The Auslander

by Paul Dowswell

  ‘Have you told anyone else about this?’ said Peter.

  She waved a hand dismissively. ‘When I came back home, I talked to Mutter and Vater. I tried to explain why I couldn’t do it any more. They didn’t want to know. “It is not cruel,” Mutter said. “Your work has a solid basis in scientific fact. You should develop a detachment from these petty moral judgements.”

  ‘Vater had been especially proud to have a daughter in the T-4 Aktion. That’s what they called the programme. It was an open secret among his colleagues that his daughter was part of it, and it embarrassed him terribly when I stopped.

  ‘Vater and Mutter made me feel like a failure. That’s why they wouldn’t help me get a decent job here. That’s why I work for the post office with all the dunderheads and the drudges.’

  ‘So why did you stop?’ said Peter. ‘What made you leave?’

  ‘It was the mental patients,’ she said and lit another cigarette. ‘The schizophrenics, the shell-shocked soldiers. A lot of them arrived with suitcases, and one of my jobs, it was sorting through their personal possessions. The watches, the brooches and bracelets, the combs and hairbrushes. These were people – ordinary everyday people who cared about their appearance. Some of them had rosary beads. Or a little teddy bear or doll they’d kept since childhood.’

  She started to cry silently, tears trickling down her face.

  ‘Then I started to think about the people who might have given them these things as presents. Doktor Knodel, he used to say the schizophrenics were empty shells. That there was nothing there. But I could see that wasn’t true from what they’d brought to the hospital. That was it. I had to stop.

  ‘And the funny thing was, they understood. Knodel didn’t try to dissuade me. He just thanked me for performing a valuable service for the National Community.’

  Peter felt repulsed. She came over and sat down next to him. She put her hand on his arm. ‘Thank you, Peter,’ she said. ‘For listening to me. I had to talk to someone. Someone who wouldn’t report me. Wouldn’t admonish me for being weak. Sometimes I wish it had been me who died instead of them.’

  Peter couldn’t help himself. Rage boiled up inside him. He shook her hand away. ‘Elsbeth, how can you live with yourself?’ He was red-faced with anger. ‘You trained as a nurse. You’re supposed to look after people. What sort of world is it where the nurses go around killing the patients?’

  She was angry now. ‘At least we killed them quickly and quietly. In Poland I heard they just got the SS in to shoot them. At least we didn’t do that.’

  Her icy calm returned. The tears from earlier were not coming back. The scorn returned to her voice. ‘You are right, Peter. I am a monster. And I do find it difficult to live with myself. Now this shall remain between you and me, or Vater shall hear about your trespassing.’

  She left the room. Peter sat in stunned silence. He regretted getting angry with her, but he couldn’t help it. Her story was vile beyond words. For now, though, they were co-conspirators. He had done something unforgivable in the Kaltenbach household and she was going to keep it secret. He wondered for how long.

  A few minutes later he heard footsteps in the hall and then the front door slam. She had gone out. When she came back later that day, it was as if nothing had been said between them.

  .

  CHAPTER 27

  May 1943

  .

  Now whenever Peter approached the great wooden doors to the Kaltenbachs’ apartment block his heart sank. How he wished they were more like the Reiters. They had all been in enormously good spirits recently. ‘Stefan’s been sent to Italy,’ Ula had told him. ‘Right down in Sicily. The sunshine will do him good. He’s going to be doing liaison work with the Italian divisions there.’

  But Kaltenbach had become more like his wife. That awful, impenetrable carapace she had. That coldness. Recently Peter had noticed how his hands shook. And his temper was just awful.

  The girls were distracted. They no longer carped about the poor payers to the Winter Relief fund. It was as if they could sense the tide turning. Elsbeth had been utterly aloof since that odd morning. But she no longer sniped at him as she had done. Traudl, who had been so friendly when he had first arrived, no longer asked him to come along to anything.

  Charlotte had begun to have nightmares. She woke them all with her wailing. When Frau Kaltenbach chastised her over breakfast she broke down in tears. ‘Mutti, I don’t want to be killed when the Tommies come to bomb us.’

