Two Brothers

A Country Excursion Saxony, September 1935

THE FOLLOWING DAY Paulus and Otto went to Friedrichshain town hall in search of the names and addresses of Otto’s natural grandparents.

‘If it wasn’t a matter of life and death it’d actually be quite funny,’ Paulus said on their return. ‘The place was absolutely packed. Jews, gypsies, Nazis, all scrabbling at the town records. They’ve got this big chart on the wall with all these different family tree models, white circles for Germans, black circles for Jews…’

‘Surprise surprise,’ Wolfgang remarked from his piano stool.

‘And then mixed circles for the Mischlinge. The idea is you put your great-grandparents in the various circles and that way you can work out whether you qualify to sit on park benches or not.’

‘And did you find anything out,’ Frieda asked, ‘about Otto’s family?’

‘Only on his mother’s side,’ Paulus said, ‘and then only their names and their home village. It’s in Saxony.’

‘I’m going to find them,’ Otto said firmly. ‘I’ll cycle — it’s only a hundred and twenty kilometres.’

When Silke heard about the trip she insisted immediately on going along for the ride. She had only just got back from her epic march to Nuremberg and having tasted the freedom of the open road and nights out camping under stars had no desire to return to the drudgery of life in her mother’s apartment where her stepfather treated her as an unpaid servant.

‘It’ll be easy to get off school,’ she said. ‘I’ll just say it’s BDM business. I am Youth and I belong to the Führer, don’t you know!’ she added, quoting party rhetoric with a wicked laugh. ‘I have a special place in his heart and in his plans so my teachers can go screw themselves! Ha ha! It’ll be a good thing to have me along in my uniform anyway, Otts. A lad on his own out there with a bike and backpack who’s not in the Hitler Youth is a dead set target. They’ve banned all the other youth clubs, even the Catholic bird-watchers. The country’s swarming with HJ and believe me there’s plenty of them looking for a fight. They go for any kid who isn’t in the gang. If you’re with me, it’ll just look like you’re in civvies.’

And so the very next morning Otto and Silke set out together with their sandwiches and apple juice, a blanket each, a little canvas tent and a few marks to buy food along the way.

The first part of the journey meant cycling all the way across Berlin from the south-east to the north-west, a dirty, sweaty business on what was a warm late September morning. Soon, however, they picked up the old Hamburg road and found themselves rolling happily along an almost empty country road which meandered its way through the glorious countryside of Brandenburg towards Saxony and would eventually lose itself in the beautiful Elbe valley, where they planned to camp that night.

It was a wonderful day bathed in perfect sunshine, and Otto found himself forgetting all his terror for the future as he revelled in the simple unfettered freedom of the open road.

‘Hitler weather’, people called it, and it was true that the summers since the Leader had seized power did seem to have been longer and more pleasant than those under the Weimar.

‘Bloody hot, eh, Otts!’ Silke said as she laboured at her pedals, leaning forward over the handlebar in order to lend more power to each pumping motion of her legs.

Good legs too, Otto could not stop himself from thinking, as he glanced across the dusty lane at his travelling companion. The skirts of the BDM uniform were fully calf-length but Silke had tucked the hem of hers up into her knickers to make it easier to ride. Her legs were thus fully displayed, and the flexing and unflexing of her muscles cast nice shadows across her tanned thighs and calves as she rode.

How strange, Otto mused, that scrappy little Silke should end up having nice legs. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and took in the pleasant sight. Who would ever have thought it?

Firm, shapely legs. Girl’s legs. Not spectacular like Dagmar’s, but then no girl had legs like Dagmar’s. Hers were endless, slim and delicate, like some fabulous, human gazelle. Silke’s legs were not long at all and certainly not skinny. But nice nonetheless. Friendly and strong. No longer covered in grazes and sticking plasters either. Otto did not think he’d ever seen Silke’s knees before without the scabs and plasters and as often as not some dirty inky scribble. Now they were clear and smooth. The only evidence that remained of a thousand fights and falls were one or two little scars that stood white against the copper skin.

