Love and Hate Read online

  I was barely nineteen and didn’t care much for politics. I only knew the biggest news. And the news of von Hindenburg’s death and Hitler’s appointment as Führer und Reichskanzler, both leader and chancellor, was big. It was in every paper; the story dripped from everyone’s lips. Hitler had nearly universal support.

  “Father, Hitler is very popular and—”

  “Yes, popular indeed. He feeds the people’s most base instincts, but unfortunately that is what people want to hear right now. The rise of the German middle class is around the corner, don’t you know? The poor are easily bought. What do they have to lose? As for the rich, my friends are buying it up too. Lapping it up, this propaganda. Do you know why?”

  He answered his own rhetorical question, “Because the rich are happy he is extinguishing the communists. Do you know what propaganda is, Hans?”

  “I think so. It is when the state tells us the way things are. The way things should be.”

  “Exactly, the way things are, it does indicate that,” he said matter-of-factly.

  He had a look of disgust as he took a harder puff of his cigarette. Burning in the night, glowing embers fell down.

  He leaned closer. “Hans, this is not the way things should be. I love Germany. I cannot stand seeing the Fatherland cower to this imbecile, this man who is taking our freedoms away.”

  I said, “But don’t you think we should at least give him a chance? He is the only hope we have right now of getting out of this economic mess, at least that’s what my professor says.”

  “Is that the bullshit I am paying for? Propaganda-filled lies?” He raised his voice.

  Standing up, he threw his cigarette down and crushed it out with the heel of his shoe.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to anger you, Father. I...”

  “No, I am sorry, son, I didn’t mean to raise my voice to you. You are just relaying the lies you have heard. They are everywhere. Hitler lives off lies. The Nazis make up this fiction of a utopian reality that only Hitler can supposedly create. All the while, the people happily support him because they have been eating dirt. So he comes along and offers two things: someone to blame, the Jews, and a way out of the economic depression—himself as savior. There is no such thing as a savior. People who say that only they can save you usually cannot save themselves. And moreover, it is an oversimplification of the situation to put all blame on the Jews.”

  “Do you like Jews, Father?”

  He thought for a minute and said, “I don’t dislike them. I don’t like them. They are just people like everyone else. What I care about is what the Nazis are doing to this country. They are making it unfree. Hans, I know you are just questioning things. But your brother, he believes these lies that Hitler tells. He is enthusiastic to the point of worshipping the man. Like a deity. I am disgusted by him. By what he has become.”

  “Father, Erich is just passionate about everything, and you mustn’t worry, he won’t get into any trouble because of his passion for the Nazis.”

  “I’m not worried about his passion. I am deeply troubled that he is brainwashed, and when you don’t use your mind, you are capable of horrible things, Hans. I saw it in the war. Men behaving with no moral compass, raping and worse. A man is only as good as his morals. When he gives up his morality to a man like Hitler, he has lost his compass. I am not worried about his physical safety. I am worried about his soul.”

  I didn’t know what to say; Father was not a religious man.

  He said, “I want you to know that I love you in a way that I can never, will never love Erich. I loved him because he was born to me, because I had to. I love you because I chose to. I am proud of you. You have a moral compass, and thus you have a soul. You choose to do what is right, you always have. Erich has always had a dark heart. I have known it since he was a little boy. I don’t love him less. But my love for him is a heavy burden out of a sense of obligation. I am ashamed of him. I have already told him that. He is willing to give himself up to this ideology. He is willing to let it think for him. He has already murdered a man. Do you know that? He led the Nazis to a Jewish man’s house in town, a man who had been talking ill of Hitler. That man is no longer alive. The murder was in Hitler’s name, so it isn’t murder, but patriotism,” he said sarcastically.

  Fear hit me quickly, making the hair on my arms stand up. I was tingling with fear, emanating from my neck now as it clawed its way down my back.

