War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 299

Chapter 18: Lotte

Berlin, August 1945

L

otte returned home on a sunny day in August. The shock at the deplorable condition of Berlin in general, and the building where her family used to live in particular, struck a chord in her soul, impeding any movement.

She stood frozen to the cobblestones on the street, a car honking at the obstacle she presented, her eyes widening by the moment. A barely standing structure with gaping bomb holes in walls peppered with bullet holes, and smashed windowpanes, confronted her.

Please God, let them be alive and here

, Lotte prayed, as she slipped through the entrance door that hung off its hinges. She rushed up the damaged stairs, taking three steps at once, when a young boy dashed down, brushing past her without a word as he darted on outside into the street and disappeared.

Lotte’s heart nearly stopped. He hadn’t recognized her, but despite his having grown so much in the past year she recognized him immediately. If her nephew Jan was here, the rest of the family must be, too. With newfound energy she bounded up to the fourth floor and stood on the landing, heart thumping and palms sweating.

She banged on the door with both fists, not caring whether she alerted the entire neighborhood. Her brother-in-law Peter opened the door, scowling angrily. The last time she’d seen him in Warsaw he was an impressive, fear-inspiring, burly man. Now she stared in shock at his hollow face and skeletal frame. Riddled with shock, she couldn’t utter a single word.

“You want to break a door that’s already hanging on its last hinges? We have no money, nor anything else. Go away.” He attempted to slam the door in her face, but she was faster and pushed a foot between door and frame.

“Peter, it’s—”

In that moment she heard her sister Anna’s voice calling out, “Who is it at the door?”

Tears spilled from Lotte’s eyes and before Peter could say a word, she screamed, “Anna. It’s me, Lotte.”

Moments later she was staring at her sister, who had an expression of total disbelief in her eyes.

“Lotte, honey, you made it home.” Anna pushed her husband aside and wrapped her arms around her sister, both women bawling like babies right there in the doorframe, until Peter finally pulled them inside.

“Oh, Anna…” Lotte had yearned such a long time to reunite with her family that now the words slipped from her brain. Moments later she found herself on a dilapidated sofa, holding a glass of water in her hands, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Goodness, Lotte, they told us that you’d gone missing…” Anna hugged her so hard she thought her ribs would crack. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Where’s Mutter? And Ursula?”

“Ursula moved to Aunt Lydia’s with the baby and Mutter is running errands.”

“Thank God…” Lotte barely dared to ask her next question. “What about Richard? And our father?”

Anna shook her head. “We haven’t heard from them.”

“Which is a good thing,” Peter said. “If they had been killed, your mother would have been informed.” It was a small solace.

“I saw Jan dashing down the stairs, but he didn’t recognize me.”

Peter chuckled. “I didn’t recognize you, either. Thought you were a vagrant coming to beg.”

Moments later the door opened, and her mother entered the apartment.

“What’s…” Mutter dropped her shopping bag, and a dozen potatoes for which she’d probably been queuing for hours tumbled to the floor. Lotte jumped into her mother’s opened arms. “Lotte, my baby. God… darling… you’re here… my baby is here.”

Lotte had never been

one to remain idle. She jumped with both feet into activities and became a

Trümmerfrau,

working nine hours a day cleaning up the city. And cleaning up had nothing to do with mopping, sweeping or brushing.

No, Lotte and her coworkers did the backbreaking work of removing rubble, taking down unstable buildings, hammering mortar off the bricks or handing buckets full of debris down the line into a waiting container.

She didn’t especially like the work – because who in their right mind would – but she got paid 72

Reichspfennig

per hour, which was actually a misery, and extra rations. As S

chwerstarbeiter

, the highest category of hard labor, she received twice the fat rations than a

Hausfrau

did. This amounted to four hundred grams of fat per month, plus one hundred grams of meat and half a kilo of bread per day and helped to feed the family.

The devastation in the city was hard to look at and her heart grew dreary every time she walked through the streets to her workplace at some construction area. But she also saw the small signs of improvement, when an unstable building had been cleared away and the heavy machinery arrived to build a new one in its place. With time and plenty of hard work, her beloved Berlin would one day shine in its former glory again.

