When We Were Brave

by Karla M Jay

  Like each morning the past week, they lined up in a long human stripe that stretched into the brick tunnel. The front of the line started in the deepest part of the Columbarium near shelves loaded with the boxes of the dead. The back of the line was outside and down the hill all the way to the Elbe River. The men changed places throughout the day, taking turns being stuck outside in the cold.

  The cardboard boxes started moving, passed from one person to the next. Each container with the dead person’s name moved along the people chain until they reached the river where the ashes were dumped into the rushing water. Something else the Germans were trying to hide—how many people died here. This passing of the remains went on for a long time every day. Izaak tried to be strong like the men, but after hours of working, he had to rest against the wall behind Papa’s legs because his body shook from being so hungry and tired. Moving the dead to the river was a quiet job, the only sounds coming from the men, like his papa, were muttered prayers as they passed along the boxes.

  Izaak tried to picture the river with piles of ashes building along the shoreline. Would the ashes someday make a dam like he saw happen at a river when too much sand piled up? If the Germans were trying to clean up before the Russians arrived, it seemed like they should get in trouble anyway, especially if they plugged up the clean blue river.

  A man at the head of the Columbarium line, and the one at the river, kept count of how many boxes moved down the line. Then they compared numbers and wrote it in a tiny book Elder Levisohn kept. He was a judge in a court before he came to Terezín. Last night, the number reached 11,380 boxes, a number Izaak tried to count to, but he was too tired to think that high. Elder Levisohn said there might be 6,000 more to go.

  The boxes were lighter than Izaak expected, but he knew the person’s soul was the heavy part that floated to heaven with a light and became a twinkling star.

  Something was happening off to his right. A man cried out as if he hurt himself. A few moments later, the man pushed by them, heading for the tunnel’s opening while hugging a box to his chest and crying, “Ruth,” over and over again.

  Papa grabbed the man’s arm trying to stop him. “Hide it until we’re done.” Other men told him not to be foolish. But the man pulled away and kept moving.

  Papa suddenly started saying a popular prayer, not too loud but enough that other workers soon joined in, and their mumbled words filled the tunnel. Izaak knew some Hebrew from synagogue and “King, eternity, and mercy” were repeated. He didn’t know why they were suddenly praying but joined in. Before Papa finished speaking, pop-pop noises came from far away. No one needed to say it, but that man had been shot.

  The prayer ended and the boxes moved along again.

  Hours later, a guard’s whistle blew. They were finished for the day. They shuffled back to the exit.

  The sun was nearly down when they reached the outside air. An eerie orange glow shown on the sides of a long black train, stretching from the town square all the way out of town. Through the windows on the coach cars, Izaak noticed no one was inside and the cattle car doors were open.

  He felt a burst of nervousness and tugged Papa’s sleeve. “Do you think this train is for us?”

  Papa nodded but seemed to be only half listening as he looked at the train. He sounded tired when he said, “Just might be.”

  Herbert Müller

  Near Heidelberg, Germany - November 1944

  Herbert’s family and guards were over two hours into the trip when the soldiers on top of the coaches began shouting. The dozen or so deportees in their coach startled awake, eyes wide, and looked out the windows, their heads whipping from one side of the car to the other to see what was happening. A rush of footsteps from the soldiers on top slapped the metal roof as the train slowed. They stopped in the middle of nowhere. Airplanes roared overhead as loud explosions sounded close by. Shock waves thumped into the side of the train, rocking it. Jutta gasped and Alfred and Frieda flew against them. Herbert marshalled them onto the floor, his arms wrapped around them.

  Stutz yelled, “Get out now!” He pulled Jutta to her feet and headed for the door.

  “Hurry!” Bosch grabbed Frieda and waved Herbert and Alfred forward.

