Jackie French - Hitler's Daughter

‘Her sister, she was not quite right. In the head you understand, not clever like other children. So they took her to a special school. And now Freya has found out her sister is dead. No one told them she had died, not till the family wrote to say that they would visit next month. And now she thinks they killed her sister there.’

‘Did they kill her?’ whispered Heidi.

‘No, of course not. Of course they didn’t,’ said Frau Mundt, just a bit too firmly. ‘Freya has just been listening to stories—silly stories, you know how people talk. But sometimes, sometimes things like that have to happen. It’s for the good of everyone. We cannot have weaklings in the new German race. People like Freya’s sister mustn’t be allowed to have children. It is like with the Jews.’

‘What are Jews?’ asked Heidi. The word was familiar—she’d heard it before. She’d even read it in Duffi’s book, the big, boring one that Fräulein Gelber kept on the mantelpiece and made her read a page from each day.

The book talked about the ‘Jewish problem’ but Heidi had never known quite what it meant.

Frau Mundt bit her lip. ‘You should ask Fräulein Gelber about that. But it is all nonsense what they say. Nonsense. The Jews are simply being sent to work, that’s all. The Jews are rich, everyone knows that. It’s time they were made to work. Come on now, hurry upstairs.’

Later, during their walk, she asked Fräulein Gelber: ‘Fräulein Gelber, who are the Jews?’

Fräulein Gelber scarcely hesitated in her stride. ‘The Jews are different. They are different from us. That is why the Führer wants to separate them. So they can’t endanger the lifeblood of the German people, so they can’t weaken it.’

‘What happens to them?’

‘They are sent to camps. Places to work.’ She looked at her sharply. ‘Who has been telling you about the Jews?’

‘No one. Well, Frau Mundt. But she said I was to ask you.’

‘Well, I’ve told you. They are different from us. That’s why they have to be sent away.’

‘Are there any Jews near here?’

‘No, of course not. But if one did escape and come near here, the guards would catch them and send them back. There is no need to worry.’

‘I’m not worried,’ said Heidi.

Anna’s voice stopped.

‘But what happened then?’ demanded Mark. ‘Go on!’

Little Tracey nudged him. ‘The bus,’ she said. ‘Come on. The bus’s here.’

It was only a story, Mark told himself that night after dinner. Just a story, nothing more. It wasn’t true—but there were true things in it.

Maybe that’s what puzzled him, Mark decided. None of Anna’s other stories had had true things in them before.

The creek bubbled and twisted, brown and muddy in the growing dark just like the thoughts inside him. Mark could see it from the lounge room window, and from his bedroom. You could even smell it from the house: year-old wombat droppings and cow shush, and rotten leaves and bark, all brewed up together like that herbal tea stuff Mum sometimes drank and Dad would never touch.

When he was younger Mark used to watch the floods and wonder what it would be like to float down them on a raft. He’d float right out to sea perhaps and then along the coast, or maybe out to an island with palm trees and white sand.

But of course any raft would be torn to bits in the flood. You’d be drowned in a whirlpool or snagged by a log. It was fun to pretend though. Sometimes pretending could feel real.

And some of Anna’s story was real. The bits about Hitler, and the Jews.

‘Dad?’

‘Mmm?’ Dad didn’t quite look up from the pamphlet he was reading about a new cattle drench. ‘Mark, if it’s trigonometry, ask your mum. You know what I’m like at maths.’

‘No, it’s not homework. I was just wondering.’

‘Just let me finish this bit will you… wondering what?’

‘Why Hitler was so down on the Jews,’ said Mark in a rush.

Dad blinked and put the pamphlet down. ‘What brought this on?’

‘Oh, just something at school,’ said Mark. Which was true in a way, he reflected.

‘No idea,’ said Dad, glancing down at his pamphlet again then looking dutifully back up at Mark. ‘How about asking Mrs Holster at school?’

Mrs Holster was the school librarian.

‘Okay,’ said Mark, disappointed.

Dad looked at him a bit helplessly. ‘It wasn’t just the Jews he killed,’ he said. ‘It was anyone who disagreed with him, too. That all you wanted to know?’

Mark shook his head, thinking. ‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’ asked Dad, a bit warily.

‘If you were Hitler…’

‘If I was who ?’ Dad began to laugh.

‘No, Dad, I’m serious. If you did things like Hitler did—really bad things—what do you think I should do?’

Dad looked at him more sharply. ‘You mean, should you go along with me because I’m your father, no matter what?’

‘Yeah, that’s about it,’ said Mark.

‘I don’t know,’ said Dad slowly. He put his paper down, as though for once he was seriously trying to answer Mark’s question. ‘I suppose I’d want you to do what you thought was right.

‘But…’ Dad hesitated, then went on. ‘If we do ever disagree about things, I hope we’ll still be able to talk about it. Still meet and be a family, no matter how much we argue.’

‘Okay,’ said Mark.

‘Does that answer your question?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mark truthfully. ‘Hey, what would you do if I was a mass murderer? You know, chopped them up with a chainsaw or something.’

‘Stop your pocket money,’ said Dad, grinning. ‘And I’ll tell you straight, kid—you murder one more person and there’ll be no television for a fortnight. And if you try burying the bodies under your mum’s roses I’ll send you to your room. And you’d better clean the blood off my good chainsaw too.’

‘No—really.’

‘Dunno,’ said Dad, serious again. ‘Try to work out why you did it. Be sad for you. Be sad for your victims. Try to get help for you. Wonder how your mother and I failed you.’

‘Would you turn me into the police?’

‘Yes,’ said Dad slowly. ‘I suppose I’d have to. That’s a hell of a question, Mark.’

‘Would you still love me? No matter what I did? Even if I killed hundreds and hundreds of people?’

‘Yes, of course we would, you dingbat. Or maybe we’d love you in a different way. What’s brought all this on anyway?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Mark.

The rain chattered onto the ground, and dribbled along the wet barbed wire round Harrison’s paddock till it trickled down in short ploppy streams. It seemed even louder in the bus shelter.

The cows chomped sadly at the wet grass. Today the air was still, so the rain fell straight and clear.

‘It’s never going to stop,’ said Mark. ‘It’s going to go on and on and we’ll have to get a boat to school and all the cars will float away…’

‘Really?’ asked Little Tracey, wide-eyed.

‘No, of course not really,’ said Mark. ‘Hey Anna I was wondering. Have you told anyone else this story? The Hitler one?’

‘No,’ said Anna shortly. ‘It’s just between us.’

‘Oh,’ said Mark, vaguely pleased.

‘Are you going to tell us more?’ Little Tracey bounced up and down.

‘If you like,’ said Anna.

It was soon after Heidi had asked Fräulein Gelber about the Jews that they had to move house.

‘Why do we have to go?’ asked Heidi, half scared and half excited.

Fräulein Gelber waved a letter, typewritten, with a sprawling signature at the bottom, but too quickly for Heidi to read what it said.