The White Rose Resists

by Amanda Barratt

  “What? That’s … that’s …” It’s insane. Drugged, smuggled out of the prison, my body purchased from the Anatomical Institute …

  “It’s true.” Katrin smooths cool fingers across my forehead. “You’re safe now. As far as your prison record is concerned, you’ve ceased to exist. We’re making arrangements for false papers so you can travel to Switzerland as soon as you’re recovered.”

  “Switzerland,” I breathe. Memories of the time I spent in prison after the trial float back. My endless prayers, the weighty resignation that I would soon die. The farewell letters I wrote to my parents. My parents … “Does anyone else know I’m here?”

  Dr. Voigt shakes his head. “Nein. And it must remain that way. You must contact no one while you are here. Not the slightest whiff of suspicion must come beneath the noses of the Gestapo, or they’ll search for you without delay.” His eyes are grave. “If you value your life and ours, you’ll follow our instructions to the letter.”

  I sag into the mattress, body aching, mind drained. Turning my head, I look into Dr. Voigt’s face. “Why?” My voice cracks. “Why would you go to such lengths to save me? We don’t even know each other.”

  Dr. Voigt lowers his gaze to his hands resting on his bent knees. Turns them palm up, then back over again. He gives a quick glance into my eyes. I recognize the look there. Pain glossed over by time’s veneer. “True, ja. Though in the scheme of things, does that really matter? All of us are fellow travelers along the same path. Should we not stop for the stranger, as well as the friend?” He touches my shoulder. “We’ll bring up some soup. You need to rest and regain your strength.”

  The mention of food makes saliva rush to my throat. I swallow. “I … I don’t know how to thank you.”

  An enigmatic smile touches the man’s lips. “I didn’t do it for gratitude.”

  “Then why?” I didn’t ask him to, nor did I offer him anything of monetary value. In the months I spent in prison, I never once encountered anyone like this. Heaven help me, I’d begun to lose all faith in goodness, in and of itself, a long time ago.

  “I did it to cease being a cog in the machine our country has become. A machine that makes men mad, turns them into animals.” Dr. Voigt draws in a long breath. “Perhaps to prove to myself I hadn’t become one too. And I did it for a friend. Now rest. We’ll be back in a few moments.” He and his wife turn away, footsteps soft against the floorboards.

  I close my eyes, not knowing what I should think or feel. I cannot fully grasp what has happened to me. I expect it will be a long while until I’m able to do so.

  Katrin returns and spoons hot chicken broth past my cracked lips, her voice and touch gentle. I’m too weary to ask more questions. She fluffs my pillows and smooths a hand across my forehead.

  Minutes later, sleep comes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Kirk

  June 10, 1943

  THREE WEEKS LATER, I’M pronounced well enough to travel. I’ve spent the past weeks in the Voigts’ attic, permitted downstairs only after the blackout curtains have been drawn. I’ve gained weight, the typhus rash fading. I’ve been given new clothes and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, my brown hair dyed black, after which Katrin took my photograph for my identity papers. Friedrich gave me a set of false papers (where he got them, he wouldn’t reveal) and has spent the past weeks drilling me.

  Kirk Hoffmann died at Stadelheim. You are Franz Beck, twenty-four years old, an orphan from Munich. You’re unable to serve in the Wehrmacht due to a heart condition and are visiting relatives in Switzerland to work in their butcher shop in Bremgarten. Their names are Ernst and Waltrud Keller. Do not give any of this information unless asked. You are an Aryan. You do not need to answer to anyone. You will succeed. You will survive this war.

  Friedrich has repeated this so often, I’ve almost started to believe him. Unfortunately, there are no Ernst and Waltrud Keller of Bremgarten. I’ll be on my own in Switzerland. Vater’s Confessing Church friend Rudolf Ganz lives in the countryside, caring for Jewish refugees who managed to escape while they still could. I pray I can find him and, after I tell him my story, he’ll be willing to take me in.

