Juan Gomez-Jurado - The Traitor's emblem

The boy Brunhilda gave birth to, Jurgen, was the spitting image of your father. The love and unhealthy devotion his mother always showed him was hardly surprising. His wasn’t the only life to be thrown off course that dreadful night.

Defenseless and scared, I accepted Otto’s proposal that I should go and live with them. For him it was at once an expiation for what had been done to Hans and a way of punishing Brunhilda, reminding her who it was that Hans had preferred. For Brunhilda it became her own way of punishing me for having stolen the man she’d taken a fancy to, even though this man had never belonged to her.

And for me it was a way of surviving. Your father had left me nothing but his debts, when the government deigned to pronounce him dead some years later, although his body never turned up. So you and I lived in that mansion, which contained nothing but hatred.

There is one other thing. To me, Jurgen has never been anything less than your brother, because although he was conceived in Brunhilda’s womb I have considered him my son. I have never been able to show him affection, but he is a part of your father, a man I loved with all my soul. Seeing him every day, even for a few moments, has been like having my Hans back with me again.

My cowardice and selfishness have shaped your life, Paul. I never wanted your father’s death to affect you too. I tried to lie to you and hide the facts so that when you were older you wouldn’t go out in search of some ridiculous vengeance. Do not do that-please.

If this is the letter that ends up in your hands, which I doubt, I want you to know that I love you very much, and all I have tried to do through my actions is to protect you. Forgive me.

Your mother who loves you,

Ilse Reiner

When he had finished reading his mother’s words, Paul cried for a long time.

He shed tears for Ilse, who had suffered her entire life because of love and who, out of love, had made mistakes. He shed tears for Jurgen, who had been born into the worst possible situation. He shed tears for himself, for the boy who had cried for a father who hadn’t deserved it.

As he fell asleep he was overcome by a strange sense of peace, a feeling he didn’t recall ever having experienced before. Whatever the outcome of the madness they were about to attempt in a few hours’ time, he had achieved his goal.

Manfred woke him, tapping him gently on the back. Julian was a few meters away, eating a sausage sandwich.

“It’s seven p.m.”

“Why did you let me sleep for so long?”

“You needed the rest. In the meantime I went shopping. I’ve brought everything you said. The towels, a steel spoon, the shovel, everything.”

“So let’s begin.”

Manfred made Paul take the sulfonamide to stop his wounds from becoming infected, then the two of them sent Julian to the car.

“Can I start it?” the boy asked.

“Don’t even think about it!” shouted Manfred.

He and Paul then stripped the dead man of his trousers and boots and dressed him in Paul’s clothes. They tucked Paul’s documents into the jacket pocket. Then they dug a deep hole in the floor and buried him.

“This’ll confuse them for a while, I hope. I don’t think they’ll find him for a few weeks, and by then there won’t be much of him left,” said Paul.

Jurgen’s uniform was hanging from a nail in the stalls. Paul was more or less the same height as his brother, though Jurgen had been stockier. With the bulky bandages Paul was wearing around his arms and chest, the uniform sat reasonably well. The boots were tight, but the rest fitted.

“That uniform fits you like a glove. The thing that’s never going to pass is this.”

Manfred showed him Jurgen’s identity card. It was in a little leather wallet, together with his Nazi party card and an SS card. The resemblance between Jurgen and Paul had increased over the years. Both had a strong jaw, blue eyes, and similar features. Jurgen’s hair was darker, but they could solve that with the hair grease Manfred had bought. Paul could easily pass for Jurgen, except for one small detail, which Manfred was pointing to on the card. In the section about “distinguishing features” were clearly written the words “Right eye missing.”

“A patch isn’t going to be enough, Paul. If they ask you to lift it…”

“I know, Manfred. That’s why I need your help.”

Manfred looked at him in complete amazement.

“You’re not thinking of-”

“I’ve got to do it.”

“But it’s madness!”

“Just like the rest of the plan. And this is its weakest point.”

Finally Manfred agreed. Paul sat on the driver’s seat of the cart, towels covering his chest as though he were at the barber’s.

“Ready?”

“Wait,” said Manfred, who seemed terrified. “Let’s go over it again one more time to be sure there are no mistakes.”

“I’m going to put the spoon at the edge of my right eyelid, and pull my eye out by its roots. While I’m taking it out, you have to put the antiseptics and then the gauze on me. All right?”

Manfred nodded. He was so scared he could barely speak.

“Ready?” he asked again.

“Ready.”

Ten seconds later, there was nothing but screaming.

By eleven that night, Paul had taken almost an entire packet of aspirin, leaving himself two more. The wound had stopped bleeding, and Manfred disinfected it every fifteen minutes, putting on fresh gauze each time.

Julian, who had come back in a few hours earlier, alarmed by the shouts, found his father holding his head in his hands and howling at the top of his lungs, while his uncle screamed hysterically for him to get out. He’d gone back and shut himself away in the Mercedes, then burst into tears.

When everything had calmed down, Manfred went out to fetch his nephew and explain the plan. On seeing Paul, Julian asked: “Are you doing all this just for my mother?” He had reverence in his voice.

“And for you, Julian. Because I want us to be together.”

The boy didn’t answer, but he clung tightly to Paul’s arm, and still hadn’t let go when Paul decided it was time for them to leave. He climbed into the backseat of the car with Julian, and Manfred drove the sixteen kilometers that separated them from the camp with a tense expression on his face. It took them almost an hour to reach their destination, as Manfred barely knew how to drive and the car kept stalling.

“When we get there, the car mustn’t stall under any circumstances, Manfred,” said Paul, concerned.

“I’ll do what I can.”

As they approached the city of Dachau, Paul noticed a dramatic change compared to Munich. Even in the darkness, the poverty in this city was evident. The pavement was badly maintained and dirty, the traffic signs pockmarked, the facades of the buildings old and peeling.

“What a sad place,” said Paul.

“Of all the places they could have taken Alys, this is definitely the worst.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Our father owned the gunpowder factory that used to be situated in this city.”

Paul was about to tell Manfred that his own mother had worked in that munitions factory and that she’d been dismissed, but found he was too tired to start the conversation.

“The really ironic thing is that my father sold the land to the Nazis. And they built the camp on it.”

Finally they saw a yellow sign with black letters informing them that the camp was 1.2 miles away.

“Stop, Manfred. Turn around slowly and go back a bit.”

Manfred did as he was told, and they backtracked as far as a small building that looked like an empty barn, though it seemed to have been deserted for some time.

“Julian, listen very carefully,” said Paul, holding the boy by his shoulders and forcing him to look him in the eye. “Your uncle and I are going to go into the concentration camp to try to get your mother out. But you can’t come with us. I want you to get out of the car now with my suitcase and wait in the back of this building. Hide yourself away as best as you can, don’t talk to anyone, and don’t come out unless you hear me or your uncle calling you, understand?”