The Last Jews in Berlin (33 page)

After he had learned of the Gestapo's visit, nothing had been further from Beppo's mind than to invite the Riedes to move back in. But he was furious now with the actions of their hostess, who did everything she could to remind the Riedes how dependent they were on her for their survival. For her part, Kadi could not stand seeing Hella degraded in such fashion. And both of them were bothered by Hella's tears—Hella, who always before had held back her emotions. The result was that they did begin to think seriously about the Riedes returning to Wittenau—as preposterous and dangerous as that might be.

For the next few weeks the Wirkuses inspected every possible place from which a Gestapo agent might be watching their house. By the end of that time they were almost positive that they weren't being observed. But there was another problem. Robert Jerneitzig, their landlord, who had recently been called into the army, had written to tell them that he wanted the Riedes out of the house. His letter was unequivocal. “It's time,” he wrote. “It's getting too dangerous.”

Jerneitzig's letter swept away the last remnant of Beppo's and Kadi's indecision. “We have said
A
, and now we must say
B,”
Beppo responded. “It was you who brought them to us, and now it is you who want to send them away. Where is the logic in that?”

Beppo waited ten days for a reply. When he received none he decided that Jerneitzig's silence was indication of his acquiescence. As soon as he could, he got in touch with the Riedes and told them to come back. Beppo made them promise, however, as a condition of their tenancy, that they would not leave the house during the day. Since the entrance to the bathroom was outside the house, they were to use a pail to relieve themselves. Kadi would empty the pail after each use.

But the major new safeguard was a hiding place to be used if and when the Gestapo reappeared. It was in the attic, behind a false wall that separated the storage area from a much larger empty space. From the storage area the wall looked sturdy enough, but it could easily be moved aside and then replaced from the other side once the Riedes were behind it.

Beppo had calculated that it would take between seven and ten minutes for either him or Kadi to leave the house, walk down the path to the gate, open it, talk to whoever was there and go back up the path to the house, where, presumably, the ground floor would be searched first. During that time Kurt and Hella would have to gather up all their belongings, go through a blind door to the attic, remove the wall, get themselves and their belongings on the other side and replace the wall. For the first few days after their arrival he insisted that the Riedes practice the evacuation drill until they could accomplish it silently in well under seven minutes. At unannounced times Beppo even went out to the gate and rang the bell and then timed the Riedes. Within a few days the Riedes were able to vanish in less than five minutes.

The two couples would have liked to regain their old esprit, and they tried hard to do so. But a new knowledge hung over them like a massive weight suspended from a thread. Someone out there knew the truth. He had decided to spare them, in all probability, because of a physical response to Hella—a whim as weak as a thread.

IV

DELIVERANCE

35

B
Y SUMMER
'
S END
it was evident that the war was effectively over. The Russian summer offensives had carried the Red Army all the way to the border of East Prussia. Rumania fell to the Russians, which meant the loss of Germany's only source of natural oil. Paris, four years in enemy hands, was liberated on August 25. What was left of the German armies in France was streaking back to German soil. British and Canadian troops led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery liberated Belgium and took Antwerp intact, giving the Allies a fabulous port through which to pour invasion supplies. Five hundred thousand German soldiers, half of them prisoners, were lost to the defense of the Reich. Their equipment was lost as well. Only a maniac would believe that Germany could still win the war. But just such a maniac still ruled the Reich.

Hans and Marushka knew everything, thanks in part to the BBC, but also to their friends. They had learned of the July 20 attempt on Hitler's life within hours after it occurred, and of the prompt execution of the plotters. The attempt, coupled with the defeats, had an unmistakable portent. As the air grew crisp and the city's forests blazed their farewell to the summer season, the lovers could not help but believe that the hostilities must soon end.

