Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  They tied the rope round her wrists again, and hung her from the ceiling. She felt the men’s fists punching her in the ribs, in the stomach, in the chest, then they hit the soles of her shoes with a bar. Her mouth was so swollen that she could hardly shout, far less tell them to stop, that she was prepared to talk. She couldn’t do it, they put her head in the tub of dirty water once again. Barely giving her time to breathe, until they finally gave her a break. They laughed as they made her eat her own vomit.

  When they were tired of hitting her, the captain came up to her.

  “We have arrested all your friends, we only need to find Grazyna Kaczynski, and I promise you we shall. Don’t be stupid, and tell me where she is.”

  One of the men came up with the clamps in his hands, or at least that’s what she thought, and then she cried with all the strength she had left. Scarcely had the clamps touched her nipples than Amelia fainted.

  When she came to, she was sitting in a chair in the torture chamber. The captain was talking on the phone and seemed extremely excited.

  “Hurry up, let’s go to the Hotel Europejski! They’ve arrested a woman, it looks like it’s Kaczynski.”

  Amelia looked at him through the fog that covered her eyes. She was sure she hadn’t said anything, or had she?

  “She’s coming round,” the guard said. “Maybe she’ll say something.”

  “No, let’s go to the hotel,” the captain ordered. “We’ll carry on with her later.”

  As he walked past Amelia, one of the torturers could not resist the temptation to punch her again.

  5

  For two days, Grazyna did not leave the room. She hid in the wardrobe every time she heard the key turn in the lock and the maid come in; the poor woman seemed surprised at Amelia’s absence. She knew that the maid suspected that Grazyna was in the room. She had seen her the afternoon that Amelia left. She had said that she was a friend of Fräulein Garayoa’s and that Amelia had asked her to stay until she got back. But Amelia hadn’t come back for two days. She was scared by the maid, and also when, from her hiding place at the back of the wardrobe, she saw a German officer come several times into the empty room and look around, worried. He would leave almost immediately, and she thought that he could be Amelia’s lover. Sometimes she heard him talking to a woman through the cracks in the door that joined the two rooms. He didn’t seem very happy; she heard them arguing.

  She had found Amelia’s camera, the one she used to photograph her lover’s documents, at the bottom of the wardrobe, hidden under some clothes.

  As the hours went by, she became ever more certain that Amelia must have been arrested, or else she would have come back. She thought about how she might escape, and finally decided to leave when the entrance to the hotel was filled with people, so she might pass unnoticed. The worst of it was that she did not have anywhere to go, for if Amelia had been arrested, then she would not be able to warn the rest of the group. The only thing left to her was to try to get to Ciechanów, where her Aunt Agnieszka lived; she had always been her favorite niece and was sure that her aunt would help her.

  She had fallen asleep when the door opened, and she had not had time to hide in the wardrobe.

  Several men came into the room, followed by the maid and a concierge. The maid pointed to Grazyna.

  “This is the woman who has been here for three days in Fräulein Garayoa’s room... I think she was waiting for her... I... I told the manager that it seemed very suspicious.”

  “Get out,” one of the Gestapo agents said to the maid and the concierge. They both left, but unwillingly, wanting to see what might happen next.

  Grazyna was frozen still. She knew that there was no escape. They grasped her arms and ordered her to tell them her name.

  “My name is Grazyna Kaczynski,” she murmured.

  One of the men started to search the room. It did not take long for him to find Amelia’s camera. She didn’t know why she did so, but she started to scream at the top of her lungs, struggling against the Gestapo officers who were trying to drag her out of the room. Her screams were so loud that the guests came out of the neighboring rooms to see what was going on.

  Grazyna could see the astonishment in the eyes of the officer who had looked into the room the day before.

  Max von Schumann tried to use his authority as an army officer to get the Gestapo agents to tell him what was happening. Ludovica tried to get her husband to come back into the room.

