The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) (47 page)

“You approve?” she asked to be sure.

“There is not much to approve or disapprove,” Greta said. “It is what it is. What matters to me is that they are good people, Luise. I hope you know that.”

“Of course I do. Well I never....I guess there is no harm if they don't bother anyone else,” Luise tried to process the information.

“Exactly, and there is the problem. You see, in France they are protected by the law and can be themselves. In Germany they can't, even if there will be laws to help them. They would not want to risk it after all that has happened during the war here.”

“I see,” Luise said.

“They have looked after Heinrich and Adolf as if they were their own ever since the boys lost their mother. They made promises never to leave the boys alone but they can hardly kidnap or legally adopt the two of them,” Greta carried on.

“Of course, they must never go back on their word to those lovely boys,” Luise agreed.

“Those promises should never have been made so easily. We were all concerned for these innocent children but now we are in a position where we have to be very resourceful if we want to make them true. I think we need to look for an alternative solution to the problem and I think that we just found the answer to our question this afternoon when you decided to get married,” Greta said, happy to have come to the point in exactly the way she had planned to. “How would you feel about adopting the boys and raising them Jewish? That would be two more strikes on your quest to make the world more Jewish.”

“You must be completely mad!” shouted Luise.
“Me, raising the offspring of some Nazis?”

“Exactly, that is the genius part of the plan,” Greta said “You can erase what their parents have told them and tip the balance in favour of the
tribe. The boys want to be loved and they need to be taken care of. Think about it. I know it is a lot to ask but it seems so little when you look at how they already hang on every word Freddie tells them. Yes they love the ladies too but it’s plain to see that there is an age gap that is hard to bridge. In Paris, they will be raised by a maid, not by the ladies. They have not got it in them to raise two boys. They will try, but it will never be as good as if it was you.”

“I don't know,” Luise hesitated “The ladies have money and experience. I am young and have so much to learn myself.”

“Then you will learn it together with them. There are always more mature mothers but who knows if they are better ones? It is of course all down to the boys themselves. We will not force any solution on them and the ladies will not go back on their word. That is why it would be better if you would offer to have them. If you two are not comfortable with this responsibility it is fine. Then I will offer, or rather, Ernst will.”

“That is very honourable of you but how will you cope?
A sister to look after and three boys?” Luise asked.

“It will be hard but I have Evka. She has agreed to stay with us. In Germany we are all that she has. Hopefully sometime soon my father will join us with his wife and then it will be a whole bunch of parents. Maybe even my brother Egon.”

“What do you think the boys would want?” Luise asked.

“I am sure they will choose you two without the shadow of a doubt,” Greta said. “But do not rush the decision. Speak to Freddie. Maybe he is not ready to become a father figure, maybe he can't wait.”

Freddie was delighted by all the news Luise could share with him that evening. He was eager to marry Luise for more than one reason and the prospect of doing so within the near future was more than he had hoped for. The proximity of a rabbi also raised their hopes of finding intermediates with the right connections to arrange their journey to Palestine or advise them how to get a visa to New York. All of this sounded promising already but his joy had no limits when he heard about the proposal regarding the boys.

He had loved them from day one and found his role as a surrogate father came naturally to him. What he had been asked to do was not a hardship at all but a great gift. He tried to persuade his future wife to see it the same way. Luise had more reservations about the feasibility of the idea but one by one Freddie managed to argue them away with his bright smile, his sparkling eyes and his enthusiasm for the future.

At last, Adolf and Heinrich were asked whom they would prefer to spend their time waiting for their mother with.

“Mother is not coming back, is she?” said Heinrich abruptly.

“We don't know,” admitted Greta.

“We will do everything we can to find her,” promised Esther.

“But you are right, she may never come back. We must be prepared for that possibility, which is why you should think carefully about your answer,” Edith said with gravity.

“We all love you and we all want to have you,” Freddie said smilingly. “We were going to fight over you, but then decided to let you make the choice.”

Adolf looked helplessly around the room.

