The Edelweiss Sisters: An epic, heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel

by Kate Hewitt

  He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, continuing to stare straight ahead, his jaw tight.

  “What’s happened?” Birgit asked softly. “You’ve changed since I saw you last. You’re… harder now. Since the summer… when you were in Russia… Did something… something must have… What happened?” she finished helplessly.

  Werner clenched his jaw even tighter. “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do,” Birgit insisted. She wasn’t thinking about Ingrid now, or information, anything like that. She was thinking about this man in front of her, whom she loved, had loved since she’d first met him, even when she hadn’t wanted to, and how tormented he looked now. “Werner, please.” She laid a hand on his sleeve. “Tell me.”

  To her shock, Werner jerked the wheel of the car hard, sending them careening off the road, pebbles flying up as the car skidded and Birgit let out a scream. She clutched at the door to keep her balance as the world blurred by and she wondered if Werner would catapult them right off the cliffside.

  He kept his grip on the wheel, bringing the car to rest on a grassy bank on the side of the road. Birgit’s heart was pounding and her whole body felt weak as she collapsed against the seat. If he’d pulled the wheel in the other direction, they would have gone straight down the side of the mountain.

  Her breath came out in a frightened rush as she pressed her hand against her chest. “Werner—”

  “You don’t know the things I’ve seen,” he stated. He still had his hands on the wheel as he stared straight ahead; his skin had taken on a grayish cast, beaded with sweat. “You cannot even imagine.”

  “Tell me, then,” she answered in a thready voice. Her body was trembling.

  He hit the steering wheel hard with the palm of his hand. “I told you, you don’t want to know! You couldn’t know. You wouldn’t believe me. You wouldn’t want to believe.”

  “But I think you need to tell me, whether I want to know or not.”

  He shook his head, and then he let out a low moan as he put his hands up to his face and he rocked back and forth, like an animal in pain. Birgit stared at him in both dread and shock; where was the breezy, confident man with the easy smile and the light laugh? What had happened to him? What had he seen or even done, to be reduced to this whimpering wreck?

  “Werner…”

  “They kill them, Birgit. They kill them by the thousands.” He spoke through his fingers. “Hundreds of thousands. In cold blood. Systematically, like… like slaughtering animals. Without… without so much as a thought. Enjoying it, even, in a… in a bored sort of way.”

  “What?” She stared at him with a confusion she longed to cling to, because she knew understanding would be worse.

  “Jews. Mainly Jews. But Bolsheviks too, gypsies, Poles, anyone they don’t like the look of. We made them dig pits, huge pits…” He let out another moan, the keening sound raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “Pits they lay down in. Alive. On top of one another. I saw a man with his son; the boy couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The father, he tried to comfort him, to help him to lie down on top of other bodies because he didn’t want to, he was afraid. My God, Birgit!” For a second he dropped his hands from his face as he stared sightlessly in front of him, an invisible horror unfolding before his eyes. “You can’t even… they had to lie down in their own graves while we watched. And then they were all shot.” He dropped his head back into his hands as his shoulders shook silently.

  “No…” Bile rose in her throat as she imagined a scene of such horror. She didn’t want to; she shied away from it, and yet some resolute part of her insisted on picturing the grim, grisly scene, the man and his son, despairing, afraid, trying to be brave. This is what Hitler does. This is who he is. And you must always, always fight it and fight him, no matter what it costs.

  “When I close my eyes,” Werner said in a choked voice, “I still see them, lying there, staring up at me. A woman caught my eye, right before she was made to lie down, on top of the others. She mouthed some words. ‘I’m only twenty-three,’ I think she said. She was so young, so alive, and then…” He released a shudder, the sound guttural and full of desperation. “When I close my eyes I see rivers of blood. Swamps filled with rotting bodies. Sometimes they shot as many as fifty thousand in a single day and just left them there. They weren’t even buried.”

