“I’ve changed too Derek. Five years is a long time.” She moved nearer to him. “I am thrilled that you’re home, though. I prayed for this moment every single night.”
“You did?”
Her heart melted, as he looked at her in disbelief.
“Yes darling, I did. I love you, always you and only you.” She moved to kiss him, but he held back.
“That’s not the whole truth, though, is it?”
She didn’t know what he meant. “Derek, I swear, I haven’t looked at another man.”
“I know that. I wasn’t implying you had but you have fallen for those children. They mean everything to you, don’t they?”
Sally couldn’t lie. She bit her lip, looking at him.
“I guess I understand why. He’s a very bright boy, young Tom and the baby was so young when she came here. You said you wanted a family and you got one.”
“We got one Derek. I’ve shown the children your picture every day.”
“What happens if they find their mother?”
“Tom’s stepmother hasn’t been in contact with the Red Cross. It’s been months and they’ve heard nothing. Harry wrote to say he had toured a couple of the displacement camps but there was no record of a Trudi Beck.”
“You think she’s dead? I guess that would suit you.”
“Derek! I would never wish another person dead.” But yet, in her heart, didn’t she hope Trudi wouldn’t take Liesl and Tom away? Yes, if she was totally honest.
“If she doesn’t come back, maybe Harry will take them.”
“No, he won’t. Harry told me to keep them. He loves them but he is set on revenge. I worry about him. He’s consumed by hatred for the Nazis but in particular for one who he blames for killing his father. He writes regularly but says he won’t return until that man is dead.”
“So, the children have nowhere to go.”
‘This is their home, Derek and has been for the last six years. Why should they go anywhere?
“This is our home, Sally. Yours and mine. What about our plans?”
“Derek, I meant what I said earlier. I would love our children just as much as I love Tom and Liesl.”
Derek stood up, a look of pain and confusion on his face. She moved closer to him.
“Please Derek, don’t make any rash decisions. Give it time.”
“I can’t. I won’t raise your hopes like that. I will never accept those children, Sally.” He lit a cigarette from the one he was holding, before stubbing out the old one. He took a deep drag and exhaled. Then he said, “you will have to make a choice, Sally.”
“Don’t Derek, please. Not today.”
“Those children or us.”
Tears spilled down her face. “Derek, I’m begging you. Don’t do anything rash, please. Stay here and get to know the children. Let us have time to find our way back to one another. There’s been loads of programs on the wireless and letters written into Home Chat from people in our situation. Men finding it difficult after being away fighting for so long, women trying to reconcile their new lives with the ones they lived when their husbands shared the home. Just this morning, I read how one woman’s son asked her when was Daddy going away again. See, it's going on all over Britain. We just need time to find our way.”
“Sally, that woman was talking about her son, with her husband. You want me to adopt two German children. The Germans stole the last five years from me, from us. They killed my brother, Sam, and countless other friends and relatives.”
“They killed Tom and Liesl’s father and their mother too, most likely. Their grandparents, their aunts, uncles, cousins. I’ve seen the footage of the concentration camps. All those little children. And you want me to send mine back to that country where they know nobody. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
Derek walked up the stairs. She heard the bathroom door shut. Sally sank onto the sofa, her head in her hands, weeping. She heard the door close. He stood in front of her, his bag in one hand, his hat in the other.
“I have to go to London. I have to see a specialist at St Thomas’s. I will stay with mother.”
“Derek, please don’t go. Not like this…”
“I’m sorry. I should have died out there. It would have been better for everyone. Goodbye, Sally.”
She wanted to run to him, to drag him home but she couldn’t move. She watched out the window as his figure disappeared down the path. How could he have said such a horrible thing? Wishing himself dead after so many had died. The pain was more than she could bear, worse than the day the telegram had arrived telling her he was dead.
She didn’t know how long she sat there but it had started getting dark before Tom returned. When she wouldn’t answer him, he ran for Maggie. She could hear him calling her friend’s name.
Maggie arrived, took one look at Sally and told Tom to get Rachel to collect Liesl from Mrs. Brown and then to cook him his tea in the rectory.
“Can Uncle Derek come too? He’s so nice.” Tom looked around. “Where is he?”
“Tom, go on now and leave me with Sally.”
35
Derek took the train to London. All around him, people were talking about the war but he made no effort to join in. He listened to two ex-servicemen sitting behind him.
“When we needed guns, the government found them. When we needed factories for making airplanes and bullets and goodness knows what else, the government built them. So, how come they find it so hard to build houses? I swear, I’ll go mad if I have to spend another month in my mother-in-law’s house. They should have set that woman on the Nazis and then the war would have been over in months, not years.”
“Least you get to stay with your missus. Ain’t no room for me, so my missus tells me. Neighbors say different. They said during the war, my missus had no problem putting up strangers. Had a fancy for Yanks, she did.”
“She never. What you going to do about it?”
“What do you think? Down the divorce courts, I’m going. I ain’t having that. Me away fighting for my country and her entertaining the troops.”
Amused, Derek watched the woman across from him. She was getting more irritated as the men talked.
