The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

by Marion Kummerow

  Voices were calling her and Eliška’s names, as if they were one. Magdališka! Eliškamagda!

  Magda scooped the child into her arms, blankets and all. She nearly fell over into the bed, losing her balance under the sudden weight, but Magda heaved the child to her and nearly barreled past the Taubers. Aleš flew by her in a white undershirt. Renata, her mane like that of a dark lion, was behind him.

  “It’s electrical,” Magda shouted at them. “By God, don’t throw water on it. It’s electrical!”

  In the next moment, she was down the stairs and at the front entrance. Eliška was heavy in her arms. She propped the child up against her and opened the door with one twist, then stumbled out onto the gravel drive, Frau Tauber right behind her. Magda lay the girl onto the grass, relieved to see Dr. Tauber coming out.

  He dropped down next to Eliška and checked her pulse. “Come now, my darling finch. Papa’s here.” He turned her onto her side and clapped her back.

  Eliška jerked and coughed. Crying followed, and Magda backed away as Frau Tauber helped her daughter sit up. The parents murmured around her, encouraging her. She spluttered, then wailed again.

  Aleš, Renata, and Jana came out at the same time. Aleš held a flashlight, and he was covered in soot.

  “She’s going to be all right,” Dr. Tauber said. “She’s going to be all right.”

  “We’ve put it out,” Aleš said. “I’ll ring the fire brigade.”

  “No,” Dr. Tauber said.

  “Why in God’s name not?” Frau Tauber cried.

  Aleš looked resigned. “I understand, Dr. Tauber.”

  Magda did as well. They were not going to call attention to themselves. Not now. And hopefully, not ever.

  “Aleš, can you manage?” Dr. Tauber asked. “Can you check the electricity?”

  Aleš nodded. “I have a friend, someone I trust. I’ll get him here first thing in the morning.”

  “Good.” Dr. Tauber rose with Eliška in his arms. “Go get everyone some blankets. All of you, go get your valuables out, and quickly. Just in case another fire breaks out. We’ll sleep in the old carriage house tonight.”

  Frau Tauber draped one of the covers over Eliška. “We have to keep you warm, darling.”

  Aleš volunteered to keep watch first. Renata said she would join him. Magda said she had no valuables and went to the carriage house with the Taubers. Jana returned with water and refreshments, and Magda helped her set up places for them to sleep.

  “Magda,” Frau Tauber called, “Eliška’s asking for you.”

  Magda went over and bent down to the child. “What is it, little finch?”

  “I asked you to come.” Eliška’s voice was hoarse, sleepy. “And you did. I knew you would.”

  Magda felt a hand on her shoulder, and she twisted around to see Frau Tauber.

  “We owe you. You saved our daughter’s life. Thank you.” She took Magda into an embrace, and Magda shook her head.

  “I just happened to—”

  “You’re a hero.” Frau Tauber kissed Magda’s cheeks.

  Magda shrank into herself.

  The next morning as Aleš and his friend Davide inspected the house, Magda wandered out to feed the chickens but stopped when she saw Walter come around the corner of the villa. Her pulse quickened at the sight of him. He was in Wehrmacht uniform, cap on a shaven head, the rim of which rested just above those perfect ears of his.

  She looked around and went to the end of the chicken coop, where she could see the front drive. The black vehicle was back.

  “I hear you’re a hero,” he said in greeting.

  “No such thing,” she said. His presence in her dream came back to her, his hand on her thigh, the whispers in her ear. Wake up.

  “Aleš was certainly singing your praises.”

  Aleš would do no such thing. Walter was embellishing. “She was in danger. I wasn’t even thinking. Anybody could’ve done that.”

  “That’s not what I heard. Aleš said you had your wits about you. Even checked the door before throwing it open. Knew it was an electrical fire right away, all that.”

  She rubbed a hand along her skirt and pulled her scarf up higher over her brow.

  He grinned and leaned against one of the posts. “You never came to say goodbye. I thought I’d see you at the lake again.”

  “Did you expect I’d just be waiting where you left me?”

