Remembering You (27 page)

Men in yellow vests directed traffic—buses to a field on the right, cars to the left.

Dennis parked.

As they climbed from the car, her grandfather walked more slowly than he usually did, as if the heaviness of the memories made it difficult to move.

Ava had seen photos of Mauthausen concentration camp on the Internet. They’d been in black and white, but in color it looked the same. The only difference was the bright blue sky in the background.

The parking lot ended at a large flight of stone steps that led up to the next level. They took the steps slowly, Grand-Paul leaning heavily on his cane. At the top were a road, a wall, and a series of gates. Each gate was big enough for a car to drive through.

The road looked as if it had been recently paved. The closer they got to the top of the hill, the more crowded it became with people.

“Look.” Ava pointed to an old man. He was short and stocky, and he wore a black-and-white striped cap and a black-and-white scarf.

“They wear those to show they were former prisoners.” Grandpa Jack pointed.

“But why would they do that? You’d think they’d want to forget,” Ava said.

“They’ve come back as an act of defiance,” Grand-Paul explained. “To come here—especially after all these years—proves Hitler didn’t win. Evil didn’t win. They survived against the odds. They live.”

“They also come to remember those they lost,” Grandpa Jack continued. “They have no cemeteries to take flowers to. Many of them don’t even know when their loved ones died, or under what circumstances. Yet, once a year they can come back and cry and mourn.” His voice quivered as he spoke.

Another large group of gray-haired men clustered in groups. They stood at the base of a large monument.
There are so many of them.
A shiver ran up her arms, and she wished she could approach each one and ask to hear his story. Then again, she was having a hard enough time dealing with the stories she’d already heard.

Grandpa Jack patted her arm. “I’m going inside with Paul. He and I want to introduce ourselves to Martha and the memorial committee. They’re saving us seats in front. You may have time to go take the tour before the memorial starts.”

Ava nodded. “I’m going to walk around and get some footage. We’ll see you inside.”

Dennis took her hand and they continued on. They walked to the edge of the hill and looked down the steps leading into a large quarry. Vines had grown over much of the rock wall, but a set of long, steep steps was still visible. Ava set up her camera and videotaped a wide, sweeping shot. Then she turned and did the same with the camp, recording the tall, concrete fortress. When she finished, she turned back to the quarry.

Ava shook her head, trying to picture the slave labor under control of Nazi guards. “I wonder what they thought about as they climbed.”

“I wonder if they believed they’d been put into a living hell,” Dennis added. “Hardly any food, the hard labor. They didn’t die as quickly as if they’d been put in the gas chamber, but they died all the same.”

She turned away as the images in her imagination overwhelmed her. And she knew that those images, no doubt, paled compared to the truth of what had happened there. She turned her attention back to the crowds and the monuments and began filming. One of the metal monuments displayed a circle of men with their hands lifted. It was as if they were reaching to the heavens, begging for an answer.

The crowds pressed in, and after Ava packed up her camera again, she felt Dennis’s hand on the small of her back.

“Ava, look.”

He pointed to a curb where an old man and woman sat. The man wore a brown vest, white shirt, and dark-blue pants. His hair was neatly combed, but his worn shoes proved he was no man of means. The woman wore a faded flower dress and blue scarf. She looked like a Polish peasant. Like a grandmother in one of Grimm’s fairy tales. The man pulled out a thermos and poured hot water into two small tin cups that the woman held.

She lifted the camera and recorded the couple making their tea. She swallowed hard, feeling both sad and proud. Sad they’d faced so much. Proud they lived to return.

* * * * *

Everything around Ava was a blur. She did her best to record all that was happening. She felt removed, looking through the small, square viewing screen.

They walked to the old barracks—the only ones left standing—and Ava thought about the stories of the skeletal men that both her grandpa and Grand-Paul had freed.

They walked through the gas chambers that looked like showers. Heaviness overwhelmed her, and it was as if death still hung in the air. Some of the white tiles were chipped, and she wondered if that was from prisoners trying to claw their way through the walls. Her stomach felt sick and her head hurt. She needed air.

