by Lee Strauss
“I know. I just had to tell you about Heinz.” And, Emil thought to himself. He missed his friends. He missed Katharina.
Emil left before they could get started talking about other news, like the fact that the German army had attacked Stalingrad in Russia and now occupied the city. Many Germans didn’t know if they should rejoice or mourn. Hadn’t Germany signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin? Wasn’t Poland a shared victory? Surely, they wouldn’t take this invasion lying down. The Russian army was notorious for their brutality. People were nervous. Emil was nervous.
Herr and Frau Schultz hosted the party in their home. The Schultzes were like a movie family: Mother and Father, Heinz, Rolf and Imrgard, all tall, blond, blue-eyed and beautiful.
Frau Schultz was the perfect hostess, smiling warmly as their guests arrived, taking their jackets and hanging them in the wardrobe. For some reason Frau Schultz didn’t have to work outside the home like Emil’s mother did. And she wore a nice dress, almost new. Maybe it was because Herr Schultz was a commander in the Nazi Party. Rumors flew that he actually had meetings with the Fuehrer himself.
“As our great leader has said,” Herr Schultz said loudly to his guests, “Once we are masters in Europe, then we will enjoy the dominant position in the world!”
Where once Emil had worried that the Germans might not win the war, now he worried that it might be possible. Herr Bauer had boasted recently about how the Germans were now in command of a landmass larger than America, and that Greater Germany was now more densely populated and more economically productive than anywhere in the world. The latest new map of Germany showed her expanding west to east from France to the Black Sea, and from Norway in the north all the way south to the Sahara in Africa. That meant Germany occupied almost one-third of Europe and ruled nearly half its population.
“Hi, Emil,” Irmgard sat next to him, an open beer bottle in her hand. Her eyes were glassy, her breath stale. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
Emil nodded in response. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“Isn’t this exciting! Heinz is a man now. I can’t believe he’s joining the army.”
“Yeah, it’s great.” Emil said with enthusiasm he didn’t feel. “I wish I could go with him.”
“Oh, some day you will, Emil,” Irmgard gushed. “Someday it will be your turn to make the Fatherland proud.” Emil once believed this would all be over before he was old enough to enlist. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Where is Johann Ackerman?”
Emil shrugged. “Why should I know?”
“Oh, no reason. I thought you two chummed around together.”
Emil paused thoughtfully, staring at the large bright orange Nazi flag with the black swastika in the middle hanging on the wall. Was she trying to trap him? He finally responded, “Only when it serves the Fatherland.”
“That’s what I like about you, Emil.”
“What?”
“Besides your charming good looks?” she did that weird thing with her eyelashes, flapping them like she had dust in her eye. “You love the Fatherland more than your own life.”
Friedrich and Wolfgang entered the room, saving Emil from further awkward scrutiny.
“Oh, Friedrich, Wolfgang!” Irmgard cried leaving Emil’s side and rushing to give each of them a hug. “I’m so glad you boys could come to help us celebrate!”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Friedrich and Wolfgang circled the room, shaking everyone’s hand. “Guten Abend, alle zusammen!” Good evening, everyone. Then Rolf gave them beer and they joined the older boys, listening to Heinz talk about the army and what a privilege it was to join.
After a few rounds of beer, they began to sing Hitler Youth songs, swinging full mugs through the air, Today Germany is ours and tomorrow the whole world…
Emil decided it was time to slip out the back.
On a bland November day, Heinz left for the Russian front. The whole Hitler Youth unit went to the train station to see him off. So did Irmgard’s League for German Girls.
“Heinz, you look so handsome in your uniform!” Irmgard said. He’d been issued the standard army uniform; this one looked faded and worn, like it’d had a previous owner, some poor soul who didn’t make it. Kind of eerie, Emil thought. He recalled the early days of their Hitler Youth meetings when Emil wanted nothing more than to be just like Heinz Schultz.
Now he pitied him.
“Will you write to me, Heinz?” Elsbeth gushed. All the girls swooned, dreamy eyed. Johann was right about girls and love.
Rolf slapped his brother on the back. “You give’em hell, brother, and come back to tell us about it.”
Heinz laughed with confidence. “I’ll return. The Reds have nothing on me.”
Emil shoved his hands in his pockets and shimmied around a bit to keep warm. Johann was doing the same. They didn’t say much. They didn’t care if Heinz left or stayed. It was cold and Emil wanted to go home, that was all he cared about.
Finally the trained arrived, and they all took turns shaking Heinz’s hand.
“Good, luck,” Emil said.
His mother shed one lone tear. “I’m so proud of you, son.”
Heinz waved from the window of the train, as it slowly chugged off.
“I’m in love with your brother, Irmgard,” said Elsbeth. “Maybe, when he gets back, he’ll ask me to marry him?”
Irmgard didn’t answer her question. “I bet he’ll kill hundreds of Soviets,” she said instead. “He’s such a great soldier!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EVERYONE TRIED to ignore the fact that thousands were dying on the eastern front every day, including thousands of Germans. The German propaganda machine could no longer hide such staggering numbers to fool the people. Passau’s own number of war dead grew, and funerals were a daily occurrence.
