We had reached the forest by then. A few other women had stopped in a clearing twenty yards or so from the road. Eventually I persuaded Minna to walk as far as the small camp. Most of the women were too tired to talk, but
I gathered that they had travelled much further than we had that day. They huddled together in small groups beneath the trees, sharing their blankets and eating whatever food they had brought. None of them had dared light a fire although there was plenty of wood; they were afraid of attracting the attention of another enemy plane. I left Minna to look after Mama and Erich, and returned to the side of the road, hoping to find someone I knew who would give us a ride on a cart, or at least a blanket for Mama.
On my way, I stumbled over a wounded soldier. His leg was stiff, caked with blood and frost. When I tried to help him, I realized he was dead. His eyes were blank, staring upwards at the darkening sky. When I reached out to close them, my fingers cracked a crust of ice that had already formed over his lashes.
Stepping over him, I called out to the people on the carts, begging for a ride for Mama and Erich, offering to carry their goods and walk alongside in exchange. It was useless, no one answered. Then I saw the doctor’s car. I banged on the door and he stopped. He pushed back his window, lifted his hat and greeted me as though we’d just met in the café in the park in Allenstein.
His wife was sitting next to him, his three children squeezed into the back seat on top of piles of suitcases and boxes. I told him that the army had requisitioned my cart and I was looking for someone to take my mother and Erich to Berlin because they were too weak to walk.
He apologized, saying that, as I could see, he wasn’t in a position to help anyone. I appealed to his wife, begging her to at least take Erich. That he was so small he would take up hardly any space. I pleaded that, as they had to travel through Berlin anyway, Erich would be no trouble. And even if my father-in-law’s house was bombed, a general would be easy enough to find at the army headquarters in the Bendlerstrasse. I reminded them that if anyone could help them find safe and clean accommodation, it would be Papa von Letteberg.
The doctor’s wife eventually suggested that Erich could sit on her lap. The doctor agreed. I ran back to Minna and grabbed Erich. I told him he was going in a car to see Opa and Oma. I asked him to be good, and promised I’d come for him as soon as I could. There wasn’t time to say more.
He didn’t cry but I wish with all my heart that I could forget the terrified expression on his face when I handed him over to people he barely knew.
There was nothing for it but to try and sleep where Mama and Minna were already lying in the snow. I took off my coat and laid it over Mama, and, with Minna on one side of her and I the other, we closed our eyes, although I spent most of the night crying over Erich.
I don’t think any of us really slept, and by the time morning came, as cold and dark as the previous afternoon, all three of us were frozen to the ground. As I struggled to rise, I half-expected my legs and arms to snap and crack like icicles. Mama was in a comatose state deeper than any sleep. Minna and I picked up handfuls of snow and rubbed it over her face and hands in an effort to rouse her, but she still didn’t move. Then the ground shook and we heard the tramp of marching feet.
I left Mama with Minna and went to the road with another woman. I now understand why the Wehrmacht christened the Russian army ‘the steamroller’. Moving slowly up the road towards us was a tank, and behind it a solid wall of marching Russian troops.
I ran back to Minna. Mama still hadn’t stirred. I picked up my knapsack and lifted Mama to her feet. She swayed there with her eyes closed. Most of the other women had already gathered their bundles and were running into the forest. I shouted at Mama to move. Minna tried to help, but Mama just continued to stand there, rocking on her heels. The tank rumbled closer, the troops fell out, and the screaming started.
Charlotte sat back in the chair, her mind awash with a jumble of confused images and pain – sharp, agonizing pain, – that she had never spoken of to anyone. The Russian criteria had been simple. German men and boys were robbed then killed, slowly and horribly. Women and girls were robbed, raped and, if they survived the gang rapes, killed. The fortunate were shot. Refugees who hadn’t been quick enough to leave the road were knocked to the ground and run over by tanks. German soldiers in uniform were tied together, doused in petrol and set alight. No one was spared, not the old, the young, the sick nor the pregnant, and the passage of years had done nothing to lessen her sense of shame at what they had done to her.
