Lunch with Mussolini

by Derek Hansen

  ‘“Follow me!” Ludwig yelled and took off across the road. There was our fire warden with his torch, bless him, calling us over towards the house opposite. People criticise we Germans because we are too structured and orderly. But German discipline saved our lives that night. The fire warden was just one example. He led us into this house. The whole front had been blown off but it was of very solid construction and most of the rooms and the staircase were still standing. I wish I had the name of the builder because he will be very popular after the war. When I looked up the staircase I could see trails of fire tumbling over the steps. How could this be so? It was the same with the walls that were still standing. It looked like they were splashed with fire. Nothing escaped the splashes. I have never seen anything like it but that is why everything had caught fire so quickly. The warden ushered us down the steps into the cellar and closed the door behind him. There were at least fifty people sheltering there. The cellar was large with strong vaulted ceilings, unlike ours.

  ‘Above the noise from outside I could hear people crying out for help. There were people with broken limbs and gaping wounds and others who were badly burned. There were children there too and they broke your heart. The poor little things were shaking and cowering with fear, clutching on to whoever was near and could comfort them. A little boy about five or six attached himself to Käte. He had no idea where his parents were. But still we weren’t out of trouble. A bomb must have hit the building above us because there was a deafening roar and the cellar shook. Dust and mortar squirted out of the bricks above our head and the ceiling began to sag ominously.

  ‘“Prepare to evacuate!” called the warden. But where would we evacuate to? Every house in our street and in every street around us was on fire. Where could we go? But as the cellar once more filled with smoke, it was obvious we couldn’t remain where we were. We hadn’t escaped from our cellar just to suffocate in someone else’s. Amazingly there was no panic. Perhaps everybody was as shocked as we were. The warden opened the hole through to the cellar next door and made sure everybody filed through in an orderly fashion.

  ‘“Keep going until we reach the corner house,” instructed the warden. “Then we will make our way to the public shelter. We will be safe there.”

  ‘The public shelter was at least a block away but the warden made it seem like a comfortable stroll. We crawled through cellar after cellar, Lisl first, then Käte and the boy, then me, then Ludwig. It was horrifying. People were crying out in fear and from the pain of their injuries. I never saw such suffering. And still the bombs kept falling. We knew that few raids lasted longer than twenty minutes but this seemed like an eternity. Suddenly the people in front of us stopped. Word was passed back that the way ahead was blocked. We’d all have to try and make our way up into the open as best we could. Ludwig still had his torch and he flashed it around the cellar we were in trying to find the doorway. But there was too much smoke.

  ‘“Hold on,” he shouted and started to feel his way along the wall. He disappeared into the smoke and all we could see was a weak glow from his torch. The glow brightened so we guessed he must have found the door. He had, but it was blocked.

  ‘“Everybody back one house!” he called. We were running out of time. There were now no more than eight to ten people besides ourselves in the cellar. We all turned and squeezed back the way we came. The heat and smoke were becoming unbearable. We were sure then that we would all die. We linked hands and followed the orange glow from Ludwig’s torch. Once more the cellar door was blocked. Two men joined Ludwig and they pushed on the door with all their strength. It gave a little. They pushed and pushed and forced a small opening but it wasn’t big enough for an adult.

  ‘“Where’s the boy?” shouted Ludwig.

  ‘Käte took the boy up to Ludwig who bent over him and shouted in his ear.

  ‘“Little man, we need your help. We want you to crawl through this hole and see if you can move whatever is blocking the door. Will you do this for us?”

  ‘The boy nodded. He was so brave. He was shaking with fear. He started to cry as they helped him up through the hole but he still went. Ludwig passed him his torch and we were left in darkness. There we were, ten adults trusting our lives and our only torch to a boy of five. One of the men cried out suddenly. The boy had dropped a brick through the hole. Then another and another. We stood back as brick after brick tumbled out of the darkness. Then the torch appeared in the hole and we could see the boy trying to climb back down. Ludwig grabbed hold of him.

