by Carol Coffey
“Aron! Aron” she screams, looking around the room. Her eyes are frantic and she looks like a frightened hare. Iren has never done anything like this before and nobody knows what has provoked her. My mother apologises but Bill is not annoyed. He shrugs it off and sits beside my father who looks sadly on from his chair.
Greta tries next. She has a good way about her but Iren is shouting at everyone. My mother, Greta and Tina stand back from her. There is nothing else to do but give her medication to calm her down. Iren then turns her attention to Wilfred. She walks quicker than anyone has ever seen her move and stands in front of him.
“What you do? What you do with Aron?”
Wilfred’s face reddens but instead of rushing from the room which he would usually do when confronted, he jumps from his usual hiding place and grabs Iren by her bony shoulders. He starts shaking her.
“He’s dead, you foolish woman! They are all dead! Why can you not remember that? Everyone is dead!”
My father jumps up quickly and prises Wilfred’s large hands off Iren’s skinny frame. Wilfred looks at my father as if he doesn’t know what has just happened. His mouth drops open and his face goes white.
“What di–? I’m – I – so . . .”
He runs from the room and pulls the screen door with such force that the bottom hinge comes undone. My father chases after him and Bill follows quickly. Steve offers to go too but my mother puts her hand up to signal for him to stay. Greta tries to calm Iren down but she is screaming now.
“Aron dead? Aron dead?” she cries as if she has completely forgotten. She falls into Aishling’s arms and together she and my mother take her to her room.
Tina calls Doctor Alder and when he arrives he gives Iren an injection.
“Delayed shock,” he tells us and explains that Iren is only now realising that Aron is gone forever but I cannot believe that she is this confused. Something else has caused her outburst, something in Wilfred’s voice that I cannot hear. Slowly, everybody goes to bed.
I sit with Maria on the doorstep and explain that not every party ends this way, that sometimes we have happy parties. I offer to walk her home. I know young girls should not walk home alone at night. She laughs at me as if I am mad.
“Who do you think will harm me?” she says and I don’t know what to say to that.
I walk inside and wander into the kitchen where Steve, Greta and my mother are talking. Tina is helping Aishling put the less able residents to bed. I feel restless and wander back into the darkened Penance Room and sit down on the pew under the stained-glass window. I have a feeling that something is going to happen, yet I don’t know what. I feel tired so I stretch out on the pew under the window and wait for my father to return.
Chapter 24
I wake suddenly to the vibrations on the porch. For a moment I think it is the night train passing through my mind and I brace myself for those few seconds of fear but I soon realise that the vibration is of moving feet. I stand quickly and look out. My father and Wilfred are passing by the window. I watch as they sit down together in the side garden. Wilfred looks a little calmer as he pats my mother’s pup who is jumping around excitedly. The dog never reacts this way when he sees me and I feel a little annoyed by this. I follow them outside and sit at a little distance in deep shadow. I look at my watch and see it is almost one o’clock and I wonder where they have been all this time.
I see my father hiccupping and I realise that they have been drinking in town. Wilfred looks upset. He is apologising to my father for ruining the party.
Father is shaking his red face and saying, “No, no, it’s fine, Wilfred. It’s fine.”
“It is not fine,” Wilfred says with a sad face. “I don’t deserve your kindness. If you only knew. If you knew . . .”
“Then tell me,” Father says. “Tell me and I promise you, I will still be your friend.”
Wilfred raises his head and looks directly ahead. He doesn’t look at my father who is seated beside him on the old wooden bench. Like Victoria, he looks as though he is watching a movie play in front of his eyes, a movie of his life that neither my father nor I can see.
He begins to speak.
“My father was an architect in Berlin and we were a comfortable family. I had only one sister, Elisabeth. She was seven years younger than me and we were very close. We had a happy life and lived in a nice home with our parents and my Uncle Wilfred, my mother’s younger brother.”
“Oh, you were named after him?” my father asks but Wilfred doesn’t answer.
“He was only fifteen years older than me,” he goes on, “and he was an invalid – you know, he lived in a wheelchair.”
“He couldn’t walk?” my father asks.
