It's You

by Jane Porter

  • • •

  Edie lets me in.

  We get to the kitchen and she pours me a cup of coffee, and together we sit down at her small round table, my laptop open in front of us. I get on the Internet and type in Berlin. I click on images, and photos pop up documenting the Third Reich.

  Edie stiffens. She doesn’t like the black and white images of Berlin dressed and draped with swastika flags and generous swathes of bunting, or the photos of crowds lining the sides of the roads, and the goose-stepping SS and the tanks.

  But the photos of the Berlin parades capture the buildings and the squares and the places she knows so well.

  “That,” she says, tapping the screen, “is Brandenburg Gate, and the ornate building on the far right of Pariser Platz is Blücher Palace, the US embassy. It’s where I worked in the chancery. I was supposed to assist one of the officials for a week but I ended up getting hired full-time when they realized I was fluent in four languages, and passable in Russian.”

  I click on another photo that is of Blücher Palace in the rain and Edie studies the image intently. “That’s where I worked. That’s where I went every day for two years.” She looks at me, eyes clear, bright. “There was no American ambassador at that time. Ambassador Wilson was recalled in 1938 in protest over Kristallnacht. I was still studying at the Hoch during that period, but I wasn’t happy in Frankfurt. I wanted to be in Berlin. To me, everything important seemed to be taking place in Berlin.”

  “But wasn’t Britain already at war with Germany? Didn’t that scare you moving to Berlin?”

  “Britain and France didn’t declare war on Germany until after Germany invaded Poland, in September 1939, and the US didn’t enter the war for almost another two years, so being an American, especially an American working for the US embassy, meant I was quite protected. Quite safe.”

  Edie is talking again about the old American embassy in Berlin, and the other embassies, and how they were once in the Tiergarten area but were forced out as the Tiergarten was emptied and bulldozed for Germania.

  She’s talking so fast I can barely keep up with her. “What is Germania?” I interrupt.

  “Hitler’s vision for Berlin . . . his dream capital that was absolutely hideous.” She shudders. “Thank goodness it didn’t happen, but so very many beautiful old buildings were demolished to make room for this futuristic capital. Such a shame. Although, with all the raids on Berlin, I doubt many of those beautiful buildings would have survived the bombing.”

  “What was that like? The bombing?”

  “Frightening, at first, and then merely mind-numbing, because like everything else, one gets used to the sirens and the blackouts and the dashing to the shelters. There were some nights, near the end, when I was just too exhausted to race to the shelter. Better to die in my bed.”

  “Franz let you do that?”

  “Oh, no. Never when he was at home. But he was rarely at home during that last year, always being sent here and there on secret missions. I’d be alone for weeks at a time, and it was in those long stretches that I’d just . . . give up.”

  I look into Edie’s face, seeing the deep wrinkles, the high protruding cheekbones, the eyes that look more gray than blue this morning. Her skin is so thin you can see the faint blue veins beneath and yet she still has a steely core. I can feel her resolve. “I can’t imagine you ever giving up.”

  “We spent years hungry, and cold. Everything was rationed. Everything was a struggle, but for me, the blackouts were the worst. The blackouts were suffocating. You step outside at night, and there’s not a single light anywhere. No car lights, no street lamps, no gleam of light from a building. If the moon was obscured, or if there should be fog or mist, I’d feel absolute panic. The danger was real, too. In the pitch-black night that lasted until dawn, you’d fall into holes, run over other people on the sidewalk or street, trip over debris, because you couldn’t see anything. Absolutely nothing. You could put your hand out in front of your face and not even see your fingers. It was that bad. And with the bombings, the city landscape was constantly changing. One day there’s a building on the corner. The next, there’s just a ruined building and a hole yawning in the middle of the street.”

  Her voice fades and she stares at my computer screen with a picture of a burned-out building. “I don’t want to see that.” Her voice quavers. “Take that away.”

  I close the laptop. “You kept no diary during that time?”

