Love and Hate Page 5

  Papa shouted, “Would have what? What would you have done to the ‘fucking Jew,’ the Jewish girl? What would you have done with the knife?”

  “I would have held her hostage so you would let me go. That is all.”

  “I don’t believe you, and you would go right to your Nazi bastard friends to tell them how we defended ourselves, and you would play the hero against the evil Jews. I don’t think so.”

  The soldier looked at me for sympathy, but when he grabbed me with a knife and called me a fucking Jew, I knew. I knew that I had been foolish to try to help him. Papa was right, and he couldn’t be allowed to leave. He was a murderer like the rest.

  Papa cocked the gun, and the Nazi changed his expression. He turned to steely resolve.

  “Heil Hitler, stop at once, Jew! I have killed Jews before, and you will die for this. You are a dog, but if you let me go, you Jewish son of a bitch, I will make sure your death is at least quick when you are put down. I will...”

  Papa was silent, but the gun was not. The bullet hit the man. I heard it before I registered what had happened. The man had said “I will,” and I was listening for the next part of his rambling that was silenced by his last groan as he collapsed to the floor.

  Papa looked at me and said, “Help me finish digging their graves outside.”

  “Papa, he said that we should go to a ghetto in Regensburg and tear up our papers.”

  “He is probably right. I have heard that they are rounding people into them, and that is probably the best course of action now.”

  “Lilo...”

  “What, Papa?”

  “Don’t ever trust a Nazi again. There are no good Nazis.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  Chapter 12

  I heard them before I saw them. I knew the sound well and could tell that it was them coming up the stairs. I could feel the little house shake. It quivered with fear, as did I. I went outside and grabbed the woman by the arm. She looked fearful. She knew the sound of their boots as well. She knew the speed at which they came and the fast, methodical clip at which they approached was the sound that predicted our death. Our death was inside those hurried steps. Our last gasps were contained inside the pause that existed between each slap of a boot on the thin, warped stairs. Our last dreams were there, in the silence, the silence that existed for a moment before the death march continued and the boots slapped down again.

  She fell to the floor and cried. Small sobs, short and steady. I sat on the bed in just my trousers. They were dried and bloody but better than my shirt.

  She got up suddenly as we heard voices at the door across from ours. They had checked that apartment first. She grabbed a cotton shirt and threw it to me, wiping her eyes with it first. “Our death will be dignified. Now, put on that shirt. And if you wish, the Nazi hat too.”

  “I will not wear the hat,” I said softly.

  She nodded at me in a show of respect. She looked resolved to her fate, steel-faced. I was just tired. Tired of this war, tired of the death. I was tired of killing. I had killed many men on the battlefield. So many had died at my hands. I used to count, to try to figure out how many I had sent to the shadows. But I couldn’t. I didn’t remember how many any more. Yet I had gotten away without murdering anyone this entire war, and when I killed Gerhard, that wasn’t murder—but killing in defense of another. I always remembered what father had said that night on the porch at our house in Regensburg. He had said to do right in my actions, wherever I could, and to keep my thoughts to myself. I had done that as best as I could. I hoped he would be proud of me if I saw him in whatever next world that might be.

  They were at the door now. I heard shouting to open the door. I just sat on the bed with my head in my hands. A statue. I looked up as they shouted impatiently, warning us. I sat immobile and just looked up and toward the door. The girl had now taken up residence at my feet. She grabbed my ankle as if to comfort me.

  She said, “It is all right. It is what was meant to be. Just don’t let them make you sorry for what you did. I am proud of you. Here, take this tie from my father. And your hat.”

  I didn’t know why she gave me that tie, but I took it.

  No one had said that they were proud of me since Father’s murder. I wasn’t scared of death, but I wanted it to be quick. I didn’t have my gun any more, or I would have pointed it at them to ensure that they shot us both quickly.

  The girl looked up at me and said, “They are about to burst through that door.”

  I heard the door almost buckle as they beat it.

