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

by Kate Hewitt

  She turned back to him, torn between anger, panic, and the deep love she still felt for him, even now, even though she didn’t want to feel it. He isn’t a Nazi, she reminded herself, and yet… with the city in flames around them, he might as well have been.

  “I’ll write to you,” she promised, although she could not imagine what such a letter would contain. “When will you next have leave?”

  “I don’t know. There is talk of us being needed in the Sudetenland.”

  Birgit nodded. Hitler had marched into Czechoslovakia two months ago. Of course Werner would be deployed. “I’ll write,” she said again, and then she hurried to the side door without looking back.

  Inside the house everyone was gathered upstairs, huddled in chairs, faces pale and shocked. Hedwig hurried to the door of the sitting room as Birgit came upstairs.

  “Birgit,” she cried, and to her surprise, her mother began to weep. Birgit couldn’t remember when, if ever, she’d seen her cry.

  “I’m all right, Mama,” she said as Hedwig enfolded her in her solid arms.

  “The world has gone mad,” her mother proclaimed with a sniff as she stepped away. “Mad.”

  “What about Franz?” Birgit asked, for he wasn’t in the room.

  “He’s up in the attics,” Johanna replied grimly. “He went up as soon as it started. We saw people being beaten in the street right in front of the shop! There was nothing anyone could do.” She shook her head slowly as she bit her lips. “Where were you?”

  “I was meeting Werner.” A cool silence followed that made Birgit flush. “He wasn’t part of it, you know.” No one replied. She turned away as she took a shuddering breath. She didn’t want to talk about Werner. Right then she didn’t even want to think about him, much less defend him. “What happens now?” she wondered aloud.

  “We fight,” her father replied, the hardness in his voice surprising them all, for it was so unlike him. He met each of their shocked gazes with a steely one of his own. “We cannot be part of this regime. Doing nothing is the same as being complicit. We answer to God, not to Hitler.” Each statement was spoken with stiff, final-sounding clarity. Each was treason, punishable by death.

  No one said anything as they looked around at each other with wide, wary eyes. Finally Johanna spoke.

  “But what can we do, Papa?”

  “We can start with this,” Manfred said, and went to the window and yanked the swastika banner from it with one vicious jerk. They watched in silence as he bundled it up and tossed it on the fire.

  “Manfred…” Hedwig whispered, and he looked at her with both defiance and tenderness.

  “I love you, and I know this could mean the end of us all, but for the sake of not just my conscience, but all our souls, I must. We all must.” He let out a shuddering breath as he squared his shoulders and the remnants of the wretched flag turned to ember and ash.

  “Then let us not face our end for simply burning a flag,” Johanna said quietly. “For God’s sake, as well as our own, let us do far more than that.”

  Pride gleamed in their father’s eyes as he nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes. We will have to think and pray how best to act.”

  “I might know.” Birgit spoke before she’d thought about what she was saying. Everyone turned to look at her in surprise.

  “You?” Johanna exclaimed, not even trying to hide the skepticism in her voice. “With your Nazi boyfriend?”

  “Werner isn’t a Nazi,” she retorted, “but in any case, this isn’t about him. He’s going to be deployed soon. I won’t even see him.”

  Johanna tossed her head while her father gave her a kindly smile. “What did you mean, Birgit?”

  “I know someone.” Realization bloomed inside her as she turned eagerly to her father. “Papa, you do too! Ingrid. She mentioned you had contacted the group about Franz—”

  “You know Ingrid?” Manfred looked shaken. “You’ve been consorting with communists?”

  “As were you! In any case, we all need to work together,” Birgit insisted. “That’s what Ingrid has always said. Anyone who resists Hitler is a friend, not an enemy, no matter what they believe about anything else.”

  Johanna looked gobsmacked, her mouth dropping open as she stared at Birgit. “You…”

  Birgit lifted her chin, filled with sudden pride. “Yes,” she told her sister. “Me. I’ve been going to their meetings and distributing pamphlets, at least I was before the Anschluss. It’s gone quiet since then.” She turned to her father. “Still, I think I know how to contact Ingrid. I can leave a message at the coffeehouse in Elisabeth-Vorstadt—”

  “Wait,” her mother cried. “Do you know what you are saying?” She turned to Manfred. “You could be sentencing us all to death.”

