He could write something down. But how would that exonerate him? After all, he was wearing the uniform that was part of this mass evacuation and deportation. If by some miracle he managed to survive this assignment, there would be nothing left for him to do but escape to another place and start a new life.
“Becker!”
“Yes, Standartenführer ?”
“You know the assignment is not to stand around and dream all day about your idyllic life back home. Your job here is to keep the herds moving. Moving. You understand? I have ten transports to get out today. Ten!”
“Yes, Standartenführer!”
Becker quickly moved into the fray and started issuing orders to the soldiers unloading the trucks and shoving the people onto the train. An older gentleman fell to the ground and blocked the flow of people. Without hesitation, Becker immediately raced up to the fallen individual and kicked him until two other people knelt down and picked him up and carried him into the carriage.
He continued in this manner until the Standartenführer was back in the depot, and then receded into the background under the eaves. He knew that the Gestapo weasel standing by the truck would report him again. But he had proved his mettle. The most they could accuse him of was being lazy and a daydreamer.
What a joke; the Standartenführer, an uncouth butcher’s son from Hamburg, giving him orders. But then, in a hierarchy where the supreme leader was a crazy corporal from Braunau am Inn, it made sense that someone as educated as himself ended up at the bottom, while the boors rose to the top.
He looked at his watch. Nine more transports; nearly five thousand people. And this was just one train station, in one day. Staggering numbers.
Where were these transports heading?
From his corner he could see the Gestapo re-entering the station. He immediately emerged from the shadows and marched over to where a new truck was unloading its cargo. He started barking orders at the soldiers in the truck to not wait until the truck stopped, but to start shoving out the occupants on approach.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Standartenführer reemerge from the depot. He looked over at Becker barking orders and shoving and kicking people, nodded his approval and walked back into the station.
It was either this farce or the dispatch to the front, at least until his conscience buckled and he could no longer pretend, and then it was neither. He would end up at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße-8, Gestapo Headquarters. And from there it was rumoured that no one emerged. Or if they did, they emerged insane. But by then it would not matter.
DEPORTATION, BERLIN
WINTER 1942
It was being in this twilight state that bothered her the most: unable to stay truly asleep or alert. Prior to all that she recalled Anna’s father, Helmut, and Herr Lipschutz grabbing and dragging her into the bedroom and forcing some kind of bitter potion down her throat. She resisted bravely. But in the end she succumbed. The one man (did he resemble Helmut?) pinioned her arms back and crossed his powerful legs over her weaker ones. Gradually she receded into this state: between awareness and semi-consciousness.
In the latter state she was being carried between two people down the steps, across a hallway; the next minute she was cold, rushed through the night, bundled in a thin blanket and her pyjamas; and then she was indoors, warm again. She sensed she had been here before. She felt her head lolling back and struggled to keep her eyes open, the images fleeting through the slits: across a narrow hallway and up a staircase and onto a landing and into a room. And then the rushing stopped. She dozed off. At the edge of her consciousness she heard voices speaking softly, but with an urgent undertone. The firmer of the speakers fumbling with a blanket and resting her pliant body on a bed, then the other voice pulling a blanket over her, then silence.
The light went out, and she receded into a dream state. Munich. Her grandmother’s house; her soft, watery eyes and brittle voice; the Eintopf cooking on the stove; the warm fire replacing the cold outside. She longed to stay warm: warm and embraced; warm and wanted, and to finally come to a place where she could feel at home.
Otto Dreschler never came home. So Grandma explained. Bad men killed him. Why did she want to know? She couldn’t explain now, she was too young to understand. But Grandma’s son loved her dearly. He was a good son, a loving father, a decent man who did an honourable job. He was a policeman who bravely stopped a band of criminals who wanted to destroy their safety, their security, and create a state of anarchy. Leutnant Dreschler did that. And then he was killed for it.
