“Please, please bring her into the office,” Herr Mueller was saying. “Quickly. They’ll be back within minutes to clear the bodies, and they will shoot her, too. You cannot show sympathy. Oh, God, bring her in quickly.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Father replied in a whisper.
My dress was covered with blood, and I half collapsed into a chair Herr Mueller offered. Suddenly I was violently sick and ran out to the steps to vomit. Father quickly pulled me back inside.
“Asya,” Herr Mueller said softly, his hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, so sorry you had to see it. But this goes on every day. You haven’t been to the munitions factory in the tunnel. You get used to it. They are shot daily. If someone is unable to work or to get up on command after falling down from exhaustion, they just shoot them. Remember our conversation of yesterday? You said them, yes, them. They just shoot them.”
I ached all over, as though I had been beaten with the rubber hoses. Every part of my body ached as I turned to Herr Mueller.
“You see, I was right yesterday. There is no God. There never was.” I turned to face Father then, still speaking coolly and calmly. “And you, Papa, you’ve been telling me lies all my life. You told me, you and Aunt ’Lyena, how good God was. How he held the entire universe in his hands. You lied, Papa, lied. There is no God, only evil in this world. How could you have lied to me? This isn’t the first war for you, Papa. You told me about terrible things in the revolution. You knew even then that there was no God. I hate you, Papa. You lied to me.”
Father walked slowly toward me, took my head, and pressed it gently against his chest. “Go ahead, cry, my angel. Cry, my little bird. I would never tell you a lie. That is what I have always believed, still believe. There is God, there is good in the world. Someplace there is. I only pray that you will find love for God and peace for your troubled soul. You are so very, very young.” I felt a hot tear fall on my head, and Father began to tremble as he, too, cried quiet tears, holding my head tightly to his chest.
A truck drove up to the front of the office. One soldier sat inside the truck and two others with rifles stood in the back of the truck with two prisoners. The two prisoners jumped down to pick up the bodies from the road. With one holding the feet, the other holding the arms, they tossed each body into the truck with a light swing. One of the guards whistled “Lili Marlene,” and another shouted, “Let’s hurry it up. Let’s get going. We have more trash to pick up over at the tunnel.” The truck drove off with its new cargo, wheels spinning in half-frozen ground now softened by warm blood, the scene frozen forever in my memory.
“Thank you for the vegetables, Herr Mueller,” I heard Father say.
“Wait,” Herr Mueller answered softly. “Wait just a minute. I have some lard for you. We ran out of butter, but the lard isn’t bad. It will give some substance to the vegetables and stick to your bones. Enjoy it.”
Father put the lard on top of the vegetables in one of the buckets and motioned for me to go.
“Papa,” I asked outside, “how can you take those vegetables and the lard?”
“You heard Herr Mueller. The lard will add some flavor.”
“Papa, those vegetables are stained with blood. Four people died because they wanted only one frozen carrot, and we’re taking two buckets full.”
“A lot of people are depending on this food, Asya. They have to sustain themselves. They have to hold onto life the best way they know how.”
“Papa, why do you want to live?” I asked suddenly. “What do you expect from tomorrow? What’s left for you? Why do you expect anything? Why do you even want to live? For what?”
“I know this is difficult for you to understand. We will have to talk seriously again. You are so young.”
“What does my being young have to do with all of this? Tell me! Why do you and all the others want to live? For what? Tell me!”
I was almost screaming at him, tears streaming down my face. I turned to leave Father to carry the vegetables to the barrack, and I ran toward the outhouse. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone, and the outhouse was the only place that sometimes offered some privacy. There were three seats and none in use. I was thankful for that. I locked the door and sat there for a long time, trying to figure things out, the horrors of a short time before still vivid before my eyes. At one point, the memory of Hopova and the lovely face of my favorite little nun flashed into my mind, but even her peaceful image was no help. I put it out of my mind.
“Are all the seats taken? I really have to go,” a voice said as the door rattled.
I unlatched the door and went out.
“Well, the nerve! Taking all three seats for yourself. That’s what’s wrong with the world today. People just don’t care for anything but themselves.”
Yes, I thought as I walked away. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the world—no private toilets. I was disgusted. Then suddenly I felt like laughing. Maybe there is hope. Maybe there is something to look forward to. This woman, for example, had no complaints other than not having the outhouse available in a moment of need.
When wwii ended in Europe, the names Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Mathausen, Sobibor, and many others became well known throughout the world, defining the evil that had characterized Nazi aggression. Less well known is the existence of thousands of small camps such as the Klosterwerk, often nameless, spread throughout Germany and German-occupied Europe, which supported and encouraged that evil.
The sun was now shining brightly, and it was warm. I thought I heard a bird chirp. Yes, there it was again, and a bird flew from the ground just ahead of me, a worm in its beak. I wondered if it was flying back to its nest to feed a chick. Then another flew past. The world seemed just a bit brighter as I continued to walk toward the barrack.
“Asya,” Father said as I entered, “there will be no boots today. They came and said that you should report to the kitchen. No boots to shine today.”
“All right, Papa.”