  I check my reflection in a handheld mirror. The young man with dark hair and glasses bears little resemblance to the Kirk Hoffmann I remember. I expect it’s just as well. I place the mirror atop my neatly folded blankets on the mattress, then pick up my rucksack and descend the stairs for the final time.

  Friedrich and Katrin wait for me at the bottom. Sunlight streams through the house, across the polished floors and cream wallpaper. Katrin holds a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

  “There’s sausage sandwiches and a few apples. This will last you on the train.” She passes the parcel into my hands.

  “Danke, Katrin.” I stuff the parcel in my rucksack, then set my bag on the floor. “For everything.” I pull the petite woman into my arms. Katrin Voigt has held a bucket while I vomited after eating too quickly, made endless trips up and down the attic stairs to care for me, and played game after game of chess to help me pass the time. Besides my own mutter, she’s taken care of me more than anyone I’ve known.

  Katrin hugs me back long and tightly. When she steps away, tears mist her eyes. “You take care of yourself now.” She lifts her chin. “I don’t want you getting thin again.”

  I smile. “Don’t worry. I will.”

  “Go with God, Kirk,” she says softly, then ducks her head and hurries toward the kitchen. Friedrich shakes his head at her departure.

  “She doesn’t want you to see her cry. You’ve become very dear to her.”

  At this, I swallow hard. “She’s a fine woman. You’re blessed to have her as your wife. I was blessed to know her.”

  “Do you have everything you need?” Friedrich glances at my rucksack.

  “Ask yourself.” I grin. “You’re the one who packed the thing.”

  Friedrich chuckles. “Well then.” He faces me. “Your train leaves in less than an hour.”

  “Ja.” I pause, unsure how to continue. During my recovery, I had plenty of time to think through every aspect of what happened to me. Over and over I asked myself, Should I take this chance? Why had it been handed to me and not Hans, Alex, or Willi? Dr. Voigt assured me the executions of those tried in April had yet to be carried out. But the Nazis won’t keep them alive forever.

  My friends will die.

  I will live.

  I see no justice in it. Nor can I forget the fact that I’m leaving Annalise in prison, while I escape to freedom. My beloved Annalise. She’ll think me dead, and I can do nothing to prove her wrong.

  “It’s the only way.” Friedrich places his hand on my shoulder. A healer’s hand. Friedrich assured me he’d continue to do what he could for the inmates of Stadelheim, though he doubted an escape like mine could be attempted again. I alone have been given a chance so many deserve.

  “I know.” I meet his gaze. “After the war is over, I’ll come back as soon as I can. And you promise once it’s safe to do so, you’ll get word to my wife and parents?”

  “As soon as it’s safe. I have the address you gave me.”

  “There’s no way I’ll ever be able to repay you …”

  “You’re wrong there. You’ve repaid me in full.” He looks away toward the front door of his home. “Years ago, I lost a friend because men in their cruelty deemed his life of no value. Eli was my best friend. In spite of his death, I still went right ahead and worked for men with their same brand of cruelty. I became a victim. Saving you has changed that. But it will never be enough.” Emotion fills his gaze. “I couldn’t save Eli.”

  “Maybe not,” I say quietly. “Yet you did something.”

  Friedrich nods. He holds out his hand, clasping mine in a firm grip. “God be with you, Kirk Hoffmann.”

  “I only pray He makes me worthy of what you’ve given me.”

  “Don’t worry.” Friedrich gives a slight half smile. “He will.”

  I pic
k up my rucksack and head for the door. I turn, looking one last time at Friedrich Voigt. He watches me as I go, gaze firm and reassuring.

  I open the door and let myself outside. It’s a glorious summer day, the air fresh and warm. I stare up at the sky in wonder. How beautiful it is. How precious life is. Maybe it takes coming as close to the end of it as I did to realize its value. By some miracle I cannot find the sense in, while others have been robbed of life, I’ve been given it back again.

  I still don’t understand.

