Don't Tell the Nazis

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  She glanced at my toe, which was now red and slightly swollen. “You can finish your cleaning now.”

  I had just witnessed my friend’s father being marched into the woods along with a hundred other innocent men, and this woman wanted me to finish cleaning? Just looking at her made me feel ill.

  “Mama and I will be back tomorrow, Frau Hermann,” I said in as calm and humble a voice as I could muster. “But there are chores I need to do at home.”

  Her brow furrowed. “You Slavs are all alike. You can’t think further than your own shallow needs.”

  With that, she turned and walked away from the balcony. I watched her exit into the hallway, then heard her high heels click-clacking down the curving front staircase. I followed a few steps behind, then exited by the servants’ door.

  As I limped down the street, I was jolted still by the deafening staccato of gunshots. Was this what the execution of a hundred and one victims sounded like?

  My conscience swirled. Why had I been so selfish, praying only for my family? I should have prayed for Dolik’s family too—for everyone in our town. I wanted to find Dolik—but I needed time to think.

  I wondered if what I’d heard wasn’t really an execution. Maybe it was distant thunder or the sounds of war. Would the Commandant really go through with killing a hundred and one innocent men? It just didn’t seem possible.

  I pushed through the noisy crowds until I got to my own street. As I passed our blacksmith shop, I saw that the door was slightly open. I was surprised to hear the familiar rhythm of metal banging on metal—almost as if my father were calling to me. I slipped through the door and the sound got louder. The scent of beeswax and linseed oil almost made me weep. The forge was lit, and a man was shaping a piece of iron into a horseshoe.

  How I longed to see Tato just one more time. Tato would tell me what was going on and what I should do about it. This man in here now was like his ghost. When he raised his head and took off his mask, the spell was broken. His hair was blond, where Tato’s was dark, and this man’s build was much slighter.

  “Greetings, Fräulein,” said the man with a smile. “Don’t tell me they sent you to be my apprentice.”

  My mouth opened, but no words came out. I took a deep breath and held on to the door to keep my balance.

  “I won’t bite,” he said. “Did you just step in to get away from the crowds?”

  I nodded, then found my voice. “My father was a blacksmith. This was his shop.”

  “The Soviets probably killed him, is that correct?” said the man.

  “Cancer,” I replied. “But my uncle Roman, who was a blacksmith here as well—he was killed by the Soviets.”

  The man set the tongs that still held a half-shaped horseshoe onto the forge and removed his work glove. He reached out his hand. “I’m Wolfgang Zimmer,” he said. “And who might you be?”

  “Krystia Fediuk,” I said, gripping his hand in mine. “I live a few doors down.”

  “Drop by any time, Fräulein Krystia.”

  “Thank you, Herr Zimmer.” I said. He seemed nice enough, but the whole situation was wrong. He had been rewarded with my family’s shop just because he was German. Dolik’s father may have been executed today just because he was Jewish.

  I slipped back outside.

  The street was nearly empty now, but I didn’t want to go home and I couldn’t bear to see Dolik just yet.

  I made my way to the Jewish cemetery that backed onto the woods. I needed to see for myself what had really happened. If the Commandant had just been trying to scare us, I’d have good news for Dolik. But maybe the men had been beaten. Maybe they needed help.

  I hid behind a weathered tombstone close to the edge of the woods. Voices drifted in the wind, but the words were mostly indistinct. I stepped closer, keeping behind a leafy bush.

  “The shoes. Sort them by size.” A woman’s voice. And not a soldier. It sounded like some sort of meeting.

  I stepped from behind the bush and walked toward the voices.

  The Germans who weren’t from Germany: Volksdeutsche refugees. A few were tossing loose soil from a mound onto what looked like a freshly turned garden. Other shovels were neatly piled to the side.

  Most of the Germans were calmly sorting through mounds of clothing. Shirts here, jackets there, hats there. As a shirt was picked up and shaken out, then folded, I couldn’t see a bullet hole, and there was no blood. All of the clothing seemed undamaged. But where were the Jewish men?

