by Kate Hewitt
“They’re making us leave,” Magda had whispered, her eyes wide with both terror and excitement. In the last week the sense of expectation in the camp had ratcheted up, become almost unbearable. To die now, when freedom was so close…! And yet the guards were twitchier than ever, punishments meted out for the smallest imagined offense. Only yesterday a woman had been shot for stumbling on her way to roll call. “The Soviets must be close.” She nodded toward the guards. “Do you think they’ll let us go?”
“When do they ever let us go?” a woman behind them interjected bitterly.
“Why bother with us, then? Why line us up like this?” Magda had demanded, clinging stubbornly to hope. “We’re so close now, so close!”
And yet so very far. Lotte knew they were headed to Mecklenburg, just as she knew most of the women in that raggedy column would not survive such a journey, without food, water, or shelter. They were leaving the camp, but it was not to freedom. Glancing at her sister’s resigned face, she suspected Birgit knew it, as well.
Then Lotte heard her number being called out, along with several others. She glanced at Birgit, who looked troubled, her gaze narrowed as she observed the women stepping out of the line.
“They’re all Germans, I think,” she whispered. “Aryan looking, too. It must mean something good.” She hugged Lotte briefly, her arms tight around her. “Go,” she said. “Perhaps your guard has helped you, after all.”
“I won’t leave you—”
“You must.” Birgit grasped her hand. “This is your chance, Lotte, I’m sure of it. You must take it, for the child’s sake as much as yours.”
“Birgit—” Lotte realized she was crying, tears streaking down her face, her mind blind with panic. She could not leave her sister. She wouldn’t.
“Go. And Godspeed. We’ll see each other again, Lotte, either on Getreidegasse or in heaven.” Birgit embraced her again and then gave her a little push, her lips trembling as she tried to smile.
Lotte stumbled towards the women huddled in an uncertain group; there were at least a few hundred of them. What if they’d been singled out for something worse?
They remained there, waiting and wary, as the long, tattered column of prisoners headed out of the camp. It looked so strange, so very bizarre, to see them all marching away from the death and destruction they’d been living with for so long—but to what? Dear God, to what?
When they’d finally disappeared towards the lake, a guard came up towards the remaining women. Lotte felt the tension that rippled through the group, uncertainty and hope mingled together, brought to a fearful, frenzied pitch.
“You’re free to go,” he shouted, gesturing at them as if they were a flock of sheep he had to herd. “Leave the camp. Head west. The Soviets will be here by the end of the day.” He turned away, already finished with them, while everyone stared.
Go? Just… go?
Lotte glanced at the gates, flung open. The watchtowers were abandoned, and in the distance she could see a guard hurling bags into a Jeep. Everyone was desperate to leave, and yet still not one woman started toward those gates, toward freedom. What if it was a trick? Such ghastly games been played before, guards hinting at freedom only to shoot prisoners for “attempted escape.”
The minutes ticked on, the sun now high above them. It had taken hours for the prisoners to assemble and leave the camp; the Soviets might be less than a mile away. Lotte imagined she could already hear the growl of their Jeeps and tanks, rolling ever onward. Would the soldiers treat them kindly, as the victims they so clearly were, or would they see them only as German women, the enemy they were intent on vanquishing? Lotte had no idea. She did not want to find out.
She rested one hand on her bump and then she started walking towards the gates. The space between her shoulder blades prickled as she walked. She imagined the rifle being hoisted, the imperious Halt! before the shot was fired.
None came.
She walked through the gates and she stood on the other side, blinking in the sunshine, dazed by her journey of just a few meters. She was free. Free. Yet what on earth could she do with such freedom?
She didn’t even know where she was, not really. She’d come here by train; she’d never even been to the village of Ravensbrück, a short distance away. The guard had told her to head west, but what was west? A town, a mountain, a road?
More women had begun to walk through the gates, all of them milling around, unsure where to go, what to do. Then a straggling gaggle of women struck out west, down a rutted track, and many followed, creating their own column, and perhaps their own death march.