Amazing. Silke had been ‘one of the boys’ for so long that it was quite a shock to realize she’d ended up turning into a girl after all. She even had curves. When had that happened? Skinny little Silke with curves? They seemed simply to have arrived overnight.

‘Isn’t Silke growing up?’ Frieda had remarked recently. ‘I always thought she’d turn out pretty.’

And she had.

An old friend with a big smile and a disposition as sunny as the reflections that sparkled in the corn-blonde hair blowing in the breeze behind her as she panted over her handlebar.

Good old Silke.

Such a dear, old friend.

‘Poor Pauly, eh?’ Silke shouted. ‘Bet he wishes he was here.’

‘Yeah!’ Otto called back. ‘Sitting in school surrounded by the enemy studying for a job they won’t let him have. And he thinks he’s the clever one! Ha!’

Side by side they rode. Up and down hills, past streams, through fields and sweet-smelling forests. Stopping occasionally for draughts of apple juice.

Both of them knew that they would remember that wonderful day’s ride all their lives. Their spirits rising with every kilometre passed. With the scent of the forests and the freshly made hay and sweet meadow flowers, all wafted to them on a warm and gentle breeze through pure and pristine air.

‘It really is a lovely world,’ Silke said.

‘Yes it is,’ Otto agreed. ‘Shame about the people in it.’

He said this as yet another labourer in a field paused in his work to greet them as they passed, not with a wave or a simple ‘Guten Tag’ but with the ‘German’ salute and a loud ‘Heil Hitler’.

‘I almost resent the sun for shining on them,’ Otto went on. ‘It makes everything look so wonderful, even them with their stupid outstretched arms.’

‘Well, of course there never was any sun before Hitler,’ Silke joked.

It was the time of the September Solstice. A pagan festival beloved of the Nazis. Every village they passed through was bedecked with flowers and swastikas. Every little green or square was filled with dancers.

Girls in traditional country dress with garlands in their hair. Boys stamping about in HJ uniforms with wooden rifles on their shoulders. Marching bands playing and children’s choirs singing songs.

Songs Otto recognized as he cycled past returning the friendly waves of the singers. The same songs that were sung at his school, at assemblies and during music lessons.

Das Judenblut vom Messer spritzt, geht’s uns nochmal so gut.

‘The Jews’ blood spurting from the knife makes us feel especially good.’

All day they cycled, alternately delighted to be free and in the countryside and depressed to be so continuously confronted with evidence of the Nazi occupation of it. Village after village had a banner strung across the road at its entrance saying ‘No Jews’ and ‘Jew Beware’.

And then there were the shouts.

‘Death to Jews,’ peasants called out cheerfully as Otto and Silke passed. Just as if they were shouting, ‘Good morning! Good luck! Enjoy your ride.’

Time and again they cycled past marching groups of boys and girls with happy, smiling faces, calling down death on their fellow man. The countryside was alive with them. Off to the rivers and forests intent on developing the ‘steel hard’ bodies that Hitler had demanded of ‘his youth’.

That night, exhausted, they made camp together in a little copse of trees beside a stream. Or a small river, as Otto insisted it should be ranked, having pronounced it as one from the map.

They didn’t bother pitching the tent because the night was warm and there was no chance of rain. It was too warm even for a fire, which Otto thought was a great shame but Silke said was fortunate.

‘Fires attract all sorts of nasty insects,’ she said. ‘Gnats, mosquitoes and Hitler Jugend. You can bet your shirt that if there was a troop around they’d feel honour-bound to scout us out. It’s an obsession with them, they are the “eyes of the Führer”. It’s not like we have anything to hide, particularly now it seems you aren’t even a Jew any more! But all the same we don’t want company.’

Otto agreed. ‘Smart girl,’ he said. ‘Paulus would be proud of you.’

‘And there was you thinking I was just a pretty face.’

She laughed selfconsciously as she said it. Otto laughed too.

