The Borch family had left Munich and settled in Nuremburg in 1936. The father, a doctor with a large Jewish clientele, had seen the storm clouds gather. Many of his older patients knew his Jewish grandfather who’d started the practice.
Although this generation of the family considered themselves non-Jews, they had decided to break all ties and start afresh in Nuremburg. Moving straight into a large practice with a house attached had been made easy with the new race laws that excluded politically unreliable civil servants including Jewish doctors from state service.
By 1938, both Magda and Martin had been conscripted into the Hitler Youth and at fourteen-years-old, Magda had joined the BDM section, known officially as the Bund Deutscher Mädel, The League of German Girls.
Magda would have given her life for the Führer. At night, in her bedroom under the blankets with a torch, she would read, Der Mädelschaft, the Nazi magazine for girls. Then, when it got late, she would lay back and shut her eyes and recite the Jungvolk prayer she’d learnt.
‘Führer, my Führer, given me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need. I thank you for my daily bread. Be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light, Hail to my Führer!’
Then she would fall asleep clutching the magazine, dreaming of that September rally in the Nuremburg stadium.
On that Saturday occasion, there had been over 80,000 Hitler Youth. In their separate legions amongst the drumming and waving of flags, Magda and her brother had marched in step as the band played Horst-Wessel-Liedamongst. Then, her brother had performed military-style manoeuvres, which his local Hitlerjugend had practiced for an entire year. It had ended with a night-time grand finale that included spelling out the name 'ADOLF HITLER' with flaming torches.
Young Martin Borch and his boys’ group had been lucky. With his dark hair combed over, Führer style, and wearing the summer uniform of black lederhosen with brown short sleeves and party armband, he’d found a good place to view the event from near the concrete podium with its giant swastika. Looking up, he had waited, shaking with excitement like thousands of others. Then the buzzing had started. Gradual at first, but becoming increasingly audible until, the tumultuous welcome as their saviour stepped up to the microphone. Martin told Magda afterwards that the Führer had looked at him and smiled. Jealous, she had claimed he’d looked at her as well.
Hitler had given a speech in which he spoke candidly about his own youth and painful adolescence, and then ended by telling them: ‘You, my youth, are our nation’s most precious guarantee for a great future, and you are destined to be the leaders of a glorious new order under the supremacy of National Socialism. Never forget that one day you will rule the world!’
When he’d finished, alongside thousands of others, over and over until they were almost hoarse in a whipped-up frenzy, Magda and Martin had shrieked,
‘Sieg Heil!’
By 1943, Magda had been a BDM section leader working in the ethnic German resettlement programme called Osteinsatz. At 18 years old, she still wore the regimental white socks with her long dark hair braided and pinned up, Gretchen-style, in keeping with the young women in Dr Joseph Goebbels propaganda films. Some of the other girls envied Magda because it was the 'in style' and you needed long hair to make the Gretchen braids look decent wrapped around your head.
Magda had volunteered for land service in the east where BDM girls, wishing to participate, could volunteer for work in the areas of Poland annexed to the Reich. Amongst other things, this consisted of teaching German to farming families and handing out clothes and food stamps including various rations to help the repatriation of ethnic Germans.
Not content living at home with evening parades or weekend camping trips Magda had wanted to do something positive for the Fatherland. By then, parents had learnt it was unwise to object to Hitler’s youth policies.
Magda had struck up a friendship with a young Polish maid in the resettlement camp. The maid had been detailed to serve a couple of Red Cross officials during their five-day inspection stay. They were here, courtesy of Heinrich Himmler, to show the world press, including neutral countries, how well resettled Germans were living under National Socialism. This, they hoped, would quash rumours that had been spreading concerning the welfare of refugees that were being transported to the east.
Prior to the Red Cross party arrival, the camp had been cleaned up with extra care. With freshly painted huts, new curtains, rugs and bedding, Magda had just assumed this spring clean was the norm.