  Walter frowned. “No. Well, I don’t know. Maybe. Are you angry because I left with the boys without you?” He faced her. “I didn’t want to embarrass you. I didn’t think it was any of their business, that’s all.”

  Magda sniffed. “You knew where to find me.”

  “Would you have been happy to see me?”

  She scattered more feed.

  “Wehrmacht,” he said, removing his cap. “I guess Germany needs soldiers and not swimmers. I’ve got a different type of training now. In the meantime, I’m driving the Obergruppenführer to his appointments.” He waved the cap toward the front of the house. “His results came in, so…”

  Magda paused, one hand in the bowl. She lowered it to the ground. “Walter, do you know about…” She couldn’t. She could not say the words. She looked meaningfully at the house. “Can you help them? Can you say something? Anything?”

  Walter’s fingers flexed in the holes of the fence. “I don’t know how. It’s the law now.”

  “Did you see what they have to sign?” Her voice broke. Renata had shown her the documents Mayor Brauer had brought with him. Stateless, all of them, in two months’ time. Their signatures would confirm they were the enemies of the Reich.

  Walter turned away from her, looking toward the deer park. “You know, I’ve got my own worries. Are you even listening to me, Magda?”

  “My brothers,” she said, “were sent to the eastern front. I haven’t heard anything from them.”

  “Yet. Just say you haven’t heard from them yet. It takes a long time for letters. Anyway, I’ll be done with the training in about a month. And then, I don’t know.” He looked east. “We’ll be taking Leningrad soon.”

  We’ll? She was never with the “we.” To which “we” would she ever belong?

  “Will you write me?” He faced her again. “Can I write you?”

  Magda watched two hens fighting over a piece of lettuce. She glanced at him and shrugged.

  “Damn it, Magda.” It was his voice that cracked now. “You’re not like the month of April. You’re more like the middle of January.” He sighed and tapped the flimsy fencing with an open palm before shoving his hands into his pockets, his mouth set into a thin, straight line. “See you around, Magda.”

  She raised a hand in return, and he made that clicking noise again and backed away.

  “And you are a hero.” He waved his cap at the villa before replacing it on his head. “They owe you. But the Taubers, I suppose, are in no position to take on credit.”

  5

  March 1942

  The cuckoo clock, the one the Taubers had brought home from the Black Forest one summer, entertained Eliška for only the first hour of Ruth Tauber’s labor. Thereafter, she begged Magda to play games with her, pausing only occasionally when the cuckoo popped out to mark yet another fifteen minutes of muffled agony in the bedroom above.

  The sound of Dr. Tauber’s pacing in the corridor occasionally rewarded the girls with his harried appearance. Once he began the ascent up the staircase, Magda and Eliška went and peeked around the doorway of the dining room. He hesitated on the top landing, the uncertainty and anxiety evident in the way he tipped his head, the way his hair was disarrayed. One end of his cravat—loosened hours ago—was whipped over his back. Although he was a medical doctor, Eva—who Magda discovered was not only the baker but a midwife—had requested Dr. Tauber to cite one Scripture from the Old Testament about a husband allowed at his wife’s childbed. When he was not able to, she respectfully showed him the door. It did not stop him from moving upstairs by midday to continue w
earing down a trail of anticipation.

  Jana had gone through the house, opening all the cupboards, which supposedly promised to speed up the birth. Renata and Magda had been playing at distraction for hours. Renata, in Dr. Tauber’s library, dusted the leather-bound books again and again while Magda played yet another round of Little Finch with Eliška.

  “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!” Dr. Tauber’s jubilant announcement tumbled down from the second floor.

  Before he reached the top of the landing, Magda and Renata had run into each other at the bottom of the staircase. They grabbed hands and raised them in a happy hurrah. Eliška flew upstairs to meet her father. He raised her into the air, and his cravat flew over the banister and onto the marble floor below. Late-afternoon light pooled in from the front foyer. It was the first sunshine after a week of heavy spring rains.

  When he reached them, Dr. Tauber grasped Renata’s hand, laughed, and spun her around. Her cry of surprise turned into girlish giggles, the feather duster wagging behind her back. Then it was Magda’s turn, though with her, he was more reverent in his approach.

