THE MADNESS LOCKER

by EDDIE RUSSELL

  “Magda, we all drink. All of us. And the share that you refer to is even smaller than ours.”

  “Yes, maybe, but it is a share still.” With a flick of her hand she indicated her unwillingness to continue the discussion.

  Helmut, however, sensed that this had more to do with the increasing sense of pressure that keeping Ruth hidden placed on the family and on Magda in particular. He started to wonder and worry whether this was the first crack in the hitherto impregnable facade; that with each passing year the chances of her being discovered lessened and, conversely, the chances of the Third Reich ending prematurely increased.

  Yet, even though the length of time favoured them, keeping up the deception was inevitably taking its toll. Maybe more on Magda who, in addition to having to keep up false appearances, also had to lie to her parents and her brother Martin, an SS officer, albeit in a lowly position. Although Helmut tried to keep his contact with Martin to a minimum, his distaste more for the uniform than for the man, running into him was inevitable when he came by to visit his sister and niece, or during the obligatory family gatherings. At one such occasion Helmut and Martin got into their usual squabble, with Helmut openly accusing Martin of mass murder.

  “Otherwise, where are all these people disappearing to? Huh? Except for one colleague who has been reduced to a retard, I haven’t seen anyone reappear. No postcards. No letters.” Away from the peering eyes of the Gestapo that seemed constantly to be lurking in the shadows, here, sequestered among the family, Helmut felt emboldened and lashed out unreservedly with his accusations.

  Magda could sense Martin’s embarrassment. Sitting at the corner of the table next to their ageing and hard-of-hearing father, he reddened, the collar of his uniform tightening like a noose around his neck. With a quivering finger he reached into the collar and pulled at it to discharge some of the pressure from the mounting onslaught.

  But that was not to be. Helmut, seeing Martin’s silence as a vindication of his accusations, rose from his chair and turned to face their mother, Greta, a prim and proper elderly woman with permed blonde hair.

  “Don’t you wonder? I mean, you probably have neighbours that have suddenly vanished and nobody asks any questions?”

  Stammering slightly, Greta turned to look up at Helmut. “These are difficult times. Things are not necessarily as we want them. But the situation is better for us than in 1929 when Gerhard lost his business and I had to take in ironing and washing just to survive.”

  “Better? How better?”

  Gerhard, who everyone had assumed was unable to hear the conversation that had devolved into an open argument, interrupted in a thick, quavering voice. “I don’t say it is better or worse. But the Jews, they don’t believe in fair business. So what Herr Hitler is saying to some extent is true. They have bled Germany—”

  Helmut was fully out of his chair now, ready to spring over to challenge the old man, who raised his hand, asking to be allowed to finish.

  “I am not saying all Jews. But these,” he waved his gnarled hand contemptuously, “these black-clad, bearded creatures; these are not Germans. They don’t participate in German life or culture. They keep to themselves, conspiring - only God knows what they get up to.”

  Helmut laughed harshly. “I am sorry, I don’t understand. Are you opposed to the Orthodox Jews, or to Jews in general because they are unscrupulous?”

  But Gerhard became tight-lipped again. If Hitler’s net caught some innocent along with what he considered guilty Jews, that was a price he was prepared to accept to restore Germany to prosperity. A hardened Teuton who had endured his share of hardships, he had come to accept life’s rule that everything had its price.

  Flustered, Helmut sat down and wiped his brow, perspiring even on this somewhat cooler and overcast day.

  An awkward silence fell around the dining table, with only Anna whispering something to her grandmother with an impish smile on her tender face. Greta turned to Magda. “Anna tells me that she has made a new friend.”

  “What?” The unexpected turn in the conversation caught Magda by surprise. Helmut instantly blanched and looked hurriedly over in Martin’s direction. “New friend? What new friend? Helmut and I don’t know anything about this! Anna!” More than questioning, her tone was reprimanding.

  But Anna wasn’t saying any more. She looked over at her grandmother, who was now sharing her mischievous smirk.

