The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII

by Marion Kummerow

  “The household staff is all here, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Walter reported. “Except one.” He showed no reaction to Magda’s shocked expression.

  “Who?”

  Walter’s eyes skittered over to Aleš. “I’m not sure what her name—”

  “Our housekeeper,” Dr. Tauber spoke. “She has the day off today. She is visiting her relatives in Prague.”

  “Is that so?” the commander snapped. “If she’s here, we’ll find her. Documents. Check all their identities.”

  Calmly, Dr. Tauber reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat, still draped over Frau Tauber, and presented them to the first policeman.

  “Obersturmbannführer,” Dr. Tauber called to the commander, “you will find that everyone here is prepared to cooperate. I am the Napola director’s personal physician.”

  The commander grazed Dr. Tauber with an indignant look. “The only authority here now is me. And you, your family, and your housekeeper were ordered to report to the resettlement office, with your belongings, for deportation.” He strode over and snatched the Taubers’ papers, opened them, then handed them to Walter. “What is the nature of your assembly here?—that’s what I want to know. Are you conspiring against the Reich?”

  Dr. Tauber raised his hands. “Not at all. We were having a birthday celebration.”

  “A birthday celebration. Whose birthday is it?” His eyes darted to Frau Tauber, who’d shielded herself behind her husband. “Yours, Frau Tauber?”

  Anna Dvorákova, dressed in a fur stole and a dark-green suit, stepped forward. “Mine, Herr Kommandant. It’s my birthday.”

  “Herr Kommandant? My name is Koenig, and you will address me as Obersturmbannführer.” He snapped his fingers at a policeman to check Paní Dvorákova’s papers.

  The policeman examined them and nodded. “It’s this woman’s birthday today.”

  Magda slowly exhaled. What were the chances? Or perhaps—she was piecing together—it was not luck at all.

  Now it was Magda’s turn. She handed over her identity card and work permit to a policeman, but she could not stop staring at Walter. Still, he gave no hint of a struggle as the Taubers were marched past him.

  “Where are they taking them?” Magda whispered to Jana, but her friend’s look said it all. Across the river. Where else?

  “Leutnant,” Koenig barked.

  Walter snapped to attention.

  “Who else?”

  Walter turned his back on the Taubers. “There is one more person missing, Herr Obersturmbannführer. Their daughter, Eliška Tauber.”

  She had to leave. Magda had to leave the Koenigs, the villa. Proverbs 7:22. Koenig suspected her, and she would be in his merciless grip. But first she had to warn the very people she was here to protect, who were counting on her, of the raid Koenig had ordered. Was there time?

  Magda hurried into the kitchen. She could not just leave. He would come after her.

  “Jana—” But the kitchen was empty.

  She wanted to scream, to throw the food that was left on the counter. But Jana suddenly came through the service door. Magda ran to her.

  “The proverbs. I have to get out of here. He knows.”

  Jana made the sign of the cross. Something thudded above them, and Magda clutched Jana’s hands. Then the footfalls of someone running down the stairs. Jana moved to the door that led into the corridor. Magda cried for her to stop.

  “Magdalena!” He was calling her again. He was commanding her to come out.

  “What’s happened?” Jana asked.

  But when Magda stepped out into the corridor, Koenig was anything but furious. He looked stricken.

  “My wife…” He raised a shaking finger toward the stairwell. “I think it’s time.”

  Magda snorted, the relief bubbling up into uncontrollable giggles.

  He stared at her in disbelief.

  Jana pushed past him, urged Magda to come. They hurried upstairs, knocked, and burst in to find Frau Koenig doubled over by the bedpost, the hem of her robe soaked. Silently, Magda praised heaven above.

  “Frau Koenig, take my hand,” Jana said. “Now.” The cook led the woman to the bed, but Frau Koenig resisted.

  “I can’t. I can’t,” she breathed and doubled over again, wailing as another contraction gripped her.

  Somewhere, the telephone rang.

  Magda helped Jana get Frau Koenig into the bed.