  “Magdalena,” he said after embracing her, “fetch champagne from the cellar, please. We will all celebrate together.”

  It was only as the doctor left that Magda felt the familiar gnawing fear. Since the episode with the yellow stars, dark shadows had taken up residence in every corner of the villa. They had grown as permanent as her birthmark. They were the type of fears that were only expressed behind closed doors and well out of Eliška’s earshot. When Magda looked at Renata, she could see a glint of foreboding in her friend’s eyes as well.

  “Well,” Renata said. They walked into the drawing room. “I suppose I should go tell Aleš. He’s waiting to hear.”

  “He’s waiting, all right,” Magda teased shyly. “He’s waiting to—” She bit back her joke. Aleš was a Gentile. Marrying Renata was illegal, much less having children with her.

  “I had no idea you had such a raucous fantasy.” Renata’s sad grin did not match the playful smack of the duster against Magda’s arm or the glassy sharpness in her eye. A feather floated up into the light. Still, she left Magda and hurried outside.

  Magda shut the French doors behind her. On the sloping lawn, primroses and daisies had popped out. Renata reached Aleš at the stand of cedars, and the groundskeeper planted a kiss on Renata’s hand. Magda sighed.

  Later, Magda met Eva coming down the stairs. She gave Magda permission to see Frau Tauber. At the bedroom suite, Magda knocked softly before peeking in.

  Ruth Tauber was stretched out on her side in the light-blue lounging suit Magda had lain out the night before. Strands of red hair were still plastered to her brow, but she looked otherwise unruffled. Upon Magda’s entrance, she sat up, fluffed the pillows a little, and waved her in. A newborn, swaddled in a soft dove-gray blanket, was sleeping next to her.

  Magda approached the bed. “Can I do anything for you, paní doktorová?” She looked down at the baby. He was beautiful!

  Frau Tauber scooped the newborn to herself, gave him a tender kiss, and extended him to Magda. “Meet Samuel. Go on—take him.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “I insist.” Frau Tauber smiled. “Magdalena, do you not yet understand that I hold the highest esteem for you? For all of you? You’re like family to Johan and me. Come,” she beckoned, “sit down and take him.”

  Magda perched on the edge of the mattress and took the warm bundle. Since they had taken her in, the family had shown her nothing but warmth and respect, but ever since the fire, Frau Tauber had become another mother for Magda; indeed the whole family was now her family.

  “Eliška hasn’t yet seen him.” Magda held the baby close. “She should meet her brother before me.”

  “Nonsense,” Frau Tauber said. “Where is she?”

  “Your husband has taken her with him to put together a party.”

  Frau Tauber laughed, looking wistful. “It is big news. A son.”

  The baby, eyes still shut tight, yawned crookedly. Magda touched the dark fuzz on his head and inhaled his new baby smell and, for a brief moment, she felt unsteady. A swell of love and yearning lifted beneath her and rose to meet the apprehension that had dug its claws in in the past months.

  Frau Tauber bent toward the baby. “Look at his right hand, Magda. Do you see? He has a birthmark right on his little wrist bone.”

  Magda checked Samuel’s hand and smiled at the light-brown blemish. “It’s pretty tiny,” she said. “Nothing that will cause too many unpleasantries.”

  Frau Tauber lay back against the pillows. “What about you, Magda? You’re a natural mother.”

  “The only thing I wish for is that this war ends and I remain intact. That’s all. I want to go home. I want to return to my family, to the farm, to my brothers, and have everything be like it was.”

  Frau Tauber made a noise and picked at something on the coverlet. When she looked at Magda again, Magda saw that she was holding something back, something like bad news, and then just like that it disappeared, and her eyes were bright again. “How are things with Walter? Have you heard anything from him?”

  Heat clambered up Magda’s neck. “He’s finished with the training. He’s been posted nearby as a radio operator, but Walter, he’s…” She shrugged. Changed. It was simply an observation, too early to come to any real conclusion. His letters came frequently enough, but they were getting shorter and shorter. She never knew what to write to him, but her lack of responses did not stop his missives. She turned the problem onto herself instead. “Walter’s some years younger than I am. What should he want with me?”

