'It's Karl's birthday, so I brought him to choose something for himself.'
'Happy birthday, Karl.'
Karl gurgled, and stuck the Walt Disney version of The Three Little Pigs under his arm.
They had a birthday party in the afternoon. Helga made coffee, and milky cocoa for Karl. She lit the ten candles round the birthday cake, and Karl enthusiastically blew them out. Again!' he demanded. Helga humoured him and lit them again.
And now for some shooting.' Reinhard Lohmann had bought his son a simple airgun. They took it down to the cellar. After a little instruction Karl, shrieking with delight, handled the gun with unexpected skill. He had been making a certain amount of progress since he started at a special school. The lead projectiles were shaped like tiny hourglasses and struck the tin target with a dry click. Lohmann took the airgun and immediately hit the bull'seye, but Karl scored an eight. There was more of a bond between father and son than ever before.
'Come on up, you two!' Helga was waiting impatiently. 'Now for Mama's present.' She took Karl into the bedroom, and ten minutes later they reappeared, Karl in black shorts and a brown shirt, with a belt, shoulder straps and a cravat. It was a uniform copied from the Boy Scouts, and was worn by the Hitler Youth boys aged ten to fourteen, who were known officially as the Jungvolk and affectionately as Pimpfs, 'little squirts'. Karl looked grotesque.
At first Lohmann was speechless. Then he managed to utter a strangulated, 'Out of the question.'
'What's out of the question?' asked Helga defiantly. 'They all join the Jungvolk at ten. I want our son to join in and be a Pimpf like everyone else.'
'Join in!' Karl said eagerly. grimacing because he couldn't control his facial muscles. 'Pimpf,' he added.
'Think of his condition,' said Lohmann, trying again.
'He's strong and healthy. Come on, Karl, let's blow those candles out again. And on Monday we'll go and register you with the Jungvolk.'
Lohmann disappeared into his office without another word. When Helga went to ring her sister, she heard his voice on the phone: '. got up as a Pimpf, would you believe it? That little monster will make us a laughing stock.'
'No, no, of course that won't do,' Gunther Olbrich agreed. 'We'll find some solution, don't you worry.'
She quietly put the phone down. He will be a Pimpf, she thought.
On Saturday Helga Lohmann visited her sister, who was pregnant and in her ninth month. She stayed overnight and went home on Sunday afternoon. Reinhard was waiting for her. He had Gunther Olbrich with him.
'Dr Olbrich, how nice! I'll make coffee. Would you like a piece of birthday cake? Where's Karl?'
'That's what we want to talk to you about.' Olbrich cleared his throat. 'You see, your husband has volunteered for an officers' training course. After completing it he'll be commissioned and go to the Front as a lieutenant, so he decided that Karl would be better off in a home than here with only one parent.'
'Lieutenant Lohmann — that sounds fabulous!' Helga said happily. 'You'll look really dashing in an officer's uniform! And you don't have to worry about me and our boy.' Then the full meaning of Olbrich's words dawned on her. 'You surely haven't… I mean, Karl isn't…?'
'He's been in the home since yesterday. Believe me, it's for the best,' murmured Lohmann.
'What kind of home? I'm going to fetch him back at once.'
'I'm afraid that's not possible without his father's permission,' Olbrich said. And in view of the medical records, his father has made a sensible decision.'
'He's not Karl's father!' she screamed. 'He's a useless failure living on my money. Show your friend the account books, Reinhard, show him how little you earn. Decision? What kind of decision? Since when did you make the decisions?'
Lohmann rose to his feet. 'We must go now. Gunther's driving me to Di beritz. After the course I'll be home on short leave. We can talk it over then.' He picked up his suitcase. He had planned it all down to the last detail, and now he was running away to avoid an argument.
'You coward!' she shouted after him. 'Where's my son?' Her cries echoed through the stairway of the building until her voice grew fainter, and at last all she could do was weep inconsolably.
The Salomons were taken away on Monday, in an open flatbed truck with some twenty other people crowded together inside it. Herr Salomon had his arms protectively around his wife and child. He wore the iron Cross First Class on his jacket, and his face was set like stone. Frau Salomon had her eyes lowered, as if she felt ashamed. Little Ruth waved. Helga waved back, indifferent. Only a few days ago she would have protested vehemently against such injustice, she would have said she'd write to the Fiihrer about it. Now all her thoughts were for her son who had been taken away from her.
She sat down and dialled the next number in the phone book. An impersonal female voice answered, listened briefly, and then said what Helga had already heard a dozen times that morning: they had no ten-year-old called Karl Lohmann in that establishment.
'This isn't getting us anywhere,' she murmured, and looked up the District Court. The District Court passed her on to the Family Court, where they listened to her patiently and put her through to the judge who dealt with such cases. He said, in reserved tones, 'When the father of the child has consulted a senior Party authority, and that authority has approved his decision, then under our new guidelines, that decision replaces all other legal factors affecting the child's commitment and admission to an institution.'
'You mean that as his mother I don't have any say?'
'You'd better talk to your husband, Frau Lohmann. Try to persuade him to change his mind. Bear in mind, above all, that he can tell you where your son is. Then at least you can visit.'
That was it! She'd speak to Reinhard. He would cave in at once without Olbrich's support. An hour later she was on the S-Bahn train to Doberitz, where she made her way to the officers' training course.
'Lady called Helga Lohmann,' the guard on duty at the camp gates announced by phone. 'Wants to see Reinhard Lohmann, an officer cadet on the training course.'
Soldiers dressed in heavy cotton drill were doing pointless exercises among the huts, with an NCO shouting at them. Was Reinhard there? She couldn't make out the faces. A young officer hurried up to her. 'I'm Lieutenant Hartlieb. Please come this way. Colonel Marquardt is in his office.'
The colonel was a grey-haired man in his fifties. 'We didn't expect you quite so soon, Frau Lohmann.'
'You were expecting me?' Helga was puzzled.
'Didn't our messenger reach you?' It was the colonel's turn to seem baffled. 'Well, never mind. My deepest sympathy, dear lady. A dreadful accident, and on the very first day of the course.'
An exploding gun barrel had shot away half of Officer Cadet Reinhard Lohmann's head during target practice.
'They sent us rifles captured from the Poles for training purposes. Poor quality arms. Your husband would have made a good officer. Of course we'll give him a military funeral. Again, let me express my condolences. If there's anything else I can do for you…?'
Helga shook her head in silence. Relieved, the colonel escorted her out.
On the way home she sat alone at the very back of the S-Bahn train. She imagined Reinhard's face before her, young and laughing, the way he was when she first met him. But the grief would not come. Her only thought was, now he can't tell me where Karl is.
One person could tell her, though. Helga Lohmann hoped to see him at Reinhard's funeral, but Reinhard's old school friend preferred to send a large wreath and a note of condolence on hand-made, deckle-edged paper. He had Party business in Munich, he explained in an accompanying note. On the day of his return she went straight to see him.