“You can choose whoever you want,” Evka assured him. “Freddie is just joking. Nobody is upset if you don't choose them. Everyone wants you to be happy and to live with who you most want to be with.”

“Adolf and Heinrich looked at each other, nodded as if they had already spoken about it, and then both said simultaneously: “Freddie.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!” shouted Freddie, took the boys and Luise and danced around the room to the tune of a Jewish folk song he was humming.

“Are you sure?” asked Luise. “You know that we are Jewish and that we are thinking of going to live by the sea in the Mediterranean or America. Are you happy to come along?”

“Yes, we want to see the sea. Can we swim there or is it too dangerous?” asked Heinrich full of excitement.

“Yes, you can swim there, as long as you don't swim out too far. Can you swim yet?” asked Freddie.

“No,” said Heinrich full of disappointment.

“Well then, we will have to teach you then how to do it. It is easy!” Freddie promised.

Two days later Edith and Esther decided to start their journey towards Paris and the following morning they said their farewells to the group. The fact that there were no fixed addresses they could exchange with each other was upsetting for everyone, because it meant that this could be their final goodbye. After such a long time together it seemed impossible for Greta and Wilma to let go of their two friends.

“Write to my lawyer in Zurich when you have settled somewhere,” Edith told the sisters. “He should be able to forward your letters to us. Once we have found somewhere ourselves we will let him know. I promise: We will see each other again!”

“I hope so!” said Wilma tearfully.

“Now, now,” said Esther and took her in her arms. Then she looked at Greta and smiled.  “Thank you for everything."

Adolf was very quiet and subdued, thinking that he had done something bad to make the ladies leave. Evka had explained to him that this was not the case but it was obvious that he could not shake off the feeling. Heinrich was quiet too but more in a disinterested way, as if he had already written the leaving women off. It broke Esther's heart to see his cool attitude
towards her but she understood that the little boy had to protect himself from yet another separation.

“Take good care of them for us,” Esther whispered into Freddie's ears,
then she pulled herself away and went outside to wait for Edith.

Wilma had sunk back on her bed and Evka sat down beside her, waving at Esther as she walked through the door. Luise, who had left her parents behind to be with Freddie, was herself close to tears and decided to help console Wilma.

“Let’s walk them to the gate,” suggested Freddie to the three boys and the four rushed out of the hut and joined Esther. Greta and Edith now stood alone in the corner near the door, out of everybody's sight.

“Greta you are an amazing woman!” Edith said quietly. “Tell that father of yours we want to see him and his wife as soon as possible. He still owes us a lot of his art. We will find him and demand our share of it!”

“Thank you Edith. I will tell him. Good luck and be careful,” Greta replied, then she kissed her friend goodbye.

“Now you are kissing me!” Edith said jokingly.
“Now that I am leaving.”

She turned away and stepped outside, leaving her friend to take care of her sobbing sister.

The following few days the remaining members of Greta's circle of friends were subdued and unmotivated. As much as Freddie tried, he could not get the boys to shake off the sadness that had taken hold of them. Only Heinrich suggested playing football and other games but he was obviously just pretending to be strong.

The departure reminded everyone of their own future and the need to move on. Now that the war had come to an end they would soon be forced to live in the outside world again and try and make a living and feed themselves by their own means. Evka and Greta would probably both have to find employment to provide for Wilma and Ernst.

The more time passed, the more uncertain Greta became about her father's fate. Had he come to harm in Brno or was he stuck on the other side of the border? Was he stubbornly waiting for Egon for the rest of his life without ever giving up and trying to find herself and her sister? Wouldn't he find a way to send her a message, tell other refugees to look for them on their way?

Whenever new people arrived at the camp, they asked around for relatives or friends, or they had news from travellers they had encountered on their way to pass on to anyone who knew them. Most families, that were separated, had not managed to be reunited and information about their beloved was their main concern. Lucky were those who at least knew that their parents or children were still alive and had been seen; the rest had to fight fears and worries. Greta had listened to the stories of refugees from Brno and Bratislava, but nothing indicated that her father had been seen dead
or alive.

