Breadcrumbs and Bombs

by Susan Finlay

  Two days later, during mathematics lessons, each grade level working on specific grade level assignments in their notebooks, the teacher clapped his hands together. Everyone looked up from their work, some grumbling at the interruption. “We must go into the church, children. I am sorry to disrupt your work, but I have a funeral. Please put your papers in your desks. It’s cold out, so put on your coats and hats, and as usual, line up at the door.”

  Christa sighed. This had happened at least twice a week in the past few months, and while she didn’t mind getting a break from work sometimes and escaping the classroom, she’d come to dread this particular kind of interruption. Usually, the deceased was an elderly man or woman who had succumbed to tuberculosis or pneumonia or had starved because the food supply in the town’s shops had dwindled. Only the people who had farms or who had planned ahead by canning foods and storing them in their root cellars were eating sufficiently. Mutti sometimes took food to elderly neighbors, but she couldn’t spare much. Not when she had seven mouths to feed.

  In line, one of the boys said, “Herr Father Braun, who died?”

  Their teacher said, “The father of Helga Schumann.”

  Everyone gasped.

  “Oh Gott! That is why Helga is not in class today?” Julia said, clasping her hands on the opposite arms, as if she was freezing, even though they were still inside the warm classroom.

  Father Braun nodded, not reprimanding her for saying Oh Gott. Maybe he agreed with her.

  “Her father was a soldier, too,” Julia said. “He left when my father did. Helga told me her father was in the same unit as Vati. Does that mean Vati is dead, too?”

  “It doesn’t mean your father died,” Father Braun said. “He is probably safe.”

  Ernst said, “We got a letter from Vati two days ago. He is alive and safe. He said so.”

  Christa felt a chill run up and down her spine. That letter was written a month and a half ago. She’d seen the date on the letter and the postage mark on the envelope after Mutti passed the letter around for the children to hold. Anything could have happened to Vati since then.

  The class entered the church in single file, silent, their hands folded in front of them as they walked down the main aisle. Christa couldn’t believe how many people were here. Must be most of the town—well, most of the remaining town—including the Czechs.

  Her eyes searched for Mutti. She hadn’t mentioned Herr Schumann’s death, but if she’d heard about it, she would come. She and Frau Schumann were friends, as were Helga and Julia.

  There she was, holding Andreas and hugging Helga’s mother, Frau Schumann. Giselle was standing beside Mutti, holding her doll with one hand and Mutti’s skirt with the other, her eyes glazed-over, probably not understanding what was happening.

  Poor Helga. She was red-eyed, tears dripping down her face. That could be me and my brothers and sisters, Christa thought. Please, Gott, do not take my father, too.

  Ilse Seidel, February 10, 1944, Memmingen, Germany—

  “I AM GLAD those Jews are gone,” Johann said as the family sat around the parlor in the evening listening to the Volksempfänger radio, and the announcer was talking about the round-up of the Jews.

  Ilse gaped at her brother. “What is wrong with you? That is a terrible thing to say. Your best friend was one of the Jews rounded-up several years ago. You were devastated. Have you forgotten?”

  “You are in the Jungmädelbund. Do they not teach you anything?” he countered.

  She bit her tongue, knowing it was futile to argue with someone brainwashed by the Nazis. He had been forced to join the Deutshes Jungvolk, as she and her family had feared, and he’d practically gone crazy, raving that he refused to go. But when the soldiers had come to the door and escorted him, willing or not, to the Jungvolk meeting, he’d gone. For the first few weeks, he’d complained and told his family he hated it. But then something changed. He started making friends and hanging out with the other boys from the group.

  A month later, the soldiers had come again, this time for her. She knew already resisting the command was futile. All she could do was go through the motions. She would never allow them to brainwash her. As part of the Jungmädelbund, the League of German Girls, she sewed slippers for the military hospitals and repaired soldier’s uniforms. Even Mutter and Oma helped with that. And why not? Not all of the men fighting in the war were Nazis and not all had gone to war willingly. Her father, maybe had gone willingly. She didn’t ask. All she knew for sure is that he was one of the first to go from their town.

  “I should speak to my commander,” Johann said, “and tell them they need to do more in the Jungmädelbund.”

  “No. Please do not say anything,” she said. “Please do not cause trouble for me.”

  “I won’t,” he said, but then added, “but you need to do your part for our country. It is a shame the girls do not get to go on the summer camping tours and cycling tours the boys get to go on. Maybe if you did, you would feel more committed.”

  She nodded, hoping he would let it drop and listen to the radio instead.

  The Volksempfänger radio (“All Nazi, All the Time”) droned on in the dark parlor, darkened not only by the single lamp in the room but also by the black-out shades on all the windows. The radio kept on about the latest triumphs of the Wehrmacht. It was hard enough listening to the propaganda, but now static was interfering so much, it was beginning to grate on Ilse’s nerves. The Volksempfänger radio was the only radio Germans were legally allowed to listen to, but when Johann wasn’t around, she and Mutter and Oma and Opa listened to the BBC radio Opa kept hidden under his bed.

  Apparently the static grated on Opa’s, too. He got up and smacked the radio and began fussing with the dial. Then the house rumbled, shaking the glass in the windows.