  Birgit shook her head, the movement instinctive, necessary. “No,” she said again, woodenly. She still couldn’t imagine such a thing, and yet at the same time she could, and that made it even more horrible.

  Werner dropped his hands and leaned back against the seat. “After that…” he shook his head slowly, his gaze unfocused. “I don’t care what Hitler has done for the damned economy, or how many battles he wins. I don’t care. There’s no justification. There can’t be.” He turned to look at her, his expression suddenly turning fierce as he grabbed her by the shoulders. “There can’t be, because if there is, if we ever believe there is, we’ve lost our humanity. We’re no better than savages, monsters. Do you see, Birgit? Do you see?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I see.”

  He let out another shudder as he released her. “I don’t want to go back. I’ve thought of killing myself, but I’m not brave enough. I still want to live.” He gave a hollow laugh. “And they say suicide is for cowards.”

  “Oh, Werner.” She reached for his hand, clinging to it, her heart full of both sorrow and love. She’d known he was a good man, and now he’d shown her. “We could run away—”

  “To where?” Werner shook his head. “Hitler controls almost of Europe. And you know what happens to deserters? They’re shot on sight, no questions asked.”

  “Yes, but…” Her mind spun. What if Ingrid could get Werner new identity papers? She might balk at providing them for someone she saw as a Nazi, but after last night Ingrid owed her. She’d saved her life, after all, and Werner had shown he wasn’t really a Nazi. The possibility shimmered in front of her. Freedom… freedom for them both! They could run away, be married. Live the way they’d dreamed of, in Switzerland or even England. A little house, a quiet life, children. “I might know a way,” she said.

  Werner stilled and then turned slowly to look at her, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”

  “I know someone who can arrange for false papers.” In her excitement she spoke in a rush. “She’s done it before, for… well, for Jews. But I think she could do it for you, especially since she owes me a favor.”

  “Birgit,” Werner demanded, gripping her hand hard, “what are you talking about?”

  “Do you remember when we first met? I was at a meeting for communists? I met her there. Well, I met her before, but—”

  “You said you went to that meeting because your friend took you,” he interjected.

  “Well, yes, but I went again.” Birgit started speaking faster and faster, as if that would somehow help him to understand. “I’ve been helping her, along with some others. Not very much, it’s true, but I do what I can.” She wouldn’t tell him about the nighttime escapades, not now.

  “Helping—”

  “You know what they’re like now, Werner! You’ve seen for yourself how evil they are. I had to do something. And besides, Franz—”

  “Franz? You mean your father’s apprentice?”

  “Yes. He’s a Jew. I helped to hide him.”

  “Where?”

  Birgit hesitated, aware suddenly that this could all go horribly wrong. What if Werner had simply been venting his frustration and no more? What if he felt beholden to turn her in? Turn Franz in? But no, he wouldn’t. She trusted him. She loved him.

  “Nonnberg Abbey. There’s a nun there who helps us. Kunigunde,” she said, just in case he thought it was Lotte. Her heart was beating furiously now and her stomach was in knots. What if she’d made a horrible mistake? What if she’d ruined everything? Werner might tell someone about her, about Kunigunde, about all the secrets she’d been keeping. “You understand
, don’t you?” she pleaded. “You must. You know now, Werner, there’s no going back once you know—”

  “Do I understand?” With something between a moan and a sob Werner dropped his head back into his hands while she regarded him with both uncertainty and terror. “Birgit,” he groaned, his voice muffled, “how could you? Don’t you know how dangerous this all is? If they find out, you’ll be sent to a camp, and that’s at best.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you have any idea what the camps are like? No, of course you don’t. You can’t imagine.” He lifted his head, shaking it grimly before he reached into his jacket pocket for his pack of cigarettes. Birgit watched him uneasily as he lit it and inhaled deeply; she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “You don’t… you don’t disapprove?” she ventured after a miserable silence. “You wouldn’t—”

  “Of course I disapprove! Not because I’m any lover of Hitler or hater of Jews, no matter what your family thinks of me, but because of you. I don’t want you to be put in danger, Birgit. I love you.”

