But I can’t help wondering if I will ever see Erich again.
MONDAY, 28 MAY 1945
Finally I received my discharge papers from the Americans. It is official, I am no longer under suspicion as former German military personnel, and, in theory, free to go wherever I want. But, as the Americans refused to give me a warrant as well as my discharge papers, I cannot use a train.
While I was arguing with the clerks, a very thin man tapped me on the shoulder. I didn’t recognize him but he recognized me. It was Samuel Goldberg, the camp inmate I had met in Dachau. He still looked ill, but better than when I had last seen him in the camp.
The American doctor at Dachau had warned him that he wasn’t well enough to leave his bed, but Samuel said he couldn’t wait any longer to begin the search for his family. He ran a printing shop in Hamburg before the war, and lived in the suburbs with his wife and three children. He and all his family, including his parents and brothers and sisters, were sent East in 1941. He knows that his parents and brothers are dead, but he was separated from his wife and three children in a camp in Riga in 1942 and has hopes that they may have survived.
The Americans gave him papers that entitled him to food, lodging and transport, for himself and his companions in any town or city in Germany. When I told him that I was looking for my son, parents-in-law and sister-in-law, he offered to take me with him. I couldn’t believe his kindness. We are leaving early tomorrow on the first train north. Samuel intends to start looking for his wife in Hamburg. He doubts that she will have been able to make her way back so soon, but other Jews who knew them might have, and he hopes they will have news of her and his children.
And Hamburg is much nearer Berlin than Bavaria. But is Erich still there?
TUESDAY, 29 MAY 1945
I am still at Frau Weser’s, wounded and angry. The horrible French soldier was very drunk when he returned to the house late last night. He and some of his comrades had spent the day looting Hitler’s house at Berchtesgaden. He had a pillowcase stuffed full of women’s clothes and tried to give it to me. I knew what he wanted in return and refused, but he wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried to fight him off and screamed for help, but Frau Weser and her son were in the barn looking after a sick cow and the other soldiers were out. When I smashed a vase over his head he shot me in the leg.
Frau Weser and her son came running when they heard the sound of gunfire. The bullet passed through my leg, ruining my only pair of stockings, home-knitted ones that Frau Weser had given me. My leg wouldn’t stop bleeding, so Frau Weser’s son went to fetch the doctor. He was out but his brother, also a doctor, had just returned from Berlin where he had been working in a military hospital. I asked him, as I ask everyone who has come from the north of Germany, if he knew Papa and Mama von Letteberg.
Miraculously, he had known and respected both of them. But he had the worst news. Papa and Mama von Letteberg are dead. They were killed when a bomb fell on their apartment block. He had heard that their grandson had been dug alive from the rubble, but he didn’t know if Erich was injured or what had happened to him. I cling to the thought that at least my son was alive two months ago.
I cannot put any weight on my leg but Frau Weser’s son gave me a stick to lean on. Samuel agreed to delay our departure for one day, but tomorrow we are definitely going north. I will visit the displaced persons’ camps and offices in Hamburg with Samuel. If I find no trace of Erich, Irena or Greta there, I will go on to Berlin, even though it is in the hands of the Russians.
SUNDAY, 30 JUNE 1945
Yesterday, I left Hamburg. Samuel and I registered our families with the Red Cross there, and they told me that Erich had been placed in a Catholic orphanage in Celle.
I couldn’t wait for a train, so, ignoring Samuel’s advice, I stood at the side of the road and begged lifts from army lorries. A British corporal drove me to the door of the asylum although it was out of his way.
When I explained who I was, one of the sisters took me to Erich’s bedside in the orphanage infirmary. He has diphtheria and is very ill. The sister in charge told me that he hadn’t opened his eyes in two days. She could see that I wouldn’t leave him, so she offered me a job as a cleaner in exchange for food and a makeshift bed on the floor of the attic dormitory where the older girls sleep.