  ‘“Push,” the boy shouted. “Push the door!”

  ‘So the men pushed and the cellar door opened another ten or twelve centimetres.

  ‘“We will have to squeeze through,” my husband shouted.

  ‘Lisl began to panic. How could she get her swollen tummy through that tiny gap? But we had no choice. Our eyes were watering and the smoke and dust made it very difficult to breathe. Ludwig sent the boy and Käte up first. Then the other people. Then me. He told me to wait on the other side to help Lisl through in case she got stuck. I climbed through the doorway and looked up. Boards from the upper floors were dangling ablaze above my head. Burning pieces fell on my head and arms. I wanted to run but I had to help Lisl. I tried to grab her hands but then some burning piece of debris would land on me and I’d have to brush it off. Lisl twisted and turned and slowly began to wriggle her way through. She’d taken off her coat to reduce her bulk and I could see her stomach scraping hard against the rubble. She was crying. I grabbed her hands and pulled. She looked up at me helplessly and something fell through the air and landed on her face. Maybe it was burning carpet, I don’t know. Her hair began to smoulder and she screamed. There was nothing she could do. She was trapped and I had hold of her two hands. I pulled as hard as I could. Lisl screamed. I pulled and pulled but she wouldn’t budge. But suddenly she was free. I smothered her burning hair with the front of my coat.

  ‘Once more we made our way up onto the street. The flames were worse but there were fewer bombs. We looked around but we couldn’t find Käte or the boy. We started to run as best we could towards the shelter when a house wall collapsed and fell right across the road in front of us. Surely now we would perish. But no. Ludwig found a path through the shell of a burned out house. It must have been a corridor which had run from front to back. We ran down it with our arms over our heads in case anything fell on us. We came into a clearing which had been the garden. Walls had collapsed and we could see a possible escape route. We dashed from garden to garden until we finally reached the corner. But the heat and smoke had taken its toll. We were on the verge of collapse. All I wanted to do was lie down. We staggered out onto the road. If we’d died and gone to hell it could not have been worse. We no longer had the strength to weep, and what tears were left dried in the searing heat before they left our eyes. We were finished. It felt like the air was being sucked from our lungs. Ludwig took my hand. He knew it was all over. We put our arms around Lisl. It was her we felt sorry for, her and her unborn baby.

  ‘Then came our miracle. Out of the smoke a truck appeared. Men in strange coats and gas masks leapt off the back and lifted us up onto the tray. They were from the Sicherheits und Hilfsdienst, the rescue and repair service. They were so fast, so brave and so disciplined. There were at least ten or fifteen other people like us crowded onto the back. We turned down a street, one we must have known well but was now unrecognisable. We clung on desperately as the truck kept swerving around debris without slowing. Then I saw two figures—one large, one small—silhouetted by the flames. It was Käte and the boy. I grabbed one of the rescuers and pointed to them. He banged on the side of the truck to stop it. Käte and the boy were crossing through a burning building. They were running towards us. As the flames were reaching up around their knees Käte swept the boy up into her arms. One of the rescue men leapt off the truck before it had stopped and ran into the flames. He grabbed the boy from Käte and to our amazement stood there momentarily hugging him. As he turn
ed and began to race back, a wall collapsed and fell on Käte. I saw her fall into the flames on the ground and the bricks pile up on top of her. The rescuer stopped and hesitated. What should he do? Save the boy or imperil us all by trying to save Käte? Houses were collapsing all around us and bombs were still falling nearby. The truck could easily be trapped. He put the boy on his back and began clawing at the bricks and stonework on top of Käte. Another rescuer ran into the flames and began to drag the man and the boy away. They left her there. Poor Käte! She never stood a chance.

  ‘The rescuers leapt back on the truck and we raced off down the street. I couldn’t stop thinking about poor Käte. If it hadn’t been for the boy she would probably still be alive. But she never could have left him to fend for himself, what woman could? I hoped she had been killed instantly when the bricks hit her. It would be terrible to be trapped and burned to death. But there was another miracle. Quite extraordinary and touching. People talk about them but I never expected to witness one. The rescuer with the boy ripped off his mask and kissed him. The boy stopped crying immediately.

