by Susan Finlay
Ilse wondered, for the first time, if her father had ever rounded up Jews or taken them to concentration camps. She thought maybe someday, when he returned, she would ask him. But, then, on second thought she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She sighed and turned her attention to the line in front of her. After half an hour, she got a small ham and then rushed to the line for the bakery. By mid-afternoon, she returned home with a loaf of bread, the ham, a sack of flour, and five potatoes. Not much, but slightly more than she got last week. Those rations, supplemented with their carefully monitored stock of supplies in their cellar, would have to last the family of seven for a week. Please, Gott, let this food get us through, she prayed. Her family was getting too weak to keep going on like this.
Petr Jaroslav, September 5, 1943, Prague, Czechoslovakia—
PETR JAROSLAV DIPPED the clean cloth into water and then wiped his little sister’s forehead. She smiled weakly at him, but then erupted into another coughing fit. He held her shoulder with one hand and gently rubbed her back until the coughing stopped, then helped her lie back down on her narrow bed. She was getting weaker with each passing day and the doctor who had come yesterday morning told the family to keep her as comfortable as they could. There was nothing to be done to save her. How was he supposed to watch his ten year old sister, his adorable little sister, die? It was just a month ago she’d celebrated her tenth birthday and had begged for a birthday cake. Their mother had baked a small cake with the little bit of flour she could scrape together, and each of the seven siblings in the family got a few bites of it. Mother refused to eat any of it, saying she’d made it only for the kids.
Tuberculosis. The doctor had told them he’d seen many patients with the disease. He said it happened in war time. There was nothing he could do to save her.
Tears flowed down his cheeks. He turned his head away from his sister and looked up to the ceiling. His sister’s eyes were closed, but he didn’t want to take the chance that she would open them and see his face, his weakness. It was acceptable when his mother and sisters cried. But he was supposed to be strong and brave and here he was, pain and sorrow clearly overwhelming him.
He had just joined the Czech resistance and would soon be expected to shoot Nazis, blow up Wehrmacht tanks, and fight hand to hand. His father had joined the group soon after the Germans had invaded Czechoslovakia. He’d fought them when they took over the Capitol city and evicted the government employees. Not that it had made a difference that anyone could see. But the group was growing. Petr’s two older brothers, Antonin and Josef, had been in it for a couple years and they remained hopeful they would soon take their country back from the Germans.
Petr swiped at his wet face with his hands and sleeve to wipe away the tears. Calm yourself. Cry tonight in your bed, not here where Vera might see you.
No one had told Vera what was wrong with her. Their parents had made the kids swear they wouldn’t tell her. She still hoped to get well and return to school. Was it right to keep it from her? He didn’t know. At fifteen, he wasn’t sure of much. Hell, he could die tomorrow in a bombing. Bombs were exploding every day, it seemed, here in Prague. And in another month, after short training, he might even be one of the people setting off a bomb. Antonin had told him about several of his recent missions. They seemed to be getting more dangerous every day.
From that perspective, maybe it didn’t matter if one knew they were going to die, or when. Maybe he should just accept that his days were numbered the same way Vera’s were. Maybe they would be together regardless.
He steeled himself to look back down at his sister. In her sleep, without the coughing fits, she looked peaceful. Happy, almost.
Standing up, he picked up the bowl of water and the cloth and wondered what he should do with them.
“Here, I will take those,” his mother said. He hadn’t heard her come into the room.
“Are you sure we cannot get another doctor to look at Vera?” he whispered. “I cannot stand—”
She put her finger to her lips, and motioned for him to follow her outside. In the hallway of their apartment building, she said, “Petr, it is too late. The doctor told me a few hours ago that she will not last until nightfall.”
Petr pursed his lips and turned away to hide his eyes as they began to tear up again.
CHAPTER THREE
Lucas Landry, June 2017, Sacramento, California—
“I FOUND SOMETHING, Luke. Oh, this is interesting. It looks like a set of diaries,” Tawny said. She held the little books up for Lucas to see. “They’re all in German.”
Lucas anxiously raked his fingers through his hair. This could be it. The clue that would tell him about the strangers in the photos. Did he really want to know? What if he really was related to Nazis? What if he had grandfathers or great-grandfathers who’d been high ranking officials in the Wehrmacht, the German military? Up until now he’d always assumed his ancestors were all American and Irish. He got up and walked over to Tawny, accepting the diary from her. “I guess we’ll find out if I remember any of the German I studied in high school and college.”
Sitting back down at the folding table, he started reading. His German was rusty but that wasn’t his biggest problem. Reading the handwriting was difficult. Definitely a child’s or teenager’s handwriting and the letters were . . . well, old-fashioned. He’d seen some of this style of handwriting before when one of his German professors had the class do some research projects and write papers. He’d had trouble then, too. He scratched his head, trying to remember some of that writing. After an hour, he was getting through the material, at least somewhat. At least he thought so.
“Oh, Luke, I found some old books. Some are in German. And one is a very old German-English dictionary. Would that help you?”
He sighed and rubbed at his eyes, bleary from the strain of trying to read the old handwriting. A dictionary could help, but what he really needed was a text about the old-style handwriting, if there was such a thing, or better yet, someone fluent in German who could translate it for him.