  Some of Professor Kaltenbach’s old kindness returned. ‘Charlotte, mein Liebling. Our aircraft defences are getting better by the day. Besides. We have Peter here to protect us!’

  Peter was surprised to hear his guardian talk about him so generously. He had been distant with him recently. Charlotte was not convinced. ‘He won’t protect us. He’s a traitor. He listens to that dirty jazz music when you’re not around!’

  Despite himself, Peter blushed. It was true. When the other Kaltenbachs were out and he was left to look after Charlotte he would put on a jazz 78 he had bought from Segur.

  Kaltenbach looked at him coldly. There had already been a row about music earlier in the week, when Peter had played one of Mendelssohn’s ‘Songs without Words’ on the apartment piano. Traudl and Charlotte had come in to listen and had both curled up on the sofa, beguiled by the wistful melody. When he was younger, Peter had learned the piece by heart and had played it so often his parents groaned aloud when they heard it. He had not touched the Kaltenbachs’ piano since he arrived in Berlin – he thought it would stir up too many painful memories.

  The girls urged him to carry on, but as he began another piece, Herr Kaltenbach had stomped into the room and all but slammed the piano lid down on his fingers. Peter looked so astonished the Professor realised he did not know what he had done wrong. ‘Mendelssohn is a Jew,’ he snapped. ‘Do you not listen to your schoolteachers? They must have told you?’

  Peter had lost his temper. He stood up and shouted, ‘Well I did not know that. And if I had any time at school these days, instead of hanging around doing nothing at the Luftschutz station, I’m sure I would have found out.’

  Charlotte began wailing. ‘But it’s such a pretty tune, Vati.’

  For one moment, Peter had thought the Professor was about to hit him. He had never been so openly defiant. But Kaltenbach seemed embarrassed at his own behaviour.

  ‘We do not soil the air of our household with the polluted outpourings of a Jewish composer,’ he said, straining to be calm as he walked out of the room.

  But listening to swing was different. This was blatant rebellion.

  ‘Is this true, what Charlotte says about you listening to jazz?’ said Kaltenbach. The whole family were all staring at Peter.

  ‘I would never do anything like that,’ said Peter.

  Charlotte began to sing. ‘Izz yoo izz or izz you aynt mah baybe . . . That’s the one. He puts that on and dances around the living room like a Hottentot.’

  Peter back-pedalled desperately. ‘Well, I found it in the market, on a second-hand stall. I didn’t know it was “forbidden”.’

  It was a feeble excuse. ‘I will not have degenerate music in my house,’ hissed Kaltenbach. ‘You, my friend, are sailing very close to the wind. If this happens again, I will take you to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and hand you over to the Gestapo. Now give me that record.’

  Peter found it in his room and meekly handed it over. There, in front of them all, Herr Kaltenbach wrapped it in the morning paper and smashed it to slivers with a hammer.

  .

  CHAPTER 28

  June 1943

  .

  Peter visited the Reiters’ at least a couple of times a week now. He needed more than ever to escape from the Kaltenbachs, who just assumed he was seeing Anna, and thought no more about it. Most of the time he was, but perhaps once every two weeks he would visit families who were hiding U-boats.

  Today he knew Anna would not be home and he was expecting to vis
it the Webers again, in Salzberger Strasse. When he arrived, Ula came to the door looking distracted.

  ‘We’ve had a telegram,’ she said. ‘Stefan is missing in action. I don’t know any more about it.’

  Peter was lost for words. Everything he could think to say just sounded too trite. He stood there feeling useless and embarrassed. Fortunately, Ula was in a hurry. She had to report on a Nazi Party rally for Frauenwarte and was worried about being late. Peter picked up his parcel and they both left the house together.

  Peter had been back to the Webers’ several times since his first visit in February. Every time it was the same. He handed the food or the coupons over in the hall and went at once. Barely a word was spoken. But on this occasion, rather than have him stand in the hall, Frau Weber asked him to come into the dining room and sit down. She was wearing her Party badge again – and looked no different from the many women Peter had seen proudly wearing their mother’s medals on their winter coats.

