Other friends will come and go, but you will last forever in my memories and my dreams.
Helga.
Unknown (Russia/Byelorussia)
May 22, 1944
My darling Olga,
We are on the move across the Russian border into a place where the air is unfamiliar. I confess I am afraid, a little scared of what is to come. I have not yet shot my pistol, though I suppose in time I will find use for it. Darling Olga, what would you say if you saw me now? How you would laugh at me standing in these boots holding this gun. I was the wild one, I know, always wandering off the path. What is to happen to me in such a place where a simple mistake could be my last, without you here to keep me from straying far?
What am I to do?
Helga.
Frontline (Byelorussia)
July 29, 1944
My darling Olga,
It happened so quickly, my darling. With the slightest movement of my finger his eyes went grey, his body grew suddenly heavy and the once grey-brown uniform turned a muddy red. The blood found a way to collect itself in all the fibres and the mud made it spread more. I watched the way he fell and collapsed at my feet.
To kill does not give pleasure. It grieves me to take another life, it is so far from what we were taught as children, playing freely in the streets. It hurts me to realise I have taken a life that was free before Hitler, that was possibly untarnished before the war. He may have held a family close to his heart, he may have had a friend like you once, before that single shot made all that he was a memory to his family and friends.
To me his uniform signified who he was – a Nazi – and that is why he died. That is why I shot him, because of what defined him.
I dry my eyes again with your father’s handkerchief. It takes me away from where I am. I call it my map back to better days.
Helga.
Frontline (Byelorussia)
August 8, 1944
My darling Olga,
I lie here behind the bushes in the middle of the night listening to the shots around me. I should be shooting, I should be killing, I should be repaying the debts of the lives that have been taken, but I can’t pick up my gun. I can’t bear to pull the trigger knowing that the one I kill dies without his family knowing, that a soldier will die and someone at home will continue to pray for him, to pray for what was, pray wasted prayers – as I do, praying for you.
So with one last prayer, I pray for you silently like you taught me. I pray, then I say goodbye. I’m giving away my hope for your safety, and I exchange it for a hope of peace.
Farewell, my dearest friend. Olga Alkaev, Olga ‘to be wished’. I hold you close. If you have died you know I’ve experienced bitter moments of tearful lamentation, if you live then live for me as I feel like my time here draws to an end.
Helga.
Unknown (Yugoslavia)
January 11, 1945
My darling Olga,
The sun is setting on me and the horror of the night to come is just beginning. It’s cold. It’s a night raid. We sit here and wait for the call. We know that they are right there and they know we’re right here but no one has fired a shot. Only the planes are fighting tonight.
We lie together but separated and we wait for an opening, for a way to begin the fight. There are five of us, and who knows how many of them? It could be hundreds for all we know. We have been separated from our army. We are just a single platoon that got lost in the forest and somehow we misplaced our leader.
I am tempted to stand up and wave the white flag, to hold up your handkerchief and plead for peace. Through this piece of white material I will find my way back to peace, won’t I?
I am still; I do not stand.
Once again, my darling, I’m sailing on a ship without direction or a captain.
How long will we lie here?
Helga.
* * *
Adriatic seashore
June 15, 1945
My darling Olga,
I rushed to the shoreline of this foreign place. I saw the sea and the tears drew lines down my face as I ran across the sand and knelt in the water in my old dress. Now my tears mix with the ocean and I’m ready to let go.
The sky is so clear it doesn’t mirror the feeling of everyone below it. I hear voices behind me. I intend to end this for myself. This is my goodbye. One voice calling but I don’t want to hear. I write faster in my heart, illegible to all but God and you.
I want to seal my last conversation with you somehow – with my blood as I shoot the pain away, free from this horror known as life. If they try to help me I’ll struggle for death. I can’t bear what I’ve done in this war; the people I’ve killed, the lives I’ve destroyed, the empty hearts my gun-shots have created.
Is this the end of suffering?
Helga.
Adriatic seashore
June 24, 1945
My darling Olga,
Someone saved me; I don’t know his name. He ran down to the shoreline. My anger and despair were consuming me but as he came closer I realised it was not my day to die. I gave in to the stranger, allowed him to grab the gun and then take the weight of my torment as I let go of reality and closed my eyes. My bended knees gave way. And as I fell head first towards the sand, he caught me and carried me away from the edge of the ocean. Inside my head I was screaming, yet somehow resigned as he walked calmly away with me, turning both our backs on the place of my anguish.
Helga.
(Unknown)
June 29, 1945
My darling Olga,
The stranger took me to the Relief Station, which was just a row of First Aid tents. It seems he watched over me. I slept for the best part of a week, exhausted from my war.
And now I am on a train, heading for … who knows where. A different sort of Relief Camp, I’ve been told. I could feel the train rumble on the tracks as I opened my eyes, to see the stranger sitting beside me looking distantly out of the window. I wonder what he was thinking? All I could think of was you, Olga, and the letter I was finally writing on a piece of paper, a letter that can never be delivered.
