A Flicker of Light (28 page)

“These women don’t know anything about it. I did it. I stored the food. And the radio is mine, too. I am the only one here who can speak any English at all.”

Klaus gave
Siegland
a warning look, and she slumped back down and sat upon the bed.

“You are coming with me, Klaus
Bruchmeier
. You are a traitor, an embarrassment to the Aryan race. We’ll go to headquarters and get this matter settled.”

“Wa
it! When will he come back?”
Sie
gland
asked.

But instead of answering, the officer pulled Klaus from the room, leaving Petra and
Siegland
staring at each other. A deep wail sprang from
Siegland’s
lips, and Petra went to her side.
Siegland
shivered. Her body felt cold to the touch.
Petra placed the blanket around her shoulders and hugged her tightly as she sobbed.

Stored away out of sight under the bed, the family kept a half-full bottle of whiskey. Petra poured a glass
,
and
Siegland
downed it in a single gulp. The harsh liquid burned her throat, but she asked for more. After several shots,
Siegland
lay down and turned to face the wall. Finally, after lying there for several hours in silence, she slept.

Gently, Petra carried Daisy’s body outside and buried her in the yard next to little Hans, under her favorite weeping willow tree.

Later that night,
Siegland
rose from her rest to find Petra at her bedside.

“Y
ou think he will come back?”
Sie
gland
, her eyes blood shot, asked Petra.

“Yes, of course he will, Mama.
” But Petra had her doubts.

Under orders of the officer who had arrested Klaus, the women were confined to their home. However, due to the hospitality Petra and
Siegland
had previously shown them, the German soldiers enforced the order with reluctance. Instead of persecuting the two women, the soldiers were
lenient toward them, even sympathetic. As she served them breakfast, Petra noticed an older soldier watching her intently. She handed him his plate.

“You are so pretty,
Frauline
. You remind me of my daughter.” He smiled as he took the food.

“Thank you,
” Petra said

“I know you are sad because the SS have taken your uncle. He will be alright. He is a good German. They will just question him and then take the food away. You will see. It is not such a big crime.” His smile filled her with warmth and comfort.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,
Frauline
.
Right now Germany has many more important things to concern itself with than a greedy old man. It appears,” the soldier’s voice dropped to a whisper, “that we are losing the war.”

Dachau Concentration Camp

W

ithout Saul, Aaron was lost in loneliness. He worked in the hospital by day and slept there by night. The patients recovered under his care. The doctor was amazed at how effective all of the drugs he’d been testing proved to be. He never suspected that Aaron only administered the effective ones. Had he counted the pills, he would have realized. But he had grown to trust his Jewish helper, so he did not bother. Instead, he became engrossed in his own personal experiment. He wanted to prove to the Reich that he and his wife could produce four natural children after the age of forty-eight. As each child was presented to him, Himmler raved about the doctor’s Aryan strength and virility. Dr
.
Rascher
was given commendations for his wonderful demonstration of Germanic superiority.

In March, Aaron received a new assignment. Outside, the earth had begun to thaw, and it was time to begin planting. The doctor allowed Aaron to help with conducting research in the lab offices of the
Plantage
, a farm created by SS
Reichsfuehrer
Heinrich Himmler. Its sole purpose
was the production of medicinal herbs and a synthetic fertilizer. Located adjacent to the concentration camp, German scientists supervised political prisoners while conducting their research. The Nazis allowed the captives to live, but only as long as they proved themselves useful. Aaron, the only Jew on the project, found that he was met with constant mistrust and suspicion.

Down the road, a lake ran along the perimeter of the farm. While adding hormones to enrich manure, Aaron overheard some of the prisoners.

“They take the Jews out to the lake when they get too old to work the land. Then they make them stand there in the cold water until they are dead.”

“I know, and those that remain alive they take back to camp and execute there.”

Aaron left the area; he could not bear to hear anymore. Day after day, he watched the others of his race toil as they tilled the earth. He knew the pain of being submerged in ice water. The thought of others, particularly the elderly,
suffering such torture made him
sick. But what sickened him even more was tha
t he had no power to help them;
all he could do was stand by and watch.

The Jewish prisoners were forced to work as fast as they could while they loaded the wagons with crushed rock. Many fell dead as they toiled with the heavy materials. Aaron could not block out the sound of the guards as they yelled at the shaking Jews, “
Shnell
!
Shnel
l
!
”
When an inmate collapsed, the guards would make one of the others toss his body aside so the workers would not have to step over it.

Aaron knew that soon the time would come when his scientific
background  would
no longer buy him time away from the hard labor. Once he finished the doctor’s project, he would be treated as any other Jew. He had never been a weak man
,
and prided himself on his integrity and strength of character. In his other life, before the Nazi regime, he would never have allowed such brutalization of the weak. Now, he found himself unable to fight an entire staff of SS guards. Even if he could convince the others to join him, they had no weapons. Soon Aaron lost heart. But more importantly, he felt as if he had lost himself.

