his head. “There were these—What do you call them? ‘Insignia,’ is it?—sewn onto the jacket, on its upper arm and sleeve and collar.” My father raised his left arm slightly to show me.