  Struck by the possibility that Anna might have revealed to her grandmother that she had befriended a Jewish girl, just when her grandfather was accusing the Jews of being un-German, Helmut was dumbstruck. Magda looked at him, her worried expression obvious.

  “Anna can have a male friend at her age. That’s not unusual,” Martin piped up from his corner.

  Both Helmut and Magda turned their attention to Martin, not quite taking in the lifeline he was throwing them. Once the initial panic settled, Magda turned back to Anna - “Is it a male friend, Liebchen?” - a warm and understanding smile evaporating the worry and panic from her face.

  “I am not saying. But Oma knows.”

  Following the Sunday lunch, and back at their house, Magda turned to Helmut when Anna was out of earshot. “Do you think Martin knows and he was helping cover up the truth? I mean, my father is quite capable of saying something, not realising the consequence for us. He blames the Jews for his bankruptcy. He would think that he was doing the patriotic thing, you know.”

  Helmut, struck by what he considered the sincerest display of camaraderie from his wife in as long he could remember, paused to reflect on the likelihood. “It is possible that he knows. But I can’t imagine how. So far as I know, other than the three of us, no one knows about Ruth.”

  Magda thought about it for a moment before replying. “What about her parents?”

  “Surely you don’t think that Heinrich and Alana would have said anything?”

  “No, that wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Did we ever find out what happened to them?”

  Helmut merely shook his head.

  “What about Helga, could she have mentioned something to my parents or Martin?” Magda asked, thinking back to her niece’s stay with them.

  “I don’t see how, she went back to Munich with Uncle Wolfgang at the same time as Ruth came to stay. She never had a chance to talk to either your parents or Martin.”

  They pondered the situation for a moment before Magda appeared to reach a decision. “The truth is that none of us are safe as long as she is here. I think we should talk to Martin, who we can safely assume is in the dark about all this. Persuade him to take Ruth to your aunt in Zurich. He will help once he knows the danger to Anna and me.”

  Helmut was silent for a long time, then reached across, cupping her hand in his. “I think that of all the options, that’s the best one at the moment. Unless Herr Hitler is kaput the next time they make an attempt on his life.”

  “Herr Professor, that’s not something you can count on.”

  BREMEN

  AUTUMN 1944

  Despite the best attempts of the propagandists of the Third Reich - chiefly Goebbels, but also in no small part Streicher’s Der Stürmer - the unfiltered news from the battlefront was that Nazi Germany was beginning to lose the war. On the Eastern Front, Operation Barbarossa ended with abysmal losses of a quarter of a million troops and half a million wounded after an initial onslaught which brought them to within twenty-four kilometres of Moscow by the middle of November.

  But by December the first blizzards of winter had set in. The Wehrmacht was neither equipped for a prolonged war, nor for the severe winter conditions that engulfed the Soviet Union. By the first week in December the newly amassed Russian troops numbering nearly half a million were able to push back the ill-equipped, depleted and demoralised German troops by over two hundred miles.

  The Wehrmacht had succeeded previously on the strength of short, intense battles or blitzkriegs, a lethal combination of air and infantry warfare that quickly overwhelmed the opponent an
d earned the Third Reich swift victories. But with Nazi Germany occupying ever larger parts of Europe, attempting to manage a war on two fronts and facing an increasing strain on its resources, the earlier successes, particularly on the Eastern Front, failed to materialise. The United States had also joined the war, squarely on the British side, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the pressure was beginning to mount on the Western Front as well.

  Friedrich Becker was home on his first furlough since he’d enlisted in the SS. Seated in the back garden of the small cottage that was his parents’ home, he tried to put forth the optimistic Nazi Party line to assure his parents and sister that all was well, and that despite the setbacks Germany would emerge victorious.

  “It is only temporary, believe me. The Wehrmacht is a very well-oiled machine. Like any machine, sometimes it needs fine-tuning before it can resume operations.” He was looking at his father, hoping that the analogy of machinery would explain and appeal to him at least, a veteran mechanical engineer working at the Benz factory.

