CHAPTER 8
My mother was well into the bottle by the time I arrived at her apartment. I told her about my father’s behavior, but she had no explanation, and, in a fit of pain and sobbing, collapsed on the couch. I didn’t press her further for fear it would add too much stress to her already delicate emotional state; so, I ended our visit with, “Otherwise, he seemed fine. We had a nice talk.” I spoke in platitudes without much truth to them.
As we said good-bye, my mother said, “Don’t desert him, Talya.” The prospect of visiting Stadelheim again made me shiver, but I promised her I would try despite what I’d seen.
Classes started soon after the New Year and I found myself involved in the busy world of the university. I spotted Hans and Sophie several times in the main hall or strolling about the grounds, but we kept our distance. Few looks were exchanged and fewer words spoken. Hans was so protective of his sister that I didn’t really know how deeply Sophie was involved with the White Rose. From their standoffish behavior, I sensed that something might be planned, but I had no idea what it was—the writing of another leaflet, or some other secret activity that might be even more daring than those carried out in the past.
Garrick dropped by my apartment a few times, but only for conversation. Although he was chatty, and we laughed and smiled in our few minutes together, work and studies came first. I wanted to go out with him again, but, the occasion never arose because Lisa required me for another White Rose project—a second leaflet.
A few days after classes started, Lisa and I found a secluded spot on the university grounds as night was falling. The air was cold and a light snow fell lazily on our shoulders from a sky more benign than threatening. I was glad to get out of the stuffy classrooms, despite sitting on a chilly stone bench underneath an oak’s bare branches.
“Are you ready to write another?” she asked, searching her coat pocket for cigarettes. “I’m dying for a smoke.”
“Yes,” I said, “but what will I write about this time?”
“Maybe you can talk about Stadelheim,” she offered.
“Too dangerous. It might be traced back to me.”
“Dieter’s offered his studio again,” she said, finding a cigarette. “I think Hans and Alex are writing another leaflet, but I’m not sure. I get the feeling . . . you know how that is.”
I nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“This time we’ll be going north—mail from Nuremberg. What if we meet on Wednesday night, the thirteenth, to start?”
I had no commitments for that night, so I agreed to meet Lisa at Dieter’s.
But that day, something unexpected occurred. All the university students were ordered to the Deutsches Museum—to celebrate the 470th anniversary of the founding of the university. Rumors circulated and tongues wagged as we trooped to the museum, which was located on an island in the Isar River.
“I suppose they’ve canceled classes because of our defeats in Russia,” Lisa and I overheard one male student say. I turned to see him wipe his eyes. “All of us men will be sent off to war, there’ll be no escaping it,” he added, turning his gaze to the street.
I was impressed with his frankness, but his friends disagreed, for they urged him to keep quiet. “The National Socialists want to see who supports them . . . or to the point, who doesn’t,” another man said. “This gathering isn’t about the war.”
When we arrived at the fortresslike building with its rotunda entrance, Lisa and I, along with most of the other university students, were herded up the stairs to the large auditorium’s balcony. I recognized a few friends of Hans and Willi sitting among us, as well as a couple of Professor Huber’s students. No members of the White Rose—at least those that I knew—were in attendance. Quietly, I asked Lisa about their absence.
“They’re snubbing rallies, even when ordered to attend, as a matter of conscience,” she whispered. We’d made no such pledge.
The purpose of the assembly soon became clear to me.
A cadre of SS men, grim and smirking, stood guard at the exits. Important Nazi officials, from the student association and Bavaria, all shining and puffed-up in uniform, sat on a platform at the front of the auditorium, which was festooned with a banner trumpeting the occasion. I leaned over from my seat to survey the chattering crowd below: Wehrmacht soldiers; students soon to go to war; and veterans—many injured, on crutches or in wheelchairs—occupied the seats along with robed university faculty, including Professor Huber, whom I recognized from the elongated shape of his head. This was a Nazi rally in full force, but for what purpose? This assembly was called to celebrate more than the founding of the university.
The crowd hushed when Paul Giesler, an important regional Gauleiter, strode to the stage like a bull charging out of a gate. He was an imposing figure in uniform—his hair slicked back revealing a high forehead, piercing eyes, large Roman nose, but with a Cupid’s mouth a bit too small and sweet for his arrogant personality. From the start of his speech, Giesler intended to take no prisoners—no one was immune from his venom.