Wilfred nods. “He caught polio when he was seven and when my grandparents died, he came to live with us. He loved to wheel his chair out onto our street and take photos of children playing, of flowers in our back garden and of the birds that he used to feed. He said to me that he loved photos of beauty because there was so much ugliness in the world. If I remember him in my mind, he has that huge camera around his neck and is smiling. He was so nice to my sister and me and . . . we . . . loved him . . .”
Wilfred’s eyes moisten but he continues. “Even though my father had no formal training, he was a talented pianist and taught my sister and me to play, but later I took lessons and finally went to learn to be a professional musician like my maternal grandfather. Uncle Wilfred played violin and he too taught me. Our house was always filled with music. In the evenings we would play and my mother would sing. She had a beautiful voice. My father wanted to be a musician but his father forbade it and insisted he study architecture. My father always reminded my sister and me that we were privileged and that we should be thankful for this and use what we had to benefit others. Often he worked for free, advising charitable organisations on buildings. He believed in equality, that all people were the same.”
Wilfred hangs his head but I can see the expression of guilt and shame spreading across his face. It is an expression I am familiar with.
“I wish I had been half the man my father was.” He sighs and continues.
“In 1936, it became compulsory to join the Hitler-Jugend. This means the Hitler Youth. I was seventeen then. For some years the Hitler-Jugend was often discussed in our home over mealtimes. My father was worried. He was concerned about what Hitler stood for and was not in favour of his plan for Germany. Some of my father’s clients had been Jewish. You would think that someone like me . . . would come from a home where – where hatred was bred but this was not the truth. What I didn’t tell my father was that I had been to many Hitler-Jugend meetings even before it was compulsory to do so. I think I first went just after my fourteenth birthday. Many of my friends were members and I didn’t want to be different. My friend Klaus, his father paid my fees, and I used to hide my uniform at their house. I went there and I was listening. I remember one meeting when the leader said, ‘Don’t pay attention to what your parents say. If they don’t embrace our belief and plan for Germany, they are not true Germans. They don’t love Germany. They don’t believe in a Germany for Germans.’ The leader was just a few years older than me. He said that Jews and other minorities were taking from us. They were taking resources that should be for Germans. He said there might not be enough to go around and that we would be called upon to stand up for our country and put things right. The uniform was really nice and I liked to wear it. I just wanted to be like my friends.”
Wilfred looks away and stares at the house. I follow his eyes to see what he is seeing. The house looks ominous in the darkness with only a spill of light throwing the shape of the gum tree onto the side view of the building. Despite the gentle breeze, the air is clammy and the smell of the daytime heat hangs around like one of Wilfred’s terrible memories.
“What did your father say about you attending the meetings?”
“As I’ve said, he only really knew that I went when it was compulsory and I was se
venteen by then and already at college. Occasionally, I would challenge him and tell him what I was learning. I was beginning to think my father might be wrong. I was worried that the Jews were taking everything. Unemployment was high. Many Germans had no work and Hitler was going to put this right, you see. We were taught that Germany had been wronged in the First World War and that we were the most important race in the world. This is what we were told. You need to understand this.”
Wilfred turns to look directly at my father. There is a look of pleading in his eyes.
“My father was sad at the change in me. Once, after a bad argument, he stopped talking to me. He said, ‘I have lost you and not to a higher purpose. I have lost you to a poisonous mind.’ From this point I moved onto the university campus. When I was leaving Uncle Wilfred caught me by the arm and said ‘Remember me.’ I didn’t know what he meant and I remember standing in the sunlight watching him wheel his chair away from me.
I still visited home but only when my father was at work. My sister also was not so welcoming but my mother would hug me and ask if I was eating properly. She never asked me why I believed in this new political movement and now I am fifty-four years old and I cannot explain it. I was a teenager who was involved in something that at first felt powerful and exciting. I was a fool. Not much more than a child. I believed, you see . . . in what I was told.”
Wilfred stops speaking.
My father coughs. I know he is trying to think of the right thing to say. “You were young . . . and vulnerable. You didn’t know.”