“Dennis, I have to get out of here.” She handed him the camera and turned and walked out the shower room door. The stairs that led down to the showers were packed with people, so she walked through the door to the right of the showers, which she thought would lead her outside, but instead she walked into an oven room. The room looked like any dim basement. Two double ovens—black, long, large enough for a body to be slid inside—were opened before her. The stench of burning flesh was still strong, and she covered her nose with her hand.

“Oh, dear Jesus.” It was a prayer. A prayer of sadness for all those who had died this way. A prayer that she could make it back outside for fresh air. As she hurried forward, her mind replayed her grandfather’s stories, and tears filled her eyes.

“Those poor, poor people,” he’d said, and now she understood.

She stepped through the next set of doors. It was a museum. Her grandpa and Grand-Paul were there. They were looking at a huge photograph of the liberation—the half-tracks, the people. Ava hurried up to them, and as she did, she realized what they were looking at. It was
them. They
were in the photo. They were young and crowds of skeletal survivors celebrated the freedom the Americans’ arrival ensured.

She paused behind the two men, staring. Her heart pounded, celebrating. Celebrating the fact that they were able to come back and see this. See that they would not be forgotten. Grandpa Jack placed an arm around Grand-Paul’s shoulders, and a lump grew in Ava’s throat. Although the battlefield might never remember them, the people here would. The lives they saved had birthed new life, families that would live on.

“There you are.” Dennis approached. “Martha’s in a fluster that you’re not in your reserved seats. The program starts in thirty minutes, and she’s lining everyone up.”

“We aren’t going to have to give a speech or anything, right?” Grandpa Jack asked. “We just have to stand up there?”

“I don’t think you have to say anything. They’re just going to introduce you and the others to the crowd.” Ava smiled. “You can do that, can’t you?”

“Just as long as I don’t have to give a speech.” Grandpa Jack took Ava’s arm, and they followed Dennis. “That’s almost as bad as having a video camera in your face.” He laughed, but it was a nervous laugh.

They found their places among the others.

Grand-Paul and Grandpa Jack had just gotten seated when Ava saw someone approaching out of the corner of her eye. It was an older man, but he walked with quickened steps. Tears streamed down his face and he walked with arms extended.

“
Danke
.” The word emerged in a sigh as he stood before Grandpa Jack and took his hands. He rattled off something else in German that Ava couldn’t understand. Then the man lifted his sleeve and pointed to the burgundy number tattooed into his arm. “Danke!” he cried and then turned to Paul. “Danke.”

The survivor moved down the line, walking in front of the seated veterans, pointing to his prisoner tattoo and thanking the Americans one by one.

Tears streamed down Ava’s cheeks, and she quickly wiped them away. Her heart flipped through emotions—sadness at what those prisoners had gone through. Pride about her grandfather’s part. Joy over being able to bring her grandfather back here again. Grief at knowing that Grand-Paul wouldn’t be with them much longer.

Five minutes before the ceremony was to begin, the crowd took their seats. Looking behind her at row after row of people, Ava gasped when she saw someone she recognized across the crowd. It was Rick…the camera guy from Seattle. Next to him was Clark the co-host from the morning show.

“Oh my goodness.”

“What is it?” Dennis asked.

Ava opened her mouth to explain, but the ceremony started and the crowd quieted. She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Two guys are here from
my work
.”

Dennis’s brow furrowed, and then he followed her gaze. It was then, as Ava looked harder, that she saw that someone else was with them. A woman who looked to be in her sixties. Clark had his arm around the woman’s shoulders, and he pointed to the stage. The woman nodded and excitement filled her face.

It was the rapid beating of her heart that gave Ava the first hint of who the woman was. Why else would Clark and Rick have come so far?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Martha greeted the crowd first in German and then in English. Ava had less than a minute to wonder if the memorial committee knew about Angeline before Martha approached the podium to introduce the veterans who were there for the ceremony. Other parts of the ceremony would follow, but this would come first.

Fourteen veterans were in attendance. The first was called to the stage, and the roar of the crowd was comparable to the cheers at a playoff game. The first man approached the stage, and the crowd jumped to their feet. The next name was called, and the ovation rose in volume.