“Thanks.” He looked over his shoulder, stuck his hand out, and she placed the book in his hand. He flipped through a few pages. Hmm, definitely will help.
He still didn’t know who had written the diaries but definitely a school-age girl. She was describing her town and her school. Her life during a war. Second World War, he assumed, but he didn’t see a date anywhere in the book.
An hour later, Tawny came over and rubbed his shoulders, his neck, kneading and easing tense muscles. “You should take a break.” He didn’t answer. “I can look in the kitchen and see if there’s any coffee that I can make up. Your father has a coffee maker, right?”
“Oh, sorry. I was falling under your massage spell,” he said, turning and smiling at her. “Yeah, I think I saw one on the kitchen counter top. Thanks, babe.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She patted his shoulder, turned, and left.
Right after, Lucas heard something in the stairwell. Hmm, maybe she couldn’t find any coffee and is coming back to tell me. When he turned to look, Hallie the cat padded up onto the attic floor from the stairs and sat down, her head and eyes shifting in slow motion from one end of the room to the other, obviously studying the intriguing new room and probably wondering how it got here without her knowing.
“What do you think, Hallie? Interesting?”
She meowed, then got up and walked around the room, sniffing and rubbing her body on everything.
Yep. Typical cat. Wants to stake her claim on the territory.
That made him think of Seth. He hadn’t shown up the lawyer’s office for the reading of their father’s will. Dad had left the house and everything in it to Lucas. According to the lawyer, it was his family’s tradition to leave the house to the eldest son, if there was a son, or the eldest daughter, if there wasn’t a son. Did Seth know that? Did he not want to fight over it? Dad had left his car and boat to Seth, and he’d left
money to both of them, split equally. Maybe that satisfied him.
Footsteps on the stairs pulled him out of his thoughts.
“I have two hot coffees,” Tawny said. “I see you have a visitor.” She nodded to Hallie. “I found an unopened bag of potato chips in the pantry. I know, chips don’t go with coffee, but I didn’t find any cake—not fresh enough to eat, anyway, and I’m starving. Eating for two, now, you know.”
He chuckled. At four months pregnant, she ate enough for three people. “Yeah, I tossed out a lot of stuff yesterday and I’m sure we’ll have to toss more.”
“I saw some food still in the pantry, that we don’t need, but it’s still edible. Maybe we can donate to one of those homeless shelters.”
“Good idea.”
Late in the afternoon, after a lunch break at McDonalds and a second snack break, Tawny said, “Oh, my Gosh, I found another set of diaries and some . . . well, I’m not sure what . . . maybe identity papers.”
“Oh, yeah? Let me see.” He reached around and took the offered books and papers. “I think you’re right. I’ve seen some like these before in one of my college classes. People throughout Europe had to carry these at all times during WWII.”
Some of the dates went back to the late 1800’s. Interesting! Lucas spread them out on the table and tried to make sense out them. They showed birth dates, birth names, married names, parents’ names, and he thought, town of residence. He could kind of piece together that he was looking at two families, though he couldn’t be sure until he could draw a family tree chart. One thing he could tell already was that, so far, he didn’t have papers for many family members, and none that linked to his family directly, at least not in an obvious way.
Oh well, that didn’t help much. But it was interesting.
He picked up one of the diaries from the second batch. Hmm, obviously written by someone else. The handwriting was different, the names of the siblings were different, as was the setting. He set it aside for later, then stood up, stretched his legs, and yawned.
“I think I need to do some research before I read more of those diaries. Maybe if I know more about the war and the areas mentioned in those diaries, the diaries might be easier to read and make more sense to me.”
“How are you going to research?”
“Internet at home, books in the library. Let’s go home for now. We—or I if you don’t want to—can come back tomorrow, or after work on Monday.” As they made their way down the narrow stairs from the attic, he said, “You know, I might be able to meet with one of my old professors and get his or her opinion and advice about the identity papers.”
“Good idea.” Lucas turned and went back into the attic and came down moments later with a couple of the diaries and papers.
In the master bedroom, the cat rubbed up against Tawny’s leg.
“What about the cat? We can’t leave her here alone?”
“She’ll be okay for a day or two alone. Guess we should make sure she has plenty of food and water, though, before we leave. Oh, and I should clean out the litter, too.”
“I cleaned the litter box while the coffee was brewing.”
“You shouldn’t have. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to handle litter boxes. Remember when our neighbor Maddie was pregnant and had to have her son clean the litter box?”
“I forgot. Do you think it might have harmed the baby?”
“One time? Probably not. Did you wash your hands good afterwards?”
“Don’t you know me? Of course I washed my hands good.” She hit him on the upper arm, jokingly.
“Yeah, my little neat-freak. How could I forget?”
MONDAY AFTER WORK, Lucas sat in Professor Joanna Meier’s office discussing the diaries and papers Lucas had brought from the attic. Lucas had made an appointment with the professor early that morning, in between seeing patients. “Those are identity cards, right?”
“They are Ahnenpaβ. That translates to ‘family tree of Aryan descent’. So, yes, identity cards were required of all citizens during WWII.”
