When Kennedy Went To Berlin
Chapter 9 — Interrogation
“Why did they put her in a tub of ice?” asked Klaus.
“You heard that?” Maria said.
Klaus was sitting, feet propped up and back to the door in the archway to his room. He felt that if caught eavesdropping, he could claim he was still inside the room, with one ear in and one out. At this vantage point, he could hear the adults in conversation during their weekly KaffeKlatch, a social gathering of the German clan where they spun yarns and reminisced about the war.
Klaus was grounded to his bedroom because he disobeyed his father. Joseph told him to clean up the mess under the back porch, which the raccoons left after a night of foraging through the trash can. Klaus felt he shouldn’t have to clean it up since he didn’t make the mess.
“I didn’t leave the garbage out,” said Klaus
“I don’t care who did it. You clean it up,” said Josef.
“How about Rolf. He never does anything.”
“ If I wanted Rolf to do it, I would have said it to him.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” said Klaus.
“You want fair? Good, I’ll give you fair,” said Josef.
Josef yelled into the other room.
“Rolf, you pick up the garbage.”
And then he turned back to Klaus.
“And you. You go to your room. You are grounded.”
“Grounded? Why?” asked Klaus.
“ Because I am the King. And when the King tells you to do something, you do it without question. Understand?”
Klaus would soon come to understand that he was part of a fiefdom.
Josef hadn’t specified how long Klaus was grounded, so at the moment, it didn’t seem so bad since he could spend time with his latest trashcan find, the Superman comic — The Silver Age.
Some time passed when Klaus noticed the conversation in the dining room morphed from laughter and hilarity to secret hushed tones.
He inched out of his room so that he could more effectively eavesdrop. His Superman comic was in his lap, and if caught listening, he was confident he could feign reading.
Maria detailed the history of an event in September of 1941. Her sister Helga was sent out to the butcher by her mother Christina to fetch a bit of meat for the Sunday Eintopf dinner. The meal was to be served at 2:00 pm and had to be prepared a couple of hours ahead. One never knew what kind of meat was available because the German government rationed everything. Most often, it was rabbit.
At 1:00 pm, Christina became worried. Helga had been gone for over an hour. Given the upheaval caused by the war, Christina was concerned. She summoned her friend Angela to sit with Maria and her other sister Frieda so Christina could look for Helga.
Several days earlier, all Jews had been rounded up and taken out of Berlin, which alarmed many non-Jewish Germans who had befriended them. Christina had no idea of knowing who might be next. She only knew that Helga not returning was alarming.
Christina feared the worst had happened to her eldest daughter. It was no secret among friends of the family that Helga had a Jewish boyfriend despite the objections of Christiana; after the event known as Kristallnacht, no one would be safe if seen in the company of a Jew.
Klaus listened intently to the recounting of the event. In his mind, he could visualize the images Maria brought forth. While listening, he felt transported to the city of his birthplace, Berlin. An eery feeling enveloped him. With Maria’s every description, he could hear the sounds of the people, the traffic, and the hustle and bustle of the city sidewalks. He felt a chill of the soldiers laughing and screaming in guttural tones.
From his vantage point, he couldn’t see his mother but sensed the silent tears streaming down her face.
Klaus was transported to a dark, damp, dilapidated room, paint peeling from the walls and hellish echos reverberating from invisible ghosts. He saw the body of a young teenager lying in the bathtub. Nazis were circling the tub and screaming, yelling obscenities in German. The words he heard before but the meanings unclear. Klaus sat dazed and confused.
When Maria finished telling the story, she walked from the dining room to the kitchen to refill the decanter with fresh coffee. In the scope of her vision, she could see Klaus sitting outside his room. For much of his young life, Maria tried to shelter Klaus from the horrors she encountered as a young child; barely able to talk about her experiences.
When Maria looked at Klaus, she saw herself in his eyes. He was the same age as her when the Nazis took over Germany. Maria didn’t like reliving the war, but the stories leaked when prompted. With each retelling, new details emerged.
The memory works like a puzzle reassembled each time fresh pieces emerge to be joined with pieces already assembled.
“Why did they put her in a tub of ice, mama?”
“Aren’t you grounded, Klaus?”
Maria tried to deflect the question, but Klaus persisted.
“Yes, but my hearing isn’t grounded.”
Maria held back a giggle. She knew that Klaus had heard the whole story, and he needed some closure.
“We’ve talked about the Nazis before, yes?
“Yes, when the kids called me a Nazi.”
“Yes, you are not a Nazi, and the Nazis were bad men.”
“I know, mama. Why was aunt Helga in a tub of ice?”
It’s hard for anyone to accept hate as a motive. Maria taught her boys to be tolerant of others, even though she had difficulty with tolerance at times.
We are products of the environment in which we are born, and Maria was born into a propaganda culture. She worked hard to erase her biases, but they sometimes crept in. She had no hate for Jews, but the madman who controlled her country did. He did everything to get his people to believe that Jews were evil. At times, without thinking, Maria made off-color comments that, later in life, she would regret.
“You know I don’t have a problem with Jews, don’t you, Klaus?”
“Yes, I know,” said Klaus automatically. But he didn’t know. He trusted the word of his mother.
“Your aunt Helga dated a Jewish boy. And when the Nazis found out he was missing, they came after Helga.”
“What do you mean, missing?
“The Nazis stormed through Berlin in 1941, rounded up all leftover Jews, and deported them; kicked them out. If they heard that someone was keeping a Jew in their homes, they went to find them.”
“Was aunt Helga keeping a Jew in her home?”
“In our home, no, but someone told she dated a Jewish boy, and when the Nazis found out, they grabbed her off the street, took her to a bombed-out building, and put her in a tub of ice. There they left her. For three days. When my mother and I found her, she was blue.”
Blue?
“Yes, as blue as Superman’s suit.”
“Why was she blue?”
“She was barely breathing.”
Klaus sat befuddled. Why would anyone do this? He could not comprehend it. He sat motionless for a long time and then rose to his feet.
“I better get back in my room before papa gets home.”
“That’s a good idea, Klaus.”
He turned to enter his bedroom.
“If only there was a Superman, said Klaus.”
“If only,” echoed Maria.
