When We Were Brave

by Karla M Jay

  The cost was exorbitant. It was dusk and a brisk wind swirled at Herbert’s back. They could try to find another farm, but there was the risk of being shot in the dark. “My father already died during this . . . this trip to unite with our relatives.” If he said forced deportation, the man might wonder what type of people they were that the United States needed to send them away. He pulled out ten Reichsmarks. “We have so little left.”

  Otto might have been right at home jawing with this farmer if he were here. This one-handed guy could have fought in World War I alongside him. He looked to be close enough in age.

  The man took the ten. “The army seized my horses, but the blankets are still there. You must be on your way at sunrise.”

  He closed the door as Jutta was saying, “Thank you.”

  “Did we get it?” Alfred asked.

  “Yes. The hayloft for one night.” Herbert guided his family across the damp grass before rolling open the large barn door.

  “Children,” Jutta said, “grab a blanket before you climb up.” She pointed to the large wool blankets folded on a bale of hay.

  “They stink,” Alfred said, quickly pulling one away from his nose, “like horses.”

  Herbert closed the door. “Let’s just be thankful the man wasn’t raising pigs.”

  Moments later, they all reached the loft after climbing a homemade ladder, the rungs spaced so far apart, Jutta and Frieda needed a hand.

  The loft covered half the length of the barn. Baled hay was stacked five high along the outer walls, a semi-effective barrier against the cold.

  “Kind of like a straw fort,” Alfred said.

  The children created separate nests for themselves a few feet apart. They wrapped the blanket around their shoulders before dropping down onto their beds.

  Herbert helped Jutta clear a space in the loose hay at their feet. She layered the bottom with one blanket and used the other to cover themselves.

  Alfred whispered something, and Frieda laughed.

  “What are you two going on about?” Jutta asked.

  “I told her if I needed to get down during the night, I’d just use our stolen parachute.”

  “And I told him we’d be pulling him the rest of the way on a sled if he did that.”

  Herbert smiled. “Speaking of . . . we made great time today and we should be proud. I think if we push through, we might only have two more nights in barns.”

  “We’re so close.” Jutta snuggled up to his side and rested her head on his chest. She yawned. “It seems too good to be true.”

  As the children whispered back and forth, Herbert lay down and pulled Jutta next to him. “How are you doing?”

  “It’s crazy. But in this moment, in this barn somewhere lost in Germany, I’ve never felt safer.”

  “I know what you mean.” The ache for home lived inside him, pushing him forward. One day they’d return. But family was everything. Nestled in the loft, he cleared his mind of the worries that plagued him every second. He set aside the scenarios of danger that seemed to wait around every corner and tried to memorize this moment when all was right.

  At sunrise, Herbert stood on the lower floor brushing off bits of straw. Drab sunlight pushed through two filthy windows across from the loft. The rays exposing the dust and grain particles driven up from the old barn’s stone floor. A pang of loss hit Herbert. It was one sight he saw a thousand times back in his gristmill. All he had, the life they lived, were now like this chaff, drifting up and down on the winds of fate. When he had freedom, he hadn’t noticed. But with those days ripped away, hour by hour, it felt harder and harder to know what lay ahead, or when they would be free again.

  Jutta reached the barn floor next to him, buttoning her coat around her.

  “Breakfast time.”

  Herbert kissed her cheek. They brushed off the top of a barrel and laid out the leftover bread and dried ham from yesterday. He cracked dozens of walnuts with pliers he found in a toolbox.

  “Looks good,” Jutta said.

  “Mrs. Positive.” He smiled. “It looks bleak, but I love your attitude.”

  She called the children from the loft. One of Frieda’s braids was undone with hay stuck in her hair. Alfred rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and yawned wide enough to set an apple inside.

  They prayed over the meal. Standing in a patch of sunlight, they ate the dark bread and ham and dug the meat from the walnut shells.

  “We need to find more food today.” Herbert rolled up the paper the ham was wrapped in and dropped it in the scrap barrel near a work bench.