  “When they come in, you must tell them that I killed Gerhard. Tell them you found me, and that you were keeping me prisoner until they arrived. That you took a bath before turning me in. Put on your hat. Save yourself. You cannot save me. Make sure they kill me quickly.”

  She put her wrists together and looked at me. She wanted me to tie her wrists behind her back. I snapped out of my stupor and tied a tight knot that she couldn’t escape from. I stood up and put on my hat. The Reichsadler, with a swastika on my hat was facing outward, toward the door.

  She said, “Slap me, slap me hard.”

  I hesitated, only for a moment. I didn’t want to do this. The door was buckling. The door was down, and so I slapped her hard across the face just as they entered the room.

  There were four of them; Schutzstaffel Mann, guards of the lowest order. I was one rank senior to them. They had rifles pointed at me.

  One of them sneered at me and said, “Oberschütze Beck, you are under arrest for the murder of Oberscharführer Gerhard Schmidt.”

  I mustered courage and screamed at him, “How dare you talk to me like that, you swine! You are nothing to me. Do you not know who I am? I am Hans Beck. Erich Beck’s brother. Put down your weapons at once, or I will have you shot dead and piss on your carcass.”

  I pushed the girl to the floor and put one foot on top of her as if she was some prize game that I had shot. They lowered their weapons.

  Stuttering, the guard who had first spoken said, “Well, sir, well, we have to take you in to see Obergruppenführer Beck. He has asked to see the man involved in this personally. My apologies, I did not know who you were. Perhaps you could explain what happened.”

  “EXPLAIN what happened to YOU!”

  “No, sir, to him. If you would just follow us, we can take you to him immediately.”

  “Yes, I would like that very much. I need to see my brother and get this whole thing cleared up.”

  The guard on my left looked disappointed. His desire was to kill, to torture. He looked at his prize at my feet. The other guards were lions looking at their prey. I saw one lick his chops.

  He said, “Sir, if you will step away from that garbage, we will dispatch her, slowly.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” I said defiantly.

  “But...”

  “Fuck you, don’t you question me. I want her taken to Erich with me. He and I will decide her fate.”

  I was queasy inside and didn’t know what I would say to Erich when I saw him. I was scared of my brother and always had been. He was a sadistic son of a bitch. But he liked me, and I didn’t completely hate him despite the evil things he did. He was still my brother.

  I took my foot off of the girl and she lay there, mute. What was she thinking? If she was fearful, she didn’t show it.

  They came to pick her up, and as they did, one of them sucker-punched her hard. It took the wind out of her, and I heard her struggle to breathe.

  I went up to the guard who had hit her, the same one who had asked about killing her, who looked the hungriest for violence. I punched him in the face. The other guards looked on silently. They didn’t know what to do. I was Erich Beck’s brother, wasn’t I?

  “Don’t you lay another hand on her or I will have you on the front lines within a week. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, good. Let’s go see Erich. Remember, I am not your prisoner. You are my escorts.
You will treat her the same way. I have my reasons, and you will respect them, or God help you.”

  Chapter 13

  Erich was sitting in his large armchair by the fireplace as we entered his large Jewish office. I only call it Jewish because that was what it was. They had stolen this house from a wealthy Jew and “Aryanized” it. That was what they called repurposed things that they had taken from their rightful owners. Words are powerful things. When you designate something Aryanized, theft becomes creation. Aryanizing the house that Erich lived in meant giving it to its rightful owner, it meant making it into a dignified house, when it had been but a hovel. A hovel where “rats” lived.

  At first Erich didn’t turn around. He kept facing the fire. I thought he would turn as he heard us approach, he did not.

  “Obergruppenführer Beck, we have brought your brother, Oberschütze Beck to you, sir,” said the hungry guard.

  “And the girl?” he said dispassionately.

  “Yes, sir, we have her too. Do you want me to...”

  “Silence, leave him and her. Leave us alone. Leave now.”

  “Yes sir,” they said in union.

