Her Hidden Life: A captivating story of history, danger and risking it all for love. V.S. Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ father was at work for the first, but at home for the second. We had already decided we would gather in the basement during an air raid, along with Frau Horst, who lived on the top floor of our building. We were unaware in those early days what destruction the Allied bombers could wreak, the terrible devastation that could fall from the skies in whistling black clouds of bombs. Hitler said the German people would be protected from such terrors and we believed him. Even the boys I knew who fought in the Wehrmacht held that thought in their hearts. A feeling of destiny propelled us forward.

      ‘We should go to the basement now,’ I told my mother when the second attack began. I shouted the same words upstairs to Frau Horst, but added, ‘Hurry! Hurry!’

      The old woman popped her head out of her apartment. ‘You must help me. I can’t hurry. I’m not as young as I used to be.’ I rushed up the stairs to find her holding a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of cognac. I took them from her and we found our way down before the bombs hit. We were used to blackouts. No Allied bombardier could see light coming from our windowless basement. The first blast seemed far away and I was unconcerned.

      Frau Horst lit a cigarette and offered my father cognac. Apparently, cigarettes and liquor were the two possessions she would drag to her grave. Bits of dust dropped around us. The old lady pointed to the wooden beams above us and said, ‘Damn them.’ My father nodded halfheartedly. The ancient coal furnace sputtered in the corner, but it couldn’t dispel the icy drafts that poked their way through the room. Our frosty breaths shone under the glare of the bare bulb.

      A closer blast rattled our ears and the electricity blinked out. A brilliant orange light flashed overhead, so close we could see its fiery trail through the cracks surrounding the basement door. A dusty cloud swirled down the stairs. Glass shattered somewhere in the house. My father grabbed my mother and me by the shoulders, pulled us forward and covered our heads with his arched chest.

      ‘That was too close,’ I said, shaking against my father. Frau Horst sobbed in the corner.

      The bombing ended almost as quickly as it had begun and we climbed the darkened stairs back to our apartment. Frau Horst said good evening and left us. My mother opened our door and searched for a candle in the kitchen. Through the window, we saw black smoke mushrooming from a building several blocks away. My mother found a match and struck it.

      She gasped. The china cabinet had popped open, sending several pieces of fine porcelain, given to her by her grandmother, to the floor. She bent down and scraped the shards into a pile, trying to fit them together like a puzzle.

      A cut-glass vase of importance to my mother had smashed to bits as well. My mother grew geraniums and purple irises in the small garden behind our building. She cut the irises when they bloomed and placed them in the vase on the dining room table. Their heady fragrance filled our rooms. My father said the flowers made him happy because he had proposed to my mother during the time of year when irises bloomed.

      ‘Our lives have become fragile,’ my father said, looking sadly at the damage. After a few minutes, my mother gave up her hope of reconstructing the porcelain and the vase and threw them into the trash.

      My mother pinned her black hair into a bun and walked into the kitchen to get a broom. ‘We must make sacrifices,’ she called out.

      ‘Nonsense,’ my father said. ‘We are lucky to have a daughter and not a son; otherwise, I fear we would be planning a funeral not far down the road.’

      My mother appeared at the kitchen door with the broom. ‘You mustn’t say such things. It gives the wrong impression.’

      My father shook his head. ‘To whom?’

      ‘Frau Horst. Our neighbors. Your fellow workers. Who knows? We must be careful of what we say. Such statements, even rumors, could come down upon our heads.’

      The electricity flickered on and my father sighed. ‘That’s the problem. We watch everything we say – and now we have to deal with bombs. Magda must leave. She must go to Uncle Willy’s in Berchtesgaden. Maybe she can even find work.’

      I had flitted from job to job in my twenty-five years, finding some work in a clothing factory, filing for a banker, replenishing wares as a store clerk, but I felt lost in the world of employment. Nothing I did felt right or good enough. The Reich wanted German girls to be mothers; however, the Reich wanted them to be workers as well. I supposed that was what I wanted, too. If you had a job, you had to have permission to leave it. Because I had no job, it would be hard to ignore my father’s wishes. As far as marriage was concerned, I’d had a few boyfriends since I turned nineteen – none of them serious. The war had taken so many young men away. Those who remained failed to capture my heart. I was a virgin but had no regrets.

      In the first years of the war, Berlin had been spared. When the attacks began, the city strode like a dreamer, alive but unconscious of its motions. People walked about without feeling. Babies were born and relatives looked into their eyes and told them how beautiful they were. Touching a silky lock of hair or pinching a cheek did not guarantee a future. Young men were shipped off to the fronts – to the East and to the West. Talk on the streets centered on Germany’s slow slide into hell, always ending with ‘it will get better.’ Conversations about food and cigarettes were common, but paled in comparison to the trumpeted broadcasts of the latest victories earned through the ceaseless struggles of the Wehrmacht.

      My parents were the latest in a line of Ritters to live in our building. My grandparents had lived here until they each died in the bed where I slept. My bedroom, the first off the hall in the front of the building, was my own, a place I could breathe. No ghosts frightened me here. My room didn’t hold much: the bed, a small oak dresser, a rickety bookshelf and a few items I collected over the years, including the stuffed toy monkey my father had won at a carnival in Munich when I was a child. When the bombings began, I looked at my room in a different way. My sanctuary took on a sacred, extraordinary quality and each day I wondered whether its tranquility would be shattered like a bombed temple.

      The next major air raid came on Hitler’s birthday on April 20, 1943. The Nazi banners, flags and standards that decorated Berlin waved in the breeze. The bombs caused some damage, but most of the city escaped unscathed. That attack also had a way of bringing back every fear I suffered as a young girl. I was never fond of storms, especially the lightning and thunder. The increasing severity of the bombings set my nerves on edge. My father was adamant that I leave, and, for the first time, I felt he might be right. That night he watched as I packed my bag.

      I assembled a few things important to me: a small family portrait taken in 1925 in happier times and some notebooks to record my thoughts. My father handed me my stuffed monkey, the only keepsake I had retained throughout my childhood years.

      The following morning, my mother cried as I carried my suitcase down the stairs. A spring rain spattered the street and the earthy scent of budding trees filled the air.

      ‘Take care of yourself, Magda.’ My mother kissed me on the cheek. ‘Hold your head up. The war will be over soon.’

      I returned the kiss and tasted her salty tears. My father was at work. We had said our good-byes the night before. My mother clasped my hands one more time, as if she did not want to let me go, and then let them drop. I gathered my bags and took a carriage to the train station. It would be a long ride to my new home. Glad to be out of the rain, I entered the station through the main entrance. My heels clicked against the stone walkway.

      I found the track that would take me to Munich and Berchtesgaden and stood waiting in line under the iron latticework of the shed’s vaulted ceiling. A young SS man in his gray uniform looked at everyone’s identification papers СКАЧАТЬ