White Rose Black Forest

by Dempsey, Eoin

  “I don’t know anything about that.” Franka stood up. “I think we’ve had enough political discourse for one night.”

  She left them there, and her determination to follow the path of National Socialism only strengthened within her. She wasn’t going to let their quaint notions hold her back. This was her time, not theirs.

  The next day, as Daniel held her in his strong arms, he asked how she thought the dinner went.

  “It went well,” she said. “My parents thought you were an upstanding young man, and an ideal partner for me—the very picture of a young, Aryan National Socialist.”

  Franka, like all the others, had been encouraged to report on her parents’ opinions and thoughts. All contrary thinking had to be rooted out at the source. She knew that any word to him would be reported to the local authorities. They would have dinner with his parents from now on.

  Sarah proved everyone but Fredi wrong and indeed lived to see the summer of 1934. And though Franka was busy with her troop, she tried to make it up to the cabin to see her family as much as she could. Fredi’s body was growing, but his mind remained mired in childhood, as they had always known it would. The sweetness of his nature and the purity of his soul overwhelmed anyone who met him. He was perfect, untouched by the evil swirling all around him—above it. He and Sarah grew closer and closer as her health deteriorated. They all still hoped for the miracle she’d promised them, but with the passing of time, its possibility seemed more remote. Franka missed much of that idyllic last summer with them. There always seemed to be something to do with her troop, and there were so many young girls who needed guidance from someone as experienced and committed as she was. She knew her parents understood, even if they voiced their disapproval.

  Franka was named troop leader at the end of the summer. Her mother missed the ceremony where she received her sash, had been too ill that day. Daniel was there, however, leading the applause, shining in the sun.

  Those last few months of her mother’s life were agonizing in their beauty, miserable in their wonder. Her mother slipped away with effortless grace. They had the escape of one last Christmas together, and then the new year came with a ruthless reality. Sarah wanted to be at home. Her sisters came with their plethora of children but eventually went home to Munich. Sarah clung to life, defying expectations, and when the end finally came it was a surprise. Franka had somehow hoped—no, believed—that the doctors were all wrong, and that miracles could happen.

  Sarah was with her family as she lay dying on that freezing January morning. Franka remembered her grandfather explaining that it was up to her to look after Fredi now, and that her brother could never truly understand, but she knew he was wrong. Fredi sat by the bed, resting his head on his mother’s chest, never crying and never moving. He knew exactly what she needed and was selfless in giving it. No one else knew what to say, or think, or do. Only he truly understood.

  Sarah asked to speak to Franka alone, and the others left the room. The light of the morning was dull through the window and shone white against her mother’s pale skin. Her hair was gray now, the fire in her eyes reduced to embers. Her hand was cold as Franka took it. Somehow Franka wasn’t crying.

  “My beautiful daughter,” she said, squeezing Franka’s hand with surprising strength. “I’m so proud of the young woman you are, so excited for the strong, mature woman and mother I know that you’ll become. You’re going to be a wonderful nurse. Don’t let anyone dictate to you who you are, or what’s in your soul. Only you know that. Remember that you’re my daughter, my beautiful, intelligent girl, and you always will be. I’ll be with you always. I’ll never leave.”

  Franka had to wipe away the tears to see her mother’s face.

  “Don’t let the new ideas of the National Socialists change you or let hatred twist your soul. Remember who you are.”

  The funeral was five days later, attended by all of the members of Franka’s troop, as well as most of the local Hitler Youth. Franka wore her League of German Girls uniform, and Daniel held her as she cried afterward, her mother’s final words echoing through her.

  The rest of the school year passed in a blur, and summer was hollow and joyless. Her family tried to re-create the times in the cabin from summers past, but Franka found more comfort in the comradeship of the troop she now led. With her mother gone, her father had to take time off at the factory to look after Fredi. Franka couldn’t be expected to give up all of her commitments to look after her younger brother. She helped out where she could, but with the promise of university beckoning, she didn’t want to create a precedent. She had her own life to live, her own cause to dedicate herself to. Her father had always encouraged her independence, so he allowed her to shirk her commitments to her family, to her own brother. University began in September 1935. She started her studies, and Daniel was with her every step of the way. It was then that he began his Gestapo training.

  Her family life now fractured, it was painful for Franka to spend time at home. She wanted to break away from the painful memories of her mother’s passing that haunted her there. Franka realized that Fredi had drawn strength from their mother, and no matter how much she or her father tried, they could never replace her. Fredi was still his same cheerful self, a bright light in the darkness, but his body betrayed him more and more.

  In October of 1935, her father ordered Fredi’s wheelchair as a temporary measure, although they both knew that he’d likely never walk again. Fredi delighted in his new mode of transport, seeing it as a game. Franka often pushed him through the town, where he waved to everyone he saw on the street. Almost everyone returned his smiles. The party members were the only exception, strutting along with their chests out, brandishing their armbands and pins on their lapels. They seemed annoyed by his cheerful demeanor. Franka grew to despise their glares.