Because of this crisis in the east, the Hitler Youth were instructed to begin a mass Winter Help campaign to collect metals, clothing, skis, anything to help the war effort.
Emil took Helmut out to canvass their neighborhood every day after school.
“Thank you, Frau Schneider,” Emil said, as she quickly tossed a small tin pot to them and closed the door. Winter had hit hard and Emil and Helmut jumped up and down to keep warm.
“Let’s skip the next one,” Helmut said, “I’m freezing.”
The rebel in Emil wanted to say Yes, let’s skip some houses; but the part of him that played the fanatic knew he could not.
“Not yet,” Emil said. They continued house-to-house, collecting spoons, clothes, tools. The people knew they would come again the next day and so were rationing their “donations,” instead of giving them everything at once. They wouldn’t dare say it, but the German housewives were running out of supplies for their own families.
Herr Franke came to the door of the next house. He handed Emil a hammer. “That’s my last tool, boys,” he said grimly. He reminded Emil of an older version of his father—his worried eyes, his frown.
Emil and Helmut dragged their loot behind them; it was too heavy to lift off the ground.
“Has Mother heard anything of Father?” Emil asked.
“No. She checks the post every day, but hasn’t received a letter in weeks.”
“Oh.”
“I’m worried, Emil. So many are dying.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know. But Mother prays.”
Emil was shivering, and didn’t want to talk about Father any more. Besides, something across the street distracted him. It was Katharina with a group of girls from her League. Helmut saw him looking at her.
“Do you like her?” Helmut asked, smiling.
“No!” Emil said, too quickly.
“Yes you do! I can tell.”
“That’s Johann’s sister. It would be the same as liking my own sister.”
“I think you like her. Your cheeks are red!”
“My cheeks are red because
it’s freezing cold out, you moron!” Emil pushed Helmut into the snow bank. He glanced over at Katharina. She saw everything, but she didn’t wave or smile. She acted like she didn’t even know Emil. Good for her.
Helmut stood and brushed the snow off his trousers.
“Emil, I’m freezing, let’s skip some houses.”
Emil was freezing, too. “Okay, just this once, because it’s so cold.”
They canvassed every other house on the way home, but unfortunately, Rolf witnessed their transgression.
“Heil Hitler!” he said. He wore his winter uniform proudly, though even his zeal couldn’t mask the chill he was fighting.
“Heil Hitler!”
“You must dress warmer,” Rolf said. “You were skipping houses.”
“Our bags are almost full,” Emil said. “We were headed to the synagogue to drop them off.”
“You must go back to the homes you missed.”
“We will. Right away.”
“Continue, then.”
“Yes, of course.”
Rolf clicked the heels of his boots, and saluted.
“Heil Hitler.”
“Heil Hitler,” Emil and Helmut responded. When Rolf was out of sight, Helmut clicked his heels in imitation, tightening his face the way Rolf did.
Emil didn’t know if Helmut momentarily forgot that he was there or if he still trusted him a little bit, but he couldn’t help but laugh. Helmut’s face flushed with relief and he started to laugh, too. No matter what the war had done to them, they were still brothers.
They ignored Rolf’s orders and dragged their heavy bags to the synagogue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
GRANDMOTHER HEINRICH had had a collection of soft lines around her eyes and mouth; it seemed she had always been smiling. At least this was how Emil’s mother described her. But Mother never mentioned that Grandmother Heinrich had a sister, until Great Tante Gerta showed up at the door one day, unannounced.
Mother was unable to hide her surprise, and barely her dismay. But as always, her manners were impeccable.
“Tante Gerta! Please come in.”
“Heil Hitler!” she responded, stepping purposefully through the door. Emil and Helmut glanced at each other, their eyebrows furrowing together.
“I have been re-assigned to work at the prison for women. It is not far from here and since your husband is currently away, I can be of assistance to you.”
A shadow of fear crossed Mother’s face. Emil could see why Mother had never mentioned her. Tante Gerta was tall, with bony shoulders, but unlike other tall women who slouched to hide their height, she stood rigid. She had a tight bun of dirty-blonde hair, piercing Aryan-blue eyes and thin lips that moved in silence as she scrutinized them.
Emil was afraid, too.
Tante Gerta dropped a medium sized suitcase on the kitchen floor and began an impromptu inspection. Mother was mortified as Tante Gerta opened a kitchen cupboard and ran a white-gloved finger along the inside.
“Tante Gerta!” Mother could keep quiet no longer.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness, Leni,” she said in clipped flawless German. “And I’m doing you a favor. I happen to know that the SS will be doing rounds in this neighborhood next week.”
“To check for dust?” my mother said, incredulous.
“Precisely. A German wife and mother must keep her home clean, for the sake of her family and for the pride of the Fatherland.”
Tante Gerta picked up her suitcase. “Please, where shall I retire?”
“Helmut,” Mother said. “Move your things in with Emil. Emil, take Tante Gerta’s suitcase upstairs for her.”
Helmut scurried off, with Emil hauling Tante Gerta’s heavy suitcase right behind him.
Later, while Tante Gerta was “settling in,” Mother pulled a folded piece of paper from her apron pocket.
