by Joan M. Wolf
Between the two rooms was a pantry filled with canned fruits and vegetables, along with many sacks of dried meat and dried apples. There were even several dozen bottles of water all the way from Switzerland, in case our well became damaged or destroyed.
An entire wall in the larger room was lined with shelves, one of which held nearly a dozen oil lamps and a few gallons of kerosene, as well as several flashlights. Candles and batteries rested on another. Standing against the opposite wall was a small wood stove with an outside duct for venting. I was glad to see that if we lost electricity, we would still have both light and warmth. On the floor was a stack of blankets, along with a medical kit and a radio.
The rooms of the shelter were quiet. Strong brick walls and the earth around them muffled the sounds of war outside, but it was exactly those sounds that made the existence of this place necessary. The walls also helped block the bitter smell that had seeped into the rest of the house, although the soft, moldy scent of disuse filled the air.
Elsbeth prepared the bed in the small room for her mother. She unhinged the frame from the wall and brought it down to rest gently on the ground. She unfolded the sheets she had brought and tucked them in carefully around the mattress while I shook out the blankets.
At first Mutter refused to leave the kitchen, shaking her head when we tried to pull her out of her chair, and gripping the table so tightly that her knuckles turned white. We tried everything we could think of, until Elsbeth finally told her we needed help moving the ballroom picture of Hitler into the shelter. Reverently, Mutter pulled the huge picture down from the wall and carried it downstairs as if it were a baby. Elsbeth followed with the two red candles that always burned beneath it. Once in the shelter, Mutter placed the picture on the floor, gently propping it against a wall. Elsbeth carefully put one candle on each side. Then, going into the small room Elsbeth and I had prepared, Mutter promptly lay down on top of the bed and fell asleep.
***
With each passing day the sounds of war crept closer. The thick walls of the basement could not completely block out the constant whine of planes overhead or the rapid sound of machine-gun fire that would begin loudly and then fade into silence.
During our second week in the shelter, we lost electricity and set up a system of oil lamps and candles to light each of the small rooms. Flashlights were to be used as little as possible to conserve batteries. There were only two small windows, both toward the top of the wall in the main room. They were lined with thick glass, like any cellar windows, and provided very little light.
Winter's cold soon crept into the basement, and we kept the stove lit during the day as much as possible. I watched the stock of wood dwindle and wondered what we would burn once it was gone.
Elsbeth and I huddled together under a blanket during the day, playing cards or knitting. Mutter sat on the floor in front of the picture of Hitler, talking quietly to herself, almost as if she was praying that he would come and personally rescue us.
The few times we turned the radio on, we heard only static. There was nothing we could do but sit and wait for something to change, either for better or for worse.
Both Elsbeth and I were curious about what was happening outside. "Just a little peek? Can we just go upstairs for a little bit?" Elsbeth asked Mutter once when we had heard no sounds from outside for several hours. I stood next to Elsbeth, nodding, hoping for permission to go upstairs for just a minute or two.
"Nein!" Mutter replied sternly. "It is too dangerous. I won't allow it." Once we had convinced her to come into the shelter, it seemed she didn't want any of us to leave.
There were enough distractions during the day to keep my mind somewhat occupied. But at night I was still haunted by the images of the camp and questions about my family—my real family, which I had all but forgotten.
One night I awoke to gentle shaking.
"Eva. Eva, are you all right?" It was Elsbeth. Al though I couldn't see her face in the dark, I could hear the concern in her voice. "Eva, you were crying in your sleep. What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I said. "Go back to sleep." How could I explain something to Elsbeth that I didn't even understand myself?
I knew she had noticed a change in me, however subtle it was. We still knitted together and played cards and talked for hours, but I could no longer be the German sister I had been, the one she had come to love.
***
After three weeks in the shelter my body had adopted the routine of the sun, waking as it rose and going to bed shortly after it set. The windows offered some light during the daytime hours, but once darkness fell, it was difficult to do much of anything by the murky light of the candles.
