The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) (45 page)

Evka rolled her eyes at his last statement but he continued undeterred.

“All of my colleagues are still in their position but I was singled out and made an example of. I swear I did the Germans no favour. I hated the Sudetenlander people. They always felt so superior to us and treated me as second class citizen. When I had a choice I would assign the good flats to Czechs rather than to Germans, but none of that is being acknowledged. My career improved after the Germans came and now my jealous colleagues have taken advantage by denouncing me. That is why I am here. I am no more guilty than a housekeeper or a chauffeur who worked for a German. You must believe me,” he said.

Evka did not respond and he went inside and sat back down on his bed next to his wife, who was still unresponsive and lethargic.

Evka did not like the man. Admittedly his story sounded credible but she could see how his sub-servient mannerisms could have appeared to his colleagues as crawling to the Germans. She had no doubt that he was convinced of his innocence but whether he was being honest to himself was a different question altogether. It certainly raised a question in her mind about what was collaboration and what wasn't. Was his lack of resistance a silent agreement? Was only a complete general strike proof enough of disagreement with the regime? She was not sure how she felt about Gregor now but she preferred to be left alone. Becoming friends with him and his wife on grounds of their language was out of the question and she didn't think she had much else in common with him. She had Greta and Wilma and that was all she needed.

The following days saw a few more arrivals, mostly individuals and smaller groups who had fled on their own accord and who had been directed to the camp by soldiers at the border or by locals on the road. There was no further group as large as the march Greta and Wilma had been part of for another few weeks. The Allied powers had set up food relief programmes which supplied the camp with small but very well received rations. It was a minor miracle they received food at all, since international charities preferred to feed the victims rather than Germans. Politics and animosities between inmates of the camp were on-going but the presence of American soldiers made most people feel safe and secure.

After a few days rest, many of the refugees decided to move on to other camps and those who had them set out to find friends or relatives who lived somewhere else in Germany. First efforts were made to record the names of the inmates to help the process of reuniting families but only much later did these lists become comprehensive and useful.

Ordered by the Allied powers to do so, the Czechoslovak president Benes called his citizens to refrain from further un-sanctified expulsions of
Germans. Regardless of those efforts large groups of them continued to arrive after being forced across the border with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. These new arrivals were the source of much sought-after information about developments in the former home. They were asked questions about how the Germans were being treated in this village or in that town and if by chance they had heard of this person or that relative. Hope usually gave way to frustration when the newcomers could not relay anything useful.

The most important news however was that the government had drawn up rules for expulsion and that people who were useful to the state, former resistance workers and those married to Czech nationals were allowed to stay in Czechoslovakia. Committees had been set up to establish eligibility for such exceptions. By and large there was little consistency in the findings of those committees, just as the state of internment and labour camps for Germans varied widely from harmless to violent. New hope surged amongst the inmates that a return to their home might be possible under the new rules and they might be listened to by a more objective and sympathetic judge - if only they could get past the border patrols and back into Czechoslovakia.

Every wave of arrivals at the camp was followed by a series of departures. The Czech couple, Czerny, had tried several times to get back into their country but had always failed. They considered crossing over illegally as too dangerous and so they kept coming back after every refusal at the border.

The sisters Hildegard and Gudrun stayed put, obviously still convinced that they would soon return to their bakery by official means. Other refugees decided to try and make a new start outside the compound, workers from larger companies were hoping to secure a new living at other branches or factories of their former employers. 

Edith and Esther were eager to push on towards France but knew they could not leave Greta and Wilma with three children to look after. The two orphaned boys Adolf and Heinrich had stopped asking after their mother and had completely adopted the ladies as surrogate mothers, a responsibility that neither of the lovers really wanted to give up. Jokingly, the lovers had often spoken about founding a family together but lived too much in the moment ever to make concrete plans and look for a potential father for such a future to become a reality.

Edith thought this might be an opportunity to make those dreams come true, albeit in a slightly different way, and hoped they could take the boys with them. Esther was not sure she wanted to give up her freedom just yet and never spoke of the boys as part of their future. She just wanted to return to Paris as soon as possible.

Greta was reluctant to leave the safety of the camp and to force another long journey on her sister. Any chance for at least a temporary stability was worth clinging to for Wilma’s sake.

At the same time they had all made a commitment to their father to meet in Paris. What if Jonah had already met with Egon and was on his way there? It had seemed so simple when they had drawn up the plans to meet after the war. Now there were new circumstances, more facts and many more possibilities to consider. Travelling to France seemed an awfully long way while there was so much uncertainty. They didn't even know what had happened to the Countess since she had left them so suddenly in Carlsbad. All these thoughts went around in Greta's head and she kept changing her mind about what might be the best course of action.

While there was at least a little food and shelter, it was easy to postpone the decision and to stay and wait for further international political developments. There was hope that the lists that were regularly compiled with the names of camp inmates might lead to their father more quickly and safely than the journey to France. After lengthy discussions, Edith and Esther decided to stay and wait a little longer. Edith assumed complete responsibility for Adolf and Heinrich until blood relatives could be found via a Red Cross tracing programme. Edith was not too keen on that possibility. She thought it would be better for the children to grow up under her warm and tolerant influence instead of being drilled by yet another cold German family, which their mother's behaviour had suggested such relatives might be. Esther however refused to kidnap the children on such ideological grounds.