  “Mind your own business, Major,” one of the Gestapo agents said dismissively.

  “I order you to tell me what is going on here and why you are taking this woman...”

  “You can’t give us orders,” the man replied.

  A sardonic laugh drew Max’s attention, and he turned round to see Major Ulrich Jürgens.

  “Baroness.” Jürgens made an exaggerated bow to Ludovica, who gave him a wide smile in return.

  “What’s happening, Jürgens?” Max asked the SS officer.

  “As you can see, they are arresting this young woman. Am I mistaken, or is this your good friend Amelia Garayoa’s room? What a horrible coincidence, a criminal in your friend’s room!”

  Ludovica’s face twisted and she stared daggers at Major Jürgens, who avoided looking at her.

  Max shot a hate-filled glance at Jürgens but did not waste his time, knowing that this woman was the only person who could tell him where Amelia was.

  “Who are you?” he asked Grazyna.

  “You do not have the authority to question the detainee,” Major Jürgens interrupted.

  “You cannot give me orders! How dare you!”

  “They’ve arrested her! They’ve arrested Amelia! I was waiting for her here! They’ve arrested her!” Grazyna shouted.

  “But why? Who are you?”

  “I work in the hospital... I knew Amelia... she... she...”

  She couldn’t say anything else. The Gestapo agents hit her and began to drag her down the stairs. When Max started to go after them, Ludovica grabbed him by the arm.

  “Max, please, don’t do anything foolish!”

  “You are right as always, Baroness, your husband seems to need someone to counsel prudence, or else... Well, you know what might happen... You have some very dangerous friends, Baron von Schumann... friends who could be extremely inconvenient to you.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Jürgens,” Max von Schumann warned the Nazi.

  “Threaten you? I wouldn’t dare? Who would threaten a Wehrmacht officer, and an aristocrat to boot?” Jürgens laughed.

  “Don’t be impertinent!” Ludovica said.

  “I’m sorry, Baroness, you know that nothing could have been further from my intentions than to be impertinent, friends do not stand in the way of their friends.”

  “You are not our friend, Jürgens,” Max snapped.

  “I am the baroness’s devoted servant,” Jürgens said, looking at Ludovica.

  The baroness took hold of Max’s arm and forced him to come back into the room. The guests from the neighboring rooms carried on observing the scene with curiosity, and she had a horror of becoming the subject of gossip among these people she so disdained.

  “I’m going out, Ludovica,” Max said as soon as the door had closed. “I need to find out what has happened to Amelia.”

  “I forgot to tell you that I saw her in reception a couple of days ago. It was a surprise to see her here, and with such a strapping young fellow, too,” Ludovica lied. “I wouldn’t worry about her if I were you.”

  “Didn’t you hear what that woman said?”

  “Good Lord, Max, we have no idea who that woman is! And if she’s a criminal who was in Amelia’s room, then it’s not safe for us to go snooping around trying to find out. We don’t know that much about the Spanish woman, either. She came to Berlin with that American journalist... A woman like that... well... I don’t think we should get involved in her problems.”

  But Max did not seem to hear what Ludovica said. He walked round an
d round the room, resolved to try to find Amelia. Who was the girl who had been arrested? Maybe she was the new friend that Amelia had mentioned a couple of times... But what had she done? Why had she been arrested?

  “Max, in my condition, surprises and annoyances are not a good idea.” Ludovica had taken Max’s hand and placed it on her stomach. “Can’t you feel our son? You have a responsibility, Max, a responsibility to me, and to our son, and to your family name...”

  Max suddenly realized that what had seemed entirely natural up to that point was in fact carefully planned: Ludovica had gotten pregnant before they sent him to Warsaw; she had tried to get pregnant because she was scared of losing him, and had come all this way to find him to make him behave like the man he was, a von Schumann, an aristocrat, an army officer who could not leave his marriage without dishonoring his family name.