“Can you listen to yourselves? You had it good, you men. Off fighting the war. Seeing those exotic places like Paris and France and everything. While us women got stuck here, with rationing and flying bombs and all sorts. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in five years. I’m sick of hearing how you men had it so hard. Always complaining you are.” The woman took a deep breath before continuing,
“You think about all the kids this war has left as orphans. Who’s going to look after them? Orphanages were full before the war, there won’t be anyone able to take them in. Some of us don’t have homes for our own families.”
An image of Tom and Liesl flashed into his mind. Derek thought the woman had finished as she stood up to leave the train. But she poked her finger into one man’s chest. “If I was your missus, I’d been happy to entertain the Yanks and anyone else that came my way, if it meant I didn’t have to put up with your miserable, old mug anymore. You’re a disgrace. Your wife is better off without ya.”
The woman left the men lost for words. Derek watched, as she heaved her bags along the Clapham Junction platform. In the distance, where there used to be houses, all he saw was large areas of what looked like building sites. He saw youngsters playing in them and it took a while to realize that was what was left of houses after the bombing. Was that where the woman had lived? Her remarks about having no home hit him hard but not as much as her comments about orphans. The children had already suffered enough by living through the bombs, their fathers away with the forces, their mothers caught up in war work. Tom’s face, as he’d sat telling Derek about the issues he had at school, filled his mind. Living as a Jewish refugee in England might not always be a bed of roses but it was heaven compared to what could happen if the children were sent back to Germany. Would there even be a Jewish community left
alive to look after them? He shifted in his seat as his guilt weighed heavier on his mind.
When the train reached Waterloo, he decided to walk to his mother’s home. He wasn’t relishing the meeting. They’d never been close. He’d been measured against Roland and always found lacking.
Thirsty, he stopped at a public house.
“Pint of lager please, mate.”
“Been away have ye?” the bartender asked, as he pushed the pint toward him. “You look half-starved. You weren’t in one of those Jap camps, were you?”
He didn’t look as bad as that, did he? “No, a German one.”
“You were lucky. The things those Japs did to our boys. No wonder they landed those bombs on them.”
Before Derek could answer, one of the men sitting at the bar spoke up.
“Shouldn’t have done that Charlie. They should have warned them first.”
“Shut up Stan or I’ll bar you. They got what they deserved and it finished the war, didn’t it?” The bartender looked back to Derek. “From around here, are ya?”
“Not really. I live out near Chertsey. I came up to see my mother.”
“She’ll be glad to have you home. So many didn’t get back.” The barman glanced at a picture behind some glasses.
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Both sons gone. My missus too. She lost her reason when the first boy died and then when we got the second one, she just couldn’t handle it. Turned on the gas. She was a great mother and the best wife a man could find. But her heart was broken.”
Derek let the barman talk. Seemed like he needed to chat as much as Derek needed to stay quiet. He sensed the barman wouldn’t appreciate him saying he wished he’d died too.
“So, what will you do now you’re home?” Charlie, the barman, asked him.
“He’ll be like the rest of the others coming home. Same as in my day. No job, no home, no trade. If you’re lucky mate, you won’t have a wife and a baby relying on ya. That was me when I got back in 1918, to a land fit for heroes. We were told the same lies you lot are being told now.”
“Shut up Stan. Nobody wants to hear the voice of doom and gloom.” Charlie filled another pint and gave it to Derek. “On the house, lad. Wish you the best of luck.”
Derek accepted the pint but took it to a table, where he could sit alone and in peace. He wasn’t there for long when a young girl came in and sat beside him.
“Looking for company?” she said.
He stared at her. She was about fourteen-years-old, if that.
“You’re too young to be living a life like this.”
“I’m old enough to give you what you want. Cheap too.”
“What’s your name?”
“What do you want it to be?” she whispered, as she moved closer. The stench of her unwashed body and rotten teeth turned his stomach.
Charlie spotted her. “Oi, you. Get out of my pub. I told you before. Go on, clear off.”
“Keep your shirt on granddad,” the girl shouted back before she winked at Derek. “I’ll wait outside.”
Charlie came over to wipe Derek’s table down. “Sorry about that, lad, those girls are a menace.”
“She’s just a child.”
“God love ‘em, they grow up fast around here. Mothers and fathers gone, either in the bombs or in the forces. They rear themselves and those unlucky ones end up on the streets with nobody to care for them. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, to be an orphan, these days.”
Derek couldn’t finish his pint. He waited until Charlie returned behind the bar and left. She was waiting, just as she said she would be. He searched in his pocket for some coins. She looked older in the dark but still skinny.
“I don’t want to buy anything. Get yourself some hot food. You look half-starved.”
Her gaze raked him from his head to his toes. “Kettle calling the pot black, that is. Where you been then?”
“Germany. Listen don’t you have someone you can stay with? Get yourself a proper job?”
“You ain’t been back long, have ya? There aren’t any proper jobs, not for the likes of me. Soldiers are finding it hard to get jobs, never mind those with no education and no home.”