  They left and closed the door. The room was as large as many Germans’ entire houses. It had a balcony that overlooked the ghetto. There were marbled floors and tapestries. The fireplace was enormous. It reminded me of the house we grew up in.

  “Erich, you have never had me in this room. This reminds me of Father’s—”

  He said, “Shh, don’t talk to me right now, Hans. I don’t want to hear your thoughts on my house.”

  He finally got up and faced me, slicked-back black hair, shiny with pomade, and in his starched uniform. He was handsome, in a cruel way. Each of his lapels was adorned with collar badges that looked like silver three branched twigs, with two diamonds underneath. He was an Obergruppenführer, a senior group leader and general. His rank was so high that he oversaw this strategic city’s ghetto, a city with an aircraft factory and oil refinery. He was charged with the administration of the rounding up of Jews throughout Bavaria.

  Erich always was smirking, even when his face was deadpan. He had his hands behind his back as he walked toward us and the Jewish girl fell to her knees and stared at the floor.

  He looked at her and grinned. Then he got within an inch of my face.

  He said, raising his arm, “Heil Hitler.”

  I didn’t respond, and he pretended to be offended. He then stared deep into my eyes, saying, “Surely you know that I know what you did, little brother.”

  I was so scared, I didn’t know what to say.

  “There was a mistake, brother.”

  He took off my hat, caressing the Reichsadler’s swastika with his thumb and forefinger.

  “You have never believed all of this, I have always known it. You know that I have always known it, don’t you, Hans?”

  “Erich, look—”

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?”

  He said it softly; he wasn’t angry. I feared him more because of that. Counterintuitively, when he was yelling, you still had a chance to calm him down. When he was cold, he had already decided on whatever he was going to do. So I did as he ordered; I shut my mouth. I looked at the ground, averting my eyes from his.

  “Brother, you have to understand my position. You do, don’t you? Well, I told you not to say anything, so I will have to answer for you—yes, you do understand my position. You killed a guard, and you must be punished. What would it look like if I didn’t punish you?”

  I was shivering with fear, and he saw that I was.

  “Now, Hans,” he said as he placed his right hand on my shoulder, “I am not going to kill you!” He laughed loudly. It echoed in the cavernous room.

  “I mean, you didn’t shoot the guard. If you had, I would have to have you shot, brother or not. However, you left with this thing.” He kicked the girl lightly. “And you alerted no one that her father had shot your supervising guard.”

  Then he squeezed my shoulder tighter with his hand and punched me in the nose. I heard the crack as the searing pain hit me, and I bled down into my mouth. He kicked me hard between my legs, and I bent down in pain. As I did so, he punched me again, this time on my right cheek. He pushed me to the ground and sat on top of me as he pounded into my face over and again. I lay there and took it, because there was no other option for me. He was smiling wide as he hit me over and over and again. I felt something loose in my mouth and swallowed one of my teeth. He lost his smile and looked red with anger as he kept pounding my face so that my eyes hardly opened. Through my eyes, the slits that they were—burning—I still looked at him. It would have hurt less to close them, but I wanted to see. I wanted to know if he tried to attack the girl. After several minutes, he was sweating profusely and out of breath. His knuckles were bleeding. He stopped and stood up, huffing. He composed himself, smoothing his jacket that was spattered with my blood.

  I lay there wondering how I had not passed out. I could feel my face more keenly than I ever had. It was throbbing like a heartbeat. I could hardly see.

  Erich commanded, “Stand up, little brother.”

  I obeyed. It was hard. But I had to. I grunted as I stood up, hunched over.

  He laughed. “Why did you make me get my knuckles bloody, brother? Over a Jew girl? You know I beat you because I love you.”

  He gave me a kiss on the cheek, the one most beaten and raw.

  “I do this because otherwise I would have to have you executed. I am not going to do that. You had to be punished, and your fellow guards expect that you are punished. So I beat you a little.