  Later that fall her father came to her. They had just finished dinner and cleared the plates away. Evening meals were not the same now. Franka’s father insisted on preparing the same recipes her mother had, but he cut corners and had no flair for cooking. She was reading to Fredi, one of those fairy tales he loved so much. The book was dog-eared and frayed, yet he never grew tired of hearing those same stories, over and over. Her father put on the radio and tuned it to one of the Swiss stations that reported the news with some semblance of accuracy. He sat down beside his children.

  “Thank you for not reporting me for listening to the foreign stations.”

  Franka felt her cheeks flush. “Oh, Father, I would never report you.”

  “I know they put pressure on you to tell them what I’m doing, and since Daniel is preparing for life in the Gestapo . . . I realize the strain you’re under.”

  Franka sat there, remembering Daniel’s words from just a week before. “The German people are your family,” he had said. “And your loyalty should be to them.”

  Franka knew that he wanted her to report something, to give him a crumb of information to feed his new masters with, but she didn’t say a word. She knew that her father could be jailed for listening to the foreign radio stations, or for reading the books he’d insisted on keeping despite the new laws, or for the casual remarks he made about the regime. There were so many things. Several girls she knew had already reported their parents. Gilda Schmidt’s father had spent weeks in jail for a derogatory comment he’d made about the Nazis and was being monitored by the Gestapo now. Gilda had reported him for saying that Hitler was a dangerous warmonger.

  “The führer is eager to have everyone support his brave intentions,” Franka said, hearing the words of her instructors coming out of her own mouth. “He is determined that enemies of the state be identified so that they can be educated in the correct ways of serving the German nation.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” her father said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That sounds like Daniel or one of the Nazis who stomp about downtown speaking. Remember who you are, Franka.”

 
“I do, Father.”

  “I have something I want to show you.” He placed the newspaper, the People’s Observer, on the table in front of her. The headline spoke of the heroic new laws created to subjugate the threat of the Jews in Germany. “The Nazis have said that Jews cannot be German citizens. They’ve had their citizenship stripped from them and are not allowed to intermarry with Germans any longer. This is the brave revolution to which you’re so committed.”

  It took her a few seconds to answer. “I’m sure that the führer knows what’s best for Germany. I asked some of the local leaders of the league just the other day. They assured me that it was better to focus on the bigger picture and to leave the details to the führer.”

  “And that satisfied you?”

  Franka didn’t answer. She picked up another book to read to her brother.

  Her father interrupted her before she had a chance to begin. “I have something else to show you.” He took another newspaper out. “This paper is called The Striker. It’s controlled and published by the Nazi Party, just like the People’s Observer, but this one is less surreptitious with its intentions.”

  Franka took the paper. She’d seen it on newsstands but had never picked it up before. The pencil-drawn picture on the front cover was of a caricatured Jewish man, his long curls hanging down over his dark suit, strings of saliva dripping from his razor-sharp teeth. He held a curved dagger in his claw as he bent over a beautiful Aryan-looking woman asleep in bed. The headline read “The Jews Are Our Misfortune.” Franka could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She turned to Fredi, but he was playing with a toy train he’d found.

  “This is a rag,” she said. “This is a ridiculous rag.”

  “This newspaper has a circulation of several hundred thousand. Hitler has spoken many times of its journalistic integrity.”

  “I don’t know what to say. The system isn’t perfect, but . . .”

  The words fell away. She had nothing.

  “We didn’t raise you to turn your head away from injustice. We always taught you to—”

  “Remember who I am.”

  “Exactly. I think the reason you’ve taken to this regime so readily is that you’re eager to change the world, just like many children of your generation. But you have to realize what you’re subscribing to.”

  “I don’t agree with the policies toward the Jews, but I’m sure the führer has a reasonable plan for them.”

  “Reasonable? Is that what you call denying their citizenship? Have you heard of a place called Dachau, Franka?”

  She shook her head.

  “I hadn’t either. It’s a little market town, fifteen miles from Munich, not far from where your mother was born. I had a business meeting with a man from there last week. He told me of a camp the Nazis founded there.”

  “What kind of camp?”

  “A place that is a crime against the German people. The man I met with supplied some of the materials for the new buildings there, back in ’33, and has been back several times. The camp is the first front in the war that the Nazis are already waging against their own people. Dachau is where they house the political enemies of the system. Socialists, and communists, leaders from the unions the Nazis outlawed, pacifists, and some dissident clergymen and priests. There are thousands there, being worked and starved to death, guarded behind wire fences by SS men with death’s-head insignia on their helmets.”

  “This can’t be. Does the führer know about this?” Franka felt the repulsion rising in her but still wondered what Daniel and the other group leaders would make of this.

  “How could he not know? Herr Hitler makes every decision that the country is run by. He could abolish it any time he wants to. My guess is that there are many more camps coming.”

  “Who is this man you met from Dachau? Why is he spreading these vicious lies?”

  “They’re not lies. Open your eyes, Franka. See who you’re pledging your loyalty to.”

