The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

by Marion Kummerow

  “Verboten! Verboten…” The MP desperately groped for the right words. “Verboten im cigarety davat!” He satisfied himself with the incomprehensive hybrid of Russian and German and stalked off in the opposite direction, ignoring the crowd into which the boy had disappeared.

  “Must be the black market,” Gerlinde remarked, putting away her papers. Tadek noticed that she still moved as though in a dream, slowly and barely comprehending the reality around her.

  “If the others are allowed to trade in the open, why did the Ivan chase the boy away then?” he asked, not really counting on the answer.

  “Must be because he’s selling what they don’t want to see sold.”

  The double-decker buses were running again and women’s hairdos were pre-war, elegant. The dome of the sky was insultingly blue above their heads and even the statue on the Alexanderplatz still had her head. Berlin was living, despite all; perhaps, it would have been worse in winter but now, in sweltering July, everything was so bright and full of hope and beauty once again and even the ruins appeared strangely poetic. On the façades of some buildings, original signs still hung against all the odds. Under their feet, the grass was shoving its blades upwards and to the devil with the gunpowder-poisoned earth.

  Yet, next to him, Gerlinde barely forced herself to move her feet, wide-eyed and pale, despite the tan she’d acquired during their morning runs. Out of respect, Tadek kept silent.

  It was indeed a market of some sort, now that they approached it. One of the first people they came across, a scrawny woman and the pile of shoes in front of her, some not even matching and almost all lacking shoelaces. The woman perked up at the sight of the couple but then saw Gerlinde’s patent leather shoes and let her shoulders drop again. From Tadek’s US army-provided half-boots, she also turned away in resignation.

  Heavily made-up girls laughed shrilly next to the American GIs and eyed Gerlinde with suspicion. Every new face was potential competition and the Amis only had so many cigarettes to be charitable with. They resumed their laugher, with relief, as soon as she passed their little group by without paying them the slightest attention. Her eyes were riveted to the Reichstag. She cared not one curse for their boyfriends or cigarettes.

  “Fountain pens. Very good fountain pens, all four for two packs of cigarettes only!”

  “Batteries, batteries! Absolutely new!”

  “A collection of German classics, twelve tomes, leather-bound!”

  “Men’s boots, never worn…”

  Gerlinde pushed through the murmuring crowd and Tadek could barely keep her in his sight. When some desperate fellow clutched his sleeve, begging him to buy his grandfather’s pocket watch, he tore himself away and plunged into the whirling sea of undernourished bodies, fearing that he’d lost her to the current. But no, there she stood, on an island of emptiness, in front of the pockmarked columns. Down her cheeks, tears silently rolled.

  In spite of himself, Tadek also lifted his head and stared. The skeleton of the dome-shaped roof of the Reichstag stood out against the vast blue sky. The sole tree gently swayed in the breeze in front of the gaping mouths of the windows. The statues on the roof – almost all strangely untouched – grimly observed the devastation below them.

  “It must have been beautiful before.” Tadek didn’t realize that he’d spoken it out loud, only when Gerlinde turned to look at him.

  “It was,” she confirmed. “And the Tiergarten, too. Not like now.”

  “Did you come here often?”

  Once again, she nodded. “Vati was a member.”

  Carefully, Tadek probed the waters. “You ever wonder where he is now?”

  She sighed, annoyed at the clumsy attempt but answered, much to his surprise, “I would like to imagine somewhere very far from here, where he can’t see all this rot. It would break his heart.”

  She turned on her heel and headed away from the building. Tadek still heard her mutter under her breath, “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  He followed her into the Tiergarten park, keeping his distance this time. She wandered around aimlessly for some time. Morris had warned him about a possible contact but she seemed much too lost in her thoughts to be seeking anyone out of the crowd. The manner in which she stumbled about, picking her way amid still-not-cleared rubble, was without any direction. In the end, she dropped onto the grass altogether and began pulling at the weeds around her, tearing them into bits and pieces and throwing them away. Tadek sat not too far away and followed her gaze to the lion, which was missing its head and the other one on the opposite side of the stream. Above it, between the lions, the bridge must have been at some point.