Luise had, at last, made the arrangements for her conversion and marriage. The only rabbi she had been able to locate in the camp was from Estonia and lived in a different sector of the compound. He was not as Orthodox and strict as Luise would have liked him to be but he was willing to help. The extent of her knowledge and understanding impressed him and after only a few lessons in a communal room that he had to share with the Greek orthodox community he judged her ready to join his people. In an improvised bath, he symbolically performed her immersion in the mikveh and officially welcomed her to the Jewish faith. The wedding was performed the very next day in the same room. The small Jewish community participated at the event to make it as authentic and traditional as they could for the couple and in the evening they were allowed two hours of privacy in a room that had been especially prepared for them and the occasion.

For days, Luise and Freddie could not stop smiling, so happy were they to be finally married. Having loosely joined the Jewish community in the other part of the compound, they were also one step closer to their exodus to Palestine. A group of activists helped Jews to gather in Bad Reichenhall from where they would make their way to the Mediterranean ports. People traffickers there would smuggle them across the borders to Italy. Luise and Freddie could leave the following week and take Adolf and Heinrich with them.

Greta was sad that the departure was going to be so soon but understood that her friends were eager to leave and start their new life. Her main concern was really for Ernst, who would lose his two best friends and the father figure he had found in Freddie.

When the newly formed family left, Wilma and Ernst were both crying, something that was unusual for the otherwise relaxed and calm boy.

The run up to Christmas was a miserable time. Due to its vicinity to the border, the camp was the first point of rest for many refugees which, in turn, led to an acute shortage of space and related animosities between new and old residents. With the announcement of systematic and well organised deportations of all ethnic Germans from the Sudetenland in the New Year, there was an increased fear of being pushed further and further away from home soil and into an even harsher exile in the west. All communities in Germany had been given a quota of refugees to take in and the inmates feared being transferred further away to make space for the expected train loads of expelled Germans from Czechoslovakia.

The unknown
caused anxiety at a time that was already overshadowed by grief for lost ones and worry about those who were still unaccounted for. The impending arrival of even more compatriots was another step in the wrong direction and put the Sudetenlander community further away from their goal of returning home. What had been viewed as a temporary measure and a mere tactical move on the political chess board of post-war Europe was now threatening to become a long term if not an irrevocable and permanent scenario that had to be avoided.

The inmates
already knew too well that the people in Germany had no interest in welcoming them with open arms. Theirs was a country with its own shortages of habitable living space and food. Reports of violence against the unwelcome guests by local farmers and citizens increased and verbal abuse for those who took to the road was not unusual either.

The American soldier
s were looking for inmates to be transferred towards other camps further west so that the authorities could accommodate the vast amounts of newcomers every day. Volunteers for these trains were mainly citizens of countries that were now occupied by the Soviet army. They were hoping that any move away from the border might better their chances of being able to stay here.

Ethnic Germans from Silesia and other former German or Austrian territories preferred to stay put, hoping to return to their homes as soon as this political madness had come to an end. The former group
however could not be moved without upsetting the Soviets who had made it known that they wanted to relocate every one of their 'citizens' to their origins. The latter group simply refused to go; individual officers made guarantees to the refugees but few were willing to trust them.

Rivalry and animosities between the many different ethnic and religious groups within the camp were on the increase.

The Czech collaborators in the camp had managed to unite themselves in two of the huts within the part of the camp occupied by the Sudetenlanders and had their hands full with defending the safety of their members. In the absence of anyone else to blame, expelled ethnic Germans used them as scapegoats for their accumulated aggression and frustration. Exiled and beaten mercilessly by Czechs, it was now the turn of the Sudetenlanders to take counter revenge on any citizen of that hated nation wherever they could, egging on the nonsensical spiral of violence and conflict. That some of these Czechs had been on their side previously was of no concern to them.

