When We Were Brave

by Karla M Jay

  Moments later, two German medics pulled to a stop in front of Herbert’s cell with a small gurney. It seemed to take forever for them to unlock the door, the keys clanging against the iron bars. Once inside, they approached Alfred. “How long has he been like this?” one asked in heavily-accented English.

  “He was fine last night.” He gulped at air. “This is how I found him just now.” He moved to the back wall and pressed himself against it to keep his legs from buckling. Pushing away horrible thoughts, in silence he prayed, please, please, please, let him be okay.

  One worker stood. “He’ll go to the infirmary. His fever is too high.” They gently lifted Alfred, draped like a large limp doll, and carried him outside the cell to the gurney. They pulled a sheet over his midsection, covering his urine-soaked pants.

  He started to follow, but the guard raised his gun. “No.”

  What were they saying? Of course, he would go with Alfred.

  “If you have to, handcuff me. I need to be with him.” He had to be there when Alfred woke up. “I’m a danger to no one.”

  “You’ll be allowed to visit shortly.”

  “But—”

  “No.” The English-speaking guard hung back as Alfred was wheeled away, the rattle of the gurney on the uneven stone floor fading. “When he is stable, we will come for you.”

  Returning to the bed, he sat on the edge. “It’s just a fever,” he whispered. Many times, he and Jutta nursed the children through high temperatures, whooping cough, croup. Alfred’s wound had healed. No infection bloomed—a miracle in their dirty environment. “It’s just a fever.” He paced the room, around and around, like a caged tiger, minutes ticking by.

  Then, he heard footsteps approaching, someone running. He shot to his feet. One of the same medics stopped outside the cell, out of breath, a guard close behind. The guard fumbled to unlock the door. “You must hurry!”

  “Why?”

  “Your son is suffering an epileptic fit.”

  When the cell door opened, he ran as if Alfred’s life depended on it. Pain shot through his hip, but he kept up, his heart racing and his vision blurred. An epileptic fit? He pictured Alfred thrashing about, his eyes wild, casting about searching for his father. He choked on the image. They turned down several corridors, passing the curious who stared from their cells.

  The scent of antiseptic hit his nose before he reached the infirmary. An arched stone doorway led into a bigger room with curtained-off beds. “In here,” the worker said, pointing to where three doctors were frantically working, shouting in German, one administering chest compressions.

  He reached his son’s side and saw him lying crooked on the hospital bed. His skin a sickly pale color, his eyes half-open rolled back in his head.

  Medics rushed around the small space, shoving away a cart to get closer to Alfred. One pushed a tube down his throat, and then the doctor squeezed a rubber ball at the other end. Alfred’s chest inflated and relaxed.

  Tears sprang into Herbert’s eyes. “Alfred,” he choked. “Come on, son!”

  Another medic thumped hard on his chest twice, and Alfred’s legs flailed as he nearly fell off the table.

  The doctor pumping the tube doubled his efforts. The air rushing inside the rubber ball made an empty, eerie sound.

  Please, please, please, God. He willed Alfred to move, to cry out, anything. Why wasn’t this working?

  The seconds ticked on, but he hadn’t revived.

  One doctor stepped away, his face grim. “The seizure caused him to stop breathing.”

  Herbert stared incredulously as the other medics stopped working on his son.

  “You have to keep trying!”

  One of the medics spoke. “We are very sorry. He’s gone.”

  “No!” The word resounded through the stone room. He threw himself on Alfred’s body. Even though still warm, he lay as still and empty as a mannequin.

  “No, no, no,” he cried into Alfred’s chest. All hope, every reason to fight on, fled from his pained soul as he slid to the tile floor. Every moment with his son since birth flashed through his mind. Remembering every coat he ever buttoned for Alfred—every shoe he tied, days catching a baseball, laboring over homework—fleeting images of a life suddenly gone, taking a huge part of Herbert with him.

