‘But that’s ridiculous.’
‘Yes, it is. We know that you couldn’t get a job unless you joined the party – as a postman and certainly not as a teacher or policeman or anything in authority. They call them the Muss- Nazis. ’
‘But what happens if you don’t get a persilschein?’
‘The proven Nazis go to prison. They’ll be tried eventually. The others get their persilschein, and then they can get a job and a ration card. Anyone who can’t prove they didn’t work hand in hand with the Nazis goes directly to jail. Of course we’ve got plenty of evidence against them. The Nazis kept the most amazing records of absolutely everything and didn’t manage to destroy them at the end, and many witnesses have come forward. It’s a pity they didn’t stand up to the Nazis earlier; it would have saved a lot of suffering.
‘The huge camp at Sachsenhausen is one of the prisons. It was a slave labour camp – holds about 60,000 people. We released hundreds of starving survivors from there, many of them Jews. We’re still finding these horrible places.’
‘You’ve put these people all together in one place?’
‘Yes. And to other camps.’
‘God, it must be horrible.’
‘Well, it’s no holiday camp – that’s for sure. Gives the Nazis a taste of their own medicine.’
‘But you are making some progress, aren’t you Bill?’
‘There are so many of them, Isabel. It would take years to talk to them all. I’m sure that in the end we’ll just give up and let them get on with it. But for now this is our job. Actually, the Yanks have stopped doing it; not enough man-power, they say. They’ve handed over to German civilian investigators.’
Bill worked with several colleagues, Army staff and some British civilians, in a requisitioned school building relatively unscathed by bombing. The gym, still with climbing bars on the walls and climbing ropes tied up to the beams, was used as the interrogation centre with tables and chairs laid out in ranks down its length. Most of the wired glass in the high windows had survived. It was an ideal place for crowds of people to be processed because they could wait in nearby classrooms and banks of toilets were available to them; the water supply allowing. The people sat in stoical patience. They didn’t mind waiting as they were warm and there was the chance of a hot drink. Members of the Catering Corps or the Red Cross were on hand with the tea urn and, sometimes, a biscuit or two. Medical personnel made the rounds to make sure that the ‘clients’ weren’t carrying infectious diseases or vermin and treating them. The air was often filled with clouds of DDT as they dusted people for infection-carrying lice.
Dennis Masters from the upstairs flat worked with Bill. A civilian assigned to help with the mountain of paperwork generated by the operation, he had been recruited at the end of the war to help out the Military Government in Berlin. Many other civilians had been conscripted to help the tottering administration in the British Zone now that so many Forces personnel had gone home. Dennis expected his wife, Emma, to arrive any day now.
‘I thought I’d got away with it,’ said Dennis to anyone who took an interest. He cornered Bill one day and forced him to listen to his diatribe. ‘I was too old for conscription while the War was on. Now they’ve decided they need people to help you lot out and don’t care how old we are. I’m bloody furious; I had to leave a good job to come here. I doubt if it will still be there when I get back; then what am I going to do?’ Dennis couldn’t disguise his deep resentment.
‘What are any of us going to do?’ replied Bill, with marked lack of sympathy. ‘Most of us have no jobs to go back to. But I expect there’ll be plenty to do to get Blighty back on its feet. We’ve just got to get this lot sorted out first. How many are there today?’
‘About a hundred,’ replied Dennis. ‘Stinking out the waiting rooms. I’ll get the Corporal to send in the first ones.’
Every day the grinding monotony of the work oppressed them. The interviewees waited with their scant possessions, fearful of leaving them in their miserable digs. Many were German civilians, many foreign workers, desperate to return to their countries but without the means. Some were POWs from liberated camps; some Russian army deserters or White Russians reluctant to return to the Motherland where they knew their welcome was likely to be death or a one-way trip to the Siberian gulags.
‘Why do they keep coming to Berlin?’ Isabel wondered.
‘They seem to think conditions are better here and there’s work for them. They have no homes. About 25 million people are homeless in Europe, you know.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to stay in the countryside?’
