CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
WILLEM
It is the end of the first week, and I have completed my examinations of the children.
In the main house, money from parents of the older German girls, the number of which has now risen to eight, supports their accommodations, and because of this they feel untouchable. After meeting these girls, it seems an opportunity for some parents to offload them. They are not quite in the league of Hitler’s female youth—some whose wealth has not bought them loyalty and discipline—sent to this center to become accustomed once again with their German culture and expectations, and their parents’ hope of a marriage to someone with rank. It appears that several are here purely for gratification, refusing to take their Germanization seriously, while the others desire to one day be upgraded to Hitler’s League of Girls. The latter of some value, I believe, some moral fiber, while the former interested only in recreation or rebellion.
The second order of girls here, Volksdeutsche—ethnic Germans from abroad—have already been impregnated by Himmler’s brutes and are then discarded to have their babies. During their pregnancy, they are not wanted by their parents, nor by the fathers of their unborn.
One Polish girl, Alice—who appears particularly sullen—says she will not return home after she delivers her baby, as her parents want nothing to do with her. They do not care that she is doing Germany an honor. I would, of course, be required to report them if I were anyone else. But I go on to learn that she did not like the man who fathered her baby, who had courted her purely for sex.
I have discussed the pregnancy with her, which is where she shows real fear. She is due in three months, and she does not wish good things for the baby. She has freely admitted that for the first weeks she starved herself in an attempt to lose the fetus. She does not drop her gaze when she tells me this, which leads me to believe that Alice does not care what else is done to her. She is unwanted, unadoptable, of an age that is neither young nor adult, without any clear future.
“What do you want to do then once you have had the baby?”
She hesitates. She is intelligent enough to realize that this is not an idle question, that I have asked it in earnest, and that if anyone might do something for her, it is likely me.
“I want to start again. I want to not have gone to meet the officer who is the father of this baby. I want to go back to my old school. I want my parents to want me back. And I don’t want to have a baby.”
“Alice, you know that you could be in trouble for saying such things.”
She stares at the insignia on my collar and looks away.
“I’m sorry, Herr Commander.”
“Do not say such things again.”
“Yes, Herr Commander.”
I cannot change the past, but I will do what I can, while I can.
Finally, “the orphans,” as they are known here. We have five orphan girls and three boys. The hut is now filled to capacity. The stench from their toilet pots is ingrained in thin wooden walls barely sturdy enough to house barn animals. The building balances precariously on stilts that lean. It is uninhabitable. Haus and the others should never have allowed it to be used for housing.
Several of the recent recruits have passed Aryan testing, according to Haus, and will no doubt be taken to suitable homes. I check the youngest children. They are healthy and ready for adoption. On my desk is a list of candidates I have yet to evaluate. Haus has compiled a list of families she considers of German value, but whom I must approve. Interviews will commence next week. This is another job that I have taken from her.
When I arrive home at night, Elsi is keen to hear about the children. Each day it is like this. She is shocked that parents would give them up. She is not surprised they have been beaten. She finds Haus as detestable as I do. It feels good to tell her things. She is similar to Lena in that she is eager to learn. Her German is getting better, and she speaks no more Polish words.
It has been several weeks, and I see that the smaller children are beginning to fill out their skin. Matilda seems less cautious around me, more curious, her wide-set, catlike eyes always watching me. I have studied the children’s academic examination sheets, and Matilda’s results are astounding.
“Have you done your testing?” asks Haus.
“Yes,” I say.
“You have not advised me of the results.”
“The children have all passed.”
Haus looks at me too long. I have briefly examined the previous reports and seen her comments about the children. I advise her that her results are incorrect, then conclude the conversation quickly. Anyone who beats a child deserves the very least amount of my time, if any.
Haus is interviewing for new full-time academic tutors for both the older and the younger ones, at my bequest. I have convinced my father to fund this teaching cost.
There is a knock on the door before Claudia enters.
“I’m afraid we are having a problem with two of the girls.”
Claudia reveals that they are embroiled in a fight. Normally Haus would deal with it, but she has left the Center briefly. When I arrive upstairs, the grappling girls are tearing each other apart. I step between them.
“Stop!” I bellow, causing them to stop immediately and give me attention. “What is going on?”
They admit that they are fighting over a boy from town.
“And where do you meet this boy?” I ask.
“In the town center,” says one.
“At night?”
“Sometimes.”
“All right. I have a solution. Girls are not to leave the house from Monday to Saturday, unless there are circumstances that have been approved by me. On Sundays, your free day, you are welcome to go into the town, but provided only that you are chaperoned by Frau Haus. A book will be installed in the front room for you to sign in and sign out during these times.”
“That is a stupid rule,” says the girl.
“What did you say?” I ask.