I haven’t spoken to him yet. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if he speaks Russian, but if I spoke perhaps I’d say thank you, even though I’m not thankful.
I wish he had left me, I wish I had died.
He is looking at me as I write this letter with an odd look on his face. He is probably wondering what I am thinking, and I suppose I should ask his name.
Helga.
Sarajevo (Yugoslavia)
July 5, 1945
My darling Olga,
Franz has told me his story, all about what he did in the war and his beliefs. He was a Nazi, and I wasn’t sure I could trust him when he said that, but he fought for what he felt was right, not what he was brought up to believe in. He deserted to become a Partisan.
I think I can trust him. He has been so concerned for me, after all.
Though it is hard to talk we have taken to drawing pictures, because his Russian is very broken and my very basic German makes for simple conversation. And we look at each other.
I do like him, Olga, he is a kind man. He suffers from guilt, just as I do.
Helga.
Vienna (Austria)
July 18, 1945
My darling Olga,
We leave tomorrow for Germany. Olga, my dear, I am terrified. Once again I go to a place where they do not speak my language. Once again I’m on the outside. Oh, Olga, I’m so scared my heart is almost exploding out of my chest. This war has mixed everything up. I’m going with a German to a new home in Germany!
Helga.
Vienna (Austria)
August 2, 1945
My darling Olga,
The train from Vienna has been delayed two weeks already. I cannot help but feel a little relieved, but Franz is angry, he wants to be home. I can see it in his eyes. He has not heard from his mother for months. He couldn’t risk his letters being intercepted so he stopped p
osting them and there are no stamps anyway. Maybe she presumes him dead. He also worries that his mother didn’t leave Berlin in time.
Helga.
Vienna (Austria)
August 31, 1945
My darling Olga,
We are on the train to Berlin. Nearly there! Then we will have to change trains again. So much hopping on and off trains, waiting for coal and supplies. We are heading to his mother’s family house in the country. He does not know if she will be there or not but I suppose we shall see when we get there. We must hope.
We heard today about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bits and pieces of news come in from all over the place now that the Nazis can’t filter it. It really scared me, the reality of what America has done in Japan. Oh, I hope they don’t drop anything on Germany while I am in it. Olga, I’m scared.
Helga.
Berlin (Germany)
September 4, 1945
My darling Olga,
We reached Berlin then walked to another platform and are again on the train. It is beginning to get dark.
We are in a carriage with two children – they looked scared when we came in – a little boy and a girl who are about 10 and 11, I think. Franz talked to them for a while and then the boy came and sat down next to me and said, “Hello,” in German.
I smiled and said, “Hello,” back in German also. He smiled and pointed to himself. “Herschel,” he said, then pointed to me and I said, “Helga.” Then we did it in Russian.
Franz must have told them I was Russian. Herschel and Ariella, that is his sister, are now asleep with their heads on my lap. Franz is sitting across from me with his eyes closed as well. We’ll be there soon. I am scared, Olga. What if his mother is gone, what will I do?
And what about these children, what’s to happen to them?
Helga.
Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp (Germany)
September 5, 1945
My darling Olga,
We arrived in the early morning and I carried Ariella off the train. Franz had Herschel. I felt like a mother, like I had a family. I clung to those children and Franz, as they clung to me. Such intense feelings; I am alert but exhausted. We looked for the woman who was to collect the children. It was quite a shock when we did find her – it was Greta, Franz’s mother.
So many mixed emotions. Shock. Joy. Relief.
Imagine! Greta has been looking after Ariella and Herschel’s mother, Susanna, in a Displaced Persons camp, made from the wreckage of the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. I could feel Franz’s emotion, yet he was frozen still where he stood until she ran to him. “My brave boy, my beautiful brave boy,” she wept and held him.
We went back to Greta’s accommodation for food because she isn’t allowed in the camp until later. The children were edgy around her and clung to me all morning. It was very difficult. They were nervous so they were both speaking very quickly, and Franz was getting annoyed and kept twitching his feet in frustration, then sitting down and weeping into his hands when the children cried, “We want to see Mama!” over and over again.
It was a relief when finally we headed to the camp.
Helga.
Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp (Germany)
September 8, 1945
My darling Olga,
We have been here for three days and I must say I have taken to the children’s mother, Susanna.
She is very kind to me, and she is patient with my German. There is an ex-Wehrmacht soldier, Frederick, who is with her often as well. He was forced to join – or perish – when Germany took over his homeland, Denmark. He is very nice though and a bit reserved, but I did not trust him at first. How can one trust?
Already, Frederick and Franz are talking of leaving Germany, to go to Denmark. I think I must go as well. Susanna is unsure. Greta tells me that I should try and convince her to go. So I do, I’m trying. She is listening too. Could we become some kind of family in so short a time? We will be, if we leave together. It is safer in the north. There is so much mess here in Germany. And still people are dying every day.