  Franka closed her eyes. She felt as if her head were about to explode. Hot tears ran down her face as she stood up. “I can’t believe you’d spread these disgusting lies in front of Fredi, who can’t possibly see through them. We have a responsibility to him, Father. We have to be better than this.”

  She stormed out of the kitchen and up to her room, the poison of doubt swirling inside her.

  College was an extension of the Nazi propaganda system that had engulfed Franka and her friends in high school. Intellectuals were on the same level as Jews and merited the same treatment. Hundreds of professors across Germany were dismissed for being too liberal, or Jewish. Among them were some of the greatest scholars in the country, and several Nobel Prize winners. “Culture” became a dirty word. The universities were transformed into vessels for the Propaganda Ministry. There were no student activities save for the Nazi-sponsored rallies and pep talks declaring the greatness of the regime. Franka found that in her courses, with their focus on human physiology, she could avoid the minefield of classes such as Racial Hygiene and Folk and Race.

  Franka left the League of German Girls. The other troop leaders questioned her decision, but she convinced them that she hadn’t the time anymore, with college and her brother to think about. It was true that she had a lot of work to do both at college and at home, but there was something else. She couldn’t stop thinking about the story of the camp in Dachau. It explained a lot. Where had Herr Rosenbaum, their neighbor from down the street, gone? Where were Herr Schwarz and his family, and her old teacher Herr Stiegel? They had been taken away for questioning by the Gestapo. They had never returned, and no one seemed to care. Franka knew that even mentioning their names could get her thrown in jail, so she kept the questions and the maelstrom of doubt to herself. She could trust her father, but no one else—least of all Daniel.

  Daniel’s devotion to the cause turned to obsession under the tutelage of his professors in law school. The Gestapo was a police force first and foremost—with the same entry paths, pay scales, and lengths of service that had always been in place—but the police force, like almost everything else, was unrecognizable now. Daniel reveled in his immersion in Nazi teachings. It became harder and harder to be around him. He spoke of enemies everywhere, of the communists and the Jews. No one was beyond the scope of his suspicion. The hatred that drove Daniel left him bereft of joy. He became impossible to love, and the feelings she once had for him crumbled and died. It was February 1936, and Franka was coming from dinner with Daniel. He had insisted on paying—as he always did, only adding to her feelings of guilt about what she had to do.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” he began.

  “I’ve a lot on my mind.”

  “What is it? Your mother? Or is it your brother again?”

  “It’s us, Daniel.” A look of surprise she wasn’t used to seeing came over his face, but he didn’t say anything. “I think we’ve grown in different ways. We’re taking different paths in life.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  They stopped walking. She was aware of strangers’ eyes on them as they passed but knew that she had to press on. She steeled herself for the next part, ready now to say the words that had been dormant inside her for months. “I think we need some time apart. I’m not sure I want to—”

  “You’re breaking up with me? What? You can’t do that.”

  “I think you’re a determined, courageous young man, with so much to offer . . .”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not breaking up. We’re going to be married in a few years, and we’ll settle here and raise a family. We decided that together.”

  “That’s not what I want anymore.”

  “All right,” he snarled. “Have it your way. Don’t think I’ll be waiting when you come crawling back in a few days, you bitch!” He stormed off.

  A few weeks later Daniel received a letter from the Reich Labor Service and was called away for six months to toil, unpaid, on behalf of the Reich on a farm in Bavaria. The letters from him began aft
er a few weeks. Franka’s father, who had been subtle in his satisfaction at her breaking up with Daniel, held the letters at first but then relented. She was an adult and could make her own decisions now. Franka took the letters her father had hidden from her and went to her room. She tore the envelopes open and let them drop to the floor as she took the letters in hand. Daniel declared that he was sorry, that he had been upset. She didn’t reply, but still the letters came. Daniel was laboring on a massive farm, lodging with dozens of others. He spoke of the wonderful feeling of serving the Reich, and of the comradeship that had engendered between him and his fellow workers, all aged around nineteen. A sense of curiosity drove her to read each of the letters once before burning them in the fire. She knew from his tone that he wasn’t finished with her, even if she was with him.

  Her father’s reading habits hadn’t changed since the inception of the National Socialist state. Many of the dusty and worn books that clogged the bookshelves in his study were now banned and would result in questioning from the local Gestapo, and even a few nights in jail. He shrugged when she reminded him of the prohibition on subversive literature, and he promised to take them down. Weeks passed. The books remained. Franka took the matter into her own hands and was halfway through clearing off his shelves when her father arrived home from work.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m doing something you should have done long ago,” Franka explained. “We can’t afford for you to go to jail or lose your job, and just for a few books?”

  “These aren’t just any books.” He plucked the book she was holding out of her hand. “You see this? Heinrich Heine?”

  “I know Heine. Anyone who knows German literature knows Heine.”

  “Yet he’s been banned by our National Socialist overlords. His incomparable lyrics have been officially declared both forbidden and nonexistent. I remember reading through his Book of Songs with you as you sat on my knee as a girl.”