  ‘Can you tell Frau Reiter we have a problem,’ she said in a matter of fact way. ‘One of our lodgers has had an accident. He was cycling to work and fell off his bike. Now he has a great gash on his forearm and its turning a horrible colour. I’m hoping Otto or Ula will know a doctor who we can rely on.’

  Peter nodded. He could not contain his curiosity. ‘How many lodgers do you have?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s five of them at the moment. We have a big attic.’

  ‘If I may say so, Frau Weber, you are very generous,’ said Peter.

  She shrugged. ‘The Gestapo will arrest you for helping one or a hundred – so what difference does it make? They can only kill me once.’ She gave him a humourless smile.

  ‘Why was he out on his bike?’ asked Peter.

  ‘They have to work. If they don’t work, they don’t get paid and if they don’t get paid it’s difficult to find enough to feed them. It’s a horrible risk going out everyday, but what else can they do? Starve to death? There are people out there, good people, who will give a Jew a job and keep quiet about it.’

  She patted his arm. ‘You’re a good boy, Peter. And a very brave one too. Now off you go.’

  .

  Otto Reiter went to the Webers’ house early next morning. He had a good knowledge of basic first aid from his time in the trenches. He knew the family – they were old friends. He and Herr Weber had known each other since the early 1920s. That was how these networks operated. You had to trust someone very deeply to ask them to hide Jews.

  He did not burden Frau Weber with the ominous news about his son. ‘Peter told me about your casualty,’ he said, and Frau Weber took him to an upstairs bedroom. ‘This is Herr Lichtman,’ she said.

  ‘Guten Tag,’ said a middle-aged man as he stood to greet him. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hand.’

  There was something in his bearing that Otto instinctively recognised. ‘I would guess you are a military man, Herr Lichtman,’ he said. They were a similar age and Otto discovered he had been a Major in the army and had fought from the Marne to Passchendaele during the Great War.

  ‘111th Division,’ said Lichtman proudly.

  ‘I was only a few kilometres down the line from you,’ said Otto. ‘And now this is your reward.’

  ‘I thought my Iron Cross would save me, and my family too,’ said Herr Lichtman. ‘But they came for us in the end.’

  Otto carefully unwound the bandage and was immediately struck by the pungent smell of the wound, which had turned a livid green around the edges. ‘It’s ulcerated. How long ago did this happen?’

  Lichtman winced as Otto took the final strips of bandage from his arm. ‘Two weeks ago now. I fell off my bike on to a gravelly road and didn’t bother to clean it until I got home.’

  One look was enough. ‘You need a doctor, or at least some sort of anti-bacterial medicine like Prontosil. I shall ask around.’

  .

  His visit completed, Otto hurried to work. It was an eventful day. Just after noon the air-raid sirens went. As Otto and his comrades at the Home Army in Bendlerstrasse hurried across the inner courtyard to their underground shelter the unmistakable shape of a Mosquito flew low over the building. ‘He’s got it in for us,’ shouted Otto as they threw themselves to the ground. A huge explosion followed, showering the soldiers in the courtyard with debris. After the fragments had settled they picked themselves up and beat the dust from their hair and uniform. A lot of men were cough- ing but no one was crying in pain or asking for help. Otto looked up. Windows had been broken, but the damage was not too bad. The bomb had exploded on impact, right on the roof. If it had penetrated and done its work from within the building, they might all have been killed.

  Then he noticed the soldier at his feet. It was one of the telex operators. He crouched down and shook the man gently but he did not move. He had a stillness about him Otto had often seen on the Western Front. ‘This man is dead,’ he called out. What terrible luck, and none of the rest of them even injured. Otto turned him round. There was a bright red wound on the back of his head. A brick or metal fragment from the roof must have struck him with some force in just the exact spot to kill him.

  And Otto was right beside him. This sort of thing happened often in combat. Almost everyone who fought had stories to tell of comrades right next to them, shot by a sniper or caught by shrapnel. They always shrugged it off when they related these tales. Fate could be cruel or kind, they would say, or these were the fortunes of war. But Otto knew from personal experience that such incidents were the stuff of nightmares for years to come.