  And then I noticed a familiar face—Frau Schneider, but her daughter, Marga, wasn’t with her. Frau Schneider was picking through the clothing along with several men and one other woman. One of the soldiers who had been handing out shovels yesterday stood among them, giving orders. They all seemed so calm, just concentrating on sorting the clothing.

  So these people had been sent out here first to dig what looked like a garden ready for planting, and then they were sorting clothing? Very odd. And what would they be planting in the middle of the woods?

  I was staring at the huge mound of loose soil, trying to figure that out, when I noticed a barely perceptible tremor. Was it my imagination? But as I watched, the ground trembled again. A clump of dirt crumbled, revealing a flash of white. I squinted.

  A hand, fingers reaching out.

  All at once I realized what I was staring at. The men had been murdered. And this was their grave.

  I had an image in my mind of what must have happened. The victims marched to the edge of the ditch and then ordered to remove their clothing. They were shot, and fell into the ditch, and dirt was shoveled over them. The tremors I’d noticed must have been caused by the bodies settling into the earth. The mass murder was horrible, but to force the men to remove their clothing first so it wouldn’t be damaged?

  A wave of nausea coursed through me and I bent over, clutching my stomach. I fell to the ground and the world swirled.

  “Krystia, what are you doing here?”

  Frau Schneider’s voice.

  I propped myself up and tried to focus. A tall man holding a shovel hovered above me, standing beside Frau Schneider. He prodded me with the tip of it. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” said Frau Schneider. “I know her.”

  The man tossed down the shovel and walked away.

  I sucked in huge gulps of air and tried to get to my feet, but my knees were too weak. One of Frau Schneider’s hands was level with my face. She held several pairs of eyeglasses, but there was one that caught my eye. They had round black frames. Mr. Kitai’s.

  I looked up at Frau Schneider’s placid face. Was she evil? She seemed unaffected by the job she was doing.

  “Those glasses,” I said. “Could I have them?”

  “These old things?” She looked surprised. “They’re supposed to go to the Volksdeutsche families, but here, take them.”

  “Thank you,” I said, shoving them inside my pocket. I stumbled to my feet and limped away.

  When I passed Auntie Iryna’s house, or what had been her house, the door opened and Marga stepped out, blocking my way.

  “The neighbors told me this was your aunt’s house,” she said.

  “Yes, Marga, it was.” I didn’t want to talk with her right then, especially after seeing what her mother had been doing in the woods.

  “You stole from us,” she said. “I saw feathers out back. There should be chickens here. And our cow. I saw you with two cows. One of them was supposed to be ours.”

  There was so much that I wanted to say to her, but what was the point? “My friend Dolik … his father was just executed,” I said, stepping around her. “I need to find him.”

  “I’m going to tell the Commandant that you stole our cow,” she said. “Your whole family is going to be in big trouble.”

  Did she realize just how much trouble she could get us into? I stepped farther to the side to walk around her.

  She stepped back in front of me and poked my chest with her f
inger. “This isn’t the end of it.”

  “I’m sorry, Marga, but I really have to go,” I said as I hurried away from her, past the blacksmith shop that also used to be ours. The rhythmic pounding of metal upon metal sounded through the door, and I imagined Herr Zimmer working steadily just the way Tato used to.

  At the Kitais’ house, I pushed on the front door and was about to step in, but I could hear Dolik arguing with his mother. I closed the door quietly and sat on the doorstep, leaning against the cool stone wall. Snippets of the argument came through the door—Dolik upset with his mother for pulling him away when he tried to get to his father. “We can’t all act like sheep!” he shouted.

  It was hard to hear Doctor Mina’s response, because she wasn’t shouting, but it was clear that Dolik was in no mood for comforting. I stood up and brushed the creases from my skirt, and as I did so, I felt the outline of Mr. Kitai’s glasses in my pocket. I sat back down, cradling my head in my arms.