It is a strange thought, having a family. My family was always just you, and when we were younger your parents also. I have been thinking of you – today you’d be 19.
Happy Birthday, Olga!
Helga.
Copenhagen (Denmark)
December 15, 1945
My darling Olga,
We have left Germany and are living in Denmark. When we first came we stayed with Frederick’s mother. He was afraid she would not want to see him – she had disowned him before the war. But when we arrived she was pleased that he was alive and had done good things for all of us.
We all live together. Still everyone masks their emotions though, it is still very delicate with Susanna and her children. She does not know what happened to her husband, and she looks pained every time her children ask. There are so many lost people, but I think she and Frederick are getting closer. These really are strange times. Who knows what will happen?
I have been feeling lonely and afraid, even in this togetherness. Franz said he could tell, and so he took me into the country today, to a little town that seems completely unaffected by the war. We sat together mostly in silence. He let me just be, and cry. He let me lose control then he held me and made me calm again.
I wish I could be free like a bird and fly away, find a way to be blind to all the suffering that is still so evident in all aspects of life. Mothers who have lost sons: they sit in the cafés pretending; women who have lost fiancés: they have hardened their emotions and have thrown themselves into work. Children who have lost parents: they walk through the streets, everything to them seems invisible. Their eyes are still searching for love and family though they have no more tears to cry.
Oh, Olga, I wish I could fly.
Helga.
Copenhagen (Denmark)
January 11, 1946
My darling Olga,
This is my final farewell to you, my last goodbye, Olga Alkaev, Olga ‘to be wished’.
Thank you for listening. All these letters I wrote you kept me sane, kept me going, believing. I still have them here with me, and whenever I’m scared or confused I read them and I remember all the times that thinking of you made me feel better.
Goodbye, my friend. Farewell.
All my love,
Helga.
SUSANNA
“Sh’erit ha-pletah”
(the surviving remnant)
Part Three: Dearest
Nowy Sacz (Poland)
September 22, 1939
Dearest,
Did you see them? They came when you were out getting more milk. They barged their way through as I blew out twenty-five candles. The ladies were dancing, the men were drinking, everyone was laughing. But they brought the silence. They sucked the life from the room and with one shot they killed us all, or so it seemed. Thank God we sent the children across the border to Hungary in May. They’ll never get back now. Maybe that will save them. I am still breathing, but I am breathing dirty air. How can this be, my husband?
Susanna.
* * *
Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp (Germany)
December 20, 1943
Dearest,
They transported us in a truck, the sort they use for cattle. That’s what we are to these people – cattle, non-humans, because none of us have a certificate of Non-Belonging to the Jewish race. We were brought up to be proud of our people and our past, not to disown them at the slightest inkling of trouble. No Jew did that when we were first born as a people, a religion. We have always been persecuted. But we will live on.
They shoved us into one room when we got to their camp. There are only twenty bunks. There are twenty-eight of us and forty already in there. It is more cramped than the ghetto and the in-between camp we occupied before here. Some of the women are sceptical about how there will be enough room – there are more women to come, we are told. Most shrug, but dearest, I think I under
stand. I look towards the wiser women and see they are thinking the same: we may not have been brought here to live on.
Did you get away?
Susanna.
Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp (Germany)
February 17, 1944
Dearest,
It has been so long since I have seen the world beyond the barbed wire fence, so long since there was a familiar face among the crowd. Too often people come and go; many do not last longer than a week. The camp is divided into many sections. There is just one woman and one child still alive who arrived in my section when I did. The woman’s name is Joelle; she is from Paris. Her husband was shot when they first arrived here and she has quickly become wise to the ways of the Nazis. She seems very mature for 21. The child is Clara. She is 12 and almost silent, but when she speaks it is words of wisdom. She observes so much, and seems to understand the many layers of truth. She came in with her mother, Hannah. Hannah is now gone. There are others here too who are kind and yet empty of hope.
Susanna.
Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp (Germany)
March 10, 1944
Dearest,
I’m not far from home in my heart, only in distance. You’re always on my mind but I can’t reach you. I don’t even know where you are and you may never read my letters, but I’m thinking of you and that’s all you need to know. The no-name soldier at the gate gave me this paper.
I know they’re killing us. I know we’re suffering and I don’t trust them one bit, but some of them are suffering too. I see it in my soldier’s eyes as well as ours – the same look of sadness, of bewilderment and confusion. I don’t think he knows much more than we do. The other soldiers don’t joke with him. He is different. I hide the paper and pencil to protect us both.
Dearest, I’m confused about what’s going to happen. Where are we Jews going? Why have we been selected to suffer? We have heard of gas chambers and exterminations but this is not one such camp – although people still die every day of starvation and disease, or are shot by the soldiers.
I see bits of very old discarded newspapers sometimes, but they don’t tell me much about what is happening, what is really happening.
The Handkerchief Map Page 3