She does not repeat it. She is now staring at her feet. Lena always said I was frightening sometimes, that like my father I could freeze water to ice with one look.
“Herr Commander,” says the other girl, “I wish to write home to my parents and ask to leave here.”
“Please do,” I say. “I’m sure they would love to hear that their young daughter is meeting boys after dark. Boys who—since they, too, have much idle time—must themselves be ill equipped for military service.”
The eyes of the girls are fixed to the ground in front of them.
“If there is any more fighting, I am afraid that I will have to write to your parents anyway.” I am about to make a speech about their job and their service to Germany, but I am doubtful it will sound believable.
I turn to Claudia and nod before leaving the room, their eyes no doubt boring into my back with dislike. I have neither the patience nor the strength to deal with indulged teenagers.
“Why aren’t the guards stopping the girls from leaving at night?” I say to Claudia as she follows me.
“The guards are not here for them. Only to stop the younger ones from running away.”
This is a circus that has been run by clowns. Soon I will reduce the guards to one at the front gate only. In time, there will be none at all.
For days I have been cooped up inside the surgery, and I eagerly step outdoors for some fresh air and sun. I pass the dismal dormitory that sits in a pile of mud. The young children are near the swings. Before they have seen me, I take a moment to observe and listen. I don’t normally find the sounds of children delightful, but there is something about these poor, miserable souls chattering that moves me.
“Matilda!” I call.
She comes over to stand before me, hands behind her back, imitating me.
“I have not yet had a tour of the grounds,” I say. “Would you be so kind?”
Matilda leads me behind the dormitory and shows me the place where the girl died. I see that there are wildflowers
that were picked from elsewhere on the property and left here on the ground. Matilda says that she and Jacek leave them there. When I question who is Jacek, she says that it is Ernest’s real name.
“Who changed his name?”
“Frau.”
She leads me to the fields, but there is barbed wire and a guard nearby. Then she takes me to the storeroom and the washrooms, before turning back toward the swings.
“What about the other side of the house?” I ask. There is a small wooden structure near the back fence, the building closest to the woods. “What is over there?”
She doesn’t say anything but looks back over her shoulder toward the main house.
“Show me, please.”
She looks down at her feet, and her legs are trembling. When I touch her shoulder, she shudders. I step back to view her curiously.
“Never mind. You can go back to the others.” She is quick to disappear and does not look back.
The cabin she will not go near has a large steel bolt on the outside. When I open the door, something scurries to the corner of the room. The building is just a windowless room ten feet by ten feet. In the corner is a mattress, thin and covered with grease. I can see fleas bouncing off the fabric and remember the bites on Matilda’s legs and arms. There is a cat-size door on one side, which is also opened and locked from the outside. A piece of wood is missing from this door where the rats are entering from. In winter, it would be cold and drafty; in summer, suffocating under the piece of tin that acts as a roof. Spindly bushes behind the building scrape the wood in the breeze.
This is a punishment room, the idea of which will no doubt haunt me for some time to come. The responsibility of nurturing children has been twisted and abused in the most barbarous of ways. I bolt the door from the outside and instruct one of the guards to affix a padlock and bring me the key. This door will not be reopened. I storm back to my office to sit, contemplate, and plan in silence. I have no heart to open the files but instead make a telephone call and then summon Claudia to my office. Haus is still out.
“Claudia, please assemble the older girls in the front reception—except those who are pregnant.”
“Certainly,” she says.
The girls line up, their hands clasped humbly behind their backs, heads down.
“I have some good news . . .”
After my earlier decision to have them grounded, they avoid eye contact with me, fearful that I might reduce their privileges further—to them, the worst kind of punishment.
“I have decided that you are all ready for the League of Girls. After speaking with each of you, I believe that your diligence and your commitment to your training and your country warrant reward. I would like you to pack your bags. Tomorrow a bus will collect you and take you to your new residence.”
“Excuse me, Herr Commander,” says one of the girls who was involved in the fight over a boy. “My parents would need to approve that first.”
“I will be writing to your parents to let them know. It is what they had hoped for you, I am sure, and they will be extremely proud. I will personally sign certificates to hang on their walls, praising them for their commitment to this country, and will ensure that these certificates are countersigned by Herr Himmler.”
I can see that several are pleased, and some wear expressions of contempt. But the mention of Himmler has halted any desire to complain.
Claudia follows me back to the surgery.
“But, Herr Commander, what about the extra tutor we have hired?”
“The tutor will be for the young orphans and the other girls who are expecting. As of tomorrow, the orphans from the dormitory will take over the rooms these girls vacate. You know as well as I that the dormitory is not fit to live in. We will not be taking in any more older girls until that building is knocked down and rebuilt to a habitable standard of living.”
Claudia blinks away her shock.