  Jana clutched Magda’s hand. “Go fetch Eva. Go fetch the midwife.” She looked meaningfully at her.

  Get out. Get out of this house now.

  Frau Koenig moaned again. She extended a hand to Magda. “Don’t leave me.”

  That hand, that beckoning hand. That plea. Like Eliška. Magda backed out of the room and made her way down the stairs.

  In his office, Wolfgang Koenig pulled the telephone away from his ear. “What is it? Is she having the baby?”

  “Yes,” Magda said. Fury hammered in her resolve. “It’s coming. I’ll be back with the midwife.”

  8

  June 1942

  The longer she delayed the midwife, the greater the possibility Frau Koenig might have difficulties, might lose the baby inside her. That was Magda’s other chance. She could avoid going through with what she otherwise had in mind to do. Crickets chirped around Magda, and the air was scented by sunbaked cedar bark as Magda scribbled VGP onto the tiny piece of paper. Next she wrote, Nimrod is watching the stars. She rolled it up tight, removed the things she had hidden before, and stuck the message into the hollowed-out knot two feet from the ground. Then she purposefully left the service gate ajar.

  If Aleš was watching, if he was hovering nearby, he would know it was an emergency. There would be no dinner party, no information about any reprisals the Nazis planned after Heydrich’s death, but this was much more urgent, and now it was also personal.

  She mounted the bicycle and coasted downhill. It was still light out. She pedaled to the road leading to the cathedral’s square. Before her, the Elbe River and the bridge. The clock tower in the square rang eight o’clock. Less than three-quarters of an hour since Koenig gave the order for the hunt. The Nazis were fast—they were well organized—but not that fast. She had just enough time. She steered left, crossed the quarters, and passed beneath the bridge that connected the north tower to the main cathedral. She leaned the bicycle against the wall and tested the door. Locked.

  Panic seized her. The cemetery gate opened, and Deacon Gabriel stepped out, closing it behind him. She ran to him. He recognized her.

  “I need to confess my sins,” she urged as he walked to the church with her. “It’s been eight days since my last confession.”

  He let her in, led her to the entry of the catacombs, and she ran down the stone steps. He stayed to keep watch. The key was above the sconce. Her hands shook, but she finally managed to insert it into the padlock. Inside the crypt, she lifted the coffin and looked in.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Magda screamed.

  Renata stepped out of the shadows.

  “Jesus,” Magda said. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

  Renata put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m a Catholic now. Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”

  Magda threw her arms around her, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “Magda,” she heard Renata say, “breathe. What’s happened?”

  “There’s something I need from the Taubers’ possessions, and then you, or someone, you have to go across the bridge. You have to get to the convent.” And then because Magda didn’t know how else to explain why, she shook Renata’s shoulders. “Nimrod!”

  “Leutnant,” Koenig barked.

  Walter snapped to attention.

  “Who else?”

  Walter turned his back on the Taubers. “There is one person missing, Herr Obersturmbannführer. Their daughter, Eliška Tauber.”

  As if Walter himself had rammed the butt of a rifle into her gut, Magda doubled over. Jana jerked her
back upright, and Magda gasped. Walter’s eyes narrowed and froze just before they met hers. The shake of his head was almost imperceptible, but she saw it. Magda saw it.

  Koenig noticed everything, except for Frau Tauber’s figure beneath the suit coat thus far. He faced Magda, cocked his head slowly, as if setting sights on her. “You.” He pointed. “Where is the daughter?”

  Ruth Tauber moaned, and Magda saw how she meant to charge Walter, or perhaps Magda, but Dr. Tauber threw his arms around her and pulled his wife back against him. One of the policemen whipped Magda around and shoved her toward the house.

  “Not her! Please not her!” Ruth Tauber wailed.

  What did she mean? Who was “her”? Magda? Or Eliška?

  The policeman jammed something hard and sharp into Magda’s back. His tight grip on her arm would surely leave bruises. He dragged her up the steps of the veranda, beneath the canopy, and toward the French doors.

