The Edelweiss Sisters: An epic, heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel

by Kate Hewitt

  “Don’t say that, please,” she told him in a low voice. “You don’t mean it. You can’t. I know you’ve said some things, some harmless things, but—”

  “Why do you care so much?” He sounded bewildered rather than angry.

  “Because…” She stared at him helplessly, unsure how to explain. Why did she care? It would be so much easier not to. And yet with every meeting she’d attended at the coffeehouse, with every conversation she’d had with Ingrid, with every pamphlet she’d read or left on a park bench… she knew she did care. She had to, because if she didn’t then she’d have lost all sense of compassion, of justice.

  “Birgit?” Werner prompted, sounding tired now. “I don’t understand. You’re not Jewish.”

  “No.” But Franz was. And even Janos. Did they—did anyone—deserve the treatment that was being meted out to them? The answer was obvious. Of course not. And if she could not even say as much to the man she wanted to marry…

  She stared at Werner in the dim and dusty shop, the only sound their breathing and the ticking of clocks, marking every moment, and she knew what she had to ask.

  “Werner, what do you think of Hitler?” She paused while he simply stared at her. “Really?”

  “Hitler?” He shook his head slowly, seeming truly baffled now. “Why are you asking me, Birgit?”

  “Because it matters.” Each word throbbed painfully through her. She couldn’t bear it if he ended things now, and all because of stupid politics. Or perhaps she would end it, if she were strong enough. She didn’t know if she was, but she realized she wanted to be, if it came to that.

  “Well, it shouldn’t matter,” Werner said, sounding angry now as he straightened his cuffs, officious in his uniform. “Because I don’t particularly think about him one way or another. Birgit, I am an Austrian first. I serve my country, and that is all.”

  “But the things Hitler has said… the laws they’ve made… about the Jews,” she insisted. “You’ve said you don’t think they’re that bad—”

  “I haven’t said that exactly,” Werner huffed. “I’m not… I don’t…” He shook his head, angry now as he threw his hands up in the air. “The Jews, the Jews! Why do you care so much about the damned Jews?”

  “Do you know any?” she asked quietly. “Jews? Personally, I mean?”

  He shrugged, impatient now as well as angry, tossing his head like a horse bothered by a fly. “My father’s old tailor, I think. I went to school with his son until they moved away.”

  That was all? “And yet you can happily go to an exhibition about them, saying how evil and stupid and horrible they are!” She shook her head, incredulous and tearful, struggling to control her emotions, her voice. “You can support laws that deprive them of their belongings, their citizenship, their jobs? Werner, don’t you see? Today it is the Jews. Tomorrow it might be the Catholics.”

  “The Catholics!” He let out a snort of derision. “Never.”

  “Why not? The Nazis are no supporters of the church. And even if it never is the Catholics… it doesn’t matter.” The realization throbbed painfully through her. “That shouldn’t be the reason, anyway. It’s not about just protecting ourselves… if we allow the government to persecute and terrify one group of people, simply for who they are, not anything bad they’d done…” She trailed off, searching his face for some glimmer of understanding, of agreement. “Don’t you see how wrong that is, Werner?” she asked desperately. “How evil?”

  Werner stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Had she lost him, Birgit wondered, or had he lost her? In that moment she didn’t know which it was.

  “I don’t care about the Jews, one way or the other,” he finally said. “Not really. Maybe I should, maybe I should wring my hands over every poor sod who’s had a difficult time of it, but life is hard enough, Birgit, and so I don’t.” He released a low huff of breath as he stared at her, resigned and weary. “But I don’t wish them ill, and I can admit that the laws against them have gone too far. That doesn’t make me want to fight for them, though. Perhaps you think I should.”

  She swallowed hard. “I understand why you feel that way,” she managed.

  “But it disappoints you.”

  She didn’t answer, and he sighed heavily.