  But Ludovica must have known that Amelia was in Warsaw, that she had traveled with him.

  He had come back from the front two days ago, and had dreamed of seeing Amelia again, but he had been surprised to run into Ludovica, and however much he asked about her in reception, no one seemed to be able to tell him anything about Amelia.

  Ludovica had been very affectionate, and Max had been moved to think about the possibility of having a son; a son who would continue the family traditions, who would wear the von Schumann family name with pride. But he also felt remorse, because the fact of this child was a betrayal of Amelia.

  He had no doubt at all that Amelia was in danger and that Major Ulrich Jürgens knew something about it. But did Ludovica know about it too? He had been surprised by the familiarity between his wife and the SS major.

  “I am sorry, my dear, but I am going to look for Amelia, wherever she may be.”

  “Don’t do it, Max, don’t do it, you don’t have the right to compromise me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think that it’s a secret here in Warsaw that you have a lover? How long do you think it took for me to find out that this room was connected to one belonging to a young Spanish woman named Amelia Garayoa?” she said. Then she carried on, a little more calmly: “We are going to have a son, Max, and our obligation is that he can carry the family name with pride. Your name, Max, he will be a von Schumann, but my name as well, he will also be a von Waldheim. Our son will be the synthesis of all that is best about our race. Are you going to spoil his future by running off after that Spanish adventuress? How much humiliation do you think I can bear? I have kept quiet about things, even in the face of some fairly obvious proof, I didn’t want to see what others saw only too clearly. And do you know why I have done it, Max? For us to be who we are, to fulfill that sacred vow that you and I made before the altar, that sacred vow which our parents made before us. We cannot run away from who we are, Max, we cannot.”

  “I am going to look for Amelia. I am sorry, Ludovica.”

  “Max!”

  He left the room without knowing very well where he should go, fearing that Amelia would be in the hands of the Gestapo, like that girl who had been arrested. But why? What had Amelia done while he’d been away at the front?

  Suddenly he remembered his lover’s connection to the British, and wondered if that might be the cause of her arrest. But then he immediately told himself that he was being silly, that Amelia could not be an agent, that she had only been a messenger for the British because of her relationship with that American journalist, Albert James, nephew to Lord Paul James, of the Admiralty.

  He went to the General Staff office without knowing very well whom to ask for help, someone who would have enough authority with the Einsatzgruppen, with the Gestapo, with the SS, with whomever it was who had Amelia.

  He sought out his adjutant, the quartermaster captain Hans Henke, because he needed to speak with someone.

  “You know General von Tresckow,” Captain Henke reminded him.

  “Do you think the general will be able to do anything?”

  “Perhaps...”

  “Get me in touch with his adjutant... I could try, at least.”

  “There’s also Hans Oster, or even Canaris, maybe they can do more.”

  “Yes... yes... you’re right, I’ve got a friend who works with Oster, the Abwehr has ears and eyes everywhere... I’ll speak to him. I’ll speak to Hitler himself if I have to.”

  They tortured Grazyna for several days, even more cruelly than they had tortured Amelia. They suspected that it was she who had run the Resistance group, and they needed to know what operations were under her control. Some of the group’s members had also been arrested, including Grazyna’s cousin Ewa and Tomasz: They had said that they were only trying to help some friends in the ghetto, but the Gestapo did not believe them.

  The operation against this group had begun with a careless action on the part of the hospital director’s secretary. She was the lover of a German soldier, and had once unwittingly let slip that her boss suspected that someone was stealing medicine from the hospital; but however much the director questioned Sister Maria, the nun in charge of the dispensary, they couldn’t find out who was responsible for the thefts. Sister Maria told the director that she knew nothing, but it was clear that the nun was conniving with someone.

  The hospital director had informed the police and they had set up a discreet and efficient watch over Sister Maria, who had not suspected that the new porter she had hired was in fact a police officer. He seemed a nice man, always ready to work more than his contracted number of hours.