The malaria patients began to die now that Aaron was no longer in charge of their care and medication, and the
typhoid epidemic grew to monumental proportions. New SS doctors came to assist in the horrifying experimentation. Aaron tried to make the patients comfortable, but with the new staff, Dr.
Rascher
no longer needed him, and he finally Aaron ushered back to the barracks and factory work.

At night Aaron returned to his bed with a pounding headache from the noise and dust from the machines at the factory. On a night in late March, Aaron had just fallen into an exhausted sleep, when he
felt a tug at his arm. He awoke
abruptly, frightened.

Berlin

T

he Nazi Headquarters in Munich were in a building at the end of a long, picturesque road. There, Klaus found himself surrounded by men in black uniforms. Their faces blazed with fury as they wielded the authority they had over the old man in his flannel pajamas. Two armed guards seized him on either side and forcefully led him to a room where he stood in front of a large cherry wood desk.

“
Oberstgruppenfuhrer
, this is Klaus
Bruchmeier
. He has committed treason against the Fuehrer and the Fatherland. I found a large supply of stolen food hidden away in his cellar.”

The
Oberstgruppenfuhrer
stood up to his full height of six feet, two inches. Despite his heavy frame, he looked imposing in h
is crisp, freshly starched
uniform. Behind his desk, he flew the red flag of the Third Reich, its swastika insignia hovering like a black widow spider in its center. To the right of the desk a large framed picture of Adolph Hitler hung proudly on the wall. He glared down at Klaus, “So,
you would choose to feed yourself rather than the soldiers who fight for the good of the Fatherland, old man?”

Klaus did not answer. Terror rendered him speechless.

“Answer me.”

“I am sorry,
”
Klaus’ voice was a hoarse whisper.

“Sorry?” T
he SS officer’s voice rose to a thunderous pitch, “Sorry, you say? That is treason. Treason, do you hear?” From the side of his belt the
Oberstgruppenfuhrer
released a thick metal pipe. Without warning he cracked Klaus across the shoulder.

The old man let out a howl of pain.

“Fool! Stupid, stupid
fool
!”

Klaus fell to the ground as urine seeped from his bladder.

“I am an old man. Take pity on me, please,” his voice cracked.

“Pity?
You pissed on my floor. You dirtied my office. You stole from the party, from your homeland.” Then, with a swift whack, he hit Klaus across the side of his head.

Klaus never uttered another word. He just crumbled to the floor. Blood poured from his temple, and feces dirtied his pajama pants.

“
Gruppenfuhrer
!” the o
fficer yelled. “Get this piece of trash out of my office, and have the cleaning woman come right away. This smell is atrocious.”

T
he
Gruppenfuhrer
dragged Klaus’
dead body out of the room and tossed him outside the building into the grass. Then he called for the maid to have the Senior Ranked Officer’s office cleaned.

“
Deutchland
Uber
Alle
s
!
” said the
Gruppenfurher
.

“
Heil
Hitler!” The
Oberstgruppenfuhrer
saluted.

“
Heil
Hitler!” The
Gruppenfurher
returned the salute.

Near Munich

T

wo weeks had passed and Klaus had not returned.
Siegland
could not sleep. She ate constantly, until she became ill and vomited. Petra grew concerned. As she brought the evening meal to the soldiers, Petra approached the older one who had once shown her a kindness by declaring that she reminded him of his daughter.

“Please, can you find out where they took my uncle?” Petra asked the soldier.

“I can try, but I do not recommend that you go to look for him. You know we have been told not to allow you or your aunt to leave the house.”

“But we must.”

Another soldier who sat eating quietly overheard them, even though they spoke in a whisper. He turned to Petra as he swallowed a large bite of buttered black bread.

“He has probably been taken to the headquarters in Berlin. That is where they take those who are considered traitors.” Biting off another piece of the bread, he wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand. “I would venture to say he has probably already been executed.”

The older man saw Petra’s sk
in turn pasty white and he said,
“I don’t think they would kill an old man. They will probably just decide he is silly and incompetent. Perhaps they are keeping him there for a while as punishment.”

Petra could not speak. She nodded her head and left the men alone to finish their food. When
Siegland
and Petra finally found themselves alone that night, Petra told her that perhaps they should make a trip to the Nazi Headquarters in Berlin to find Klaus.

“You don’t think the
y would take him to Munich?”
Sie
gland
asked.

“I don’t know. One of the soldiers said with certainty that he would have been taken to Berlin.”

“Then we must go to Berlin.”

Dachau Concentration Camp

“Q

uiet, don’t make a sound.” A junior ranking
Gruppenfuhrer
stood over Aaron. Aaron had seen him before, a young man of no more than twenty-five years with serious gray eyes that stared out of a troubled face.

“I need your help. My girlfriend is pregnant. Her parents must not find out. You must terminate it for me. And you must never divulge what you have done to anyone.” The young officer whispered in the darkness.

Aaron knew that terminating the pregnancy of a pure Germanic child was considered a serious offense, and for that reason this officer must maintain secrecy. He felt the power of a bargaining tool like a wizard’s wand in his hand, and he would use it.