As I went out to walk to the kitchen, some twenty prisoners were working in the same place, digging the same ditch, and continuing to lay long pipes in the bottom. I looked along the length of the line, but didn’t see the boy to whom I had given the scarf. “Oh well,” I thought, “perhaps it’s a different group.”
But the guard was the same. He walked toward me grinning, swinging his rubber hose.
“What happened to your leg?” he asked, his grin growing broader as he struck his palm lightly with the hose.
“I fell,” I answered coldly, staring into his eyes.
The guard turned his head, spat on the ground, and looked away. I turned and limped quickly toward the kitchen. As I passed the office, the blood stains were still visible, although the ground had softened enough for it to have soaked in. The bright blood from the morning was now brown. Like so much in life, in just a few more minutes, no visible trace of the tragedy would remain.
Inside the kitchen building, a huge iron stove with many burners stood in the center, with firewood neatly stacked at the side. Mounds of potatoes, carrots, and turnips were piled against the walls. Tiny three-legged stools stood in front of the mounds of vegetables with men sitting on them, humming a tune or whistling and peeling vegetables. The cook, an Italian I thought, pointed to an empty stool and handed me a small knife.
“A lot of potatoes, eh?” he said in poor German.
As I looked around, I realized that I had never seen any of these men. Of course, each barrack kept to themselves with no visiting or mingling, everyone tired at the end of each day, happy just to return to their own place to rest. I began to peel the potatoes, many of them half frozen and partially mushy. Most of the men were young, with dark hair and olive-toned skin, and I thought they must all be Italians. I could hear them speaking among themselves and knew they spoke Italian. I wished I could speak Italian. I couldn’t understand a word, but I enjoyed the musical sound of it so much.
I gl
anced around the room to notice a young man with dark eyes and curly hair. His smile revealed a row of white teeth as he looked back at me. Oh, how I wished I were dressed differently, my hair combed, and my toes not sticking out the ends of those ugly shoes. I felt a hot blush spread over my cheeks as the young man began to hum. What a sight I must be, I thought, remembering that I hadn’t looked at a mirror for weeks.
Suddenly I remembered that less than two hours earlier, I had knelt on the bloodied ground amid four bodies, desperately clutching the hand of one of the dead men, trying to wish life back into him and crying. What was wrong with me? I was devastated at what I had witnessed, yet now I was blushing as a strange boy looked at me from across a room.
I began intensely peeling the potatoes, refusing to look in his direction again. These people seemed so cheerful compared with our group. I heard casual conversation all around the room, humming and laughing. I suddenly hoped that they were not laughing at me, at the way I was dressed, and again I began to blush.
I was happy when the ordeal of peeling potatoes was over. My back was stiff from sitting hunched over on that tiny stool for so long, and I was happy to finally get up and walk toward my own barrack. I stole a quick glance at the young man who was now singing loudly and saw that he was watching me.
Outside the birds were singing, the sky was blue, and the air was warm. It felt good to walk. A few hours earlier I had wished I were dead, but now I was glad to be alive. The sound of a Neapolitan song could still be heard coming from the kitchen building. I wondered where the Italian barrack was and why I had never heard them singing before. Maybe, I thought, they didn’t sing before, but with the first sign of spring, like today, they just feel happy.
April arrived, and the breeze from the Harz brought a scent that only nature can provide. The buds on the trees and shrubs were full, just waiting to burst, reveal their inner beauty, and bathe in the warm sunlight. We were told that April in the Harz had never been as warm and bright as that early spring in 1945. Songbirds, it seemed, were everywhere one looked or listened.
The endless procession of slave laborers marched daily to the munitions factory in the tunnel and trudged back in the evening. Their faces did not reveal any new hope, any thought of a new beginning. For them there was no spring. The sun did not warm their exhausted, emaciated bodies. Their eyes and sunken cheeks reflected only pain and sorrow. The songs of birds did not lighten the heavy stone each of them carried in his soul.
April 11, 1945: American forces liberated Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
April 12, 1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage; Vice President Harry Truman was sworn in as president.
April 15, 1945: British and Canadian forces liberated the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, where Anne Frank had perished only a few weeks earlier.
We, the forced laborers, however, seemed to have perked up a little. The straw beds were fluffed up, and the blankets hung outside to air in the fresh spring breeze. The drainage ditch which we had dug around the compound now ran constantly with clear water as the spring warmth thawed the hills. The bottom of the ditch was now sand and stones, and the water gurgled as it flowed past our barrack as happily as a clear mountain stream. We even enjoyed washing our hair and our laundry with the clear “running” water instead of the melted snow we had grown used to.
I visited the office to see Herr Mueller several times in early April, but he was very busy, so I often didn’t have an opportunity to talk with him. Often I could see an ss officer in the room, and I didn’t even approach the building. Once, as I approached the office, a young girl about my age stepped out to the front steps. As I drew near she smiled and greeted me, and I stopped to talk with her for a few moments, embarrassed because she was so nicely dressed while I stood there in rags.
“Good morning,” she said politely.
“Good morning. Is Herr Mueller here?”
“Yes, but he is busy just now. Do you live in the labor camp?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Lilo, Lilo Palmier,” she said pleasantly.
