Night of November 9, 1938, Germany, everything changes.
I run to my window. There
are people everywhere. What are they doing? Wait…I recognize them. My
neighbors. They are carrying a flame in one hand and a brick in the other. My
teeth start to chatter. I see the dark images moving closer. I back away from
the window. Glass shatters at my feet.
“Papa!”
He opens his arms and I
run into his embrace. Someone is pounding on our door. The house starts to
shake. Books fall to the floor. The shutters knock against the stone exterior. He
pulls me closer. I lean into him, crying against his shoulder. He strokes my
curly blonde hair. I think he might have said something to me, but I can’t hear
him. Dogs are barking, people are shouting obscenities. “It is time to put you
people in your place.” I hear someone shout.
“Someone’s coming!” Papa says.
“Hide. Quickly. Under the bed.”
“Don’t leave me, Papa.”
“Shhh,” he says.
The door creaks open. An
officer enters, raises his arm out. “Heil Hitler.”
I try to remain quiet,
but my teeth are still chattering and now my body is trembling with irrevocable
fear.
“By the order of Joseph
Goebbels, you are under arrest.”
“Please, sir. I can’t go.”
The black-clad SS soldier
looks around. “Is someone else in here with you?”
My Papa’s silence is an
obvious answer.
Another soldier runs into
the room, blowing his whistle. I hear footsteps coming closer. I try to hold my
breath, but I can’t. I need air. In the darkness, a hand snakes out and coils
around my wrist. Tightening his grip, he yanks me to standing. “Foolish girl.”
Papa looks down at me
with eyes of defeat. “Go upstairs to Tante Victoria. She will look after you
while I’m gone.”
The soldier releases his
grip. Quickly, I run over to my papa, clutch his hand, and bury my wet face
into his brown wool overcoat.
“You should do as your told.”
The soldier’s voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard. He walks toward us,
his black boots marking up our floor and pushes Papa forward with the barrel of
his gun. I can smell the cigarette on his breath and notice a scar above his
left eyebrow.
“No, no,” I demand. “You
will not take him away from me.”
The soldier gives me an
assessing look and takes my arm. I can see merciless power searing from his
evil eyes. Drunk on it. I yank my arm back from his grip and become unsteady.
He smiles and pushes me across the floor, sending me into the wall. I can feel
warm blood in my hair, running down my face and into my mouth.
Papa bends down at my
feet. “Anneliese.”
“Don’t,” the soldier says
sharply.
Papa moves closer to me.
The soldier cocks his
gun. “Steh auf!”
Papa glares at the
soldier. He slowly stands and looks directly at the weapon. The soldier takes
aim. I can see the white in his eyes. Papa lurches for the soldier’s gun. Bang,
bang. Papa staggers sideways and turns to look at me one more time. Blood
drips from his shirt and his face turns pale. His knees buckle and he falls
face first onto the hard floor.
“Papa, wakeup, wakeup…”
“Hanns,” the other
soldier says. “Let’s go.”
The two men disappear. I
hold Papa’s cold limp hand, not wanting to let go, not ever. My eyelids are
heavy. I try to keep them open—but I can’t. My head, it’s throbbing, a pain
I’ve never felt before. The light from the oil lamp is flickering on and off or
is it me?
There’s an unfamiliar
aroma, chicory coffee and fresh bread. Wait…I blink my eyes open. Papa doesn’t
drink coffee. I sit up. The room is spinning, and my head is pounding. This is
not my bed. Where am I? How long have I been here? “Papa! Papa!” I grab my
stomach. “Oh, Papa…Come back to me.”
“You need to eat
something before we go.” Victoria wraps her scarf around her head and neck. She
reaches for the wholemeal bread. “Eat. No time to dawdle.”
“I’m not hungry.” I brush
the plate away from her hands and it falls to the floor and breaks.
Victoria frowns. “Tsk,
tsk…You want to starve, so be it.” She pulls a brown leather suitcase from
under the bed. “Hurry, dress. We must go.”
I follow her downstairs.
There are people in my apartment as we pass by, my neighbors. They are stealing
from us. Taking our good paintings. Leaving black shapes on the wall in their
place. Tante Victoria shoves the suitcase in front of me, blocking my eyes. I glance
up at her and see her stare at them with a sting of judgement.
The sky is bright red. As
we pass the Synagogue, I see flames engulfing the building. Nearby,
firefighters stand idly by, making sure flames don’t extend to other buildings.
School kids watch from across the street. Smiling and laughing. It looks like
they are at a circus. I am so confused. This destruction, it is bad not good.
I climb the steps of the
train, hearing the whistle blow, keeping my head down. Victoria rushes me to my
seat and nods for me to scoot near the window. I am grateful for the black whirling
smoke from the train that fills the morning air. It prevents me from seeing
out.
Victoria leans down and
whispers, “If anybody asks, you are my daughter now,” she says. “From this
point you’ll be Sophie Durand. You were born in Paris like your mum and me.”
She adjusts her scarf to cover most of her face. “It is good that you look like
me. Oui?”
I don’t respond.
“Your mum, she was
beautiful.” She clears her throat. “I miss her every day.”
Warm, salty, tears fall,
unchecked.
“No, no,” she says. “You
mustn’t fall apart.” She tilts my chin up. “Courage, it is in you. I know it
is.”
When we arrive in Paris, automobiles
rumble past us as we walk down the narrow cobblestone streets. Ivy pours down
the side of the limestone buildings and the balconies are embellished with colorful
mums.
