“That’s nit-picking,” Q said with a smile and continued to present Spengler’s important assumptions about the history of civilizations and the interaction between man and his surroundings.
Werner in turn picked every single argument apart, trying to contradict Spengler with theories of other important philosophers. Their argument continued well into the evening until they both had sore throats from too much talking.
Q was never sure if Werner really believed everything he said about Socialism and Spengler, or if he was simply arguing for argument’s sake, as a way to shorten their long prison days. Be it as it may, Q cherished their day-filling arguments and carefully avoided agreeing with Werner even on the most insignificant point.
Sometimes Pfarrer Bernau joined their discussions, and some of their favorite topics were pedagogic and educational questions. The re-education and de-Nazification of all Germans, and especially the younger generation, would have to become first priority after the complete destruction of the German state.
Those questions would determine and influence the entire economic concept of the new Germany. At that point in time, Q had bid farewell to his previous belief that Germany would be able to escape the evil clutches of Hitlerism with its own force, while Werner – of course – clung to the illusion of a revolution from within to overthrow the current government.
“It doesn’t matter which way Hitler is thrown from power,” Pfarrer Bernau said with a stern face, “either way the whole country will be in ashes.”
With that statement, unfortunately, everyone had to agree. What they didn’t agree on was how an ideal German state could be formed after the defeat.
Q partook in this discussion with mixed feelings because he was fully aware that he wouldn’t be part of that new country. But maybe Werner and Pfarrer Bernau would.
Chapter 29
Hilde should have been grateful, but she wasn’t. Today was April 20, 1943, and to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, he had generously allowed every prisoner to write an additional letter to a family member. Unfortunately, Q wasn’t one of the approved recipients because he was a prisoner himself.
She scowled at the blank sheet of paper in front of her and made a face. So now she should be grateful to the man she despised most in this world. The man who was ultimately the cause of her death sentence and unspeakable suffering for millions of people.
“Aren’t you going to write that letter?” Margit asked as she stuffed her hastily written words into the envelope.
“Ha. Why can’t I write to Q? And why does this man give me a present at all? It’s his damned birthday, not mine!” Hilde scribbled a skull on the paper.
“Come on, Hilde. You are the person who spends all of her money on smuggling out secret letters, rather than buying things for herself. It would be rather stupid not to seize the opportunity to write an official letter.”
“I guess you’re right,” Hilde sighed and crossed out the skull. Then she started to write a letter to Emma.
My dear mother,
I’m wishing every one of you a very happy and peaceful Easter. The children will be joyful and happy, and you will take joy in them and with them.
I will think a lot about you, and I will imagine how the boys are searching for Easter eggs. Your place is perfect for that kind of game, and I remember how well Pappa can hide the eggs. We used to seek them for hours.
Last year, Q and I hid Easter eggs at our place, and little Peter was just one month old. Meanwhile, my sweetie will be able to walk alone, after what you wrote me in your last letter.
How much I would love to see him! I will never be able to make up for missing his first steps. His first words – it is both cute and unique how a baby starts talking. And everything else he has learned.
And he already learned a song! How much I yearn to see him clapping his little hands while humming the melody to Backe, backe Kuchen. If I ever see him again, then all of this will have passed.
It’s terrible that he got the measles as well and you had to care for another sick child. I always am afraid that it is too much for you. I know how much work the two boys make, and how cranky they are when they get all the childhood diseases. Of course, it’s always both of them. I hope your health will cope with this burden.
But I am so grateful that the children can be with you and don’t have to go to an orphanage. And give my thanks to Sophie for making clothes for them.
Can I help somehow? If you send me material and patterns, then I can sew by hand. Or when Sophie has made little pants, maybe I can embroider them? I still have so much yarn at home it would give me the biggest joy to do some work for the children and help you out. Please ask Mother Annie to send me some, and don’t forget to send me the measurements of the children. I have no idea how much they have grown. It’s been such a long time…
You can have all the shoes I still have in our apartment. You wear the same size as I do and this is the least I can do for you to show how grateful I am for all your work. In these days, good shoes are a fortune, and you deserve them.
Can I give you something else from my things? Or to your daughters? Just tell me what you need, and Mother Annie will send it to you. You have to endure enough hardship by taking care of my children, I want to help in whatever small ways I can.
Mother Annie sent me a huge chunk of sausage. Were those the coupons from you? Many thanks for it, it is wonderful! But I didn’t want to have those special foods because I wanted Mother Annie to send them to Q. He needs it so much more than I do.
Soon, it will be Julia’s and your birthday. I’m sending you my best wishes right now because I never know when I’ll be able to send another message.
I have told Mother Annie, if she travels to the Baltic Sea in the summer, she should take the children with her. Would you allow that? It would be a lot of fun for them.
For now, I’m sending you my best wishes for the new year in your life. All my greetings to you, Pappa, Sophie, and Julia.
And one thousand kisses to my little sweethearts!
