V Alexander - The Taster

The rest of us sat quietly pondering our fate as Frederick talked about the end of the war and of the “good days” to come. Inga wanted to be cheered by her husband’s words, but she would melt into melancholy when she looked at her sad children.

We didn’t stay up long after dinner because there was nothing to do and barely enough light to see in front of our faces. Two mattresses were stacked against the wall. When the dishes had been soaked in the rain bucket and dried, Irmigard’s mother pulled the bedding down from the wall and placed it in front of the stove. No wood was left to heat the apartment, but the French doors were closed and the temperature was tolerable. We gathered as a family on the tattered mattresses. Fortunately, we had plenty of blankets. Mother, father and daughter shared one mattress while Irmigard and I took the one farthest from the stove. Frederick gave us an extra blanket and wished us good night. Soon we were all huddled together for warmth as the November chill enveloped the room. Irmigard and I talked in whispers until we could go on no longer and we both fell asleep.

Several hours later, I was startled awake by bombs shattering another neighborhood in Berlin. I looked around, but I was the only one aware of the blasts. I listened for an air-raid siren, but heard none. The building trembled slightly and through the cracks in the French doors I saw flashes of light. I shook Irmigard awake.

She flinched and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s an air raid,” I said. “We need to get out of the building.”

She sighed and lowered her head back on the dingy mattress. My eyes had adjusted enough that I could see the outline of her face. “This happens most nights and nearly every day. We have nothing to worry about.”

“How can you be sure?” My stomach turned over when another bomb struck nearby.

“There are no citywide defenses now. If the raid was targeting us, we would have heard the little siren on our block. That’s all we have. Mr. Schiff, down the street, sounds the alarm. Go back to sleep.” She turned away and pulled the blankets over her head.

Irmigard’s nonchalance shocked me. I couldn’t believe she was so accustomed to the bombings that she could sleep through them. I tried to fall asleep, but the rumbles reminded me of my mother’s death and the shelling at the farmhouse, and I could think of nothing but the bodies lined up in the snow. When I would drift off, my eyes would snap open with the image of blood frozen on the icy ground.

I thought of the question Irmigard’s mother had asked at dinner: “How did this happen?” I knew the answer, but I didn’t have the courage to say it to her family. Not yet. With the world exploding around us, I felt every German would know the answer soon enough if they didn’t already.

I stayed with Irmigard and her family longer than I had intended. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s together, although there was not much joy to go around in early 1945. We were thankful to be alive. When the snows fell, Irmigard discontinued her hunt for bricks. Any meager income for the family came from her father.

For Christmas, we clipped a small branch off an evergreen and decorated it with bits of glass and paper—the only ornaments we had. Frederick had finished some clock work and earned extra food and candles as payment. We lit them and stood around our tiny tree and sang carols. I found myself looking down at my wedding ring, glinting in the candlelight. A lump rose in my throat. I was beginning to accept Karl’s death. That thought was shocking, yet comforting at the same time. I wanted to give up my dream of seeing him alive.

New Year’s Day promised to be dreary and dull, with all of us enclosed in the room trying to warm ourselves by the tepid stove. However, Frederick revived our spirits when he pulled a bottle of champagne from behind the legless chair in the front room. The bottle was already chilled by the air. We all questioned how he had come by the champagne, but he wouldn’t tell us. He said it was a gift from God. We celebrated our good fortune with a toast in our chipped porcelain cups. Even Helga drank with us.

In mid-January, Helga caught a bad cold, which we first thought was influenza. We found wooden slats and a small mattress and dragged them up the stairs because her father felt it would be best for her to sleep apart from the family. We placed the mattress in front of the stove. A kind neighbor down the street gave us a few aspirin, which we administered to her. Fortunately, Helga’s fever broke after a few days and she recovered despite the frigid weather.

I, who had been fed so well during my days with Hitler, found myself growing cold and tired from hunger. In three months, I lost about ten pounds, maybe more, and developed the gaunt look in my face displayed by all of Irmigard’s family.

Irmigard and I asked everyone on the street if they had seen my father, Hermann Ritter. A few knew his name and pointed in the direction of our old house, but most shook their heads and continued on in their shell-shocked way. I ventured to the neighborhood where he had last lived. Even there my inquiries were met with vacant looks. Finding a working telephone was nearly impossible, but a friend of Irmigard’s knew where there was one. She led me to a printing business that had somehow escaped major damage from the bombings. I gave the gruff owner a few Reichsmark for a call, in the optimistic hope of finding my father. I dialed Aunt Reina and Uncle Willy in Berchtesgaden, but the line was disconnected. After the call, I realized how difficult it must be to maintain telephone service between northern and southern Germany as the infrastructure crumbled under the crushing weight of the conflict.

The monotonous days, long nights and the tedious burden of coping with the war dragged on through the winter. No one seemed to know what was going on, although there were rumors that the Reds had broken through the Eastern Front in mid-January and were advancing through Poland toward Berlin. All we heard was the occasional radio broadcast about how the German people should resist the “Red Horde,” and fight to the death in the streets. Death would be preferable, the Propaganda Minister said, to the rape and murderous torture perpetrated by the enemy. I wondered whether the Wolf’s Lair was still standing or lay in ruins, either by the Red Army advance or on Hitler’s orders. I suspected the latter.

In mid-March, we were all at the apartment one late afternoon. The days were growing longer and the barest hint of spring was in the air, enough so that we could open the French doors on the few warm days. We heard the tramping of feet up the stairs and then a rough knock on the door. Frederick answered it, but before he did, he hid the gun behind a loose wall panel.

He opened the door to find several Wehrmacht soldiers in the hall. One of them thrust a rifle in his face and said, “The Red Army is on the way. Be prepared. If you are called, you will train with us in the streets. You and your family will help put up barricades and dig trenches if they are needed.” The soldier saluted and the group rushed down the hall, presumably on to the next family they could find.

Frederick turned to us. “I told you this would happen.” He smiled and then sighed. “There’s nothing to do but give in. We have no other choice. If we resist, we’ll be shot as traitors.”

We all looked at one another sadly and realized how dire circumstances had become in the city. Three days later, another group of soldiers knocked on the door. We watched from one of the broken windows as Irmigard’s father stood in the rain with his rifle and the soldiers barked orders at him and a bedraggled crew of men and boys. He looked up at us once and waved. The Wehrmacht officer struck his arm with the butt of his rifle. He never looked at us again.