  “Wait, Father, about Erich, what have you told him? I know he knows of your views on Hitler. But you haven’t criticized him personally, have you—not in the way that you have with me tonight?”

  Erich was a narcissist but could take disagreements on opinion. However, he had no tolerance for personal criticism.

  “Oh, I told him more harshly than this what I thought of him and his love affair with the Nazis.”

  I was so scared for Father that I began to cry.

  “What is the matter, son? What, why are you crying?”

  “Father, they will come for you now. They will hurt you, and maybe Mother. Erich has probably now told them what you say about Hitler.”

  He hugged me, and I cried into his chest, “Hush, my boy. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. Your mother will be fine. Erich promised me that. I believe him. He has no grievance with her, and her mind is gone anyway. You will be fine too; you have been good to him. If something happens, it will be to me. If Erich can really do what he says, we shall see. I called you out here to let you know that I am so very proud of you. I wanted you to know that. I wanted you to know that I love you...” His voice trailed off.

  He took a deep breath and held it in. He was attempting to remain composed. And he did. That was the closest I have ever been to seeing my father cry. Carl was my real father, biological or not.

  Father said, his voice returning, “I want you to know that I love you so very much. I’m not saying that anything will happen to me. I am just saying if it does, I want you to know that. You know that, don’t you?”

  Through my tears, I said, “Yes, Father, I know.”

  “My son, my sweet boy. I want you to do what you need to—to survive. Don’t speak your mind like me. Don’t speak freely. I am trying to save Erich from becoming a monster, or I would have kept my opinions behind closed doors. Keep yours even further from them, in your heart and in your soul. Be quiet about your opinions, and do good in your actions.”

  That night we talked about many things. We talked about our first ride in the car together as a family. Christmases past, hiking through the Bavarian Forest and everything in between. It was a wonderful night and one that I will never forget. I treasure it in my heart. That night was the last time that I saw my father alive. The next time I saw him, he was black, blue, and swollen. When I met him again, he was hard to recognize, and he was not my father any longer. There was no soul inside of him any more.

  Chapter 11

  LILO

  “Papa is dead,” I said automatically.

  I meant to say it. Saying it made it no less real. But I had to say it to accept it.

  I was sitting outside with a monster in their coffin room. Their room. It never was my room. I had not picked the plain plastered walls, crumbling in places. I had not selected this nondescript old brown building, sagging into the ground. Yet it was where I was confined now. A prisoner. A rat in their cage.

  And now I had not invited this monster into “my” room. He was there, though, and a very real monster. I wondered what I would do with him. Would I tell on him? Perhaps I could turn him in. Maybe they would grant me some sort of freedom for doing so.

  “Now, Liselotte, you cannot turn him in. What would God say? We must forgive.”

  “Daddy, they killed you. He is one of them.”

  “Liselotte, he may have been one of them. But now that he has done what he has done, now that he has stood up to them, they will treat him as one of us. If we abandon him to them, how are we better?”

  “But we are better, P
apa, we are better. We are humans, not murderers.”

  “Exactly my little, Lilo. My little girl. We are human. We are Yahweh’s children, and we cannot turn him over to be murdered. We cannot take part in that.”

  But Papa was not there, and I would turn him in. I stopped thinking of what Papa would say. I wanted my own voice, and I would not and could not forgive him. But what if they murdered me?

  “So what, let them murder me,” I said aloud, so casually that it surprised me.

  I lifted my foot off the ground and tapped it back again, hard, just to show my resolve, if only to myself.

  I suddenly was very frightened. I didn’t want to die. I was no martyr. I was scared of death and pain. I had a deep aching in my heart for Papa, and he spoke again to me.

  “Pray for wisdom, dear, but don’t think too much on it. This man is different than the other Nazis. Do what you know is right and good. Your soul depends on it, my Lilo.”

