War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 136

Chapter 20

A

fter dusk Stan snuck into the house.

“Thank God, you’re here!” Katrina threw her arms around him with such force they both stumbled.

“Calm down, sister, and tell me what happened. I saw the midwife visit with you,” Stan said, ignoring Richard’s presence.

“She brought good and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?” Katrina dragged her brother into the kitchen. She and Richard had just finished working on the fields for the day and settled in to have dinner. Wordlessly, Richard put another setting for Stan on the table.

“The bad, please.” Richard liked his thinking. Getting it over with and ending on a positive note. In different circumstances they might have been friends.

“Agnieska refused to escape,” Katrina said, dishing out

Bigos,

a popular Polish stew made of finely chopped meat, sauerkraut, and shredded fresh white cabbage. The vinegary smell filled the kitchen and made Richard’s mouth water. As farmers they had more food at their disposal than most people, but since Katrina helped feed Stan’s resistance group, they always scraped by, and she often used her ingenuity to prepare meals with less than common ingredients.

“Why would the stupid woman do this?” Stan asked and chugged down a glass of water.

“Because she’s hiding Janusz.”

Stan dropped the spoon of

Bigos

about to enter his mouth into the bowl. “What? Little Jan? As in our nephew Jan?”

“Yes.” Katrina beamed with joy.

Richard opted not to enter the conversation to prevent rousing Stan’s temper, and silently spooned the meal into his mouth. It tasted different, tarter than usual. Then he remembered and grinned, waiting for Stan’s reaction.

“Spill it,” Stan said to Katrina and took a big bite of stew. His face turned into a grimace. “What the hell have you put in there?”

“Fox.” She shrugged.

“God, Katrina. Really? Why not cook a rabbit or a bird?” Stan groaned.

“I cook what I have and Richard happened to bring me a fox. He caught him trying to stalk our hens. The fur will make a nice muff. Now do you want to hear about Jan and Agnieska or not?”

Stan nodded, but first he shot a dark stare at Richard, murmuring, “Thanks for the meat.”

She repeated the news they’d received from the midwife and then presented the problem by asking, “How do we get both of them out?”

“Hmm…since Jan is officially not there, we can’t get a pass for him. But this also means nobody will miss him if he disappears,” Stan said.

“He can’t just climb the fence and run away or he’d have done that a long time ago,” Richard said, serving himself seconds of stew. Fox or no fox, this wasn’t the time for qualms, and it actually didn’t taste that bad once he’d gotten accustomed to the tart flavor.

“Well observed, Fritz. And that would be why? Let me tell you: because your fucking compatriots are shooting everyone who so much as glances the wrong way.”

“Please don’t start that again,” Katrina begged. “We have an impossible task ahead and we have to work together or we’d better not try it at all.”

Stan gave an indecipherable growl. Katrina obviously knew her brother well, because she smiled and continued to talk, “Magda won’t be able to help any further. She’s already exposed herself by delivering the messages. If someone found out and betrayed her, it would endanger her entire family.”

“Who would betray her except for the…” Stan cast a dirty stare at Richard. “…None of us, right?”

Annoyance snaked up Richard’s spine at being the constant subject of Stan’s hatred. Wasn’t his willingness to expose himself and go inside the Ghetto proof enough of his loyalty? “Look,

Polacke

, there’s plenty of collaborators amongst

your

compatriots, willing to sell their souls and betray their own mother for a scrap of bread.”

“Could you stop bickering like ten-year-olds for once? Or I’ll have to ask Tadzio for help with this. He’s more grown up than both of you together.” Katrina stood and put her fists on her hips.

“Truce,” Stan offered.

“Truce,” Richard agreed. But neither of them would go as far as shaking the other’s hand.

Katrina returned with paper and pencil. “So what do we know about the Ghetto?”

They talked, planned, designed, scribbled, and drew for hours, but in the end had to accept that there wasn’t a way to rescue both of their relatives.

“Let’s face it. It’s impossible.” Stan got up and put on his boots and smock. “I’ll return to my unit and see what advice they can give me. Perhaps they know more than we do.”

“Yes, talk to Bartosz, he might come up with a plan.” Katrina kissed her brother on the cheek. “Be careful and return soon to let me know.” Then she stared after him as he disappeared into the night.

“Let’s go to bed,” Richard said, putting his arm around her shoulders.

Suddenly she seemed so frail, weak even, as she leaned against him and sighed. “I wish we could do something. Anything.”

In that very instant Richard promised himself not to let her down. Somehow, he would find a way to rescue her loved ones. It might even help to alleviate the burden of guilt weighing on his shoulders.

The next day,

a Sunday, a neighbor came over and found them working in the backyard.

“Good morning, Katrina,” the woman greeted her, “and who’s that handsome man living with you? A boyfriend?”

“No, Mrs. Kozlow. This is Ryszard Blach, a distant cousin from up North. He lost his home.” Katrina introduced them and Mrs. Kozlow gave Richard a flirtatious smile. He politely shook her hand, trying his best to keep a straight face. Even if he weren’t madly in love with Katrina, he wouldn’t acknowledge the advances of a woman who was old enough to be his mother.

“May I borrow your heavy shears?” Mrs. Kozlow said. “I need to trim the branches close to the house. Don’t want them snapping off and breaking my windows.”

“Of course you may. It must be done before summer,” Katrina said.

“You are lucky. You have this strong man in your house to help,” the woman said slyly. “With my husband dead and my son forced to work in the Reich, my four daughters and I do what we can.”

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to be thoughtless,” Katrina replied. “I will send Ryszard over to you if you need any heavy work done.”

Richard didn’t like the way Mrs. Kozlow’s eyes brightened at Katrina’s offer, but in order not to give his German accent away, he remained silent and only gave a curt nod.

“My daughters would love the company of your cousin, I’m sure of that. There’s little enough diversion in our lives. Work, and more work. Day in and day out,” the woman complained.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to work anymore?” Katrina said, and turned to Richard to explain. “Mrs. Kozlow is a teacher, but the Germans have closed down the secondary school where she used to work.”

Richard nodded. In Hitler’s racial theories, the Slavs were at the bottom of the pyramid, slightly above the Jews. Considered an inferior race, they weren’t deemed worthy of receiving a higher education, and thus all secondary schools for Poles had been closed down, making thousands of teachers redundant.

“Thanks to an acquaintance, I found work in the children’s camp.”

“I’ve never heard of a children’s camp. Where’s this?” Katrina asked.

Her neighbor laughed before saying, “That’s because you’re always out here on the farm and never venture into town. The children’s camp, or

Kinder KZ

, as the Germans call it, is attached to the Ghetto, separated by a fence. It’s a prison for underage criminals.”

“And you’re teaching there?”

“No, silly, of course not. The little criminals have to work. I’m there to oversee that they behave. It’s not a satisfying job,” she wrinkled her nose before continuing, “but the pay is excellent and includes extra rations. What more could I want?”

Decency and morale perhaps

. Richard had never been in the Kinder KZ, but he’d heard stories about it. The living conditions in there mirrored those of concentration camps for adults. He couldn’t fathom how a woman, a mother, and a Pole could voluntarily work there. For all he knew the children never left the camp again, except for those destined for Germanization

.

Polish Christian youngsters with Nordic ethnic features would be selected by racial officers and brought to a transit camp before being sent to the Reich for adoption by racially pure German parents.