Korinna could feel her mother’s arm shake, and it flowed through her own body until she could feel her legs quiver with fear. What had she almost done? She had almost ruined everything! She had almost turned in her parents!
Her legs trembled uncontrollably. Two officers were now in the bathroom. She heard a grating noise, and then the sound of flowing water. As her mother led her into her bedroom behind Hans and one of the other officers, she saw a flood of water flowing out of the bathroom. Their house would be ruined.
Her bedroom received the same treatment as her parents’ room had. Only the picture of the Führer above her desk remained untouched.
They destroyed the wardrobe, but still the back of it stayed in place over the damning hole in the wall. Hans lifted the ax one last time.
“Stop!” Herr Rehme said.
Hans turned to look at Korinna’s father. “I thought you learned your lesson last time,” he said viciously. “But I guess I was wrong,” he added as he nodded to one of the other officers.
The other officer grabbed Herr Rehme from behind and pinned his arms behind his back. The third officer punched Korinna’s father in the stomach, just below the ribs, leaving him gasping for breath.
“Stop it!” Korinna cried. “Leave him alone!”
“Get back there,” Hans said, easily pushing Korinna back into the corner of the room. “Don’t interfere,” he said menacingly. Again he lifted the ax and it came down hard, splintering the back of the wardrobe. The ax came down again and the back of the wardrobe fell away in two parts, exposing the hole in the wall.
“Lights, quickly,” Hans demanded, obviously in charge of this search.
Another officer stepped forward with two flashlights, which they swung around the hidden room.
Korinna looked over at her father. He sat on the floor, breathing normally now. Her mother squatted next to him. Both of their faces were white and pinched with fear. Korinna knew they expected to be arrested at any moment.
She looked back at Hans, who was now partially in the hidden room. All she could see of him were his shiny leather boots and the gleaming pistol attached around his waist. She swallowed nervously. If her plan didn’t work, she wondered if they would be shot on the spot.
Hans poked his head back out. “What is this room?” he demanded.
“It’s no use,” said Korinna’s father, sighing wearily. He started to say more, but his daughter interrupted him.
“It’s my room,” Korinna said, sounding more brazen than she felt. All the eyes turn to her. “I use it as kind of a—secret clubhouse.”
“Korinna, what are you talking about?” her mother cried shrilly.
She turned to her mother. “I never told you two about it because I thought you might not like how involved I am in the Jungmädel. You always say I have to spend more time on my homework,” she said, hoping she sounded disdainful. She turned back to Hans. “I keep all my party material back there. And when my parents think I’m studying, I go back there.”
Hans’s eyes narrowed. “How did you bolt the wardrobe to the wall?”
Korinna tried to shrug with what she hoped looked like nonchalance. “I just did. I used screws and hinges. I did it one day when no one was home.”
Hans narrowed his eyes. “It’s not easy to drill holes in the wall.”
“I’m strong,” Korinna countered. “Didn’t Rita tell you that I’m the strongest girl in our Jungmädel? I can run the fastest, too.”
“Strong enough to move the wardrobe?”
Korinna waved her hand, hoping Hans wouldn’t notice that it trembled slightly. “I first took out all the drawers and my clothes. It wasn’t so heavy after that.”
Hans glared at her before looking in the small room again. Korinna knew he saw all the pamphlets she had spread around the space, and the clippings she had saved of the Führer she had pinned to the walls. She had even piled the Krugmann’s blankets and mattresses on top of each other and covered them with a small woven rug to make the room more appealing. She wanted to convince anyone who found it, that it was a comfortable place to be. Only a very loyal German would create such a shrine to the National Socialist Party.
“This is a trick!”
Korinna’s heart jumped into her mouth. Why didn’t Hans believe her?
“Korinna, how could you?” demanded her mother, wiping her eyes. “We always thought you were studying. We didn’t want to keep you from your interest in the party, we too love the party, but how will you pass your classes if you don’t study?”
“I did study,” she said, trying to sound sullen. “I just wanted a place to pin all my clippings. You said it would ruin the walls if I pinned them out here.”
“Korinna,” her father said sternly. “You’ve disobeyed us and you will have to be punished.”
“But I—”
“Enough!” Hans shouted. He stood up, looking uncertainly at Korinna for a brief moment, then he quickly put on a fierce scowl. “I have information.”
Korinna didn’t like the triumphant sound she heard in his voice. She watched as he extracted a black book from his jacket pocket. Her black book. Only one person could have gotten that book and given it to Hans—her best friend.