  It wasn’t hard for him to hear conversations between Sister Maria and Grazyna, and he came to the conclusion that she must be taking the medicine with Sister Maria’s tacit approval.

  The police organized an operation to have Grazyna followed night and day, and with patience they uncovered most of the members of the network. They knew that the group was plotting something important, and decided to arrest Sister Maria, crediting her with greater involvement in the crimes than she in fact had. They arrested her on Saturday, after Grazyna had left the hospital so as not to make her suspicious, and tortured the nun cruelly, but she could tell them nothing because she knew nothing. When Grazyna came back to the hospital on Monday, they told her that Sister Maria was sick, and she believed this until a couple of days later a sympathetic nurse murmured to her that Sister Maria had in fact been arrested. Grazyna had decided to flee and tell the other members of the network, because that night they had planned to take weapons to the ghetto.

  Max von Schumann found out about all this thanks to a contact given to him by his friend, who worked with Hans Oster, Canaris’s adjutant. This contact, Karl Kleist by name, worked in the communications office and no one suspected that he was anything other than a good Nazi, even though he hated Hitler and all he stood for.

  Thanks to his friends’ efforts, Max managed to get Amelia out of the clutches of the Gestapo, but he could not have her freed, and she was transferred to Pawiak, a prison with both male and female detainees.

  Max tried to see her, but unsuccessfully; SS Major Ulrich Jürgens had made sure that she was registered as a dangerous prisoner, and she was put in isolation, as was Grazyna.

  In spite of this, Max kept on petitioning his friends in the High Command, continuously asking them about Amelia. What he did not know was that his wife Ludovica was using her connections to stop her husband from getting to her rival.

  A few days after all this happened, Max received the order to return to the front. It came as a relief for Ludovica that he was leaving Warsaw.

  “I will wait for you in Berlin, I have to prepare for the birth of our son. We haven’t yet thought about what name we’re going to give him, although I have some suggestions. Of course, I pray that he will be a son, I am sure of it, and I would then call him Friedrich, like your father; if it is a girl, I would call her Irene, like my mother.”

  Perhaps if Ludovica had not been pregnant, Max would have left her forever, but in spite of the aversion he felt toward her, he could not help
but be pleased at the idea of having a son, a legitimate son to carry on his name.

  Karl Kleist, the officer who worked with Colonel Oster, told Max that he would do whatever it took to get information about Amelia.

  It was a relief for Amelia to be in prison. At least there she would not be systematically tortured, as she had been at the hands of the Gestapo.

  The women’s section was called “Serbia.” She shared a damp and flea-ridden cell with several other women, some of them murderers. Women who looked forward to their final end with resignation. One had killed her husband with a kitchen knife, sick of being beaten. Another had been a prostitute and had killed a client to rob him. The youngest of them all said that she had never killed anyone, that she had been arrested by mistake. And then there were the political prisoners: ten women whose only crime was to have not been Nazis.

  They were crammed into the cell, but that was the least of their problems. A few days after arriving in Serbia, Amelia started to feel stinging bites all over her body, and couldn’t stop scratching her head. One of the prisoners said, indifferently:

  “You’ve got lice, but you’ll get used to them. I don’t know which is worse, the lice or the fleas. What do you think?”

  When Amelia arrived at the prison she was scarcely able to move. The torturers had left marks all over her body, and she was very weak and had been given hardly anything to eat or drink. It was weeks before she was able to talk to these women, who treated her with a mixture of curiosity and indifference.

  One day, after she had fainted, they sent her to the prison infirmary. When she came to her senses she overheard a conversation between the nurse and the doctor who were looking after her. Her ears pricked up at the name Garayoa.

  “Why did this Spanish girl get into so much trouble? At least she’s still alive, I suppose, they hanged the other one, Grazyna, a few days ago,” the doctor said.

  “They’ll kill this one too, the death sentence will be passed down any day now,” the nurse replied.