Excerpt from Echoes From The Ashes

The Reich’s Treasure Box,

Nuremberg: November 9, 1938

“Mutti! Mutti!” Liesel ran into the dressing room and flung her arms around the glamorous lady at the dressing table. “Mutti, Uncle Fritz says Rachel can stay the night.”

“I know,” Christine answered. “You two can read stories to each other and sing songs and maybe do a dance for us all.”

The honking car horns and the whine of the polizei wagon outside on the street intruded on the scene.

“I want red lips too, Mutti.”

Christine hugged her close before dabbing her red lipstick on Liesel’s puckered lips. “Now let’s go down stairs and see who all is here.” She pulled the heavy drapes open just enough to look outside before following Leisel out the door.  There was much activity in the street below.  Noisy youth were clumped together on the corners, their brown shirts and stiff-armed salutes causing a knot of unease in Christine.

The radio had been giving hourly updates on the condition of Third Secretary Ernst Von Rath who was shot two days earlier. Nuremberg was writhing with unleashed emotion. Everyone was aware that energies were escalating and no one could imagine what the worst-case scenario would be. Christine only knew that fear was like a boiling kettle inside her, keeping her jittery and uncomfortable.

Her brother, Fritz, was married to a Jewess. Their daughter, Rachel, was two months older than her own precious Liesel. Afraid now to stay in their own house because the storm troopers had gotten so very close the night before, Fritz and Rachel had come to Christine and Hans for sanctuary.

As Christine entered the parlor the girls were playing songs on the piano and she hugged them both, leaving a kiss on each head; Leisel’s medium blonde, like Christine’s and Rachel’s, a rich dark brown/black.

“She won’t come,” Fritz was saying as she entered the kitchen. “She is afraid she will bring danger into this house.”

“Nonsense” Hans replied. “She can’t stay there alone.”

“She has gone to her sister’s and they are going to try to get out of Germany. She wants Rachel here where she will be safe.”

Christine put her hand on Fritz’s shoulder and tears rose dangerously close to the rims of her eyes.

“Oh, Fritz, how can she bear it? How can you?”

He patted her hand and turned away. Christine’s eyes locked with Hans’.

After the dinner dishes were done, Rachel and Leisel called the adults into the parlor for a stellar performance by the cousins. They danced and sang and together played songs on the piano until Christine shooed them upstairs to get ready for bed. Later when the knock sounded on the front door, Christine felt as if cold water was poured down her back.

Hans checked the window and said, “It’s okay. It’s Dietrich.”

The two men spoke quietly at the door before Dietrich nodded his goodbye and slipped back out into the night.

“He’s dead,” Hans said turning to Fritz and Christine. “A little while ago. It is doomsday!”

Already the sounds of shouting outside were growing louder. A car horn blared without stopping. Fritz stood as if he were ready to run, his hand clenching and unclenching at his side, his eyes staring into a reality that was not in that room.

“I need to find Esther,” he began to mutter. “I have to know if she’s alright.”

“Fritz, you can’t go out now,” Christine said. “Rachel needs you.”  The sounds of girlish laughter filtered down the stairwell causing Fritz to look up. Torn between his fear for his wife and his daughter’s need for him, he stood trembling, in the middle of the room. The demeaning yellow star glaring at him from his daughter’s coat hanging on the rack.

Nuremberg: November 9, 1938

Later

Once the door to Christine and Han’s house closed behind him, Fritz felt as if he had stepped into an alien world. People were shouting and running, angry voices calling out hateful words. Sirens blared close by and suddenly he heard glass breaking. The noise reached a crescendo and people surged past him, past Christine’s house. Down the street an eerie light began to grow and he realized someone had set a fire. He turned around and around. The chaos was everywhere around him. He didn’t know where to go. Esther wasn’t at home. He hoped she had gotten to her sister’s and they had gotten out of town, but he didn’t know. Where should he go? What could he do? His fear, palpable, brought bile searing up his throat. He thought his heart might burst. Finally, he turned back to his sister’s home.

“Thank God you came back, Fritz.” Hans said as he opened the door.

When Fritz was safely inside, he realized he was shaking so hard he could hardly stand. “What are they going to do to my Esther?” he cried. “What can I do to keep Rachel safe?” He grabbed her coat off the rack by the door and savagely ripped the yellow star of David off it and flung it into the fireplace.

