by Cathy Gohlke
When the train finally moved, it rattled our bones so hard we could not bear to lean against the sides of the car, could not bear to lean against one another. We’d grown so thin, our bones protruding, that we sat on our hands to protect our buttocks and tailbones from the jostling of the train. I did my best to protect the little bump at my waist, but could not imagine how my little one survived, certain—dreading—that one day I would no longer feel movement.
Bombing continued day and night. We gave up cowering at the explosions, waiting for the hit. Let it be a merciful death, became my prayer.
Guards called for the dead each morning. What they did with the corpses—if they were buried by the side of the tracks or thrown to wild animals or simply left to rot in the sun—I did not know. I knew only it was a relief to have the door slide open, to breathe fresh air for a moment, and to see daylight.
It gave me an opportunity to peek into a world from beyond time. I couldn’t separate my sleeping from waking, though I no longer dreamed. None of us dreamed anymore. Days and nights became one. If I could have slipped into oblivion, I would thankfully have done so.
Finally, the doors were pushed wide. “Schnell! Raus!”
But we were so very weak—those of us left—that we could barely stumble from the car to the ground. The sun blinded. I blinked against the sudden pain and staggered forward, following the woman in front of me, allowing those behind to push me along.
More orders, more shouting as we marched through new gates. We were assigned to low bunkers—holes in the ground—and the bombing continued.
Between bombing raids we walked outside, talked with other prisoners—something we’d not been allowed to do at Ravensbrück. Prisoners asked newcomers for names, towns, news of relatives and of the war. They called out names of loved ones—real names, not numbers.
And so, I began begging, “Kirchmann, Kirchmann,” wherever I went. The name tasted good in my mouth. No energy to talk, to ask more, but they understood, and shook their heads.
Guards called for work details, but those too emaciated were not sent. Day after day, I wandered from bunker to bunker under the watchful eye of guards toting machine guns as they stood sentinel in high towers. I wandered as far as allowed, searching for Mutter Kirchmann. And then, one day, there were no guards in the towers—they’d simply vanished.
I couldn’t think what new horror that might mean, but I wandered farther than I ever had before, pleading, “Kirchmann, Kirchmann,” expecting no answer.
A woman stopped me. “You’re from Ravensbrück—I remember you there.” That she recognized me when I couldn’t have recognized myself was a miracle. But the faded number on her coat looked vaguely familiar.
“Ja.”
“I was in Barracks 28 with you—and the Sisters. Do you remember?”
“Ja, the Sisters, and my mother-in-law, Frau Kirchmann.”
“Frau Kirchmann? She’s here—with me. She led our hymn singing until—she’s very weak. I don’t think she’ll ma—”
“Where? Where is she?” Life surged through my veins for the first time since Mutter Kirchmann had been taken away.
“Come.”
I followed her into a bunker several buildings beyond, praying the discovery would be real and worth the terrible effort to walk so far. The smell ranked awful—even worse than in my own barracks. Sickly sweet and rotting—like meat gone to maggots.
“There, by the wall. It’s good you’ve come. I don’t think she’ll live the night.”
Lies! I won’t listen to lies. “Mutter Kirchmann . . . Mutter Kirchmann!” I knelt beside the sleeping form—gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes, matted hair so thin and white. No rise or fall came to her chest. I feared I’d come too late. No! I laid my head on her bunk beside her arm and would have cried if I could have mustered tears.
I closed my eyes. Moments passed, minutes, perhaps hours.
“Lieselotte.” The whisper came like angel’s breath.
A precious dream. I would not open my eyes lest it fade.
“My Lieselotte.”
I lifted my head to see the supreme effort speech cost her. “Mutti Kirchmann.”
She closed her eyes again and smiled. “Thank You, Father. Thank You.” Her breathing grew labored, and then so peaceful I thought she’d passed, but she hadn’t. “Baby?”
“The baby lives.” My throat caught. Barely. I pulled her hand to my stomach. As if on cue, the little one kicked.
