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

by Kate Hewitt

  “Somewhere safe, Papa. You don’t need to worry.”

  “It’s better this way,” her mother said once, in a low voice, while her father stared at the pages of a book without taking anything in. “You know it is.”

  Johanna nodded without replying. Yes, it was better that her father wasn’t aware of the dangers they all faced—or were, perhaps, already in. The possibility that Lotte and Birgit, Franz as well—no, they had to be safe. They simply had to be.

  Another week passed with no word, and Johanna, unable to bear the awful unknowing any longer, decided to go in search of some answers herself.

  On Saturday she walked through falling snow to Nonnberg Abbey, her head lowered against the cold flakes drifting down, hoping she was not walking into some sort of trap. She had no idea what had happened to the nuns after Kunigunde’s arrest; she’d heard nothing. Perhaps nothing had happened, or perhaps they’d all been arrested. Either possibility seemed just as likely.

  The woman who came to the porter’s lodge when Johanna rang the bell looked both sour and suspicious.

  “I would like to see the Mother Abbess,” Johanna stated firmly. “It is in regard to my sister, Lotte Eder. Sister Maria Josef,” she corrected quickly.

  “I shall see if she is available,” the nun replied, leaving Johanna to wait in the cold.

  A few minutes later she was ushered into the Mother Abbess’s spartan study. She smiled as Johanna came into the room.

  “Fräulein Eder.”

  “I haven’t had any news from my sister,” Johanna said bluntly, too worried and too tired to bother with the usual niceties or prevarications. “Nothing from either of them, or Franz. Do you know where they are? Do you know what happened to them?”

  The Mother Abbess’s expression remained irritatingly serene as she answered quietly, “I know as little as you do, Fräulein Eder. But they are in God’s hands.”

  “God…!” Johanna repeated derisively. Right then she had as little faith in God as Franz ever had.

  “Yes, God. It is in times such as these that we must rest on faith.”

  “Times such as these?” Johanna’s lip curled, almost of its own accord. “You all seem quite cozy here.” She knew she was being rude but she couldn’t keep herself from it. She felt as if she might explode with her anger and fear; she might scream or claw at her skin, something, anything, to relieve the terrible tension inside her. “It doesn’t seem as if Sister Kunigunde’s arrest affected you overmuch, from what I can see.”

  A shadow passed across the Mother Abbess’s face. “Three days ago Sister Kunigunde was executed for her involvement in the resistance movement,” she replied, so quietly that Johanna strained to hear her. “But she did not break under questioning. She revealed nothing, as far as I am aware.”

  “Executed…” Suddenly her legs felt watery and she sank into the chair in front of the Mother Abbess’s desk, dropping her head into her hands as her vision blurred and her breath came out in shallow, uneven pants.

  “Breathe,” the Mother Abbess advised gently as she put her hand on Johanna’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. It was a shock to us, as well. I should not have told you so abruptly.”

  “I didn’t even know her very well.” Johanna raised her head as she impatiently brushed the tears from her eyes.

  “She was a good woman. A faithful servant of Christ.”

  “If they killed her…” Johanna whispered as her mind began to whirr, the gears clicking over just like in one of her father’s wretched clocks, marking time, making sense. “They would certainly kill Lotte and Birgit, and Franz too. If they’ve been found, then…” She doubled over, her arms wrapped around her waist as her body shook with the force of her sobs, realization thudding into her. They were dead. They were almost certainly dead.

  “They are in God’s hands,” the Mother Abbess repeated. “Alive or dead, they have been commended to His care.”

  “But I don’t want them to be dead!” Johanna half screamed before she burst into sobs again. She, who never cried, who thought herself stronger than tears, was now weeping like a child and she could not keep herself from it.

  “And you do not know if they are,” the Mother Abbess replied evenly. “Is there no way to get news?”

  “I suppose I could ask Ingrid,” Johanna said doubtfully as she wiped her streaming eyes and then her nose. Silently the Mother Abbess handed her a handkerchief; Johanna took it with a mumbled thanks.