  Another explosion slammed the train. They were nearly knocked off their feet as they hurried down the steps and began running. Herbert felt, more than heard, the concussion as the front of the train exploded into orange flames. He turned to view black smoke roiling upward from the gaping hole where the engine had been. Then, rising like vultures from behind a row of hills, three planes thundered toward them. The white star in a black circle on the side identified them as American. He and Stutz propelled Jutta by the arms while Bosch helped Alfred drag a stunned Frieda to the nearby woods. They reached the trees just as the aircraft dove. From less than a hundred feet above, the planes strafed the train, thousands of machine gun bullets ripping through what was left of the Frankfurt Express.

  They all hunkered down in dense brush between the towering trees. Bosch and Stutz signaled them to stay, and the two young men rushed back to help other soldiers, scrambling to set up an anti-aircraft gun atop the riddled roof of the last car. The soldiers fumbled and yelled the need to hurry faster as the gun was readied. The train sat destroyed. The wounded were pulled out and away from the tracks and into nearby weeds. Many were covered in blood and their screams and moans created a full-blown horror show. The uninjured cowered in the forest and like him, no doubt prayed the planes would not return.

  “We’ll wait here,” he said, his voice stiff with fear, his mouth dry. Frieda openly cried in Alfred’s arms while Jutta’s breath was hitching in and out, her eyes wide. “Stutz and Bosch said the front cars carried explosives. I think that’s what the big blast was, but I can’t be sure.”

  “That’s our army shooting at us!” Alfred said, his hand on Frieda’s back. “We have to let them know we’re here.”

  “We can’t go out there, son.” He pictured Alfred rushing out to the field waving his undershirt tied to a stick. “The pilots were on a mission to attack our train. They aren’t here to protect us.”

  They huddled together as the growl of aircraft returned. The fighter pilots seemed once again locked onto what was left of the train. Through the trees, Herbert watched as the German gunners swung the anti-aircraft gun around on the roof and fired. Two planes peeled off, but gunfire caught the third as the pilot continued shelling the coaches. The damaged aircraft wobbled over a line of trees and then spiraled out of sight. Is this what his brother, Karl, faced each day? Karl could be dead, meeting the same fate as this pilot. He watched with mixed emotions as flames and smoke rose into the air. The Americans manning the planes were indirectly fighting for his personal freedoms, those he once enjoyed. But these same flyboys almost killed his family. And they might yet succeed.

  Should they move deeper into the woods, or stay where the guards could find them? If the other two planes returned, it was unsafe to be out in the open. But if the Allies arrived on foot, they’d search the woods for the enemy and could easily be spooked into shooting his family.

  He peered around a tree to see soldiers clambering down from the top of the train. But before they hit the ground, the front cars blew up, throwing chunks of metal to the sides, like truck tires kicking up gravel. Then those cars ignited the ones behind them in succession.

  Seconds of eerie quiet followed. A moment of time depleted of all sound. Then the crackle of fire and screams of the wounded filled the air.

  “Oh, no!” Jutta whispered. “Our bags.”

  “It’s okay.” Herbert assembled his family. He patted his coat pocket. “I still have our identification papers and permission to travel.” Graf or Otto would have offered a prayer at this point, and Herbert wished they were here. He conjured up his father’s voice in his head, using sheer will to try to push away the fear in his core.

  “Let’s
pray.” They huddled together and clasped hands. “Lord, we come before you to offer a plea for our safety in this fearful moment. Give us the wisdom to know how to complete this journey and the strength to follow through. We are grateful for the blessings we have through our Savior, Jesus. In His name we pray, Amen.”

  “Amen.” Jutta wiped her eyes.

  They waited in the trees. Overhead, the autumn foliage fluttered in brilliant shades of orange, red, and yellow while on the forest floor lay a spongy padding of fallen leaves, accumulating unspoiled, earthy, and damp. The cheerful colors were out of place for what had just happened. The forest should be standing in shades of ash and black. A clear view of the train showed their coach continued to burn, the flames a wavering orange film in front of their eyes. “Verboten” still visible on the car.

