A Family Shattered: Book Two in the Michal's Destiny Series, Page 5

  Braus took another long drag on his cigarette. His little mind was going like a rat on a wheel. He could use the money. Since he’d been with the party, he’d worked hard and had never been chosen to receive the promotions that were due him. The party had not been fair with him, so why not take a little bonus. It was true, the life of one Jew more or less didn’t really matter in the big picture.

  “Well….” Braus shrugged his shoulders.

  Taavi held his breath.

  “Why not? Give me her name.” Braus said, and handed Taavi a pencil and paper. “But if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I will deny it and you will not only be executed, but you will suffer greatly. Am I clear?”

  “Yes,” Taavi said.

  Carefully with trembling hands, Taavi wrote down Frieda’s full name and the name of the nightclub she owned. Then he signed his name at the bottom of the paper and said a prayer asking God to touch Frieda’s heart and influence her to help him.

  Chapter 8

  Blockführer Braus

  Fritz Braus had always felt that he’d gotten a raw deal from life. When he was young, his family was very poor. His father had been wounded in the Great War and he’d come home bitter, taking his anger out on young Fritz. They had very little money, but still his father managed to drink to excess and beat his son and Fritz’s mother often. He hated his father. In fact, he wished his father would die and leave him and his mother in peace.

  When Fritz was finally eligible to join the Hitler Jugend, he was excited. The uniform made him feel important, and he loved the idea of the camaraderie of joining a group of boys who enjoyed outdoor activities. He had been so looking forward to the time when he could actually be a part of something. But he’d proven to be a terrible athlete, and to make matters worse, he began to get cystic acne. Big festering boils formed on his cheeks, chin, and nose. They were not infectious, but they were hideous to look at. Sometimes one of his boils would be so large it would cause one of his eyes to close and he would not be able to see through that eye until the boil went away. His condition not only repelled the girls who had begun to take an interest in boys, but even the other fellows seemed to shy away from him, afraid that his condition was contagious.

  He was so miserable that he couldn’t contain the explosive anger inside himself. When the man who lived next door to Fritz yelled at him for riding a stolen bicycle on their lawn, embarrassing him in front of several of the other children in the neighborhood, Fritz had been humiliated. A few of the other boys who were standing on the street watching laughed at Fritz. Fritz’s face turned crimson and he ran into his house to hide. But Fritz had no plans of letting this incident go. He wanted revenge. He waited until he found a time when no one was around. Then he took a bottle of rat poison out of the cellar and mixed it with a little of his father’s liverwurst. Next he checked the neighbor’s backyard. The neighbor’s golden retriever puppy was friendly and trusting. She was no watchdog by any means. He gave the liverwurst to the dog. Her tail was wagging, unsuspecting, as she took the gift from Fritz. Now it was only a matter of time before Fritz would have his retribution. It came that afternoon. The little girl next door was weeping as her father dug a grave for her puppy in the yard. Fritz just happened to walk outside at the very moment that they laid the dog to rest. The man who’d embarrassed him glanced over to see Fritz smiling. “You did this, didn’t you?” the neighbor asked. “I ought to kill you.”

  Fritz just shrugged his shoulders. Serves them right, Fritz thought and walked back into his house. He felt better.

  Even after puberty, he was short in stature, shorter than many of the girls, and he had developed a weight problem. Fritz Braus was angry with the world and he grew up with a chip on his shoulder.

  As soon as he was old enough he joined the Nazi Party. Then he served time in the army, where his superiors found him to be mediocre in skills and personality. He’d never received any special honors, but he was always the first one willing to do extra work. Among the officers Braus became known for immediately volunteering when a job needed to be done, and because he gave the party his all, he was transferred to an office job working for the SS.