  “So here we are.” He spread his hands. “I am what I am. A devoted Austrian, a good soldier, a man in love with you. Is that enough?” He spoke tonelessly, yet she sensed his hurt pulsing underneath the simply stated words, and it swamped her with both misery and love. “I don’t know what you want from me, Birgit,” he continued as she gazed at him in despondent silence. “When I came here tonight, this was the last thing I expected. I thought…” He paused, swallowing, his voice choking a little. “I thought tonight would be something else entirely. For heaven’s sake, when I mentioned that exhibition, I was just making small talk! I didn’t even think about what I was saying. I wish I’d never said a word.”

  “If it hadn’t been the exhibition, it would have been something else.” Her heart felt like a weight too heavy for her to bear. How could she not have realized this reckoning was coming? What on earth would Werner think, if he knew she went to those meetings? If she was fighting against the very thing he said they could not resist?

  “So that’s it?” Werner’s voice rose in a hoarse huff of pained disbelief. “Are we—are we finished? And all because of this… this stupid thing?”

  Birgit could not bring herself to reply. Could she really break things off simply because of a few thoughtless remarks? Werner wasn’t a Nazi. She was sure of that, at least, even as a dark voice inside her whispered, at least he’s not yet.

  “I love you,” he said, the words so simple, so honest, as he held his arms out in helpless appeal. A tear spilled down her cheek and Birgit did not bother to wipe it away. How could she turn away from this man? He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  With a muffled oath, Werner pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly to him, his hand stroking her hair. “Don’t let this be the end, Birgit, please. I’m sorry for what I’ve said. I am. You must believe me. I’ll—I’ll try to do better. I promise. I need you, to help me.”

  Birgit put her arms around him as she closed her eyes. How could she resist such a plea? When she was with Werner, she felt like a new person—strong, confident, striding through the world. She felt beautiful and loved and important. And he was a good man; she’d known that all along, from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. How could she throw all they had away, simply because he’d made a remark about a stupid exhibition she’d never even seen?

  “This isn’t the end,” she whispered as she pressed her cheek against the lapel of his jacket. “I don’t want it to be. I love you, Werner.”

  And Werner hugged her even more tightly to him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lotte

  Nonnberg Abbey, February 1938

  “I know I do not need to remind you, daughters, that we answer to a higher call.”

  The Mother Abbess’s careworn face seemed to collapse with weariness as she gazed at each of the nuns of Nonnberg Abbey in turn, all of them assembled in the refectory for their midday meal. She’d just explained to them, quietly and soberly, how in the last few weeks the state of affairs in Austria had suffered several grievous turns.

  First Chancellor Schuschnigg had been summoned to a meeting at the Berghof in nearby Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s country retreat outside Salzburg, where he had hoped to discuss matters on an equal footing as between two leaders, only to be berated like a naughty schoolboy and then threatened with invasion.

  Three days later the chancellor had been forced to appoint two National Socialists to his cabinet, and the week after that Hitler had given a blistering speech to the Reichstag demanding Lebensraum for the German people and a restoration of all German colonies, including Austria.

  Meanwhile gangs of brown shirts roamed the streets more and more, causing as much trouble as they could, rowdy and j
eering in their newfound confidence. Even from their lofty perch above Salzburg, the nuns had heard shouting, jeers, even the occasional gunshot.

  All of Austria waited with held breath, many with hope, others with fear, for what would happen next. The nuns of Nonnberg Abbey were somehow meant to be above it all.

  Lotte had been at the convent for a year now, six months as a postulant, and the following six months as a novice. In all that time she had not once left the abbey, seen her family, or even glimpsed her own reflection. Her world had shrunk to a bare room, the daily offices of prayer, the Great Silence, the simple work of tending the abbey’s garden or washing dishes, and yet at the same time it felt as if it had expanded to encompass the divine in all of these simple activities.