“And so must you,” she whispered.
“We’ll all live. The guards are gone—only a few officers remain. The bombing’s almost stopped. The Allies must be very near; it won’t be long now.”
But even as I talked, rattling on, I felt her fading. No! Hold on! Please, hold on!
When she stopped breathing, I couldn’t be sure. I crawled in the bunk beside her, gently lifting her head to my shoulder, cradling it against my chest. More mother than my own mother, I could not let her go.
Night fell and the woman from Ravensbrück urged me to return to my barracks, to get my ration. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—move.
“They’ll take her away in the morning. We’re to stack the bodies of the dead outside the building. She can’t stay here—not now.”
But I rolled over, stretching my arm across Mutter Kirchmann, determined to protect her, to keep them from taking her away.
“Until morning, then, but then you’ll both have to go. If they come back, catch you here . . .”
I didn’t listen. I closed my eyes and thought of Lukas, of all the Kirchmanns, blessed and loved, on my wedding day. Now there would be one less . . . and perhaps one more.
Morning came, but no rations. Two of the women pulled me from the bunk and carried Mutter Kirchmann to the yard, laying her stiffened body on top of a heap of rotting corpses awaiting pickup outside the bunker.
I stood beside her for the longest time, the early-morning chill seeping through my coat. I couldn’t leave her. If the Allies were truly coming, they could help me get her home to Berlin, where Vater Kirchmann could bury her, where Lukas and I could lay flowers on her grave and light candles in the night, where we could tell our precious child about her—or his—beloved grandmother all the years of our lives. If I could be the mother to my baby that Mutter Kirchmann was to me, life might come full circle.
I waited until the women from the bunker moved away before crawling on top of the heap of corpses, wound my fingers through Mutter Kirchmann’s stiff ones, and closed my eyes.
41
HANNAH STERLING
MAY 1973
I woke the next morning, relieved beyond words that Dr. Peterson was locked behind bars, that I no longer needed to wonder if he might appear brandishing a pistol over my bed in the night.
But a robbery is a violation, even when the perpetrator’s caught and put away. I’ve had enough of Berlin. I must talk with Carl about dispensing the rest of the cache. I need to get out of this house, to go home . . . but where is home? Not Berlin. And not the mountain—not anymore. Winston-Salem? What will it be like to return to teaching after leading a life out of an Agatha Christie novel?
The telephone rang as I poured coffee in the kitchen. I jumped—something I did too often now—sighed, and headed for the hall phone, balancing my cup and saucer in one hand, sure my coffee would grow cold by the time I took my first sip.
“Hello?”
“Fräulein Sterling? Fräulein Hannah Sterling?” The German accent came thick.
“Yes, this is Hannah Sterling.”
“My name is Frau Goldfarb. I believe you are looking for me.”
“Goldfarb? I’m sorry, I don’t think so.” Who in the world?
“You may know me better as Marta Kirchmann.”
I nearly dropped the phone. I did drop my coffee—all over my favorite robe. “Marta Kirchmann? Marta Kirchmann?” I couldn’t stop saying her name.
“Ja, Hannah. I knew your mother, Lieselotte, and I loved her very much.”
I gasp
ed upon hearing my mother’s name. Tears sprang from somewhere deep inside. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t control the shaking of my hands.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here. I’m just so—so surprised.” And I can barely breathe! Thank You, God! Oh, thank You!
“Would you like to meet me? For I would like very much to meet you.”
“Yes, oh yes, I would like that. I would love that.”
“I’ve spoken with your young man. He knows where I live.”
“My young man?” I repeated, realizing she meant Carl. Is Carl my “young man”?
“Ja, he sounds very nice.” I heard the smile in her voice. “He knows where to come. Tomorrow—shall we say at two?”
“Ja—yes. Oh, thank you, Frau—Frau—”
“Goldfarb. But you may call me Marta.”
“Thank you . . . Marta. I’m looking forward—very much—to meeting you.”