“Of Aryan descent? Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Proof that family members are not Jewish.”
Lucas ran his hand through his hair. “I guess that means they weren’t sent to the concentration camps or the gas chambers, then?”
“Probably not.” The professor put on her glasses.
“So they would have been safe.”
“No, not necessarily, and especially considering that they were living in the Sudetenland. For most of the war, they were safer than in Germany, which was getting bombed left and right and was suffering severe food shortages. But near the end of the war, when the Soviets advanced into the region, they would not have been safe.”
Lucas thought about the girl in the diary he’d been reading. “They might have left the country before then.”
“Possibly. Though most Sudeten Germans didn’t want to leave, even when they were told they had to.”
“All Sudeten Germans had to leave?”
“Unless they were needed to work in certain jobs after the war. Those Germans were actually not allowed to leave.” She hesitated a moment. “It’s interesting that one of these people in the documents you brought in was of Czech background. I don’t know if that meant her family didn’t get expelled from the Sudetenland, but my guess is that they did because she was married to a German and they had children together.”
“So, marriage to a German meant she was no longer Czech?”
“It’s complicated, but that’s probably how the government looked at it. It kind of worked that way regarding the Jewish people, too, during the war. As I understand it, even when a Catholic person married a Jewish person, the Reich considered any children born from the union to be Jewish. They were sent to concentration camps.”
“Oh, wow, I didn’t know that.”
“If you need help translating the diaries, let me know,” the professor said. “You can leave them with my assistant.”
“Thanks. Guess I’ll try to read them myself, first.”
“A word of caution before you leave,” Professor Meier said, eyeing him through bifocals sitting low on her nose. “If you find that these people are related to you, you might not be happy with what you find out. You might discover you’re related to Nazi war criminals or to Czech Revolutionary Guards who tormented the Sudeten Germans. Either way, you may regret ever having researched your family tree.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “I personally know someone who found out he was related to one of the top generals in the Nazi command. He was devastated and wished he hadn’t found out.”
Yeah, Lucas understood that. But he already knew he was related to a Neo-Nazi. He’d had to deal with the consequences of that already.
CHAPTER FOUR
Christa, February 10, 1944, Altstadt, Sudetenland—
FROM A BLOCK up the road Christa saw Mutti standing on the front porch, holding baby Andreas and obviously looking for her older children, Ernst, Julia, Fritz, and Christa, as they made their way home from school. Christa also saw Giselle all bundled up in her warm coat, playing with something, likely her doll, on the steps near Mutti. Is something wrong? Mutti rarely watched for them after school, and never when it was cold out. She didn’t want the younger kids exposed to the cold air because they might get sick.
The other kids apparently saw her, too, because Fritz and Julia took off running toward the house. Moments after arriving on the porch, Fritz ran back and yelled out to Christa and Ernst, “Mutti got a letter from Vati. Come quick.”
Christa started to run and tripped over something, landing face down in the snow, eliciting yelps of laughter from her brothers. Esels (donkeys), she thought. She pulled herself up and dusted off the snow from her face, coat, and leggings with her mittens, then ran the rest of the way home. Stepping onto the small porch, she turned her head and glared at both boys. They nudged each other, making goofy faces.
Christa shook her head. Boys. Always acti
ng like idiots.
The children all followed Mutti into the house, gathering around her in the living room.
“It came half an hour ago,” she said. “My hands are shaking so hard I can barely get the envelope open.” Finally ripping it open, she withdrew a single sheet of paper. She read in silence, tears suddenly trickling down her cheeks, and she almost dropped the page.
Oh Gott, was it something bad? Why is Mutti crying? Is Vati all right? What’s going on? Christa’s heart was pounding. She glanced at her siblings who were twitching and murmuring, obviously also scared. They looked over at her, too. I’m the oldest. I have to set a good example and not cry or act worried. She placed her hands, which often betrayed her nerves, under her upper thighs to keep them still while she waited.
Oh Gott, how long do we have to wait?
Mutti finally looked up, cleared her throat, and then read aloud:
Dearest Hanna, Christa, Ernst, Fritz, Julia, Giselle, and Andreas,
I am safe. No need to worry. Sorry I could not write to you sooner. The commanders have trained me to work as a medic for my platoon and now we are in Holland, but I cannot give any details of our location, for security reasons. I can tell you that I help treat the wounded men and I have saved a few lives already in my short time here. I carry a pistol for protection, but I have not used it and hope not to have to use it. You can rest easy that I am not in combat. I have seen and treated many wounded. I won’t describe the horrors I have witnessed, but rest assured I am all right and looking forward to my first leave. The commanders tell us we will get a three-day leave soon, but again, no details. Will write again when I can.
P.S. I have taken up writing poetry when I get time. Can you imagine—me a poet? It helps me cope. I will send some poems with my next letter, if you promise not to laugh at my silly attempts at creativity.
You loving husband and father,
Franz Nagel
Now Christa was crying, relieved, after fearing the worst. But Vati was all right! And he was writing poems. That’s something she had been doing ever since the nuns at school taught them about poetry last year.