  Ilse glanced up at the ceiling. Airplanes were near. She couldn’t hear them, but she knew. She’d heard the rumbling many times before. Almost the moment she thought it, the air-raid siren blared so loudly her younger sister screamed and covered her ears with her hands.

  Opa yelled, “Everyone to the bomb shelter, schnell!” As if any of them needed to be told. They’d done this too many times. But Ilse understood. He was the man of the house and it was his job to protect them. He didn’t bother turning off the radio, just grabbed their coats from the coat rack near the front door and, after they quickly donned their shoes, handed the coats out and herded them out the door. “Run!”

  All of their neighbors, everyone from the townhouses nearby, were outside already and running in the same direction—toward the bomb shelter beneath the Protestant church half a block away.

  Mothers, some carrying babies, others holding children’s hands, were running, obviously afraid to slow down because a bomb could drop anywhere at any time.

  A loud droning caused everyone to look up at the sky. Dozens of fighters and bombers were flying directly overhead, probably headed for the town’s airport. That airport had recently been taken over and turned into a military base, making the whole town a target, the allies trying to take out the airport to make it harder for the Luftwaffe to launch aircraft.

  The sound of a bomb dropping was followed by a deafening explosion, perhaps on the next street over, but she couldn’t tell in the darkness, the falling debris sending people into hysterics and running faster. While she was running, Ilse noted that the planes almost always came at night, most often after everyone had gone to bed.

  Thick smoke filled the air, making her stumble, choking and coughing on the soot filled air. The explosion was so close.

  Fearful, Ilse looked around for her younger sister. She spotted Mutter holding Ursula’s hand and they were nearing the church. She scanned for her brothers and Oma and Opa. The boys were holding onto Oma, helping steady her as she ran.

  But where was Opa? She turned around. He was behind her, maybe fifty feet, half stooped over. Was he hurt?

  She rushed over to him. “Opa, are you hurt?”

  “Just .
. . hard . . . to catch . . . my breath,” he said.

  She wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “I will help you. We must hurry. More planes will come.”

  Together they worked their way through the crowd. She wasn’t sure whether it was safer to walk close to the buildings or out in the middle of the street.

  As they neared the doorway, it was jammed tight with people trying to push their way through. Apparently, the stairway down to the bomb shelter was also jammed with bodies.

  “Keep moving!” someone yelled in front of her.

  Another group of airplanes roared overhead, and Ilse heard explosions somewhere near the town. The airport, she suspected.

  Finally, after worrying they would not get in, everyone struggled down into the tightly packed shelter. She and Opa searched for the rest of the family, eventually finding them sitting on top of some crates. They shuffled over on the crates as much as possible and made room for Ilse and Opa to sit, too. It is going to be a long night, Ilse thought.

  The following morning, stiff and achy, Ilse walked out of the bomb shelter with her family, expecting to have to shade her eyes from the morning sun. But there wasn’t any sun. Only dark winter clouds and smoke.

  She covered her mouth with one hand, while carefully navigating over debris. Some buildings on this street appeared untouched, but many others had been ripped apart.

  The front of her family’s townhouse had four broken windows, but no other visible damage. Their home was sandwiched in between two other townhouses, and one of those had taken more damage, debris having crumbled down from part of a side wall, leaving a gap into the interior. Guess we are lucky it is only windows. This time. Somehow they would have to repair the windows, and quickly, because of the cold winter weather—they couldn’t get glass, so they would probably have to find boards and nail them over the windows.

  Before they got inside the house, snow began falling.

  Petr Jaroslav, February 10, 1944, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia—

  Early morning, before the rest of the family was up, Petr put on his heavy coat, picked up his rifle, and left the house, closing the door quietly behind him. No need to wake up everyone and definitely no need to tell them where he was going. Although only fifteen, his days of having to tell his parents what he was up to were long over. The war had seen to that. Not only was Petr now a soldier of sorts, but his father was one of the top men in the Resistance. He set most of the assignments and knew exactly where each of his men and women were going. Petr was going to meet with two new recruits and one experienced soldier, Ambroz Fejfar. The four would hike through the woods, avoiding the roads that would be watched by the gestapo. Their assignment was to plant bombs at a factory the Germans relied on to supply parts for their military planes. If they could destroy those, they were told, it would set-back the German campaign and give the allies the upper hand. That was the plan, anyway.

  A few days after Petr’s mother had revealed that it was too late to get treatment for his sister, Vera had died and the family had buried her in a cemetery in Prague. A month later, the family had packed up and left Prague. Their country needed resistance fighters in other regions. They needed to spread out and cover more ground. That had taken them to Olomouc, the sixth largest city in Czechoslovakia, and one of the largest in Moravia. They were in the eastern part of the country, which Petr hadn’t thought he would like, but he actually found it to be pleasant, with rolling hills, forests, and lakes.

  Petr, his older brothers Antonin and Josef, and their father, Olexa, were an integral part of the Resistance in Omolouca, but mostly Petr was given smaller assignments, like pick up allied paratroopers who dropped from airplanes in the dark and needed transportation to their assigned designations.

