War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 218

Chapter 32: Peter

F

ive days after his liberation he was still staying at the former prisoner camp, hastily converted into a hospital and Displaced Persons Camp. With fighting rampant all over the area, the British had ordered everyone to stay around.

The liberated prisoners were free to leave the camp, but not the town. Most used their new freedom to pilfer and loot anything they could get a hold of, since the new British commander had announced that the town of Lübeck was “a lawless zone with looting allowed” for the next three days. Hordes of ex-prisoners ventured out to take the much-needed food out of the Germans’ hands. Civilians – mostly women – scurried away with terror-stricken faces as soon as they saw the shabby men coming into town.

Peter hated committing such blatant war crimes, and he was grateful for his weakened condition that allowed him the perfect excuse to stay in the hospital during the day.

“Major, when can I leave?” Peter asked the British military doctor.

“We have started to repatriate the British and American soldiers already, but there’s still fighting going on in Poland so you’ll have to stay at least until the war is over. Which can’t be much longer.”

“I don’t want to return to Poland. I need to find someone first.”

The doctor gave him a scrutinizing glance. “Where do you need to go?”

“Berlin.”

“Berlin?” the doctor gasped. “That city is off limits. And from all I hear no civilian in their right mind should go there. The Soviets are out for revenge, murdering the men and raping the women.”

Peter swallowed hard. “I…I have to go. My wife and my son are there. I’ll go with a pass or without.”

The doctor cast him a sympathetic look, but didn’t ask further questions. “As soon as Germany has capitulated, I’ll clear you to leave the British zone for Poland. What you do on your way is out of my hands.”

“Thanks, Major.”

At least Peter could hold onto this sliver of hope. Sick with worry for Anna and Jan, he consoled himself with the fact that Stan was with them and would do anything to protect them.

He had crisscrossed this damn country so many times already in the last few months, what difference would walking another two hundred miles through battlefields make? But he knew well that, in his debilitated physical condition, he’d never make it. And he didn’t want to run into the Red Army without a valid pass. Getting shipped to a Siberian Gulag was the last thing he needed.

Later in the afternoon, a commotion outside caught his attention. A group of ex-prisoners dragged several guards with bound wrists and ankles behind them.

“Hang ’em! Hang ’em!” chanted the crowd.

Peter rushed outside to try and prevent the worst. The guards probably deserved their punishment, but Peter still thought a mob lynching would put them at the same level with the Nazis. They were better than that.

Courts would rule and let justice prevail, not vigilantism. But when he reached the courtyard, he skidded to a halt. Four men dangled from lampposts in the soft breeze. Peter gagged. Would the horrors never end?

Would the victors now do unto the Germans as the Germans had done unto them? An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. He bit on his lip, scared with the prospect of a violent and bleak future in Europe. He sank to his knees, knowing that he must go to Berlin if he wanted to find Anna and Jan alive.

The next morning, on May 8

th

, the men woke to the good news of Germany’s unconditional surrender. Peter gave a scream of joy. The war was over. And he had survived.

In the late morning the doctor came and gave him clearance to leave the hospital, handing him a travel pass to Poland. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”

Peter caught a ride on the back of a truck filled with replacement parts for machinery. During his death march across Germany he’d been too exhausted to raise his eyes from the ground in front of his feet, but now from up on the truck’s bed he became aware of the utter devastation marring the formerly beautiful country. Thousands upon thousands of displaced persons roamed the streets, everyone trying to get home, or to find surviving family members.

Former POWs, concentration camp survivors, refugees from the East, and German civilians seemed to be everywhere. They scattered like leaves on the sea, sloshing with the tide. Up and down. Left and right. Nothing but scorched earth. Cities and towns in ruins. Uncultivated fields.

Being raised on a farm, he knew that those who hadn’t sowed in spring wouldn’t harvest in fall. It would be a dreadful winter with little food for the already starving population.

But at least the weapons had been laid to rest.

Several days later,

after changing his means of transportation countless times, he finally reached the outskirts of Berlin. He hardly believed his eyes. The trip from Lübeck had given him a good view of the devastation, but Berlin surpassed his wildest nightmares.

A city in ruins – almost no house remained intact. Corpses littered the streets, and the people who braved the chaos on the rubble-strewn streets and ventured outside resembled zombies. With bated breath he first went to the employee housing at the Charité where he and Anna had both lived before he left for Warsaw almost a year ago.

Both buildings had been razed to the ground. By some miracle the hospital building still stood, but upon inquiry he found out that the Russians had taken over the care of the patients and sent all the nurses home.

Just where was Anna’s home now? Without a better idea he walked – relatively unchallenged in his Polish uniform – to the place where Anna’s mother lived. When he arrived in front of the building, he took a deep breath. Where the apartment had been was only a gaping hole in the wall. But since the building itself seemed to hold up well enough, he ventured inside.

A boy scurried past him, trying to escape into the basement, but Peter held out his arm and grabbed the boy’s shoulder. Pushing, shoving, kicking and biting, the boy tried to free himself from Peter’s grip.

“Wait, I just want to ask a question.”

“That’s what they all say,” the boy answered, kicking Peter painfully in the shin.

“Ouch!” Peter yelped and let go of the boy, who turned around, his glacial blue eyes filling with disbelief.

A moment later, he flung himself into Peter’s arms, almost toppling both of them over. “Dad! You’re back!”

“Janusz. My son. My dearest Jan.” Peter was moved to tears, pressing his eyes tightly shut so as not to give away his powerful emotions. “You’re alive. Is…Anna?”

“Come with me,” Jan said with the brightest smile, and a multitude of stones tumbled from Peter’s chest.

Anna must have heard them coming, because she appeared in the hallway. She took his very breath away, still the most beautiful woman on earth, despite the fact that her hair was unkempt and she’d smeared dirt across her face. Her clothes were dusty, torn, and bagging on her tiny frame. Her beautiful eyes still shone with the steel will to survive, although the light in them had dimmed.

“Anna, sweetheart. My baby. My love.” Peter hugged her tight and could feel the suppressed sobs racking her body.

“You survived,” she stated matter-of-factly, as she leaned against his bony chest. Gone was the exuberant women who’d rushed into his arms in Fallingbostel. Something was amiss, but Peter didn’t know what. Although he feared for the worst.

Jan grabbed his hand. “Uncle Stan and Grandma will be so happy to see you.”

“So Stan made it,” Peter murmured to Anna.

She responded with a small smile. “But just barely.”

“Like all of us,” Peter said.

“There’s something you should know. He’s…” Anna started to say, but Jan was already pulling him forward to the small cellar compartment.

Peter staggered backwards the moment he saw Stan huddling on the floor with only one leg. But he did his best not to show his shock and walked over to give his brother a big hug. “Man, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Very nearly you didn’t.”

“Good to see you back.” Frau Klausen’s voice came from behind and Peter turned around to greet her. Anna’s mother had aged considerably in the past year, and she truly looked like an old and broken woman now.

“Thank you, Frau Klausen. I hope I’m not too much of a burden.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have much.”

“That’s alright. I’ll start looking for work this very afternoon.”

“You could start with reconstructing the wall in the apartment, then we can move back up there,” Jan suggested.

Peter chuckled. He was quite handy, but he feared his son had too much trust in his abilities as a mason.