They walked all afternoon, thirsty, hungry, dazed, weak. Some fell behind, others dropped off to hide in the forest that fringed the dirt track they’d taken, too tired to keep going. Still Lotte put one foot in front of the other, willing herself on. She had the instinctive feeling that to stop anywhere would be dangerous, perhaps deadly. When they paused by a stream to drink some water, she heard a distant rumble.
“Tanks,” someone said succinctly.
So close, Lotte thought with a thrill of both wonder and terror, the emotions seeming strangely distant from herself, from this spring afternoon by a clear, burbling stream, the sun high above.
“We must keep going,” someone else said, staggering up from the stream.
“Maybe they’ll be kind to us,” another suggested, and someone else gave a hard huff of incredulous laughter.
“You think? A German woman alone, starving or not? I don’t think so. I certainly don’t want to wait and see.”
Still in a ragged column, the women left the stream and continued down the road, step by painstaking step. The tanks, Lotte knew, would be faster than they were, but perhaps the Soviets would stop at the camp. Or would they search for stragglers? Would they be liberators, or just another round of persecutors?
They’d all been told by the guards the horror stories of the women of East Prussia who had been raped repeatedly by Soviet soldiers, seen only as enemies and aggressors. Why should it be any different for them? They were all blond, blue-eyed, German, never mind the prison garb they wore.
By nightfall Lotte knew she would not be able to keep going. For the last few hours pain had banded her middle and her legs trembled with every step. Her head swam and she’d started to stumble, once falling to her knees before she’d managed to hoist herself up. She had not eaten since last night.
When they caught sight of a farm along the side of a road, she fell to her knees again, pain jolting through her, along with relief at having finally stopped. She could lie down right here in the road, and she wouldn’t mind…
Then she felt someone’s arm around her, urging her up although everything in her protested. “You mustn’t stop, not here. We must keep going.”
A gasp escaped her and she doubled over, pulling away from the helping hand. “I can’t.”
She fell back down onto the dirt, curling up, everything a haze. She heard her companion ask grimly, “How long have you been having the pains?”
Lotte looked up, blinking the world back into focus, jolted to see who had helped her—Marta, her erstwhile attacker. “A few hours,” she said.
“The baby could be here soon, then.”
“What?” Lotte stared at her blankly. “No, it’s far too early. They’re just pains—”
“I had three children,” Marta replied. “I know.” She urged Lotte upward, and somehow she staggered back to her feet. “We can shelter in that barn.”
“But the Soviets—”
“I doubt even the Soviets will rape a woman who is giving birth,” Marta stated dryly. “And God willing they won’t find us. Come.”
Lotte let herself be led away from the line of women stumbling onward to the dim interior of a small, weathered barn, too dazed by shock and pain to be aware of her surroundings. Marta eased her onto the ground and she felt something both soft and prickly underneath her, smelling sweet and musty. A bed of straw.
“It’s
not the best place to give birth, God knows, but it will do.”
“If it was good enough for our Savior…” Lotte began, and Marta let out a dry huff of laughter.
“Holding on to your faith, even now? God knows you’ll need it.”
A pain ripped through Lotte and she gasped out loud, the sound torn from her. Her baby really was coming—here, in this moldy old barn, with Soviets marching closer! How on earth would she manage, without food, water, clothing, even? Everything felt impossible. She scrabbled at Marta’s sleeve.
“Thank you,” she managed between gasps of pain, “for staying—”
“I couldn’t leave you alone.” Marta looked away. “I shouldn’t have struck you that time, I know. You were only doing what you could, for the sake of your sister. God knows I understand that.” She turned back to Lotte, her expression both bleak and resolute. “I stole those ration cards because my children were starving. The youngest one died, from rickets. All he needed was good fresh milk.”
“Oh, Marta—”
“But enough about me.” She gave herself a shake, her expression clearing, becoming determined, almost cheerful. “Your child will live. He must, to have survived this far, with you nothing but skin and bone!”