  She’d never met Ingrid; all she knew was what Birgit had told her, that she could be reached through a coffeehouse in Elisabeth-Vorstadt. It was not much to go on at all.

  “That is perhaps best,” the Mother Abbess told her. “From what I know, which is not very much, she is the most likely to know something. And in the meantime…” She paused. “It is probably best for both of us if you do not visit here again.”

  Johanna walked to Elisabeth-Vorstadt that afternoon, even though dusk was already falling. The neighborhood was shabby, a collection of warehouses, factories, and crumbling apartment blocks, the streets empty save for a few people who hurried along, making sure to meet no one’s eye.

  Johanna went into three different coffeehouses, stammering about needing to speak to Ingrid, before she finally saw a flicker of recognition from the man behind the bar at the fourth.

  “I don’t know anyone of that name,” he answered smoothly, not meeting her eyes, but Johanna had already seen the glimmer of recognition and she thrust her face close to his, dropping her voice to a hiss.

  “I know you do. Don’t bother to deny it. Ingrid helped us, and if she wants her car back, she’d better be in touch with me.”

  “I don’t know anything about a car,” the man replied, as impassive as ever.

  “She does.” Although Johanna doubted very much if she’d ever be able to get it back.

  The man met her gaze with unveiled hostility. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “Now either order a drink or get the hell out.”

  By the time Johanna got back home, her feet and heart were both aching, her coat was wet through with snow, and she felt frozen to the bone. Her mother lifted her weary gaze to hers as she came up the stairs, but at the sight of Johanna’s despondent face she did not even bother asking her how she had fared.

  Johanna sank into a chair and rested her elbows on the kitchen table. “What if we never find out?” she asked into the stillness.

  Her mother turned back to the soup she’d been stirring—an unappetizing mix of pork fat and potatoes floating in a watery broth, all that was to be had. “Then we never find out,” she replied starkly.

  “I can’t…” Johanna began, only to trail off as she realized it wasn’t about whether she could or not. She would have to, that was all. That was always all.

  Her mother had accepted this dark turn of Providence in her grimly stolid way; she was a woman, Johanna knew, who had already seen much hardship—two little brothers dead in their cradle; a childhood of scraping what living she could from her father’s peasant farm; years of near-starvation and poverty following the first war. Hedwig Eder was a woman who had learned never to expect good things; what good things had come, she’d regarded with fearful suspicion.

  Johanna did not want to be the same, and yet now, sitting alone, having no recourse at all, she feared she would not have a choice.

  Several hours later, as she was about to go up to bed, her parents having already retired, she heard a sound at the side door—not quite a knock, but something. Her heart leaped into her throat as she hurried down the stairs, pulling the curtain away from the door, but she saw no one through the glass, and she was not willing to open it this late at night. Then she caught sight of the slip of folded paper someone must have slid under the door.

  With fingers that weren’t quite steady she took and unfolded it. It held a mere five words: Your sisters are at Schanzlalm.

  The next morning Johanna went directly to Schanzlalm, the name locals used for Salzburg Prison, a large, square
building in the old town, next to the courthouse. She hadn’t even told her mother where she was going; she wanted to be certain of the facts before she alarmed either of her parents. Ingrid might have got it wrong. Johanna had assumed the hastily scrawled note was from Ingrid, although in truth she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything.

  The note had, she’d acknowledged painfully, made no mention of Franz. What did that mean? Did Ingrid not know what had happened to him—was he dead? But if he was dead, surely she would have said as much. The not knowing made Johanna feel as if something was clawing at her brain, eating her from the inside out. She’d bitten her lips to near shreds in her anxiety, and her nails down to the quick.

  A cold, determined resolve settled inside her as she mounted the steps of the Schanzlalm and a porter let her into the cramped outer office. She rang the bell for the sergeant to come to the desk.