‘Yes, it would. There’s food and it’s safer – not so much crime and disease. Anyway, half the Berlin population takes the train into the countryside every day to find food. They exchange their valuables for potatoes and cabbages. There are going to be lot of rich farmers when this is over.’
Isabel had witnessed the influx of refugees; their possessions piled high on any transport they could find or bundled on their shoulders as they staggered into the city. Bewildered old men gazed in suppressed horror at the sights they encountered; women with children wailed in despair.
‘We’re worried about the winter.’ Bill carried on. ‘We were bloody lucky last year; expected it to be bitter. It could have been a disaster with coal production so low - but by a miracle it was mild. I don’t expect we’ll be as lucky this time. We did a lot of the preparation last year, dug a load of graves before the ground froze and we’ve got warehouses full of coffins.’
‘Does it really get that cold here? Would so many people die?’ Isabel asked.
‘Oh, yes. There’s such a shortage of food and Berlin gets colder than the coldest parts of Britain. We’re in the middle of a land mass; there’s no benefit from the Gulf Stream. Starvation is the main worry – many people to feed and more arriving each day. But we muddled through last year, or were very fortunate, depending on your point of view. People were hungry, and still are, but there was no famine. I don’t know if we’ll be as lucky this winter, with no reserves to speak of.’ Worry furrowed his brow.
Isabel gazed at him, her eyes full of concern. He worked too hard. All the suffering he was seeing must be getting to him even though he didn’t always tell her about it. He had become very tight-lipped. This was probably the longest conversation they’d had for ages. He normally came home exhausted and fell into bed after the briefest of meals. He never saw Penny, leaving the house before Irma got her up in the mornings and too late to do more than drop a cursory kiss when he got home. He’d changed, Isabel thought; not so willing to chat, quieter and more in-turned than when she first knew him. They seemed to have lost their openness and trust.
‘I hardly see you, Bill. I never get to talk to you. Couldn’t you spend a little time at home? When are we going to get back to normal?’
A brief look of scorn crossed his face. ‘How can we get back to normal in the face of so much human misery? We need to work round the clock to get it straight, let alone ‘back to normal’. I told you it would be like this.’ Disdain and annoyance caused his voice to sound harsh and bitter.
‘You shouldn’t take it so personally. I thought you’d have a little time for us. You must get some time off.’
‘There’s the weekends, I see you then.’
‘You always work on Saturday mornings and then you’re in the Mess the rest of the day, chatting with your cronies. There’s Church parade on Sunday and kowtowing to the Colonel and his clique. We’re not exactly together, are we?’
‘I warned you it would be like this,’ Bill reiterated, ‘you could have stayed in London, close to your family. You’ll have to make the best of it now you’re here.’ He spoke with finality and a marked lack of feeling for her plight.
His words shocked Isabel. He spoke coldly, offhandedly, as if he didn’t care how she felt. She wanted to reach out and explain how loneliness was engulfing her, how much she needed his company; some of his time just to herself. Th
e thought had crossed her mind that they should try for another baby; she didn’t want Penny to be an only child. She would have liked to discuss it with him; the possibility at least. But he’d set his features. He obviously didn’t want to discuss anything and he looked so tired.
‘All right, darling,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to find something to keep me busy.’
But with Irma doing the housework and caring for Penny, Isabel found little to occupy her in the flat, although she had pottered in the garden. But she didn’t want to get too engrossed with that, having spent the war in hard labour on her scrap of suburban garden, scratching at her vegetable patch to give them provisions to supplement the rations. Although the garden at the back of the Grunewald mansion could have been beautiful there was still a long way to go since the deprivations of the war had turned it into a jungle, exacerbated by the vandalism of the Russians. It sometimes made her think of the thickets of briars surrounding the sleeping Princess Beauty in the fairy story, impenetrable and constantly catching at her clothes.
Tidying up alone would take months and with autumn approaching there was little more she could do than tug away at the tangled brambles and cut back the overgrown shrubs with the secateurs that John had foraged for her. There always seemed to be a bonfire burning up the pruning and fallen leaves.