The more the city suffered, the more optimistic they became. Inevitably the surge of spirit translated into a desire on Hans's part to get permanently out of his jail. To his astonishment and delight, Marushka agreed. The source of her confidence regarding Hans had nothing to do with the news, however; it had to do with a new piece of identity obtained for Hans through a friend of Werner Keller's. The paper identified Hans as an investigator for the authority in charge of the defense of Berlin. Everyone—the army, the bureaucracy, even the Nazi party—was to assist him in whatever manner he requested.

“Do you think there's any danger?” Hans asked when he first read the paper.

“Not the slightest,” Marushka said. “Just be tough. Order people about.”

Hans could hardly wait to try out the paper. The chance came even sooner than he had expected. The first chilly weather set Marushka to thinking of a fur coat she had stashed at the home of a friend in the country. There was no way she could absent herself from her duties long enough to get it. “What do you think?” she asked Hans one evening. “Are you game?”

On the train the following afternoon Hans did not even bother to look up from his copy of the
Völkischer Beobachter
as he handed the controller his paper. The controller read the paper, bowed, clicked his heels and walked on. At the station where he stopped to change trains Hans presented the paper in the restaurant and was immediately served a meal. When he reached his destination he was furnished a car and driver for the ride to the house of Marushka's friend. Back in Berlin, he was once again offered a car to drive him home. No, he said, he wanted to stretch his legs. He took a long, circuitous route until he was certain that he wasn't being followed. Only then did he return triumphantly to the flat.

The flat at this point had a theatrical look about it, almost as though it had been designed as a setting for a stage play about life in wartime Berlin, and specifically about life in an apartment that looked as though it had been hit by a bomb—which, of course, was almost exactly what had happened. The beam that had been installed to prop up the ceiling the previous fall, when a bomb destroyed all of the building with the exception of Marushka's apartment and the one above it, was still in place. Since then a thin sheet of plywood had been slipped in between the top of the pole and the ceiling in order to keep loose bits of material from falling to the floor. Nonetheless little bits of plaster were scattered about each morning, shaken loose by the nightly reverberations of the bombs.

After the direct hit on their building, the building's porter, who had lived in the flat above, had declared it uninhabitable and had found quarters elsewhere. The flat had been taken over by a Polish family that until then had been literally without a roof to sleep under. Having any kind of home in those days was all that mattered, as the incessant bombings destroyed more and more of the city's buildings. Marushka's flat sheltered a continuous stream of itinerants—as well as two new, totally unexpected residents, whose arrival changed Hans's and Marushka's lives.

One day, a nurse who had once looked after the babies of one of Marushka's sisters came calling on Marushka with a special purpose in mind. She was trying to find a home for two Russian girls who had been part of a contingent of children brought from Russia in the aftermath of the German invasion and placed in a children's camp. Now the camp was being broken up because it was no longer possible to maintain it, and the children were being placed with good Nazi families who would be willing to shelter and feed them in exchange for their services. Most of the children had been placed, the nurse reported, but two of them were proving to be a problem. They were sisters, one thirteen, the other seven, and they refused to be separated. The thirteen-year-old could work, but her seven-year-old sister was just another mouth to feed. No one would take them, the nurse told Marushka. Would she?

“I'll have to think about it,” Marushka said.

As soon as the nurse left, Hans emerged from the bedroom, where he had been hiding. “For God's sake, let's take them,” he said. “They'll be gassed if no one wants them.”

It was not so simple. There were forms to be filled out and an approval from the Gestapo to be obtained. Four weeks later the approval came through. Marushka went to a building near the Alexanderplatz that appeared to overflow with children. It was there that she first laid eyes on Tamara and Lucie Geroschewicz.

She had never encountered more suspicious children. Where were they being taken, they demanded to know. They did not wish to lose touch with their friends. And would they remain together? If they were not to remain together now, they simply refused to go. Tamara, small for her age but surprisingly ample, and obviously bright and lively, spoke a little German. She translated for Lucie, the seven-year-old, who looked like a Tatar. It took a little convincing, but after collecting their papers, Marushka finally persuaded the girls to accompany her to the flat.