  In the grassy area separating the tracks from the forest, a few soldiers began the gruesome task of assessing the damage and moving bodies to a central location in the nearby field. Passengers from the other Pullman cars stumbled from the woods and approached the train. They must have been in shock because they walked closer to the flames than Herbert thought safe.

  He turned to his family. They huddled near a large tree trunk, visibly trembling, most likely in utter disbelief as he was. He should have questioned why their passenger train needed armed military personnel on top. They were trapped in an active war zone, and moments ago, almost fried to death. He could no longer count on the assurance they’d have safe passage to Elke’s. “Stay here while I find our escorts.”

  He crossed the field and called out, “Bosch, Stutz. Where are you?” He rounded the back of the last burning train car and tripped over a burned soldier. He reeled backward, blood pounding in his ears. It was Bosch whose eyes were open, staring at nothing. Three soldiers lay sprawled near him. This time filled with dread, he approached another set of boots. He recognized Stutz and tried to process why the young man’s body lay at a ninety-degree angle. A few steps closer revealed he was nearly cut in half by flying debris.

  Herbert sank to the ground and vomited, gagging long after he emptied his stomach.

  Back in the forest, he buffered the horror show he witnessed.

  “Stutz and Bosch are dead.”

  “Great. Now what are we going to do?” Alfred asked. He slapped at a low hanging branch.

  “How do we find transportation?” Jutta rubbed her arms as if chilled even though she wore a coat over her sweater.

  “I don’t know. The trains are easy targets,” Herbert said. The Allies couldn’t know some of the coaches carried Americans. Like Stutz said, the goal was to put fear in the German citizens. Some of the bombings had to be payback for the terror Londoners faced.

  “No more trains for me.” Frieda pulled and held both pigtails at chest level, one in each hand, as if trying to keep her head attached.

  “I agree. We’ll stay away from the tracks.” Herbert reached for the map the booking clerk gave them and opened it. “We’re in the northern part of the Black Forest, and it looks to be full of valleys, farms, and trails.” He folded the edges under to highlight where they were, just south of Frankfurt and to the east of Wiesbaden. “We are only sixty miles away and the weather seems to be holding.” The day was warm, an early autumn temperature, and the horizon was free of storm clouds. He made eye contact with each of them. “Fact Time. We can travel fifteen miles a day on back roads. Pop into a village and buy food, or maybe a farmer will feed us. I believe we can do this. If so, in four days we will be there.”

  “We can do this,” Alfred said. “It’s not like we have any luggage or sacks left to haul.”

  “We’ll pretend it’s like our camping trips in the Poconos but with more walking,” Frieda added.

  “I’m totally for it.” Jutta’s eyes crinkled at the edges when she forced a smile. “Otherwise, these weeks have all been in vain.”

  “Maybe the U.S. wanted us to die over here?” Alfred swatted dead leaves from an overhead branch with a stick.

  “I don’t believe that, son”—he took the stick from Alfred—“Until this bombing, they’ve kept their promise of safe passage. And, they couldn’t know your grandpa would die.” His chest ached. Saying the words more often didn’t lessen the howling emptiness inside.

  He checked his watch. “Maybe four more hours of daylight. Everybody ready?”

  His family nodded.

  He motioned them to a deer path, away from the carnage. Cries and moans faded as they walked deeper into the forest headed north. Unspoken words, a plea, kept time with his steps. Please, God. Shelter us. Protect us. Lead us. His mind buzzed with worry. Above all, let this be the right decision.

  Wilhelm Falk

  Red Cross train, Poland & Czechoslovakia - December 1, 1944

  After twenty days of caravanning across Germany, Falk’s sixty-person Red Cross group pulled into Grünberg, Poland. The trip seemed to drag on forever. Twice, the buses waited on the side of the road for the rumbling army to pass. Another day, they were interviewed by the Gestapo, and once forced to detour hundreds of kilometers around a valley with a blown bridge.