Love, Hilde
Hilde drew a birthday cake with candles below her signature and carefully folded the letter and stuffed it into an envelope. Then she dabbed at her eyes. Thinking about her children was joy and torture at the same time.
“I wish I could send my sons something for Easter,” Hilde murmured.
“You and your children…” Margit teased her.
“You’ll understand when you’re older and have children yourself.” Hilde got up and knocked on the door to indicate she was finished writing. A guard showed up and received both of their letters.
Margit shook her head. “I doubt I will ever have children. Not in a world like this one.”
“Don’t you want a family? What about your parents? I’m sure they want that for you.”
“You don’t know my family.” Margit knitted her brows together.
Hilde gave her a stern look. “That’s right. I don’t because you never talk about them. You know everything about my family, and I know nothing about yours.” Hilde had tried several times to get Margit talking, but this was the one topic she was very tight-lipped about.
“You really want to know?”
Hilde smiled and nodded.
“My father is an important man in the Gestapo, and my mother is a good German housewife and mother.” Margit made a face. “My two brothers are officers in the Wehrmacht and my sister is the leader of her Bund Deutscher Mädel group. I’m the black sheep of the family.”
“What did you do? You’ve never told me.”
Margit scowled and spit on the floor. “I hate the Nazis and their stupid racial ideology…”
Hilde kept quiet as Margit paused, deep in thought. The turmoil on the younger woman’s face was apparent. It would be good for her to get whatever was hurting her out in the open.
“…I fell in love with the son of our neighbors. My father was livid. Not because I kissed that boy, but because he was a Mischling!”
<
br /> Hilde put her hand over her mouth. The daughter of a Gestapo officer and a half-Jew. Of course her father was angry.
The expression on Margit’s face turned from angry to pained, and she continued with a low voice, “…The next day, he and his mother had disappeared, and nobody would tell me what happened. I wasn’t allowed out for two weeks, and then my father decided to send me away to a training camp with the Bund Deutscher Mädel…” Margit’s face brightened, and a mischievous gleam entered her eyes. “But once there I wouldn’t budge. I explicitly told our leader what I thought about that whole charade.”
Hilde couldn’t hold back a giggle. She could vividly imagine exactly what Margit had said to the BDM leader. Hilde might have done the same thing ten years ago.
“My father was summoned, and it created quite a scandal for him. So, he decided to teach me a lesson and had me arrested.”
“You can’t be serious,” Hilde exclaimed. Although, on second thought it might be true. Margit’s family visited her often, and after every visit, her mood was abysmal.
“I am deadly serious. Father says I’ll be released the day I publicly repent and swear to be a good German girl like my sister.”
Hilde stared at her with wide eyes.
In the following weeks, Hilde and the other prisoners relentlessly worked to convince Margit that she should fake remorse to get out of prison.
“It won’t do any good if you rot away in here,” Hilde said. “Think about how much more good you can do when you are outside and work in the underground. I’m sure some of the women in here can arrange contacts for you.”
Several days later, Hilde received notice from her lawyer that her petition for a revision of the sentence had been denied. She sighed as her hopes to receive lifelong imprisonment in lieu of capital punishment were shattered. Herr Müller assured her he would not give up and would now issue a plea for mercy. It was a faint hope, but it was all she had.
And if this weren’t enough to dampen her mood, Margit brought worrisome news after another visit from her family.
“Occupied France is sending four hundred thousand voluntary workers to help the Reich make up for the German men that have been sent to the front. My father says there are over one and a half million prisoners of war earning their keep and doing valuable labor for the regime.” Margit spat on the floor. “Nazi bastards.”
“So many lives ruined…poor soldiers. When will this awful war be over?” Hilde said with a sigh. Some days she just couldn’t take it anymore. On those days, death actually looked like a desirable option.
“My father didn’t say much about the war. It seems the Allies are advancing against the Wehrmacht, but Hitler announced that Berlin is now free of Jews and that the rest of Germany – indeed, the entire Reich – will soon follow suit.”
“All Jews? Everywhere? Where are they going? The camps?” Hilde’s eyes widened to the point she feared they would pop out.
“Yes.” Margit nodded absent-mindedly. She seemed to be absorbed by her own worry about her half-Jewish boyfriend.
“Is it true, the rumors about what happens in those camps?” Hilde whispered.
Margit glanced at Hilde and pressed her lips together. “I don’t know for sure, but I spied on my father a few times, and I’m almost positive Jews are killed in those camps. I overheard him talking about how they have developed a wonderful way of killing many unsuspecting people in a short amount of time.”
Hilde shuddered. “There are over ten million Jews in Europe. He can’t kill them all. That’s just not possible.”
Chapter 30
May had arrived, and Q sat in his cell scribbling notes when one of the guards opened the door. “You have a visitor.”
Q looked up, sure the guard was talking to Werner, but Werner wasn’t in the cell. “For me?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
Q followed the guard, wondering who the visitor could possibly be. His lawyer wasn’t due for another few weeks, and Kriminalkommissar Becker had made it very clear that Q didn’t deserve to receive visits from friends or family.
