Page 62 of Hell to Pay
The most gratifying part, though? We got those captured troops of ours to clean up the town hall, and last night the whole unit held a Seder, us Jewish guys doing the best we could from memory. We didn’t have any of the right foods, of course, but I figure the idea’s the main thing. Giving thanks for deliverance from oppression—that one resonated well enough. A freckle-faced kid named Tommy’s the youngest of us—he says he turned 18 right before he joined up, but I’m pretty sure he lied to get in—so he had to ask the Four Questions and wasn’t happy about it. Think of that, though—a Seder on the German side of the Siegfried Line! I hope Hitler’s having conniptions.
“Next year in Jerusalem”—that’s got to resonate for a lot of Jews right now, too. Is there anywhere in the world Jews can feel safe after this war? I’d say “in the U.S.,” and probably in England, too, but is that really true? Why are you a member of the Concordia Club instead of belonging to a country club closer to home? I just figured that one out. It’s because they don’t admit Jews, isn’t it?
I’d love to be all the way proud of the U.S., and it still seems better to me than anyplace else I’ve heard about, but seeing what’s happened here has kind of woken me up to the things that aren’t perfect about us yet. The Negro troops are separated out into their own units, for example, unlike all the rest of us. Look, this unit is full of hill boys from Kentucky, farm boys from Nebraska and Georgia, the Italians and Irish and Puerto Ricans from New York, Chinese and Jews, all mixed up together—yet the Negro guys we’ve seen have mostly been machinists and drivers and cooks, except for the ones in the 761st, the Black Panthers tank battalion. Those guys have done a bang-up job, so why are they separate? Doesn’t make sense.
Back to the Germans, though. One difference we see is between the cities and the country. In the cities, people are hostile. They don’t see us as liberators but as conquerors, and do they ever hate us for it. To be fair, just about every building is damaged or destroyed by bombs—you’ve never seen anything like it, in city after city—and they’re having a hard time getting by, but whose fault is that? Just in case, we’ve been given strict nonfraternization orders. We don’t want to give them any excuse. Seems Goebbels has been telling them that Americans are gangsters who are going to kill and loot and rape our way across the country. All we can do, I guess, is not do those things, and figure they’ll catch on eventually. It does make you wary of a knife in the back, though!
Things couldn’t be more different in the villages. There, the kids run up to us and ask for chocolate, and I’m afraid the nonfraternization orders go by the wayside a little. Folks in the country are just glad the whole thing’s over.
29
LESS THAN PERFECT
My tea had gone cold while I read, and I realized, when I got up to make myself another cup, that there were tears on my cheeks. They weren’t for me. They were for Joe. For his courage and his sweetness, his intelligence and his thoughtfulness, even at nineteen. What a man he’d been! And how lucky I’d been to find him!
I have so many nouns for Joe, so many adjectives. What I don’t have is Joe. And I miss him like a piece of myself has been torn away.
I let myself have a good old-fashioned cry—who was here to see me, and what rules did I have to follow anymore? I’d be strong and brisk and practical again tomorrow, but if I was here to remember, it was time to remember.
I started with my next diary entry. Oh, how long those final weeks of the war were! How endless, and at times how hopeless! People tell me, these days, that I’m strong, that I’m optimistic. I want to say, “That’s because I have no real problems anymore. I’ve already been through the worst things.” But I don’t, of course. People don’t enjoy having their problems measured and found wanting, and there’s no SufferingOlympics. Nobody’s going to win any gold medals, so we all just do the best we can, and comfort those who need it along the way.
1 April 1945
I haven’t written yet about what happened later that day. We didn’t meet Frau Langbein’s sister-in-law, Elsa Biersack, and her daughter Karin until the next day, at dinner. They’d gone to Bayreuth for market day and had stayed overnight with friends there. It seems they’ve been helping Herr Langbein with the cows, as there’s nobody else to do it—there are no young men on the land anymore. When I heard that, I offered to help myself, but Herr Langbein—one of those jolly kinds of fellows—looked shocked and said, “Certainly not, Princess.” (Obviously, I’ve been completely unsuccessful at staying anonymous). Frau Biersack looked sour at that, but her daughter Karin, a sweet girl a year older than me, said, “I don’t mind the cows. They smell so good when you milk them, and I like going to market and seeing people.”
“They smell the last thing from good,” Frau Biersack said. “And a person could catch their death hosing them down in that barn on these cold days.” As she was putting away a quantity of Sauerbraten at the time—how long it seems since I’ve tasted Sauerbratenand red cabbage! The rich meat sat poorly in my stomach that night; I must restrain myself in future. Anyway, an odd thing to say as she was enjoying the kind of meal almost nobody could get anymore. I wanted to tell her that there are worse places to be than a cow barn, but I held back. The last thing I want to do is to cause friction in the house.
I attempted a diversion by saying to Frau Biersack, “Your husband is serving, I understand.”
“Isn’t everybody serving now?” she asked. “Yes, Fritz is in the SS, with Katya’s husband. They’re stationed in the same place. It’s called Auschwitz, in Poland.”
Beside me, Dr. Becker went rigid. I wasn’t sure why. I said, “They stay in the same place all the time?” I was confused. The Army seemed constantly on the move. Wasn’t that what war was all about?
“It’s a prison camp,” Frau Biersack said. “For Jews and other undesirables, so they can be properly dealt with. The senior officers have their families living there, but the others? Their families can lump it. That’s always the way, though. If you’re not an aristocrat, here’s a kick for you.”
I was still trying to work out an answer to that—was it meant for me, or a general complaint?—when Frau Biersack said, “And why aren’t you serving, if I may ask, Herr Becker?” Her tone was sharp.
“I’m afraid I have a bad heart,” he said. I glanced at him. His face was even paler than usual. He’d been thin before but was nearly gaunt now, giving too much of his food to the children.
“He’s a doctor.” That was Andrea, who knew better, and Dr. Becker and I both stared at her. She was looking mutinous.
“Adoctor?”Frau Biersack again. “A doctor of what?”
“A professor,” Dr. Becker said. “At the University in Dresden, before I had to give it up for my heart.” Which was true—he’d taught at the medical school, and from what little he’d said, I suspected that leaving his work had broken his heart.
“So we have a princessanda Herr Doktor here,” Herr Langbein said. “How fortunate we are!” That reminded me of the way it usedto be, when knowledge had been venerated and professors among the most esteemed of men. For that matter, when Dr. Becker himself had been among the most esteemed of men. If I felt out of place now, how far had he fallen?
“A professor of what?” Frau Biersack demanded, as if Herr Langbein hadn’t spoken.
“Physiology,” Dr. Becker said calmly. “Necessitating, I’m afraid, a good deal of, ah, dissection.” He sliced a piece of meat with his knife, and Elsa stared at it as if it were a human heart. Dr. Becker ate the bite he’d sliced, then said, “Dissection is quite strenuous, you know. Saws and so forth.”
“Oh, my,” Frau Langbein said. “But if one of us should break a bone …?”
“Heaven forbid,” Dr. Becker said. “In such a case, of course, I would do my modest best.”
“And you left your palace?” Frau Biersack asked me, possibly because her attempt to bully Dr. Becker had failed. “Why?”
“If I had a palace,” Karin put in, “I’d never leave it. I’d sew dresses of silk and satin—purple dresses, and red, and pink, too—and wear my jewels to do the washing.” I was beginning to suspect that Karin was rather simple.