In less than twenty
minutes, we arrive at a stone country villa, two-story with red shutters, that
has overgrown shrubs. Centered in the courtyard is a statue of a naked woman carrying
fruit on top of her head with weeds climbing up the sides. Around it rests damp
red and orange leaves. The place looks sad, almost as sad as I feel.
Victoria pauses before she
opens the sturdy red door. I notice her hand is shaking. She looks around the
orchard and then pushes the large door open with her foot. We stand in the
salon for a moment while she sets the luggage down on the floor. Then, she
starts ripping the white sheets off the furniture. “Anneliese—” She hesitates.
“I mean Sophie. It is dangerous for us to mention that name again.”
I nod.
“We’re home.” She flattens the front of her
dress. “It’s time to clean and get settled in.”
While dusting, I stare at
a picture of my mum that sits on the mantel above the fireplace. Her deep blue
eyes radiate with joy. I sense she is here. Papa never kept her pictures
visible for me to see. I do not know why. Maybe, her memory was too much for
him. Now, I have something to hold, to talk to.
Victoria comes up beside
me. “This picture,” she says. “I remember this day. Our parents took us to the
park to have a picnic.” She snickers. “Your mum. She thought she was
invincible. She walked the top of fence posts and rode her bicycle with no
hands.” She sighs. “Listen to me. In the coming days, life…it will get hard. I
need you to be brave like your mum. Can you do this for me?”
I glance at the picture
and then back at Victoria. “Yes.”
“Good,” she says. “Now,
come. Let me fix you some supper.”
On a cold day in early January 1941, I stare out the
window looking at the six inches of snow that blankets our yard. Last night, I
had a dream that my papa and mum were holding my hands. I woke up smiling. These
days, it is rare that I smile.
Wearing layers of clothes,
I walk downstairs and feel a wave of warmth splash over me, noticing the fire
that Victoria has made. Quietly, she sits on a divan in the living room,
reading. Darkness fills the room even with the light from the fire. Curtains
stay closed these days. She says only danger lurks outside.
Someone knocks on the
door.
“Don’t answer it,” she
says, with a jerk toward the door.
We both stare at one
another. Silence.
A few minutes later,
another knock at the door but this time it’s louder.
“Stand behind me.” The
door rattles. Another knock. Victoria reaches for the knob, but before she can
open it. The door swings open, knocking her to the floor. “Mon Dieu,”
she mutters.
A German soldier drops a
piece of paper to the floor and kicks it over to Victoria. “I have a
requisition order to billet here.”
“A Nazi living in my home?”
she questions. “I think not. You must leave.”
“I will do no such thing.”
He removes his military hat and stands as straight as a flagpole with blood
shot eyes.
Those eyes. They are
familiar and that scar. “No, no,” I say. “We must not argue with the soldier. Here.
Let me take your things to your room.”
“Finally,” he says. “A
girl who knows how to respect a man of my status.” He hands me his bags.
Victoria tilts her head
to one side.
This is an unusual twist
of fate. Does he know who I am? Of course, he doesn’t. I was not a human being
to him that day.
He chooses the biggest bedroom
in the house and looks around. “Yes,
this will do.”
I drop his bags with care
and turn to leave.
“Wait,” he demands.
I swallow hard and turn
around.
“I am Hanns Ewers. You
are?”
“Mademoiselle Sophie
Durand.”
He takes a cigarette out from
his shirt pocket, lights it. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“It is how I was raised,
perhaps?” I force myself to not look away.
His slimy blue eyes study
me behind a veil of white smoke.
“Is there anything I can
get you?”
He waves his fingers in
the air and lowers his head. “No.”
I step out of the room.
Once I’m out of site, I release my breath. Victoria comes around the corner and
drags me into the kitchen. “Are you mad?” she whispers. “He will kill us if he
finds out the truth.”
I wrap my hands around
hers. “You told me to have courage, right?”
She shakes her head.
“We’ll need more than courage,” she says. “We need a plan.”
I want to tell her this
is the man that killed my papa, but we have a plan to discuss and before I can
explain my actions…
“Ah, Madame and Mademoiselle,”
he says, his gaze narrowing as he approaches. “There you both are.”
“Oui,”
Victoria says, taking a deep breath.
“I will of course need to
see your identity papers,” he says. “It is only customary.”
“P-papers?” Victoria
says, her voice unsteady.
“Did you not hear me
correctly?” His voice thunders.
She starts to walk toward
the living room.
“Where are you going?”
“To get the papers as you
asked,” Victoria says.
“You tell me where they are,
and I’ll get them.”
“There’s no need. It’s
much easier for me to retrieve them for you.”
He stomps his foot,
leaving a muddy footprint on the floor. “You will not leave my sight.” He
points to me. “Girl, you go get the papers. Now!”
In the living room, I
stare for several seconds at the locked drawer in the desk. I know what’s in
there. Victoria showed me. The key is hidden underneath the chair.
Slowly, I draw the Pistol
from the drawer and hide it beneath the papers and walk into the kitchen. Paralyzed.
Face-to-face with a man I do not know but has declared himself my enemy. I
cannot move. Nor do I want to. It’s all lies. All of it. Our people are no
different than his people. Why doesn’t he understand this? Why must I lie about
who I am to protect their injustice? “My name is Anneliese Strauss, and you
killed my papa.”
“I know who you are,” he
says.
Bang, bang.
The room becomes out of
focus. My body is heavy, so heavy that I cannot stand anymore.
“Anneliese!” Victoria
cries, crumbles to the floor and sweeps me into her arms. She lifts my head as
warm blood drips from my stomach.
“Was I brave like my mum?”
“Oui,”
she says brokenly. “So brave.”
I feel her arms slip out
from beneath me.
Bang.
He staggers backwards and
collapses.