At the end of the summer, the Nazi women Hildegard and Gudrun left the camp to try and make it on their own. Hildegard had long voiced that she hated living at the expense of the Americans who had destroyed her life.

She did not need any charity and would rather die on the road than taking any more of this life in a cage. It was a brave statement given that she had neither friends nor family to go to, nor did the small rations in the camp inspire too much confidence that there was plentiful food outside the camp. Gudrun seemed much less optimistic and less convinced of success
in this endeavour but, as usual, she was unable to contradict her sister and went away with her. Ten days later they returned to the camp, much to the amusement and ridicule of their bunk mates.

“We Austrians have no future in Germany!” said Hildegard matter of factly. “They don't want us refugees, that
is quite clear. I don't really blame them. The Americans have practically destroyed their country and have given them nothing in return. The Germans can hardly cope with their own problems. How could they care for us people as well? Why should they? Looks like the only thing we can do is take the charity from the Americans and hope it will exhaust their funds rather than inconvenience our German friends. That is now our last patriotic task.”

Edith had to control her anger at this self-righteous and ignorant woman while everyone else just laughed at the blind delusion and arrogance Hildegard was so proud to display against the hand that was feeding her.

In the outside world and the political arena there was still no sign of a solution to their situation. Just like Hildegard and Gudrun had experienced on their short quest for independence, many refugees found that life outside the camp was difficult. There was not enough housing due to the air raids during the war and there was not enough food to go around either. Of course there was food distribution outside of the camp but it was less organised and unreliable since donors were less charitably inclined towards the Germans and gave mainly to the victims of the war.

Evka had learned that there were other camps for so-called displaced people, who did not just consist of Germans. Some contained the slave labourers brought to Germany from
eastern Europe during the war, other political refugees and survivors of the German labour and concentration camps. She suggested that it would be better for the group to live in an environment with other victims of the Nazi regimes and less Germans and collaborators, but Greta urged them to endure the unpleasant circumstances for Wilma's sake. Greta had become very concerned for her father and the Countess of late and felt it was essential to remain in the vicinity of the border. There was no doubt that her Highness had not made it to France and had been quickly caught by the Czech patrols; there had been too many road blocks to assume anything else. It had become set in her mind that Jonah and Alma would soon appear in the camp themselves, either with a group of refugees from Slovakia or on their own, looking for the rest of their family. Greta had heard about the forceful expulsion of Germans from Brno, exactly where her father and his mistress had been headed when the family parted ways two months previously.

She was convinced that without any papers, and as an unknown in the city, the authorities would have ordered him to leave the country. According to the little that was known about other camps in the region, Jonah and Alma probably had been taken to Passau. After asserting that Greta and Wilma were not living there, Jonah would try to reach the other camps near the border to find his daughters and continue the search for Egon at the same time. Maybe their father had even seen their names on a list.

Time and time again she weighed her options and asked for reassurance from the ladies Esther and Edith.

“None of us know enough to give you advice. If we stay in one place he has a better chance of finding us,” said Esther at last, taking part of the responsibility of her troubled friend's mind.

Other Jewish inmates were leaving for less German dominated camps. The committee who eventually interviewed all inmates to collect demographic statistics for future political decision making was very critical of Greta's claim to be Jewish. In light of the voluntary departures of so many other Jews her desire to remain in here was taken as evidence that she was lying. The primary task of these investigators was to establish statistics for relief organisations, which wanted to establish the strength of the various refugee groups, in order to prepare re-homing and repatriation.

An American woman volunteer who spoke to Greta and Wilma had done the same work at a different camp near Munich but had asked to be transferred because she could not cope with the poor physical conditions of the inmates there; most of them had been in the Dachau concentration camp. The experience had left her scared and haunted by nightmares. On a different level her work had been frustrating because of the naked fear and the lack of cooperation that people in the old camp had displayed towards her and to anyone else who was wearing a uniform. She was grateful for her transfer to a place where the inmates were comparatively unharmed. At the same time, having seen the worst cases near Munich, she lacked pity for the German ‘monsters’ and their petty demands and was less inclined to believe their stories. Greta explained her predicament in as much detail as the woman let her but in the statistics Greta and her friends were noted down as Sudetenlander refugees.

The following months saw large groups of Latvians, Ukrainians and Lithuanians joining the compound, all of whom had fled the systematic deportations from Czechoslovakia organised by the Soviets. The newcomers were eventually given their own separate section by the American soldiers and they soon established their own communities with improvised schools and churches.

They kept a safe distance from the Germans and they were wary of members from other nations, all of whom they suspected to have been collaborators. Anyone not part of their community was an enemy, including the soldiers feeding them. Now that the place had been divided into opposing sections, the army had the additional task of keeping the peace.

The Czech couple Czerny finally moved out of the hut into a different building that was full of Czech speaking refugees. Evka had continued to ignore the couple despite their desperate pleas of their innocence. Her consistency hardened Gregor's own
heart, he gave up his plans for the rehabilitation of his character and joined his fellow landsmen, although he had genuine reservations regarding their political past.

For a few days the bunks remained empty until a young couple, Freddie and Luise, chose them as their new residence. The bo
y was Jewish and had worked at the girl's family toy store in Prague before the war. His employers were kind people and when his family was taken to Terezin Luise managed to hide him in their loft, where he survived the entire war. He and Luise fell in love very quickly during his long years in hiding.