The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) (44 page)

Evka was resourceful and stepped in whenever Greta was not at ease with the nosy and intrusive visitors. She would quickly turn the questions around at the ones who had asked them, putting them into the spotlight and interrogating them instead, something which seemed more difficult for Greta, who tried not to arouse suspicion. Evka would often tell her own story and disrupt the inquisitions that way.

Her interference kept the nosy people at bay, enemies and the three women became a bit of an island within their compound. Wilma took very much to Evka and liked the sound of her Czech accent, which she said reminded her of Bratislava and the good old days.

Edith and Esther had tried to trade places with some women in Greta's hut but to no avail. None of the women in either hut wanted to move.

Contrary to expectations, there was no forced labour in this camp. According to the rumours all detainees here were awaiting immediate deportation which still had to be cleared with the liberating armies. In many places, the civilians had enough of waiting and took matters in their own hands and marched their undesirable Germans to the borders themselves, using any force necessary to achieve compliance. Greta and her inmates could consider themselves lucky to have escaped those violent scenes which often occurred without even the slightest interference from police and militia.

After a week the mood had turned into doom and worry. Lack of distraction seemed to magnify all fears. One day, a large number of women, among them Irmingard and Gerlinde, were selected and escorted out of the camp, which seemed to confirm the rumours about spies and informers and added fuel to the fear and paranoia in the camp. None of the women that were arrested ever came back. As the current guardians for Ernst, Edith and Esther took on that role for Adolf and Heinrich as well. Quite naturally the poor boys were very distressed about their mother's unknown fate and easily came to the ladies for comfort.

Shortly after those unexpected arrests, a large number of armed civilians stormed the camp and informed the inmates that they were leaving Czechoslovakia within the hour. There was no interference from the guards. In the ensuing panic and chaos of packing, Edith and Esther were unable to reach Greta and Wilma and ended up marching separately from their friends on their long way to a different refugee camp for Germans located just across the border in Bavaria.

Ernst was a little distressed to be going without his mother and aunt but the two ladies managed to calm him and the two other boys in their charge and distracted them by giving the departure a sense of adventure. Those efforts however were fruitless when the refugees had to pass a pile of corpses on their way. The bodies belonged to Jewish people and had been found in a shallow grave in the forest. German prisoners had been made to dig them back up and the Czech guards forced everyone to look at them while walking past the spot to remind them of the crimes that the Nazis had committed.

A crowd of onlookers shouted insults as the march progressed and even the more loud mouthed women from the camp fell into a heavy silence. Only after the procession had left the area did people start to talk again. Edith and Esther struggled to cheer up the children. Adolf wanted to know why those people by the road had been dead. Heinrich did not understand why people were shouting at them. Weren't they German, better than anyone else and supposed to be applauded rather than booed? Edith shushed them; this was not to be discussed in public. She knew better than to hold a moral lecture surrounded by such an unknown group of people. It would take a while to explain the facts of life to those boys and wash out the absurd ideology of their parents.

Esther asked Adolf and Heinrich for their favourite songs and, once they found some that were cheerful and sure not to offend anyone else on the march, they started to sing until the boys were exhausted and were happy to walk in silence.

Wilma was visibly shaking when they passed the corpses. Czechs had gathered to hurl their abuse at them. Tightly squeezed between Evka and Greta, she managed to keep herself together. Evka chanted Catholic prayers in Czech, which Wilma understood only little but the sound of the language and the rhythmic repetition soothed her enough to get through the ordeal. At that moment, Greta would not have been able to do this for her sister as her own fears were too great. Worries about Ernst and a possible panic attack of Wilma made her almost frozen.

She felt an immense relief after they had passed that scene without further problems and realised what a gem they had found in the resourceful Evka who was strong enough to support both sisters single-handedly. Since Evka had joined them, Greta noticed a return of her sister's more feisty and confident character traits and began to think of the problems as beatable. Passing those bodies without major difficulties with Wilma was a good sign. 

As the march slowly progressed towards the border, some of the elderly and frail amongst the prisoners began to collapse by the road and some had to be left behind. A former German army lorry collected them and drove them across the border where they were quickly offloaded and left under supervision of soldiers whose purpose was only to make sure that nobody could slip back into the country. If someone died during the march their body was also thrown on the truck and dumped on the other side of the border.

The prisoners were attacked twice by groups of armed bandits who searched them for valuables but apart from shoes and minor items there was not much left to be taken. No one interfered on their behalf.

On the evening of the second day, the group finally reached the German border. The subdued quiet of the tired march was disturbed when one woman threw herself at the feet of the Czech guards and screamed, shouting she was a Jew and that she could not live with all these Germans. She begged to be allowed to stay and swore that a mistake had been made. The guards seemed surprised by the sudden outburst and were clearly considering what to do but as more people raised their hands to say they were Jewish too the wave of compassion ebbed away again and the guards just shook their heads.

An American soldier at the other side of the border gently helped the Jewish woman up and tried to speak to her in English but she obviously did not understand him. She clung to him as for dear life and the other refugees who had claimed to be Jewish joined them. The soldier had become the guardian for the Jews and those who pretended to be Jewish to be allowed to return to their country.

The American army had been informed that the Czechs from Pilsen were bringing a large number of prisoners across the border and waited to escort them to temporary accommodation at a former labour camp.

Greta heard many voices trying to persuade the guards as the prisoners passed the border but only one of the Czech guards was even bothered enough to reply to these pleadings. “If you
were selected for expulsion then you can't be kosher,” he called out to them. “Good riddance the lot of you!”