“What’s that?” Emil said.
“It’s a ‘request’ that every household send one person to attend a weekly Nazi party meeting.”
Emil couldn’t imagine Mother stepping foot in one of those.
“I wondered what we would do, Emil, and… I didn’t want to send you.” She smiled softly and nodded toward the stairs. “She’s an answer to prayer.”
“Oh.” Emil understood. “Tante Gerta can go, now.”
“Yes, Tante Gerta can go.”
Having Tante Gerta in the house was like living with a vicious guard dog that growled in its throat through bared teeth. The Radle family trod carefully around her, fearful of the painful bite that came in the form of a harsh verbal lashing. Thankfully, she didn’t spend a lot of time at home.
One afternoon there was a knock on the door.
“Johann?”
“Are you alone, Emil?” he whispered. His face was flush with excitement, and he clearly had news.
“Yes.”
“I found this.” Johann handed Emil a folded piece of paper. He opened it carefully. It was damp and most of the printing was smudged, especially on one side, but he could still make some of it out.
“Another pamphlet from The White Rose,” Emil whispered.
“I found it on the floor in the lobby of my Onkel’s apartment.”
Fellow fighters in the Resistance!
Shaken and broken, our people behold the loss of the men of Stalingrad. Three hundred and thirty thousand German men have been senselessly and irresponsibly driven to death and destruction by the inspired strategy of our World War I Private First Class. We have the Fuehrer to thank.
“Three hundred and thirty thousand?” Emil said. Unbelievable. “With so many men lost, how can we hold the front?”
“Maybe we can’t.”
Will we continue to sacrifice the rest of our German youth to the base ambitions of a Party clique? No, never! The day of reckoning has come….
In the name of German youth we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler’s state of our personal freedom, the most precious treasure that we have, out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable way.
“This is good,” Emil said.
“I know.”
We grew up in a state where all free expression of opinion is unscrupulously suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA, the SS have all tried to drug us, to revolutionize us, to regiment us in the most promising young years of our lives….
Freedom and honor! For ten long years Hitler and his coadjutors have manhandled, squeezed, twisted and debased these two splendid German words to the point of nausea…
The frightful bloodbath has opened the eyes of even the stupidest German—it is a slaughter that they arranged in the name of “freedom and honor of the German nation”…
Students!
That was all Emil could make out.
“Students? The White Rose must be a group of students at a University.”
“Munich or Nuremberg?” Johann said.
“Could be anywhere. What do you think we should do?”
“We can copy this and then distribute.”
“I don’t know, Johann. Moritz…”
“It’s for Moritz that we have to do this. If we don’t keep resisting, his death is for nothing.”
Emil let out a long breath. “Okay. When?”
“The Loft. Today.”
Emil arrived first. The farm was like a ghost town, only a few cows left, from what was once a thriving milk farm. The Nazis had taken everything.
Emil sneaked in through the back door of the barn, and patted a cow on the head as he passed by. He climbed up the wooden planks that worked as a ladder to the loft and fell into the hay. There was a small window on the south side, so there was enough light to do what he and Johann had planned to do. A low wooden bench rested against one wall. Emil went to it, hunched over because of the low ceiling, and sat down.
Soon, he heard the door open, a soft whisper to the cow and the creaking of the ladder. Johann’s blond head bobbed into sight.
And then, Katharina’s.
“Why did you brin
g her?” Emil said feeling angry.
“Because she’s an extra writer.”
Katharina climbed over to the bench and sat down. “Quit talking about me like I’m not here.”
“It’s more dangerous now than before.” Emil didn’t want the same thing that happened to Moritz to happen to Katharina.
“I know that. And I’m staying.”
Once again Emil was out-numbered. “Fine,” he conceded. “Let’s get going.”
Johann opened his jacket and reached back to an open seam. He slowly pulled out the leaflet. Katharina opened her bag and pulled out paper and pens. They used the bench as a table and started writing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1943
FEBRUARY
“LET’S GO to the movies tonight,” Emil said. “We need to get our minds off the war.”
“I don’t know if I can stomach the garbage they call movies.” Johann referred to all the Nazi propaganda in the German Films. “However, if we first meet at the loft?” He wanted to transcribe more leaflets, to continue spreading the message of the White Rose. Emil nodded and they set a time.
The film was called I Accuse–a story of a physician whose suffering wife persuades him to poison her. During the courtroom drama, Emil slipped the leaflets out of his pocket and shoved them under his bottom. Johann and Katharina, who had taken seats in other sections of the theater, did the same. Afterwards, they walked home together.
“Funny how all the talented and handsome actors presented the arguments for the doctor to kill his wife,” Katharina said. “And all the annoying ones wanted to save her.”
“Well, you’ve heard the rumors?” Emil said.
“Yes,” Johann said. “Apparently the mentally ill are being forced admittance into certain hospitals, where they always die of some mysterious illness.”
“And the bodies are cremated before the families can see them,” Katharina added.
“Do you think it’s true?” Emil asked. He found the whole concept unbelievable.
“I hope not,” said Katharina. “But then, they are making movies like I Accuse.”