  The door creaked open. Leon stepped out. “Krystia,” he said, slumping down beside me and leaning against my shoulder, “what do you think is going to happen to Tate?”

  He looked so tiny huddled beside me. I wanted to say something comforting, but all that came out was a sob. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and together we wept.

  As I got undressed for bed that night, Mr. Kitai’s glasses slipped out of my skirt pocket and fell onto the floor. I picked them up and felt the weight of them in my hand. This was all that was left of a man I had known my whole life.

  I set the glasses down on the table in front of the wedding picture of Mama and Tato, then climbed into bed beside Maria. How I longed for a simple life, where fathers lived to see their children grow, and where governments didn’t kill. Sleep would not come, that I knew, but I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing.

  It was impossible to think of nothing. When I closed my eyes, I saw that fresh grave with the trembling earth. What kind of government would allow the Commandant to kill innocent people? The Soviets had done this sort of thing. Clearly, these Germans were no better. It made sense now that these Germans and the Soviets had been on the same side of the war for the past two years.

  Maybe we had been wrong to welcome them so readily. These were not the cultured Germans who believed in democracy and brought freedom. I thought about the lists they kept making. From what I could sort out, they believed that Aryans—a term they used to describe people like themselves—deserved extra privileges. But what else did they believe in? I was almost afraid to find out.

  I thought about the words I’d overheard when the organizers talked among themselves. They didn’t call themselves Germans. They called themselves Nazis, because of things they believed in. I sat up in bed, and as my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I looked at Maria, fast asleep but with a face etched in grief. It was too dark to see either Mama or Auntie Iryna in the big bed across the room, but I could hear their rhythmic breathing.

  And then I remembered Marga’s threat.

  What if she told the Commandant that I’d stolen her cow? Could I be punished? I did take Lysa to Auntie Polina’s, and I didn’t feel guilty about it. But what if Mama, Maria, or Auntie Iryna were punished because of what I did? Maybe even killed, like Mr. Kitai and the others. I couldn’t let that happen.

  A beam of moonlight illuminated the outline of Mr. Kitai’s eyeglasses as they rested on the night table. Mere hours ago, he had been wearing them, standing in the square with his family. His last gesture had been a courageous one. My parents’ wedding portrait was in shadows, but even so, I felt my father’s eyes and knew what he expected. A shiver ran through me. Two dead fathers were watching, both urging me to be brave—to protect my family.

  I thought about the Commandant’s wife and how I had left in such a hurry. That was certainly not brave. It wasn’t smart either if I was hoping to keep the job. Add to that the problem with Marga.

  There was no point in trying to sleep anymore, so I got up and dressed. I put the eyeglasses in my pocket and went to the main room. I would have loved to be able to sort through my thoughts, but I felt angry and sad and frightened and furious all at once. And I felt totally powerless and not particularly brave. It was too early to milk Krasa and it was too dark to mend or collect eggs or do other useful things.

  But I could get our morning bucket of water. It was a small chore, not brave at all, but what a nice surprise it would be for Maria, who for once in her life wouldn’t start a day by fetching water.

  No one was at the pump, so it took no time to fill the pail, but as I lugged it home I had a new appreciation for my sister. My hands ached with the weight of the pail, and by the time I got home, my knees were bruised from it knocking into them. Maria might be fearful of walking Krasa the two kilometers to the pasture, but thank goodness she was, because I wouldn’t last a day doing her chores.

  I set the pail down in front of our door and stretched the kinks out of my back. I was about to go in when I noticed Dolik, lost in thought, sitting cross-legged on the front step of his house. I walked over and sat down beside him.

  He glanced at me and nodded, but didn’t say a word. We sat there silently for long minutes, with me sitting so close to him that I could feel the warmth of his breath. It wasn’t necessary to ask his thoughts. I knew what they would be.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, reaching my hand over to his and giving it a small squeeze.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” he murmured, pulling his hand away.