  “I am looking for Birgit and Lotte Eder,” she said, her voice sharp to hide her fear, as a man in the khaki-green uniform of the German Ordnungspolizei, or Orpo, came to the desk. Ever since the Anschluss, the Federal Gendarmerie had been incorporated into the Orpo, with many of the Austrian gendarmes dismissed or imprisoned.

  “Are they in trouble?” he asked politely, making Johanna regret her aggressive tone.

  “I believe they are being held here,” she replied.

  The man’s demeanor changed at once. “Prisoners are not allowed to receive visitors, Fräulein.”

  She swallowed. “Please… I just want to know if they’re here. They’ve been missing for two weeks now and my younger sister, Lotte, she’s only twenty-two.”

  The man softened slightly, giving a small sigh. “What makes you think they’re here? Were they arrested?”

  “I don’t know. Someone told me they might be here.” Realizing she was skirting dangerous territory indeed, Johanna gave the approximation of a helpless shrug. “Please… I don’t know what happened, but my mother is beside herself with worry, and my father isn’t well. We just want to know.”

  The man hesitated, looking reluctant but not without some compassion. “Very well,” he said finally, and he reached under the counter for a heavy leather-bound ledger. As he opened it, Johanna saw a list of names written in the elegant Fraktur calligraphy so beloved by the Nazi regime. He trailed one finger down a page, and then another, while Johanna held her breath.

  Then his expression tightened, his mouth pursing almost primly, and her heart sank. “Yes, they’re here. They were transferred from Innsbruck three days ago.” He looked up, his eyes now narrowed, his mouth thinned in disapproval. “For aiding and abetting in the escape of a Jew.”

  “Oh.” Johanna spoke faintly, too overwhelmed even to try to dissemble. “I didn’t… that is… what happened to him?”

  “I never said the Jew was a man.”

  “Oh, I… I just assumed. It doesn’t matter.” It cost her everything to force the words out of her mouth.

  “He’ll have been dealt with,” the man told her shortly, closing the ledger, and she did not want to think about what he meant. She couldn’t, not without breaking down completely, right here in the entrance of the prison.

  “Please… my sisters. Is there no way I can see them? Or at least send them a parcel?”

  “You can send them a parcel,” he told her with some reluctance. “Although I don’t know how long they will be held here.”

  “What will happen to them? Will there be a trial?” The sergeant shrugged, and panic took hold of her, digging its claws in so deeply that for a few seconds she could not breathe. “Please,” she practically gasped, leaning over the desk towards him, although she didn’t even know what exactly she was asking him for.

  “I can’t tell you anything more,” he said shortly, his sympathy gone. “Good day, Fräulein.”

  Johanna walked slowly out of the prison, down the steps into Rudolfsplatz, unsure where to go, what to do. She couldn’t go back home, not without any real news to give her parents, and yet she had no idea how to find out anything more. She was spinning, lost, her insides hollowed out by fear and grief.

  She started walking without even knowing where she was going, blindly putting one foot in front of the other, as an icy wind funneled down the street and a damp, freezing snow began to fall. After fifteen minutes she realized she’d walked towards Elisabeth-Vorstadt without even meaning to. Ingrid, she realized, was the only person who might know anything.

  The same man was behind the bar as she entered the coffeehouse, and he scowled as she came in before looking away.

  Johanna shivered, shaking the snow from her coat before she let a waiter guide her to a table. She was too weary, frozen and grief-stricken to confront the man now. She ordered a café mélange and took off her wet things, hanging her scarf and coat on the chair. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat in a restaurant on her own, if she ever had. Lunch was a sandwich made of rye bread and a thin smear of meat paste eaten at her desk at work, although the other secretaries sometimes went out for a meal together, so they could gossip and smoke.

  The coffee came and for a few seconds Johanna simply stared at it, as if it were a foreign object. Although she knew it was most likely ersatz, made from chicory or acorns, the milk on top looked foamy and rich. Still she could not bring herself to drink it.

  She did not realize she was weeping until the tears dripped off her face and splashed onto the table. Even then she was unable to stop; she simply sat there, half frozen, and stared at the cup of coffee while she silently wept.