He began by praising the university and its place in German life, but soon reviled it for fostering “twisted intellects” and “falsely clever minds.” He bellowed, “Real life is transmitted to us only by Adolf Hitler with his light, joyful, and life-affirming teachings.”
Those who were about to go to war or worked for National Socialism received his praise while those who studied “without talent” or “seriousness of purpose” garnered his revulsion. The university, he said, was no refuge for “well-bred daughters” who neglected their roles in the Reich.
A nervous agitation fell over the crowded balcony. Feet scraped against the floor, a signal that the speech was not going down well with the students. A catcall erupted in back of me and several more soon broke forth. I looked over my shoulder at the SS guards, whose expressions had shifted from satisfied smiles to scowls of sinister apprehension. Lisa nudged me and smirked, feeling the rising resistance to the Gauleiter.
Giesler, not to be outdone by mere students, fed on the growing restlessness. “The natural place for a woman is not at the university, but with her family, at the side of her husband,” he shouted to the balcony. More catcalls erupted, including those from Lisa and me. The scraping of feet against the floor nearly drowned out his speech.
To cap his point, he yelled that women should present a child every year to the Führer. With a mocking grin, he finished his tirade with these words, “And for those women students not pretty enough to catch a man, I’d be happy to lend them one of my adjutants. And I promise you that would be a glorious experience.”
A maelstrom arose in the balcony, drowning out Giesler’s words, sending the students into a frenzy of pounding feet and derisive shouts. Women behind us jumped from their seats and rushed to the exits, only to be captured in the arms of the SS and the brownshirts.
“Time to get out of here,” Lisa said.
I looked toward the exit. “They’re arresting those women.”
We didn’t have long to wait, for another SS man plowed down the row in front of us, shouting for us to get out or be hauled off to jail.
A group of university men, none of whom I knew, shoved the SS men making the arrests and soon fists flew and blows were landed. Bone cracked and one of the male students fell backward into the balcony, clutching his bloody nose. A roar arose from below and I peered down to the orchestra level. Fistfights had broken out there as well. Several of the professors scattered around the fighting groups, thrusting their arms into the fracas, but to no avail. Professor Huber’s voice boomed above the others, calling for calm, but no one seemed to listen.
Somehow, the arrested women managed to free themselves during the melee, and Lisa and I fled down the stairs with them and out into the courtyard, where several scuffles were taking place. Sirens blared in the distance, signaling the arrival of more police and military squads. We knew when to make an exit.
The students had broken into several smaller groups and we joined one, trekking down the street back to the university, holding hands, uniting arms, and singing. Despite the turmoil, Lisa and I were flooded with a lightness of spirit, sensing that all we had done, or might do, was worth the struggle.
“It feels good to resist, to be a traitor,” I said, for once not caring who heard it.
Lisa smiled and placed her arm over my shoulder.
Soon we arrived at Ludwigstrasse on our march to the university, but the police were waiting for us with batons drawn. Swinging their weapons, they rushed at us, forcing us to break apart. We dispersed under their onslaught, but the smiles from other students, the feeling that we had done something remained with me for days, even as a state of emergency was declared in Munich.
Lisa and I went our separate ways, still intending to meet that evening at Dieter’s studio. However, on my way home, a chilling sight dampened my enthusiasm. Under the Siegestor, the triumphal arch marking the entrance to Schwabing, Garrick stood with his group of young insurance friends we’d seen at Ode. I didn’t know what to think. Had they attended the assembly, or were they observing the police, or us? I didn’t remember seeing them in the auditorium but the building was crowded and I could have missed them.
I pretended not to see him and walked on the other side of the street past the arch. Despite that, I was fairly certain Garrick had spotted me. Yet, he made no effort to come my way. He and the others seemed unconcerned about what had transpired, their faces lacking the students’ smiles or any sense of jubilation. They reminded me of elegant upper-class Germans, attired in their dress coats and ties, the woman wrapped in brown fur and wearing a stylish hat.
Garrick lit a cigarette, shielding the lighter with his hand. The smoke billowed around his face before dispersing in the wind.
I hurried, on edge, to my apartment.
* * *
That evening, Lisa and I worked with a renewed sense of energy. In the few hours we had been apart, she had discovered that Hans and others in the White Rose had no idea what had happened at the auditorium. Their response was to get to work on their next leaflet. That was our task as well.