One by one, the veterans were called to the front. Each one had a family member accompany him. Each one was presented with a plaque and then led off the stage to the standing ovations of the tens of thousands of cheering men and women—Holocaust survivors, their family members, and others who’d come to celebrate liberation.

Paul’s name was called, and Ava squeezed Dennis’s hand. He rose and guided his grandfather to the stage. A lump grew in her throat. How frail and pale Grand-Paul was. They should have picked up on his illness sooner. They should have known.

More names were called, and Ava waited for Grandpa Jack’s name. Finally she heard it. He was the last one, and Ava guided him up. But just as he accepted his plaque, she noticed movement toward the stage. Her mouth dropped open as Clark approached. Martha’s face beamed as she stepped back and offered Clark the microphone.

“Mr. Andrews. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt, but there’s something else we’d like to present to you, sir. Or rather, someone else.”

The cheering of the crowd started off strong, as with the others, but when they saw someone different onstage, they quieted. Ava looked to Clark, wishing he’d tell her exactly what was going on. Martha translated Clark’s words.

Clark had a handheld microphone, and Ava turned to see her grandfather’s reaction. His hand tightened on her arm. Ava wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Mr. Andrews.” Clark turned so that Rick could get him on film, and he flashed his million-dollar smile. “
Mornings with Clark and Laurie
recently heard from your granddaughter—our very own producer, Ava Ellington—that you did a very heroic thing during the war. Do you want to tell us about it?”

Martha translated and then Clark pushed the microphone in front of her grandfather’s mouth.

His eyes widened, and he scanned the crowd. Then he looked at Ava. “Ava, I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Ava stepped forward and took the microphone from Clark’s hand. Her fingers tightened around it, and her chest seemed to double in size. Grandpa Jack would soon find the answer to the question that had haunted him for so long.

“As his granddaughter, and the one who joined in this search, I can answer that, Clark. My grandfather helped a little girl in nineteen forty-five. Her name is Angeline, and he’s wondered about her ever since. We don’t know if she’s alive or…” She let her voice trail off.

Clark nodded and grinned, and then he leaned forward and spoke into the microphone, still in her hand. “If you think you’re speechless now, sir, I don’t know how you’ll feel after this. We have that girl you saved with us. Of course, she’s not a little girl anymore. She’s a mother, grandmother, and nurse living in California. And, Mr. Andrews, just as you thought of her, she also thought of you. She always wondered about the American GI who saved her. Angeline, would you please come up here?”

Tears filled Ava’s eyes as she noted the awe on her grandfather’s face. Gasps filled the crowd, followed by cheers. The cheers grew louder as a middle-aged woman climbed the steps to the stage, opening her arms to Grandpa Jack.

“Thank you, thank you. I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

Her grandfather looked at Ava and then at the woman. His eyes narrowed and he studied her face as if trying to see the resemblance. “You—you’re Angeline?”

The woman nodded. “I am.”

Her grandfather lifted his hand and touched her shoulder, as if checking to see if she was real. Only then did he step into Angeline’s embrace.

His hands trembled, and Ava wrapped her arms around him, making sure he would stay up. She swallowed down the emotion, and as her mind cleared, she realized that the audience was on their feet, cheering.

Clark continued talking about how the show tracked Angeline down, but Ava wasn’t interested in that. All she could focus on was the look on her grandfather’s face. The woman wasn’t what Ava had expected. She was American, and only the slightest accent could be heard in her words. She was thin, with blond hair streaked with gray and swept into a bun at the base of her neck.

“It’s really you?” he said. “My little girl.”

He swayed slightly, and she held on to him. Clark again attempted to put the microphone in her grandfather’s face, but Ava pushed it away.

“He needs to sit down,” she urged. “This is too much.”

“Come with me. I’ll take you to a quiet place so you can reconnect,” Martha said, leading them off the stage. The cheers rose in volume, and Ava could feel their vibration, as much as she could hear them. Ava followed Martha, and as she passed the first row, she wondered if she could ask if Dennis and Grand-Paul could come too. But as she looked down the row to meet Dennis’s gaze, anger flashed from his eyes.