  “I know the dangers,” she assured him quietly. “Trust me on that. I’m not saying it’s easy—”

  “So you’re willing to sacrifice your life for your father’s apprentice?” He sounded despairing rather than scornful.

  “I’m willing to sacrifice my life for the good of humanity,” Birgit replied. It was that knowledge that had emboldened her to creep out into the night, to keep watch while Ingrid laid bombs or stole guns or whatever else to fight back. She was terrified by it all, but still she knew she had to. “It’s just as you were saying, Werner. We can’t lose our humanity. This is how I am able to keep mine.”

  He was silent for a long time, smoking. “This is why you’ve been asking me about where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing,” he remarked finally, his tone weary. “To pass on the information to these communists?”

  Birgit stayed silent.

  “You would most certainly be killed for that. Shot as a traitor. Most likely I would, as well. Almost certainly, in fact.”

  “I never…” She paused, struggling to know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “You know I had to?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “You aren’t going to—” She swallowed, unable to continue. Werner gave her a look full of hurt.

  “Turn you in? Do you actually think I would do that, Birgit?”

  “I think you’re a good man,” Birgit told him, a throb of sincerity in her voice. “A good man who has been caught in a terrible, evil situation. Don’t go back, Werner. You could hide at the abbey too, with Franz—”

  “Hide for the rest of the war?” He looked at her in disbelief. “And what about after? Hitler’s determined to win, you know, no matter what the cost. Even now I think he’ll probably do it.”

  “It will be different then, surely. This—this carnage can’t go on forever.”

  “Either way it will be worse.” He flicked his cigarette out onto the ground as he stared grimly ahead. “I can’t see a future for anyone, Birgit, no matter what happens. Win or lose, we’re all still on the road to hell.”

  “Then we must do as much good as we can along the way,” Birgit replied staunchly. Werner just shook his head. After another few moments of uneasy silence, he started the car and maneuvered back onto the road. They didn’t speak for the rest of the journey back to Salzburg.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lotte

  January 1942

  The war was turning. It had to be. Although the nuns of Nonnberg were meant to be above such worldly affairs, Lotte and several of the other nuns continued to listen to the radio in the Mother Abbess’s study most evenings, trying to discern the propaganda from the truth.

  Last month the Americans had finally entered the war, to the relief and of joy of many, although no one admitted as much. Surely, surely with the Americans on the side of the Allies, it could only be a matter of time. Germany was still embroiled in a never-ending war in the Soviet Union, and meanwhile Allied bombers were apparently strafing the skies, though none had come as far as Salzburg. Lotte had heard on the radio, along with the other nuns, of bombs dropping on France, sometimes on Germany. Soon the United States’ Flying Fortresses would dominate the skies, or so they hoped.

  In the meantime they waited. Lotte went about her duties, her acts of resistance and obedience, and came to accept that they both sprung from the same root. Franz continued to live at the abbey, while others had come and gone. Lotte did not fool herself that she was either as brave or daring as Kunigunde, but she was glad that she was at least involved.

  When someone crept to the side gate, sometimes she was the one who answered it and ushered them in. Communists, Catholics, those seeking to elude arrest—whoever they were, Lotte never even knew their names, but she sheltered and fed them, and when they slipped away again, she prayed for them.

  In September it was several patients from a nearby hospital run by the Sisters of Charity; they’d been scheduled to be killed for their supposed inferiority. Then in October they sheltered deserters from the Wehrmacht, and after Christmas it was several Poles who had fled from conscripted work that was little more than slavery. They were all different, and yet they were all in need; like the Mother Abbess, Lotte had come to see them all as children of God. She learned to live with the fear she always felt, and even to find a certain peace within it.