Elsbeth had coaxed Mutter into eating regularly again, and the two of us were talking about venturing upstairs one day for our math lesson books. Boredom was fast becoming our worst enemy.
"It will only be a few minutes, Mutter," Elsbeth tried. "We'll hurry upstairs, get our lesson books, and be back. It's daylight. There haven't been any planes for hours. And we can bring you your needlepoint."
I could tell by the look in Mutter's eyes that Els-beth had almost convinced her to let us go. Mutter was slowly returning to normal, and I knew that she, too, was bored. She had stopped crying for Peter, and the color had returned to her cheeks. Having her needlepoint would give her something to do.
"Well, I suppose—" she began, but was interrupted by a thunderous crash upstairs. There was another loud crash from outside the house, and then the ceiling above us was filled with the sound of heavy boots. There were shouts and barks in a language I had never heard.
"Russians. It's Russians. Oh, dear God." Mutter covered her shoulders with her shawl, and the three of us ran into her small room and huddled together on her bed.
The noises upstairs seemed to last forever. Doors opened and slammed shut. Loud thuds vibrated across the ceiling. Splintering noises cut through the air. Voices shouted back and forth. I was filled with helpless terror, knowing that we were trapped in our small basement shelter.
There was a crash at the entrance to the basement, and then three soldiers appeared in the doorway of our room. They were young but had full beards, and each carried a machine gun. They wore brown uniforms with matching hats and short black boots. Beside me Mutter gasped, and I took her hand. I had a sudden clear memory of the soldiers coming into my house, so long ago in Lidice. Tears sprang to my eyes. Was I going to be taken away again?
One of the soldiers had papers in his hand, and he waved them in Mutter's face. "Frau! Where are papers? Herr Werner? Where are papers?" he screamed in broken German.
Mutter shook her head. "I don't know. I don't—"
The soldier grabbed her roughly by the arm and pulled her off the bed.
"Mutter!" Elsbeth cried and stood, as if to go to her. But another soldier pushed Elsbeth back onto the bed and kept us both there by pointing his gun at us. Then the first soldier led Mutter out of the room and up the stairs. Elsbeth and I held on to each other and waited, trembling, for whatever was going to happen next.
The soldier nearest us smelled sour. I wasn't sure if it was the smell of fear or the smell of someone who had been fighting a long time. He had bright brown eyes that peered out from beneath his hat, eyes that never left us. Looking into those eyes made me wonder if the Russian soldiers were as cruel as the Nazis.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, Mutter came back with the first soldier. He threw her roughly onto the bed, where she lay, pale and shaking. Elsbeth grabbed her mother's hand while the soldiers talked quietly in Russian. They looked us over one more time, then left as abruptly as they had arrived.
From upstairs we could hear several rounds of rifle fire, accompanied by the sounds of things being ripped and broken. There was one final crash so ferocious that it rattled the bed we were sitting on. It was followed by a thousand tiny echoes of glass shatter ing. There came one last rumble of heavy boots on the ceiling, and finally silence.
Elsbeth went
to her mother and gathered her in a hug.
"They are looking for Hans. They wanted all the papers from his office." Mutter spoke in shaky tones. "They took everything from his office. Everything. They tore up the house. They..." And she began to cry while Elsbeth rocked her gently, whispering soothing words to her.
***
"We need a gun." Elsbeth declared before I was fully awake the next morning. We were lying in the bed we had been sharing in the large room. Through the tiny cellar window I could see that the sun was just beginning to rise. The fire in the stove had not been lit yet, so the air held a bitter chill.
"What?" I sat up, shivering and rubbing my eyes.
"A gun. We need to protect ourselves." Elsbeth's voice was determined. "I need to get the gun that's hidden at the target range in the woods. There could be more soldiers, and I will not be taken prisoner."
"Elsbeth! You can't go there. It's not safe. You can't." I thought of the hardness I had seen in the eyes of the Russian soldiers.
"Well, I'm going. You can come or stay."
"Elsbeth," I reasoned, "at least check your vater's office first. There are guns there, remember? I'll go with you to check upstairs."