Like most of the BDM girls working at the resettlement camps, Magda was very innocent of the ways the regime she chose to follow could be so brutal. It had come as a shock when she had been personally confronted with the results of the Fuhrer's racial laws and policies. She had heard rumours of terrible things in the ghetto at nearby Lodz. She’d only seen posters and propaganda films with laughing families, all eating together, tending lovely gardens, children playing in their best Sunday clothes; everybody without a care in the world. Sometimes the films would make her homesick. However, the stories filtering through that told otherwise seemed to be on the increase. So, Magda had decided to find out for herself what was going on.
From May 1940, the Lodz ghetto with 163,000 Jews had been sealed off from the rest of the city. Deprived of possessions or means of subsistence, they had been cast into squalor, overcrowding and destitution. Unbeknown to Magda, the pauperization of the Jews was an integral part of the Führer’s resettlement plan. When plans for the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto had been delayed, the Germans had set up factories and workshops.
On the pretence of doing some shopping, Magda had got a lift into Lodz and boarded the tram that ran through the ghetto. The tram windows were painted on the inside so no one could see through and the doors were ominously locked. The German authorities had cut off the ghetto from the rest of the town and made it strictly out of bounds.
The journey through the ghetto had picked up no passengers. It had been purely to get people from one side of Lodz to the other. Magda had sat at the back on her own. She’d noticed little peepholes had been scratched on the painted windows, so she scratched some more. What she had seen made her put her hand to her mouth in horror. Jewish children wearing the Star of David had stood in rags, half-starved against the barbed wire fence. As the tram has passed them by, one child, a small girl, had outstretched her arms as if pleading to the driver. A very young boy had lain motionless, spread out at her feet with matchstick arms and legs. Farther away on the pavement, she had seen bodies, some naked – just skin and bone. As the tram had rumbled on, through her peephole she had seen two Jewish men pushing a cart, picking up bodies along the road as they went.
When she had returned to camp and told her friends what she had witnessed, they had been horrified. Some hadn’t believed her. Magda had confronted Anna, the Polish maid, but she was too afraid to talk about it.
Immediately, Magda went to see her camp Gebietsführer. She had written a report and handed it to the area youth leader.
Wearing her BDM uniform of a blue skirt and white blouse bearing a small swastika on the sleeve and looking very smart with her cap and party badge sitting on her Gretchen braids, Magda had stood to attention in silence. The Gebietsführer had sat down and read her account of what she’d seen. When he had finished, he had smiled at her and folded the report.
‘You must keep this to yourself, Magda,’ he told her.
‘But why?’ She asked him in astonishment. ‘All my group know and my friends, it’s terrible how these people are being treated.’
In his mid-twenties and wearing a black uniform with highly polished Jack-boots, the good-looking blonde Gebietsführer had come around from behind his desk and told Magda firmly,
‘You would be wise to tear the report up and say no more.’
Magda had replied defiantly,
‘I want my report sent to Berlin, to Reichsjugen
dführer, Artur Axmann, himself.’
‘Don’t be silly, Magda, this can do you a great deal of harm,’ the Gebietsführer had said, trying to reason with her; but she wasn’t going to be intimidated.
At 18-years-old, Magda had been tall, taller than the Gebietsführer himself. She had also been very single minded. She had snatched the report from his hand,
‘Then I’ll send it myself,’ she had said with a satisfied sneer.
‘Don’t be stupid, Magda. The report should be sent through the proper channels, as you very well know.’
She had snapped back at him,
‘So they can be censored like all the other letters?’
With that, she had turned on her heels and stormed out of his office.
As the door had slammed, already he had been picking up the phone.
In defiance, Magda had given the letter to Anna, the Polish maid, so that she could hand it to the Red Cross gentlemen she had been hired to wait on. As expected, she heard no more about it.
A week after Magda had returned home to Nuremberg, the family had been having dinner one evening when some SS soldiers had arrived. The SS-Obersturmführer with six of his guards had burst in, smashing the door down.