  And then, at the end of January, the Gestapo came. Lotte was in the library, shelving books, enjoying the quiet, when she heard a thunderous knocking at the door. The book she’d been holding slipped from her fingers, falling to the floor with a flurry of pages. She remained motionless as she listened to the sounds of commotion—the bolt being drawn, the raised voice of Sister Winifred, the shouting, the stomping of boots. A minute passed, perhaps two, when she simply stood there, frozen.

  Then—a scream, followed by silence. Lotte tiptoed to the doorway of the library and peeked out, just in time to see Kunigunde being marched between two Gestapo; they were moving so quickly that her feet barely touched the floor. Her wimple had been knocked askew, but her face remained calm, her gaze defiant. Her eye caught Lotte’s and she mouthed a single word, “Franz.”

  Franz. They would come for Franz. Others might be searching for him even now, and if they weren’t, they would be soon. As soon as they had left the abbey with Kunigunde, Lotte raced out of the library. She heard the slamming of car doors and the revving of an engine before she practically threw herself into the Mother Abbess’s study.

  The Mother Abbess was, to Lotte’s surprise, calmly packing a bag. She watched for a few stunned seconds, breathing hard, as the Mother Abbess put a loaf of bread and a jug of water on top of what looked like some blankets and clothes.

  “We will need to move him immediately,” she said briskly, as if answering a question. “I think it best if he returns to your parents’ house for the moment, until we can think what to do.”

  “But they’re already suspicious of—”

  “Only for a short time, while preparations are made. We’ll need a car, a driver. The fewer people who know, the better.”

  “A car…” Lotte stared at her blankly. She felt stupid, for she had no idea what the Mother Abbess was talking about. Move Franz, yes, but how? Where?

  “To take him to the border,” she explained as she counted out some Swiss francs. “It is the only way.”

  “But that’s hundreds of kilometers.”

  “Yes, you will have to travel on back roads and by night, I should think. You can rest during the day.”

  Lotte stared at her for a moment before her words sank in. “I will?”

  “I think it best. You know Franz, and if you’re stopped, a nun is less likely to be questioned. Your sister Birgit should go, as well, since she has the necessary contacts. Does she drive?”

  “I don’t think so.” Lotte’s mind spun. To take Franz all the way to Switzerland—it was a journey that could last days, every
second fraught with danger. “Why me?” she asked, her voice coming out in something close a whimper.

  The Mother Abbess’s lined face softened with compassion, “Why not you, Sister Maria Josef? What were Isaiah’s words in response to our Lord’s calling—‘here am I, send me’. And so we must be just as obedient, no matter the danger or the cost.”

  “Yes, I know.” She forced the words out, knowing they were true and yet wishing desperately that they weren’t. Wishing there was someone else, anyone else.

  “You are more likely to be arrested here than on the road to Switzerland,” the Mother Abbess told her gently. “So it is a mercy, really. You can say you are visiting your mother’s family. She’s from the Tyrol, is she not?”

  “Yes, Ladis, past Innsbruck.”

  “Which is as good as on the Swiss border! That is perfect.” The Mother Abbess nodded in satisfaction as she closed the bag. “Hurry now. Go directly to Getreidegasse.”

  “And what of Franz?”

  “He will go with you.”

  “But he might be stopped—”

  “God willing his papers will pass if he is. He can act as your porter. Have him carry something heavy—a sack of coal or potatoes, perhaps. They are less likely to ask questions then.”

  “But…” Lotte stared at her, feeling faint and sick. If she was stopped by the SS, the Gestapo, anyone, they could very well be arrested. Franz’s papers were forged, and Lotte suspected they looked it. They might both be imprisoned. Tortured… “Couldn’t we wait until night?”

  “There is no time, Sister Maria Josef. As our Lord Himself said, ‘anyone who walks in the day does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.’” She pushed the bag into Lotte’s arms. “Go well and Godspeed, my daughter.”

  Lotte felt as if she were walking within a dream, as if everything was happening to someone else and she was merely watching, uninterested and uninvolved. She found Franz in the shed in the back of the garden, and with a strange, sudden sense of calm explained to him what had happened.