Edelweiss

by Madge Swindells

  She heard the rumble of the food trolley. Minutes later the half-crazed Russian peasant shuffled along. The children lined up, holding out their mugs and plates, tense with excitement. Two slices of black bread each, two teaspoons of beet marmalade, a cup of unsweetened acorn coffee. The little mites sat cross-legged, as she had taught them, and chewed the food slowly and carefully, extracting the maximum nourishment from each mouthful. All too soon the food was finished, but still their eyes were fixed on hers. In place of their parents and their homes they had only her, and she tried so hard to make their days lighter, but her heart was breaking most of the time.

  Andrea went to the door of the camp and stood looking anxiously, but there was no sign of anyone coming their way. ‘It was promised,’ she muttered.

  ‘Well, children,’ she called. ‘Put on your coats and line up.’

  She had been teaching them Christmas carols, and she had received permission for them to sing to the guards and their families at their homes this morning. She hoped that the women would hand out sweets or presents. Besides, she knew what a treat it would be for the children to get away from their barbed wire enclosure and see grass and trees and perhaps a bird.

  They were excited and scared as they left in a long orderly file. She gazed sadly at them, huddled in secondhand coats too large for them, their striped pyjamas flapping around skinny ankles.

  Over-awed and silent, they reached the heavily guarded gate leading to the guards’ married quarters. It had snowed days ago, and now the slush hung around in gutters. The sky was overcast, but at least it was not raining.

  Trudging past the houses, the children oohed and aahed over the trees and grass and flowers. Little Clarissa burst into tears and Andrea swept her up in her arms to comfort her. Clarissa was seven years old, she came from Lidhaky and Andrea loved her dearly and planned to adopt her, if they survived the war, for she knew that both her parents were dead. She had short brown curls, big brown eyes and freckles. Now she was emaciated and pale-faced, but Andrea remembered when she had been a chubby child and always smiling.

  They reached the Commandant’s house and rang the bell.

  ‘You must wait,’ the Polish housemaid told them. Half an hour later the Commandant arrived and they were given permission to go to the back lawn and sing. Several wives were standing on the glass-enclosed balcony. They looked annoyed and embarrassed. The children sang Silent Night and Away In A Manger, in their sweet, shrill voices. Then the Commandant threw some sweets towards them, as if scattering corn to chicken. The children grovelled in the frozen earth for the sweets and two of them fought. Clarissa burst into tears, for she had not found one. ‘Like animals . . .’ Andrea heard from one of the wives.

  ‘Only because they are so starved,’ she said angrily. Her anger made her bold. Where were the treats she had envisaged?

  ‘Herr Commandant, could we have some more sweets, please. After all, it’s Christmas and they are children. “Suffer little children . . .”’ she began, quaking inwardly, but nevertheless determined.

  The Commandant shot her a glance of grudging respect. They had clashed on many occasions since Andrea took over the kindergarten a year before. She knew how to time her requests when there were witnesses. The Commandant liked to be known as a kind man. He tossed her another bag of sweets.

  ‘And the swings,’ she muttered urgently, knowing that she was pushing too hard.

  ‘Yes . . . I gave my orders yesterday. I am a man of my word,’ he said loudly.

  She walked back feeling hopeful, but not convinced. The wind became colder, soon the children’s energy was flagging. They were so frail nowadays, and their lips and cheeks were turning blue. She decided to carry Clarissa. She hugged her closely, smiling at the expression of bliss on the little girl’s face as she sucked her second sweet, trying to make it last forever.

  ‘Wonders will never cease,’ she muttered as they neared the camp. Prisoners were putting the finishing touches to three swings. Suddenly it really was Christmas. To Andrea, the expressions on the children’s faces was molten joy. That night they sung carols, the young voices blending with the tinny notes from the flute one of the prisoners had made for her. Andrea told them the Christmas story and the children took turns to act out the scenes. Their eyes lit up with wonder as the three wise men from the East brought their gifts, which were only pebbles, but in their eyes so real. Later, she tucked them up in bed and kissed each one goodnight.

  For the past year and a half, Andrea had been teaching her charges all she could remember. Hampered by the lack of any equipment, books or paper, she did her best to teach them in German, although they came from Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France.