  .

  He told Ula about the incident with the Mosquito that evening, missing out the part where the man next to him was killed. She had enough to worry about with Stefan. Then he mentioned Herr Lichtman. ‘Who can we ask?’ he said. They both agreed their own family doctor, Fruehauf, was a hundred-percenter, and not a safe man to ask. ‘I know there’s a Doktor Glöckner who lives downstairs,’ said Otto. ‘I’ve seen his name on his doorbell. I’ve nodded at him on the stairs when I’ve passed him, but otherwise I don’t know a thing about him.’

  Ula said, ‘Can you ask him for the medicine yourself? Pretend it’s for you?’

  ‘He’ll want to have a look. What shall I do then?’

  ‘Tell him it’s for a friend in the Army, who’s afraid his old war wound will lead him to be taken off active service. He wants to treat it himself.’

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ said Otto. He felt the gods were with him today. This might be simpler than they expected.

  He went immediately and knocked on the door. Glöckner’s wife answered and Otto noticed at once she wore an enamel Swastika badge on her blouse. She showed him into Doktor Glökner’s study.

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ barked Glökner.

  ‘I am sorry to bother you, Herr Doktor, at this late hour, but I am your neighbour from upstairs.’

  Glökner nodded. ‘We’ve met on the stairs, yes, yes.’ He seemed impatient.

  Otto told his story. Glökner looked on, stony-faced. ‘And you, an officer of the Weremacht,’ he said when Otto had finished. ‘I had always taken you as a man of honour. I will not be party to this deception. Now leave at once.’

  Otto returned to the apartment feeling shaken. ‘I don’t think he believed me,’ he said to Ula.

  ‘You’ll just have to deny you ever talked to him,’ she said.

  ‘Frau Glökner saw me in,’ said Otto.

  ‘Then we’ll just have to tell the Gestapo, or whoever else might want to know,’ said Ula, ‘that the Glökners are a cranky old couple who have a grudge against us. It’s your word against theirs. I don’t think we need to worry.’

  ‘And what of Herr Lichtman?’ said Otto.

  ‘I shall ask around at work,’ said Ula. She knew a lot of people at the magazine, and a lot of them were not hundred-percenters. This always surprised Otto, considering the relentless Nazi propaganda the magazine produced. But then every magazine and newspaper produced the same kind
of thing. There was no telling what the writers really thought.

  .

  Ula asked around at work – there were several people there who ‘thought their own thoughts’ and would ask no questions. A day later, word came back that a doctor in Pankow would provide the medicine for a greatly inflated price.

  ‘Crooks or fanatics,’ said Otto. ‘I’m sick to death of having to deal with twisted people.’

  ‘We need to get hold of 400 Reichmarks,’ said Ula.

  The Reiters had the money to hand but Otto was reluctant to spend it on his ‘Onkel Klauses’. Ever practical, he said, ‘If we start spending that sort of money on these people, where will it end? Besides, I want to keep as much as I can for when we might need it. If you or I are arrested, we might want every pfennig we can scrape together to bribe our way out of trouble.’

  Ula had seen Frau Weber that morning. ‘Herr Lichtman is now really poorly – his wound is making him delirious. He needs the medicine as soon as possible.’

  Otto made a quick decision. ‘We’ll pay for it, but I’m going to ask Herr Lichtman to pay me back.’

  Ula and Otto both knew that many of the Jews they helped had things of value with them when they went into hiding. It might be jewellery, high-denomination bills, even an ornament that a collector might want. Lichtman would probably have something like that.

  .

  The medicine came the next day. Ula and Otto were both very busy with their work so Ula asked Peter if he would make the delivery. She made it plain it was a more dangerous job than taking food. ‘The doctor will swing if they ever catch up with him. These pills are army issue, they’ve got army insignia stamped all over them – on the box, even on the pills themselves. If you’re searched and they find them, you’ll be in deep trouble.’

  Peter felt uneasy, but he had made several visits to the Webers’ now and had convinced himself that if he ‘acted normal’ then there was no reason for him to be stopped in the street.