Franz-Xavier Meier, age 47, Mayor

It was around five when Hansl Hauer showed up at my house. The lad was quite beside himself.

“They’ve killed everyone up at the Danner farm,” he was shouting. “Killed them all stone dead.” He kept shouting it. “They’ve killed every last one of them. They’re all dead.”

And I was to call the police at once, which naturally I did.

I drove to the Danner family’s property in my car. I found Georg Hauer there, Hansl’s father, and Johann Sterzer, along with Alois Huber, Sterzer’s future son-in-law. He works for Sterzer on his farm.

After a short conversation with the three of them, I decided not to view the scene of the crime for myself.

A little later the officers from the local police arrived, and I determined that my presence was no longer necessary. I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can say that might help to clear up this terrible crime.

Well, of course I was shocked, what do you think? But it’s not for me to find out what happened, that’s the business of the authorities responsible, in this case the police.

And that’s just what I told the journalists from the newspaper, in almost the same words.

Oh, don’t you start on about that woman, that Polish foreign worker! I can’t tell you anything about that. I am afraid the records of the incident were lost in ’45. My predecessor as mayor could tell you more if he were still alive.

I was a prisoner in a French POW camp at the time myself.

When the Americans came here and liberated us in April ’45, I wasn’t home yet. They took over the then mayor’s house and the village hall. They commandeered those buildings as their temporary quarters. The buildings were devastated by the time they moved out.

They acted like vandals. They shot at porcelain plates in the garden with their pistols. “Tap shooting,” that’s what they called it. Just imagine. After they left, everything was laid waste or useless. Those fine gentlemen had taken what little was still of any use away with them.

So most of the files from the time before the fall of the regime had been destroyed, too. We suffered severe damage, as I am sure you will understand.

And for that reason I can’t tell you much about the events leading to the death of the Polish foreign worker.

As far as I know, the Polish worker, the one assigned to the Danner family, hanged herself. She was buried here in the village.

There were foreign workers everywhere. We prisoners of war in France were put to work ourselves.

Do you imagine we were always well treated? I for one didn’t go and hang myself.

Nor do I see what this could have to do with the dreadful crime committed against the Danner family. This is simply an attempt to revive old stories. There are some people, you know, who just can’t leave such stories alone. The war’s been over for ten years. So let’s lay those stories to rest once and for all. Times then were bad enough.

We all suffered. Everyone has his own burden to bear, but the world goes on turning. Times change. Wondering “what if?” does no good. No good at all.

Of course there were injustices, of course there were moments of despair. Every one of us went through them. But the war’s over. It’s been over almost ten years now, time we started forgetting.

I was a prisoner of war myself, and believe you me, it wasn’t easy. I was lucky. I managed to get home soon after the end of the war. Others didn’t have as much luck, but what about it? What’s over is over.

There are plenty of other problems, after all. But slowly we’re going uphill in this country. Don’t you read the paper?

I mean, look at the international situation. Right at this moment in time, since the end of the Korean War, the tension has relaxed slightly, yes, I agree. Our fears of another war are gone for the moment. But I can tell you, the communists in Russia won’t let it stop at that. You don’t suppose this man Khrushchev is any better than his predecessor, do you?

Very well, so now the last prisoners of war are coming home. At last, after almost ten years, but that doesn’t change anything; that doesn’t change the potential danger from the East. That’s why it was so important for us to sign the Paris treaties.

We have to act as an opposite pole. If only because—perhaps most of all because—the world has changed since the war.

That chapter, I would like to think, is now finally closed.

I do beg you not to go chasing after every rumor. I can guess where you heard that one.

And was that lady’s own conduct always so far above reproach that she can point the finger at others? I wouldn’t want to judge her, but one hears this and that.

I mean, there’s her husband at the front, defending his homeland, and his own wife stabs him in the back, has a relationship with a Frenchman. He’s fighting for the Fatherland and she fraternizes with the enemy.

The enemy is always the enemy, that’s what we said at the time, and you can’t deny the truth of it even now.

So kindly listen to me. The names of honest folk are being blackened, a whole village community is dragged into it. Just because a half-Jewish Polish worker hanged herself. The girl was probably unbalanced.

In my view, drawing such conclusions so long after the event is more than distasteful. That kind of thing gets no one anywhere. So let’s stick to the facts. Speculations of any kind are not constructive.

Particularly in the case of such an abominable crime. So if you would now excuse me . . .