  The beauty of a soap bubble, sunlight catching its fragile, transparent surface… The peaceful quietness of a still night, where stars pricked the sky like a handful of scattered diamonds… The soothing click of the rosary beads between her fingers, the sound ageless, eternal. She felt as if her very self had been finely tuned, as if the strings of her soul could now play the simplest and purest of melodies.

  Sitting there on the hard bench, her hands folded at her waist, listening to Mother Abbess speak of the potential destruction of her country without feeling the need to offer so much as a murmur or a frown, Lotte did not regret any of her choices.

  When she’d first walked through that door a year ago, leaving the whole world behind her, it had felt exhilarating, like stepping off a precipice and learning how to fly. The firm click of the door closing behind her, sealing her away, had not felt like an imprisonment but a liberation of her soul. Here she could finally be free.

  She’d accepted her new name—Sister Maria Josef—joyfully, just as she’d accepted the simple black veil that framed her face, and the regular offices of prayer that rigidly divided her day into minutes and hours. She loved the simplicity of it all, the purity and rightness of steps that had to be followed without question or complaint; for her, submission was easy.

  She even appreciated the little notebook that the head of postulants, Sister Hemma, had given her, along with the other postulants, in which to record all her sins. To write her sins out so deliberately and then confess in front of the sisters once a week, spread-eagled on the floor, her forehead pressed into the cold, hard stone, felt like the most obvious and wonderful act of obedience. It worked. When she did her penance, she was at peace.

  “You seem to have a natural affinity for the religious life, Sister Maria Josef,” the Mother Abbess had told her once, when she’d been summoned to her study a few months after she’d started as a postulant. “But even that is something our rebel hearts will try take pride in. We must not take pride in anything, sister, not even our devotion. Humility is our watchword, our means of being.”

  “Yes, Reverend Mother,” Lotte had answered, her gaze lowered. She accepted this gentle rebuke as she’d accepted everything else—with a serenity that had felt otherworldly, given by God rather than summoned from her own strength. She would not chafe against it, against any of it. She was not even tempted.

  Even the things that she knew could be seen as tiresome—being woken up before dawn by one of the nuns dragging a stick along the curtains that separated the postulants’ cells, making the iron rings rattle, and having to leap out of bed to recite lauds while still half asleep—did not cause her any real frustration.

  Walking at a sedate pace along the walls, using hand signals rather than speech, being completely silent from early evening until the next morning—it all served to make her even more tranquil, ironing out those last rebellious ruffles of self-will, causing her to be even more certain of the solace she’d found within the abbey’s ancient walls.

  Admittedly, after those first few weeks, the balm of silence had, for a short time, started to feel a bit like a sting; she missed singing, or chatting, or simply humming under her breath. Silence started to feel loud, like an incessant ringing in her ears. When Lotte had confessed her feelings about the matter to all the sisters, the Mother Abbess had, with great kindness, ordered her to maintain complete silence for an entire week.

  And somehow that week had silenced the silence; it had broken the last bit of resistance in her and the next time she’d spoken, during the dinner hour, the words had felt strange and uncomfortable, like rocks in her mouth. She struggled to shape them, and she realized how unimportant they had become, how unnecessary.

  She could let them go freely, and she discovered an even deeper beauty in this simple act of submission and surrender. When she’d become a novice and accepted the constricting white veil that covered her neck and framed her face, her golden plait hacked off at the base of her skull with a pair of scissors and tossed aside like so much rubbish, she had not minded. She had relinquished that last call on her vanity as she had all the others, with gladness.

  Before they’d taken their vows as novices, the Mother Abbess had asked every postulant to search their hearts and surrender any last object that tied them to their worldly affections. Lotte had, with no more than a tremor, offered up the dried sprig of edelweiss her father had given her all those years ago, when they’d sung in the competition, the newly christened Edelweiss Sisters. She’d kept it in her prayer book, a poignant reminder of her old life. Once or twice, she’d flipped to the page where it lay pressed and touched the dried blossom with her finger.

