Making Bombs For Hitler (14 page)

I looked over at Zenia. She met my eyes and nodded slightly. She was wondering the same thing.

“You. Out of the way.”

I looked up. A Nazi officer with an impatient frown on his face was pushing his way through. His black dress uniform was crisply pressed and his boots and brass were so polished that they sparkled in the sunlight despite the smoke. He seemed out of place in the burning rubble.

“You, and you —” he pointed to a couple of the older Hitler Youth. “Get the first-aid kit. You,” he said, turning
to a factory supervisor, “where is the fire hose?”

Kataryna limped over to where I stood and leaned heavily against my side. “I’ve sprained my ankle.”

In the haze of the smoke, I saw slashes of red. Natalia’s scalp had been cut, and Mary’s hand.

A long black car sat idling at the entrance of the factory. The officer’s, I assumed. I watched as the glass in the rear window rolled down. A woman, her blond curls styled to perfection, stuck her head out. “Franz,” she called out. “We will be late for the rally.”

The officer glanced her way, then waved his gloved hand as if warding off a fly.

The woman’s head disappeared in the depths of the car.

A young girl with blond braids looked out the window. She said something to someone inside. A second blond head appeared.

The sight of her stopped my heart. But where had I seen her before? Right at that moment, she squinted. Her eyes locked onto mine. A look of panic transformed her face and she stretched out her arms to me. She said something that was lost in the tumult, but her lips seemed to say, “Lida, please don’t leave me …”

Was I dreaming?

I waved, too stunned to even take a step towards her.

She waved back.

Suddenly both blond heads disappeared. I could see the woman scolding them as the window rolled up.

Could that have been Larissa? My Larissa? But in the car of a Nazi officer? No. How could it possibly have been my sister?

Chapter Fifteen
Alone

With the factory bombed out, and complete chaos all around, there was nothing for us to do. Did that mean that we were useless? I hoped not. We were loaded onto the train in haphazard fashion — wounded and uninjured all together — and taken back to the work camp. Zenia sat beside me. Bibi and Natalia huddled together across the aisle, whispering in low voices. There were so few people on the train that Kataryna was stretched across one of the benches fast asleep. Mary sat by herself, staring out the window as the wrecked city and bombed-out countryside chugged by. I think we were all still in shock from our close call with death.

My mind was spinning with the image of that blond girl. Could it have been Larissa? Was my mind playing tricks on me? If it was Larissa, at least she was alive. But alive and living
as a Nazi?

It would be better for her to be dead.

I was confused and exhausted, hungry and sad. I
closed my eyes and rested my head on Zenia’s shoulder.

A deafening double-bang jolted me awake. The train shuddered to a screeching halt. My eyes flew open. Kataryna fell off her bench with a thud. For long moments nothing else happened, but then the compartment filled with billowing smoke. Another bomb? Had we been hit? I ran to the door and pulled on the handle, but it was bolted from the outside. I pounded on it, shouting, “Let us out! Let us out!”

A young boy in civilian clothes but with a Hitler Youth arm band ran up to our door. He stretched up his hand but he was too short to reach the bolt. Smoke enveloped us. I watched out the window as he pulled himself up the ridges on the door as if he were climbing a tree. He unlatched the bolt, then jumped back down onto the ground, running to the next car to open that door the same way. I pushed our door open and fresh air rushed in. Zenia helped Kataryna up off the floor and we all tumbled out, stumbling and tripping in our haste to get away from that train as quickly as we could. I looked up and down the tracks, and saw many gaunt and weary slaves, frightened and tired, some still bleeding, being ordered about by boys who didn’t seem much older than I was. It was complete chaos. The six of us stood in a cluster, not knowing what to do.

“I’m not sticking around,” said Mary. In one swift movement, she tore off her OST badge and threw it onto the ground. She tugged Bibi by the arm. “Come on,” she urged.

Bibi ripped off her badge too, and the two made a run for it.

Where would they go? There was no place safe from the bombing, and escaped slaves could be shot on sight, but I envied their bravery.

I turned to Zenia. “Should we go too?”

She had a terrified look in her eyes. “I don’t know what we should do.”