  Today’s job of planting bombs, though, was far more dangerous, Petr knew it was exciting, too. If all went as planned, he was going to kill some Nazis and make them pay for what they’d done to his brother’s fiancé and her Jewish family. Jews. Why torment the Jews, just because they were a different religion? Made no sense. None. The Nazis had forced their way into that family’s home, took the father out into the corridor and shot him in front of his wife. Then they dragged out all the women and children—not just Rebeka and her family—but everyone in their apartment house, past their father’s dead body, onto the street where a truck was waiting. They’d loaded them all onto the truck, packed tightly like cigarettes in a pack, and drove them away. No one in town had seen them since. But Antonin had heard from a reliable source that the truckload of Jews had been taken to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp.

  It wasn’t the worst camp, from what Petr had heard. They didn’t have gas chambers. Yet. Though they did sometimes load prisoners onto trucks and take them to camps in Poland, where they did have gas chambers. And sometimes they merely drove them out into the middle of the woods, made them get off the truck and line up, then shot them all dead.

  Petr wasn’t sure which was worse. All he knew was he wanted them to pay.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lucas Landry, June 2017, Sacramento, California—

  “LUKE, WE CAN’T keep driving back and forth between our house and this house after work every day,” Tawny complained, standing over the cat’s food dish while the cat ate dinner. “It’s too tiring. Why not bring the cat to our house?”

  “It’s not just about the cat. I still have to go through all of this stuff and get the house cleared out. I can’t list it for sale until then. And though it would be easier, I can’t just chuck all the stuff in the attic. I need to solve my family tree mystery. I need to make sense of what we’ve found.”

  They’d divided the attic into four sections and had been rearranging everything as they went along. One corner had been designated as the German section, where they set aside anything potentially related to the German connection. Another corner was for items that Lucas might need if he decided to research more ancestral connections, say the miners in the photos, for instance. Another corner was designated for stuff to sell; another for stuff going to the dump.

  “Then let’s move in here. It’s bigger and better than our house. We can turn your old room into a nursery for the new baby. Bianca can have your brother’s old room. This house would be perfect for us.”

  Uh huh. Here we go again. She’d been harping on him all week to move into this old house. Not gonna happen. She had no idea how miserable he’d been living here. His mother’s illness. Her death. His father’s rejection. No good memories. He’d seen horror movies set in old Victorian houses. Ghost stories. Well, this one might not have ghostly demons knocking on walls in the middle of the night, but it had its share of other kinds of ghosts.

  “I like our house. We can add on another room, if we need it. And with the money I inherited—well it’s not a lot, but it’s enough to allow us to remodel both houses and sell both. The proceeds from selling two remodeled houses in California could add up to a good chunk of money. Then we could buy a brand new house in an up-and-coming neighborhood. We’d climb in status.”

  There, that oughta appeal to Tawny’s desire to improve her family’s social ranking. Her mother had brought her to the U.S. back when Tawny was a teenager, intent on making a better life for them both.

  “No, no, no. I don’t like new houses. They don’t have any character or history. And, besides, money and status aren’t everything.”

  Lucas tilted back on his heels, his mind reeling. “Uh . . . well, okay, we could just stay in our current house and use the money we make from selling this house to do some traveling. You’ve always wanted to travel.”

  She waved her finger at him, the way mothers do with their children. “Don’t try to appeal to my desires. Yes, I would love to travel, but your argument doesn’t work. The same could be said about doing it the other way—selling our current house. We could remodel this house and turn it into something beautiful. It has good bones. Some modernizing without destroying its character would be perfect. I could bring mother over her
e. She has a keen sense of design. She could help.”

  Lucas groaned inwardly, then turned his attention to the mess they’d made in the kitchen. They’d picked up sandwiches at a deli on the way here and ate them at the kitchen table, feeding a few bites of lunchmeat to the cat, who had immediately snubbed her cat food. It was only after they’d finished their food that the cat had returned to her own dish.

  Tawny pulled the full trash bag out of the trash can and took it outside to the bin, returning as Lucas was finishing straightening up the kitchen.

  Lucas, trying to smooth things between them, said, “Look, we could have your mother come over and give us her ideas. We could fix up the place. That would make it more appealing to buyers and get us a better price. But I really don’t think I would ever want to live here again. Once was enough.”

  This time she was the one who didn’t respond; instead, turning her attention back to the cat.

  “We need to come here every day, for now,” Lucas said. “At least I do. You can stay home with Bianca. I appreciate all the help you’ve given, but I can finish up with looking through my father’s belongings and the stuff in the attic. It should only take another week or so.”

  She still said nothing.

  “After that, we can even take the cat to our house, if you want.”

  “Okay, then.” Her words said okay, but he could see her dissatisfaction in the way she grabbed her carry-all bag and stuck her feet in her sandals.

  They spent the rest of the evening working in the attic, with the cat sprawled out on a blanket near them, sleeping and purring. Lucas and Tawny barely spoke. Definitely a chill in the air. Tawny usually got her way, and she obviously wanted him to move their family into the house. Not gonna happen, if I have any say about it.

  On the drive home, Tawny said, “Have you talked to your brother since your father passed away?”