War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 189

Chapter 3: Anna

Berlin

I

nhaling a ragged breath, Anna Klausen crawled from the bomb shelter as she turned to survey the damage the last air raid had brought upon this part of the city. At the age of twenty-two, Anna had known nothing but war since becoming an adult.

Please God, end this horrible war before it’s too late.

Even worse, her husband Peter had been taken prisoner of war after traveling to Warsaw to fight for his country in what would be known as the Warsaw Uprising. A disastrous undertaking that killed hundreds of thousands – civilians and combatants alike.

She pushed her straight blond hair behind her ears and surveyed her surroundings. Several of the employee housing blocks next to the Charité clinic where she worked as a nurse lay in ruins. The stones lay crumbled and scattered across the grounds, smoke continuing to rise from within. Anna shook her head and fought down the tears forming in her blue eyes as she slowly approached the location of the building that had been her home only hours before.

“It’s nothing but trash,” Janusz murmured by her side.

“You’re right.”

She ruffled the boy’s dark and dusted hair, giving him a crooked smile. She’d been thrust into motherhood less than a month ago when her sister Lotte had arrived in Berlin with Peter’s presumed-dead son. Being the stepmother and sole provider for a twelve-year-old boy, whom she’d never met before, definitely presented its challenges, even with such a well-behaved child.

He grinned back at her with his glacial blue eyes, sending a stab through her stomach. Those eyes reminded her of her husband, Peter, every time she looked at them. Apart from Peter’s eyes, Jan had inherited the dark hair and high cheekbones from his Jewish mother Ludmila, Peter’s first wife.

Another stab in the heart reminded Anna that Ludmila had died at the hands of the Nazis in the Lodz Ghetto. Jan had miraculously survived thanks to the intervention of Ludmila’s brave sister, Agnieska, and some mysterious German soldier named Richard.

Richard

…

Anna hadn’t heard from her brother with the same name as the man who’d saved Jan in several months, which meant her mind often drifted to horrible possibilities. Richard could be injured, or worse. A tortured sigh escaped her chest and Janusz turned his head, pushing his small hand into hers.

Anna pulled her mind from the depressing thoughts and back to the equally depressing task that lay ahead of them. “Let’s see if we can salvage some of our things and then we’ll go to my mother’s place.”

Janusz nodded, his eyes reflecting a maturity far beyond his years. “I wish this war would end…”

Anna shook her head and placed her finger on her lips. Her sister Lotte’s boyfriend Johann, a Leutnant in the Wehrmacht, had provided Janusz with false gentile papers, turning him into the Aryan boy Jan Wagner. But she lived in constant fear he might be found out.

As a half-Jewish Pole, his chances of survival were devastating should this happen. And hers too, for the crime of harboring an

enemy of the Reich

. She scoffed. How could a well-behaved, friendly boy like Jan be an enemy of the Reich?

The boy nodded his approval to her unspoken request and squared his shoulders as they walked toward the smoldering remains of their home. Having lived hidden in the Lodz Ghetto for months he knew all about ducking his head and keeping his mouth shut. Anna sighed again. What kind of upbringing was this for a child?

More and more people crawled out of the common bomb shelter on the Charité grounds and hurried towards the remains of their buildings, ignoring the smoke rising from the ashes and the burning debris scattered across the grounds. Thankfully, the hospital part had survived, and Anna knew they’d have an influx of new patients after the latest raid. But first she had to get Jan to safety with her mother.

When they arrived at the place where their apartment had once been she spied several articles of clothing that, while covered in dust and debris, looked to be intact and just in need of a good washing. She carefully tucked them into a bag she’d liberated from the rubble several minutes earlier, telling Jan to do the same with the items he found.

An hour later, a few meager possessions tucked away in the bag, Anna and Jan began the long walk to where her mother and her sister Ursula lived with baby Eveline.

They arrived

at the apartment and knocked on the door, since the electric bell had long since stopped working. Electricity had become an unreliable utility, coming and going, but mostly going. Another of the hardships of war. Anna cursed once again the delusional man responsible for all of this turmoil. If only the people of Germany had known…although she didn’t hold much hope that most people would have stood up to fight against such injustice. They resembled sheeple, running behind their charismatic shepherd, afraid of the growling herding dogs if they dared to stray from the center of the flock.

“Anna, Jan. What a surprise!” Ursula greeted them when she opened the door, but after a second look at the disheveled state of them, the smile vanished from her face, “What happened?”

“The usual. The awful Englishman dropping his gifts.”

“Come in.” Ursula pursed her lips, conflicted. Since she’d fallen in love with one of the hated English bomber pilots, the topic irritated her.