  “Oh, no, I did. But it disappeared during the early spring of 1944. The building next door to ours was destroyed in one of the air raids and Franz insisted we move to his sister’s for a bit. I didn’t want to go, but he was worried about my safety, and so we packed a few things. Locked up the place.” Her voice fades. “And that was it. We never returned to our home again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Terrible things were happening in our neighborhood. Franz thought it was too dangerous. He thought if I stayed there I might get involved.”

  “So where did you go?”

  “The Adlon for a month, and then to friends. We bounced from place to place for a while, waiting, waiting for the war to end so we could go home.”

  “But you never did go back.”

  “No.”

  “What happened to everything?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt the building survived the war. Berlin was bombed many times between November 1943 and March 1944. I think there were sixteen or seventeen air raids. And then later, after the war ended, the Russians ransacked or confiscated everything they could get their hands on. Where we lived in the Mitte ended up in the Russians’ hands, and once the wall went up, it was impossible to get in, or out. I tried to visit with Ellie in 1978 but the wall was up. We couldn’t get the necessary visas to go to the other side.”

  “I can’t imagine staying in Berlin with all the air raids.”

  “I suppose I could have gone to the country more, gone to Franz’s family more. Many of the wives did just that. They went to stay with relatives outside the city, where it was safer, but I hated to leave Franz alone.”

  “Yet he had his assignments . . . you said he’d go off for weeks and leave you alone.”

  “But Franz was all I had. There was no other family—” She breaks off, looks down, and fusses with the lace doily beneath her coffee cup. Her hand trembles as she turns it. “Well, Franz had his family, and his younger sister liked me, but his mother wasn’t sure about me. I don’t think she trusted me. I don’t think she believed I was a good influence.”

  “And the Adlon . . . it stayed open throughout the war?”

  “It did. It was one of the few that survived, through the war.” Her expression softens. “I so loved the Adlon, too, and yes, it was a splurge, but it was also the center of everything. Drinks and dinners before the war, and then even during the rationing, you could still go there for a civilized meal. For conversation.”

  She’s quiet remembering. “It was, perhaps, the only civilized place left in Berlin in 1944. During my last year in Berlin, during that final summer of 1944, the Adlon remained the center of everything for those like me, who were married to prominent Germans—”

  “Nazis?”

  Her shoulders twist. “If you weren’t a ‘loyal’ Nazi, you were gone. Dead. So for those who were officers or who’d been aristocrats, the Adlon was a refuge from the war. It was one of the few places one could go for hot water and a telephone. I could leave a message there, too, and during the People’s Court trials in August 1944, it was my only connection to Berlin when I was in Switzerland.”

  “When did you go to Switzerland?”

  “In July.”

  “But wasn’t the attempt in July—”

  “Yes. Which is why the Adlon was so vital. Those calls to friends and from friends were my only real way of knowing what was happening, versus what the German propaganda machine spit out. And what the German propaganda machine spit out—just like the People’s Court—was lies. They both operated
under the principle of controlling the country, the people, with fear, and terror. If you are aggressive enough . . . violent enough . . . you will control the masses because most people buckle to fear and intimidation. They can’t help it. Fear is destructive. Corrosive. One doesn’t want to hurt, or be hurt. One doesn’t want to suffer.”

  There is so much she’s saying that I’m struggling to process it all. There are so many questions I want to ask, but I can’t remember them all. “But your Franz and his circle of friends, they weren’t afraid?”

  “Oh, they were afraid, very afraid, but eventually they were more afraid of not taking action. They were afraid that they’d fail their ancestors, their country, the noble German blood in their veins, if they didn’t act. You see, many of those who took part in the July twentieth plot were either military officers or descended from nobility. They were nationalists, loyal to Germany. I don’t know that their motives were pure. I doubt they were truly altruistic—except for the pastors and priests—but the others, they were Prussian Wehrmacht soldiers and officers. They were aristocrats and the educated upper class. They’d come from affluent families and comfortable lives. And maybe that’s why they failed. They were smart but not hardened. Idealistic intellectuals, and impractical, ill equipped for the reality of the Nazi philosophy of blitzkrieg, total war.”

