Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (18 page)

“Rebecca…” he said, and she looked
back at him, waiting for words that never came. Cassin just stared at his
daughter and she at him before Christopher took her hand to leave.

A few weeks later, Christopher read through the names of the
people registered as Jews on the island of Jersey. There were several he had
never known as Jews and who had been known to regularly attend the local
Anglican church. At the top of the list, he saw the name of Pierre Cassin and
the note below that his family had been thought to have been evacuated to
England before the invasion.

Rebecca rarely left the apartment.
She and Christopher managed to fool themselves into believing that she could go
on doing that forever, or at least until the British forces retook Jersey. But
as time went on the ordinances coming down from Dr. Von Stein became more and
more draconian. Curfews came earlier and more freedoms were curtailed. Hitler
had seemingly become obsessed with the defense of the Channel Islands and, in 1941,
massive building works began to be built with slave labor brought in from the
continent. The workers built gun emplacements and anti-tank walls on the
beaches, and hundreds of bunkers and batteries that jutted grey out of the
green hills overlooking the coast all around the island. The conditions the
slave workers lived under belied the apparent good intentions of the countless
Nazi officers who Christopher and Stefan saw in their office.
 

Christopher first saw the Todt
workers, named after the founder of the forced labor organization, Fritz Todt,
in February of 1941. They arrived only as a few dozen, but, by the year after,
their numbers would swell to hundreds. Christopher stood on the street watching
them file past. There were probably forty of them, and they walked as the
closest thing he had ever seen to the horrors of hell in front of his eyes. The
workers had no proper shoes and their ragged clothes betrayed their bony,
starving bodies, swelling joints and gaunt white skin. They coughed and wheezed
as if trying to clutch onto the very air around them. Christopher tried to
catch eyes with them, to show that not all the world despised them, but it was
almost impossible. Their eyes were uniformly fixed on the ground in front of
them. Rebecca, who was a few feet from Christopher, reached into her pocket for
a piece of bread and held it out to a worker shuffling past, a young man,
probably no more than 18 years old. She had just managed to slip the tiny
morsel into his hand when the guards saw them. The nearest German soldier ran
towards them and struck the young worker in the head with the butt of his rifle
just as he stuffed the bread into his mouth. His body crumpled to the ground
like an empty sack, flopping onto the pavement. Rebecca screamed and the guard
forced her back with the flat side of his rifle. Christopher tried to grab at
it but felt himself held back by another soldier behind him. Rebecca and
Christopher both found themselves forced backwards, away from the road. The
other workers picked up the young boy and carried him somehow, as they hardly
looked as if they could carry themselves. The workers shuffled on and all that
remained was a pool of blood on the pavement, which moments later washed away
with the coming of the rain.

Many times after that, Christopher
and Rebecca stood outside their apartment, watching for the guards to look away
to give the Todt workers whatever food they could spare. Sometimes they were
able to and they watched the worker devour the pieces of bread or whatever they
happened to give them. But all too often the guards forced them back and the
workers would just stare down at the ground in front of them with defeated grey
eyes.

It was a hot rainy night in July when
Christopher arrived home with the letter his father had given him. Christopher
felt his tattered dirty clothes sticking to the sweat on his skin as he walked
in. Soap was rare, and new clothes were a memory by that time. Rebecca was
sitting by the window staring out into the rain. Christopher greeted her, but
if Rebecca answered him he didn’t hear. She didn’t turn to face him, just
stared out the window at the street below. He went to her, putting his hand
through her hair and onto her neck. She looked up at him and forced a smile. “I
can’t take this anymore,” she said

“You can’t take what?” he said, even
though Christopher knew what she was going to say. She hardly had to speak. Her
eyes told him.

“This isolation, this stunted life.”
She stood up and put her arms around him, letting her head drop into his chest
and then looked back up at him. “I have ambitions. I want to get married, to
you.” She smiled.

“This isn’t the time for wedding talk.
What would we make the cake out of, sand?”

“I know. I know that can’t happen
until the Nazis leave. I just never thought they’d be here even this long.”

“Rebecca, you need to be patient.
Once the war ends…”

“I’ll be able to leave the house
again? I’m going insane in here.”

“You know we have to be careful. If
the Nazis catch you with no ID papers… we’ve been through this a million
times.”

“I know, I’ll have to register as a
Jew, but what are they going to do to me then?”

“You really want to take that chance?
You’ve seen the way the Nazis treat the Todt workers. Do you want to end up
like one of them, a walking skeleton, a slave?” Christopher felt the hairs on
his arms stand on end as the image of Rebecca as one of the Todt workers
flashed through his mind.

Rebecca held his gaze for a few
seconds before she spoke again. “My life seems to have stopped since the Nazis
arrived.” Christopher felt his heart contract like a balled fist in his chest
as she spoke and she saw it. “No, I didn’t mean that. I’m happier now with you
than I’ve ever been. It’s just that you’re the only good thing in my life. I
want to go to University; I want to have a job and a life and children. I want
to have children with you and be your wife.” She led Christopher over to the
couch and sat down so close to him she was practically in his lap.

“We can have all those things. You
can have your education one day. I want children too, but this is no time to
bring a child into the world, not here, not now.”