Derek wished he had something more to give her but he had left most of his cash on the table in Rose Cottage.
“Be careful,” he said.
The girl wandered off, leaving Derek staring after her. It was getting late and he should go to his mother's. On second thoughts, he’d go to the hospital to find out what treatments the doctors wanted to do on his wounds. His headaches were worse than ever. Hopefully, they would have a bed for him. He’d send a telegram to his mother. He didn’t want her fussing over him.
36
September 1945
Like everyone in the country, Sally was finding it difficult to adapt to life after the war. While the war was on, everyone knew they had to keep going. No matter what, they had to keep a stiff-upper-lip for the duration, until the war was over. They would rest when peace was declared, so they could deal with the mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion that went with rationing, queueing for food and clothing, bombing raids, sheltering in Anderson shelters. They could survive anything as Peace was coming. One day.
But now Peace had arrived and yet there was still no let-up. They mightn’t have bombing raids to cope with but the situation with food got worse. Shopping queues were longer, food provisions smaller. People were snappy with one another. One radio host summed it up by saying; “at least in the war, you had the all-clear to look forward to.”
She didn’t know how Derek was. He’d sent a note to say he’d telegrammed his mother but had not seen her yet. He was a patient at St Thomas’s. He didn’t tell her the reason for his stay but did say not to visit. She took his advice, not wanting to have to face the fact he wanted a divorce. With him gone, she could pretend he had never come back and was still the man she’d married.
She pushed the door of the rectory open, desperate for Maggie’s good humor. Her friend could pull her mind out of the dark places it visited these days.
“Sally, come in. Aren’t I glad to see you! Rachel’s had word from the Red Cross. Her mother’s survived. Isn’t that wonderful news?” Maggie’s voice sounded strained and Sally could tell her friend was struggling to sound positive. It would kill her to give up the girls; she loved them like daughters.
Sally hugged Rachel, who was staring at the letter in disbelief. Maggie told Sally to take a seat. “The tea is fresh, although a bit weak as I had to reuse the tea leaves from this morning. When is this rationing going to end? The war ended six months ago for goodness sake.”
Sally ignored Maggie’s grumblings. Everyone felt the same. They’d all thought the end of the war would bring about an end to rationing but instead things seemed to be worse, not better. It was harder now to find food in the shops than it had been in 1940.
“Rachel, tell us the good news. Is she well? Will she come here?”
Rachel picked up the letter.
“She writes in German, so I have to translate for you. She said she survived, thanks to Trudi, Liesl’s mother. Mama never left Berlin.”
“She stayed there for the whole war?” Sally couldn’t hide her disbelief. “That must have been so dangerous.”
“She says it was but there were many who helped her. A pastor called Erik Perwe helped her. The Swedish Church, where he was in charge, hid a few people in the actual church but had several other hiding places. Mother said she lived with Trudi and some other people for a while. That must have been when she wrote that last letter we got. Then Trudi took her to this Mr. Perwe and he looked after her until he died in 1944.”
“The one she sent in the summer of 1940. It seems like yesterday, yet in other ways, those five years passed very slowly, didn’t they?”
Rachel didn’t answer Sally. She kept reading. “She says she was very frightened with the bombing and everything and was always hungry.”
Rachel’s mouth thinn
ed.
“What?”
“She says the greatest danger was the Jew-catchers.”
Sally thought that was a bit obvious but didn’t like to say so. Rachel’s next words surprised her.
“Not the Nazis or the German civilians Sally, but other Jews.”
“What?” Sally wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.
“Mama says there were a few Jews who worked with the SS. Those Jews denounced several brave people to the Gestapo in return for their own safety. The Jew-catcher would go to a suspected safe house and tell them they were on the run from the Gestapo. If the person took them in, the Gestapo would watch the house for several days to see who was coming and going. Only then would they swoop in and arrest everyone. Hundreds of good Germans and other nationalities, as well as the Jews they were sheltering, were murdered.”
“Surely they wouldn’t do that?” Sally couldn’t hide her horror.
“Nobody knows what they would do to save themselves or their families, Sally.”
Maggie’s gentle reproof worked. Sally knew she would do anything to save Liesl and Tom. Wasn’t she considering giving up on her marriage to keep them with her? Would she have denounced others, to save their lives? She wanted to say she wouldn’t but… could she honestly say that? Could anyone judge those who had lost all hope?
“Is Trudi with your mother? Are they going to come here?” Sally asked.
Rachel shook her head. “Mama says Trudi disappeared in early 1944. She says Trudi was always looking to help more people. Shortly before the Russians arrived, the Swedes got Mama and others out of Berlin.”
Sally clasped her hands. They’d all heard how the Russian soldiers had treated any women they came across. Didn’t seem to matter if they were Jewish, nor what age they were.
She reached across and put her hand over Rachel’s. “I am so glad your mother survived.”
Rachel didn’t react; she wasn’t crying, her face pale but almost expressionless. Sally exchanged a look with Maggie, seeing the concern in her friend’s face too. Rachel was reading the letter like a textbook.
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII Page 104
