by Derek Hansen
She stood still, scanning the faces emerging from the train, and waited. She waited for what seemed like an eternity as soldiers helped disabled comrades off the train. Nobody rushed and nobody complained. She became concerned as the crowd gradually thinned and there was no sign of her husband. Then she saw him. He stepped down stiffly from his carriage and looked around. She was about to call out, but hesitated. It was as if she was looking at another man. He seemed so remote and distant. So … lifeless. Again she had to fight back her tears and hold her smile. Then he saw her. He stared at her without moving. Slowly, he cocked his head to one side, a mannerism which always seemed to capture both his gentleness and his strength. He raised his arms, inviting her embrace. She began to walk towards him, slowly at first, then broke into a run. She threw her arms around him and pressed her face hard against his chest. All her sorrow and anxiety rushed to the surface. She waited for his strong arms to envelop her, hold her, caress her and protect her as before. But there was nothing. She was about to pull back when she felt them, the lightest touch on her back, and then not even all the dams of the Ruhr could have held back her tears.
Christiane could not understand why Friedrich was so insistent that they uproot and move west. She wanted only to help him forget about the war, however temporarily, and for his arms to heal. But he was relentless, and they argued and debated in circles.
‘Can’t you see?’ she reasoned. ‘We are so much better off here. We are too far away for the bombers and so far from the Eastern Front it doesn’t matter. Why do you think refugees are coming here instead of us going there? Because it is safer here.’
‘Christiane, it won’t always be this way. Yes, it is relatively safe now but it won’t be when the Russians come. And unless someone can persuade Hitler that it is all over, they will come. And they will not be forgiving. They will destroy us as we set out to destroy them.’
‘Friedrich, what kind of talk is this?’ Carl cut in, siding with his daughter. ‘It is true we have had our reversals. But we will strike back. Hitler is too clever for them and our armies too strong. Ernst did not die for nothing, Friedrich, he did not die for nothing.’
Friedrich always dropped the argument whenever Ernst’s name was mentioned. It would have been cruel to continue. But he was determined not to give in. Once in bed, he’d again press Christiane until she turned away in tears. He didn’t shout or raise his voice, but he was unrelenting and his constant outpouring gradually wore away at Christiane’s resolve.
‘There are many places to go in west Germany that have never been bombed,’ he’d insist. ‘Lisl is as safe as you think you are. Wuppertal-Barmen has never been bombed. But you don’t even have to live in a city. We can find a place in the countryside where you can escape the war altogether, where farmers will give you eggs and milk and fresh vegetables like our friends at Little Pillnitz.’
‘Mummy and Daddy would never agree. Besides they still have Jutta.’
‘Carl and Clara must make up their own minds. So must your sister. Just as we must make up our minds. You are my wife now and my responsibility. We both have to think about little Helmuth. We must do what is best for him.’
Christiane would finally close her ears and bury her face in the pillow. They’d lay awake in the darkness, each agonising over the decision they faced. But gradually Christiane mounted less and less resistance. Friedrich was her husband and ultimately she had to obey his wishes, even it meant tearing herself away from her family. She agreed to take Helmuth to visit Lisl and see for herself how things were in the west. Lisl was seven months pregnant with her first child and would be glad to have someone from her family on hand.
Having won this concession, Friedrich relaxed and once more became the caring, thoughtful man she married. They decided to take the barge down to Pillnitz to enjoy some unrationed food, and let the warm sun and fresh air of the approaching summer work its healing magic on Friedrich’s arms. They intended to test his recovery on a few unwary trout. Two days later, as Christiane prepared some mushrooms for breakfast, they heard on the wireless that Wuppertal-Barmen had been devastated in the worst area bombing of the war to date, and raced back to Dresden.