“Perhaps, at least not at first,” Wilfred says slowly, “but later, when I realised . . .Yes, I later understood and by then it was too late.” He sighs deeply and then continues.
“When war broke out in September, I was twenty-one and I had never fully made up with my father. I had just finished my studies and was looking for a position as a violinist. I had hoped that being a member of the Naz– of the party would assist me to further my career. I had of course stopped going to meetings at my age and I managed to avoid conscription until I finished my studies. But my dream of a life in music was not to be. I was drafted and sent to Poland. It was then that the seeds of doubt were sown. I began to think, perhaps this is not all right. Perhaps we are wrong.”
“You couldn’t have avoided being drafted, Wilfred.”
“No. I would still have had to be a solider but I could have been a reluctant one, a solider who held onto the principles taught to me by my Lutheran parents.”
My father sighs and looks sadly at Wilfred. “What happened then?”
“I was wounded and was sent home. A bullet shattered my leg and I was no use for serving. I also lost some sight in my left eye – some shrapnel.”
“I didn’t know that,” my father says.
“It was the least that could have happened to me. It was the least I deserved. I arrived back at my home and I was welcomed back by my parents who were just glad to see I was alive. I was shocked to see how ill my father looked. Soldiers had started to take Jews from their homes – some of them were my father’s clients and some had been friends. I said to him, ‘Father, they are just taking them to fight for Germany or perhaps to return to their own countries. Hitler is planning a new life for us all.’ Despite what I had seen at war, I was still naïve – still an idiot boy. I remember my father reaching out across the table and grabbing me by my shirt. His eyes looked like they were going to jump from their sockets with rage. He said ‘You stupid, stupid boy! They are going to kill them. What have they done to your brain? Why can you not see this?’”
Wilfred looks down at his shoes and runs them back and forth on the sand.
He pulls his mouth into a sharp straight line like a zip and it looks like he has finished talking.
“Can I have another drink, please?” he asks my father.
My father nods and moves slowly across the garden and into the house.
Wilfred stands and walks with heavy legs towards the white picket fence. I know he is thinking of running and I move from the shadows, ready to bang the gate to get my father’s attention but he stops short and hangs his head down before returning to the bench. My father returns with two beers, unaware that Wilfred has been planning to run before he told my father the worst part of his story. He takes the cold beer from my father and drinks half the bottle before continuing.
“When I was able to walk I was sent to work in a factory in Oranienburg, many miles away from my parents’ home. I had accommodation there and all day worked in a factory making ammunition. I remember thinking that this was a long way from a life in a celebrated orchestra. This is the life you will receive when you choose war over peace. I never played during those awful years. Not until I was made to play.”
“Made to play?” Father asks.
“By this stage it was 1941 and I was sent to serve at Sachsenhausen. I was told that it was a work camp for political enemies but when I arrived there, I saw Jewish people, some of whom I knew, some of whom were schoolfriends that I had not even known were Jewish and people that I knew were good, law-abiding people, good Germans. I asked other soldiers what had they done? And they said, ‘They are Jewish.’ There were also homosexuals there and they were made to wear pink triangles. Everyone wore something to identify why they were there. The Jews of course had two yellow triangles, the Star of David. I was relieved when I was working only as a guard for political prisoners, people who were resisting Hitler’s regime. The officer in charge of this section was nice to me. He knew I had been injured in Warsaw and boasted about me to his fellow officers. I still had a limp but this was much improved. Like me, he loved music although he could not play. One evening he asked me if I would play for him and sent a soldier on a long walk to the town to obtain a violin. I remember he said to him, ‘I don’t care where you get it or who you take it from, just get me a damn violin!’ Of course I played even though I didn’t want to. Music didn’t sound right there. I would watch the officer’s face soften and he would close his eyes as I played and occasionally I would see tears there although I pretended not to notice. I realised that he was as sad as me, as sad as everybody else there and so I thought, how is it that all of these people are doing things they don’t want to do? How can this be? Of course there were evil men there, men who truly believed in all that the Führer said but I was realising that I was not among them. But even so . . . what I saw . . . awful things. Made me ashamed . . . but still I said nothing . . . I did nothing . . . I just did as I was told.”