A Russian soldier threw me to the ground. Mama’s boots were on a level with my head. She was dragged away, her heels gouging twin tracks in the snow like tram lines. I can’t remember if I cried out. I couldn’t move because the Russian soldier was kneeling on my shoulders. Ripping the knapsack from my back, he emptied it out on the snow above my head. I could smell his sweat, and the vodka and pickled fish on his breath, as he sorted the jewellery from the papers and keys. After pocketing the valuables, he sat back on his heels and ripped open my jacket. I could hear Minna screaming. I didn’t know if she was crying for what was being done to me, or herself.
I tried to fight, but another soldier came. Pushing up my skirts and petticoats, he tore off my underclothes. Others held my arms and legs. They began to laugh when the one who had lifted my skirts unbuttoned his trousers and pushed himself into me.
Once it started, it went on for ever. I closed my eyes against the men, the cold, the pain – and when it was over I tried to rise, but the grip on my arms and legs tightened, and the soldier was replaced by another and another and another, again and again and again …
The pain in my stomach became unbearable as they pressed down on me. My ears were filled with their laughter and women’s screams. I felt as though I was being torn in two. I cried for myself, for Mama, for my baby, but nothing stopped them. I held my breath, wanting to die, and when that didn’t work I tried to conjure an image of Sascha – his face, his gentle touch – but all I could see, all I could smell, was the stench of the men raping me. Afterwards, when I found myself lying on the snow, too weak to cry or move, I heard a shot. Then I remembered Mama. Crawling on all fours like a dog, I followed the tracks made by her boots.
Her eyes were as cold and dead as the soldier’s I had seen. But there was no wound, no mark, only blood on her naked thighs. I hope she died before they undressed her. One of the soldiers came after me. The snow was bloody around me: my legs and what remained of my stockings were soaked. I begged him not to touch me again.
Someone called my name. I looked up and Sascha was there. He ran to me and helped me to my feet. Leon followed. Stooping down, he picked up my keys, photographs, papers and diary, and stuffed them back into my knapsack before handing it to me.
The soldiers began shouting. A man who seemed to have some authority pulled Sascha away from me. Another, who spoke bad German, demanded to know what relationship existed between us. Sascha told me to tell the truth, and was kicked to the ground for speaking German.
I saw Sascha’s men standing behind him surrounded by soldiers, and I feared not only for myself, but for them. I explained that they had worked as prisoners of war on the same farm as myself. That everyone had felt sorry for them, and tried to give them extra food because the rations supplied by the Reich were so poor.
The man who was acting as interpreter insisted that he hadn’t seen any Russian prisoners of war who looked as healthy and well-fed as Sascha and his men, and if I didn’t tell them the truth they would shoot me. His idea of truth was that Sascha and his men had been collaborators, and that they had worked willingly for the Reich.
Before I could say any more, one of the soldiers pulled out his gun. He walked over to where a group of German women were cowering half-naked on the snow. Holding his pistol close to their heads, he began to shoot them one by one, like rats in a barn. And the first one he shot was Minna.
Sascha raised his rifle and killed the man. Then he screamed, ‘Run, Charlotte. Run!’
The last thing I felt was his hand on my back as he pushed me towards the forest. Clutching the knapsack, I ran clumsily, hampered by pain and the child heavy within me. As I zigzagged between the trees, Sascha’s voice echoed in my ears.
Run, Charlotte! Run!
I didn’t know whether it was real or in my head.
Bullets blasted around me, thudding into the snow. I threw myself behind a bush. Another plane flew overhead, strafing the ground. When the sound of the engine faded, I dared to look back. Soldiers as well as women lay in the snow. But Sascha’s men were being rounded into a circle and stripped of their rifles.
Sascha had been pushed to his knees in the centre. An officer was standing over him, holding a revolver to his head.
Sascha looked up and, for an instant, I thought he saw me. He didn’t plead for mercy for himself or his men, just shouted once more, ‘Run, Charlotte!’
As I turned and ran I heard one final shot.
I haven’t stopped running since.
Laura had to knock on the door of her grandmother’s room four times before it opened.