Christine had gone upstairs to put the girls to bed in Liesel’s room. Trying not to frighten them anymore than they were already, she got them dressed for bed and told them that there were angry people outside. She checked to be sure the window was closed and locked, then pushed a wardrobe in front of it as an extra barrier. She tried to sing a lullaby, but her voice was too quivery and the girls were too frightened, so she simply held onto both of them, talking quietly as the uproar outside got louder and louder. From the bedroom, upstairs she heard the pounding on the front door. The girls were absolutely silent. Suddenly Rachel ran to the blanket box and threw herself inside, pulling the lid closed.

Christine could hear loud voices from downstairs. She pulled Liesel close to her and they waited in silence. Christine could feel Liesel’s trembling and she longed to be able to comfort Rachel, knowing her fear would be just as great. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. There were steps on the stairs. Christine’s trembling increased and Liesel buried her head in Christine’s chest. Suddenly the door was flung open and Christine was staring into the dead eyes of the gestapo.

“You have papers?” he shouted.

Christine nodded. “In my pocket book.”

“Get them!”

She stood up with Liesel in her arms.

“Leave the child. Get the papers.”

She peeled Liesel’s arms from round her neck, telling her to stay quiet and stay on her bed. She shushed her when she whimpered. “It is important, Liesel. Stay here. Stay quiet.” She knew Rachel would also hear her warning. She said a prayer as she dashed to her bedroom and grabbed her purse. Thrusting the papers at the man as she ran back to her daughter, she shoved Liesel behind her while he read them and looked hard at her.

“One child?” She nodded.

His eyes swept the room. Then he turned and left, clomping down the stairs. She heard voices, then the slamming of the front door. She grabbed Liesel in her arms again, saying loudly, “Stay quiet. I want to listen.” Then she put Liesel down on the bed and walked to the bedroom door. She heard footsteps on the stairs again coming fast and she darted back to Liesel, speaking loudly for Rachel to hear. “Stay here and stay quiet.”

But it was Hans and Fritz who appeared in the door. Fritz had blood running down his face but both of them were walking. They were alright. Fritz looked frantically around the room as Hans crossed to hold his wife and daughter in his arms.

“Close the door, Fritz,” Christine said softly and let her eyes slide to the blanket box. When he had pushed the door closed, Christine opened the lid and dug out several blankets before she touched the trembling hand of Rachel. When she was finally in the arms of her father, she clung to him with all her strength, whimpering for her mother as Fritz fought the tears that threatened to escape.

That night the five of them barricaded themselves in the bedroom farthest from the door downstairs and huddled together on pallets. Once the girls were asleep, the three adults talked quietly about what to do next. Fritz was desperate to know if Esther was alright. It was decided that he would go to look for information on her the next day and Rachel would stay with Christine and Hans. They talked of hiding places and how to keep the children safe at all costs.

When morning came, Fritz left as the sun rose. He walked through the streets, his boots crunching on the broken glass, inches deep. As the sun cleared the buildings and light touched the glistening shards the street seemed to catch fire, throwing the light back in a rainbow of color and blinding light. The fear hidden behind the closed and barred doors was dwarfed by the artificial blaze that defied the horror of the night before and promised a better tomorrow, some time, somewhere, but not here and not now. Fritz, blinded by the light bouncing off the remnants of yesterday’s windows and doors, rushed across the town to the home of his in-laws.

It was a shell. Not only had it been broken into and looted, what wasn’t gone was strewn across the walks and the streets. The interior, blackened and still smoldering, offered him nothing about the whereabouts of his wife or her family. He walked through it and around it, seeing nothing that indicated anyone had been there at the time of the attack. He said a prayer and slowly returned to Christine and Hans’ where he found Hans with his tool box in Liesel’s bedroom. For the rest of the morning he and Hans worked to create a hiding place.

The door to the hidden space was inside the closet, almost invisible if you didn’t know it was there. It could only be opened from the inside. Rachel would stay inside from this time forward. If anyone came to the house she was to go into the hide-away and stay quiet. They brought one of the cots from the cellar and stocked the tiny space with a chamber pot, blankets, pillow and some dried food and water. Liesel also put some of her favorite books inside and a candle. It was a small place, barely large enough to fit the cot with everything else either under it or on it. The war would be long.