  “I have seen Walter’s eyes on you more than a few times when he was working here. He’s a very handsome fellow.”

  Magda automatically put a hand to her cheek. “That’s the trouble, isn’t it? He can be so charming, and I…” He is so much more German now. And I, I am still very much Czech. “Paní doktorová, you catch Walter staring at my blemished face, nothing else.”

  “He did not loiter on the grounds,” Frau Tauber chided, “hoping to see your birthmark.” She reached for Magda’s lower arm to move the hand away from her face. “You are not the hideous creature you believe you are. You are a beautiful young woman. And you deserve love. You deserve happiness.”

  Magda placed Samuel back into his mother’s arms and moved to leave.

  “I’d like to ask something of you,” Frau Tauber said.

  Magda raised her head. Good. A task. She could do this bit gracefully.

  “We may not practice the Jewish religion here very much.” She looked embarrassed. “A little like some Christians only go to church at Christmas or Easter, but a baby boy is something different. In eight days we will have Samuel’s Bris Milah—that is, his circumcision.”

  Magda’s eyes widened, but Frau Tauber plowed ahead, as solicitous as Eliška when the child had an idea for a new game. “We have discussed this, and Johan and I both agree that you should be Samuel’s sandek.”

  Magda blinked.

  “It’s a great honor, and, oh, I know it’s quite unusual, especially for us to be asking a Christian woman.” Frau Tauber laughed a little. “Yes, the Jewish community, if we had one left around here, would certainly have something to talk about other than the war and Hitler and…well, beware, Magdalena. If any of them find out, they will make a real scandal of it!” She pulled a face in mock anguish, but her eyes were filled with sadness.

  Magda fidgeted with her hands.

  Frau Tauber brushed a hair off her forehead and smiled wanly. “But they will accept our decision. When this is all over, we’ll set a signal that Jews and Gentiles can live together.” She reached for Magda’s hand. “I’m sorry. Our request is not at all political. You have no idea what I’m asking of you, do you?”

  Magda shook her head.

  “As sandek, you will hold Samuel in your lap during the circumcision. It’s a great honor, Magdalena. You have such compassion, and I want it to be you
holding our son during the mitzvah.”

  “But I know nothing about—”

  “You’re a farmer’s daughter, Magdalena. I know you will not flinch.” Her pout was playful, but there was a smidgen of impatience in her tone. “I just had a child. I’m too tired to argue. Would you simply be your agreeable self, please?”

  Magda looked down at her lap to hide her grin. “I’m sorry. Yes.”

  “Good! Dr. Tauber is the official mohel in Litoměřice. Or was.” She giggled again, like someone drunk. “He will do the circumcision himself. I really want Samuel to be in your arms, where I know he’ll be safe.”

  This had to do with the fire. This was how they were repaying her.

  Magda squeezed the woman’s hand, homesick for the intimacy of her own family, of the certainty she once felt. “Thank you, Frau Tauber. I will be Samuel’s…what was that again?”

  “Sandek.” Frau Tauber gazed down at the newborn. “It’s as close to a godmother as you can be.”

  The periwinkle and the forget-me-nots in white, yellow, and pink. The cedars giving voice to the breeze. A stolen moment, and his hope for a stolen kiss.

  Walter’s surprise visit made Magda’s insides effervescent. She’d gone to fetch eggs for Renata, when like a ghost, he materialized from the fog, standing between two cedars, his uniform as gray as the bark. He whisked her away with the promise, just as the sun broke through the haze, that he would help her with the chore.

  “You have to see the deer first.” Walter took her by the hand and led her across the road to where they could watch the wildlife grazing in the fields. Aleš had not put up the pen in the winter, but the Taubers had known the deer would stay nearby, looking for food. They depended on it, especially as the winter gripped them with record low temperatures. But there was less of everything now. The villa was one of the few in the district that contained a unique heating system built into the walls, but the boiler had broken, and the water pipes responsible for carrying warm water froze and burst. There had been severe damages to the walls up in the attic, the household staff having to move into the guest rooms on the second floor. Then there were the requisitions, doubled on the Taubers. The farm’s grain, the wine—requisitioned in return for some semblance of protection.