‘Why didn’t you wake me, Oma? It’s eleven o’clock …’
Laura caught Charlotte just as she fainted. She helped her to the bed and picked up the telephone.
The doctor was a small, gentle Asian man, and his command of English, German and, so far as Charlotte could ascertain, Polish, was excellent. He sent Laura and the hotel manager out of the room, examined Charlotte without a word, and then opened his bag and slipped his stethoscope back into it.
‘You’re exhausted, Madame Datski. May I ask what you have been doing to yourself?’ he enquired politely.
Charlotte gave a wry smile. ‘In the last week, flying from the States to London. From there I flew to Frankfurt. After taking an internal flight to Berlin, I flew to Warsaw with my granddaughter, then drove here.’
‘An itinerary that would have exhausted a teenager.’
‘And, very foolishly, I also made the mistake of sitting up all of last night reading.’ When Charlotte saw him looking keenly at her, she added, ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘What is wrong with you?’ he asked quietly.
‘You’ve just diagnosed exhaustion.’
‘I am a doctor, Madame Datski,’ he reminded her.
Charlotte hesitated. ‘My doctor suspected pancreatic cancer. He wanted me to undergo further tests and treatment. I told him they would have to wait.’
He pursed his lips. ‘I see.’
‘You are not permitted to tell anyone of my condition.’
‘As you must be aware, no doctor can discuss a patient’s condition with anyone other than the patient, unless that patient gives their explicit consent.’ He sat on the chair next to the bed. ‘When do you return to the United States?’
‘When I have seen all that I want to in Poland.’
‘I could arrange for you to be admitted to a hospital here. You have travel insurance?’
‘Yes, but my time is too precious to be wasted lying in a hospital bed. I am eighty-four years old, Doctor. I believe I am entitled to choose how to spend my days.’
He lifted his bag on to his lap and opened it again. ‘As long as you realize that unless you rest there won’t be too many days left to you, Madame Datski.’ He rummaged in his bag and extracted a bottle of pills. ‘Two of these will make you sleep for at least twelve hours. I suggest you take them and stay in bed for twenty-four, or until you feel well enough to get up again.’
Charlotte took the bottle from him. ‘What will you tell my granddaughter?’
‘What would you like me to tell her?’
‘The truth,’ Charlotte said. ‘That I am exhausted.’
He snapped his bag shut. ‘As you wish. You will send for me should you have another relapse?’
‘I will. Please send my granddaughter in, and,’ Charlotte smiled at him, ‘thank you.’
‘I know the doctor said it was just exhaustion,’ Laura argued, ‘but I really think I should stay with you, Oma. If not in your room then next door, so you can knock on the wall if you need me.’
‘How can I possibly need you or knock on the wall if I’m sleeping, Laura?’ Charlotte questioned logically. ‘I told you, I intend to call room service and order a sandwich. Before I eat it, I’ll have a hot bath and take two of the pills the doctor left me. Then I won’t wake up for hours. And, in the meantime, you have to go to Grunwaldsee to give my apologies to Marius and go riding with Brunon.’
‘I couldn’t possibly –’
‘They would think it appalling bad manners if you didn’t.’
‘Not once they know that you are ill.’
‘I am not ill, merely tired, as any woman my age has a right to be given the distance I’ve travelled in the last few days. Don’t forget to give Marius my apologies. Tell him that I will accept his offer of a drive around the estate as soon as I am able. Perhaps tomorrow. I’d love to show you Grunwaldsee myself, but it is best seen from horseback, and my riding days are over. Take your digital camera and download a few snaps on to your laptop. That way I will be able to see all the old places again when we breakfast together tomorrow.’
Laura hesitated.
‘I’ll give you my key so you can check up on me when you come back this evening. But creep in quietly. I hate being woken.’
‘You promise to eat and sleep?’
‘I promise.’ Charlotte smiled at her victory. ‘Now go. I can’t wait to see what you’ll come back with.’
After Laura left, Charlotte lay back on the pillows, drained and exhausted – just as the doctor had diagnosed. She wasn’t in pain. Yet, for no reason that she could explain, she felt that she had very little time left.