“Yes, Herr Commander. But did you want to speak to Frau Haus first?”
I tilt my head in puzzlement. “Why?”
She bites her lip and looks away.
Miriam Haus has learned of the changes by the time she storms into my office.
“I’m not sure what you think you are doing, but a lot of money is invested here by the parents of those girls,” says Haus.
“I have also ordered that their monetary donations will go to the League from now on. I’m surprised to hear you so upset. I thought you would enjoy having less responsibility.”
Haus does not miss the slight, since her job here is almost redundant.
“Besides, we will not be short of funds,” I say. “I can guarantee that.”
“If you take the girls away, I’m not sure I can stay here.”
“Is that a resignation then?” I say abruptly.
“No, of course not. It’s just that I have grown attached to them.”
She is lying. She is not attached to anyone but herself.
“Very well. You might best use your time to help the girls with their packing. I have already contacted the League. It is all arranged. The bus will be here this afternoon.”
At the League, the girls will share larger dormitories. There will be less privacy than they had here. There are more rules.
Claudia checks the supplies of medicines and makes a list of things we are short of, while I write letters to the parents and sign certificates to send to my father. It is unlikely he will question this request since it will be seen by most as a positive step: eight more girls will join the war effort.
“Nurse, do you have the addresses of the children before they were sent here?”
“No, Herr Commander.”
“How many of them were signed away by their parents?”
“I believe a few of them.”
“And the others—where were they found?”
Claudia swallows before she speaks. “I believe they were rescued from the streets of Poland mostly.”
“Help the orphans pack tomorrow morning and move them into their new rooms.”
The dormitory will be demolished. I will see to it.
I enter Frau’s office with its view across the lawn at the back of the house.
“You will need to advise the tutors of their new roles with the children.”
“As you wish, Herr Commander.”
“And perhaps we can arrange for some of these children to be returned to parents or relatives, or other people from their towns.”
“If your testing is correct, then I hardly see the need, since they are all qualified for Aryan adoption. Are you suggesting now that they are not?”
Haus is sitting straight-backed on her throne.
“Not at all. It is just that some have been here too long, and we are expecting more very soon. I believe that the two eldest of the group are less likely to be adopted quickly, and we should be making room for new children, especially now that we have less space. I believe that the German skills we have given them are enough for now for them to take back to their homelands. Particularly for Matilda. I believe that she would benefit by being back with her family. I do agree with you that there are some issues with her personality that may compromise her candidacy for adoption.”
“Of course,” says Haus, “couples seeking to adopt are looking at very specific traits. And, Commander, while you might consider the children Aryan, others will not. Matilda is too impudent and unlikely to be adopted. She has hatred for Germany in her blood.”
“Perhaps that has something to do with locking her in a room and punishing her in ways that are barely acceptable in some prisons.”
She shifts in her seat uncomfortably.
“I see,” she says. “You don’t like my methods. But I can tell you, Commander, that they are not much different elsewhere.”
“Then our new system will make us unique.”
“I imagine, then, I will need to apply for other posts.”
“On the contrary, I am more than happy for you to stay on to watch the
improvements . . . in a temporary capacity.”
She says nothing, though I can tell that she has weakened somewhat. She has realized that she will not win here; she cannot. She will go, and I will make certain of it. A request for her transfer will be raised in coming weeks.
“What happened to Matilda’s parents? There is nothing in the file, nothing on her background. Just her Aryan measurements and a brief comment on her health.”
The records are poor. Some files show the children’s parents having signed them away. Others have no details at all. Curiously, though, I have learned something through Alice recently. Her protest was, again, not to eat. Claudia warned her that she might be sent away, but that did little to encourage an appetite. During a consultation with me, Alice brought forward the subject of the orphans, and I commented that the Center gave an opportunity to provide a safe place for children. She scoffed at this.
“The orphan adoption is farcical. There is no such thing as adoption. I think the best word to describe it is kidnap.”
I paused briefly to allow her to say more. People rarely like silence—a tactic I learned early—and will scramble to fill it.
“Their parents were forced at gunpoint,” she says. “But you would know that already.”
“As far as I am aware, they were given up willingly.”
She smiles as if she has something over me.
“The children have been told lies,” she says. “They are told their parents don’t want them.”
I then steered the questioning back to the topic of her eating, as her comments were disconcerting. The fact that I may have been kept in the dark, still, about certain matters here infuriates me. If some have been kidnapped, there is no one I can complain to, since the directive was likely to have come from Himmler. I realize that it is highly plausible, since I have now seen things that I would never have believed before.
Haus crosses her arms. “I believe that the officer who found her did not have any records. In any case, Matilda’s whole family was killed in a bombing. She was the only survivor. Ernest’s parents, however, signed him over.”
Broken Angels Page 28