  ‘“Daddy!” he screamed. He had been rescued by his own father! No wonder the man had run into the flames. No wonder he’d tried so desperately to save Käte, to repay his debt to her. He hugged the boy to him and tears flowed down his cheeks. Tears I thought were gone forever also flowed from my eyes, mixing with the soot and grime. Tears for Käte. Tears of relief. Tears for the boy and his father. Tears for Germany which had been destroyed. Suddenly we drove out of the fire. One moment we were in hell, the next in Wuppertal-Elberfeld. It was unbelievable. The path of the bombers was as precise as if they’d drawn a line. In Wuppertal-Elberfeld nothing had changed. It was all so unreal, so normal. Of course there were people running around everywhere, but the only signs of damage were broken windows. The most unusual thing we noticed was the sudden wind and the cold. Gales of cold air were rushing in to replace the oxygen burned in the fires and we went from nearly being roasted alive to freezing. But nothing made sense that night.

  ‘The truck took us to a school which had been converted into a casualty station and centre for processing victims. We sat huddled together until a doctor could see us. He gave us cotton wool and some liquid to dab on our burns, and a tiny bowl of antiseptic for our cuts. It was hard to know where to begin. They told us the bombers had dropped little bombs filled with phosphorus which split open on impact and splashed fire everywhere. That was what I’d seen and why nothing could escape the flames. They told us the phosphorus keeps eating away at flesh until neutralised. Clearly that was the case with some of the less fortunate people around us who were in agony.

  ‘I tried to get my shoes off but my feet were badly swollen. The shoes were many sizes too big but now I filled every centimetre. Ludwig who had been so brave and strong was almost in tears when he finally managed to take my shoes off and saw my feet. They were cut and raw. You saw them last night but they were much worse then. He bathed them in antiseptic as gently as he could, but every touch of the cotton wool was like hot needles. A woman from the Frauenschaften came and took our names. We told her about poor Käte. She asked if we had any relatives who lived in Elberfeld. I said we did and gave my sister’s address. Then she ordered us to leave.

  ‘“If anyone asks for you, that is where we will send them. Go now.”

  ‘“What do you mean?” I asked. “How can you expect us to go anywhere? Look at us! Look at my feet!”

  ‘“I am sorry,” she said, and I believe she was. “There are more people coming and we need the room. There are people much worse off than you. I am sorry.”

  ‘It was true. There were many people who were badly burned or unconscious and the room was rapidly filling up. Dear God! Once more I had to put on those shoes. We walked out into the night. The bombers had gone but the night was still filled with the roar of fires and the crash of buildings. Everyone who had a siren was using it. My sister lives about three kilometres away from the school but it may as well have been thirty. We had to ignore the pain and the icy gale that swirled about us, ripping off roof tiles and chimney pots as it rushed to fuel the flames. That would have been the final injustice. To be killed by a flying chimney pot! After one kilometre I knew I could go no further. We should have just banged on the nearest door and thrown ourselves on the mercy of whoever lived behind it. How could they turn us away? Of course they wouldn’t. But despite our pain, we still couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. We heard a truck labouring up the hill and Ludwig stepped out onto the road in front of it. The truck was going to collect more sand to put on the fires and the driver gladly gave us a lift. He dropped us right at my sister’s front door. His kindness was typical of what happened over the next few days.

  ‘My sister wept to see us. She ushered us in to her drawing room and made us coffee, real coffee. God only knows where she got the beans from. Everyone except us seems to have a secret hoard of coffee beans. Her husband had gone to help fight the flames and she had been sitting up alone, worried out of her wits about us. Her daughter was putting her three children to sleep in the bedroom at the top of the stairs. My sister gave Ludwig and I her bed, and made up another on the sofa for Lisl and stayed with her. Lisl was in shock, she still is. My sister washed her and tended her burns and put her to bed and sat with her, holding her hand for the rest of the night.