  “I do not fear death,” he replied quietly. “Nor should you. I fear facing my Maker and having no answer for Him as to why I did not act when I could have.” He turned to Birgit. “Contact Ingrid if you can. And I will speak to Father Josef. Perhaps he knows how to help. He is no Nazi, certainly.”

  A tremor went through the room, a visceral reaction to his words, and the danger they implied.

  Hedwig’s lips trembled and she looked as if she wanted to reply, but she said nothing. Birgit felt something inside her swell, an excitement mixed with terror, a desire stronger than fear. Yes, she thought. I want to do this. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

  “Well?” Her father asked as he looked around at them all. “Are we in agreement, then?”

  Slowly each one of them nodded.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lotte

  Nonnberg Abbey, November 1938

  The smoke from the fires throughout the city had risen in a ghostly gray smog that shrouded even the abbey high above. On the evening of what became known as Kristallnacht, Lotte had stood at one of the cloisters and watched as Salzburg burned. The synagogue had been set on fire, along with several shops and homes. And while those flames had been doused, the shreds of gray remained like forgotten ghosts, and she feared a greater conflagration raged throughout the place of her birth, all of Austria, the whole world. The world was on fire, and yet here she was meant to be safe.

  And yet surely safety shouldn’t be her first concern. Ever since her conversation with Sister Kunigunde months ago, Lotte had wrestled with the idea that her choice to enter the religious life had been, at its heart, selfish. An escape rather than a sacrifice. And now that it was threatened—several SS officers had visited the Mother Abbess twice already—she felt the truth of it all the more. She didn’t want her life here to be disrupted. She was afraid of change, of upheaval, and at the heart of that fear was a longing for comfort. All of these realizations made her feel sick with shame.

  Although the Catholic church had hoped to work with the new Nazi regime, it had become abundantly clear after the Anschluss that the Nazis had no intention of working with the church. They had closed down schools, raided churches, and arrested clerics. Only last month she and a few other nuns had listened on the Mother Abbess’s radio to Cardinal Innitzer’s rousing speech at Stephansplatz in Vienna, when he had declared to thousands of supporters, “Our Führer is Christ—Christ is our Führer.”

  The regime’s response to this declaration had been to arrest many of the attendees, some of them only teenagers, and storm the archbishop’s palace. No, the Nazis were no friends of the church, and therefore no friends of Nonnberg.

  And yet Lotte still longed for nothing to change, even though she knew everything already had.

  After that first conversation with Sister Kunigunde, her disquiet had increased when, in late spring, the other novice had, quite suddenly and with no explanation, left her alone in the dormitory to finish scrubbing the floor alone, on her reddened hands and knees with a basin of soapy water going cold and scummy.

  Lotte had struggled against the instinctive irritation that had risen up in her—somehow it had become all too easy to succumb to the petty emotions she’d once thought she had
put away forever—and finished the task on her own.

  When she came across Kunigunde in the refectory later, she’d only just resisted asking her where she had disappeared to in the middle of their labors. Still, she’d raised her eyebrows inquiringly, and Kunigunde had merely looked away, unapologetic, indifferent.

  It had happened several more times over the course of the summer—suddenly Kunigunde would slip away from a task or prayers or quiet contemplation, giving no reason for her absence, answering to no one. Lotte had begun, without even realizing she was doing so, to track her movements, watching her creep along the chapel or one of the cloisters with narrowed eyes. Where on earth could she be going?

  Lotte didn’t think she could be the only one who noticed Kunigunde’s absences, and yet no one ever remarked upon them, not during their evening council or the public confession once a week. The Benedictine rule of “prompt, ungrudging and absolute obedience to the superior” had been so deeply ingrained during her time at Nonnberg that to raise such an issue herself was unthinkable, and yet her irritation had persisted, like a thorn in her side, or a splinter in her finger. Persistent, aggravating, and eventually consuming her thoughts.