Marta smiled, and Lotte tried to smile back, through the haze of her pain. “It’s a girl,” she said, panting through the contractions, and Marta laughed.
“Is it, now? Well, girls are stronger, especially at the start. If it’s early, better to be a girl.”
The next few hours passed in a red-tinged blur of pain. At some point in the night they heard the rumble of cars, the slamming of doors, a scream.
Marta heaped the straw over them and put a hand on Lotte’s mouth. “For God’s sake, be quiet,” she hissed. Lotte couldn’t have made noise if she’d wanted to; her body felt as if it were separating from her mind, as if her soul was hovering above, just as it had once before. Oh bliss, to be away from all this suffering and striving. To let it all go, a sweet surrender at last, nothing but comfort and peace, no worry or fear…
She must have passed out, for when she came to they had moved deeper into the barn, half hidden by a pile of hay and a jumble of old tools. Marta’s face, hovering above her, was grim.
“The Soviets came. They took turns with the farmer’s wife. They’ve gone now, thank God.” She crossed herself. “And God help that poor woman. I suppose it could have been worse.”
Lotte couldn’t reply; when she tried to cross herself for the sake of the farmer and his wife, her arm merely flopped to her side. Marta looked down at her, her hands on Lotte’s belly as she palpated the taut flesh.
“The baby’s not coming down,” she told her in a low voice. “I think it must be stuck. It happens sometimes.” She paused, gazing down into Lotte’s dazed face, a bleak look entering her eyes. “I can try to move it, but…” Marta hesitated, and in that second’s pause Lotte understood. She would not survive this birth. She realized she was not even surprised. In her emaciated state, to give birth in a barn, without adequate food or water or medicine or even a blanket… It had been difficult to begin with, never mind this new complication. It had been impossible.
All things are possible with God…
A sudden, sweet peace flooded through her, an acceptance that felt like a laying down, a coming home. At last. She felt nothing but certainty as she grabbed Marta’s arm. “Do…” she gasped out. “Whatever you have to do… for my child.”
Lotte could not remember the next few hours except for the pain, dazzling and sharp, like a diamond piercing through her, obliterating fear and thought. At times she passed out; when she swam back to consciousness, Marta was still poised above her, her hands on her belly, and there was a pain in her middle that felt as if she were being rent apart.
She felt a wetness between her thighs, on the straw beneath her, and she knew it was blood. Too much blood.
“Lotte, push—”
She didn’t so much push as surrender to her body’s insistent will, possessing a strength that did not come from her mind or her determination, but something more elemental, as if a giant hand had flipped her inside out. The world grew hazy at the edges, and still her body convulsed, expelling new life even as she felt it draining from her, into the straw.
Lotte grabbed again at Marta’s sleeve, realizing how little time she had left. “There’s a clockmaker on Getreidegasse in Salzburg—”
“No…” Marta looked panicked, but Lotte persevered. “A sprig of edelweiss on the sign… here…” She scrabbled again, reaching for the knitted edelweiss she’d worn tucked into her sleeve since she’d made it several months ago. “Take this, please. If there is no one at the clockmaker’s, go to the abbey. They’re kind there—”
“Lotte—”
“Please. Promise me.” She stared up into Marta’s face, a sudden, surprising strength seizing her as she grabbed her by the shoulders. “Please, for the sake of my child.”
“Yes.” Marta looked shaken but resolute. “Yes, I will.”
Lotte fell back as her blood soaked the straw and a cry came into the world.
Marta let out a choked sob. “It is a girl!”
Lotte’s eyes fluttered closed as a smile curved her lips. Already she could see that glimmering light, a beacon in the distance, as that burbling stream, placid and golden, carried her away on its sweet, silken tide. She felt Marta place a warm weight on her chest, and with the last of her strength she clasped her arms around the child she’d never know. A greater peace was beckoning, her own Father’s arms opening wide and welcoming, ushering her into His embrace, where every tear would be wiped away. At last… at last.