They sat there in silence for a few
minutes. He ran his fingers through her hair, but she turned away once more to
stare out the window at the sprinkle of rain falling outside. It was hard to
know if it was the best time to show her the letter from Uli that his father
had received. It was probably the first letter that any islander had received
since the enforced blockade of the island had begun, since the Nazis had
arrived. It weighed heavy in his pocket and he swayed back and forth, deciding
whether or not to tell her. She looked at him and knew there was something
wrong.

“What’s the matter, Christopher?”

“Nothing is the matter.” Her blue
eyes were huge as she looked at him. It was hard to see anything else in the
room. “I got a letter from Uli, smuggled through on one of the transports by
one of the German soldiers.”

“Being German does have its benefits
here after all. What does it say?”

Christopher reached into his pocket
and handed the envelope to her. She held it in her hand for a second before
opening it. She smiled as she read the first line.

27rd June 1941

Stefan, Christopher, Alexandra, Tom and Rebecca (I hope),

I hope everyone is well. If the people on the chain of getting this
letter to you are as good as their word, this should reach you by the time I
reach Russia. We received the orders last week and we are to ship out tomorrow.
The other officers are talking about this being the final push to win the war
and that this could be all over by Christmas. The Russians are a disorganized
rabble, and should be easily defeated by the combined forces of the Reich, or
so everyone says. In my mind I can’t help thinking of another overconfident
general called Napoleon and what happened to him on his excursion into Russia
but we will see.

I miss home more than I ever thought possible, I long to see Karolina and
hold Stefan. I think about them all the time, and sometimes find myself staring
at the photos she sends me for hours at a time. Stefan is running around now
supposedly and even has a few words. Karolina tells me that he knows who I am
by my photographs and can point at them and say “Papa.” That is enough to make
my heart melt and to forget there is anything else in this whole world.
 

I can’t say I enjoyed my time in France. I suppose it’s difficult for the
people here to see that we’re here to prevent bloodshed and loss of life, not
to cause it, but I don’t suppose they’ll ever understand. Maybe if we do win
this war, which everyone says we will, they will appreciate us some day and we
can all live in peace alongside one another. I just don’t know. I’m just a
soldier, although now I’m a Major myself. They must be running out of people if
they’re promoting me. But I’ll just do what I always do, keep my head down and
run when the bullets start flying. Please try not to worry about me.

I hope you are all well and I hope that Tom hasn’t joined the British
Army! No but seriously there are some words of warning I have to impart. From
the last of Christopher’s letters that I received before Jersey was taken it
seemed that Rebecca wanted to stay, to be with him. And while that filled me
with joy I must warn of the laws that the Reich has regarding Jews, some of
whom have already been sent off for resettlement in the East. Just be careful,
Rebecca, if you read this. If anything happens I will use as much influence as
I can as I have friends in the SS, some quite high up, but there is only so
much I can accomplish. Keep your head down and this will all blow over
eventually.

I will try and write again soon but I don’t know how good the postal
service in Russia is going to be.

Love to all,

Uli

Rebecca let the letter drop into her
lap and continued to stare out the window. The thirty seconds before she spoke
drew out excruciatingly but Christopher waited for her to begin. “I can’t
believe Uli is fighting for the Nazis. I can’t believe he’s one of them. He was
such a kind person.”

“He still is.”

Rebecca brought her eyes to his and
he could see her breath quickening, the fear infesting her. “They’ve begun
sending the Jews away? For resettlement in the East? What does that mean?”

“I don’t want to find out.”

“No seriously what does that mean?”
Rebecca said and began visibly shaking. Christopher took her and held her
tight. “You said you’d look after me, Christopher.”

Christopher took her head and held ii under his chin, his
arms cradling her. “I will, Rebecca. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

It was a year later, July 19
^th
1942, when Christopher met Dr. Wilhelm Casper, the new Commandant of the German
garrison on Jersey. Christopher was working in the office in St. Helier that
the Germans had provided for them on a day like any other. They had not heard
from Uli in the year since he had been posted to Russia, and only knew that he
was still alive through reports from the clerks working in Dr. Casper’s office,
who were able to check on his status. Uli was still listed as active and
serving on the Eastern Front. They were the only people on the island who had
received any news of the outside world since the occupation had begun. Rebecca
was still hiding in the apartment and had barely left in months. The other Jews
on the island were by that stage, completely disenfranchised, having had their
businesses confiscated and their freedoms curtailed to the point that they were
only allowed to leave the house once a day, between the hours of three and four
in the afternoon. Rebecca was still as optimistic as Christopher imagined
anyone in her situation could have been. As Christopher held her at night he
noticed the bones jutting out, tightening against her skin. They had both lost
weight. Everyone had, even the German soldiers themselves.

Steiner walked in, a somber look on
his face, and threw the orders down in front of Christopher who sat at his desk
going through that day’s ordinance.

“What’s this?” Christopher asked.

“Dr. Casper wants to see you,
immediately.”

Christopher looked across at his
father, the flecks of grey clearly visible in his hair, his thin face weathered
like the rocks on the shore. Stefan reached out to his son, grabbing the cuff
of his shirt, but Christopher shrugged him off.

“What is this about?” Christopher’s
father said. “I’m sure that any query Dr. Casper has can be ironed out with me.
I see him several times a month, albeit briefly…”

Steiner shot eyes across at Stefan.
“The orders were quite clear. He wants to see the boy.” The words hurt.
Christopher was 6 months younger than Steiner.

Christopher stood up and nodded to
his father. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I’m sure this is nothing more than
a trifling matter,” he said in English. “Isn’t that right Steiner?” he said in
German.