She felt dizzy staring up at Hans. Now she would surely be shot as a traitor. No more would she walk through the beautiful countryside. No more would she smell the sweet flowers of spring. No more would she feel the bite of the cold winter wind. No more would she hug her mother and—
“Answer me!”
Korinna looked up at Hans through a rosy haze. Maybe she was dying already.
“Why did you tear out a page in this book?” Hans demanded.
Then she remembered. She had torn out the page. Those awful five words—My parents are the enemy. Rita had read those words, but she had no proof.
“I—I made a drawing I didn’t like and I ripped the page out. I threw it away.”
Hans sneered at her. “You lie! You wrote that your parents were traitors, Jew-lovers, scum. Why didn’t you turn them in?”
“That’s not true!” Korinna cried. “It was a drawing, a drawing of my cat!”
Hans stared furiously down at Korinna, and then his eyes shifted to her parents. “I don’t believe this!” he stormed. “I don’t believe any of this!” He stomped his boot on the wooden floor in his anger. “I will find the truth, and then you will be sent to prison! I’ll make sure you never get out!” He turned to his fellow officers. “Come!” he commanded, his voice taut with anger and suppressed violence.
Just at that moment, Tag pranced into the room, and one of the officers nearly tripped over her. Hans glared at the tiny kitten. Before Korinna realized what was about to happen, he aimed his shiny boot at the animal and viciously kicked out at Tag. The kitten jumped aside at the last second.
Korinna cried out. Images of Herr Haase came suddenly into her mind. She had stood and watched him get kicked and beaten, but this time she would stop the brutality. She tried to move, but it was too late. Hans kicked at the kitten a second time. This time his boot connected, leaving the animal lying on her side, unmoving.
Hans waved the other officers out, and they preceded him through the bedroom door. Hans stopped and turned in the doorway to glare back at the Rehmes. “I smell Jews,” he said viciously. “I smell their dirty, rotten stink. And when I find them, they’ll lead me right back to you!”
Chapter Fifteen
Korinna pressed her hand against her mouth. She wouldn’t give those pigs the satisfaction of hearing her cry. As she listened to the car roar down the street, an uncontrollable trembling settled deep within her. It sent shock waves out to the furthest extremities of her body, so that her hands shook and her legs quivered. Even her lips trembled against her hand.
“It’s all right,” she heard her father say to her mother in a comforting voice. “Hush, my love, hush.”
Korinna felt her own tears start to flow. She crawled through the feathers and splinters, which now litt
ered the floor. Gently, she picked up Tag. The kitten quivered and then seemed to shake herself awake. Korinna smiled through her tears and kissed Tag on the nose. Her parents wrapped their arms around her, and they all gave in to their tears. Even her father cried, something she had never seen him do before.
Nothing mattered anymore. There was nothing left to care about, or so it seemed, Korinna thought as she looked around her destroyed room. But of course there was a lot to care about, she corrected herself. She cared about her parents, and the Krugmanns, whom she’d never see again, and about her Fatherland. There was a lot of caring left to do, she realized with relief.
Her tears were fewer now, and they dried on her cheeks, making her skin feel stiff and uncomfortable. She looked up to see her father’s tears had been wiped away, as if they had never been. Just like the Krugmanns, she thought. Like all enemies to the Fatherland. They were being wiped away so that someday it would seem as if they had never existed.
“We have to leave now,” her father said quietly.
“Where are we going?” Korinna asked.
“It’s best if you don’t know until we get there, Liebling,” her father said gently.
Korinna stroked Tag’s silken head. “We’re leaving forever?”
“Maybe we can come back someday,” her mother said.
“But right now it’s too dangerous to stay,” her father said.
“What about my school?” Korinna asked. “What about my friends?” Then she remembered she didn’t have any friends anymore. Only Eva had been brave enough to be her friend at the end when she’d really needed one.
“There will be other schools and other friends,” Korinna’s mother said reassuringly.
Her father rose to his feet and helped his wife up. “We have to hurry and pack. Take only what you absolutely need. We’ll be traveling a great distance tonight.”
Korinna stood up beside her parents. “How will we get there?”
“I’ve hidden bicycles out back, for just such an emergency.”
“But won’t they be watching us?”
“They won’t expect us to leave tonight. Hans will think we feel too scared to dare escape. Or maybe he thinks we are stupid enough to feel too safe.”
Korinna reached out for her mother’s hand. “I’m frightened.”
“That’s okay,” her mother said. She drew Korinna close to her and hugged her tightly. “We’re all frightened. But that’s natural. It’s when we feel at ease and certain of ourselves that we make mistakes.”
