In spite of the fear of reprisals and the uncertainty as to their future, Lotte was optimistic. She raised her glass and toasted their freedom in champagne. ‘My dear friends. It is hard to believe it will soon be over. You can start living your lives again.’
She lifted her glass to her lips and began to sip. Her best friends were with her. Peter, Franz and the Professor. And not forgetting Wolfi. Each of her companions raised their glass and repeated her toast, ‘To dear friends!’
‘Boom! A loud thunder clap shattered the near silence. And then another. ‘Boom!’
With no further warning an enormous explosion shook the building. The force of the blast was so powerful that Lotte and Peter were thrown to the floor. The Professor and Franz were still sitting on the sofa, covered in plaster and dust. Wolfi’s usually dark black coat was white with a covering of the powdered plaster. This was not a thunderstorm of nature’s making.
‘Lotte! Lotte! Are you all right?’ Franz was the first to react and was frantically digging for Lotte under a pile of plaster and debris. Peter checked the Professor was uninjured and began to help Franz. Wolfi shook the dust from his coat and began to dig in the rubble where once the wall had stood. As they flung bits of masonry to one side, the rapid fire of machine guns came ever closer, accompanied by more mortars exploding. The Russians were close to the Reichstag just a few streets away.
After a few tense minutes Peter and Franz helped Lotte to her feet. She was dazed and apart from a few scratches, unharmed. She had been blown under a mahogany side table that had taken the force of falling masonry.
‘I’m fine,‘ Lotte said again and again, as the boys fussed around her. ‘Pity about the champagne.’ Peter and Franz smiled at one another. They knew she really was fine.
‘Hands in the air! Now!’ The order was in German, with a distinct Russian accent. It came from a young soldier in Soviet Army Uniform. He was pointing his weapon at Peter. To either side of him were standing two other soldiers. A fourth soldier in what appeared to be an officer’s uniform pushed past them. None of them had heard the rifle bolt as it was pulled back, such was the ringing in their ears from the explosions. Peter, Franz and Lotte stayed completely still, moving only to raise their hands. Just moments before they had been celebrating the imminent defeat of the enemy.
‘Jews! We are Jews!’ Peter said desperately.
‘No Jews, all dead!’ the soldier said in broken German.
‘No! We are Jews! It’s the truth,’ Peter pleaded.
After everything they had been through the prospect of dying at the hands of the Russians was too cruel. He held Wolfi back by his collar as he strained to get to the intruders. One of the soldiers looked menacingly back at Wolfi and grasped his rifle tightly.
Behind Peter an unfamiliar sound could be heard. The Professor was speaking in a language he could not understand.
‘It’s Russian,’ he said to Franz, ‘the Professor speaks Russian. He will be able to persuade them.’ But their hopes faded as the aggressive faces of the soldiers remained unchanged. Their guns were still threateningly close to their faces. None but the Professor could understand the soldiers’ gruff responses. The manner of delivery left little doubt however.
‘It’s no use,’ the Professor explained. ‘They have this address as the home of a top Nazi. They refuse to believe there could be any Jews here. Everywhere they go, everyone is claiming to be Jewish.’
‘Tell them I still have my original identification card with ‘J’ for Jew stamped on it,’ Peter replied. His desperation was heart rending.
‘It won’t help Peter. They have seen so many forged passes they will think it is just another one. Especially as we are all carrying forged passes at the moment.’ The Professor spoke again in Russian. They did not understand, although the anxiety in his voice was clear. The officer said something in Russian and pointed towards Franz and Peter.
‘Niet! No!’ the Professor shouted, moving towards his friends. The officer prodded his chest with his machine gun. Walking towards Peter and Franz, the three soldiers held the muzzles of their guns just centimetres from the boys’ faces. Wolfi reared up at the soldiers barking all the time, his fangs bared and gnashing. Peter struggled to restrain his dog.
‘Down Wolfi! Down!’ Peter said. One of the Soviet soldiers had aimed his rifle at Wolfi’s head and was about to shoot.
Wolfi did not understand, but obeyed nonetheless. Thankfully the soldier did not shoot and momentarily lowered his weapon, before raising it to shoulder height once more.
‘Come with us,’ one of the soldiers said in German and roughly grabbed Peter’s shoulder.
‘No! Leave him! Let him be!’ Lotte’s shout was so loud it caused everyone to stop. Peter and Franz were no longer scared of their own fate. The officer was looking at Lotte and both were terrified of what might happen to her. Worse still the other soldiers were now fixated on her.
The Professor began to babble in Russian once more. He had said just a few words when a strange sound pierced the air. Even with a background accompaniment of gunfire and shells it was unmistakable. And it was getting closer.
Herr Riesen climbed through the hole the soldiers had used. He was no longer Herr Riesen. He was the concert violinist once more. Even as he clambered over the rubble his hands expertly played the violin. Peter had heard it before, but could not name the piece. It did not matter. Whatever the music was the Russian soldiers stopped and listened.
After a few minutes the great violinist took the instrument from under his chin and began to sing. The words initially meant nothing to Peter.
‘Hava neranenah ve-nismeha, hava nagila,’ the violinist sang. His voice was loud and clear. Soon the violinist’s voice was joined by another. It was the Professor. It had been years since either he or Peter had used this magical language. A third voice joined in the singing as Peter recalled the words he had learnt so long ago.
‘Let us sing and be happy. Let us rejoice.’ That was the meaning of the song. If they were to die they would die defiantly.