We got out of bed and bundled into our coats. I looked in on Mutter, who was still sleeping soundly in the small room. Silently we crept up the stairs and peeked into the kitchen. The air was cold, and a delicate layer of frost covered everything in the room. All was quiet and peaceful, the sun almost fully risen. After being in the darkened basement for so long, my eyes took a while to adjust to the light. I stood, blinking and squinting, until I could fully open both eyes without pain.
I had forgotten how reassuring sunlight can feel. As we walked through the kitchen, it streamed through the two shattered windows and touched my face as if to say "Good morning." For a moment, I looked through the cracked panes into the backyard. Everything outside looked the same. A few patches of snow were on the ground, and the trees rose up proudly from the woods at the edge of the yard. The large gardening shed was still there, and the servants' house stood as it always had, almost as if it was mocking the war by remaining the same.
Inside, however, the house was a mess. Elsbeth and I walked through the kitchen and into the main entry hall, where Mutter's beautiful hand-sewn curtains hung in ragged shreds. In other places bits of broken china lay scattered on the floor. Pictures had been ripped off the walls, and the frames had been broken into several pieces. The photographs of Hitler were riddled with bullet holes. The dark wooden banister that ran along the spiral staircase to the second floor was splintered and jagged.
The huge final crash we had heard had been the antique crystal chandelier in the formal dining room. It lay on the floor, a thousand tiny pieces of shattered glass surrounding it as if they had each tried to flee the center of a blast. In the library a kitchen knife stuck out from a small photograph of Hitler, directly between his eyes. Dozens of books had been pulled off the shelves, their pages ripped out and shredded. Their remains littered the floor, looking like dirty clumps of snow.
The door to Herr Werner's office stood at a strange angle. Elsbeth nudged it gently, and it fell off in her hands. She leaned it against the wall, and we stepped inside to find the room empty of nearly everything but furniture.
"It's all gone," Elsbeth said with a frightened look on her face. "Everything," she repeated in disbelief, walking over to an empty gun case in the corner and opening its unlocked door. Her eyes glistened with tears.
"Elsbeth," I said, touching her arm.
She wiped at her eyes with her coat sleeve. Then, straightening, she looked at me and said, "We have to get the gun hidden in the woods, Eva."
"Oh, Elsbeth, it's too dangerous," I argued, thinking of the sounds of the planes and guns coming from outside.
"We'll go this afternoon, when Mutter takes her nap." Elsbeth was determined. "It will be quick, Eva. We'll just get the gun and come back. We can't be left unprotected." Then softly she added, "Please?"
"All right," I said, and she took my hand and squeezed it.
Once Mutter was asleep that afternoon, we slipped on our coats. Elsbeth started up the stairs, but I held back, realizing that we would be going to a place near the camp. Instinctively, I felt for Grandmother's star pin. It was fastened, as always, to the inside of my skirt.
"Come on, Eva," Elsbeth said, stopping to look back. "Hurry."
I turned and followed her upstairs and out into the backyard.
Once again, my eyes shut momentarily from the brightness of the sun. The air held both the bite of winter and the promise of spring, and it felt glorious to be outside again. I stopped and took a deep breath, letting the fresh air fill my lungs. As my eyes adjusted, I opened them more and looked around, feeling a strange kind of freedom in being in a space so much larger than the confines of our small shelter.
I took another deep breath and noticed that the smell was still present. Again I thought of the camp and the women there.
Elsbeth trudged ahead confidently, seemingly unaware of the snow, the freedom, or the smell. She was focused only on finding the clearing and retrieving the gun.
At first I didn't even recognize the clearing. Only one tree still stood, its red bull's-eye glaring at us from the trunk. The other two trees lay in large jagged pieces, victims of either heavy snow or artillery fire. It was nearly impossible to tell where the boulder with the gun hidden under it was.
Frantically, Elsbeth began searching, randomly moving from one spot to the next. "It was here someplace. Perhaps over here," she said, trying to reach under the tangle of fallen trunks and branches. "Eva, help me!" she pleaded.