  While she was talking I’d opened my laptop again and typed in the words July 20th Plot in the Internet search engine and links popped up—the German Resistance, Failed Coup, Claus von Stauffenberg.

  Edie leans forward, points to a black-and-white photograph of a handsome young man in uniform. “Claus,” she says. She leans even closer and reads the caption, and then sits back. “Terrible,” she murmurs, “terrible.”

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “Sippenhaft.”

  “Sippenhaft?” I repeat, the term unfamiliar, but then, so much of this is unfamiliar. We’re taught European history and World War II, but our history lessons are divided between the war in the Pacific and the war in Europe.

  “It’s an old Germanic custom, and the Nazi authorities took advantage of this ‘German’ custom to punish those who betrayed Germany.”

  I’m still confused, so I type in a version of the word and the search engine corrects me, then pulls up the definition for Sippenhaft. I skim the definition, discovering that the word translates to “kith and kin imprisonment” for everyone connected to an individual suspected, or accused, of being disloyal. Kith and kin being family, friend, or neighbor.

  “So who was punished this way?” I ask, turning from the laptop to Edie.

  “The families of those involved in the July twentieth assassination attempt, beginning with Claus’ family. In the weeks following the failed July twentieth coup, all of Claus’ family was arrested—his wife, his children, his brothers, his mother, mother-in-law, cousins, uncles, and aunts, as well as all of their spouses and children.”

  “So everybody?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not you?”

  “I was away.”

  “Switzerland,” I say softly.

  She says nothing, but her silence speaks volumes.

  “Did you know what was going to happen?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, lips pressed tight. Her eyes are pink around the edges. She looks frail again. Tired.

  No, not tired.

  Sad. Terribly, terribly sad.

  My chest aches. I ache. I think of Andrew. I think of how I was gone when he died . . . off to get ice cream.

  I think of Edie and how she was sent to Switzerland.

  I struggle to hold in the emotion. I can’t cry. Not here, not in front of her. This is her story. And this is also what I want to know. What I need to know.

  “If you’d remained in Berlin, you would have been arrested,” I add quietly.

  She nods once. “Yes, but I don’t think I would have suffered as much as the Stauffenbergs and other German aristocrats. You see, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had long resented anyone who came from nobility, and it infuriated him that Colonel Stauffenberg was nobility. But as I’d said, many of the Wehrmacht officers were aristocrats. That was the Prussian way. Nobility was tied to leadership, and Prussian Germans prided themselves on their military leadership. So Claus’ actions were despicable to the average German, and particularly offensive to the Nazi leadership who were not from an aristocratic background. I think it’s Goebbels who referred to the German aristocrats as ‘blue-blooded swine,’ so the most obvious solution for Goebbels and Himmler was to exterminate all the aristocrats who shared the same ‘bad blood’ by imposing Sippenhaft, wiping out the individual and his entire family.”

  “Wiping out women and children, too?”

  “Yes, but in this case, the children weren’t killed or imprisoned, like so many of the women and mothers, but instead they were taken from their families when the mothers were arrested and placed with new families, because these children were, after all, bright, healthy Aryan children. Blond, blue-eyed, genetically desirable.

  They were given to others. Prussian children . . . these Aryan children . . .”

  Edie is quiet a long time. I wait for her to continue, my heart beating very fast because I do not know what she will tell me next, and yet I know it won’t be good. It can’t be good. Nothing that happened during that horrible war was good.

  But Edie doesn’t add more, and I can’t stop thinking of the children taken from their mothers. I picture the Aryan babies and toddlers, the young boys and girls, and then those blond, blue-eyed children morph into the photo of Anne Frank, and pictures seared into my memory from the movie Schindler’s List.