Were the criminals who killed her father put in jail? Yes. What else could Elsa Dreschler say? They were jailed and served a mere fraction of their sentence and then released. If anything their incarceration served to highlight their cause - it made them heroes to a certain segment of the population. It was a myth invented to solidify their struggle for power.
Her daughter-in-law, Ann-Marie, was livid that they executed her husband. She took it as a personal affront when neither Police Chief von Seisser nor President von Kahr would speak up for her husband, when it was they who ordered him to suppress the coup. But by then they had secured plum jobs within the Nazi hierarchy and let Leutnant Dreschler and others - the low-hanging fruit - take the blame and pay the price. They were always cowards. The three of them: Minister President Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Armed Forces General Otto von Lossow and State Police Chief Hans Ritter von Seisser. The so-called triumvirate. They secretly despised the Weimar Republic and supported an overthrow but, fearful that it might fail, stood back to see which side would win and backed the winning horse. In 1923, the Weimar Republic won and the coup was suppressed. A decade later, in 1934, a year after Hitler became Chancellor, the Nazis were the winners and they came seeking vengeance. But by then the triumvirate flew the winning colours: the swastika. But Hitler and his henchmen were not to be dissuaded from baying for blood. Otto Dreschler was thrown to the dogs.
Ann-Marie championed her cause forcefully and vocally through whatever channels were available to her. She couldn’t bring Otto back, but she sought to rehabilitate his reputation by letting all know that Otto Dreschler did support the Nazis. But he supported law and order first and foremost, political affiliation second. If nothing else she sought to shame the triumvirate, to show them up as the spineless cowards they were, who refused to stand up for Leutnant Dreschler.
Gustav Kahr did relent to speak with her. He asked that she not attract attention to the situation of 1923. Germany was in chaos and mistakes were made. He even admitted that she might have a just grievance. But this was not the time to raise it and the Nazis were not the regime to satisfy it.
But she was not to be dissuaded. Either they came forward and declared Otto Dreschler an upstanding citizen and an honourable policeman and grant him the posthumous recognition he deserved, rather than being tarnished as a communist and a Jew lover, or she would take her crusade all the way to Berlin.
She was invited to Berlin to ‘discuss her case’, but on the way she was assassinated. The triumvirate and Berlin blamed the communists and the Jews. A comfortable attribution that pleased them both, trading in a currency that was easily transacted and accounted for any ill that befell the Nazi regime. Neither could the accused dispute the accusation: they were powerless and voiceless.
One morning a policeman appeared at Elsa’s doorway with Helga in tow to say that the child was an orphan. Elsa was too old and frail to take up the fight. The Nazis had claimed her son and now her daughter-in-law. Let the Jews and communists take the blame.
That’s what she told Helga. That Hitler was a good man and the Nationalist Socialists patriots. The lie did not quite erase the opprobrium that besmirched Elsa’s son but it protected Helga from seeking vengeance and dying to right a hopeless wrong. She sang Nazi songs, listened fervently to Hitler’s and Goebbels’ diatribes on the radio, and loyally adhered to the party by wearing the Hitlerjugend uniform.
With time Elsa grew infirm and could no longer be the surrogate mother to a grow
ing child. Helga was now twelve. Elsa asked Otto’s brother, Wolfgang, to look after her, at least until she turned eighteen. He refused, saying that he had enlisted in the Wehrmacht and would not be around to look after a teenager. The truth was that he did not want the ignominy surrounding Otto and Ann-Marie’s daughter to cloud his future. The Nazis did not allow even a hint of dissension.
Elsa unwillingly sold her modest house, took up residence in a nursing home and packed Helga off to her niece Magda Jodl in Berlin. There simply wasn’t anyone else. She explained in a brief letter the tragic fate of the Dreschlers and Helga’s circumstances, and included a sum of money secured from Helga’s parents and from her own savings. Elsa had never set eyes on her sister’s daughter, Magda. She threw the seed into the wind and hoped that it would take root.
Six months later, Elsa expired, heartbroken, in the home.