  THE DAY THEY CAME FOR us, I was out picking flowers for my new camera that Papa had bought me. It was black and had long accordion-ridged plastic housing between the lens and where I placed my eye. It was quite modern. I could take it anywhere I wanted, since it was portable. Papa had known I had dreamed of taking pictures with it since we first saw it in the shop window in town. When he told me that he would buy it for me, I was overjoyed. I began arranging things and snapping “pictures” with my fingers, square-shaped as I made a clicking sound. And so these flowers had been planned; I had selected them before they were picked, weeks ago. I had an arrangement in the house of different flowers, books and a crystal vase, and these flowers were the final element. They were all arranged for a first photo shoot. I just needed these wildflowers and my camera to make it all come together. I was skipping through the field, laughing. It was a warm summer day on the outskirts of Nuremburg.

  We lived in an almost isolated old cottage. I walked into our little house and saw Papa on the floor, passed out and bleeding. I stared at him and then up to the grimace of a Schutzstaffel soldier. He looked at me and shouted for me to come over.

  “Jüdische hündin,” he yelled again when I did not respond immediately. Jewish bitch.

  My legs were lead, dead weight. They wouldn’t move.

  I said, “Sorry, sir, I, jus—just can’t move.”

  He came over and smacked me hard on my face. He struck me so hard that I fell backward, lip cracked and bleeding. He looked like the devil as he stared over me. All I could see was the black of his pupils. Black eyes for a soulless creature. He said something more, but I couldn’t understand. My ears were ringing from the slap, and I was dizzy.

  I didn’t at first understand what he was doing. I was confused and seeing twinkles of light in my vision. I vaguely saw him take off his belt and trousers. He looked at me, hungry like a thief, like he was admiring what he had taken from someone, what he was about to take. He was someone who had survived a long drought and who had just tasted fresh water on his lips. They wanted more than to look at the water. I could smell his lust.

  He leaned down and ripped off my blouse and bra, tearing them into two pieces. He then nestled his head into my chest. I was repulsed. But I lay there, energy gone. I would do nothing. I could smell his putrid breath. He reached down, lifted my dress, and moved my panties to the side. I knew he would soon enter me. What was I to do?

  Then I saw Papa, my hero, standing above the SS soldier. He had the man’s service weapon in his hands, standing over him. I didn’t even see him aim. He didn’t flinch, not for a moment. He shot, and the man’s gurgling began as I was hit with soft flesh and flecks of brain and skull. The man slumped on top of me. I screamed as his blood flowed in a red fountain over my chest. I started crying. Papa threw him to the side and pulled my dress back down. I tried to cover my exposed breasts, and he took off his shirt and put it over me. He held me as I sobbed into his chest. He cradled me. I was his Lilo, he was my Papa.

  After a few minutes, my tears subsided, and Papa told me to go take a shower.

  “Papa, we don’t have time for me to take a shower. This man will be missed, and then they will come looking for us. They will look for who did this.”

  “Lilo, we cannot leave with you looking like this. I have a gun, now go, dear, shower and I will watch from the window. But you are right to be quick about it. Pack clothes for you and me and we will leave directly after.”

  So I showered and packed. I rushed to throw things in a bag, enough clothes for a night’s stay away from home. Nothing more fit in my small bag, and I couldn’t very well carry a suitcase.

  I came out and said, “I am ready.”

  “Shh, Lilo,” he whispered. “Don’t be scared. Don’t make a sound, but there is another SS soldier outside in the yard. He is looking around and at the house.”

  I whispered, “What will you do?”

  “Kill him, of course. There is no other way.”

  The SS soldier soon came to the door and knocked at it.

  “Go, hide under your bed.”

  And so I hid under my bed, my heart pounding out of fear so hard that I could feel it in my temples and in my heels of my feet. I wanted to help Papa, but I didn’t know how. I heard him open the door, and then I heard a shot. And then another two, in rapid staccato-like succession. I waited, I waited for Papa to return. For something to tell me he was alive. There was nothing but silence.