‘Hava neranenah ve-nismeha,’ the words rang out, this time in a deep bass voice. A voice with a strong hint of a foreign accent. It was a miracle! The officer had joined in.
‘He is a Jew! He is a Jew!’ the Professor shouted. It had been twelve long years since anyone had been able to shout these words in public in Germany. After several magical minutes the song came to an end and silence fell. At first no-one moved. Then the Professor spoke pointing at the violinist and at each of his friends in turn, first Lotte then Peter and finally Franz. The violinist bowed as his name was spoken.
The officer issued a command in Russian. The soldiers immediately lowered their weapons. The officer spoke to the Professor and as he did he took a small notepad and a pen from his breast pocket. He scribbled several sentences. They did not understand, but Lotte, Peter and Franz recognised their own names. The Russian officer stopped and spoke to the Professor in Russian once more. The Professor replied briefly in just a few words. Finally their new found friend signed the document and handed it to the Professor.
The two men shook hands. The officer said something to his soldiers in Russian and, saluting all those present, left the way he had arrived.
‘We have safe conduct around the city,’ the Professor beamed. ‘And when things are settled we can exchange it for official passes. Our war is over!’
The piece of paper in his hand bore not only his name, but those of his friends.
‘It says that we are all enemies of the Third Reich and friends of the Soviet Union,’ the Professor translated. ‘Anyone who harms us will be treated as a war criminal.’
The five companions embraced in a circle. Not one of them could hold back the tears. Wolfi sat right in the middle barking his approval.
* * *
Almost a year after the Soviet forces entered Berlin and tore down the Swastika from the Reichstag, Peter and Wolfi were in the Tiergraten. Peter was sitting on a bench that not long ago ha
d been denied to him. In the year since the war in Europe had ended, Peter and Franz had remained at Lotte’s apartment. The wall had been rebuilt at enormous cost. Fortunately, even though close to the Russian sector, Lotte now lived in the British zone. The Professor, a regular visitor, remained at his old apartment, free from the fear of denouncement. Berta had returned from Switzerland with little Hannah and somehow managed to reclaim her old house. Remarkably it was undamaged by either bombing or shelling. Lotte bravely accepted the strong attachment that Hannah had formed in the months with Berta and resolved to play the loving aunt, rather than mother. Herr Riesen, as he was once known, had very quickly been able to emigrate to the USA with his children where he played to packed concert halls.
On this particular day Peter had just returned from the synagogue in the Oranienburger Strasse. Each day for almost the last year this had been his first port of call. It was the headquarters of the ‘Organisation for Displaced Persons’. Each day, like so many others, he had sought news of his mother and father. As usual there was none. Franz had long ago accepted that his parents were no more. Peter was still unwilling to give up hope. From time to time he travelled back to his first hiding place in the woods where he had left clues for his father. He found nothing. For the first time in a long while he was overcome by an unfamiliar feeling. Despair. During the war his fight for survival had largely occupied his mind. Now that the full horrors of the camps had emerged he knew the prospect of seeing his parents again was very remote. As he contemplated this terrible reality for the first time he failed to notice Wolfi and the man playing with him.
‘What a great dog you have. I knew a dog like that once. What is his name?’
Peter looked up at the figure in front of him. It was an old man. His face suggested he was about seventy, his eyes somewhat younger. He was very thin, which was not uncommon, even so long after the war. His hair was very grey and receding and his hands looked frail. Peter could just see the last few numbers of a long tattoo on his left arm. Wolfi was bouncing up and down excitedly. More excited than Peter had seen him for years. His tail was wagging and he was barking. The bark was not aggressive. It was the sort of bark he gave when Peter returned to Lotte’s apartment. The sort of bark that used to greet his father when he returned from the city.
Wolfi’s reaction to this man confused Peter. Other than the Professor he had greeted no-one else with the same enthusiasm.
‘Wolfi. His name is Wolfi and he is a great dog,’ Peter said proudly.
The old man looked up. ‘Wolfi, Wolfi,’ he murmured. The excited dog was pressing against the old man’s legs.
‘Down boy! Down!’ the man commanded. Wolfi sat immediately, though his tail still made semi-circular sweeps across the ground.
‘I followed my son’s clues. I have found his dog, but not my boy,’ the man said sadly.
Peter’s mouth had gone dry and he struggled to speak. He had hoped for so long, but now the reality refused to sink in. ‘Papa? Can that really be you?’ He was standing holding the elderly man by the elbows.
‘Papa?’ he repeated in disbelief. This could not be his father. He was a large man, very tall and stocky with a paunch. Now Peter towered over him. Whereas Peter had grown tall and athletic, his father was stooped and weary.
The man was also confused. The dog was certainly Wolfi, but the boy was unlike the son he remembered. The son he had dreamed about all those years in the camp. Of course that boy was only fifteen when they had lost each other. And that was five years ago. This was his son and he was a fine young man.
‘Peter? Can it really be you? My Peter?’ the man asked again, barely daring to hope.
Peter stood back and examined the man carefully again. He wanted to believe it was his father, he was still uncertain.
‘And Wolfi! What a dog you are! I knew you would look after my son,’ the man said. ‘That night when you jumped off the boat, I saw Wolfi save you.’
‘It is you Papa!’ Peter cried out and hugged his father to him.
They held each other tightly for several minutes, neither saying anything. Moments later Peter stood back a little. ‘And Mama?’
Isaac did not speak. He simply shook his head and pulled Peter to him once more. Wolfi lay at their feet looking up.
At the edge of the park, Lotte and Franz watched as father and son, reunited after so long, clung to each other, weeping.
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