I cannot stop thinking about Samuel and the expression on his face when I left him to climb into a lorry full of strange men. We have been as close, if not closer, than family these last few weeks. It was very hard to leave him. We promised to keep in touch, but how will we manage it, when neither of us has a home or even an address?
It was heartbreaking going from displaced persons’ camp to camp with him. Records of survivors are only just being made and they are not in any kind of order. I checked them as best I could for Irena and the girls, and asked every survivor we met if they had seen them but they all said the same thing. The German relatives of the conspirators were kept in separate accommodation in the prisons and camps, and no ‘ordinary’ prisoner or camp inmate saw them.
Conditions in the orphanage are dreadful but the nuns work very hard to keep the place functioning. What little food there is comes from charitable donations from the British troops. Although every adult does their best to keep the place clean, it is impossible given the huge number of children here, and so many more arrive at the door every day.
Mother Superior told me that she is sure that most of the children who are brought in by Germans are their own, but she hasn’t the heart to turn them away as they are all starving. Food is in such short supply that every German is hungry. At least once and sometimes twice a day, a British, French or American lorry turns up with a dozen or more small children that the troops have found in the bombed-out ruins. The children are sleeping three and four to a bed in the dormitories, so it is little wonder that so many have caught diphtheria and measles. As if that isn’t enough, one of the sisters diagnosed scarlet fever in a new arrival this morning.
If – no, when Erich recovers, I must get him out of here. But where can we go without any money or friends to help us?
SATURDAY, 18 AUGUST 1945
At last Erich is strong enough to leave his bed for a few hours at a time. He is painfully thin and very weak, but the doctor has assured me that, given good food, rest and care, he will survive without any permanent ill effects. But where can I get good food when I haven’t any money? I will take him out for a short walk this afternoon. It is warm and sunny, and perhaps the fresh air will do him some good.
SUNDAY, 19 AUGUST 1945
I am so angry I can barely hold this pencil for shaking. It was so obvious, once I was told about it. Why didn’t I think to ask the Mother Superior any questions?
I simply assumed that Erich had been brought to the orphanage by strangers, but yesterday evening, when I was sitting in the orphanage kitchen, talking to the sisters about our families, I said that as soon as Erich was well enough I would begin to look for my sister and sister-in-law.
Then one of the nuns told me that I didn’t have to look far for my sister if her name was Greta von Datski. That she was alive, well and working for the British as an interpreter less than twenty miles away.
The nun told me that Greta had brought Erich to the orphanage after Mama von Letteberg’s maid had taken Erich to her in the last days of the war. Greta had told the Mother Superior that she couldn’t look after herself, much less a child, and there was no one else left to care for Erich as the rest of the family had all been killed.
How could Greta have done it? If I had found Marianna or Karoline I would never have abandoned them in an orphanage.
Mother Superior saw how angry I was and tried to calm me. She said that life had been very hard for everyone in the weeks immediately after the war ended. She asked if Greta was my only sister and when I said yes, although I have a very good sister-in-law, she insisted that I should be grateful to Greta for taking the time and trouble to get Erich to safety, not cross with her for aband
oning him.
When I reminded her about the diphtheria, she told me there was no way Greta could have foreseen that Erich would contract it. She finished by saying that life is too short to harbour bitterness or grudges and I should never forget that Greta is my sister and the only one of my immediate blood family to survive beside myself.
Although I am not sure how Greta will greet me, I have resolved to go to the address she gave the Mother Superior. Even if Greta cannot or – more likely – will not help us, it is possible that she will have some news of Irena and the girls.
This is not the first time I have written that Irena is far more my sister than Greta ever was or could be, and I have a feeling it will not be the last.
MONDAY, 27 AUGUST 1945
As I feared, Greta didn’t want to know me or Erich, but she did ask a lot of questions about the family jewellery. She told me point-blank that she didn’t believe my story about the Russians taking it from me, and insisted I empty my rucksack.