The twin town of Wuppertal-Barmen at the eastern end of the Ruhr could consider itself unfortunate in a number of respects. The chronic inaccuracy of Allied bombing demanded a change of tactics, clearing the way for area bombing of civilian targets. Because they couldn’t hit selected military targets, Bomber Command was directed to strike at the people who worked in them. That way, if they didn’t manage to destroy the factories at least they would disrupt their productivity. And, at the same time, they would be executing that part of the Casablanca Directive which required ‘the undermining of the morale of the German people’. In the eyes of Bomber Command, houses destroyed and civilians killed equated with working days lost.
Wuppertal-Barmen was not the first German town to be bombed. Berlin had been bombed as early as August 1940 and many others subsequently and regularly. But the twin city was among the first to feel the weight of three new developments. British scientists had at last been able to fashion anti-radar metal foil to the correct dimensions to blind the German early warning systems. As a result, ground defences could no longer predict the bombers’ likely target to alert anti-aircraft batteries or accurately direct their night-fighters. The second was a tactic designed to counter creep-back, or the early release of bombs by ‘rabbit’ crews. The fires from their bombloads would often deceive following crews into also releasing their bombs too early. At Wuppertal-Barmen, the aiming point was set at the most distant end of the target and the seven hundred and nineteen bombers that took part in the raid were instructed to fly down the length of the twin city. This way, any early release of bombs would still result in significant damage. The third development was a variation in bomb loads. In the main the planes carried two types of bombs: thin-walled 1,000-and 4,000-pound blast bombs designed specifically to destroy the roofs of houses and shatter their windows; and small incendiaries in the form of phosphorus canisters to exploit these openings in the houses and set them on fire.
Even so, a successful raid still depended on a measure of luck, and that night fortune smiled on the attackers. As the Pathfinders moved in to drop their 1,000-pound marker bombs and incendiaries, the Wuppertal flak remained silent. The defence controllers did not believe Wuppertal was the designated target and chose not to reveal the city’s location. It was a costly mistake. Unhurried and unharassed, the first wave struck with rare accuracy, creating an unmistakable fiery beacon for the following aircraft. As a result there was little appreciable creep-back as the majority of the bombers managed to drop their loads within three miles of the aiming point. It was a triumph for Bomber Command and a disaster for the citizens of Wuppertal-Barmen. An estimated 2,450 people died and more than a hundred thousand were left homeless. The result was a loss to the German war effort of fifty-two days of industrial production.
All of Carl’s attempts to phone Lisl amounted to nothing. They appealed to Gottfried in Berlin but he was no more successful. The family were distraught as days passed and they heard no word, other than the tales of horror which spread out across Germany like ripples on a pond. Friedrich offered to go to Wuppertal himself and look for Lisl, but the last thing the authorities there needed was another anxious citizen suffering from burns. Besides, it was doubtful if he could have got the authority to travel. Just as they were sitting down to dinner on the fourth day after the raid the phone rang. It was Ulla, Lisl’s mother-in-law. She and Lisl had just arrived at Dresden Main Station.
Carl, Friedrich and Christiane raced downstairs and out into the street, leaving Clara and Jutta to take care of dinner and make up beds. They turned right up Prager Strasse and began to run towards the station.
‘Slow down, slow down,’ called Carl. ‘This is foolish. We only have to walk back again with their luggage. Let’s save our strength. They are here and they are alive, and they’re not going anywhere.
’
Friedrich and Christiane slowed down and grinned at each other. The short run had discharged the tension and anxiety that had been building up. They’d lost Ernst, but Lisl and her unborn child were saved. That was something to celebrate.
Their joy was soon tempered by reality. They found Lisl and her mother-in-law, Ulla, easily enough, but were shocked by their appearance. Their coats were torn and covered in soot. Their faces spoke of trials that went far beyond mere exhaustion. They were drawn and hollow and their eyes wide and staring, yet they gave the impression of seeing nothing. Friedrich recognised the look immediately. He’d seen it often enough on the battlefield. The only colour in Lisl’s face came from a burn on her cheek. She had no eyebrows and her hair looked like it had also caught on fire. How many faces had Friedrich seen like that? He shivered as the old horror resurfaced. The older woman had Lisl’s hand and, though she hadn’t fared much better than her daughter-in-law, she was obviously in charge. If Carl had been concerned about carrying their bags, he need not have worried. They had nothing except the filthy clothes they stood in.