  “Is it the same in the rest of Europe?”

  Tadek tore his gaze away from the lions. Gerlinde was plucking at another weed. Her eyes had dried.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen much of Europe from behind the barbed-wire fence, only what I covered on foot with the Reds,” Tadek tried to joke but it didn’t come out funny.

  “I would think so. And in Russia, too.”

  “Yes. In Russia, too. Soldiers were telling about their villages, towns… All obliterated. Burned. Much like here.”

  She was thinking about something. “I don’t know if…” She sighed, annoyed with those bothersome thoughts. “Maybe it would have been better…”

  “What?”

  “Everything was fine before the war. Maybe, we shouldn’t have… Should have just lived here instead of… We did have lots of lands, after all; Morris is right.” She gestured around herself. The movement of her hand was somewhat desperate, shaky. “Was there really a need for all this? Perhaps, it’s a cowardly thing to consider but was it worth it, obliterating half of Europe for an idea? It is cowardly, isn’t it?” She was back to biting her chopped lip. “It’s because I’m a girl. I don’t understand all of these things; mother was right about me all along. I couldn’t even die along with them all. A coward is what I am. She was right from the very—”

  “No, you’re not!” Tadek leaped to his feet and went to take her hand, changed his mind halfway through and sat cross-legged next to her and began tearing at the grass too. “You’re most definitely not a coward! You’re so very strong, you just don’t see it. Anyone can do away with themselves. Bite on a pill and all trouble is over. But to choose life, a lonely life, an alien life, devoid of anything you’ve grown used to and to face it all with open eyes and to admit the mistakes – that demands great courage.”

  “You don’t know these things. You don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “No! You don’t know what you’re saying yet. But you’re saying the right things.” He smiled at her.

  They walked some more. Sometimes, when they encountered a statue that had survived the shelling and bombardments, Gerlinde spoke about its significance and history, in a lowered, wistful voice, as though recounting the achievements of an important relative who had recently passed away and whose body was still on display in the family’s house. Still present but already gone, soon to be buried. Tadek listened greedily and tried matching his steps with hers. Soon, he knew which stone each statue was made of, by whom, and what precisely it symbolized.

  “You really are such a cultured people,” he remarked, in a soft voice. “My father’s best friend and colleague, Professor Rosenfeld, taught German literature and he always admired you greatly. And then you came and murdered his entire family.”

  Gerlinde came to an abrupt halt and looked at him in horror.

  “Yes, his entire family. And mine, too, even though my father admired you also and taught me German before anything else because of all languages it was his favorite. Why did you trade all this beauty for bombs? All this marble and granite and Beethoven and Goethe – for the tanks and panzerfausts and the SS? It’s like trading your father’s War Merit Cross for ten cigarettes. Why would you do that?”

  For some time, she just stood before him, pale and tragic. “I don’t know,” she finally uttered. Her voice was full of tear
s. “I don’t know!” she shouted, louder this time, squeezing her hands into fists. “Why are you asking me this? What do I know? I’m just a sixteen-year-old girl! I don’t know anything! What do you all want from me?”

  Before he could speak, she swung around and marched back, towards the Reichstag, away from him. Feeling infinitely guilty for no apparent reason, Tadek trudged after her. Near the market, among people, she calmed herself quickly and wiped away her tears – no crying in public for the General’s daughter. Unseemly. Shameful. Tadek watched her walk aimlessly between the overturned crates with goods piled upon them – men’s jackets and chipped pots; lighters and green table lamps, clearly looted from some official department; perfume and razors. Gerlinde hardly saw any of those things and needed them even less. She only wished to be away from Tadek and he let her walk on her own as long as she was not more than five paces ahead of him.

  Suddenly, a familiar outline of a candleholder caught his gaze. He stopped and stared at it, stupefied.