  His office had a cookout on a Sunday, and although he didn’t have any friends, he went. It was there that he met a girl. From the first moment he saw her, he thought that she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Her hair was the color of onyx and her eyes were bluer than sapphires. When she laughed it sounded like the ringing of tiny bells. He’d tried to sit next to her, but she had already gathered a crowd of male admirers, all of them more attractive than Fritz. Still, Fritz tried to talk to her. She was nice enough, but when he asked if she would go out with him that Friday night, she’d gently refused. What had he expected? All he had to do was look in the mirror to know why.

  Fritz wanted to get married. His male hormones were raging and he needed sexual release. So, he’d settled for a girl who lived down the street from him. He knew she would accept his advances because she was very plain and shy. None of the other boys had any interest in her. It wasn’t much of a romance. They married three months later. Then he’d been out drinking one night when he’d seen a friend he’d met in the army. His friend had offered him this filthy job as a guard at a camp. It paid better than his low-grade office job, and since Fritz needed the money, he accepted. He’d worked very hard but never received recognition. Now, at the height of his career, he was still only a low-ranking officer. It would have been wonderful to rise in the party, but he had no skills and wasn’t smart enough to figure out a way to make himself useful to any of the party leaders. He’d heard rumors about Himmler’s occult castle and he wished he could be invited to go there. He had no idea what kind of magical rituals they performed. But he allowed his fantasies of the place to consume him. Perhaps if he could just get an invitation to the castle he could learn to cast spells to make himself handsome and successful. Of course, he never received an invitation. He was never even officially told anything about it. However, what he did have and enjoyed through this job was power over the prisoners. All of his life, Fritz had been treated like an inferior. And although his superiors still shunned him, here at the camp he had power. A man like Margolis might be strong and handsome, but little good it did him in a concentration camp. At the end of the day, Fritz decided which prisoners would live and which would die. In this little corner of the world, Fritz had the power to play God. Here he was a superior man.

  Now, a man like Taavi, with his muscular body and good looks that still remained intact, in spite of the terrible conditions he was living in, angered Fritz beyond comprehension. Fritz would have liked to smash Taavi like an insect, and he had the power to do just that. In fact, he could shoot Taavi at any time and there would be no repercussions. However, he had learned something over the years. Destroying that which you hate is not nearly as satisfying as profiting from it. And, that was exactly what Fritz Braus planned to do. He planned to profit.

  Chapter 9

  Alina

  Against Lotti’s wishes Alina and Johan began to spend a lot of time together. Something was blossoming between them. Alina would not have called it love. But she was very lonely with her parents and sisters gone, and needed to feel close to someone other than Lotti and Lev. The sweet and tender but innocent relationship with Johan made her feel cared for. Johan would drop subtle hints that his feelings for her were growing into something more than friendship, but Alina wasn’t sure what she felt, so she said nothing. Often Johan would come over and he and Alina would take long walks and talk for hours. She shared her dreams with him, how she longed to go to the university and study to become a teacher. “It was difficult enough when women were discouraged from getting an education because they were women. But now because I am Jewish, I’m not allowed to go to the university at all. I feel like the Nazis are strangling the life out of me and my family. They are taking everything away from us. Even our dreams,” Alina said.

  “No one can ever take your
dreams, Alina,” Johan said as he gently caressed her face with his palm.

  She told him how she’d mothered her little sister and how she’d enjoyed working at the orphanage. “I feel that teaching is such an important job. A teacher helps to mold a child. Sometimes even more than their parents. At the orphanage, since none of the children had parents, I felt like I was their mother. Does that make sense to you?” she asked.

  “Everything you say and do makes sense to me, Alina. I think you would make a wonderful teacher and an even more wonderful mother,” Johan said as he took Alina’s hand. She blushed and looked away.

  Since he was a young boy, Johan had loved to work with his hands. He’d been a tinkerer, a handyman of sorts, so he believed that he could move anywhere and scrounge out at least a meager living. “Which university do you want to attend?” he asked Alina one sunny afternoon.

  “If I had my choice, I’d love to go to Munich. I’ve heard it is so beautiful there. Like a picturesque city out of a fairy tale.”