Christiane rushed to embrace her sister while Carl graciously attended to Ulla. Even under these most trying circumstances, they greeted each other as formally as they had at Lisl’s wedding. Friedrich couldn’t help but wonder as he witnessed this bizarre ritual, dapper Carl still in his slippers and chubby, dishevelled Ulla in men’s shoes many sizes too large. Ulla was a strong woman, she’d proved that, but Friedrich knew what she wanted and it wasn’t just to shake hands. Though they’d never met, he walked up to her and without saying a word, put his injured arms around her and gently pulled her to him. He could feel her relax with a suddenness that momentarily made him think she was falling. Then she began to sob quietly, insistently, her arms about him and her hands gripping the back of his jacket with all her remaining strength. She’d brought Lisl this far, but could not take another step. They stood there unmoving while the station emptied and Carl went to look for transport.
They bathed both women and called the doctor. Ulla’s feet were so badly infected nobody could believe she’d actually stood upon them let alone travelled all the way from Wuppertal. The doctor treated Lisl’s burns but he couldn’t treat her real injuries which went much deeper. All he could do was provide sedatives and entrust her recovery to the care of her family. At least the baby had come to no harm. They put both women to bed and spoon fed them soup thickened with potato. Ulla and Lisl ate as best they could, but it was clear their tiredness claimed priority. Clara, Christiane and Jutta left them to sleep and retreated downstairs where a grim-faced Carl and Friedrich had opened their last precious bottle of whisky.
Chapter Twenty-three
The two refugees slept through to late morning. Lisl had a slice of toast thinly spread with jam before slipping back into sleep. The indefatigable Ulla wanted to borrow some clothes so that she could join them for lunch. It was pure bravado on her part for, at last given permission to heal, her feet had swollen monstrously. Nevertheless it said much about her courage and dignity. Clara forbade her to set foot on the floor for a week. Since Ulla couldn’t join them, they decided to join her. Friedrich helped Carl move a small table and some chairs into her bedroom.
Lunch was more of the soup she’d had the night before, complemented by thin slices of pumpernickel and even thinner slices of schlachtwurst. A humble meal, but for the visitor from the west an apparent feast. Clara dipped into her precious hoard of coffee beans and they sat back to hear Ulla’s story. She sat straight-backed and upright against her pillows with her hands clasping and unclasping before her as she began her harrowing tale.
‘There were only four of us in the house that night. As Lisl has probably told you, her husband Nikolaus has been sent to an army hospital in Silesia. Lisl went to bed about ten o’clock and Ludwig and I followed shortly after. We were fortunate because up until two days ago, Ludwig was working night shifts. I remember hearing our maid Käte clanging around downstairs before I drifted off to sleep. She had only been with us for three weeks. She was also pregnant but not showing yet. Her boyfriend was a soldier and she’d allowed herself to be convinced that it was her patriotic duty to have a child by him. He was killed within days of arriving at the front. But that’s another story. At around eleven-thirty the air raid warnings sounded and I thought to myself, “What poor souls will be on the receiving end tonight?” Other than that I didn’t take much notice. No Wuppertalers did. The Fliegeralarms were always going off but no bombs ever fell on Wuppertal. At first we used to climb up to the top windows and watch the bombs fall on Essen and Düsseldorf. We could hear them and the anti-aircraft guns quite clearly and see the flames reach up into the sky. Sometimes it seemed that nobody could possibly survive and we were always surprised in the morning at how low the casualty figures actually were. The raids didn’t last long, never more than twenty minutes, then we’d go back to bed and thank God it wasn’t us who was bombed.