In our relatively new blue flannel dresses, we looked less like slave labourers than many of the others, but our scraggly hair and gaunt appearance was a clear giveaway. We were close enough to the camp that we could see the guardhouses. Natalia looked from Zenia to me. “I’m not standing around here,” she said. “That train could explode any time now.” She looped her hand through the crook of Kataryna’s elbow and they slowly began to walk in the direction of the camp, Kataryna limping with her sprained ankle. I followed them. Zenia followed me.

Walking with slippery shoes in the winter is difficult, so I kept my eyes to the ground and tried to avoid the slicks of ice. The four of us were just one link of a chain of people slowly making their way back to the work camp, the smoking train to our side. When we passed the engine car, I paused for a brief moment to stare. The way the bomb had smashed into it made it look like a toy train that a willful child had stomped into bits. Flames licked along the sides and black oily smoke filled the air in a tall spiral above it. I covered my mouth and hurried on. Natalia was right — the whole thing could explode at any moment. With each shivering step I took, I thought of that pampered girl who looked like my sister.

When we finally reached the camp entrance, I felt like a walking block of ice. It was mid-afternoon and still light
out, but the camp was brighter than daylight. It took me a moment to realize that flames dotted numerous points in the camp. A bomb had hit here too?

Juli ran to our straggling group as we passed the gates, “You’re safe!” she cried. “I can hardly believe it.” She wrapped one arm around me and another around Zenia.

“The camp was bombed as well?” I asked.

Juli nodded. “Your barracks was demolished. Thank goodness it was empty at the time.”

“What else was hit?”

“The laundry,” said Juli. “Inge is dead.”

I felt a lurch of sadness in my heart. Inge had sometimes been kind.

“The officers’ mess was also hit,” said Juli. “But none of the officers was killed.”

Terrible as it may sound, deep down I wished that the mess could have been hit during mealtime. It would have given me great satisfaction if at least some officers had died while they were stuffing their faces. As we walked past the flaming mass of wood that had been the officers’
Kantine
, a slave dashed out of the burning building, his hair smoking and a bundle cradled in his arms. I heard the crack of a rifle shot. The man fell, scattering the items he had been holding — half a ham and a few raw eggs. I looked in the direction that the shot had come from.

Officer Schmidt glared at us and cocked his rifle. “I’d think twice about looting,” he said.

All that food going up in flames while people were starving. It seemed obscene.

Juli led us to the hospital. “I’m going to give you first aid myself,” she said. “The doctor and nurses have fled.”
She ushered us into a room that was so crowded with wounded labourers that there was barely room on the floor for us to sit, but I was thankful nonetheless. All those people meant the room was warm.

Juli brought over a basin of water and a bottle of disinfectant. She cleaned surface scratches on my face and scalp that I didn’t even know I had, then she gingerly removed my thin shoes and washed my feet with warm water and disinfectant. As they thawed out, I could feel sharp needles of pain on the soles of my feet, my ankles and in the joints of my toes. My feet were puffy and red, but at least now they were warming up. When she was finished, she took a clean white bedsheet and tore it into strips. “Wrap your feet in this before you put your shoes back on,” she said.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” I said, taking the strips from her and holding them to my face. They were soft and warm and they smelled of soap, not bleach.

“The Nazis are fleeing,” said Juli. “I’ve heard whispers that the Front is close. We’ll need to get out of here or there will be fighting right on top of us, but right now you should rest and get your strength up.”

She cleaned and disinfected Zenia’s scratches, then wrapped Kataryna’s ankle and worked on Natalia. The three girls cuddled up together and were soon fast asleep.

My feet had been sore and swollen for so long that even loose strips of cloth felt agonizingly tight and I couldn’t sleep. I sat up and looked around me. So many of us and we were all in danger.

With half-opened eyes, I watched Juli tend each new person who tumbled in to the treatment room and
collapsed on the floor. I marvelled at her stamina and her compassion. I also wondered about who was left guarding us at the camp. Most of the Nazis had fled, Juli said, but Officer Schmidt was still out there. I could still hear the occasional
pop pop pop.
Was he shooting people at random?