‘Hands-up! Hands-up!’ You Mischling Scum,’ he had shouted, forcing them against a wall with pistols and rifles.
Dr. Borch had protested,
‘What is this? Why are you here? What have we done?’
The Obersturmführer had knocked him to the ground with his pistol.
‘Shut-up! You Jew harbourer.’
While two guards had covered the family, the rest of them had stormed up the stairs to the attic. There had followed further shouting and pistol shots.
‘Rouse! - Rouse! Hands-up, you Jews.’
The Borch family had huddled together in terror at the bottom of the stairs.
The unused attic had had a fire escape. Unbeknown to them two days earlier, a Jewish family had got in and ensconced themselves in hiding. The mother and father with the son and daughter, all wearing the Star of David, were found behind the large drapes. With hands on heads, they were marched down stairs. At machine-gun point, both families were ushered into the back of a lorry.
The Borches had been set up for harbouring Jews. The Jewish family had been pulled out of a transport queue for resettlement, as the SS called it, in cattle trucks going east. With the promise of food, clothes and clearance papers to the Swiss border, they had gladly cooperated with the charade.
Magda’s report, which she had signed with her Hitler Youth membership number, had eventually reached the desk of Heinrich Himmler, via the Red Cross.
In view of the eyewitness account and other stories that had been circulating around the Lodz ghetto, the Red Cross had wanted to come and see for themselves. They had planned to send a three-man delegation in one month’s time.
Himmler had exploded with rage. He had wanted to know who had leaked the information. It hadn’t taken long. Magda’s camp Gebietsführer had telephoned and sent a warning letter at the time to the Staff Leader, head of Magda’s district. But the letter had been ignored and pigeon-holed. The silly ramblings of a girl, the Staff Leader had thought to his misfortune.
Himmler had shouted down the telephone.
‘I want a full investigation and anything that can be dug-up about the Borch family. I want that family reclassified as 1st degree or 2nd degree Mischling, do you understand? If there aren’t any Jewish ancestors, then bloody well invent them,’ he had screamed.
It hadn’t taken the Gestapo long. After some interviews with neighbours back in Munich, and a visit to the parish records, they had found all they had needed.
By October of 1943, her parents had been sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria while Magda to the Westerberg Reformatory Detention centre for Girls, north of Berlin.
Her life at the reformatory had consisted of soul-destroying hard labour, semi-starvation, and unpredictable punishment. All designed to break her spirit and lead her to renounce her Jewish sympathies and find true National Socialism.
Irma Schulz had been one of the people trained to break Magda’s spirit. At only the age of twenty she had been in the Oberrottenfuhrer, a section leader in the BDM and in charge of Magda's reformatory block. On the short side with blonde hair braids that framed a roundish face and slightly overweight, Irma had been an ardent National Socialist who craved advancement. Already a member in the National Labour Service, the Reichsarbeitsdienst, which had got her the section leader job at the reformatory, she had been ready for the next step up which was to be an area leader, a Hauptbannführer.
Irma had applied for the promotion three months previously and had sent the application form to regional head office. She had heard nothing since. She had been to see Gisela Hoffmann, the Stabsführer of the reformatory. The Stabsführer staff leader, a stern, slim woman with high cheekbones, greying wavy hair and a side parting, had had other things on her mind.
Dr. Jutta Ruediger, the Hitler Youth National Leader of the BDM, was coming for an inspection visit in two week’s time. Besides dismissing Irma’s promotion question with a wave of her hand, she had made it quite clear, as she had told the other section leaders; her block, consisting of sleeping quarters, toilets and workshops had to be spotless, in time for the inspection. If any deficiencies were highlighted, the BDM leader of that block would be dismissed, with a covering letter to national office giving the reasons for expulsion.
Now in a bad mood, with no promotion in sight and with more pressure and work heaped upon her because of this inspection visit, that afternoon, Irma had had all the girls including Magda, lined up in the sewing workshop.
