Marion Kummerow - From the Ashes

“You’ll see when we get there.” Paul Markgraf guffawed and began complaining about the awful rain. Since weather was an innocuous topic, Werner joined the rant, although he carefully interspersed hidden praise about how much better he liked the weather in Moscow than in Berlin. The NKVD officer never said a single word, but Werner was sure, he understood German quite well.

After about an hour’s drive, the car stopped. As Werner got out, he noticed that a column of four cars, including theirs had arrived. From one of them stepped General Sokolov himself, accompanied by his deputy and Norbert.

Werner respectfully signaled a greeting in their direction, but nobody acknowledged him. The grey bunker-like building turned out to be a former Gestapo prison, appropriated by the NKVD that now used it for the same sinister acts as the previous owner, simply changing the underlying ideology.

He’d never been inside such an installation, but had heard the gleefully reported details about the atrocities Hitler’s cronies had committed, along with whispered rumors about similar things happening to those unfortunate souls in NKVD custody. His legs suddenly felt like jelly as he stepped into the concrete monolith.

They walked through a labyrinth of passages until they came to a large brightly lit chamber filled with all manner of implements designed to elicit a confession from a suspect. Werner noticed a man with his hands cuffed behind his back and hooked to a chain that suspended him from the ceiling. When the man’s head swung around, he recognized it was Georg.

Werner gasped in shock. He had never in his life seen a more repulsive sight. The bile rose in his throat and he fought it down. Why did they bring me here ? He wished to flee from the room and scream his horror to the world. But he could do no such thing. Marlene’s face appeared in front of his inner eye and her verdict about him echoed through his mind. Coward! Beast! Monster! Intuitively he ducked, awaiting her slap his face.

“No stomach for this business, eh, Werner? We’ll have to toughen you up,” Markgraf said, before he beckoned him to come outside. Werner was never more thankful for an order.

General Sokolov was standing outside and smoked. Werner almost stumbled with shock, when the general addressed him directly, “Comrade Böhm. You may wonder, why you’re here.”

“Yes, Comrade General.”

“The reason is, Comrade Gentner has informed me that you had befriended Georg Tauber,” Sokolov said casually.

Werner’s heart missed a beat. There it was. He would be punished for the crime of being friends with a dissenter. He hurried to explain, “Comrade General, I befriended this criminal subject on orders from—”

Sokolov cut him off with a move of his hand. “I know. I know. From all the students we interrogated there’s only these two, Georg Tauber and Julian Berger who refuse to confess their crimes. We really would like to close this unfortunate chapter and move on to more important things. But, we need a confession, and a public retraction on their outrageous claims. And this is where you come into play. Talk some sense into them, appeal to their reason, bribe them, do whatever you want, but make them sign a retraction.”

“Yes, Comrade General,” Werner said, wondering how on earth he was supposed to achieve what the NKVD henchmen hadn’t. Did Sokolov truly believe a few sweet words could retune a person who had withstood days of torture?

His stomach a nervous wreck, Werner entered the interrogation room again. Gratefully he realized that the tormenters had left and he was alone with Georg. He approached the young man, who looked as if he were asleep.

“Georg,” he said, waiting until the other man half-opened a heavily swollen eye. “It’s me, Werner.”

“You?” was all the other man said.

“I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” Werner said, more to himself than to Georg. He knew they were being watched through the one-way viewing pane on the wall, so he chose his words with care. “They brought me here, to talk some sense into you. Please, you must confess to the accusations and retract your demands if you want to get out of here.”

“Never,” Georg croaked.

“Please. Save yourself, and your family. I promise you’ll leave this room a free man today, but you have to confess. Don’t make this any worse than it already is,” Werner begged the courageous man, while he secretly loathed himself for being such a weakling, condoning these barbaric acts through his behavior.

Suddenly he felt like he’d lost his last morsel of humanity. He’d become a monster, equally despicable as the torturers listening outside.

“Spare your words. I will never retract on the truth and my fight for freedom. I have survived three years in a Nazi camp, I sure as hell won’t succumb to the rotten communists,” Georg spat out. The speech had used up all his energy and his chin slumped onto his chest.

Werner couldn’t stand to witness how his former friend was digging his own grave and tried once more. In a hushed voice he suggested, “You don’t have to give up your beliefs. Just tell them what they want to hear so that they set you free. Think of your family, too. Do you think they will be spared if you continue to challenge the system?”

“You may not understand, but unlike you, I will never sell my soul. Now leave me alone!” Georg closed his eyes and turned his head away.

Werner stepped out of the room to reunite with the Soviet officers and Markgraf. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. This man stubbornly refuses to see reason in a misguided effort to protect his criminal beliefs.”

General Sokolov balled his hands into fists and yelled several Russian curses before he ordered his men, “There’s nothing left for us to do here. Hold a trial, sentence them to twenty-five years of hard labor for espionage and malicious propaganda against the Soviet population and its institutions. And you,” he turned toward Werner, “Come with me.”

Werner’s knees trembled violently but he somehow managed to follow the general into another room, where he was handed paper and a pen.

“Write a confession and retract on all defamatory claims in the name of these two criminals,” Sokolov instructed him.

It took him a few moments to actually comprehend what he was asked to do. Numb with fear and self-loathing, he sat down and wrote a glowing confession that would hold up under the strongest scrutiny by any political officer. When he was finished, he handed two sheets of paper to an NKVD officer. One for Georg and one for Julian. The officer assured him that he would take care of the rest, falsifying signatures to the statements, and dismissed him.

Werner boarded the car and returned to Berlin, thoroughly disgusted with himself. Georg was right, he was a sorry excuse for a human being. Shame washed over him, remembering that Georg’s spirit remained unbroken while his own was shattered.

Marlene and Lotte returned home after classes and found Zara sitting on their doorstep, waiting for them. Her hair was tousled and her cheeks were flushed with agitation.

“What’s the matter?” Marlene asked her.

“Nothing,” Zara said, but taking a single look into her frightful eyes, Marlene knew there was a whole lot of nothing going on.

“Come in, and I’ll make us tea,” Lotte offered.

Once the three of them were sitting around the kitchen table with a cup of tea in their hands, Marlene finally coaxed Zara into telling them the reason for her distress. She’d been harassed by Russian soldiers when leaving the restaurant where she worked in the French sector.

“Thankfully, a couple of French soldiers heard my screams and intervened,” Zara said miserably. “If I’m not safe in the Western sectors, where else will I be safe from these beasts?”