  The tall, slender man watched his son through his piercing blue eyes, a customary look of scepticism clouding his bony face. “Oh, I believe you. But you haven’t told me what you think. You have told me what the party wants me to hear. I can almost tell you which Goebbels speech this analogy comes from.”

  “Herman! He is our son, and a staff sergeant. He is not going to tell you some made-up stories.” Friedrich’s mother, Marlis, ever espousing her belief in the military and its honour, would not surrender to the thought that her son could be delivering propaganda. A stout woman who until recently had worked at a garment factory, but due to a chronic arthritic condition gave up the job to work part time at a school, she looked upon her son with great admiration and respect, believing that he was serving Germany honourably despite her and her husband’s distaste for Hitler and his party. In their minds, politics did not define the military.

  “Don’t be naive. The Wehrmacht of today is not like when Bismarck was around. Herr Hitler and his friends are of a different ilk. You know, the other day we received orders for bulletproof cars for all the elite. Can you believe it? When did people shoot at German generals and high-level politicians?” Herman chuckled disbelievingly.

  “Now who is being naive?” Friedrich turned to face his father.

  “Look, I am just asking whether all this expansion, conquering of other countries, wars with the Bolsheviks and the British is achieving anything, because if it’s not, an awful lot of troops are dying for nothing. And don’t tell me Germans aren’t getting slaughtered in large numbers.” He punctuated his sense of frustration at getting stock answers by jabbing a pointed finger directly at Friedrich.

  There was a pause. An uncomfortable silence while Friedrich mulled over his answer as best he could under the circumstances, without revealing more than he should that would put both him and his parents at risk. The silence was briefly interrupted by his sister Brigitte, who brought out a tray of hot and cold drinks. Nobody spoke while she set the tray down and offered the drinks around. She put the tray aside by the door and returned to her seat next to her mother.

  “Were you having a secret conversation about me?” Brigitte smiled at her mother. “Not about eligible bachelors again, I hope?” Five years younger than her sibling, Brigitte still lived at home, and at twenty-eight was considered at the upper end of the age scale in terms of eligibility. She wasn’t quite being referred to as an old maid yet, but that description would draw nearer if she remained in her celibate state for much longer.

  “No, dear. Your father, ever the great diplomat, was accusing your brother of lying to us about the war situation.”

  “I wasn’t saying that he was lying. More like varnishing.” Herman looked at his son again, this time with a kinder, more inviting expression.

  Sighing with discomfort, Friedrich turned to his father. “What is it that you would like me to say?”

  “Well, I would think that the truth would be a good start. We are all good Germans; we have a right to know what’s going on. And right now I don’t think that we are getting much of anything from our politicians, other than the Third Reich is going to last a thousand years. Yet, at the plant, more and more fathers are reporting deaths at the front or severely wounded soldiers.” He spread his arms wide in a show of cloaking them in his secret.

  “Well, wounded and dead men are part of the war,” Friedrich blurted smugly, oblivious to his father’s attempt to subtly trade one secret for another.

  “Yes, I agree, but not when more of yours are dying and wounded than the enemy’s. It should be the other way around if this Reich is going to last.”

  Once again the small gathering was left with an awkward silence.

  Friedrich looked like he was juggling with several thoughts and emotions simultaneously. On the one hand he wanted to tell his family what he saw and knew. But on the other hand, if that knowledge somehow leaked from this household, it would put his parents and sister in peril and would almost certainly result in his being summarily dispatched to the Eastern Front, an almost certain death sentence; or even worse, internment at a concentration camp with the same final outcome.

  Having made up his mind, he rose, picked up his drink, a cold Pilsner, and nodded towards his parents and sister. “Let’s go inside.” When they appeared to hesitate, he nodded towards the patio door. “Please.”