  “Let me fix your hair, Frieda.” Jutta patted a hay bale.

  Frieda sat as Jutta undid the other braid. She combed her fingers through the blonde locks and started weaving the strands when Frieda stopped her. “I think I want to leave it down. It will be warmer on my ears.”

  In that moment it hit him. She was no longer his little pigtailed girl. The near-rape on Ellis Island and the events tagging her as an unwanted American had changed her. She was wary now, not just a passive observer. Gone were her innocence and naiveté. A small part of Herbert died along with her childlike spirit.

  “Is everyone ready?” Jutta asked.

  They buttoned their coats and rolled open the barn door. The day was cold but clear as they headed to the road, passing the farmer’s abandoned truck, hub deep in mud. Does it run? Or was there no petrol?

  “How far today, Pops?” Alfred asked. He had just started calling him that and he liked it. It was what Herbert always called his father.

  “I’m thinking fifteen miles . . . twenty-four kilometers. That gets us to the next working railway station. If we think it’s safe, we’ll be riding the rails the rest of the way.”

  “I never thought I’d envy hobos”—Frieda wrapped her scarf tighter—“But let’s measure the distance in miles. It doesn’t sound as far.”

  Alfred played along in a teasing tone. “When did you start thinking on your own?”

  Frieda mock-punched him. “Maybe I’ll turn out to be the accountant in the family, not you.”

  They reached a two-lane road and walked shoulder to shoulder, only moving to the roadside the few times a vehicle passed. No one stopped to help. Everyone seemed cocooned in their own trials.

  The air was crisp. A bite of pine and wood smoke floated on the gentle breeze. Houses set back in the trees stayed hidden until curling white plumes from their chimneys gave them away. This part of the Bavarian countryside was still pristine. Snow-covered hills, hidden lakes, and narrow, winding roads. It was hard to tell the war was still on.

  When no one was nearby, they sang songs, or played Ghost by forming a chain of letters that spelled words. Herbert was off his game. Jutta and the children were besting him, sticking him with no option but to add the final letter that made a real word.

  Hours passed.

  His stomach growled, but they’d seen no towns. Midday, they stepped out of the woods next to a dead-end train spur near the town of Pfungstadt.

  “What’s that sound?” Frieda asked.

  “Birds, I think,” Alfred said.

  They all froze, and Herbert strained to decipher the raspy sound ahead.

  “Someone’s crying,” Jutta said.

  They walked quicker, following the train tracks around a corner discovering an open boxcar.

  “It sounds like a crying baby,” Jutta said, reaching the opening first. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no!” Jutta pushed the children back. “Don’t look!”

  The children turned away, puzzled but willing to listen to their mother.

  Herbert moved to Jutta’s side as she leaned into the boxcar. A woman lay naked from the waist down, blue and stiff. A baby was tucked inside her coat, its cry weak, raspy. He tried to move the mother, but she was frozen to the boxcar’s floor. Another woman, a tee
nage boy, and a man inside the abandoned train car, all appeared shot. There was no answer as to where the people came from, or why they were killed. He needed to move his family out now.

  “We need to find help for this child,” Jutta said, pulling herself up into the car. She gently lifted the naked baby boy from his dead mother’s arms. She opened her coat, settling the infant between her shirt and chest. “He’s so cold.” A visible shiver raced through her.

  He helped Jutta to the ground as his gaze returned to the horrible sight in the car. The woman had obviously just given birth before the people were shot. Pure evil must roam the countryside.

  When he looked to Jutta, he noticed the tiny head with blinking eyes that peered out from the top of her blouse. The infant had stopped crying.

  “Oh, Herbert”—Jutta wept openly—“These poor people.”

  “I know.” His throat clenched around the words. “But we can’t help them, and we need to go.” The hair on his arms stood up. Since someone was willing to shoot civilians, the killers most certainly wouldn’t have a problem murdering four more.