  He wished to die. It would be easier than telling Jutta and Frieda their son and big brother wasn’t coming home.

  Wilhelm Falk

  Auschwitz, Poland - January 1945

  Heads turned as Falk and the children crossed the open area, but no one reacted. No gunshots rang out. So far, so good. They reached the train platform where so many had been deceived with false hope. He pulled the children along the tracks leading to the buses. Some of the youngsters slipped on the snow-packed ground, but all managed to stay upright. They just needed to clear the guards at the entrance.

  “Falcon!” Bauer approached. He was already inside the gate and headed to him at a trot. “What are you doing?” he asked in Dutch, believing it to be Falk’s first language. Worry and fear contorted his face.

  “These children will be murdered in terrible ways. We have to take them.”

  The Dutch boy let out a gasp, having understood Falk’s words. He looked down and saw tears welling in the child’s eyes. Good Lord. The boy had had enough terror in his short life and didn’t need more fear. He leaned close to the child. “You will be safe, I promise.”

  The gate was ten meters away, and the guards had turned in his direction, but he knew they didn’t understand a word of their exchange.

  Bauer studied the children. He leaned closer. “How do you know this?”

  “Trust me, Bauer. We have to get through that gate. I’ve convinced the guards I have the right papers for fifteen and here there are twelve.” His voice strained with his plea. He never felt so desperate to make something happen, and his nerves were overwrought. He’d find a way to convince Nilsson these children needed to be extricated from this camp, and as far away from Mengele’s insanity as they could get.

  Bauer sighed, aiming a quick look at the guards. He took the hands of two girls. “You will answer to the lieutenant.”

  Falk nodded. Relief surged through his body. They walked to the entrance. Thirty steps and they’d be through the gate. He set his face to expressionless, just doing his Red Cross job.

  The boy from Amsterdam balked and pulled Falk to a stop a few feet from the guard station. The child looked behind him to the camp.

  “My papa. And I think my mama is in a nearby camp.”

  Good Lord. His parents were likely dead. Mengele killed the parents of all his subjects. That way no one came looking when the child never returned. How would he convince the child to go on?

  “It’s okay,” he said with a soothing voice. “At this moment, we just have to go to the buses.”

  The boy started forward. As they passed through the arch, the boy spoke to Falk again. “Do you remember my mama from when you stayed with us?”

  “I do,” Falk said.

  Bauer moved next to him and asked in German, “How do you know this boy?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Falk whispered.

  The buses came into sight. The 200 rescued Jews—almost all on board—were moved from camp along a side road. Falk walked faster now, nearly dragging his two charges. Nearly home-free.

  Then he heard Ilse call his name. A figment of his imagination in his exhausted state. A desire so deep to see her again that it sounded real. He took another step and heard her voice again, raspy but louder.

  His breath stopped as he turned and faced the tattered group of prisoners at the fence.

  Even with a shaven head and skeletal features, he recognized his once-beautiful wife. He blinked and stared. This was impossible. His heart raced wild and fast, and he almost stopped breathing. Why would Ilse be here? Then
the answer screamed through his mind. It was because of him.

  In a dreamlike state, he dropped the boy’s hand and said to him, “Please, follow the other children.” He gently nudged the boy to Bauer, and the boy grabbed the hand of a girl, his eyes as huge as plums.

  The guards were now focused on the conversation.

  “I have papers,” he said in German, hoping to stall, and made a show of reaching into his coat pocket. Instead of authorization papers, he pulled out the child’s drawing and handed it to him.

  Then he spoke to Bauer in Dutch. “Bauer. You have to go now.” Falk’s legs were rubber, but he willed them to keep him upright. “I need to do something.” His voice was robotic. Shock had set in.

  Ilse was here. A starving prisoner. A witness to all he had tried to stop.

  He turned toward the fence, but out of the corner of his eye, he watched Bauer herding the children in front of him like confused lambs. Only seventy meters to go until they reached safety. The last of the rescued Jews were loaded just in front of Bauer.