With their heads bowed, Irma had strutted up and down the line screaming abuse at them and reiterating the words of her boss. Magda had put up her hand defiantly; the others had not lifted their heads. Irma had stopped in front of Magda and raised her whip.
‘Yes, what is it, you filthy Mischling? And you better have a good excuse for interrupting.’
‘Please, Miss, we’ve had no hot water for bathing for three days. If you want us to wash the floors as well, can we have some coal for the boiler?’
The others had shifted uncomfortably. Irma Schulz hadn’t been able to believe what she’d just heard. With a red face pulsating with anger and spittle oozing from the side of her mouth, she had shouted with a sarcastic sneer,
‘You filthy half-Jew scum. Do you think I give a rat’s arse what you wash in?’
The whip had come down repeatedly across Magda’s face as she had raised her arms to defend herself.
‘We have no coal because the Jew allied bombers have destroyed the coal yards.’
The others had scattered as Magda had backed away then tripped and gone sprawling, Irma standing over her, Thwack - thwack - thwack - with her riding whip, thrashing away with a fixed grin of delight while Magda pleaded for her to stop.
‘What coal there is goes to good German families, not half Jew maggots,’ she screamed.
Eventually, physically exhausted by the flogging, Irma had stopped herself. She had taken out a handkerchief and wiped her forehead.
‘This goes for the rest of you if the cleaning isn’t up to scratch, do you hear me?’ They had all nodded and continued to look down. ‘Now clear up this mess.’
Magda had been moaning in pain on the concrete floor. Two girls had grabbed an arm each and dragged her back to the sleeping quarters. They had filled an old tin kettle and put it on a wood stove. With Magda laid out on her bottom bunk, one of the girls had supported her head as she had tried to drink some tea, while the other one had dabbed her wounds with warm water.
‘Best not to put your hand up again, Magda,’ another girl had joked as she was offered more tea.
Magda had forced a smile.
‘Fuck her,’ she had said.
On the morning of the reformatory inspections, wearing a
n immaculate blue blazer and party armband with a matching blue skirt and white blouse, all finished off with a military cap and chinstrap, Dr. Ruediger, Reichs Deputy of the BDM had arrived in a gleaming black Mercedes with two other high-ranking officials from the German welfare department. A red carpet had been laid up the steps to reception.
In full Stabsführer regalia, Gisela Hoffmann had lined herself up with her section leaders to greet the Reichsreferentin. After a Nazi salute they had shaken hands then one of the reformatory girls, washed and dressed in spotless work clothes, had curtsied and presented the doctor with a bunch of flowers.
The delegation had toured the vegetable gardens, then through a variety of workshops filled with busy girls at sewing machines; some of them making uniforms or darning socks, others producing coarse flannel underwear - all for the glorious Wehrmacht fighting at the front.
The inspections had gone well and by lunchtime a meal had been prepared in the large communal dining hall. For the occasion, the guest silverware and candelabra had been polished then set out with swastika-embroidered napkins made in the sewing workshop. The raised staff table at the front with its gleaming salvers and spotless white dining-cloth overlooked six other much longer tables.
Each reformatory block had had a table of fifty girls. Just this once, they had been wearing laundered and pressed work-clothes and had an especially prepared nutritious meal. It had had to look as though it was the norm. There had to be no hiccups.
The reformatory had never been state audited nor had to submit an expenditure account. The yearly budget they had received was more than ample, even after Gisela Hoffmann had taken five-thousand Reich marks from it and hidden the money in a biscuit tin under the floorboards in her bedroom.
Gisela Hoffmann, with her six section leaders and Dr. Ruediger by her side, watched as 299 girls filed into the dining hall and stood stiffly to attention at their tables with heads bowed. The one empty place belonged to Magda Borch. Irma had her on punishment detail scrubbing the toilet block floor. As they were about to sit, Dr. Ruediger asked if she could wash her hands.
From A Poison Pen: A collection of macabre short stories Page 11