  “But you are my brother. I am the sentimental type, I suppose. Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that the Jews are people. I believe you are ill. You have the same problem that Father had. He believed that Jews were human beings. This is despite all the evidence to the contrary. You know the evidence. You know it has been scientifically proven that they are subhuman parasites. The difference between Father and you is that you never questioned me and have always been loyal. That loyalty and that silence is why you are standing here without a bullet in your head. I value loyalty and respect. I believe that you can be cured of your illness. I still have faith in you, Hans.”

  He handed me his pistol, “Now, the best way to prove your loyalty and to get over your illness lays before you. I want you to kill the Jew girl, in front of me, right now.”

  “But Erich, I—”

  “No.” He put his finger to his smirking lips. “Do you want to live? Then do it, and do it now.”

  I pointed the gun at her, and as I did, she looked up at me, not with pleading eyes, but with acceptance, and she gave a little nod to show that she was ready.

  I suddenly pointed the gun a different direction. I pointed it to my head.

  Erich gave a full-throated laugh. If you didn’t know the situation, you would think that he was laughing good-naturedly. He was genuinely amused.

  “Brother, now what are you doing? You are going to kill yourself for this fucking bitch. This Jewish whore.”

  “I cannot murder her, Erich. I would rather shoot myself.”

  He held his chin in his hand with his bloody knuckles facing me. He looked deep in thought. I stood there, waiting for him to say something, ready to blow my brains out if necessary.

  “You know, I might wonder why you haven’t yet shot yourself if you were going to do it. I might think you were bluffing. But I know you. You never could lie well. Lying can get you places, you know, but telling the truth can also set you free. I know you are going to blow your head off rather than shoot the rat. However, I don’t want you to do that. I know there is nothing that I can say or do to make you shoot her. You would have already done it, but you’ve saved her before, and you are trying to do so again. For some reason that I cannot comprehend, you won’t shoot her. You could go back to how things were.”

  “A miserable guard, helping and witnessing the horrible things we do to o
ther people. I’ll take the bullet to the head, Erich.”

  He fell silent again. I continued to hold the gun to my temple, using all my energy to stand upright, in horrible pain from Erich’s beating.

  “You see, that is your problem. You think she is a human. You honestly believe it—just like father. And you—you are human. You should know better. Yet you are my brother. This is the only reason I have hesitation, because you are my brother. You may be surprised that I can be merciful. I must ask you first, though, why sacrifice yourself, when you know I will kill her right after you are dead—before you are even cold?”

  “Because, Erich, I want to do what is right as I leave this world. I don’t believe she is a rat. What you do is your business. You must live with your decisions.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I know it is my business. Everything that happens in this ghetto is my business, brother. I mean, I report directly to Heinrich Himmler. I own all the Jews in Bavaria.

  “You know, I do realize Father loved you more, and I could hate you for that. I did hate you for that for some time. However, I realized he loved you more because he was sick, like you are. And that was why he had to be disposed of. He didn’t love you more; he was just full of lies and manipulations from the Jews. I don’t regret that my reporting him got him killed, not one bit. Now, as for you, you have always shown me respect, unlike Father. I overlooked your illness, your mental defect, because of that. However, I cannot overlook it now. Your illness has taken full hold of you. It is communicable, it could spread, and I would be to blame.”

  I thought to myself, Where is he going with this?

  “But although you deserve to die, I have learned to be merciful at times. When it is merited. Your respect for me has merited mercy, Hans. I will not kill her, since that is the only way you will not kill yourself. I will let her live, because you want her to live. I will allow you to leave the ghetto. But, there is a tradeoff. This does not come without a price. You will become Jewish. You will be a rat, a dog, and a despised piece of garbage. I will have you branded with the Star of David on your arm. I will erase your Nazi records and replace them with ones that designate you as having Jewish blood. You will be hunted, both of you, as rats. You will scurry about, trying to hide from us. You will no longer be us, but them. You see, this is the only way I can be merciful and contain your virus. I must make you one of them. Or—”