  He kept to himself as much as possible without being rude. Because they ate their meals together, he embraced the new identity he was given, Walden Falcon. A volunteer from the Netherlands with the International Red Cross, who had knowledge of the extermination camps from previous visits. He lived so long as an imposter he hoped he remembered what it was like to be himself when this was all over. Falcon, a name he helped choose, was close enough to Falk to make the word roll off his tongue with ease. In his new identity, he was married to a florist who remained behind in Rotterdam. They had no children.

  And every time he told that lie, images of Ilse and his sons slowly flickered through his mind, a silent turning of pictures of their lives before the war. Ilse knitting baby booties for Hans. Dietrich learning to ride a bicycle on a back road, falling, skinning his knees. He and Ilse racing off the end of a dock hand in hand at Lake Kaarster See, swimming back to catch the young boys as they jumped. Giggling on a warm summer’s eve, trying to make love in silence on an unstable lounger while the boys slept in their bedroom overhead. Opening a note Ilse slipped into his lunch sack when he worked at Kodak. The memories all there.

  Swiss commander, Lt. Marc Nilsson, approached Falk’s seat. He was a tall man, clean-shaven with a slight stoop. He dropped into the seat next to Falk and spoke quietly in German. “Remember, I will shoot you with very little provocation. The list includes, if you were to leave the train without permission, or contact members of the Nazi party, or put our mission at risk with your actions.”

  “That’s fair.” Falk spoke the words the commander wanted to hear, but he no longer believed in fairness. “But let me ask. May I write a letter to my wife?” She and the boys would be safely in the Netherlands, in Eindhoven with relatives, but she’d be worried sick as to why she heard nothing from him in over a year. He last wrote from Italy before he switched uniforms with the dead Stern, telling her to leave Düsseldorf.

  “You would put her in danger?” Nilsson’s eyebrows drew together. “You said that the Wehrmacht informed your wife about your death in Italy. Mail is being screened. If the postmaster sees a letter from you, the woman could be interrogated”—he lifted his hands—“You know personally what that means.”

  Falk’s anger blazed and he hid his clenched fist. Nilsson’s statement assumed Falk tortured and killed women and children like other Schutzstaffel officers. He accepted he was guilty by association for plenty, but he never murdered civilians. He already explained he was Waffen-SS, the military branch tasked with supervising shipments and supplies. A talent his commanders believed he offered because of his CEO role with Eastman Kodak. The SS-Totenkopfverbände, the unit that vowed their loyalty to the Führer to the death, was in charge of running the concentration camps, while the Gestapo and their security service, the Sicherhei
tsdienst, looked for enemies of the state and killed them.

  “My wife and sons are in the Netherlands. Ilse would not have received the military report that I died.” He wanted Ilse to know he was alive, that he was trying to right so many wrongs before he came home. That he loved her and the boys. “I would send her a letter there.”

  “I have to say ‘no.’” His mouth set in a stern line. “For now. This mission cannot be threatened by external contact.”

  “Understood.”

  Falk debated many times if he should reach out to Ilse or not. The Wehrmacht didn’t have the address in the Netherlands, and Ilse would be careful not to explain why her SS officer husband asked her to hide out there. But what if? His heart would be torn to shreds if any harm came to them for his actions. Ilse was a strong woman. She’d wait out the war to hear from him again.

  Nilsson stood and looked through the bus windshield and then back to Falk. “Let’s do what we came here for and remember, you listen for trouble, you hear in German, but you only speak Dutch.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He and Nilsson were the last men off the bus. Three nurses readied cots for the prisoners. Grünberg was a terraced town with a crumbling church known for the monk’s century-old white wines. A sub-camp in the huge Gross-Rosen system, it housed Jews from several countries. However, the Jews to be freed—thanks to the Sternbuchs’ ransom—were from Denmark and Sweden.

  Like the hundreds of other camps in the Nazi network, Grünberg stood behind an overhead arch which declared, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” although Falk knew work never made these captives free—death did. On the other side of the entrance were rows of wooden houses with wisps of smoke billowing above the shabby roofs.