  I see flashes of images, photographs and impressions of the war. The Jewish women and children on train platforms. The SS guards marching. The barracks of the concentration camps. The “showers.”

  “Did the Germans know what was happening during the war?” I ask, sick. Queasy. “Did Franz know what was happening?”

  “I believe Franz knew more than most, yes.”

  “But he didn’t tell you?”

  “He was careful not to say too much. Most of the men were careful not to share very much. Adam was one of those who was very private. His wife knew virtually nothing. Claus’ wife knew some. I think Peter’s wife, Marion, knew the most. She was more involved than most wives and women, but even the most ignorant among us, still knew our men were committed to saving Germany. You couldn’t not know, what with the frequency and duration of the meetings. Of course, none of these men called themselves ‘the Resistance.’ They weren’t ‘resisting,’ they were attempting to remove Hitler from power and put a new government in place. They had a whole new cabinet and all the necessary government ministers ready. Everyone was ready. They just needed Hitler dead.”

  “So Claus made the attempt.”

  “And it failed.”

  I exhale slowly.

  I know this next part from history. It’s in the books. It’s documented in newspaper articles and archives. In Internet encyclopedias and memoirs. I’ve been reading them all. I know who dies. I know who survives.

  And yet listening to Edie, hearing her describe these men, and their goals, and knowing they all had wives and families, I feel . . . pain.

  I want them all to survive. Not just Franz, and Franz and Edie’s friends, but the 170,000 Jews that called Berlin home up until 1930 when the persecution began.

  Indeed, I want to go back in time and change it all. A world without war. A world without suffering . . .

  “You’d make an excellent history teacher, Aunt Edie,” Craig says, from the doorway.

  Edie and I both jump, startled.

  My heart is hammering and I’m still feeling emotional. Undone. But Edie’s surprise gives way to pleasure. She smiles at him. “Well, I was a teacher,” she answers. “A very good teacher.”

  “And from all accounts, a very strict teacher,” he adds.

  “Yes, well, that goes without saying,” she retorts,
hands folding neatly on the table. “I didn’t think I would see you until later.”

  “My meeting finished early so I thought I’d come over and see if you needed any help, or just company.” Craig glances at me. “But apparently you’ve already got great company.”

  My pulse is still a little too fast, and I’m not sure if it’s the stories, and the past, or the sudden appearance of Craig. Either way, I self-consciously stack my notebook and laptop and slide them into my purse. “I should go see Dad, and then get to Bloom. Today is my last day.”

  Edie looks at Craig. “She’s going to Berlin. She’s staying at a hotel on Torstrasse, in Mitte. It’s very central to everything.”

  “So you approve, Aunt Edie?” he asks.

  “Yes. I think the trip will be good for her,” Edie answers with a decisive nod.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” he says. “It’s a wonderful city, one of my favorites in Europe.”

  I stand and reach for my bag. “You know Berlin well?”

  “I visit the city at least once a year.” He glances at his aunt. “I’ve tried to take my aunt with me, but she refuses every offer . . . just as she’s refused to discuss Germany. I think Chad and I are both a little bit envious that she’s shared so much with you.”

  Edie rolls her eyes. “You and Chad were never that interested in my past, which is why I haven’t forced you to listen to my stories. You are good nephews, and you take care of me, but when it comes to you young men, my past is ancient history.”

  “I don’t think that’s true, or fair,” Craig answers, but he’s smiling.

  “Pssh.” She gestures, waving him off, but she’s smiling, too.

  Craig turns to me. “Need any recommendations? Hotels? Restaurants? Things to do?”

  “I’ve got the hotel booked, along with some half-day tours. I’m most interested in visiting the memorials and seeing some of the places Edie has talked about.” I glance at Edie, adding almost shyly, “I’m going to take lots of pictures. I thought it’d be interesting to try to document Edie’s Berlin, show her how the city has changed since she was last there in the seventies.”