  She’d felt a flicker of regret, of loss, as she put it in the basket Sister Hemma held out, but no more. That too had to be surrendered.

  Now, a year on, Lotte discovered she did not miss that little sprig; she did not miss even her family the way she would have once expected to. In truth, she rarely thought of them. They were no more than ghosts on the fringes of her memory, fleeting and ephemeral, soon turned to vapor.

  The hunger for human touch that she’d sometimes craved at the beginning of her time at the abbey, for the nuns of Nonnberg were discouraged from showing any physical affection to one another, now felt alien and strange, far too physical and even embarrassing. The only time she deliberately touched another human being was when she kissed the Mother Abbess’s hand.

  She did not miss the tall, narrow house on Getreidegasse, or the evenings singing by the piano, or walking in springtime in a city square or underneath the cherry blossoms in Mirabellgarten. She did not miss them because she did not think of them; the discipline of forgetfulness had become second nature to her, as easy as breathing. Finally her life was the placidly moving stream she had once longed for, flowing ever onward undisturbed, untroubled.

  And now Hitler threatened it all.

  “I am telling you this,” the Mother Abbess continued, “so that you may be better prepared to retain your calm and courage throughout. We must go on, sisters, as if nothing has happened, and continue in our prayerful attitude of charity to all.” She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze steady and clear, but with a shadow in her eyes, the weight of events heavy on her slight shoulders, which were rounded more than usual. For once the Mother Abbess looked her age. “I do not pretend that it is easy or natural to do so,” she continued, “or that the uncertainty of these times cannot give rise to fear. God sends these times to try us, daughters, but we must never doubt His sovereign hand guiding all things, even this.”

  With a kindly yet tired smile for them all, the Mother Abbess sat down and in silence they began to eat.

  It was only later, as Lotte was washing dishes with Sister Kunigunde, named after an early German saint, that she thought more deeply of what the Mother Abbess had said, and then only because the other novice forced her to do so.

  “If Hitler invades Austria,” Kunigunde asked in a low voice, her hands immersed in the soapy water, “what will change?”

  Lotte gave her a look of reproof; surely there was no need to have this conversation. Unnecessary words were forbidden, including these.

  “As the Mother Abbess has said, nothing here will change,” she replied firmly, a
nd then nodded to the pile of dirty bowls awaiting their attention.

  “But you know that can’t be true.” Sister Kunigunde seemed undeterred by Lotte’s stern look. “What of our families?”

  “The sisters here are our family.”

  “You know what I mean.” She lifted her chin, a challenge in her bold stare. She was a blunt-faced girl with a snub nose and a sturdy body; the only thing Lotte knew about her was what she confessed every week—usually a tendency to let her mind drift during prayer, and difficulty rising in the morning. “Do you not miss them at all?” she pressed. “Your own mother and father? I remember them, from that first day. Your father looked so kind. He had a twinkle in his eye…”

  The words, so simply spoken, caused a sudden shaft of grief to lance through Lotte, leaving her breathless. For a second, no more, she let herself picture her father—his thinning white hair, his red cheeks, that twinkle in his eye.

  She could see each detail so clearly, it was as if he were standing right before her, smiling, his arms outstretched. If she lifted her hand, she would be able to touch him. Without realizing she had done so, she let out a gasp and then she bit her lip, shocked by the emotion that she had suppressed for so long, now rushing through her in a turbulent river.

  “What will happen to them?” Kunigunde asked quietly. “Or even to us? The Nazis are no friends of the church.”

  “They have sworn to tolerate…” Lotte began hesitantly but Kunigunde stopped her with a disparaging sound.

  “And what good are Nazi promises? Even the Holy Father has spoken of the Nazi aggression to the church. We are Hitler’s enemies, whether he says so or not.”

  Fear clutched at Lotte with icy fingers, which she did her best to push away. “We should not be talking like this,” she insisted, her voice caught between severity and desperation. “We are above such things, sister.”