  Then, he turned and locked eyes with his wife. He forced himself to walk in that direction, overcome with despair. He suffocated in the painful truth that his treasonous acts caused her arrest. But how? The Wehrmacht believed he was dead, so why go after his widow?

  And his sons? What of them?

  Gravel crunched behind him. “Halt!” a guard called.

  Emotionally numb and more exhausted than he had ever been, he lurched forward. Nothing would keep him from holding his wife again.

  Guards called out more commands for him to stop.

  The women behind Ilse backed away, sensing the danger.

  He reached the fence as Ilse approached him, tears flowing over her quivering lips as she smiled. “Wilhelm.” Her voice breaking as she spoke his name.

  “I’m sorry.” He choked out the words and reached for her hands through the wire. They were boney, rough and cold. “What happened? Why are you here?”

  “The military told us you were killed. In Italy”—her whole body shook—“We mourned. Then Pastor Theodore Graf wrote. He sent money. He said you were a hero, helping the Americans defeat Hitler.”

  “I tried.” He gulped. He locked eyes with hers, vowing to never look away, broken by the pain but also by the love he saw in her eyes.

  The crunch of footsteps drew closer behind him, and the shouting intensified for him to get away from the fence.

  “I wanted them to know about the exterminations.” He lifted his eyes to the barbed wire enclosure. “About this.”

  “Wilhelm”—she broke down and confessed—“I trusted a friend. About the information you have collected. I was proud of you.”

  The words he longed to hear. That she was proud of him.

  He gripped both of her arms and tried pulling her to him, even as the wire caught his clothes. He needed to feel her breath, to touch her skin.

  “She reported us to the Gestapo.” Her face spasmed.

  The shouting increased behind him. Guards were also moving in behind Ilse, commanding her to step away.

  The next words were nearly impossible to form. “Hans and Dietrich. Are they . . . ?”

  “Away from the prisoner!” a guard shouted from behind as several guns cocked.

  She shook her head. “Gassed.”

  Deep in his soul he knew the answer. His sons were gone, like Hiam, like millions of other children.

  Panic gripped him. “Ilse. Turn around and step away from me.” She had a chance to survive. He tried to pull himself from her arms. “Do it for me.” He would be shot, but she didn’t deserve it.

  She pulled him closer, the wire cutting into her face, her arms tight around him.

  “No. We stay together.”

  A cacophony of sounds surrounded him. His name shouted. Guards yelling commands behind both of them. Guns readied. He met her gaze once again.

  “I love you,” they both said at the same time.

  Pain exploded through his body. Ilse jerked and gasped, but didn’t cry out. Another shot ripped through them. He held on, refusing to let her slip to the ground. He wanted to say so much—she was his life, his world, she gave him sons. Her eyes still fixed on his, slowly lost focus, just as his grip weakened. As his world slowly came to a close, he let Hiam go and felt at peace for the first time in three years.

  Izaak Tauber

  Aboard the Red Cross Train - January 1945

  Izaak flinched at the gunshots behind him. The grown-ups yelled to each other, and the man carrying him, handed him up through the bus door. Another man with red crosses on his clothes hurried him to a seat and ran back for more children. He watched out the window as the doctor who took him from Uncle Josef’s building held on to a woman through a fence. To Izaak’s horror, guards moved closer to the man and woman and fired their guns. They didn’t fall at first but then slowly slipped to the ground on each side of the wires, facing each other.

  Afterwards, everything on the bus happened in a flash. A Red Cross worker rushed to the closed door with his gun drawn. Dozens of other people were on the coach already, staring out the windows, all big-eyed. Faces marked with fear.

  Izaak didn’t know what was happening and the drum inside his chest pounded so loud, he thought it might break apart. Tears ran down his cheeks. He wasn’t sure where he should be. Uncle Josef in the camp took good care of him. But the doctor who once stayed at his house was once a soldier and gave him candy and was also a nice man. But they shot him.