As I stood looking around the clearing, I realized the search was hopeless. "Elsbeth," I said gently, "the gun is someplace under the branches, and they're too heavy to lift. We can't get to it."
"No!" she said, throwing her whole body against a fallen branch.
"Elsbeth," I repeated.
She sank to her knees, her thick woolen stockings quickly becoming damp from the soft, thawing ground. Tears welled in her eyes. "You're right," she said quietly, shivering.
"Elsbeth. It's cold. You're wet. You're shivering. Start walking back and I'll look a little longer." I suddenly wanted Elsbeth gone. Now that we were so close to the camp, I was longing to go there, and I knew Elsbeth would never allow it if she was with me.
"No, Eva. I'll stay. I'm not that cold, and we need to find the gun."
"Elsbeth, Mutter may be awake. At least one of us should start back. I'll keep looking."
Elsbeth looked at me carefully. "All right. I suppose one of us should be there for Mutter."
I nodded, shooing her away with my hand. "Go. I'll be right behind you."
I watched her leave; then I turned and started walking quickly toward where I had once heard the Czech song, in the direction of the camp.
There had been no sounds of planes or gunfire so far, and this bolstered my confidence. I needed to see the camp again. Perhaps this time I could slip in through the barbed wire. Carefully, I picked my way through the snow and underbrush.
The loud snap of a twig made me stop. I froze. But then from behind a tree stepped Elsbeth, her face hard and cold.
"Elsbeth," I said, relieved. "You startled me. I—"
"I decided to come back. I was worried that you might get scared. But I can see you're not. And I know where you're going," she said, her voice flat, her words accusing. "I told you not to go to that place ever again." She was suddenly inches from my face. "I told you it's a bad place, filled with bad people."
"Elsbeth..." I wanted to explain. I wanted her to understand why I had to go.
"Are you Jewish?" Her question hit me like an invisible fist.
"What?" I could barely speak. "No. I'm not Jewish. What are you talking about?"
"I mean were you Jewish? Before you came here? I've heard of that, you know. Of Jews pretending to be true Germans. Is that what's wrong with you?" She spit the words at me like s
tones, sharp and painful.
Hatred burned in my stomach, its warmth spreading into my arms and legs. She was a Nazi. How could I have forgotten? She was a German who worshiped Hitler and hated all others. She was just like the soldiers who had taken me from my family. Just like Fräulein Krüger, who had sent Heidi and Elsa away. Just like Herr Werner, who was keeping my own people prisoner.
My mouth filled with a bitter, acrid taste. Without thinking, I punched Elsbeth hard in the stomach, then began hitting her over and over again with both fists. At first she tried to return my blows. But if there was one thing I had learned from having an older brother, it was how to fight.
Wanting to hurt her, I knocked her to the ground. I hit and pulled and scratched every part of her that I could, unleashing all my anger and frustration. She scrambled to get away, but I grabbed her foot, and suddenly we were both tumbling down a small embankment. When we reached the bottom, we finally lay separated, panting and staring up at the sky. Elsbeth was crying.
"Eva. I..." she began. Her voice was small and scared, and I was struck by how young she seemed at that moment. Her face was pale, and her eyes looked confused and frightened. She was older than I, but she was a child who knew nothing of the world.
I rolled over and stood up. Walking up the embankment, I grabbed my mittens and put them on. I was wet and cold, and I knew I would have bruises the next day, but at that moment I felt nothing, inside or out. The planes had returned overhead, and I knew it was foolish to try to go to the camp. Instead, I walked back toward the house, ignoring the quiet sobs coming from Elsbeth.
***
I didn't speak to Elsbeth the rest of that day, trying as best I could to avoid her in the small space of the shelter. I was filled with anger, sadness, and confusion about what had happened in the woods, and I wasn't sure what to do with any of these feelings.
Elsbeth, too, stayed away from me as best she could. A sadness that I had never seen before rested in her eyes. Mutter watched us both with concern but said nothing. She was aware that something was wrong but could have no idea what it might be.