  “Silver, of the best quality.” The seller, an elderly man with a cigarette stuck in his toothless mouth, squinted at him against the sun. “It’s a rarity. You won’t find many such things just lying about.”

  Feeling his breath hitching in his throat, Tadek pawed at his pockets in desperation. It was in vain and he knew it, for the cigarettes had been long gone, given to some Nazi’s son who made away with them and now Tadek couldn’t buy the only thing that still reminded him of the past, of his own past in this alien Germany. The very thought of it was so painful, he thought he would fall over with grief before this wrinkled, toothless man.

  “I have five hundred Reichsmarks,” he whispered, imploring the man with his eyes.

  The latter only bared his gums at him in laughter. “And what am I to do with that useless paper? No, my good fellow. Coffee or cigarettes – or gold – or no business, as the Yanks say.”

  The Yanks… Tadek patted himself some more despite knowing that he had nothing of value on him whatsoever. Suddenly he remembered Gerlinde and looked at where he had last seen her standing just to see unfamiliar faces around.

  Lost… Everything was lost. He felt his face twisting into a painful mask.

  “This is gold. It costs twice as much as your little candlestick.”

  Tadek nearly jumped as the wristwatch, the one that he’d seen so many times on Gerlinde’s delicate wrist, landed onto the merchant’s crate right next to the menorah. Gruppenführer Neumann’s daughter stood right behind him, her expression impenetrable and aloof once again.

  The merchant picked up the watch, fingered at it with suspicion, brought it to his ear.

  “It’s working perfectly, you miserable halfwit!” Her arrogant tone was back as well. “No one shall buy this thing from you, not for cigarettes, not for Reichsmarks even! Everyone who could put it to any use is dead! Dead, do you hear me?” A few heads turned to them in alarm but Gerlinde didn’t pay them any heed. “Now take the watch and get lost, you pitiful profiteer, before I report you to the Amis and make them ask you wherever you stole this thing from! Clearly, it’s not yours, you arch-crook!”

  The man was on his feet, along with Gerlinde’s watch and with the crate under his arm before Tadek knew it. In her hand, Gruppenführer Neumann’s daughter held a menorah, with the look of a true Feldmarschall who’d just won a battle.

  “Here.” She thrust it into Tadek’s hands. “All yours now. Let’s get moving. Jergens, or whatever his name is,” she purposely distorted Johnson’s last name, “will be here soon and we won’t be able to tell the time anymore.”

  Her crooked grin reflected on Tadek’s face. He felt himself glowing, almost flying, his feet barely touching the ground as he walked.

  “Why did you buy it for me?”

  “Why did you give your cigarettes to the little boy?”

  “He was clearly starving. It mustn’t have been easy for him, to part with his father’s Cross.”

  “You were starving too. Just not for food.”

  He pressed the menorah tighter to his chest and smiled wider.

  8

  Another month had passed. During her last interrogation, Gerlinde had told Morris for the millionth time that she had not the faintest idea where her father was and this time Morris had actually believed her.

  “Will you tell me if he reappears though?”

  She thought about answering truthfully but then realized that he wouldn’t allow her to resume her studies and ended up saying nothing at all.

  “It won’t change my decision about the school, Gerlinde. I’m just curious.”

  His smile was unexpectedly kind and somewhat disappointed. It was that disappointment that struck in Gerlinde’s gut like a knife. She looked away. It was much better when they were enemies, when everything was much clearer than this.

  “Tadeusz said he’ll be going to school with me as well,” changing the subject.

  Morris let her and didn’t press with his original question. “Yes. He never finished school. He was only fourteen when their family was sent to the ghetto. They had a makeshift school there but of course, it couldn’t come close to the actual education. He needs a real diploma.”

  From Gerlinde, another pensive nod. “He’s twenty years old.”

  “One is never too old to learn.”

  “No, it’s not that,” she explained quietly. “I mean, it’ll be strange for him, sitting there with us, children. I would feel strange if I were to return to kindergarten now.”