I wrote the text in under two hours, leaving the subject of the Gauleiter and his offensive remarks alone—a subject too close to us—and wrote of the “blindness” of the German people, those who followed like sheep as the country teetered on the brink of destruction. Such “defeatism” was punishable by death; but, with each line, I saw Sina and her children falling to a bloody death in the hollow near Gzhatsk, I heard the crazy words my father had spoken in prison.
By eleven, we had completed our work, including printing five hundred leaflets and addressing one hundred of them to names picked out of the Munich phone book. This time we didn’t seek Hans’s approval, and we included several university professors in the mailing whom we felt might be swayed to our way of thinking. We agreed to meet the following evening to finish the task of addressing the envelopes. Lisa would bring the suitcase, and we would plan our trip to Nuremberg as we had planned our trip to Vienna. Dieter, looking sleepy, arrived as we were leaving.
As I walked home, pre-occupied with thoughts of our upcoming journey to Nuremberg and the dangers it presented, I paid less attention to my surroundings than I should have.
I jumped when a voice called out as I inserted my key into the lock.
“You’re late tonight.” I recognized the timbre, somewhat raspy and slurred, and the lean, muscular figure as it slipped out of the shadows in the Frau’s yard.
“God, Garrick, you frightened me.” I collapsed against the door and looked at my watch. “It’s nearly midnight. What are you doing here at this hour?”
He sauntered toward me, his feet sliding on the frosty grass. “I could ask the same of you.” He reached the door and leaned on the frame. His normally smoothed-back hair ruffled in the wind and his eyes took on the color of night.
“Come in . . . but be quiet,” I said. “I don’t want to wake Frau Hofstetter. I need to feed Katze.”
“Thank you. That’s very nice of you.” His breath was heavy with liquor.
I opened the door and turned on the desk lamp.
Katze greeted us, and Garrick swept him up in his arms. “What a good little puss he is,” he said, trying to rub the struggling cat behind his ears. Katze pushed his claws into Garrick’s coat and launched into the air, landing on all fours by my legs. Garrick dusted off his coat. “Damn, he must be hungry.”
I removed a small tin of food from the drawer, an extravagance the cat rarely received, and spooned some on a dish. Katze meowed and waltzed around the room like he’d never been fed in his life.
Garrick collapsed in my chair. I took off my coat and threw it on the bed.
“So, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’ve been celebrating and I thought I’d drop by.”
“Celebrating what?”
He opened a few buttons on his coat and leaned back. “What did you think of Giesler’s diatribe today?” His head swayed, and he blinked as if the light from my lamp was painful to his eyes.
I didn’t want to fall into a trap of revealing my feelings on the subject, so I answered with another question. “What did you think?”
“I thought it was won . . . der . . . ful.” His words drifted through the air in a hazy blur.
“You’ve had too much to drink, Garrick. You should go home.” I was astounded at his condition—I’d never seen him drunk.
“You noticed,” he said, and then patted his legs. “Come sit on my lap.”
“No,” I said, resisting his offer. The advances of an inebriated man held no attraction for me.
Katze finished his meal, and I picked him up and listened to him purr like a motorcar on a winter’s morning.
Garrick leaned forward to the point that I thought he might fall off the chair, but he righted himself and said, “Okay then, go out with me Saturday night. We haven’t been out in three weeks.”
“If you can recall, I was sick.” It was after midnight now, and I wanted him out of my room. I was willing to agree to a date just to get him to leave. “I’ll go out with you if you promise to go home and sober up.” I could always change my mind later.
“Yes . . . yes . . . today was wonderful. I thought everyone should celebrate.”
He rose on wobbly legs and Katze and I escorted him to the door. “Be quiet when you leave.”
Garrick put a finger to his lips and then kissed me on the cheek. “Saturday,” he said and ambled down the walk like a leaf in the wind.
I closed the door and speculated on what had prompted his overindulgence. His unusual behavior didn’t endear him to me, and reinforced my feeling that nothing should get in the way, not even Garrick, of my work with Lisa.
Katze and I jumped into bed, both of us ready for a good night’s sleep.