She tipped the waiter who brought her food, but the tray stood untouched on the table in front of the window, and, as the coffee cooled and the orange juice grew warm, she lay on her bed and once more opened her diary.
SATURDAY, 27 JANUARY 1945
My darling Sascha, knowing that you are dead hasn’t stopped me from talking to you. Can you forgive me for that last afternoon, for not knowing how war changes people, or how the instinct for survival drives men to do terrible things? Even good men like you and my brothers.
Now I understand that you were right and I was wrong. The guards had sub-machine guns; you and your men only rifles. If you’d asked the guards to surrender they would have replied with a hail of bullets.
You gave your life for me, and I didn’t even have time at the last to tell you how much I loved you, that I will always love you, or what a difference you made to my life. I hope you know.
As if losing you wasn’t enough, Sascha, I also lost our daughter. She was beautiful, tiny but perfect, and cold – as cold as the snowmen Paul and Wilhelm used to drag into our underground icehouse. She was born only a short while after I left you. All I could see, all I could think of during the birth, was you as I had last seen you, forced to your knees in the snow by the officer holding a gun to your head.
Kneeling but proud, as you refused to bow your head. I can still see the expression in your eyes, and hear the sound of the shot that followed me into the forest when I turned and fled like the coward I am. I cannot forgive myself for leaving. If I had stayed, the three of us would be together now.
I named our daughter Alexandra after you, Sascha. She was born in the forest like an animal but she never drew breath. I so wanted her to live. I tried everything I could think of. I rubbed her back, wrapped her in my scarf and held her close trying to warm her, but it was no use. I stayed hidden beneath a bush until dark, too terrified and frozen to move, and the whole time I nursed her.
She had white-blonde hair, Sascha, just like yours, only softer, and such perfect hands and feet.
While I held her I contrasted her birth with Erich’s. Then, the doctor, the nurses, Mama, Mama von Letteberg and the servants had rushed around fetching boiled water, drugs, clean linen, warm baby clothes. And there I was, lying in the open, bloody, battered, bruised, and used, with no one left to care whether I lived or died, least of all myself.
When darkness fell I found the courage to go and look for you. I knew you were dead, but it made no difference. I wanted us to be together. I laid Alexandra, wrapped in one of my scarves, on the ground while I scoured the blood from my legs and skirt with snow. The hooks had been torn from my fur coat, so I unwound another scarf from my neck and turned it into a belt. It was then my fingers closed around the amber necklace that you and Masha had given me in 1939.
I couldn’t believe the soldiers had missed it, but knowing that I still had something you had touched gave me the strength to go on. I picked up Alexandra and started walking. I wandered for what seemed like hours, not knowing what direction the road lay in. The only light came from the snow. I tried searching for tracks, but there had been another snowfall. Then I saw a white ribbon of clear ground streaking between the trees. I couldn’t even be sure it was the same road, but I reached the clearing before morning.
Someone had laid out the bodies in a neat line. I found Mama and Minna lying next to one another, but I couldn’t find you, my love. There were only women’s bodies, no soldiers. I scraped away the snow with my hands and tried to dig a grave with a stick, but the ground was frozen solid, so I lay beside them and, still nursing our daughter, tried to sleep, hoping that if I did, I would never wake up.
At dawn, Manfred Adolf found me.
At first I thought I had died and he had been sent to take me to wherever people go after death. But he was with a unit of German soldiers fighting alongside the Russians against the Reich for the ‘Soviet National Committee for a Free Germany’, or so he proudly told me. Manfred was still making political speeches but I was in no state to listen to them.
He told me that the troops at Stalingrad had not fought to the last man as Goebbels had announced. That ninety thousand of them, including him, had been marched into Soviet captivity. He had obviously used the experience to study Communism at close quarters, and he was even more committed to his Red Party than I remembered.
He gave me a blanket and some food. While we ate I told him what had happened to Irena, Wilhelm, their children and his parents. He listened grim-faced without uttering a word of sorrow or sympathy, but what could he say? There isn’t a man, woman or child in Eastern Europe who hasn’t suffered horribly as a result of this bloody war.