T
he expelled Sudetengermans felt mistreated and claimed to be innocent victims but many of the Allies discounted such excuses; in their opinion, no one was without guilt. Those people crying foul now had let the crimes happen without interfering and so were just as bad as the ones committing the crimes. No use to get on a high moral horse at this late stage. If they were now fighting against the Czechs for the injustice done to them, why didn't they have that same courage or decency to fight during the Nazi regime?

Even though Luise and Freddie had made
contact with the Jews from the eastern part of the camp and had put in a word for their Jewish friends, Greta and her extended family were not particularly welcome in their circles. Since she had only looked after her own interests during the war and had not been part of the tribe, why should they roll out the red carpet for her now? When was the last time she or her family had been to a synagogue? What kind of opportunists were they? If she wanted to be part of a group she would have to look elsewhere.

It was not as if Greta felt any more Jewish now than she had before the war or wanted to be included in their communi
ty. But she was a victim of the same fascist criminals and had somehow hoped for sympathy or solidarity. Sadly there was too much fear amongst the survivors to allow such openness to outsiders and the Weissensteiner clan was left isolated, surrounded by Germans they could not make themselves trust. Greta was grateful to have Evka to talk to.

Ernst was quite subdued since his friends had left
for Palestine. At first, he visited the playground of the camp and approached another group of children without much hesitation. He was soon banned from their games because he spoke like a Czech and therefore did not fit in. One of the boys even hit him and said:

“That is for what your friends did to my mother!”

Another group refused him because of his aunt Wilma, whose previous hysterics had become known.

“We don't play with mad people like you. You need to get locked up in a hospital!” a
little girl informed him in an almost kind and lecturing rather than a nasty and hateful manner. 

Despite his young age
, Ernst had the clarity of mind to guess that his mother would be upset if she found out how he was treated by the other children. To protect her from pain he continued to leave the hut frequently for the playground so Greta would not realise how much of an outsider he had become. Instead of looking for new acquaintances, he began to withdraw and played alone in an area of sand, constructing tall and large castles with extensive grounds and defence walls around them. 

“You are quite an architect,
” said a skinny middle aged man with an accent that was unfamiliar to the little boy. “I am impressed by how much you understand about the safety precautions for the Royal family of your castle. You must have built many great houses to be able to do this!”

Ernst had been told not to speak to strangers but the flattery and u
nexpected attention worked like magic and he found himself drawn towards the kind and apparently also lonely man.

“My name is Joschka,
” said the man.

“I am Ernst.”

“Nice to meet you
Ernst. Tell me why are you in here and not on the other side of the barbed wire, constructing new buildings for us all to live in?”

“We are waiting for my grandfather and my uncle Egon,” said the little boy.

“Always nice to see families looking out for each other,” commented the older man. Looking at him more closely now Ernst was fascinated just how thin this man was. His cheeks were hollow and the skin across his face seemed stretched to its limit, it was almost horrifying were it not for the inviting and friendly green eyes.

“Do
n’t you have any family?” Ernst asked his new companion.

“I
do, but I haven't seen them in years. I have to admit that we do not get on so well with each other as your family does. I am not sure I could find them in this chaos. I am even less certain that I want to. I think I am going to find myself a brand new family of my own,” he said, smiling bravely.

“Can you help me build a really tall tower?” Ernst asked.

“I can certainly try. If you are here tomorrow at the same time I will bring some tools. For an aspiring architect you don't seem to have the necessary equipment. “

“Yes, I will be here tomorrow,” Ernst said excitedly and indeed they both were.

The next day, Joschka brought a few pieces of wood and made an upright standing square construction with them which Ernst then filled up with sand. The result was not great at the first attempt but as the two improved their technique and learnt from their mistakes, the towers they managed to create grew in size and stability.