Although Bill worked for long hours, Isabel was not always alone. John seemed to have much more free time.
‘What does he do, Bill?’ Isabel asked. ‘He never seems to be very busy, nothing like you.’
Bill became reticent and, uncharacteristically, he stammered. ‘Um, some sort of hush-hush work, I believe. He’s always disappearing on some secret mission or another. You wouldn’t have taken him for a man of action would you?’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’ Isabel couldn’t imagine John in the role of secret agent. He looked as if he would be more at home in a diplomatic salon, charming visiting dignitaries over glasses of champagne.
‘Can’t keep track of him half the time. I think he’s too closely involved with those black-market people. I’ve no real idea what he’s up to. I don’t even know if it’s official – he never tells me anything. But I suppose he’s able to look after himself.’
Well, at the moment John seemed to have plenty of time for Isabel, something she felt nothing but gratitude for. His visits were not only a distraction from her loneliness but a pleasant diversion. She certainly enjoyed the presence of a charming companion.
‘I’ve come to show you the sights, darling, such as they are.’ John stood on the doorstep one sunny morning soon after her arrival in Berlin, his cap in his hand. ‘Get your coat; I’ve got a car waiting.’
‘A car! How did you manage that?’
‘I’ve got a bit of official business to do later. I’ll fit it in when we’ve finished.’
Isabel marvelled at his casual attitude. But she went inside and put on her coat and hat and kissed Penny goodbye. The child was happily making cakes with Irma. She barely looked up from her vigorous stirring, her hair and cheeks dusted with flour and flushed with the heat from the stove.
‘We’re making kuchen. Irma’s showing me how. See you later, Mummy. Auf wiedersehn.’ She waved the wooden spoon in Isabel’s direction, dropping dollops of cake mixture on the floor.
Isabel waved goodbye from the doorway. Penny would be enrolling at the Army school soon. She was already behind with her education, but Isabel wanted her to settle down and get to know her father better before sending her off to her first school.
‘Bye, baby.’ Isabel was happy that Penny was beginning to learn German. She seemed to be making much more progress than herself. Soon her daughter would be translating for her.
John bounced down the steps and gallantly opened the door of the VW. Isabel liked John. He made her laugh and she felt safe with him. He was very like Bill in many ways, but he had a harder edge than Bill, accompanied by an original, sharp sense of humour. John was more like a real soldier, tough both physically and mentally and of course he had the looks of a matinee idol. Bill was softer somehow, more thoughtful – he had a difficult war but very different from many serving officers. After all, he had never seen a shot fired in anger, spending most of his time behind the lines, interrogating prisoners; the consequence of speaking several languages fluently. It could not have failed to change him psychologically, even damaged him a little.
‘Where first?’ asked John ‘Let me think, there’s so much choice – I know, the NAAFI. You’ll need to know about that, God help you.’
The Volkswagen rattled over the loose rubble that littered the streets as the walls of debris at the sides constantly avalanched down onto the roads. Isabel wanted to ask John to go more slowly but didn’t, mainly because she couldn’t get a word into his constant flow of chatter. He gave a non-stop commentary on their route, identifying all the old streets and sights; all completely meaningless to Isabel. It would be months before she could recognise the ruined buildings as the famous churches and palaces from before the war. Frustration and anxiety was nearly driving her mad when they finally squealed into the forecourt of the Forces’ store and parked perilously close to the windows, in a neat straight line beside the wall.
‘You’ll get us killed, driving like that!’ she managed to protest.
‘Don’t worry, darling, you’re safe with me. Anyway, there’s not much traffic is there? No-one’s going to bump into us.’
Isabel chose to ignore this remark, merely raising an eyebrow at him. There were many things to crash into other than vehicles. John grinned, grabbed her arm and led her into the store.
A large requisitioned building near the centre of the British zone housed the NAAFI. It had probably been a department store in a previous life. It stood next to a requisitioned cinema, the Kino, frequented by the allied forces and families, showing films sent from England and America.