‘This night didn’t seem any different. Suddenly there was a deafening crash and non-stop banging and we realised the Wuppertal anti-aircraft guns had opened fire. That was the first indication we had that we might be in trouble and it was chilling. Of course, this wasn’t the first occasion our guns had fired on passing aircraft, but somehow this time it felt different. I think we knew we were in for it. I raced in to Lisl’s room while Ludwig ran downstairs to wake Käte. Between bursts of ack-ack we could hear the droning of the bombers’ engines right over our heads.
‘“Come! Come quickly!” I yelled. Lisl jumped to her feet, deathly white.
‘“My baby,” she said. “What about my baby?”
‘I grabbed her arm to drag her to the door. “Your baby will be all right so long as you are all right,” I told her. “So long as you do as you are told. Now come quickly.” Already we could hear bombs exploding nearby. I pushed Lisl ahead of me and we raced down the stairs. When we reached the hallway I stopped her to get her coat off the hallstand and pass her some shoes. She took them and kept going down to the cellar. I grabbed my coat off the hook but I couldn’t find my shoes. Then the lights went out. I turned on my torch to keep looking. Where had I left my shoes? Next moment I was flying through the air. A bomb had landed in the street outside and blown in the front of the house. I landed halfway down the stairs to the cellar. My chest felt like it was crushed and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t call out for help and, even if I could, nobody would have heard me. The noise was incredible, endless and louder than anything you can possibly imagine. I’d lost my torch and it was pitch dark. The stairs shook and pieces of glass and bricks began to shower down. Suddenly I felt arms under my shoulders lifting me and dragging me down the rest of the steps into the cellar. Someone shone a torch at us and I could see it was Ludwig who had risked his life for me. If I’d died then in his arms I would have been happy. Lisl and Käte came over to see how I was while Ludwig closed the cellar door. There was another enormous explosion and our house began falling down above us. Just as I was getting my breath back, the cellar began to fill with acrid, stinging smoke. Then my husband was shaking me.
‘“Ulla, Ulla are you all right? Can you move? We have to leave here.”
‘I was still too stunned to be frightened and my head was still filled with silliness. I thought Ludwig was magnificent, so in control. I don’t think I ever loved him more. I remember smiling up at him and he got so exasperated.
‘“Ulla, we have to get out of here. Now get to your feet! Now!”
‘“Come on, mother, please!”
‘Lisl added her pleas to my husband’s and finally my mind began to work properly. I was amazed to stand and find I hadn’t broken anything. I put my coat on over my nightie and we crawled through a hole in the wall into our neighbour’s cellar. In the west all homes have to have tunnels through to the cellar next door. Now we knew why. If we’d been stuck in our cellar we would have suffocated in minutes. Even so, the tunnels were rarely as big as they should have been and w
e had to crawl through on our hands and knees. Poor Lisl with her swollen tummy really had to struggle.
‘There was no one in the cellar next door and it too was full of smoke so we kept going. We went through cellar after cellar. Our lungs were bursting and our throats stung. Bombs were still falling all around us. We broke through to another cellar and—unbelievably—we could see the sky. At first we didn’t notice the other people climbing over the smoking rubble, trying to get out. We followed them. I tripped over something in the dark and fell. They were a man’s legs. The poor man was crushed under the rubble and certainly dead. I probably knew him. But I did a terrible thing. I took his shoes. I took shoes off a dead man. God forgive me! I’d reached the stage where the pain in my bare feet was intolerable. They were badly scraped and bleeding. It’s funny how little things at times like that can seem so important. So I took my neighbour’s shoes and followed my husband and Lisl. Käte was standing on top of the rubble helping to pull us up.
‘“The street’s on fire!” she kept saying. “The street’s on fire.”
‘And it was. Houses all around us were ablaze and toppling into the street. Trees were alight. And even on the road the tar had melted and ignited in places. Because I had tripped we were last out and we couldn’t see where everyone had gone. We didn’t know what to do. We were surrounded by falling bombs and fire and there seemed no escape.