  “You tried to tell me it wasn’t my fault when Uncle Roman died,” I told him. “You were right, but I was too upset to believe it.” I reached into my pocket and drew out Mr. Kitai’s eyeglasses.

  He snatched them from my hand. “Where did you get these?”

  “Where do you think? I had to see for myself,” I said. “I was hoping that the Commandant had just tried to scare us, and that the men were still alive.”

  “But they weren’t,” said Dolik. It was a statement. “I went there too, for the same reason.”

  “Last night?”

  He nodded.

  I told him about the Volksdeutsche sorting through the clothing.

  “Harvesting clothing from the dead,” said Dolik. “Is that all we’re worth?”

  Maria was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes when I came back into the house with the water. Her face broke into a broad grin. “Thank you, Krystia. That was sweet of you.”

  Mama filled the kettle. “Why were you out so early, Krystia?” she asked. “I’d rather that you didn’t while it’s still so dark.”

  “We have a new problem,” I said, sitting down at the table. I told them about Marga’s threat. “And it’s so unfair,” I said, “because she only knew about the extra cow because I gave them milk.”

  “It was a kind act,” said Mama. “Maybe another kind act will soften her opinion.”

  She took down a willow basket from the shelf. “Maria, can you collect the eggs? And Krystia, can you milk Krasa now, please?”

  Half an hour later, Mama assembled a food basket: two fresh chicken eggs, a container of milk, plus a jar of blackberry jam and another of strawberry. “Take this to Frau Schneider and see if you can win her sympathy.”

  I carried the basket to Auntie Iryna’s old house and tapped on the door, hoping that Frau Schneider, and not Marga, would answer.

  No such luck.

  Marga opened the door just a bit and stuck out her nose. “What do you want?”

  “Is your mother home?”

  “She wouldn’t want to see you.”

  The door opened wider and Frau Schneider stood behind her daughter. “Krystia,” she said, looking at the basket in my arms. “Come in.”

  My stomach lurched as I stepped in and realized what these two were dressed in. Marga wore the baker’s white trousers and shirt. Frau Schneider wore the dogcatcher’s gray shirt and brown trousers. Looking at them made me think of vultures, picking at scraps from the dead.

&n
bsp; As I took a deep breath and stepped inside, I realized that they didn’t need the items I had brought. A large sack of flour and a smaller one of sugar sat on the table. There were tinned items as well, all stamped with German labels: Schweinefleisch, Schmalz, Kaffee.

  “I came to apologize,” I said, thrusting the basket into Frau Schneider’s arms.

  She set it onto the table, taking the eggs out first, then removing the cloth. “How thoughtful of you,” she said, holding the jam jars up to the window light. “Milk too. I know you don’t have much to share.” She regarded me with a puzzled look. “What do you have to apologize for?”

  “There was a cow in your shed before you arrived,” I said.

  “That second cow we saw you with,” said Marga, crossing her arms. “You stole it from us.”

  “That’s quite enough, Marga,” said Frau Schneider. “Krystia, what is it that you’d like to apologize for?”

  “This house was my aunt’s, and the cow was hers too, but the Commandant forced her out and told her to leave everything in the house.”

  “She must have done something bad to deserve that,” said Marga. “She should have done what the Commandant said.”

  It was hard not to be angry at Marga’s words, but what good would it do? I raised my eyes to Frau Schneider’s and said, “The reason my aunt was forced out is because the Commandant didn’t want a whole house used by just one person when there were many refugees coming into our town. Auntie Iryna’s son and husband had just been killed by the Soviets, so she was suddenly on her own.” I purposely didn’t mention Borys—still living but in hiding.

  “Then you’ve lost family, just as we have,” said Frau Schneider, her eyes filling with tears. “Where did your aunt go?”

  “She’s with us,” I said. “The cow is in the country. I brought you eggs and milk and jam by way of apology.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” said Frau Schneider. “But how kind of you to think of us.”