  It was almost the end of 1944. ‘Dear God, let these children live to see the end of the war, and protect Louis. Please let him be alive and send him back to me. Let us all be free soon,’ she prayed, night after night.

  *

  On January 15, Andrea was summoned to the Camp Commandant’s office. ‘You have been transferred to the medical block,’ he told her, sending her world crashing. ‘Report to medical orderly Schmidt at once.’

  ‘But the children need me,’ she stammered, her fear for them overcoming her terror. ‘You said yourself how well I look after them. You said there was no trouble anymore and that there are far less illnesses amongst them since I took over the kindergarten. Don’t you remember?’

  The words tumbled out and the tears poured down her cheeks. ‘Please,’ she said, knowing that it was permissible to beg if it was for the children. ‘Please don’t send me away from them. They need me.’

  He seemed to have difficulty looking her in the eyes. ‘You are dismissed,’ he said sternly. ‘I want you to remember that I, too, only obey orders.’

  Why was he apologising to her? This, more than anything else, set her body in a trauma of fear as she trudged back to the kindergarten. She had decided to disobey to the extent of saying goodbye to the children. ‘It won’t be forever,’ she told them. She tried to blink back her tears and be brave at the sight of those skinny little faces pressed against the wire. Clawlike hands clutched towards her and shining eyes, bright with starvation, watched her walk away from them.

  ‘Be good, be brave,’ she called.

  Andrea performed her duties in a daze, not really there at all, but seeing the row of solemn faces watching her walk away. As the day wore on she became increasingly desperate. Why had the Camp Commandant apologised? Why had he looked so ashamed? Who was looking after the children? It was dark by 5 p.m. Andrea was changing dressings on the patients when she saw a line of lorries rumbling towards the kindergarten. ‘Oh God, no . . . no . . .’ she screamed.

  Suddenly she was running . . . The soldiers had turned on their searchlights and the kindergarten was as bright as day. She could hear guards shouting, dogs snarling and the terrified screams of the children. She ran faster, almost falling with exhaustion. She arrived as the soldiers dragged the last terrified children out to the lorries. Their anguished cries tore at her heartstrings.

  She clawed her way through the soldiers towards Clarissa. A blow from a rifle knocked her senseless to the ground.

  *

  One morning early in March, Andrea woke to find herself in the mental block. This was strange. Surely she had been walking in a field with Louis, watching the Vltava flow past. She returned to the present reluctantly. She had no idea what she was doing in hospital. She tried to stand, but it was an effort. Doctor Schmidt found her stumbling around, trying to keep her balance and sent a nurse to help her. She had been there for two months, she learned later that day. Yet the last thing she remembered was little Clarissa standing forlorn in the lorry, calling out to her. It was all over. They were only a memory now . . . those lovely children.

  Somehow she obtained permission to speak to the Commandant.

  ‘I see that there are more children in the kindergarten,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He stared at his hand
s, refusing to meet her eyes.

  ‘Will they, too, go to the death camps?’

  ‘Perhaps. Who knows? I told you before, I only obey orders.’

  ‘And in the meantime, who is looking after them?’ she demanded.

  ‘Bertha, the Russian.’

  ‘She’s half-witted and sadistic,’ she burst out.

  The Commandant gestured for the guard to leave them. ‘Do you know why I am here?’ he said, when they were alone.

  ‘No, and I don’t want to know.’

  ‘I was invalided from the Eastern front. Shell shock, burns, wounded, unfit for duty, but fit enough to run this camp. Nothing could be as bad as this. Nothing. I always wanted to be a soldier, not a murderer.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your excuses,’ she said sternly. ‘Others have the courage to disobey orders that are evil.’

  He opened her file. ‘Your father was the conductor of the Prague orchestra, and you attended Munich university to study music. You play the oboe and the piano and have given several solo performances. It’s all here in your file. I can offer you the post of organising a camp orchestra,’ he muttered.

  ‘I want to look after the children. At least for the period that they remain here.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said, his face impassive. ‘But do you think you are strong enough?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You may return to the kindergarten, but if you crack up when the next consignment goes east, I shall not allow you back.’