I refused because I was afraid that she would take the deeds, keys and copy of the land grant to Grunwaldsee. Who knows when the Russians will leave East Prussia? I hope it will be soon so we can return. When we do, the deeds and keys will belong to Irena’s children, not to Greta.
I am always careful to keep the amber necklace that Masha and Sascha gave me hidden beneath my blouse, so I had no qualms about pointing out that I had lost all of my own jewellery as well as hers, Mama’s and Irena’s, which only made her more furious.
Greta is renting a large sunny room on the first floor of a fine house belonging to Frau Leichner, the wife of an officer who was an architect before the war. Herr Leichner disappeared at Stalingrad and Frau Leichner was very interested when I told her about Manfred. Like so many women all over Germany, she is still hoping that her husband will return. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the bodies of soldiers I had seen lying in the forest and at the sides of the roads when I fled from East Prussia.
Frau Leichner took to Erich right away, and he to her. Her own son died of whooping cough two years ago and, after hearing Greta order us out of her room, and shout that she could do nothing to help me or Erich, as she had enough problems keeping herself (I think the whole house heard Greta), she offered me a small room on the third floor in exchange for my help with the housework.
The room is very small, and only has a single bed, but there is a fireplace, and, when winter comes, I can forage in the woods for fuel. Frau Leichner offered to look after Erich for me in the afternoons so I can find work to pay for our food.
I know everyone is looking for work and there is very little about, but a room of our own means Erich and I can begin to live a sort of normal life again. Everyone was kind to us in the orphanage, but it was still an institution. I only hope I won’t regret my decision to leave.
Greta was furious when Frau Leichner told her I was moving in. She accused me of having no shame, and said it was demeaning for a von Datski to scrub floors and clean up after other people. When I asked her how honest work could be demeaning she went into her own room and slammed the door.
I look on this move as a temporary measure. One day – soon, I hope – we will return to Grunwaldsee, but until that happens I will continue to look for Irena and the girls.
If she is alive she will have nothing to give me except her love, but I am certain that she will give me and Erich a better reception than the one Greta gave us.
MONDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER 1945
I thought it would be difficult to ignore Greta as we are living in the same house, but it has been surprisingly easy. She is out at work all day, and often doesn’t come in until late in the evening or early in the morning. She dresses in expensive clothes; her suits are tailored from British woollen cloth; her stockings are American nylon; her perfume, silk blouses and cosmetics French.
When Frau Leichner complained that she often wakes the household by coming in at all hours, Greta insisted she is needed to interpret at dinners and parties.
She certainly has a lot of boyfriends, and every one of them is an Allied officer, but she doesn’t dare to close the door of her room when they visit her. Frau Leichner has threatened to put her out in the street if she tries, and there is such a shortage of rooms Greta knows she won’t find another one as good – if she found one at all.
She works for an English major, Julian Templeton. To Greta’s annoyance, he has been very kind to Erich – and me. He brings us tinned food and sweets for Erich. He had a daughter who was the same age as Erich, but she and his wife were killed in a bombing raid on London. He offered me a job cleaning the house that his unit has requisitioned on the outskirts of the town. The money he has agreed to pay me will make a great difference. I will be able to buy good food for Erich and pay our landlady to take care of Erich when I work there in the afternoons.
I told Julian about Irena, and he promised to make enquiries about her through the Red Cross for me. I do so hope that she and the girls are alive and well. Now that Erich is safe with me, all I can think of is seeing her and Wilhelm’s daughters again.
‘I had no idea the estate was so vast.’ Laura leaned back in her saddle and looked across the lake to the woods on the other side.
Brunon offered her a roll of mints. ‘Before the war it was ten times the size it is now. It bordered the town at one point. Grandfather told me that the von Datskis collected rents on forty-five farms.’
‘It’s more beautiful than I ever imagined. I can understand why my grandmother wanted me to see it from horseback. It would have taken us hours to walk to this point.’ Laura took out her camera and snapped the vista of woods that encroached right to the water’s edge. ‘I also know why she wanted to come back, and why she never talked about her life here.’