  The bus rocketed out of the camp and soon the yelling stopped, and everyone calmed down. The man who spoke his language slid onto the seat next to him. “My name is Jonathan. What is yours?”

  “Izaak.” He studied the man’s eyes. He knew that looking at a person’s mouth did not always tell you the truth about someone. Mean people could smile and then do something terrible. But the eyes. They showed him if the person was good, or full of rotten juice inside. Jonathan’s eyes said he was extra nice. “Is the nice doctor dead?”

  Jonathan didn’t answer right away. “Do you mean the man you knew, the one who brought you out of the camp?”

  He nodded.

  “He is. How did you know him, if you’re . . .”—Jonathan squinted and studied him—“if you say he was a German officer?”

  “He came to our house in Amsterdam before Papa left. We were still in our nice house. But back then, he did not seem happy.” He remembered the man talking to himself and his cries from behind his bedroom door. “He seemed more cheerful today dressed like you.” He touched the Red Cross patch on Jonathan’s shirt.

  Jonathan smiled and put his arm around his back and pulled him closer.

  “I can imagine you’ve had to be very brave, haven’t you?”

  His lips quivered as he heard Mama’s voice in his head. You are the bravest boy, Izaak. If there comes a day when we aren’t together for a while, I’ll need you to stay strong. He was suddenly very tired.

  “My brave feels all worn out.” He blinked hard to keep tears from storming his eyes, but they came anyway. “I want my mama and papa.”

  The man didn’t say anything, but slowly rocked him back and forth until Izaak wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake. A little dream found its way in. He and Papa were fishing, Mama was sitting on a blanket knitting, and Papa was laughing about the fish on Izaak’s hook. The dream moved like a motion picture show: Their picnic lunch of sausage and biscuits. The afternoon spent skipping stones on the lake, and finally, the evening when the stars came out as they packed to go home. Mama giggled and kissed Papa and said, “I love you.” Papa passed the kiss on to Izaak and said, “I love you both more.” This was a game they always played. Who could say who loved the other the most. Izaak noticed the chips of light hanging in the night sky and he had said, “I love you both to the stars and back.”

  His papa rubbed
his hair and said, “That’s the best so far.”

  He held on to that dream as the bus drove on and on. Even wrapped in the man’s arms, he never felt so empty and alone.

  Izaak Tauber

  Regensburg, Germany - May 1945

  This was Izaak’s fourth month in a Displaced Persons Camp in Regensburg, Germany. As far as he could tell, everyone was looking for someone. He was still looking for two somebodies—his mama and papa.

  The Red Cross bus brought him here from Auschwitz. He lived in a military barracks, but unlike the other camps he was in, this one was clean. Each night, he marveled he had a bed to himself with sheets and a pillow. The camp was near a pretty village. Once in a while, the children rode by bus to the sweet shop in town where each child was allowed to choose a candy. The storekeeper didn’t seem to like children though. He stood way back until they all made their choices and then quickly took their military chaperone’s money. Izaak didn’t care. A candy shop was special enough not to worry about who liked him or not.

  Another good thing about being at Displaced Persons was how many children were there. Hundreds! And the Catholics were back. Nuns and priests invited the children to group meetings where they all sang songs and talked about heaven. They wanted the children to remember nice things about their families as if they’d never see them again. To push away those thoughts, Izaak drew all the images he remembered from their life in Amsterdam, but most times those memories made him cry. He checked the stars every clear night and never saw any stars that looked like they might be Papa’s or Mama’s. That led him to believe his parents were still waiting for the next Red Cross bus.

  A camp teacher saw a drawing he completed of a boy’s mama from a worn-out photo the boy carried. The boy said he was sad because the picture was fading away, and he was afraid he’d forget her. Izaak sketched the woman with fresh lines, making her appear young and healthy.