A canteen served strong tea and bitter coffee and simple meals for the occupying soldiers. Fish and chips, eggs and beans on toast, apples and custard and other typical delicacies; British cuisine at its most basic. It smelled of steam, frying fat and old food; all somehow comfortingly familiar and English. The place reminded Isabel of similar self-service places at home, Lyons Corner Houses or the ABC cafes, but of poorer quality. At least the staff smiled and welcomed the Forces clientele. The staff consisted mainly of WAAFs with occasional male members of the Catering Corps to supervise. The rest of the space beyond the cafeteria was given over to the sale of essential household items.
John and Isabel sat down at one of many round metal tables after queuing at the self-service counter to buy their drinks. At least it was cheap.
‘Good God, what’s this?’ complained John after the first sip from his cup, ‘Tastes like that ersatz rubbish they make from acorns.’
They tried gamely to enjoy their coffee, which Isabel thought was more likely to be Camp coffee essence from a bottle - the taste of chicory really strong, and the few stale shortcake biscuits. How she longed for a nice chocolate biscuit, something she hadn’t seen for a long time.
‘We don’t use real money here,’ John explained, ‘we use these things called BAFFS. They’re supposed to be worth the same as money in England but look different.’
Indeed, the pound notes resembled Monopoly money and the coins consisted of hexagonal plastic pieces, the red ones pennies and the yellow ones halfpennies. Isabel couldn’t take it seriously as real money.
‘It’s so that they can’t be stolen and used on the German economy which is fragile enough as it is; we’re trying to get the Mark back on track. You can only use Baffs in here or in the Kino, or at the Mess or our other places.’
The NAAFI also supplied other goods to the British families. Every week a truck delivered food rations. These consisted of a box of staples; salt, flour, tea, coffee, cocoa, margarine and cooking fat; whatever meat was currently available, potatoes, vegetables (usually cabbage) and tinned goods. Also, tins of evaporated milk, no fres
h being available, and leaky bags of powdered milk. This last arrived mostly in large hard lumps, almost impossible to dissolve smoothly, and it tasted horrible when put in tea or on cornflakes. But Penny enjoyed eating the lumps whole, like sweets, and it could be used in cooking where other flavours disguised the taste. Tinned evaporated milk, watered down, enhanced tea and coffee. At first Isabel couldn’t bear the taste, but she was used to it now. Very little sugar turned up and they used saccharine tablets, with a bitter aftertaste – Isabel avoided them.
Exploring the shelves, Isabel found that the NAAFI sold many of the essential non-food items. Toiletries and haberdashery, make-up and stationery were all available intermittently. The light bulbs and candles always disappeared almost as soon as they arrived, as everyone needed those and toilet paper was always in short supply.
‘Don’t worry, Isabel, I’ll get hold of some for you,’ John said when she couldn’t see what she wanted. And, invariably, he would turn up next day with a grin and a parcel in exchange for their unused cigarette ration, which they didn’t need as neither smoked.
‘A very valuable commodity, cigarettes,’ said John, ‘You can get anything with them – they pass for currency now and also chocolate, or cocoa and real coffee, if you can get any,’ he smiled hopefully, his head on one side like a puppy.
‘Sorry, John. We’ve used our ration this week.’
Sometimes John couldn’t borrow the car and they took public transport for their outing. He escorted her to Potsdam and the lakes; not really lakes but wide extensions of the river, and to the Tiergarten, no longer inhabited by animals, as he had explained to Penny. Not a single bird sang in the amputated trees which had struggled into leaf in the spring and now reluctantly dropped them again as autumn approached. They also ventured into the centre of Berlin to the Hotel Moser, the once-grand hotel now serving as the Officer’s Mess. The staff mostly consisted of elderly German staff, bent over with despondency and ailments but still as efficient and deferential as Isabel remembered from opulent hotels in London. An A-board stood on the pavement outside with the optimistically normal message, “Afternoon Tea is Now Being Served”, just as Isabel had seen outside similar establishments in the West End of London. It made her smile.
War's Last Dance Page 7