Joschka had a numbered tattoo on his arm but refused to talk about it when Ernst asked.
Instead Joschka distracted his little friend with questions about the blueprint of their current project. Ernst was too happy to have found a new male playmate to risk spoiling it with further enquiries. Joschka was particularly talented and patient in adding little details. With a little twig he carved lines into the defence walls, making it look as if they consisted of real bricks. Ernst, on the other hand, had an incredible imagination and every day he destroyed his previous creations and started a brand new and totally different building. One day it was a series of pyramids, the next it was a mosque, or a Greek temple. Soon the spectacular castles became an attraction on the playground and both children and parents came to watch the odd couple constructing them. 

“Have you seen all these buildings in real life?” Joschka asked.

“No, but I have seen pictures in books!” Ernst said and explained about the library at the manor house.

After several consecutive days of playing with the strange Joschka
, Ernst told Evka about him.

“You should marry him. He is very nice,” the little match maker suggested.

Evak laughed at his forwardness. “I could have married many a nice man. When you grow up you will understand that there is a lot more to marrying someone than just being nice.”

“But he is your age and he has no real family, jus
t like you. If you marry him then he can become part of our new big family,” Ernst insisted.

“I see you have it all planned out for me. How about that: I will come with you to the playground tomorrow and then I can make up my own mind if he is the right kind of nice for me,” Evka suggested.

“Yes, yes
, yes!” Ernst cheered her on. “You will love him. He is nice, nice, nice.”

“I think you said that already,” Evka smiled.

That evening, a German woman approached Greta and asked to speak to her in private.

“I have seen your little boy play
ing with an old man for the best part of a week now. Do you know that man?” she asked.

Greta was taken
aback by this inquisition but was also intrigued as to why the woman had chosen to make this her business.

“I have not met him yet, no, but I plan to
do so tomorrow,” she admitted. “Why do you ask?”

“The man is one of the survivors of the death camps. He has got the number on his arm,” the woman said with an implied expectation that this information was enough for Greta to grasp the nature of her warning.

“Are you worried that my son is playing with a Jew?” she asked with a slightly indignant tone to her voice. 

“I am not sure he is Jewish,” the woman replied. “That is not what is wrong with him. I have seen him for weeks now, lingering around the
playground staring at our children. It is not normal for a man his age to seek out children to play with. Why does he not hang out with people of his own generation? “

“Maybe he has lost his own children in the war? I can't see anything wrong with it,” Greta
said angrily but the seeds of doubt had been planted and she was now eager to meet this man, more out of concern than out of curiosity.

“You are so naïve. You have a lot to learn as a mother. Has no one ever warned you of older men abducting little boys and doing unspeakable things to them?” the woman scolded her. “When the Russians came it was not just young girls who were raped by them. The boys are usually even more ashamed than the girls and don't speak of it. You need to be careful.”

Greta was rather unsettled by what she had just heard but could not get herself to admit defeat in this conversation to the woman, who for all she knew might just be a malicious gossip monger.

“How can you tell that this man is after anything
other than human contact?” she asked, trying to put her opponent on the spot.

“He is not one of us. He comes from the other section of the camp. By his accent I would guess he is from Hungary. They must have a
playground there as well but he chooses to come to our part. Maybe over there they know something about him that we don't and he is not tolerated there,” said the woman with much less hate and venom than Greta would have expected. Maybe this was not just a case of malicious bad mouthing.

“Oh
, that is absurd,” Greta said dismissively to distract from the fact that she was starting to get worried. 

“Suit yourself
! I am only trying to help. If it was my son I would like to be warned,” said the woman and left.

“Don't worry!” said Evka calmly to Greta after hearing the accusations. “Don't let those hateful peo
ple get to you. I will meet him tomorrow and that will help clear the picture soon enough. Even if he were one of those - so what? We didn't mind Esther and Edith.”

“That was different,”
Greta said. “Men are much more sexual. You don't see women raping boys or other girls. I want to have a good look at him.”

“My brother loved men,” revealed Evka. “He moved to France to have a better life than he could have had in Prague. I met quite a few of his kind before he left. They were all far too gentle and soft to do anything so horrendous. Don't let that woman poison your mind.”