  A look of surprise and concern descended on them as they humbly followed Friedrich to the living room and proceeded to take their places around the comfortable fireplace, while he pulled the door shut and drew the heavy maroon drapes. Rather than sit down, he walked over to the fireplace and rested his drink on the mantelpiece. Brushing his hair back, he undid the top button of his SS uniform and unclasped the Iron Cross from his collar, setting it with a clink on the marble top.

  “I am not going to varnish this for you. But I am also going to let you know that what I am about to tell you will put you all at risk. So if you want me to not continue, we can go back outside and resume our friendly conversation. Why don’t you all tell me whether you want to hear what I have to say?”

  In the small but comfortable room, normally resounding with lively conversation and dinner nearby, the words fell ominously, making the interior feel darker than it was with the drapes pulled.

  Herman looked at his wife, then his daughter. Getting no protest from either, he nodded for Friedrich to continue.

  “All right. In Germany, for the last couple of years there has been a process of evacuation of political opponents, mentally ill patients, homosexuals and anyone who is considered undesirable to the Third Reich, Jewish people in particular. At first the evacuation proceeded with small numbers, but lately the pace has increased to the point where we are running trains all day.”

  Herman put up his hand. “Trains to where?”

  Friedrich shook his head sombrely. “I am not sure. But last month, they started a rotation of SS personnel and it turns out, according to those returning to home duty, that the destination is not Africa, nor Palestine for the Jews, but deportation to the east, and large concentration camps.”

  They sat stunned, looking at him, unable to grasp the import of what he was saying. The shock of the revelation was much too overwhelming to take in.

  Herman started chuckling nervously. “What are you saying exactly?” he blurted. “That entire populations of Jews and non-Jews all over the Reich are being incarcerated en masse in large camps? How can that be possible? The logistics alone would be overwhelming - so much so that it couldn’t be kept a secret.” He turned to look at his wife, who sat dumbfounded, her head bowed, staring at the rug as if mesmerised by the pattern. Brigitte looked from her father to Friedrich and then back at her father, waiting for someone to say something that made sense, because this whole picture of mass incarceration was incomprehensible.

  When the disbelieving laughter subsided, and Friedrich remained silent, his father faced him sternly. “Do you have any
proof of this? I mean, I served in World War I and I can tell you that between truth and rumours there was a large gap of crazy stories, usually circulated by the enemy. Who told you this?” His tone was openly challenging.

  “Do you remember Ulrich?”

  “Which Ulrich? Ulrich Ebersbacher? The son of that idiot who has the hardware shop on Meinz Straße?” With that Herman jumped up, slapping his hands on his thighs as if that explained everything. “I mean, he didn’t even finish high school. He left, when, almost five years ago?”

  “That’s right, he left at that time after he joined the SD,” Friedrich continued for him, “but he also became an active party member - key role in Kristallnacht; then a senior assignment. And now he is a big shot. I don’t think he was lying; all he said was that if we lost the war, there would be a massive mess on our hands.”

  “What mess?” Marlis asked a question for the first time.

  “Resettling all those people, I assume all those hundreds of thousands of Jews, maybe millions. I don’t exactly know.” Friedrich’s voice faded with the enormity of the sums.

  His father, hearing the numbers, momentarily lost his balance and almost toppled into the couch. Once again a silence engulfed the room, although this time it was accompanied by a heavy sense of dread.

  “Friedrich, you should have given us some warning of what you were going to say. I mean, if I knew what it was, or a hint of it, I would have objected. I am also speaking for Brigitte,” Marlis uttered in a trembling voice laced with fear and grave concern. The information that Friedrich had imparted so brazenly clearly shook them, but at the same time, at least for Marlis, she was not sure that she should be a privy to it regardless of whether it was true or false.

  “Well, I am sorry if what I have said has disturbed you, but Father has been pressing me for information.”

  “Yes, but I thought that with all the drama that goes on, with Hitler and Goebbels making bombastic speeches, you would tell us there is some new plan of attack; you know, a military secret. An invasion plan.” Marlis looked over to Herman, who seemed either lost in thought or still numbed by the shock of what he had just heard.