  “I have an idea.” He smiled. “Let’s go to Munich together. I can always find work. I can fix almost anything, I can paint a house too. I’ll support you while you attend classes. If you want to go to study in Munich, let’s go together. What do you say?” They sat under a tree in the back of the building where Alina was living with Lev and Lotti.

  “If we move far away where no one knows us, you could pose as my sister. We could say that you had been living in Poland. That way you would be able to register at the university using my last name. No one would know that you were Jewish.”

  “I don’t know, Johan. You and me living together? Is that something that you think is proper?”

  “Of course….” He smiled. His voice cracked. He hesitated. “We could marry if you are willing. It would have to be secretly because of the laws. Then it would be proper, wouldn’t it?”

  “How? Who would marry us? It wouldn’t be legal. No one would take that kind of risk.”

  “Alina … I believe that things are going to get worse in Germany. All the signs are pointing to it and I think it will be dangerous for you here in Berlin. You grew up here. People know you, they know your family is Jewish. In Munich nobody knows you. Nobody knew your family. Even though the Nazis have a strong hold on Munich, if no one knows you’re Jewish, it should be safe for you there.”

  “So, we would be married, but not legally.”

  “Yes ... I’m afraid so. I don’t know what else we can do. It is not as if I wouldn’t marry you legally. I can’t. You know that.”

  “Johan. Living as man and wife without papers….”

  “It’s shameful for you. I know. But it is all I have to offer.”

  “More than shameful, it’s dangerous. It’s against the law. Whether we are married or not. I am a Jew and you are an Aryan. Our being together is illegal.”

  “Yes, it is. We would have to change your name and have papers drawn up, so that there would be no record of your being Jewish.”

  “Illegal papers, Johan. If we get caught, we would be in serious trouble.”

  “You don’t realize it, Alina. Jews are already in trouble. I want to help you. Can’t you see that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. My family … my parents … they will be returning here to Berlin.”

  “And when they do, Lotti will contact us. I’ve given this a great deal of thought and I truly feel that this is the safest thing for us, Alina.”

  “I’m afraid, Johan.”

  “I know….” He was afraid. It was not like him to take risks, but the more he knew this strange, quiet girl, the better he liked her. Johan knew he was asking a lot of her. But their relationship would put him in equally as much danger as it put her. And for some reason, he was willing to take the risk. Perhaps he was falling in love. So far, they had only shared a few kisses, and now he was suggesting that they move in together in a city a long way from her home. But what other choice was left to them? Until Johan had gotten to know Alina, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to marry anyone. But now, he felt differently. This girl was special. She was refined and gentle, but he sensed a strength that lay just beneath the surface that made her wildly intriguing. Her being Jewish put an air of mystery around her. Her full, wavy dark hair and eyes as black as a panther set his heart on fire and filled his body with a passion he’d never felt for another woman.

  Would he, the man who had always been determined to stay a bachelor without commitments and responsibilities, have married her if it was legal? It was hard to say because it was forbidden and he didn’t know what he would do if things were different. After spending his early life caring for his parents, the thought of being tied to anything or anyone repelled him. He knew what it felt like to be smothered and unable to break free. Johan’s relationship with Alina was different than any he had with the Aryan girls he’d dated. It seemed to him that the others were always pushing him for a wedding ring. Not so with Alina. He wasn’t sure if it was because a marriage between them was not legal. But regardless of the reason because she had never put any pressure on him to make a commitment he found he was able to relax when he was with her. This made him enjoy her company even more. It was nice not being put in the position to decide to marry or not. His relationship with Alina was dangerous, it was true. But y, for Johan, it was easier than it would have been if he had to surrender his freedom unconditionally to an Aryan woman. He just wasn’t sure he would be able to agree to promise himself to some girl for the rest of his life. But he knew for sure that if he were to ever consider pledging his heart to any woman it would be Alina.