One day she returned home in the evening, her hands full of red and oozing blisters from shoveling debris all day. She stretched out her shoulders, arms, and neck, before she fell on the dilapidated sofa in the living room.

“Want some peppermint water?” Jan asked from the kitchen. Since school hadn’t opened up, he spent most of his time wandering around, organizing whatever might be usable.

“Yes, please. Although a fat piece of bread with butter and ham to accompany it would be even better.” She could already smell and taste the fatty butter on her tongue and had to laugh when Jan replied.

“Coming.” The little butter they were given was never wasted by spreading it onto bread.

She closed her eyes and dozed off until Jan woke her with a glass of fresh and minty-smelling water.

“Here.” He handed her a thick slice of bread with barely visible traces of a whitish spread.

“What’s that?” she asked, biting into the bread. The taste wasn’t familiar.

“Kefir,” Jan said, sitting next to her on the sofa.

Lotte had long given up asking him how and where he got the stuff he brought home. Some things were better left in the dark.

Minutes later her sister Anna returned from her work. She glanced with a hungry expression at the bread in Lotte’s hand.

“Want a bite?” Lotte asked, but Anna shook her head.

“I already ate at the hospital.”

“Liar,” Lotte said. “You know, it won’t do us any good if you starve yourself to death just so we can eat more.”

Her sister gave a deep sigh and changed the topic. “What happened to your hands?” Before Lotte could hide them, Anna took one of her hands and scrutinized it with her nurse-gaze. “They’re cankerous. Wait here and I’ll get my kit.”

Anna returned with a small bag and frowned. “Don’t they even give you gloves?”

“Gloves? We’re lucky when they give us tools.”

Lotte gritted her teeth as Anna cleaned and disinfected the wounds and then dressed them.

“Good as new.” Anna stored her utensils in the small bag and fumbled for a roll of American army-standard tape in a matte olive color. “The American soldiers call it duct tape and it keeps anything in place,” Anna explained. “Before going to work tomorrow, paste it over the dressings on your hands. It should help avoid more blisters.”

“You sure that’s state-of-the art medicinal advice?” Lotte giggled at her sister’s unorthodox treatment.

“Don’t tell Professor Scherer, will you?” Anna smiled.

“My lips are sealed,” Lotte promised and leaned back, her eyes falling shut after another hard day of work. She must have dozed off, because when she woke, it was already getting dark outside and she heard voices from the kitchen. Mutter must be preparing dinner and Anna’s husband Peter had arrived home from work.

Jan came to announce that dinner was ready and Lotte moved her tired bones from the sofa into the kitchen. She fell like a stone on the next best chair and then stared speechless at the apparatus on the workbench. “What’s that?”

“You worked as a radio operator and have never seen a radio before?” Peter teased her.

“Of course I know a radio, but how did it get here? And why?” The Soviets had requisitioned – stolen was a more appropriate word – all radios in Berlin when they first arrived, along with wristwatches, alcohol and anything of value.

“Peter brought it,” Anna said, not giving any more explanations. “And he has some great news. Apparently the Western Allies have installed a mail service between Berlin and their occupation zones as of today.”

“Wow.” That was indeed great news.

“They said it will take some time to work through the backlog, but mail will be entering and leaving the city daily now,” Peter said.

“Mutter and I have written a letter to Ursula already. Do you want to add something?” Anna asked, handing her a sheet of paper and a pen.

Lotte skimmed the letter, summarizing what had happened to the family in Berlin and letting their loved ones know they were well and alive.

“Does Aunt Lydia even know I’m not dead?” Lotte asked.

“Ursula will explain it to her, when she receives the letter.” Mutter took the pot from the stove and placed it on a trivet on the table.

Nodding, Lotte wrote,

Love you and hope to see you soon, Lotte

, beneath Anna’s writing. It felt strange to sign with her real name again.

Mutter glanced at the sheet of paper and remarked, “Did you visit the administration to get things with your real identity sorted out?”

“No,” Lotte sighed. “When would I even have time for that?”

“You really should start the process as quickly as you can, since it might take a while.”

“Yes, Mutter.”