‘Good old Silke! One of the lads, eh?’

A compliment which did not seem particularly to please its recipient.

They ate their supper of cheese and bread and some fruit and then each curled up in their blankets beside each other. Lying staring up at the stars, which they could see twinkling through the canopy of trees.

Otto couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to Silke. Talked properly, just her and him. If indeed he ever had talked to her. He’d laughed with her countless times, fought with her, run from irate shopkeepers with her and teased her endlessly. But never actually simply talked to her. Why would he have done? She was just one of the boys. A mate. You didn’t go rabbiting on to your mates.

‘What do you think will happen, Otts?’ Silke asked. ‘I mean to Pauly and you and your mum and dad?’

‘Well, hopefully Mum’ll manage to get the family out,’ Otto replied. ‘I know her and Dad talk about it quite a lot, but of course Dad’s basically unemployable these days and then there’s Pops and Grandma to think about. It would be hard for them to move even if they wanted to.’

‘Don’t they want to?’ Silke asked.

‘Come on, Silks, you know them better than that. They’re Germans! They don’t know how to be anything else. Pops always says he’s been German since 1870, while Hitler the Austrian has only been German since 1932, so why should Pops be the one to leave?’

Silke laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s Herr Tauber all right. He always used to scare the crap out of me.’

‘He still does scare me,’ Otto said.

‘So do you think your mum will leave them behind?’

‘I think in the end she might have to. But I’ll tell you one thing, Silks, if Mum and Dad do manage to get the family out, I won’t be going with them.’

Silke raised herself up on one elbow and looked down at Otto’s face, faint and pale in the shadowy moonlight.

‘Because of Dagmar?’ she said quietly.

‘Of course,’ Otto said. ‘Unless Dagmar can get out herself I’m staying to look after her.’

‘Saturday Club rules, eh?’ Silke smiled.

‘Yeah. That’s it,’ Otto replied.

But they both knew it had nothing to do with the Saturday Club.

Silke changed the subject.

‘Have you ever heard of the Rote Hilfe?’ she asked.

‘The Red Help?’ Otto repeated. ‘No, I don’t think so. What is it?’

‘It’s a sort of resistance thing,’ Silke went on, ‘in Berlin. It was attached to the Red Cross before Hitler but now of course it’s underground. They try and help out families who’ve had their men stolen to camps. And also to let people abroad know what’s really happening.’

‘Are you a member then?’

‘Well, I don’t really know. It’s all secret and you never know anybody’s name, but I have a couple of contacts.’

‘What do you do?’

‘It seems a bit silly to me. They write a newsletter and it’s my job to see that copies get out of Germany.’

‘Wow, how do you do that?’

‘Easy. I post them! Nobody suspects a teenage girl in a BDM uniform, you see. I buy a woman’s magazine and slip the secret stuff between the pages. Then I go to the post office and send it as general printed matter to an address in Geneva.’

Otto thought about it for a little while.

‘Good for you,’ he said eventually.

‘I just wanted you to know,’ Silke said hesitantly, ‘that the gang is still together. The Saturday Club. I may wear a BDM uniform but we believe in the same things.’

‘I know that, Silks.’

‘And,’ Silke went on nervously, ‘just like you want to look after Dagmar, I’d like to help look after you.’

‘Well, we’re all bound by oath, aren’t we?’ Otto laughed.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘So you’d help Paulus too?’

‘Of course I would! How can you even ask!’

‘And Dagmar?’ There was a pause. ‘She’s in the Saturday Club too, remember?’

‘Yes. I suppose so,’ Silke said.

Otto smiled in the darkness.

‘I hope you will always try to help her if you can, Silks,’ he said. ‘If only for my sake.’

‘Otto,’ Silke said. ‘We’re all in the Saturday Club. We made a vow.’

After that there was nothing more to say and they went to sleep.

Or at least Otto did, almost immediately, dead beat from the ride. Silke lay awake for quite some time though. Listening to Otto breathe and watching his face in the moonlight.