“We have much to talk about. And I have photographs you may wish to see.”
“Of Mama? Of my mother?”
“Ja . . . and more. Come and see.”
“I will. I surely will. Thank you so much! Danke schön!”
“Bitte schön. I will see you tomorrow.”
“Yes, yes.” I hung the phone in the cradle. Thank You, Father in heaven. Thank you, Carl.
Carl picked me up at noon and drove me to the café for lunch.
“I’m sorry, I’m just too excited to eat. She sounded so . . . sweet and happy. Do you realize she’s the first happy-sounding person I’ve met in Germany?”
“Well, I don’t like the sound of that,” Carl huffed.
“Oh, I don’t mean you—I mean all the people connected with the Holocaust.”
He shrugged. “You expected something different?”
“No, of course not. But you know how they always say that something good comes out of something bad? Can’t there be in this?”
“A silver lining to the Holocaust? It is a question beyond my comprehension. Over six million Jews died, and many millions more besides—other targets of Hitler and countless civilians, soldiers. The cost in human life . . . staggering, unbelievable. I think it is not a question that any of those we’ve met would appreciate.”
“I know, that’s not the right question. Maybe the question is, what can I do to redeem this? What good can I bring out of the horror?”
“Perhaps it is not our job to bring redemption—not that we shouldn’t do all we can to reduce suffering, but we can’t change what happened; we can’t make it right.”
“I just so want it to be right, to change things,” I pleaded.
Carl lifted my hand and kissed my fingers.
We reached Frau Goldfarb’s just before two. I wanted to run to the door. I wanted to run away from it. Will Lukas be here too? Has he come? Marta would know, if anyone would, about my father. She’d know what happened to Mama, to Lukas, to them all. And she wants to meet me. The wonder of that stole my breath.
“Knock on the door, Hannah.” Carl stepped aside. “Knock, so it will be opened for you.”
The knot in my throat and drums in my stomach snapped to attention. I’d barely raised my fist to knock when the door flung open.
“Hannah! Hannah!” The joyous woman—tall and thin—across the threshold drew me into her arms as if I were her long-lost prodigal child. “Lieselotte’s daughter—let me look at you.”
She pushed me gently away and ran her eyes over me, from head to toe and back again. Tears spilled from her eyes and mine. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t articulate anything.
“Come in, come in!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, Carl on my heels. “Let me take your coats. Here, now, run ahead into the sitting room. I hope you’re famished, because I’ve been cooking and baking—ach, this is like Christmas!”
I walked into a medium-size room painted a soft yellow. The furniture was covered in a raised rose fabric—welcoming and pretty over heavy dark wood. Globed table lamps glowed pink and yellow, making everything warm and lovely. The mantel over a blazing fire shone, crowded with old black-and-white and sepia-toned photographs. I’d never seen the people pictured there, but somehow they looked familiar.
Marta pulled me to the settee, never taking her eyes from me. “You’re so like her.”
“Like Mama? Like meine Mutter?” I said doubtfully.
“Hmm.” She considered, then smiled. “Nein. More like mine.”
“Yours?”
“Wait here.” She squeezed my hands and hopped up, years falling from her stride. She pulled a framed portrait from the mantel. “Do you see the resemblance?” She pointed to a dark-haired woman, slim, tall, younger than me, laughing and happy on her wedding day.
“This could almost be me. This could be me!”
“Ja, ja,” Marta laughed. “This is meine Mutter, and Lukas’s Mutter. This is Hannah Kirchmann.”
“Hannah? Her name is Hannah?”
“Ja, my dear, dear girl. It was. And you look like your father. I look into your eyes and I see mein Bruder, Lukas, and meine Mutter.”
Lukas is my father. My father! But where is he? Please, God. “Carl’s parents said they think Lukas survived the war?” I couldn’t keep the hope from my voice.
“Ja, he did, but he was never the same. He had been a strong man. They broke his bones—his fingers and toes. They starved and beat him to tell them names of others who helped smuggle Jews across the borders, but he did not tell—not one name. You come from strong stock.”