Helga is twirling in the small kitchen, watching her grandmother hunched over the stove preparing supper. Their little schnauzer, Arlo, is yelping happily: dinner for them, means dinner for him. German military songs are playing on the small radio resting on the counter; the prelude to a Hitler speech. Suddenly Arlo is barking loudly, in German, nuzzling her zealously to wake her up.
She can’t find the strength to move, let alone wake up. Once more she is lifted by two people and bundled in a blanket. Dragged across a landing and down the staircase into the open doorway and the cold, cold street. She has been here before. When? How long ago?
The thoughts fade, drowned in a sea of voices, noises, shouting, people barking orders. What is happening? She struggles to rouse herself from the dream, the stupor, to force her eyes open and look around. It is night, the street lights casting yellow haloes on the pavements. A man is holding her to his chest. He is moving quickly through a crowd. She is placed on a cold metal surface, and the man clambers on behind her, picks her up and places her on his lap. She is safe again. She lets her eyelids droop, and dozes to dream.
“Why is it you can’t resume a dream?” she asks Elsa.
Her Oma turned from the stove and looked at her with pride. You are a bright girl, the glint in her eyes said silently to her granddaughter.
“I don’t know, Liebchen. I believe that dreams are like little gemstones. Each one unique and radiant, and strung together they make a beautiful necklace. So you can thread dreams together like gemstones.”
“Will I ever have a beautiful necklace?”
“Oh, I am sure that you will have many beautiful necklaces. Not just one.”
The radio blared. Rudolf Hess introduced Der Führer. The spell of the moment was overwhelmed by harsh words, cast adrift on a roaring, angry sea.
“Do we need another war?” Oma muttered to herself.
“What was that, Oma?” Helga spoke above the din.
Wiping a tear from her eyes, Elsa turned to her granddaughter. “I miss your father. As I am sure you do.”
“He died a German patriot. For Hitler.”
Oma pursed her lips as tightly as she could and turned back to complete the meal. Sometimes the lie you tell shields the painful truth.
The rumble of the engine and the rocking of the truck stopped. Once again Helga was rattled from her dream. The back gate was swung open with a sharp metallic clang. Orders were barked into the interior and people were starting to move. She was handed across to another person who held her under her arms and set her down on the ground.
Gemstones strung together. Another gemstone to thread to the last one; soon there will be a necklace. One of many, Oma promised.
Once again I am cold. I can feel myself swaying with the movement of the truck. But I am standing on the ground. Two sets of hands grab me from either side and I am led, wobbling, across the ground and up to the steps. They haul me up and I am standing on a platform. We all stand still.
The twilight is starting to even - it is early dawn. My eyelids flutter open and I can see hordes of people on a train platform. Am I going back to Munich? Back to Oma? But Oma went away and I was sent to Berlin. I don’t understand. I look up and stare at the faces: the Lipschutzes. Why are the Lipschutzes taking me back to Munich?
We are in motion again. This time, moving towards the train boxcars, Heinrich stumbles on the metal rungs and falls to the ground. A man dressed in a uniform rushes up to help him. The conductor? No! He is kicking Heinrich in the groin and hitting him with a club. Other people help Heinrich up; he is tottering, and I stagger back.
Dreams can also be nightmares. Oma always told me if I woke up scared from a bad dream to remember if I saw blood. If I did, it didn’t happen. Heinrich has blood oozing from a cut above his forehead. This is not happening.
I am pulled into the boxcar after Heinrich and in front of Alana. It is dark and musty inside. Nearly all the people are taller than me; I feel small and suffocated. More people are entering the boxcar. Everyone is standing. A woman with a baby clutched to her breast is standing close by me. Two young boys enter the boxcar and stand up against the side opposite me. I can hardly breathe. I can’t even move to get more air.
I wait. When they all sit I will get some air.
Alana hands Heinrich a handkerchief. His hand is shaking as he holds it to the gash on his forehead. He is no longer bleeding. Now I panic. This is happening. I am going to suffocate to death in this boxcar with all these people around me. And the baby is starting to cry. We are squashed in to standing room only. The large door is rolled shut. It is now pitch dark and airless.