  Finally, in November, a week before the night that was to come to be known as Kristallnacht, Lotte had spoken up. At public confession, after Sister Kunigunde had admitted to her mind wandering during lauds, Lotte’s hand had shot into the air. It was permissible for sisters to mention sins that the confessing nun had forgotten or not been aware of, yet Lotte had heard an unbecoming note of stridency in her voice after the Mother Abbess had nodded for her to speak.

  “Sister Kunigunde has left her chores undone on several occasions,” she had announced. “She made no excuse and did not return.” Again Lotte had heard the note of accusation in her voice, and she’d blushed. “I fear Sister Kunigunde is breaking St. Benedict’s rule of the necessity of manual labor, as well as that of obedience.” Another silence had ensued, this one seeming to possess a certain censure, and abruptly she had sat down, staring at her lap, while she’d waited for the Mother Abbess’ response.

  “Thank you, Sister Maria Josef,” the Mother Abbess had said quietly. Then she had given Sister Kunigunde a mere three Hail Marys as penance while Lotte had tried not to fume.

  Now, nearly a week later, she turned away from the view from the cloister and tried to temper her disquiet. Life had been so peaceful here for so long, she couldn’t bear for anything to change. And yet she knew things already had… and would continue to do so.

  A movement caught the corner of her eye, and Lotte turned to see Sister Kunigunde herself walking quickly down the cloister on the other side of the courtyard, towards a rarely used wing of the abbey where garden tools and the like were stored. Interest—along with a determination to discover just what was occupying the other nun—compelled Lotte to cross the courtyard and hurry along the wall after Kunigunde, keeping her distance, staying to the shadows.

  It occurred to her that it was far indeed from the rule of St. Benedict to be skulking about as she was, spying on another nun, and yet still she followed Kunigunde past a corridor of storerooms, the air so cold in this unused part of the abbey that Lotte’s breath came out in frosty puffs. The only sound was the slap of her sandals on the stone, and the anxious draw and exhale of her own breath. Kunigunde glanced over her shoulder once, but dusk had fallen and, a dozen meters behind her, Lotte was lost in shadows. Still she dropped back a little more, and so when she turned the corner, Kunigunde had gone.

  Lotte stood in the middle of the corridor, shivering as she battled frustration. How had Kunigunde disappeared so suddenly? What on earth was she doing here in this empty part of the abbey? Lotte knew she must have gone into one of the disused storerooms that lined the corridor, each door made of heavy, aged wood.

  She could open each one in turn and discover into which one her fellow nun had gone, yet she was reluctant to do so and reveal herself. What would she say if she came to face to face with her? How on earth could she explain herself? Although how would Kunigunde explain?

  She was still considering what to do when the door at the far end of the corridor opened and Kunigunde slipped out, closing it carefully behind her. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Lotte hurried in the opposite direction and ducked into one of the other storerooms so Kunigunde wouldn’t see her. She breathed in the sweet, musty smell of old apples and damp as she listened to Kunigunde’s sandaled feet pad softly past. She counted to one hundred, everything in her straining and alert, before she slipped out of the storeroom and headed back to the corridor where Kunigunde had come from.

  Lotte could feel the blood pounding in her ears, her heart thudding in her chest, as she walked down the corridor and stood in front of the door Kunigunde had opened and closed just a few moments ago. Night had fallen fully, leaving Lotte blinking in the darkness, and the air was cold and still, the first stars coming out in the sky high above. In just a few minutes the bell would ring for vespers. She put her hand on the icy latch.

  As she stood there, her fingers numb with cold, she had a sense of dread that she didn’t want to know what was in the room that caused Kunigunde to skulk about, and yet at the same time she very much did. Whatever was in there, whatever she discovered, Lotte was suddenly terribly sure that it would change everything—and she didn’t want anything to change. After another tense pause, she opened the door.