  When Johan and Alina presented their plan for the future to Lotti and Lev, Lotti was angry with Alina. She told Alina that she felt responsible for her and that Alina’s parents would never approve of her moving in with Johan. But Alina insisted that she wanted to go to the university and without Johan’s help, it would be impossible. That night after Johan went home, Lotti went to Alina’s room to talk to her.

  “You surprise me,” Lotti said , shaking her head. “Your parents will be so angry with me if I don’t try to stop you from moving in with my brother. They will want to know how I could allow you to go so far away from here … to live with a man who isn’t your husband. What are you thinking, Alina?”

  “I’m thinking that I am a Jew. Jews are not allowed to go to the University of Munich. I want to attend university … so what are my options?”

  “And, Johan? You and Johan? I assume you would be lovers, living in sin? I am not a child, Alina. A man and woman cannot live together for very long without that sort of thing happening. And I see how he looks at you. It is only a matter of time and that is if it has not already happened.”

  “Nothing like that has happened between us. I promise you, Lotti. And, the truth is that we would marry if we could. We’ve discussed it. But the laws forbid us from getting married. There is nothing left for us to do.”

  “So, you will … live as husband and wife?”

  “Yes. We will get married secretly. I know it won’t be legal in the eyes of the law. But, I don’t know what to do.

  “I care for Johan. He cares for me. I want to get an education. We cannot marry. What do you suggest?”

  Lotti’s shoulders slumped. “I wish you would have listened to me and not gotten involved with him. He’s weak, Alina. He can’t stand up to the Nazis. I know him better than you do….”

  “So you have told me….”

  “And? Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  “Because I want a future. I can’t go to a university here in Berlin, so, I am going to study in Munich.”

  “I don’t know what I am going to tell your parents when they return.”

  “If they return,” Alina said, her voice deep but hollow, sounding like an echo inside of a cave.

  Lotti shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. She had no answer.

  Chapter 10

  Michal, 1939

  On a beautiful day in June, when the sun was shin
ing and everything looked alive and green, Michal and the other prisoners were transferred to a camp outside of Berlin. It was a new structure that had just been built a month earlier. This was to be an all-womens prison called Ravensbruck.

  Michal had never been so horrified or humiliated as she was on the day when she first arrived at Ravensbruck. She was told to strip naked and all of the hair on her body was to be shaved … a delousing, they said. Michal’s eyes grew wide; she could not bear to think of these people invading her private parts. When she looked around, the other prisoners had the same horrified look on their faces. One of the women prisoners resisted. She refused to take off all of her clothes. A guard shot her in the face. Michal watched as the woman fell in a pool of blood. Her face was no longer recognizable. It was a mass of bloody tissue. Michal trembled at the sight, then she took off her clothes. Most of the guards were women, many of them terribly mean. They were shouting “Schnell, schnell.” Just close off your mind, Michal told herself. Pretend you are not here. But she could not help but look at the guards. When she did, she saw that there were several male guards standing around and watching. Michal felt exposed and violated.

  She stood in a line waiting to receive a white uniform with blue stripes, a white kerchief to wear over her head, and a fabric gold star with a black background that she was told to sew onto the left sleeve of her uniform. She dressed quickly. Then, Michal was ushered into another line where she was given a small cube of soap, a bowl, a spoon, and a washcloth. One of the guards instructed the prisoners as to where they were to keep their belongings. They were taken over to a well-organized shelf, where each prisoner was allocated a space. Michal did as she was told, but bursts of anxiety kept her heart pumping, and she felt as if she might have a meltdown at any given moment. Before she was transferred to Ravensbruck prison, she deluded herself into believing that there was a chance she might be released. Her every thought was of her daughters and her sweet, tender Taavi. She prayed constantly, no matter what she was doing. A voice in her head was in constant conversation with God. She was pleading for the safety of her loved ones and for the day when she would be reunited with them. But now, here in this dungeon for forgotten souls, she began to doubt that she would ever see her family again. She knew she had to fight the feelings of being trapped and helpless or she would go mad and start screaming, and then for sure she would be shot immediately.