  But for Friedrich and Katrin, and my friends wherever they may be, I will honor them by grabbing hold of this chance.

  Annalise

  June 30, 1943

  A letter rests beside the bowls of porridge and cups of ersatz on the breakfast tray. I carry the tray into the cell and place it on the wooden table. Cato, my cellmate, hastens to claim her cup and bowl and pulls her chair up to the table. Standing by the table, I pick up the letter, turning it over in my hands. The white envelope is addressed to me, the flap obviously ripped and resealed by the censor.

  We’re forbidden to sit on our cots during the day, so I lower myself to the rickety wooden chair. Cato’s spoon scrapes the sides of her metal bowl.

  My fingers tremble as I slit the envelope and slide out a single piece of folded paper. I hesitate before unfolding it. Since arriving at Rothenfeld Women’s Prison, my place of residence for the next two years, I’ve received no mail. In prison, one has a tumultuous relationship with news from the outside, simultaneously craving and fearing it.

  “Aren’t you going to read it?” Cato asks between gulps. My cellmate is a thief, not a political prisoner. The first day I set foot in our shared cell, she announced our system of rules, the only way she said we’d be able to live civilly together. One of those rules was no prying into personal business. I’d remind her she’s breaking it, but staring at the letter has rattled me more than I want to admit.

  I force myself to take a deep breath and unfold the paper. Small, even script fills the sheet.

  My dearest Annalise,

  I do not know whether this letter will reach you, nor if any of the others we sent have done so. But I must write. There’s no way to say this gently. Kirk has died. According to the letter we received from the prison, he died of typhus.

  Both Paul and I are thankful his end came this way. Our efforts to claim his body were met with refusal, so we do not know where or if he has been buried. This is very difficult for me to write, and I know it will be harder still for you to read. Paul and I are comforted to know he is with the Lord now, in our glorious, eternal home. I pray you too will be able to find peace. Peace, I have learned, is a choice, not a feeling. I don’t believe I fully understood this until the trials of these past months.

  We will try and send a parcel to the prison. Please write and let us know what we can do for you. A letter from you would bring us much joy. You are our daughter now, Annalise. Paul and I pray for you daily and send with this all of our love.

  God bless you,

  Mutter Hoffmann

  The letter falls from my hands, onto the floor. I stare at the gray wall, unwilling, unable to comprehend the words I just read.

  Kirk is dead.

  My body begins to shake uncontrollably.

  How does one grasp such finality? Such emptiness? Outside, in the world beyond prison walls, people go on. Life goes on. While Kirk’s … does not. The Nazis didn’t even care enough to return his earthly remains to his family. My husband will never have a resting place. A grave in some shaded spot to put flowers on, to visit on Sundays.

  I curse them for that. Not because they arrested us or tried us in a court of law that was a farce, but because they didn’t even have the decency to let Kirk be buried by his family.

  I bend double in my chair, hands fisted, head bent. Each breath is a shuddering gasp. My stomach churns with a wave of nausea. I clamp my lips together to keep from screaming. If I start, I know I won’t be able to stop.

  “Annalise?” Cato’s voice sounds far away.

  I look up. “My husband is dead.” The words are brittle and empty. All I can think about is the way Kirk’s eyes crinkled when he smiled at me and how I’ll never see his smile again. My hands go limp against the threadbare fabric of my prison dress.

  Cato’s hand settles on my shoulder. She crouches beside my chair. “I’m sorry, Annalise. Really, I am. Was he … executed?”

  I shake my head. “Typhus.” A choked laugh escapes. “They were going to execute him anyway. I guess he saved them the trouble.” The enormity of it, of this loss, swamps me uncontrollably. Tears slide down my cheeks, and I press my fist hard against my mouth, rocking back and forth. Cato rubs my shoulder, and I can tell she’s trying to say something soothing, but my wracking sobs drown her words.

  I don’t know how long I cry. Hours? Centuries? I didn’t know one could shed so many tears and yet they’d still keep coming.