“Our apartment complex is a complete loss and we need to find another place to live,” Anna said.

Ursula looked at the bag Anna carried and said, “It looks like this place is getting crowded again. Is this all you have?”

“This and the things we already have deposited here.” Most Berliners had suitcases with essentials deposited with friends or relatives in different areas of the city for occasions like this one. Anna had never thought she’d have to depend on one of her emergency suitcases. She suppressed a heavy sigh as she thought of all the things lost to the shelling. Not that she owned things of material value, but suddenly the emotional attachment weighed heavily on her soul.

Ursula glanced at her sister and without hearing the words, she seemed to understand Anna’s desolate state of mind. “Despite everything, Mutter will be glad to have you and Jan here so she can fuss over you.”

Anna groaned. That had been one of the reasons she’d left the family apartment to live in the employment housing. That, and the dangerous journey to and from work.

“Jan, why don’t you put your things down in the nursery and then clean yourself up? You look like Max and Moritz after falling into the flour box.” Ursula giggled at Jan’s indignant face while trying to dust himself off. Anna joined the laughter, wondering how she could still be laughing like a silly girl after what had just happened.

After pouring herself a glass of water, she dropped on a kitchen chair. Silly giggles helped her cope with this awfulness. It didn’t help to lament. And she couldn’t very well live day in, day out with her lips pressed into a thin line. That would mean giving up and letting the darkness win. No, as long as there was even a sliver of hope, she’d giggle like the silliest adolescent.

Ursula joined her at the kitchen table, while Jan dashed off to the bathroom to take a shower. “Be glad you and Jan are still alive. You did rescue his papers, didn’t you?”

“Off course. Do you think me stupid?” Anna snapped, regretting her reaction in the same moment. “Sorry. It was a tough day. He has his papers on him day and night. Without them he’d be dead within days.”

Anna sipped at her water and leaned back, looking at her sister. “I must find a way of writing him,” she murmured.

Ursula reached across the table and grabbed Anna’s hand. “You know that is not possible. Peter is a prisoner of war. It’s forbidden to engage with them. If they find out…” Anna knew all this. Her husband was a prisoner, an enemy, a Pole, a subhuman. Trying to contact him would sentence both of them to death.

“There has to be some way,” she insisted.

“I wish there was, but it’s too dangerous. Right now, you need to focus on Jan. You’re the only family he has left.”

“I’m not even real family. And he has you, and Mutter,” Anna said. Her mother had never really approved of Peter, a man living under a false identity, as a son-in-law, but she’d instantly taken to her new grandson. Jan and his grandmother adored each other.

“And we will take care of him, should…you know…but it’s best to be cautious.” A squeaking sound interrupted them and Ursula got up from the table. “I need to go check on the baby.”

Anna nodded, not paying much attention to her sister’s departure. She heard Jan leave the bathroom and scuffle around the small apartment, unpacking the few belongings they’d salvaged from the rubble of their previous home. She should be doing the same, but right now she couldn’t focus on anything except the need to contact Peter and let him know she and Jan were safe.

When Ursula returned with baby Eveline cradled in her arms, Anna said, “I’m going to join the Red Cross.”

“You…what?” Understanding hit Ursula and she said, “That would never work.”

“Of course it would. They let members of the Red Cross inside the prison camps to check up on the prisoners.”

Ursula handed the baby to Anna and heated milk on the stove. “The

International

Red Cross. And there’s no guarantee that you’d be visiting his prison camp. Besides, what would be your excuse for quitting your job as a nurse to join the Red Cross?”

“I wouldn’t need one.” Anna kissed baby Evie’s small forehead and held the five-month-old against her shoulder.

“Yes, you would,” Ursula insisted. “The minute you requested to visit a specific prisoner’s camp, they’d suspect something.”

Anna sighed, digesting the truth of her sister’s words. “I’ll find a way. I just don’t know how yet, but there’s always a way.”

Ursula filled the bottle, tested the temperature on her wrist and handed it to Anna. “I don’t agree, but knowing your stubbornness, if there is a way, you’ll be the one to find it.”

Anna adjusted the baby in her arms and stuck the bottle in her mouth. “Aunt Anna will find it, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, Evie. I can’t wait for you to meet Uncle Peter. He’s going to fall in love with you just like everyone else has.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, firming her resolve to do whatever it took to contact Peter. It was the least she could do. Not only was he her husband, but also her best friend aside from her family. And while she was at it, she’d find a way of getting him out. Then he just had to resume his fake German identity as Peter Wolf, driver of Professor Scherer.