  ‘Consignment? Goes east?’ she muttered incredulously. ‘Is that you how keep your conscience at bay? With euphemisms? Do you mean when you murder the next batch of children?’

  His eyes became very cold as he called to the guard. ‘Escort this prisoner to the kindergarten,’ he said.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Hugo was standing at his office window staring out gloomily. It was cold, even for March, the sky a wintry grey, the wind blustering. A sudden gust sent the curtains billowing and filled the room with the tang of the river.

  Hugo’s adjutant knocked and came in, saluting smartly before standing to attention. Hugo glanced at him impatiently, saw his fear and understood his agony. He was a fanatical Nazi and he never spoke about the worsening war news. It was treasonable to be a defeatist, but the facts spoke for themselves.

  The Allied forces were closing in on Berlin. Cologne had fallen to the Allies only yesterday. Soon the Fatherland would be occupied. Not that there would be much left for them, for 1000-bomber raids were reducing German homes and industries to rubble. It was only a matter of days before the Russians crossed the border into Austria. News had just come through from headquarters that all personnel were being evacuated from the rocket base at Peenemunde because the Russians were only hours away.

  That meant Richard’s Mine was the only long-range rocket base left. The problem was time and the damned partisans. There had been so many accidents during the past ten days, and this had delayed progress. Did they have long enough to test the missile and know with certainty that the flight plan was accurate? The slightest error could lead to a nuclear bomb exploding on German territory. The scientists wanted to fire three unarmed rockets first, but Hugo was determined that the nuclear warhead be fired just as soon as the rocket was ready for launching.

  Could the V-3 win the war for Hitler? Common sense told him that it could not, but it could inflict massive damage, and wipe out several major cities. After the first explosion, the civilian populations of every Allied city would be at risk, and Germany would be in a position to demand favourable peace terms, or even a truce. Yes, definitely a truce. They would hold the world hostage.

  ‘Time is running short,’ Hugo muttered, half to himself and half to his adjutant. ‘Somehow we must arrest the agent known as Edelweiss. And, for once and for all, we must destroy the Resistance.’ He walked to the window and gazed out for a few moments. ‘I want you to send for a consignment of Russian prisoners-of-war. When they arrive, we’ll execute all the unskilled labour in the mine. Everyone! From now on, we’ll stick to Russian workers. Then we’ll be safe from infiltration of Czechs disguised as camp inmates.

  ‘Contact the camp commandant. Get me details of all suppliers who have access to the camp.’

  ‘We’ve investigated every person who liaises with the camp, sir,’ his adjutant said. ‘Many times . . .’

  ‘We’ll start again, and this time, I shall supervise the interrogations.’

  Within a day, Hugo had narrowed the list of twenty-five men down to five. One of them was Miroslav Kova, a Volksdeutsche. He had been cleared previously because he was a member of the local Nazi party caucus, a relative of the camp commandant, and the owner of a small abattoir in Kladno which was heavily dependant upon Nazi patronage. Why would a man like that turn traitor? Nevertheless, lately Kova had been spending heavily in the local bistro.

  *

  After two days of non-stop interrogation, Hugo was convinced Kova was guilty although he stuck to his story that he was a drinking buddy of the Commandant and that he was not such a bloody fool as to prejudice his own business. On impulse, Hugo drove to Prague, parked, and shortly afterwards he was hurrying up the black marble stairs into the impressive foyer of Gestapo headquarters at Petsechek House. The guards jumped to attention and saluted as Hugo took the lift down to the old bank vaults. Kova was strapped in a wooden chair, surrounded by floodlights. His belly sagged over his belt, his vest was dark with sweat, his bare feet were grimy. There was something about Kova that stank, apart from his sweating body, Hugo thought with a grim smile, as he watched the man’s pathetic efforts to ingratiate himself with his interrogators. Hugo settled down in the corner to study Kova’s file. What he saw there gave him an idea.

  ‘Come on, friends,’ Kova blustered, ‘I’m one of you. All this brutality . . . what’s it for? You’ve got the wrong man. I’m innocent, I told you. I’ve got a good business going with the camp. They take all my production. Why would I want to double-cross my customers? If anyone asked me to act as go-between, I’d tell them to go to hell.’