At their new 'home', the buildings were much larger than in the last camp and the barracks were equipped with more bunks per hut, but there was much less space between the beds. Greta thanked her faithful lucky star for Evka, who stayed with Wilma while she herself went to search for Ernst. She knew it would have been more sensible to wait until all the refugees had settled in but she could not stop herself.

During the march she had kept an eye out for him and his travel companions but her attempts had been futile. The guards had reprimanded her several times when she had tried to fall behind and join the next unit of the march. The camp was huge and the refugees tried to take advantage of this fact by spreading themselves out amongst the huts.

However, some buildings in their section were locked and guards had blocked off entire parts, allegedly to accommodate further arrivals that were expected soon. Fortunately Greta spotted Edith outside one of the huts, stormed past her without a word of hello and once inside she flew into her son's arms. There were still some bunks here for Greta, Evka and Wilma. At last the group was reunited.

Next to Evka was a Czech couple. The man had obviously been beaten, his face was bloody and one of his eyes was badly black and swollen. His wife was just lying on her bed staring quietly at the wall. Every so often, Greta could hear a little whimper and wondered what was making the woman so sad. The man tried to soothe her but it seemed unclear if his wife even heard him. When he noticed Evka's accent he started talking to her in Czech, which she stubbornly ignored. To be here in the camp he had to be a collaborator and Evka wanted nothing to do with him until she could be sure that he wasn't.

In the morning the wife seemed in a better state and Evka heard snippets of their conversation. From what she could gather the woman had been a piano teacher in Prague and her husband a civil servant. Both of them were lamenting the injustice they had suffered after the war. He kept saying that it had not been his fault and the wife seemed to agree. Evka was intrigued to find out more but still could not make
herself talk to them.

Next to Edith at the other end was a proud and harsh looking woman with her younger sister. They were speaking German to each other. Hildegard, the older of the two, was frequently ranting about the jubilant Czechs to the impressionable Gudrun, who seemed not to mind that her sister kept repeating the same old monologue.

“I think they are despicable for calling themselves victims. They never had it better in their lives than under Hitler. None of them cowards had to fight, their economy was good, I don't know what they complain about,” she told her sister. “For twenty years we were no longer part of a glorious Austrian Empire but lived as a minority and immigrants in their filthy inefficient republic. The fools turned their country into a mess. They have forgotten what it was like when they first became independent. What they did to us then was despicable. The land reform that advantaged the Czechs over the hard working and successful Austrian land owners. You don't hear them mention that. Now we Austrians count as Germans and are treated in the same way. Remember how in 1919 the Czech soldiers shot civilians who dared protest against the foundation of a Czechoslovak state? I hope the Russians swallow the country whole. That will teach them!”

“Exactly!” agreed Gudrun. “You are
right, no one ever took revenge for what was done to us then. Only Hitler cared for us.”

“He was too forgiving and generous!” Hildegard claimed. “He didn't harm one Czech civilian unless they were a criminal.”

“Precisely. And what have we ever done to the Czechs that they get so aggressive now?” asked Gudrun. “We only fought against our enemies. The ones that behaved were left alone, weren't they?”

“I guess we showed them how useless they were. They are not achieving people. You will see
, they won't know what to do with all our land and the property they have stolen from us. Give it a year and the country will be crying for us to come back and help them out. I never employed Czechs in my bakery because they were so lazy and inefficient. God knows what they will do to it now.” Hildegard lamented. “Mark my words! We will be back.”

Esther and Edith did not know whether to laugh at the woman or to be scared of her. On one hand she sounded deluded and confused, but on the other, her speech demonstrated a nastiness that the lovers would rather not provoke. It was a shame to be so close to the openly Nazi sympathisers. By and large most Germans or 'Austrians' in the camp seemed genuinely relieved that the Nazi regime had fallen and they had shed no tears about the end of the war.

Whether it was sincere or not, at least they were acknowledging the injustices that had happened during the occupation and refrained from talking up the Hitler regime. Their sorrow came from losing their home where some of them had lived for generations. They had no natural loyalty to Germany. By political affiliation most of them had been Austrian for decades and only over the last twenty years they had been citizens of the newly formed state of Czechoslovakia. They would not necessarily have been sad to return to the pre-war status quo and were disappointed that their former neighbours and friends had kicked them out without discussion. They were enraged when they learned from the Americans that the Allies had not even officially agreed on an expulsion policy. Many Germans were still on Czechoslovakian soil, awaiting a political solution to the situation, which made some hopeful that they might be allowed to return to their homes one day while others considered themselves unlucky to be here, angry that they had been victims of an unauthorized expulsion that now might not be reversible.

Hildegard and Gudrun seemed to believe that they would return to the same privileged positions they had before. Nobody in the hut wanted to challenge the two deluded women.

Edith wondered how many people here secretly agreed with those comments. Could the Austrian or German leopard ever change its spots? Both lesbians were painfully aware that they were on German soil where Hitler's rise had begun and were hoping to get out soon.

Evka's Czech neighbour one day decided that it was time to break down the barrier between them and managed to corner her outside the hut.

“My name is Gregor Czerny. I know you can understand me and I know what you think of me. I need to tell you that I had nothing to do with the Germans. I am not a collaborator! I don't know why I am here.”

Evka looked away but her body language gave away that she was listening and so Gregor Czerny continued. “I was promoted when Hitler invaded us. It was not my fault that some of my superiors were removed from
office by his people. I was next in line, my promotion was nothing personal. As a civil servant you need to be loyal to your government and I carried on with my duties as I was told. I was working for the housing office and had to assign houses and apartments that were cleared for new occupants. I took nothing away from the Jews, it was the Germans who did that. I just did my job by allocating the space.”