  “Where is she?” he ordered.

  When he yanked open the door to the parlor, Magda bucked and sobbed. She could not do this. Not Eliška! Not the children!

  The soldiers, who were ransacking the room, stopped to watch the altercation. Magda braced herself in the doorframe, and two recruits dropped what they were doing to grab either side of her. She kicked out her legs, finding the voice now to scream.

  The policeman was now inches from her face. “Where is she?” he shouted. “Where is the daughter?”

  “She came from upstairs,” one of the soldiers volunteered. “With the other man.”

  All Magda managed, all her exhausted body managed as they dragged her into the hallway, was a stream of “No…no…no…”

  When the first punch landed, her head snapped back at the same time as something popped and crunched. Blood spurted onto her assailant. Magda howled, her throat raw and on fire. She twisted and flailed again. The second blow connected with the left side of her face. She groaned, trying to regain her balance between the two men who held her. She was certain her eye was lost.

  On the waves of pain, grief and fury ripped through her body. A kick to her shin. Her legs buckled beneath her. Go ahead. Let them kill her. Let them finish her here in the foyer. Anything to prevent her from going upstairs and revealing the children’s hiding place. The next kick landed a blow to her ribs.

  “Stop!”

  Walter. It was Walter’s order. Why now, Walter?

  “Release her.”

  She slumped onto all fours. They had dragged her as far as the bottom of the staircase. Through her one good eye, the tips of men’s boots swam before her. When a pair of brown ones appeared beneath her, she tried to lift her head but could not. Someone crouched down next to her and took her chin, angled her face so that she had to look at him.

  Walter, his lips pressed together, made a regretful noise in the back of his throat. She tried to focus on the man next to him and met Aleš’s gaze. His face crumpled.

  “Let Aleš and me do this for you,” Walter said gently. “Magdalena…”

  “Don’t,” she gasped. Iron filled her mouth. “Don’t call me that.”

  Walter ran a hand over his cap, leaving it cocked back. He released her head and rose. “Take me to her,” he said. But he was speaking to Aleš. “My men will find her, one way or another. It’s best you take me to her.”

  “Walter,” Magda pleaded. Her voice sounded far away and thick. “Take me. Take me!”

  “The mother,” Walter said slowly, “wants her child. Aleš? Take her to me now.”

  Magda burned, hot as fire. Stepping past her, Aleš ascended the first step. Magda scrambled on all fours to crawl after him. She stretched out her hand, grasping and clawing until something brushed by. Her fingers snapped shut on the piece of fabric, and she clutched it, pulling it to her with all her remaining strength. It was a trouser cuff. She lifted her head further, the dizziness threatening to close out all light. Walter looked down at her over his shoulder.

  From above, Aleš said mournfully, “I have to bring her to them. Magda, I have to go get Eliška.”

  Magda’s breathing hitched. Understanding what Aleš meant—remembering that Walter had not been told of the Taubers’ happy news—she stared at the blurred figures above her.

  Walter kicked his foot, barely missing her head. The cuff slipped from Magda’s fingers, and she slid to the bottom step. Torn, Magda wailed with relief for Samuel, and she wailed for the sacrifice Eliška would make.

  Aleš reappeared too soon, carrying Eliška across his arms. Fast asleep, Magda’s darling finch lay limp, as if already dead.

  Magda took the side roads around the old city walls to the castle gates, then through the park. She carried the bicycle down the stone steps to the road below. At the one-story cottage on Lidická Road, she knocked urgently. She pulled up at the sound of motors farther up the road. One truck after another appeared on the throughway, heading for the main square. Koenig’s orders. No delays. The searches would begin soon. There would be no time to help anyone else. Only—perhaps—those outside the gates. She had to hang on to her hope. What else was she doing this for?

  When Eva opened the door, she took one look at Magda, and her expression became stony. “Right,” she nodded stiffly. “I’ll get my things.”

  Magda waited outside, wishing she had a second bicycle. The clock tolled half past eight. She imagined Aleš, or someone, finding the gate ajar, unrolling the paper, and decoding her messages. VGP. Code for Proverbs 7:22.