  ‘All right, Sergeant,’ Hugo said sternly, striding across the floodlit area to sit behind the desk. ‘Now! Let me see. Who do we have here?’ He glanced at the file. ‘Herr Kova looks like an honest Volksdeutsche trader to me. Untie him.’

  ‘Have a cigarette, Kova.’ Hugo’s face creased into a friendly grimace. ‘I can see they made a mistake. I’m sorry. Send for coffee,’ Hugo called over his shoulder.

  Kova was assisted to a chair on the other side of the desk.

  ‘I’ll have you sent to the showers. We’ll reimburse you for your suit. These SS filth have no understanding of people. They go in like sharks at the smell of blood. You see . . .’ he rubbed his hands anxiously and shrugged apologetically. ‘We have a problem. Some foolish people who oppose the Reich have been pestering every trader who has access to the camp. They’re desperate for couriers. Somewhere along the line, someone said “yes” to their advances.’ Hugo gestured towards the interrogators. ‘It’s their job to find out who that person is.’

  Kova shuddered. ‘It wasn’t me. I said “no”.’ He was burning with relief and mopping his brow. When the coffee arrived he grabbed his cup and began to slurp noisily.

  ‘Ah! So you said “no” . . . emphatically.’

  ‘That’s for sure.’ Kova thumped his fist on the desk.

  ‘To whom did you say this emphatic “no”. In other words, who asked you?’

  ‘As you said . . . everyone was asked.’

  ‘Did I say that? No, I don’t think I said anything of the kind. We simply imagined that this might have taken place. Now you’ve just confirmed our suspicions. Herr Kova, why didn’t you report this conversation to your nearest Blockwart? We could have trapped the filthy spy immediately.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Kova was sweating even more heavily now. ‘I wanted to keep out of it. I didn’t want to get involved.’

  ‘Obviously you are sympathetic to these su
bversives, or you would have reported them at once.’ Hugo’s friendliness was replaced with ferocious efficiency.

  He fired the next questions like bullets: ‘When . . .? Where . . .? By whom . . .? A full description please . . . On what date . . .? How many times have you met them . . .?’

  Kova, by implication, was now involved, in fact, practically one of them.

  ‘Once,’ Kova stammered. ‘Only once. It was at night in a dark alley. I didn’t see him.’ He cleared his throat noisily. ‘I don’t remember when it was.’

  ‘This is very serious for you, Kova. You are the only witness we have of this traitor. It might be the same man who assassinated many of our leaders here. You’re in big trouble, Kova. You withheld vital information. The Resistance would not approach you unless they knew you were sympathetic to their cause. You’ve been assisting them, haven’t you . . .? Filthy swine!’

  He stood up and threw the rest of his coffee into Kova’s eyes. Then he hit him hard several times.

  Half an hour later, Kova was dragged to the cells. He was so terrified he could not stand. Hugo watched pitilessly as the gross body crumpled.

  It took Hugo two weeks to find Kova’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who had been hidden with distant relatives in the country. Amazing that Kova could sire such a pretty daughter, Hugo thought, eyeing her. She had long, honey blonde plaits, which looked pretty when they were loosened to hang over her shoulders, and her big blue eyes were swimming with tears. She was led to the interrogation room where Hugo raped her. Her screams mingled with those of her father, who was forced to watch. But he didn’t change his story. Then she was raped and sodomised by ten agents until she passed out. They brought her round with buckets of cold water and began fixing electric wires to her body.

  By now, Kova was yelling so loudly, it was hard to write down all the information he was revealing. ‘Leave my daughter, you fucking monsters. I’ll tell you everything . . . everything. Just let her go,’ he sobbed. ‘I liaise with the butcher in the camp. I carry messages for a woman. Her name is Edelweiss . . . short black hair . . . tall and thin . . . I don’t know where she lives and I don’t know her real name. She’s high up in the Resistance, that’s all I know. I was recruited by a man with a limp. He never told me his name. Leave my daughter . . . I beg you. She’s innocent. She knows nothing. I’ll tell you all I know, I promise,’ he sobbed. ‘She’s only fifteen. My God!’