It was strange to see the earnest, idealistic boy I used to mock, along with everyone else in the orchestra, transformed into a soldier, officer and leader. Then I thought of you, Sascha, and Wilhelm and Paul, and wondered how well any of us really know the people we love.
Manfred ordered his men to prepare to move out in five minutes. They snapped to, immediately. He said the best hope I had of reaching Berlin and Erich was to join one of the retreating German platoons, and he would take me as close to one as he could.
Before I went with him and his men, I laid Alexandra on Mama’s breast and kissed my mother and our daughter goodbye. I had no choice but to leave them there, lying in the open, in the hope that some kind stranger would bury them when the thaw came. There must be other good-hearted Russians besides you, my love.
Manfred risked his life to get me to this Luftwaffe unit. The commanding officer saw my dishevelled state. He made no comment, but I knew that he and everyone else knew what had happened to me. He gave me a gun (but no bullets), this logbook and the uniform of a girl who had been killed. Fortunately, it fitted, but I find it hard to ignore the bloodstains on the blouse and jacket.
I do so hope that Erich reached Mama von Letteberg safely; if he didn’t, I will never forgive myself. But I also know that if I had kept him with me he would have been murdered along with all the other German women and children in the forest.
SUNDAY, 28 JANUARY 1945
We are sheltering in a bombed-out church. The roof has gone and the aisles and pews are full of rubble. We have run out of gasoline for our generator and bullets for our guns, and one of our two remaining trucks has broken down. The mechanics are trying to fix the engine. If they don’t succeed some of us will have to continue our flight west on foot.
A few of the girls have lit a fire and are making acorn coffee. But I am neither hungry nor thirsty. All I can think about now is Erich.
Close by is a signpost pointing to the centre of Berlin. When our CO saw me looking at it, he ordered a roll-call and warned that anyone who tried to desert would be shot. He said no exceptions would be made, even if we had a home, friend or relative there.
I had heard about the destruction wrought by the Allied bombs, but seeing the reality brought tears to my eyes. There are still slogans painted on the walls, but of a very different kind to the Party’s. Just before we stopped I saw
One People, One State, One Rubble
chalked up on the remaining wall of a hotel, making a mockery of Goebbels’
One People, One State, One Leader
. How Wilhelm would have laughed.
The officers have just told us that the truck cannot be repaired. Twenty of us have been ordered to gather our belongings and begin marching westwards to join any unit making a stand.
I know that none of us, officers as well as conscripts, want to fight. With death and devastation everywhere it seems such a useless exercise.
Should I risk trying to run? No. If I was seen and shot, what would happen to Erich?
THURSDAY, 29 MARCH 1945
For weeks we have continued to move westwards, but we found very few officers or soldiers who were willing to make a last stand. All the girls think the end is very close but few of us dare say it. At least it is quiet in this corner of Bavaria – for the moment.
Today I was on guard duty from four until eight in the morning. The sky in the east turned blood-red when the sun rose, reminding me of East Prussia burning in the aftermath of the Russian bombs. After duty I went to church because I was ordered to, but I couldn’t pretend to pray. Not even when the officers were looking at me. If they’d asked, I think I would have told them that the Communists are right about there being no God. But perhaps I would have thought of Erich and held my tongue.
Now I know what it feels like to be a prisoner. You tried to tell me, Sascha, but I didn’t really understand. It’s not being locked in a cell; it’s losing the freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want.
The other girls are no longer so suspicious of me. Two of them asked me what it was like to be raped by the Russians. We have met so many other women on the road who suffered as I did, and they all had stories of friends who hadn’t survived the ordeal.
The officers constantly remind us that deserters will be executed. Despite their bravado, we know that they are as terrified of defeat as we are, because the end of this war will mean the annihilation of Germany.
I was so sheltered and protected in Grunwaldsee. But now I have seen for myself the true extent of the ruin wrought by the war that we Germans allowed Hitler to start. There are terrible rumours about the British and Americans. That they eat babies, and rape and shoot women. After what happened in East Prussia I believe them, but I have told the other girls that I will kill myself rather than allow another soldier to touch me – and I mean it.