  Suddenly he went after her like an ox that goes to the slaughter, like a stag prancing into a trapper’s snare.

  And Aleš would know Magda would come to them this night. He would also understand her reference to Nimrod, that Koenig had ordered a thorough search. Renata was already—Magda prayed—ahead of him, heading for the convent.

  The midwife appeared in the doorway again, and they hurried back to the town’s gate. Beneath the castle, Magda studied the fortification above her and felt calm. Her fear was turning into something cold. Something dangerous.

  Eva questioned what she was doing, and Magda caught up to her but did not answer.

  At Villa Liška, Koenig met them in the foyer, crazed about the delay. Eva balked before catching Magda’s sternly set mouth. Eva muttered something about how she had just returned from another birth.

  “Take her upstairs,” Koenig ordered Magda. He placed his cap on his head. “Ring the headquarters when it’s over.”

  Magda led Eva to the second floor. In the bedroom, Frau Koenig was screaming. Eva placed a shaky hand on Magda’s and stopped Magda from turning the handle.

  “I helped deliver two beautiful children in that room,” Eva said. “Two beautiful, innocent children, you know?”

  Magda did.

  The midwife’s eyes roamed over Magda’s broken face. She slowly shook her head. Below them, the front door opened and slammed shut. Captain Koenig was on his way back to town to meet those trucks, no doubt. They would hunt through the district, looking for Jews, and torture—or kill—those who helped them.

  “It’s all right,” Magda said. She opened the door and let the midwife in.

  Jana was at Frau Koenig’s side, pressing a compress to the woman’s forehead. When she recognized Magda, her eyes widened. Yes, Magda had come back.

  Frau Koenig sucked air between gritted teeth, then panted, shaking knees raised, her robe and nightgown hiked up to her hips. Eva strode to the bed, apparently shedding her misgivings. In a soothing voice, she began giving Frau Koenig instructions, followed by requests for the things she would need. Then she asked Magda and Jana to leave the room.

  Magda followed Jana downstairs and into the kitchen. They waited, drinking Ersatzkaffee and speaking in whispers. At midnight Magda convinced Jana to go upstairs and sleep some. It was deep into the middle of the night when Magda awoke from where she had fallen asleep at the table. Something had changed. She rose and touched the items in her dress pocket—the Taubers’ possessions—and went upstairs.


  “Bring me the washcloths and water,” Eva said in greeting. A newborn cried in her arms.

  Magda did as the woman instructed. Jana appeared in the doorway. Magda nodded at her.

  From the bed, Frau Koenig whimpered queries. “What is it? Is everything all right?”

  “Everything is fine, Frau Koenig,” Eva replied. “You have a boy.”

  Magda stood over the child, a feeling of absolute calm washing over her. She reached out and touched the dark, wet hair on his head and smiled at Eva, serene as she had not felt in years. The midwife looked curiously at her.

  Moving to Frau Koenig’s side, Magda removed the vial in her pocket and the stopper. She handed it to Jana, who poured a few drops into the glass of water on the side table.

  “Bring me my son,” Frau Koenig panted.

  “We will,” Jana said soothingly. “The midwife must finish washing him first. Here, take this. It’s a little opium. It will help you sleep. You should rest, and then I will bring him to you.”

  Jana raised the glass of water to the exhausted woman’s lips. “I’ll stay here with you, Frau Koenig. I’ll stay here with you until you have awoken.”

  When Frau Koenig laid her head back on the pillows and closed her eyes, Magda returned to Eva and gestured for her to follow her.

  “You should go call her husband,” Eva whispered as she carried the newborn downstairs.

  “I will do no such thing.” He’d said to search every house, even his.

  Eva put a hand on Magda’s shoulder, but Magda shrugged it off. She opened the door to Dr. Tauber’s office and then went into the adjacent examining room. She switched on the lights, reached into her pocket, and withdrew the double-edged knife.

  Eva frowned. “What is that?”