When Juli was finished treating everyone, I thought she would lie down and get some needed rest, but she left the room. I tried to stand up but the rags were too tight, so I unwrapped the cotton from my feet, slipped on my shoes, then followed Juli down the hallway without her noticing me. She stepped into a small back office at the very end. I remembered this room as the one that the nurses and doctor had used. When she came out, she was holding a pistol and she had a determined expression on her face. She looked up and gasped in surprise when she saw me standing there.

“What are you doing with that gun?”

“What needs to be done.”

She spun the ammunition cylinder. “It’s loaded.”

“When did you learn about guns?”

Her eyes met mine. “There are many skills I have that you don’t know about.”

She walked down the hallway, passing me without so much as a pause, and walked out the front door.

“Juli. Don’t —”

She flicked her hand at me dismissively and strode quickly, gun in full view at her side, to the open area of the camp.

I tried to keep up with her, but my sore feet slowed me down. I got to the far end of the open area and leaned
against the corner of a building. My heart was in my mouth as I watched Juli keep walking.

Officer Schmidt strutted out of one of the still-standing buildings on the other side of the grounds, rifle at his side. His eyes went from Juli’s face to the pistol in her hand. A wave of shock passed over his face. “Put the gun down, girl.”

“I don’t take orders from you anymore,” said Juli. She pointed the pistol at his head.

Officer Schmidt’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, you’ll obey me. Put it down now.”

He raised his rifle. In a flash Juli aimed the pistol and pulled the trigger. A loud bang cracked through the air.

Officer Schmidt jerked back. He stumbled a little bit, and tried to regain his balance. A patch of slick wet marked his uniform just below the shoulder.

Juli wasted no time. She pulled the trigger again. This time she missed him by a long way. I saw a spiral of smoke some distance behind him where the bullet hit the ground.

Officer Schmidt smiled. With cruel deliberation, he aimed at Juli and squeezed the trigger. At that very moment, I heard a double
boom.
Juli and Officer Schmidt both fell to the ground. This time I could see blood on his cheek. I ran to Juli. A blossom of red stained the waistband of her white smock. Her eyes locked on mine and she smiled. “You’re safe now. Get out of here.” Her eyes went dim.

“Juli, please wake up!” I fell to her side and tried to gather her in my arms, but her muscles were slack and she felt surprisingly heavy. That’s how I knew she was
dead. I gently closed her eyes with my fingertips, and scrabbled in the snow for a handful of dirt. I couldn’t bury her, but I could not leave her here without a prayer for the dead. I sprinkled the dirt over her body and prayed the words I knew all too well.

My heart was filled with so much sadness, but I knew I had to act quickly. Juli had sacrificed her life so we could escape, and I owed it to her to try. I kissed her forehead. “Thank you, Juli. You are braver than anyone I can imagine.”

I got up onto my feet and stumbled back to the hospital as quickly as I could, dark thoughts weighing me down. On the day that I discovered that my real sister might now be a Nazi, I had lost Juli, the sister of my heart.

I opened the hospital door and stepped into the corridor, the warmth enveloping me like a blanket. I heard alarmed murmuring from the treatment room. Juli was no longer there to help the wounded. I would escape, but first I needed to help any that I could. And Zenia. Would she escape with me? What about Kataryna and Natalia? I had to find out.

I stepped into the treatment room.

“Over to that side,” said a boy wearing a Hitler Youth arm band, holding a rifle that dwarfed him. He pointed the barrel right at me.

Chapter Sixteen
Lace Curtain

The corner that he ordered me to was crowded by slave labourers who hadn’t been injured too seriously. A boy wearing a man’s Wehrmacht uniform stood at the other side of the room, hovering over the severely wounded.

Zenia was not in my group. Nor was Kataryna or Natalia. I scanned the wounded group, but they weren’t there either. Where had they gone?

“All of you, out of the building,” said the boy with the rifle. “And I don’t want any trouble.”

At gunpoint we marched in a scraggly single file towards the entrance of the camp, our way punctuated by burning buildings belching out smoke, and with the bodies of workers who had been shot for trying to plunder or escape. When we passed Juli’s body, the girl behind me gasped, then let out one long sob. Officer Schmidt’s body had already been removed and we passed that spot in silence. All that was left to show where he’d died was a splotch of blood in the muddy snow.