  She might never see her sisters again. As for Franz… it was more than likely that he was dead, and even if he wasn’t, he was far beyond her help now. She couldn’t bear to think what might have happened to him, where he might be now. Had they shot him where they’d found him, in a field perhaps, or running away from the car? She pictured his body crumpling, his blood staining the snow scarlet.

  Or perhaps they’d arrested and interrogated him in some dank hole; she couldn’t bear to think of him afraid, screaming out in pain, his body broken beyond repair.

  A shudder escaped and she pushed the coffee away, her stomach churning. She had no appetite for it now.

  “Did you find them?”

  The low voice, and the sense of movement across the table, made her jerk her head up to blink in surprise at the woman who slid into the seat opposite her. Although she looked only to be in her mid-thirties, with dark hair and red lips, there was a worldliness to her that Johanna knew she lacked herself. She possessed a certain sophisticated glamor, despite her stained shirt and man’s trousers.

  “Ingrid,” Johanna said slowly.

  “The very one.” Ingrid tapped a cigarette out of a pocket before offering it to Johanna.

  “No thank you,” Johanna began, only to then thrust her hand out. “Oh, why not?” She’d never smoked in her life, but now seemed as good a time to start as any.

  Ingrid gave a throaty chuckle as she lit both their cigarettes and then flung her head back as she drew deeply on hers. “So?” she asked as she exhaled. “Did you find them?”

  “You were right. They’re at Schanzlalm.” Johanna took an experimental drag on her cigarette, and only just kept herself from coughing as the smoke flooded through her, making her feel surprisingly dreamy. She relaxed against the seat as Ingrid cocked her head sympathetically.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m allowed to send them parcels.” Johanna’s voice wobbled and she pulled on her cigarette again, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. “How long do you suppose they’ll be in there?”

  A look of something like pity flashed across Ingrid’s face before she veiled it, glancing away as if in thought.

  “What is it?” Johanna asked. “What is it you don’t want to tell me?”

  “I don’t know how long they’ll be at Schanzlalm,” Ingrid said slowly, her gaze still on some distant point. “But I doubt they’ll be released.”

  “Ever?” Even though she’d suspe
cted that would be the case, it still held the power to surprise her.

  “Helping a Jew to escape? The best they’ll get is a labor camp until the end of the war.”

  “A labor camp,” Johanna repeated. Perhaps that would not be so bad.

  “That’s what they call them, anyway.” A note of bitterness entered Ingrid’s voice as she flicked a bit of ash off the end of her cigarette. “The truth is, they work them to death. Literally.”

  Johanna gripped the edge of the table with both hands. “How do you know that?”

  Ingrid turned to look at her, her lips twisting. “Because my husband died in one.” She stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray on the table.

  “Your husband?” Johanna repeated in surprise. “When?”

  “1934. He was sent to Dachau for being a communist.” She sat back and folded her arms.

  “I’m sorry.” Ingrid made no reply. “And Franz?” Johanna asked after a moment. “Do you know… that is… what do you think happened to him?”

  “He’s either dead or has been sent to a camp.” Johanna recoiled from the harshness in her tone. “I don’t believe in giving false hope,” she continued. “The truth is, I doubt you’ll ever see him again. He’ll likely die in one of those camps. Most people do. I’ve heard talk that they are killing them systematically. Mass executions. And also in gas chambers.”

  Johanna let out a little cry before pressing her fist to her mouth.

  Ingrid leaned forward, her eyes burning with a fierce passion that frightened Johanna as much as it moved her. “It’s easier when you have nothing more to lose,” she said softly. “No one left to lose. They can’t hurt you then. They have nothing over you. You can be powerful.”

  “I don’t feel powerful.”

  “But not caring is power.”

  “My father said we had to care. When we stopped caring, we lost our humanity.”

  Ingrid tutted under her breath. “Then care about the defeat of evil, and good prevailing. Care about that, Fräulein, and you will be far more useful.”