“My name is Anastasia. Do you live here, too, Lilo?”
“No,” she answered, “well, yes, in a way. My father is the commandant of the camp.”
We chatted for a few minutes, but I was uncomfortable, dressed as I was, and excused myself to return to the barrack. I would not see Herr Mueller again. He seemed always to be very busy then, and as April progressed, I saw many papers being burned outside the office. I never noted the similarity with the burning of papers at Luftwaffe headquarters during my final days in Belgrade.
The news from the slave laborers was encouraging. The Allies were advancing steadily and had already entered Germany. They were even nearing Berlin. Large flights of Allied planes now flew over our heads several times daily in the direction of Berlin or Magdeburg, a large industrial city not too far from Blankenburg.
Blankenburg had never experienced an air raid, but there was nothing of military value with the exception of the underground factory. Fortunately for us, the Allies were not aware of its existence. For me, the constant drone of the bomber squadrons above blended with the bustling sounds of nature around me. The birds, the bees, the brook—all were rushing about us as April progressed.
On April 18, 1945, the concentration camp prisoners didn’t march past our barrack to the tunnel. Instead, they were all marched toward a line of freight cars that stood motionless in a field close to the slave labor camp. They were loaded into the rail cars, each of which had a red cross painted on its roof.
There was no work assigned to the forced laborers either. No ditches to be dug, no boots to be shined, and no ss guards in sight. With unexpected free time and no guards evident, everyone ventured off during the day and walked around the camp grounds, surprised at the large expanse of the compound. Bored, I returned to our barrack and went to the “brook,” the ditch we had dug, to dip my feet into it. The water was very cold, but it felt so good to feel the running water tumbling about my feet. I wanted to jump in and feel the tingling of the water over my whole body, but that wasn’t possible. Besides, the water was much too cold, I thought.
“Hello, my name is Umberto, Umberto Pallovicini,” a voice from behind me said. “What is your name?”
My heart sank to my cold feet in the water. It was that handsome young man from the kitchen. Oh, God! I must be a sight. I moved quickly to try to hide my torn ugly shoes from his view. He laughed and removed his shoes to show me that his were in much worse shape.
“May I join your feet in the brook?” he asked in badly broken German.
How sad, I thought, that we had to converse in German. Italian sounded so beautiful, and I again wished that I could speak the language. “Do you speak Russian or Serbian or English or French?” I asked.
“English, a little,” he replied in German, “but it’s a no-no,” and he smiled as he put his finger across his lips and looked around.
“My name is Asya, and I’m Russian, but we were brought here from Belgrade. Well, not really Belgrade, but from Vienna,” I said, and then stopped quickly, realizing that I was talking too much.
His dark eyes were smiling, and he kicked tiny pebbles with his feet while dangling them in the water.
“I’ve been to Yugoslavia many times,” he said lightly. “We’re practically neighbors.”
“I went to Italy once with my father,” I said, “but when I was a very little girl. Do you always sing?” I asked, remembering his singing when he was peeling potatoes.
“Yes, it seems that music makes everything almost bearable.”
“In our barrack we just read and recite poetry. Nobody feels like singing. But maybe . . . well, I’m sure . . . nobody sings well enough to make it sound pleasant.”
Umberto smiled and began to hum.
“Do you know ‘Torna Piccina’?” I asked, “My Papa used to sing that to me when I was little.”
He began to sing that lovely old Neapolitan
song that Father had sung so often to me. It seemed so very long ago—at least a lifetime. Tears came to my eyes then, tears of happiness and sorrow. Happiness that I was there, on a quiet spring day, alive and listening to the song. Sorrow because I realized my childhood was gone and that I would never again be “Papa’s little girl.” I knew it was silly to feel that way, but I missed my home, my gardens, “my” Belgrade so very much. I hadn’t looked at clouds for so long, hadn’t lain in cool grass listening to the little buzzes and noises that one can only hear while lying deep in the grass, very still, with no one else around.
“I’m sorry, Piccina. Did my singing make you cry?”
I opened my eyes to see Umberto looking at me as one would look at a child who had been hurt and no one knew what to do about it . . . no one knew how to help.
“Oh, no,” I answered quickly. “I loved your singing. It’s beautiful. It’s just that . . . I think I’m homesick.”
Umberto bent very close to me and whispered, “I think that very soon now . . . very soon we will be able to go home, if they don’t kill us first. But hush, not a word. It’s something we just heard this morning.” He paused, looked around, and whispered in my ear, “Have you noticed there are no guards around? Something is going to happen soon, very soon.”
The sound of the bubbling water and the singing of the birds suddenly became much louder. My heart began to pound as I felt his breath on my ear as he whispered, “Something is going to happen soon.” There was an excitement in the air that one only experiences before an anticipated “unknown” is about to take place.
Just then, Father’s voice came from behind me.
“Asya, I’ve been looking for you all around the camp. You should let us know where you are going.”
“Papa,” I said quickly, answering him in German. “This is Umberto. He’s from Italy, and he sang “Torna Piccina” for me.”
I said it all in one breath, embarrassed that Father had found me sitting with a young man, dangling our feet in the water.
“It is nice meeting you, young man,” Father said.
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