“I don’t understand. Why did Mama marry again if Lukas—if my father—was still alive?”
“Ach, but she did not know he was alive.” A veil fell over Marta’s features. “Carl told me that neither of you know what happened after Ravensbrück.” She breathed deeply. “I will tell you all I have learned.
“Near the end, we knew Germany would lose the war. The Allies were all but at the door, and the Nazis began covering their tracks—erasing whatever evidence they could of the horrors they had committed. They knew that the world would hold them accountable. They consolidated prisoners. Death marches and gassings and shootings increased.”
“We met a woman—Frau Brunner—who said Mama and . . . and Grandmother . . . left Ravensbrück.” I have a grandmother—had a grandmother. I bear her name. This is my family.
“Ja, this is true. Trainloads of women were sent to Dachau. For days the trains sat on the tracks—locked—while the administration of the camp ran away and new crews replaced them. By the time the Americans came, many—most—in the cars had died. Even in the camp, corpses were stacked high.”
“But what about—?”
“A few weeks—not long—after the liberation, an American soldier came to find Lukas.”
“My fa—Sterling. Joe Sterling.”
“Ja.” Marta nodded and hesitated, looking away. “He told me about Lieselotte, that he had found her in a heap of corpses at Dachau—a heap the Nazis had not had time to bury. He said her fingers were intertwined with those of an older woman—a woman who was dead.” She turned to me once more. “I wanted to believe him, believe that the woman was meine Mutter, that Lieselotte had been with her when she closed her eyes on this world. Lieselotte was a daughter to her, as much as I—more than I, at the end.” Marta picked up her mother’s portrait. “He said Lieselotte was in the hospital and very ill. He did not tell me that she carried a child. But he said that he could get medical help for her to save her life if he could marry her.”
“What?”
“American GI medical benefits, he said. He knew there was not enough medicine—not enough German doctors or hospitals—for all the needs of those suffering after the war, but he said that Americans take care of their own. He said she would die if she didn’t get treatment.”
“But what about Lukas?”
Marta shrugged, as if helpless. “Neither he nor Father had returned from the camp, though others had. I feared he was dead. I believed all my family dead.”
Marta’s eyes pleaded with me to understand. “Lieselotte was my only family member left alive—so I thought. She had taken my place in the camp. Because she was arrested, because she gave my name as her own, they never came looking for me. She saved my life.” She hesitated. “I believed Joe Sterling. I believed him when he said that Lieselotte was dying and that marrying her was the only way she could receive the treatment that might save her life.”
“But she was already married!” I wanted to turn back time. I wanted them all—Marta, Mama, Joe—to make different choices. “You had no verification that Lukas was dead.”
Tears fell from Marta’s eyes. “No, I did not. Records were destroyed in the bombing. I told Joe they could pretend that she’d never married. He said that the marriage need only be for a little while—long enough for her to get the treatment she needed—and he would return her to me before he was sent stateside. He promised. He seemed so kind . . . sincere.”
“I don’t understand. Joe Sterling raised me as his own child. He never brought Mama or me to Germany.”
“No.”
“And Lukas came back.”
“Two months later—a wreck of a man, very weak and broken. He weighed less than a ten-year-old child. Nothing like the man the Gestapo arrested. Nothing like the man Lieselotte married.”
Marta stood and walked to the mantel, retrieving another photograph, and handed it to me. My heart nearly stopped. Mama—and Lukas, my father.
“Their wedding day—evening. It was a simple affair—a secret affair to keep it from Lieselotte’s father. This picture I snapped is the only evidence that remains.
“I thought Lieselotte would come back the moment she recovered. I explained to Lukas what happened. And though it broke his heart that she might marry another—even if it was only on paper—he got a little better with the hope of seeing her. But another month passed and she did not come. Eventually I went to the American base and asked for Joe Sterling, but was told that he and his wife had gone to America. My heart was sick. How could I tell Lukas?”