  Alfred walked to the open door and his face paled. “Good God. What is wrong with this world?”

  Herbert pulled him away and made sure Frieda didn’t see the dead. Her face was already three shades of pale he’d never seen before.

  “We are about four miles from Pfungstadt,” Herbert said. “We need to hurry to keep this baby alive.”

  The railroad tracks ended thirty feet behind the abandoned car, and the ground was cleared as far as he could see past that as if new tracks might one day be added. Footprints in the soft ground circled the coach and headed back the way he and his family had approached the tracks from the woods, following a small road on other side. No footprints extended past the train tracks on the open ground.

  “We’ll stay off the road.” He pointed to the cleared area. “This goes in the right direction, but we’re going to get our feet wet.”

  “It’s fine,” Frieda said. She leaned in to see the baby. “Boy or girl?”

  “Boy.” Jutta wiped her eyes with one hand. “He’s so weak. Poor little guy.” She touched his cheek.

  “We were meant to come this way, don’t you think?” Frieda asked.

  “I do.” Jutta kept her hand on top of the baby’s head to warm him.

  Herbert’s heart pounded as they headed out. His eyes swept from the tree line to the grassy hill on their left. Someone could be hiding just inside the tree line, and he wouldn’t see them until it was too late. Please, God. Protect us.

  They made good time, although it was through hilly country. Arriving on a hill overlooking Pfungstadt, they regarded the town with its buildings constructed with pink, red, and white bricks that filled a tight-knit area. A river cut through the town, and up on the far hills, were felled walls and crumbled towers, ruins of the past.

  They followed the main road into town and stopped the first person they met, a man carrying sticks tied to his back. In German, Herbert asked for directions to the hospital.

  “Bombarded,” he said. He directed them to the doctor’s home, no more than three streets farther. The home was large with two chimneys and a closed-in porch.

  Dr. Seidel was middle-aged, nearly bald, wearing casual slacks and a tan wool sweater. He didn’t seem surprised to see four strangers at his door and invited them into the house. The closed-in porch spanned the front of the house and was semi-converted into an examination room with a padded table, several cots, shiny white drawers for supplies, and extra lighting overhead. With the hospital damaged, the doctor had transformed his home. Herbert explained the child’s situation as Jutta lifted the baby from her shirt and handed him over. Herbert saw her hesitate. She didn’t want to release the baby.

  “Where is this train car?” Seidel asked. He held the infant as if he knew what he was doing and reached for a towel to swaddle him. His skin tone had turned from blue to a shade of pink.

  Herbert hoped the baby would live a happy life. Someone needed to survive this war.

  “The car was abandoned, maybe four miles back. The railway tracks ended there,” Herbert said. The authorities would need to know, although the likelihood was the dead people were not from Pfungstadt or they wouldn’t be hiding in a train car. Unless they were on Hitler’s list of disposables. “If anyone wanted to drive me there, I could point it out.”

  “It will be better for me to call.” Seidel smiled. “I don’t know why you would be here in these dangerous times, and I don’t want to be involved.” He looked at the door as if someone may have followed them. “But thank you for saving this child.”

  He wanted to assure the doctor his family had done nothing wrong but arguing against false beliefs might make him sound as if he had something to hide. He took the high road. “Of course. We could never leave the child to die.”

  The doctor nodded. “You must let me get to my work.” He looked toward the windows where dusk enveloped the day. “The city has a strict curfew and the suspicion is high. You can sleep in the maid’s residence behind my house, but it is best to be out of town before anyone asks questions”—he shrugged—“Many will believe that you inform the allies. We had our share of bombings and death.”

  Herbert thanked him.

  “There is very little food in there but feel free to eat.” He turned and carried the baby through another door, closed it behind him, and called out a woman’s name.

  “He asked what we are doing here.” Herbert translated the conversation for the children as they circled the property to the maid’s residence.

  Alfred scoffed. “You should have said we’re sightseeing.” He scooped a stick from the ground and threw it across the yard.