‘It’s a pity she wasn’t well enough to go for a drive with my grandfather,’ Brunon said. ‘He was disappointed.’
‘As was my grandmother when the doctor ordered her to bed. However, if past experience is anything to go by, she will force herself to be well tomorrow. Grunwaldsee is so beautiful,’ she mused. ‘If it had been my home and I had lost it, I don’t think I’d ever recover. It also explains where my grandmother lives now. She bought a lakefront piece of land in America and built on it, although everyone said the sensible thing to have done was buy an existing house.’
‘She built a house on a lake, like Grunwaldsee?’
‘Not at all like Grunwaldsee.’ Laura patted her horse’s neck. ‘Her house is wooden, modern, and very American.’
‘Your grandmother is a wise woman. I doubt that Grunwaldsee could be recreated.’
Laura pulled her horse’s bridle to the right, dug in her heels and followed him along the bank. ‘Are we close to the summerhouse?’
‘It’s about a kilometre away. This lane was widened in the seventies. But the summerhouse is much older. More than two hundred years old, according to my grandfather.’
‘My grandmother said it hadn’t changed from the last time she had seen it, although it had obviously been recently renovated.’ Shading her eyes against the glare of the sun, she looked out over the lake. ‘That’s a beautiful yacht.’
‘Nothing with an engine has ever been allowed here, not even in Communist days. Oil pollution has killed the fish and fouled the water in half the lakes around here, but not this one.’
‘And in the future?’
Brunon laughed. ‘My grandfather sent the West Germans with their motor boats packing, and now that the Russian who has bought the estate is of the same mind it’s probably as safe as any lake in Poland. Come on, let’s see how good a rider you are when it comes to cantering through woods. I hope you know how to duck.’
Laura rode after Brunon through the trees. The warmth of the sun brought the realization that it had to be close to lunchtime. Suddenly hungry, she recalled the sandwiches and bottles of water Brunon had slung on his saddle at his grandmother’s insistence.
‘Is it time to eat?’ she called.
‘Yes, and if we walk the horses down this way, we’ll come to the summerhouse. There’s a bench in the garden that overlooks the lake.’ He slowed his horse and, as they rode side by side, they talked of politics and everything and nothing. Laura was suddenly struck by how relaxed she felt in this young man’s company. He looked about the same age as her brother Luke but was far more mature, and she wondered if it was a result of spending so much time with his elderly grandparents.
She was laughing at a comparison Brunon had made between pop music and Wagner when the lane veered sharply to the left. A car blocked her path and she found herself gazing at a tall, thin, dark-haired man with disconcertingly blue eyes. Her horse reared, she shouted at it and fought to regain control, but the stranger proved quicker than her. Dropping the fishing rod in his hands, he reached out and caught the bridle.
‘Polish horses don’t like to be screamed at in English.’ Like Brunon, his English was American-accented.
‘I don’t know any Polish.’ She clung on to the horse with her knees.
‘As you’re in the country, perhaps it’s time you learned,’ he rebuked.
‘I’ll try to make a point of it,’ she retorted.
‘How long have you been here?’ he asked, still holding on to the bridle.
‘Three days.’
‘In that case I’ll forgive you. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Brunon?’
Brunon’s face had turned red, and Laura wondered if the man was a friend of the new owner. For all of Brunon’s assertions that ‘the owner wouldn’t mind’ he was clearly embarrassed at being caught riding his horses on his land. ‘This is Laura von—’
‘Templeton,’ Laura supplied.
‘Von Templeton?’ The man smiled. ‘Now that is an unusual name.’
‘My grandmother was a von. My name is plain Templeton.’
‘Michael Sitko.’ He translated his name into name into English and offered her his hand. ‘My friends call me Mischa. Are we going to be friends, Laura?’
One Last Summer (2007) Page 28