  She blinked in the unrelieved gloom of the dark storeroom, unable to see anything, but she heard a few soft gasps, the rustling of clothes, and the stench of unwashed bodies kept in a cramped, closed room rolled over her, making her hold her breath.

  Then her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she was able to make out a huddle of people peering at her with dark, frightened eyes.

  There was a woman, a man, several children, another woman; Lotte’s gaze roamed over them all, taking in their shabby overcoats, their faces grimy and haggard and full of fear. They all stared at her, silent and unmoving, waiting for her to speak or act. After what felt like an age one of the women spoke, “Bitte…” she whispered hoarsely.

  “What are you doing here?” Lotte demanded, her voice sounding loud and somehow stupid in the stillness, for of course even she already knew. They had to be Jews. Jews that Kunigunde was hiding up here in the abbey, for ever since the Anschluss, Jews had been hounded out of the city, or worse. Lotte had heard the whispers, even up here in the protection of the abbey; the Mother Abbess allowed them to listen to the news on the radio once a week, to inform their prayers. And while Lotte had been happy to pray for those poor unfortunates, she realized she hadn’t actually wanted to have anything more to do with them. And yet right here in this musty room, she now stood face to face with the people she’d been happier pretending didn’t exist.

  The man took a step forward, one hand stretched out, in supplication or threat Lotte didn’t know, and she didn’t even think. She slammed the door shut and then started running down the corridor, her breath coming out in ragged pants as the bell began to ring for vespers.

  Her mind felt frozen as she knelt for prayer, saying the Latin words by rote without even being aware of what was coming out of her mouth. Her glazed gaze moved slowly around the candlelit chapel until it rested on Sister Kunigunde, sitting all the way across the chancel at the other end. Her head was bowed, her expression placid. How?

  Lotte knew if the Jews were found in that storeroom, it would likely not be just Sister Kunigunde but all the nuns of Nonnberg Abbey who would be in trouble. They might be arrested, imprisoned, even sent to one of the camps she’d heard about on the radio.

  A sudden fury burned in her chest at the thought. How could Kunigunde be so irresponsible, so selfish? She had disobeyed the Mother Abbess’s specific instructions to go on as if nothing had changed. She had deceived her and all the other nuns; she had put them all in terrible danger! And beyond that, she had threatened the stability and security of the abbey itself, which had been running
without interruption for thirteen hundred years. Lotte’s outrage grew with every moment. She would have to confront Sister Kunigunde… or tell the Mother Abbess.

  All through vespers her mind whirred like the gears of one of her father’s clocks, thoughts ticking over and over. When the prayers had finally finished, she rose with the other nuns, barely aware of where she was going. Then she caught sight of Sister Kunigunde slipping off to another corridor while everyone else headed towards the refectory. Lotte hurried after her.

  “Sister Kunigunde!” Her voice was sharp as she followed her down the freezing passage.

  Kunigunde whirled around, stilling when she saw Lotte, a slight sneer twisting her usually placid features. “I should have known it would be you. Trying to get me in trouble again?”

  “You were hardly in trouble,” Lotte returned. “You only had to say three Hail Marys.” She’d had to say four for her own sins.

  Kunigunde folded her arms, her hands hidden in the wide sleeves of her habit. Her expression had turned resolute, her round cheeks framed by the wimple, a steely look in her mud-colored eyes. “What is it that you want, sister?”

  Lotte shook her head slowly. Everything about this conversation felt wrong, stilted; she had not had one like it since joining the abbey. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself.

  “I know about the Jews,” she said quietly.

  Kunigunde’s expression did not change. “And?”

  “How could you do such a thing,” Lotte burst out, her self-control of just seconds ago slipping away again, “after what the Reverend Mother said?”

  “What the Reverend Mother said?” Kunigunde repeated. “And what was it that she said, Sister Maria Josef? Tell me, do.”

  Lotte hesitated, for there was a knowing, almost sly cast to the other nun’s features that she didn’t understand. “That we had to go on as before. That nothing should change.”

  “And yet so much has changed since then. The Nazis are determined to destroy the church. Surely you can see that.”