My father walked with a stoop from constant bending during his shift at the brake factory. The gray stubble he shaved each morning attested to the personal trials he endured daily, among them his dislike for National Socialism and Hitler. Of course, he never spoke of such things; he only hinted of his politics to my mother and me. His unhappiness ate at him, ruined his appetite and caused him to smoke and drink too much despite such luxuries being hard to come by. He was nearing the end of the age for military service in the Wehrmacht, but a leg injury he suffered in his youth would have disqualified him anyway. From his conversations, I knew he held little admiration for the Nazis.
Lisa, my mother, was more sympathetic to the Party, although she and my father were not members. Like most Germans, she hated what had happened to the country during the First World War. She had told my father many times, “At least people have jobs and enough food to go around now.” My mother brought in extra money with her sewing, and because her fingers were nimble, she also did piecework for a jeweler. She taught me to sew as well. We were able to live comfortably, but we were not rich by any means. We never worried about food on the table until rationing began.
My mother and father did not make an obvious display of politics. No bunting, no Nazi flags, hung from our building. Frau Horst had put a swastika placard in her window, but it was small and hardly noticeable from the street. I had not become a member of the Party, a fact that caused my mother some consternation. She believed it might be good because the affiliation could help me find work. I hadn’t given the Party much thought after leaving the Band of German Maidens and the Reich Labor Service, both of which I lazed through. And, I wasn’t sure what being a Party member actually meant, so I felt no need to give them my allegiance. War churned around us. We fought for good on the road to victory. My naïveté masked my need to know.
I continued thumbing through the book until the train slowed.
The SS man at the station appeared behind my right shoulder. He held a pistol in his left hand. He strode to the couple in front of me and put the barrel to the temple of the young man who was smoking the cigarette. The woman looked backward, toward me, her eyes filled with terror. She seemed prepared to run, but there was nowhere to go, for suddenly armed station police appeared in the doorways at both ends of the car. The SS man took the pistol away from the man’s head and motioned for them to get up. The woman grabbed her dark coat and wrapped a black scarf around her neck. The officer escorted them to the back of the car. I dared not look at what was happening.
After a few moments, I peered through the window to my left. The train had stopped in the middle of a field. A mud-spattered black touring car, its chrome exhaust pipes spewing steady puffs of steam, sat on a dirt road next to the tracks. The SS man pushed the man and woman into the back of the car and then climbed in after them, his pistol drawn. The police got in the front with the driver. As soon as the doors closed, the car made a large circle in the field, cut a muddy swath through the grass and then headed back toward Berlin.
I closed my eyes and wondered what the couple had done to be yanked from the train. Were they Allied spies? Jews attempting to get out of Germany? My father had told us once—only once—at the dinner table about the trouble Jews were having in Berlin. My mother scoffed, calling them “baseless rumors.” He replied that one of his co-workers had seen Juden painted on several buildings in the Jewish section. The man felt uncomfortable even being there, an accident on his part. Swastikas were whitewashed on windows. Signs cautioned against trading with Jewish merchants.
I thought it best to keep my thoughts to myself and not to inflame a political discussion between my parents. I felt sad for the Jews, but no one I knew particularly liked them and the Reich always pointed blame in their direction. Like many at the time I turned a blind eye. What my father reported might have been a rumor. I trusted him, but I knew so little—only what we heard on the radio.
I looked for the black sedan, but the motorcar had vanished. I had no idea what the couple had done, but the image of the woman’s terror-filled eyes burned itself into my memory. My reading offered little comfort as my journey continued. The incident unsettled me. I wondered who might be next and when it all might end.
CHAPTER 2
The Berchtesgaden train station was smaller but grander than Berlin’s. The Nazi banners hung in strict vertical rows, offsetting the large columns inside, giving the building a formal Roman look. Off to one side, a gold door glittered. It appeared to be reserved for dignitaries. A black eagle perched on a swastika was rendered in bas-relief on its surface. Perhaps it was the entrance to a reception room for important people visiting the Führer; after all, this was the final stop for those invited to his mountain retreat.
I looked for my uncle Willy and aunt Reina and saw them standing near the entrance. We exchanged Nazi salutes. My uncle seemed happier to see me than my aunt. He was a pear-shaped man with a potbelly, who still retained the red hair and freckles of his youth. Some of the spots had blossomed into brown blotches that spread across his face. He held his police cap in his hand. My aunt’s smile seemed forced, as if I were the unwanted stepchild who had come home for a visit. She was elegant and cultured, compared to my more affable uncle. My father had told me that he found my aunt and uncle a strange match. I was young then and never questioned their attraction, but now as I stood before them their differences showed clearly.
After we swapped greetings, my uncle loaded my bag into their small gray Volkswagen. I took my place in the backseat. I could see little of the mountain scenery as my uncle drove, with the exception of dark peaks that shot up through the broken clouds into an ebony sky. I had only been to Berchtesgaden once, when I was a child.
My aunt and uncle lived in a three-story Bavarian-style chalet wedged between a small restaurant and a butcher shop on a crowded street not far from the town center. The Alpine influence was everywhere. Their home was tall, but not as wide as a chalet you would find perched on a mountainside. I got out of the car and breathed in the crisp mountain air. It was hard to believe I was in the same country as Berlin.
We took off our coats and left my luggage near the door. Uncle Willy was dressed in his local police uniform with the swastika on his left arm. Reina wore a cobalt blue dress with a fastened collar. A diamond brooch in the shape of a swastika was pinned above her heart. A large black-and-white portrait of the Führer hung over the fireplace, where his solemn, solid figure brooded over the dining room. My aunt had sewn a table runner covered with swastikas. Reina was Spanish and a supporter of Franco, and Italy’s Mussolini as well. Everything in their house was fastidious according to the Nazi ideal of Germanic perfection. Nothing was out of order. The furniture was polished to a brilliant shine and symmetrical in its placement. I felt as if I had stepped into a fairy tale, something out of the ordinary and surreal in its effect. It was like being at an art exhibition—beautiful, but not home.
The evening was cool, so my uncle stoked the fire. Aunt Reina served a beef stew and bread, and we enjoyed a glass of red wine. The stew was light on meat and vegetables, more broth than anything, but it tasted good. I was hungry from the trip. The meal was heartier than the vegetable dishes my mother cooked these days. Eggs and meat were scarce all over Germany, especially in the cities.