Another cry split the air, weak and mewling and right, and Lotte smiled as her eyes closed for the last time.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Salzburg, May 1945
The house on Getreidegasse was silent, the windows holding only jagged teeth of broken glass, everything inside covered in a thick shroud of dust. Johanna picked her way among the broken glass and shattered clocks as the May sunshine poured through the empty windows. The war had ended three days ago.
Johanna had spent the last few months at 22 Traunstrasse, not daring to visit her parents, although she’d longed to. She hadn’t known if they were being watched; she hadn’t wanted to put them in any danger.
Georg Haas had done his best to gain information, going out into the streets, asking careful questions. From him Johanna had learned that Ingrid had been captured and killed, back in February. The small resistance group she’d been a part of had no doubt disintegrated.
In March Werner’s father had seen someone he thought might be her mother leave the house on Getreidegasse to do her shopping, looking old and haggard, but alive. Johanna had let that be enough. She could wait. She would have to.
Now, as she picked her way through the ruins, she marveled at how much had changed. There was the cuckoo clock made by Johann Baptist Beha that had chimed every quarter hour throughout her childhood, discarded on the floor amidst the detritus and ruin. There was the bench where Franz had once sat, now kicked over onto its side. Johanna let out a little cry, but it sounded more like a sigh. She felt too battle-weary and scarred to make space for grief, at least not yet. She had not let herself think too much about Franz.
He is most likely dead. You know that. Of course you know that.
She’d repeated this litany to herself every day for the last few months, yet she knew it wasn’t enough to snuff out the spark of hope that continued to kindle her soul, no matter how resigned she’d made herself become.
Slowly she turned to the stairs. As she climbed them, she had no idea what to expect. More abandoned, dust-filled rooms, an emptiness that echoed on forever? Her parents had surely long gone, God willing to somewhere safer. In the last few months nearly half of Salzburg had been destroyed by bombs, although the old town had been thankfully spared.
As Johanna came to the top of the stairs and then into the kitchen, she s
topped suddenly, reaching out to steady herself on the doorframe, for there was her mother, standing at the table, her head bent as she peeled potatoes, the scritch scritch of her knife the only sound in the room.
It was as if the war had not happened at all, as if time had reeled backwards, and Johanna had just shut the door on Janos Panov. She felt the flicker of that old, petty irritation, like the remnant of a dream. How could this be? She opened her mouth, closed it. Her mother looked up.
“Johanna…” Hedwig’s voice was a hoarse whisper. She flung the knife away with a clatter and staggered towards her daughter, her arms held out. Johanna fell into them.
“I didn’t think you were here.” She managed to get the words out through gasps and sobs; after feeling so hardened, so weary, the force of her emotion slammed into her and then overflowed.
“We stayed. Where else could we go? And we hoped—dear God above, we hoped at least one of our daughters would come back to us.”
“Mama… oh, Mama.” Johanna’s eyes closed as she hugged her mother tightly. She was thinner now, harder, older, yet she was still so wonderfully the same. Peeling potatoes…! She almost wanted to laugh. Finally, after several moments where they simply embraced silently, she pulled away, a question in her eyes. “Papa?”
Her mother’s face fell, pulled down by weight and care. “He’s lying in bed,” she told her after a second’s pause. “He collapsed a few months ago. A stroke, the doctor said.”
“A stroke—”
“He’s alive, but…” Hedwig spread her hands. “I’ve done my best by him these last months. God knows I’ve tried, but nothing seems to.…” She drew a shuddering breath. “He knows how much I love him, how much I’ve always loved him. I have to believe that.”
“Of course he does, Mama.” Johanna squeezed her mother’s hand before slowly walking into her parents’ bedroom, with its heavy, dark furniture, the curtains drawn against the day. Her father lay in bed, a pale, diminished figure, barely a bump under the covers.