  Morris snorted softly. “I wouldn’t worry about that. I expect he won’t be the only adult there.”

  Gerlinde only understood what he’d meant when she took her seat in front of two very much grown men, both still dressed in the faded and patched-up Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe uniforms with all the insignia torn off. Last year’s Hitlerjugend conscripts, Gerlinde had guessed; perhaps, even the year before that. Half of the class was full of them, talking to each other in their deep voices and looking ridiculously large behind their desks. Some smoked through the open window, regular shirts tucked neatly into military khaki trousers. Some argued loudly about something she didn’t understand, something to do with the Amis and the pension and the military status and the Potsdam conference. Some compared their prosthetic limbs and exchanged addresses of the specialists who were still alive and working.

  A short, pudgy man walked in with a stack of books under his arm and stopped in his tracks at the sight of the smoking Wehrmacht near the window. Less than half of the class rose reluctantly from their seats. The group of former soldiers, by the window, didn’t seem to even notice him.

  “Smoking!” The voices had gone quiet at the sound of the wooden rod against the desk. Having spilled his books from under his arm, the new teacher was clasping at it with such force, his knuckles had turned white. “Smoking in the classroom! Have you no shame at all? Put that out at once and stand to attention when a teacher speaks to you! Where are your manners?”

  The four comrades exchanged looks and then, much to Gerlinde’s amazement exploded with laughter.

  “The furlough is over, my good fellows.” One of them nudged the other with his elbow. “Stand to attention when the Feldwebel – I beg your pardon – a teacher speaks to you!”

  “Do not mock authority, you pitiful hog of the trenches!” another one chimed in, much to the first fellow’s delight. “He has the rod and one doesn’t joke with something of that sort!”

  More guffaws and back-slaps as the teacher looked on in growing horror. The fellow with the cigarette couldn’t get his breath and was wiping his eyes.

  “Wirths, I’m quite serious. Don’t get on Herr Professor’s bad side or else he’ll write a note to your mother and will keep you after the class!”

  “My mother is buried somewhere under the ruins.”

  “To your father then.”

  “Fell under Stalingrad.”

  “It’s the first time that I’m saying this, but it seems that you’re finally in luck, Wi
rths! No notes for you! You’ll have to belt your own behind and put yourself in the corner!”

  Their laughter was deafening now, hysterical and furious at the same time. In front of the class, the teacher was opening and closing his mouth like a fish thrown out of the water. Gerlinde clenched her fists, imploring the sweating man, in his ill-fitting suit, to say something to them, to make them stop, for it was unbearable to listen to them and their words and voices that sliced, with their sharp truths, like razors, through strained nerves. But he only stood before them, a powerless adult before a young generation they had all failed so miserably; no, worse than that – betrayed in a manner so malevolent it was beyond any comprehension. He must have sensed it that he had not the right to tell them another word after everything they’d been put through but that silence of his was just as poisonous now, as the patriotic slogans from some long-forgotten years ago. It was always the old men who started wars. It was always the young ones who died for those old men’s ideas.

  Gerlinde looked away from the teacher in disgust. If they, the adults, had the guts to send these boys to the front, they should have had the guts to face the veterans that had come back from it. But all the teacher could do was stand there and stare at them, as though not comprehending the loss of his authority, over his yesterday’s students, all of a sudden. Only, they weren’t his students any longer. They were veterans, embittered and betrayed and he didn’t know how to deal with them any longer.

  Gerlinde did though. She was surrounded by military men her entire life and knew just what language they would understand.

  “Stop it right this instant!” she shouted, in a wrathful, commanding tone. Much to everyone’s surprise, silence descended upon the classroom at once. “Is that the way the soldiers of the Wehrmacht ought to behave? You have always been famous for your discipline and class. So what that the war is over and lost? Is that any reason to act like animals to each other? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! Acting like some Amis! You ought to set an example for everyone, and you—” She stumbled upon the right word and turned away, already regretting starting the entire disciplinary rebuke.