  I could wait no longer, and then I got out from under the bed and looked out the door. I saw Papa digging with a shovel in the backyard. I ran out and saw the SS soldier Papa must have just shot, groaning on the ground and asking for help. He promised me if I helped him, he would let us live.

  I leaned down and looked at him, ensuring that Papa had taken his service weapon.

  I looked at him in the eyes, “I will let you live.”

  I went to get rags and placed one on his only wound, in his shoulder. Although he was only shot in his shoulder, he was bleeding profusely. The wound was bad. He yelled out in pain.

  “I am sorry, I will have to stop the bleeding. I won’t let my father hurt you. But you have to help us. How do we get out of here alive?”

  He said, “I will let them know you helped me.”

  He looked at me in great fear, his dark blue eyes pleading with me.

  “Am I going to die?”

  “That depends on how much help you offer. Letting them know we helped you doesn’t help us. Tell me where to go, where to be safe.”

  “Go to Regensburg. Go and tell them you are a Jew, and they will make you live in the ghetto. There you will be safe.” He breathed shallow breaths in and out and started to cry.

  “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.”

  He clutched my dress, “Please don’t let him kill me.”

  “I won’t,” I assured him. “But what is the ghetto?”

  “It is a place to put Jews, where you live together segregated from...”

  His face was flushed, and his skin felt like a burning stove. He was sweating profusely.

  He took another breath. “You have to go, that is why we came. It is better you go now, after, after you help... ah... it hurts. It hurts to talk. I am so cold.”

  “I will get you a blanket. Here, put pressure on that wound.”

  “I need a doctor.”

  “I will talk to Papa in a minute, and we will get you one. You know your friend tried to rape me, and that is why Papa had to kill him.”

  “I understand. I am sorry.”

  I went to the bedroom to get a blanket, and I returned in order to cover him with it. But he was no longer in the entryway. I followed the trail of blood, and it led me to the kitchen, where I found him.

  “Why are you in the kitchen? I didn’t think you could move?”

  “I wanted some water.”

  I saw blood in the sink and could see he had attempted to get to the faucet, as evidenced by the pool of crimson on the counter.

  He was shivering like he was barefoot in the
snow outside, even though Papa had a crackling fire that heated the room well. This man was cold because he was dying. I saw that in hindsight. But at the time I thought that it was just a shoulder wound and that it wouldn’t kill him, at least if he got help eventually.

  I wrapped the blanket around him and went to get a glass of water for him.

  “Why should I go to the ghetto, and how do we know you won’t tell on us?”

  “Becau—because,” he stuttered, “They will take you by force if you don’t. I won’t tell if you save me.”

  “How do I know that, other than a Nazi’s word? A Nazi promise to a Jewish girl doesn’t mean much.”

  “Then use fake names, rip up your papers. No one would voluntarily say they were Jewish to get into the ghetto; it isn’t a nice place. But it is better than what will happen if you stay here and they find out.”

  “I knew it, you will tell them.”

  “It won’t be me, but they may figure it out.”

  I leaned down with the glass of water I had obtained from the kitchen tap to give him a sip. Papa came in then, and the Nazi shuddered. His skin crawled away from my father. The man’s eyes went directly to the gun that he was holding—one of the SS soldiers’ service weapons.

  “Please, please don’t kill me.”

  He cried and sniffled. He began to wail, but had to hold the emotion in because it hurt too much. I felt sympathy for him.

  I was holding the water to his lips when he looked up at me and said, “You fucking Jew, I will slit your...”

  I looked at the Nazi’s hand. He was raising it, and he held a sharp kitchen knife from our drawers. He was trying to use his “good” shoulder. I don’t think he realized how slow he would be, because I was able to jump out of his range of motion quickly.

  Papa was pointing his gun at the Nazi.

  He said simply, “Lilo, move further away while I blow his brains out.”

  “No, I was just trying to protect myself from being shot, I wouldn’t have hurt her, I only would have...”