  ‘When her husband came home he was so exhausted he lay down on the landing half way up the stairs and fell asleep without washing or changing his clothes. There were bodies everywhere. It was clear to us that her little house was crowded even before we arrived, so in the morning we made up our minds to move on. All Lisl talked about was going home. She sat on the sofa rocking backwards and forwards and the only words she said were “… home … home …” Ludwig decided I should bring her to you. He wanted to stay and see what he could save from our house. He said he would find somewhere to live and send us a telegram when he had. He also said he’d send you a telegram to warn you we were coming. My sister made us some breakfast and lent us some of her clothes, but they were threadbare and she didn’t have any coats to spare. She wanted to give me some shoes, but my feet were so swollen the only shoes I could get into were my dead man’s shoes. I felt guilty every time I put them on. But I would have perished in the fires without them.

  ‘When we reached Elberfeld station, we were given our tickets free and told where to go for food. Sometimes it takes a disaster like we had experienced to bring out the best in people and officialdom, and that was certainly the case. Having never been bombed before we had no idea that this had been by far the worst air raid of the war, and the whole country was galvanised to help its victims. We were given some bread and a little sausage and some kind of paste. God knows what it was made of. I told Lisl to eat only a little because we had no idea how long the train trip would take.

  ‘As it was, it took three days and we had to change trains four times. They were all very crowded but each time somebody gave us their seats. One look at our faces and our filthy clothes and they knew we were from Wuppertal. People brought us drinks and shared what little food they had with us. One woman even lent us a blanket. People were so kind but even so the journey was interminable. Every time I got to my feet was agony. I could put off going to the toilet but not Lisl because of her pregnancy. And every time I had to go with her so she wouldn’t get lost. Poor Lisl! All she could say was, “My baby, my baby … what has happened to my baby?” By the time we reached Dresden I was at the end of my tether. I have never been so relieved to see anyone in my life. I can’t tell you how glad I was to see you. The moment you put your arms around me, I knew my ordeal was over.’

  Ulla finished speaking and sank back in her bed. She picked up her coffee but it had long gone cold. Clara took it from her and disappeared back to the kitchen to warm it up again for her. But mostly, she went because she didn’t want Ulla to see her tears. What could anyone say to this brave woman who had been through so much and could still inject touch
es of humour into her narrative?

  ‘Thank you for bringing our daughter back to us.’ Carl went over to Ulla, knelt down and put his arms around her. He’d spoken from the heart and for everyone.

  Ulla began to weep silently. Christiane fought back her tears then made her decision.

  ‘Ulla, you must stay here in Dresden with us and Lisl. We will all stay here. We are safe in Dresden.’ She turned defiantly to Friedrich. ‘We are staying here. I am staying here.’

  Friedrich turned away without a word and went down to Carl’s study. He needed time to think. How could he persuade Christiane to take their son to the west now? Yet if they stayed they would have to face the Russians. Germany was sliding inexorably towards the brink of the abyss, trapped between two unspeakable horrors. He deferred a decision. Perhaps Dresden was the safest place for the time being. Perhaps the Russian war machine would falter. Perhaps the Führer would bow to the inevitable and sue for peace. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps! Friedrich knew in his heart that they had to move west, to a small village somewhere that had no attraction for bombers. But it would be a harsh decision given the events of the previous days, and in the end he made no decision. He would not get the same opportunity again.

  Lucio finished speaking but nobody spoke. The same sense of impending doom that had consumed Friedrich now enveloped them. Friedrich had backed down when he should have stood firm. It was now clear to them all where the story was headed for they all knew the terrible consequences of his indecisiveness. They thought about Christiane and Helmuth, Lisl and her unborn child, Carl, Clara and the courageous Ulla. They thought about those lives, each with its hopes and aspirations for the future. And they thought of the impending carnage. It just didn’t seem fair.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Neil finally, ‘somebody tell a joke.’

  ‘We don’t need a joke, Neil, we have you.’