War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 133

Chapter 17

T

he next morning over breakfast Katrina announced that she wouldn’t give up that easily.

“We’ve already lost so many family members, there must be a way to rescue Agnieska,” she said into the silence.

“It’s too risky.” Stan chuckled at the indignant look she gave him. “You have to stay on the farm, because you’re feeding not only yourself but my entire partisan unit. None of them could do their job without the food from this farm.”

Richard didn’t see eye to eye with Stan on many topics, but he couldn’t argue that point. Her job might not be heroic or adventurous, but the resistance relied on her contribution to the effort. He cast his eyes downward onto his bowl of porridge, swallowing down a response that would surely rouse Stan’s temper.

“I can’t sit here and do nothing. If you’re not willing to help, maybe Richard is. Any idea how we could get into the Ghetto?”

“We will not consult with our enemy,” Stan spat out, giving Richard a murderous stare. “How can you even be sure he won’t run to the Wehrmacht headquarters and betray us in a desperate attempt to safe his own life?”

“Stop being childish, Stan. Richard might have some useful insight, and we need all the help we can get. The problem with you is that your emotions cloud your clear thinking, and one day we’ll all get killed thanks to your short fuse.”

“I am not working together with the Fritz. If you want me to be part of this, he,” Stan nodded toward Richard before continuing, “stays out.”

Richard thought it best to leave the quarrel to the siblings. They didn’t want or need his help. Besides, he didn’t have any useful advice to offer.

“I have work to do. See you around.” Richard got up and laced his heavy boots with flying fingers before he walked outside. A part of him could understand Stan’s hostility, but it still hurt. And made him question himself, his motives, his role in the German war machine.

Deep in thought he opened the hen coop, fed the newly acquired bunnies with grass, pumped water from the well, and then marched off toward the vegetable beds. Should he have known about the death camps? Could he have known? A soldier’s main task was to obey orders, not to question intent. Usually the high command had a more complete, strategic view of things than the rank and file. Even if he had known, could he have done anything? Would he?

Richard kneeled down to weed the beds, tossing the plants into a bucket to give to the hens and rabbits later. Being honest with himself Richard knew he wasn’t cut out from hero material. He was just an eighteen-year-old boy, prematurely turned into a man by war, who did what was expected of him. What did he know? Maybe Hitler was right, and the Jews really were the root of all evil? Maybe they had to be extinguished just like the weeds taking precious light and water from the vegetables. He wiped the back of the hand across his forehead.

Since when had things become so complicated? Back at home, he’d played with his friends, and hadn’t even known whether they were Jews or not. Hadn’t cared. Done with the weeding, he took up the spade to dig up another patch of land for planting potatoes. The farm work reminded him of the happy vacations he’d spent at Aunt Lydia’s farm in Bavaria, and he smiled at the memory of his first ever crush when he was twelve, or maybe thirteen.

Her family lived next to Lydia’s. She was a cute brunette with the sweetest smile and he’d been smitten, but too shy to talk to her. Rachel Epstein was her name.

Epstein.

It hit him like one of Stan’s fists between the eyes. Her family must be Jewish. He swallowed at the possibility of what had happened to her.

“Richard,” Tadzio shouted and rushed down the road to join him.

“Hi, Tadzio, up so early?”

“Yes,” the boy said with a proud expression. “I have to collect wood for the stove.” Coal was hard to come by these days if you weren’t German or at least

Volksdeutsch

, a Polish citizen of German ancestry.

“Help me here and I’ll collect wood with you later,” Richard offered and the boy beamed with joy. The hard work was only half as strenuous when it was shared.

“What happened to your eye?” Tadzio asked.

Richard touched his swollen skin, probably turning blue and black. “Stan’s fist. He returned last night and blames me for his brother’s death.”

“Jarek is dead?” The shock blanched Tadzio’s face.

“Yes. Captured during one of their missions.”

Tadzio frowned, but then raised his fist. “He will be avenged! Soon the Home Army will slay the Germans, send them back to where they came from. I wish I was old enough to join up. I’d kill off the enemy in no time at all.”

Richard stood frozen. The boy’s enthusiasm for killing anyone German trickled down his spine like droplets of ice. Tadzio cast his eyes downward and flushed a rosy hue of regret. “Not you, of course. You’re not really a German. You’re nice.”

For the umpteenth time Richard questioned his decision to stay with Katrina. Most everyone hated him, or would if they knew his true identity. He couldn’t count on the empathy of the locals, but he couldn’t return to his own people either. Not now. Maybe not ever. Danger lurked in every corner. Apparently, the question wasn’t if he’d be killed, but who’d get to him first.

“Jarek was such a nice fellow. So kind and funny,” Tadzio interrupted Richard’s morose thoughts with his exuberant innocence not yet darkened by the horrors of killing his enemy. “He always had time for us kids and never let any of the big boys bully us. That was before...” Tadzio fought a losing battle against the tears forming in his eyes.

“Hey, enough talking, there’s work to do,” Richard said, tossing a spade at the boy. The physical strain and the fresh crisp air soon did their job, blotting out the blues. Soon enough curiosity and the fascination of all things war-related got the better of Tadzio and he asked, “You were at the front, right?”

Richard nodded.

“How was it?

“Cold.” Richard had no intention of relaying the grimy details of combat to the boy. “You don’t know cold until you’ve experienced a Russian winter.” He grimaced and shivered involuntarily. “It was so long and hard. We sometimes froze to the earth when lying for hours in the trenches, waiting.”

“Didn’t your army keep you well supplied?”

“Nothing can withstand the Russian winter. In my first year we went into winter training, but last year, it was plain nuts. We froze our asses off. Literally. More than one of the boys got frozen to the thunderbox.” Richard laughed. In hindsight it was funny. It hadn’t been with pants down in sub-zero temperatures. “The Russians understood their winters. They wore fur-lined caps and gloves.”

“So the weather was the real enemy.” Tadzio grinned with a wisdom beyond his tender age. “And it defeated your great army.”

“True enough,” Richard agreed, resting for a moment on the handle of his spade. Sweat poured down his back and face. He wouldn’t mind a bit of snow right now.

“Do you believe this war will be over soon? Everyone is talking about it.”

“Honestly, I have no idea. Although I wish the rumors were true.” Richard continued digging the heavy earth soaked from the rains of the last days.

Why on earth are we even fighting this war? Why can’t we all just get on with our lives?

He dug harder, trying to work off his guilt. Whenever he tried to grasp the sense of this madness, and his role in it, his head began to ache.

One of his favorite books in a previous life had been

All Quiet on the Western Front

by Erich Maria Remarque. The book depicted the story of a young soldier experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches during the previous World War. Even then Richard had shared the protagonist’s opinion. War was senseless. It was started by the rich and famous as they manipulated and hungered for even more wealth and power – men who’d never have to die at the front.

But at the same time he still felt guilty about deserting the Wehrmacht. His comrades, his superiors, they’d been good to him. It was like family. Although in Lodz he’d looked into the abyss of human cruelty. Waffen-SS. No way would he have any part in this. But maybe he should have returned, tried to fight the system from within instead of hiding on a farm.