  Finally, Cato helps me to my cot and covers me with a blanket, muttering something about rules and where the guards can stuff them. I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, lifeless and spent.

  How am I supposed to go on? To keep breathing? To keep living? More than that, how am I supposed to want to do any of those things in a world without Kirk?

  My gaze falls on the Bible on the table between our cots. I’ve read it nearly every day, clutching it against my chest, lips moving with prayers for a miracle for my friends, for my husband. Clinging to hope that the God who hears my prayers would actually answer me with one. Trying to have faith, to keep praying, to not give up in spite of everything.

  And even now I’m supposed to keep doing that?

  It’s a bitter prayer, if it could even be called one at all.

  I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

  The verse I read weeks ago fills my mind like an echo.

  All things? Surely some, but all? This? When I have nothing? Less than nothing?

  “I can’t,” I whisper in a voice raw from weeping. “I can’t.”

  He can.

  Where it came from, I don’t know, but the truth is there regardless. I don’t believe it right now, don’t even come close, but it gives me the strength to say in a tone more accusing than not. “Do it then, God. Do it through me.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Annalise

  April 24, 1944

  BOMBS SHAKE THE PRISON. In the air-raid shelter, dozens of women huddle beneath a single flickering lightbulb, listening to distant shrieking, casting anxious glances at the ceiling as if one more blast will bring it down upon our heads.

  I sit on a crate in the corner, hands between my knees, shivering in the chill night. Munich has been battered all afternoon, and after a respite, we’re being hit again. My eyes fall closed as another explosion tremors through the building with its crushing, crushing, falling sound.

  I no longer pray for God’s protection. Who am I to seek it when thousands are daily added to the casualties of war? Now I pray for strength to face the next moment and, if I am to die, a painless death.

  The women’s prison is also a detention facility for juveniles, and last month, fifteen-year-old Hella Hahn replaced my former cellmate who’d been released. A year’s sentence for telling a schoolmate Hitler’s war is one big lie. She’s lucky—these days many are losing their heads for less.

  Hella sits next to me, her bony shoulder pressed against mine. She clings to me like a child, her wide eyes and heart-shaped face making her look thirteen rather than fifteen. Now she rests her head against my shoulder, and I stroke her soft, thin hair with work-roughened fingers.

  It’s astonishing how easily one can acclimate to a new routine, until it seems the landscape of life has never consisted of anything else. The routine of prison has driven itself into my bones. Sometimes I wonder if the girl named Annalise Brandt, who grew up in Berlin and studied in Munich, is someone else entirely, and the woman in the shapeless gray dress who respo
nds automatically to commands and labors endless hours hunched over a table assembling electrical parts has been me all along. All those from our circle have left this prison—Traute, Giesla, and Katharina, released after a year. I’m the only one left.

  “It’s getting worse,” an older woman moans.

  “Be lucky you’re down here and not out there,” another says sharply. “This hole can’t hold all of us. Some are still in their cells. The next hit might blow them to bits.”

  Hella shudders. I wrap my arm around her shoulders.

  “Shut up. You’re making it worse,” a ginger-haired girl retorts. “We’ve got enough bad news of our own. We don’t need to hear yours.”

  The guard assigned to our shelter squints at the crumbling ceiling grimly, ignoring the quarrel.

  “Who asked your opinion?”

  “I’m entitled to one, aren’t I?”

  “Not here, you’re not.” A bitter laugh.

  Ka-boom.

  Plaster rains from the low ceiling, landing on the heads of the women like snow. The air smells of urine from the bucket in the corner.

  “We’ll be dead in an hour, so what does it matter anyway?”

  Hella whimpers. “Ignore them,” I whisper, pressing my lips against her hair. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  The insults and retorts fly back and forth, ragged nerves giving way.

  If Kirk were here, what would he do?

  How often I’ve asked myself that question. Thinking through his eyes has given me a clarity I would have otherwise lacked. Enabling me to be strong for others when I wanted to fall apart myself.