  “And we don’t like the sights we’re seeing.” Frieda wrapped her arms around her sides.

  “I’m glad you didn’t look in the train car, sis.” He pulled her close. “Seriously.”

  “Me, too.”

  The maid’s cottage had three rooms. The bedroom with two beds, a dresser, two kerosene lamps, a small kitchen with a table, and a washroom attached to an outside commode.

  “This feels like a luxury,” Jutta said.

  The children took turns washing while Jutta opened the cupboards and pulled out a few boxes and two jars. Herbert secured the doors and checked the windows. The doctor’s words of warning spooked him. He pictured the townsfolk arriving in the middle of the night with torches, a scene right out of Frankenstein.

  Soon, they were seated around the tiny table. Jutta cooked cornmeal porridge, a side dish of pickled red cabbage and apples, and fried black bean cakes.

  “Delicious,” Herbert said. “I’m not sure how you did this with so little to work with.” He offered a prayer, his chest swelling with emotion as he thanked God for guiding them this far. For keeping them safe in horrible situations. He prayed for the baby, for the dead on the train. He ended with the petition that they would arrive safely, and soon, at Elke’s house.

  Jutta smiled at the compliment given for the creative meal. The food didn’t last long, but Herbert couldn’t remember food tasting that good. Deprivation made the simplest joys seem miraculous. Running water, soap, towels. Beds with pillows.

  They all cleaned up and soon were in bed.

  Jutta turned down the lamp, but he took his time easing under the covers, the slide of sheets against his skin feeling foreign. He lowered his head into the pillow’s concave caress. Then he squeezed Jutta’s hand. “Has anything ever felt this good?”

  “It hasn’t.” She chuckled then grew quiet. “What the doctor said, Herbert. Are we going to get out of this town safely?”

  “He was nice to warn us that we aren’t welcome.” He took in a long slow breath, trying to melt the tension in his body. “But we’ll leave first thing as suggested.”

  Jutta crawled closer and wrapped her arm across his chest.
Within minutes, she was asleep. Sometime in the dark, Frieda woke up screaming. Herbert and Jutta clawed their way out of sleep to soothe her fears caused by a nightmare. Once she calmed down, Herbert couldn’t fall back to sleep.

  Should they creep out of town looking like thieves, or walk through as if they knew where they were heading? He’d seen the sign for the train station on the way to the doctor’s house. Two blocks to the main street and then out of town a few more blocks. They should appear to be just four people out for a walk, no baggage, nothing to worry about. The railway map showed a direct line to Flörsheim am Main, and then a spur to Wiesbaden. He hoped Elke received his note explaining they were coming tomorrow evening. Would she be shocked or saddened there were more mouths to feed? Probably a little of both.

  The horrible scene from the train flashed behind his closed lids. The dead appeared to be European, but his family could have suffered the same fate. His throat tightened. What stopped bandits from roaming through the devastated towns searching for vulnerable people?

  Or had locals done that? He doubted it. The doctor said he’d make the call to authorities, but would he say Americans wandered into town carrying a baby?

  One more day. They just needed a good, uninterrupted travel day and this traumatic journey would be over.

  He listened to his family sleeping—a comforting sound—all that was necessary in his life. He missed Otto. Missed having another adult male with him, especially one who’d survived a war. And he’d really miss him when they returned to America. Whenever that was.

  Wilhelm Falk

  Terezín, Czechoslovakia - January 1945

  The walled city of Terezín sat high above the Ohre River like an early morning winter scene from a postcard. After the white buses pulled in, Falk and several other workers approached two SS guards who gave their papers a perfunctory glance.

  “Propaganda town,” Falk said to Ott after they moved past the inspection area. “They refurbished it for the Danish Red Cross visit seven months ago and they made a film here to show how the Jews were treated well.” He scanned the streets of faded glory and imagined he heard the shuffling footsteps of the tens of thousands who passed through. The pretense that took place here was nothing more than a denial of history.