Korinna thought about how she had felt so confident yesterday that Rita was a true friend. Rita felt sorry for the Jews, and Korinna had been glad to hear it. She had actually believed it! Instead, if she had been frightened and wary, she never would have said so much to Rita about her feelings for the Jews. She was certain that was what had instigated this search. That and her black book.
“Hurry,” her father said. “The sooner we leave, the better. Put everything in your book bag,” he added, pointing to the leather bag half buried in the debris. He looked at the kitten in her arms. “Where we are going, you can’t take a pet. We’ll have to leave Tag with friends along the way.”
Korinna could only nod mutely in reply.
Her mother gave her one last squeeze and then followed Herr Rehme out of the room. Korinna went to the hanging picture of the Führer and took it off the wall. Tied to the back of it were Rachel’s drawings. She put them in the bag. She looked around her room. What else did she need? She gathered some undergarments, a sweater, a wool skirt, and an extra scarf. All of this fit into her book bag with hardly any room to spare. She found a few sheets of paper and a pencil in the mess on the floor, and stuffed those on top of everything and closed the leather bag.
Taking the bag with her and tucking Tag under her arm, Korinna walked to her door and shut off the light. Looking back, she could barely see in the darkness that immediately took over her room. But that was better. In the dark she could imagine her room as it had been before—before all this. But no, she didn’t want to remember it before the Krugmanns, as if they had never been here.
She looked to where her wardrobe had stood. The hole in the wall was darker even than the room. It looked like a gaping wound.
Now she had to leave. She didn’t know where she was going, but she had a feeling it was going to be her turn to hide behind someone else’s bedroom wall, in a dark, small hole with barely enough air to breathe. And if she never came back to this house, it would be because ... because.... She couldn’t bring herself to finish that thought.
She just hoped she would meet the Krugmanns again someday—someday in the future when all people were free to speak and act without fear.
Suddenly, it dawned on her what could possibly be just as important as love, if not more so.
Freedom.
She ran to tell her parents.
Afterword
The story you have just read is about a fictional character named Korinna Rehme. Korinna, like eight million real children, belonged to one of Hitler’s youth groups that existed before and during World War II.
Why did children get so involved in their youth groups, even to the point of reporting “un-German” teachers, friends, and parents? Research and interviews have since shown that these girls and boys were brainwashed into believing what they did was for a good cause.
In 1933, Germany was in a depression. Poor and out of work, many people looked for someone to lead them to a brighter future. Hitler promised to do this.
Hitler said he would create a strong country and a Thousand-Year Reich, yet no one knew how he would do this. But because everyone wanted it so desperately, they followed him blindly.
Children, especially, were affected. And why not? They had a lot of fun at their Hitler youth group meetings. They sang, hiked, helped the elderly, raised money, and baked. They marched in parades and practiced sports. And because Hitler controlled all the radio broadcasts, all the newspapers and books that were printed, the children truly believed that they were helping him create a wonderful, strong Fatherland. All they had to do was commit their lives to the cause, report anyone who seemed un-German, and hate the enemies.
But who were the enemies? Anyone who looked different. Anyone who acted different. The followers of Hitler specifically targeted Jews (and anyone who helped them), Eastern Europeans, mentally and physically challenged people, gypsies, and homosexuals, to name a few.
Hitler’s followers murdered over six million Jews and millions of other people, too, before and during World War II. It is estimated that, by the end of the war, over two-thirds of the Jews in Europe had been murdered. Well over one million of them were children like Rachel.
Even knowing they could be killed for helping “the enemy,” some Gentiles (non-Jewish people like the Rehmes), especially outside Germany, put their lives in danger to help the victims. Ten thousand Rachels may have survived because of these decent human beings. Because no records were kept of hidden children, it is impossible to know if this number is accurate or if as many as several hundred thousand children survived.
I ended this novel with Korinna’s realization that freedom is perhaps more important than love. After all, if you’re not free to love whom you wish, what good is love?
Laura E. Williams was born in Seoul, Korea, and adopted when she was one and a half. Since then she has lived in Belgium, Hawaii, Ohio, and Connecticut. Always an avid traveler, she has driven across much of America and Canada, visited Russia on a student/teacher exchange, backpacked through most of Europe, worked on a cruise ship in Tahiti, and lived on a sailboat in the Caribbean. Laura now lives in Connecticut where she teaches high school and college English. With over thirty published books, she continues to write every chance she gets.
If you enjoyed this book, you’ll also want to read these other Milkweed novels.
To order books or for more information, contact Milkweed at (800) 520-6455 or visit our Web site (www.milkweed.org).
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Behind the Bedroom Wall Page 10