The smile on Hans's face when the girls walked in the door was almost beatific. “I've made you a pudding,” he announced. He had made it of flour and flavored it with orange and saccharin, much too much saccharin as it turned out, but the girls wolfed it down, and when no more could be obtained with a spoon, ran their fingers around the bowls.

“I think I'll heat some water,” Marushka said as the girls romped with the dogs. When the water was hot, she and Hans led the girls to the bath, stripped them and put them in the tub. Marushka washed Tamara, and Hans took care of Lucie. The girls hadn't been washed since they had been in the camp. Their brown, curly hair was filled with lice, and their bodies were covered with scabietic bites. “I've never seen anything so dirty,” Hans said as he set about scrubbing Lucie. He had to shout to make himself heard over Lucie's screams.

When they were dried, Tamara asked to hear the Russian radio broadcast. “My father is an important member of the party,” she boasted. “He is also a general at the front.” Hans and Marushka could only wonder if it was true.

The next morning Marushka took both children to her hairdresser, the one who had taught her to cut men's hair. The hairdresser put waves in the children's hair with heat, which killed all the remaining lice.

“What can I pay you?” Marushka said.

“Nothing,” the hairdresser replied.

By the time they returned, Hans had another meal prepared. After years of dependence he seemed suddenly filled with purpose. He could not stop smiling, even when he was alone. He already had all sorts of plans in his head about how he would school the children.

But the next morning he lost one of his pupils. At the sight of Marushka leaving, Lucie cried so hard that Marushka finally agreed to take her with her to the animal shelter. It proved to be a providential decision; not only was Lucie mesmerized by the environment but Marushka was able to use her presence to wheedle spare clothing from her clients for her new wards.

Hans and Tamara remained at home. After they had finished cleaning the house, he sat her down for what she confessed was her first lesson in three years. First they worked on German, and then on history. She seemed willing enough, even eager to learn, and yet at the same time distant. Hans didn't know why, but he decided not to press her. He soon had his explanation.

The next morning Marushka gave Tamara instructions to buy bread at the baker's, and gave her money and ration cards. Tamara checked the ration cards. There was one for Marushka, one for Lucie and a third for herself. “Where's his?” she asked, looking at Hans.

“He's got no card,” Marushka said softly. In the silence that followed they could hear the pigeons on the ledge outside revving up their wings.

“Is he illegal?” Tamara asked.

Standing there, not knowing what do do, Hans could only wonder where she had picked up the term.

“Yes,” Marushka answered.

Tamara was studying Hans now, her eyes narrowed until she too resembled a Tatar. “Political? Or Jewish?” she asked.

At that Hans knelt and took her in his arms. “I'm a Jew, Tamara, just as well hated by the Nazis as you are as a Russian. We have to stick together.”

Tamara inspected him carefully. At last she said, “Then you've got nothing to do with Nazis?”

“Nothing,” Hans assured her.

There was another moment's hesitation, as if Tamara needed time to digest the knowledge that she had gotten into a house that was against the Nazis. Then suddenly she threw her arms around Hans, and Lucie, not really understanding but knowing it was something good, threw her arms around her sister.

Marushka had watched it all in silence. Now, tears in her eyes, she said, “Tamara, you must never, never say that there's a man in the house. You must teach that to your sister. Because if he's taken, then I'm taken, and if I'm taken, that means death for you.”

36

E
RIK
P
ERWE,
the pastor of the Swedish church in Berlin, smoked cigars when they were available and a pipe when they weren't. Invariably the mouth end of a cigar would look chomped within minutes after he had begun smoking it, and the bits of his pipes had been chewed with such force that they gradually became unserviceable. It was the only noticeable way in which Perwe expressed the tension within him, which by November of 1944 had built to a level that would have been insupportable to a person who had not conditioned himself to contain it.