“Is this the train to Munich?” I ask in a faint and frightened voice.
Heinrich looks down at me, then at Alana. “Could be.” I am not sure who answered.
We stand like this in the airless, dank and dark boxcar and wait. No one says anything. The sounds from outside are mixed with the heavy breathing inside the boxcar: people too terrified to speak their thoughts. But the baby cries. And the mother soothes it with “Hush, hush”, bouncing it up and down on her hip, hoping to keep it still and silent.
Finally the train starts to move, our boxcar is yanked forward and we are jolted in the same direction. But we are so tightly compacted that no one falls - we just trample on each other. With the train in motion a bit of air sifts into the boxcar from the narrow shaft along the ceiling. Now the baby is bawling. But no one else is making any sound. We stand together like petrified beings bolstering each other up - the collective of old, young, women, men, children and a single baby. I no longer feel like I am being smothered. Somehow the motion of the train gives me comfort that soon this journey that began between dusk and dawn will end and I will be able to return to my own warm bed and fall into blissful dreams.
Someone in the deep interior of the boxcar asks, “Is there some water here?”
No one answers.
The same voice: “For the baby.”
Another voice answers, “There is no water here. If the baby is thirsty, why can’t the mother feed it?”
The train is turning a sharp corner, the boxcar tilts sideways, and we lean in the same direction. Again no one tumbles. An old man starts coughing. Someone says, “Asthma; he needs his medication.”
Someone else answers, “There is no water. He will have to take it dry.”
The train slows. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. We have arrived, or are arriving, at our destination. Thank God it was a swift journey. Even the old man with the asthma wheezes less intensely. The wheels finally grind agonisingly to a stop. We wait. No voices outside the boxcar to open the door. Someone says, “The trains are backed up on the line, that’s all it is. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Well, I can’t wait any longer.” An agitated male voice to my right. The crowd around me shifts even more tightly, closing the tiny gaps between us as he moves through. I can hear the sound of water hitting the can. He is urinating. That’s all we need on top of this, the stench of him relieving himself. The baby that was mewling up to now starts up again. If the doors don’t open up very soon there will be a riot in here -
we are all at the end of our tether.
The train trundles forward again. The jolt pulls us aft and then frontward. The man was right, this isn’t a stop; the tracks are backed up. The mood inside the boxcar turns grim; the collective short-lived relief is sucked in and we become stalwart in our tolerance. No riot.
For several hours the train moves at a reasonable clip and by turns we tilt to the right and then the left. The shaft of sunlight emanating from the ceiling brings with it crisp, cold air that mixes with the stench inside the boxcar. Other people, men, women, children, have used the tin. The odour is so overpowering that it permeates our hair, our clothing; our breath is suffused with it.
“Is this the train to Munich? Are you sure?” I need an answer, a ray of hope to get me through this dreadful journey. Otherwise I won’t be able to survive.
Alana Lipschutz looks down and smiles wanly. “I am not sure. But we will arrive soon and then you can go back.”
Nothing makes sense: go and come back? Does this woman imagine this is some kind of carnival ride that one takes for pleasure? I am about to demand a more unequivocal answer, when a voice right next to where the wheezing asthmatic is located yells, “He is going into arrest, the colour is draining from his face!”
The collective takes comfort from his discomfort: at least they are not dying. No one says anything.
“Is there a doctor in here?”
Silence, just the monotonous grinding of the wheels and the creaking of the wooden boxcar.
“A nurse?” The single last hope fading from the voice.
The baby’s mother pipes up, almost in a whisper, “I am a midwife and a trained nurse, but what can I do?”
We all silently agree. She can’t even keep the baby comfortable; never mind a choking asthmatic.
“I can barely feel his pulse. He is dying. Anyone?”
The collective guilt of helplessness keeps us gravely silent. No one has anything to offer. Not even commiseration.
THE MADNESS LOCKER Page 12