Wilfred stops again and I can see his chin tremble. My father puts his hand on his friend’s arm and the two sit in silence for a moment.
“What could you have done?” my father asks.
“I could have been a political prisoner. I could have stood up for what was right, but I didn’t. I chose to be safe and I chose to keep quiet. I chose the side that was wrong.
“Numbers of prisoners were often removed from the camp. I saw many things that you could never believe. Such cruelty. Not soldier behaviour. In April of that year it was still very cold. I heard officers talking about the Soviets, that they were coming. One day, I was among those chosen to move the prisoners north and we had to walk a long way. Someone said we were putting the prisoners on boats to be freed and I remember thanking God that this war was almost at an end. A few soldiers remained behind with prisoners too sick and weak to walk.
“Some days into the journey, the officer shouted that we needed to shoot prisoners who were slowing the march down. I thought we were not far from the sea. I was sure I could smell the ocean but now I think I may have just imagined this.
“I said, ‘Sir, we are not far from the ocean where boats will take them to freedom. There is no need to shoot them.’ My leg hurt where I had been shot and my limp got a little worse from the low temperature so I said, ‘I can walk with these prisoners. I can fall back.’
“He stood close to me and this man who loved music said: ‘There are no boats you idiot! Do you think w
e are wasting our boats on them? We will shoot them and then drown them. You are a fool. Open your eyes. Nobody wants them. Better we put an end to their misery – so shoot them!’
“I said, ‘No, I cannot. I cannot!’
“He grabbed my gun and started shooting.
“I watched as they fell, old men, women, children, defenceless people. Some of them were screaming, some trying to run into the woods, I . . . don’t know what possessed me but I grabbed my gun back and I . . .”
“What did you do?” my father asks.
“I raised my rifle and I . . .”
Wilfred stops again. I can see the shame spreading across his face as he tries to replay the next scene.
“I shot the officer. The one who cried when I played for him. I shot him in the heart and he died staring at me.”
My father’s eyes open wide and I know he is lost for words. He doesn’t have to ask Wilfred to finish the story as he wets his lips and goes on.
“I was taken to the back of the line and two soldiers were ordered to watch me until another officer decided what to do with me. I hoped they would shoot me. I wanted to die but I didn’t have the courage to do this myself. They took my gun and tied my hands behind my back. As I lay on the ground I could hear them shooting some more prisoners and I wept with my face in the dirt. I wept because, you see, I believed that they were almost free and I could not understand why the officer was killing them.
“We camped in woods and two soldiers were ordered to strip me of my uniform. It was cold and I lay on the ground with prisoners with only my underwear on. That night a fellow soldier, Ralf, crept up and gave me some shoes that did not fit and some clothes. I had known him at school. The clothes were filthy and smelt and I realised he had taken them off a dead prisoner. The following morning, an officer came to me. He demanded to know who had given me the clothes. I could see Ralf’s eyes imploring me not to tell so I refused to answer and he beat me. He pinned a Star of David on me and said, ‘You don’t deserve a soldier’s death so do not think I will not shoot you.’ He turned to the crowd of soldiers and said, ‘Let the Jew-lover see what it feels like to be one of them.’ I was put in line with the other prisoners and we started to march again. I looked around those faces, people who thought they were on the road to liberation and not walking towards their deaths. Over the next few days, some of the SS abandoned us, especially those who had actually been German criminals in Sachsenhausen and had been conscripted to march the other prisoners northwards. I knew something was happening because fewer and fewer soldiers were walking with us. Before we reached Schwerin, about thirty kilometres south of the Baltic, we were rescued by soldiers from the Belorussian front. They thought I was a Jew and I was freed. As I was taken to the Red Cross hospital, I saw Gunther and Klaus, two childhood friends of mine, being led away by Soviet soldiers. I remember them looking at me with open mouths and I tensed but they didn’t tell who I was and I think later they must have been shot because I heard firing as I walked with other prisoners. So you see, I have guilt for the prisoners and guilt for my friends. I was suddenly on both sides and on none.