When he saw the woman waiting for him in the visitation room, his jaw practically fell to the ground.
“Annie?” Q asked in case she was an apparition, then moved forward to shake her hand, but she waved him away.
“I’m not here to pretend to like you. You are the reason my daughter is sitting in a prison cell facing a death sentence. It’s all your fault.”
“It’s nice to see you, too,” he said when she paused in her tirade, “and I can’t thank you enough for the money and food you have been sending me.”
“For all I care, you could rot in hell, but Hilde begged me to send you packages,” Annie clarified. “I have no idea why this woman still loves you after everything you did to her.”
Q wanted to protest, but thought better of it and let her vent her feelings. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with Annie when she was like this. And what could he say in his defense? He had incurred the heavy guilt by causing pain to the person he loved most in the world.
“How did you receive permission to visit me?” he asked when Annie had finished accusing him.
“The lovely Kriminalkommissar Becker is a man who knows how to distinguish right from wrong – unlike my son-in-law,” Annie said with a complacent smile.
Q nodded, although his opinion about Becker didn’t quite match hers. “Give the Kriminalkommissar my best regards and tell him I’m grateful he allowed your visit. But I suppose you didn’t go to all the trouble to remind me of my guilt over Hilde’s fate.”
“That’s right, I didn’t.” Annie nodded. She pulled some papers from her purse and laid them in front of him. “I want you to sign these.”
Q looked at them briefly. “What are they?”
“These papers will sign custody of your children over to me,” Annie said and tapped on them.
Q stepped back as if struck. “No. I won’t sign these. Hilde and I have already decided that Gunther is to have custody of our boys.”
“Your brother? The man who despises Hilde like the devil hates holy water? You cannot be serious,” Annie shrieked, clearly furious at his denial.
“I am serious. Gunther will be the custodian.” Q folded his hands in an attempt to keep his calm.
“You can’t honestly think your brother is a suitable custodian for two young boys? He’s a socialist, for God’s sake.”
“Socialist or not, he’s a solid citizen in good standing with the authorities, and he’s a lawyer. He knows about all the administrative things to be kept in mind. Furthermore, I’ve written to Gunther and expressed Hilde’s and my explicit wish that my boys will be sent to live with my cousin Fanny in America as soon as the war is over.”
Annie paled, and it took her a few moments to gain her voice again. “You would send your innocent children into enemy territory?”
“The Americans are not our enemies. The Nazis are the enemy.”
“That thinking is what has landed you in this position.” Annie sneered at him. “When we have won the war, there won’t be any Americans left to send your children to. They will be better off in Germany.”
Q groaned inwardly. Apparently, some people still believed that Germany would win this war. It escaped his grasp how someone could be that stupid.
“I’m not giving you custody of my children. This is my last word.”
“Well then, I should leave,” Annie said and extended her hand as if shooing him off. A wave of nausea caught him as he noticed the diamond ring on her finger. Hilde’s wedding ring.
“That ring belongs to my children, not to you,” he said in a tightly controlled voice.
“It’s not needed for their care at the moment, so there’s no reason I can’t wear it,” Annie moved her hand until the diamond caught a ray of sunshine and reflected it a million times. A pattern in all the colors of the rainbow appeared on the otherwise dull grey walls.
“You could sell it and put the money
aside for the boys,” Q said, not taking his eyes off the ring.
“Not right now, we wouldn’t get much money for it. Thanks to your friends, Germany is in such a bad shape that nobody wants to buy diamond rings, or any kind of jewelry for that matter.”
“Still, that ring belongs to Volker and Peter.”
“And I’ll see that they get it, but after the war. Right now, it’s better to keep things like this hidden, and what better place to hide it than on my finger?” Annie asked him.
Q knew he wasn’t in a position to do anything about her abusing her control of his wealth. She could do whatever she pleased, and all he could do was sit and watch. It rankled deeply and strengthened his conviction to give custody of his boys to Gunther and not to her.
As Annie left, he said, “I’m not sorry about what I did, because I still believe it was the right thing to do, but I’m truly sorry that I dragged Hilde into this. Please know that I love your daughter with all my heart and soul.”
Chapter 31
Hilde sat down to write her monthly letter to Q. As always, his well-being and that of their children was uppermost in her mind.
Emma had recently sent her pictures of the boys, and she tried to decide which one to send to Q. He’d be so happy.
My dearest Q,
I wonder how much longer I shall be able to write you. Things have become almost normal here, as odd as that might sound. Emma has sent me two pictures of our darling boys, and I have included one of them here for you to see.
It’s unbelievable how fast they have grown, and even harder to imagine that they were taken from me almost half a year ago.
My visit with Volker was so precious, and I think of that hour with him every single day. I wish you would be allowed to see him, too, but alas, I fear you may never see them again.
Annie visits me every month.
Unwavering: Love and Resistance in WW2 Germany Page 12