* * *
Lisa reminded me that our travels to the medieval city of Nuremberg would be much like Daniel entering the lions’ den. The city had an old and storied history, not the least of which was its recent distinction of holding huge Nazi rallies during the Party’s formative years.
The night after Garrick showed up at my apartment, Lisa and I finished our work and planned our trip. We modeled it after our successful journey to Vienna: parting at the Munich Hauptbahnhof before boarding the train, joining forces in Nuremberg after we could meet safely, locating the best post boxes to mail the leaflets, distributing the leaflets that remained, and then returning home. Lisa would carry the suitcase and, if asked, provide the same explanation she had used before—an overnight stay with her aunt. I, of course, was on the way to visit a friend—a memorized name and address taken from the Nuremberg phone book to bolster my alibi—a sounder tactic than I had used in Vienna. We both hoped that nothing about our trip would lead to that level of scrutiny.
We boarded the train mid-afternoon on a dull, cloudy Saturday, with our scheduled traveling time to Nuremberg considerably shorter than that to Vienna. We planned to be finished with our task an hour or so after sundown, and back in Munich by nine that night.
Getting aboard was much the same, although my nerves vibrated like plucked piano wire when we arrived at the station. I followed Lisa, watching with one eye as a guard pulled her aside for a random check. I held my breath as she opened the suitcase and held up several articles of clothing; but, my fears were unfounded, and the satisfied guard closed the case after a brief inspection. Another waved me past after a cursory look at my papers. We took our seats on opposite sides of the car. Lisa kept the suitcase nearby on the floor but covered it with her coat. Shortly after we left, we were checked by a third guard, who called for our papers. The young man looked us over but didn’t ask Lisa to open the suitcase. We glanced at each other with relief as he walked to the next car.
The northern Bavarian countryside was wooded and monotonous, not nearly as interesting as the landscape to the south, and I found myself fidgeting in my seat, my still-tense nerves jolted by any loud noise or grating voice. By the time we arrived in Nuremberg, the sun was setting and long shadows had already spread across the city.
We checked the suitcase in a locker and set out to find what we were looking for. Having been in Nuremberg only once when I was a child, I was taken with its charm: the towering Gothic Frauenkirche in the city center, the castle turret rising in the distance, the rows of shops and restaurants constructed in traditional Bavarian design with angled roofs and colorful painted walls trimmed with wood. Even in the dark, the city seemed to glow with a charm from ages past.
Having found several isolated post boxes, we stopped for coffee and a pastry at a shop, but didn’t talk much, the mailing of the leaflets heavy on our minds.
Lisa returned to the train station to pick up the suitcase. We agreed to meet near the doors of the Frauenkirche in about an hour.
The hour passed, along with another half hour, and I paced in front of the church, my stride quickening as much as my heartbeat. The city center was empty, except for a few evening strollers, and as time dragged by, my thoughts darkened like the sky. Had Lisa been arrested? Had something provoked police suspicions at the train station? Was Lisa—I dared not think it—dead?
I brushed away that terrible notion and looked at my watch; it was nearing seven. We had agreed that if anything went wrong, we’d make our way back to the train station, separately if necessary, to catch the eight o’clock train.
After another five minutes of frantic pacing, I walked around the corner of the church, near a long block of shuttered businesses, to the first post box we’d identified.
The cobbled street was deserted and Lisa was nowhere to be seen.
With time running out, I ran to the next location nearer the station, crossing the bridge over the inky waters of the Pegnitz River, passing another church with two large spires, stopping in front of the box on Marienstrasse. I breathed heavily, the cold air carving into my lungs. I looked to my left and right and behind me; again, no sign of Lisa. I whirled on my heels, wondering whether I should go back to the meeting spot in front of the church or head for the train.
Where are you? Please, God, let her be safe.
I walked slowly away, knowing there wasn’t enough time to get to the third box and back before the last train departed. I’d resigned myself to making the return trip to Munich alone, when I crossed a dark, narrow alley between two buildings and out of the corner of my eye caught something moving.
I peered into the gloom. A man and woman were wedged in the dark recess of the alley, writhing in a frenzied movement of arms and legs. I stopped, taken aback. Had I stumbled upon a couple’s secret lovemaking?
Then I spotted Lisa’s suitcase a few meters away from the entrance, its cover flipped open. Lisa’s robe lay half in the case, the other half spread across the damp stones.
I sprinted down the alley to aid my friend.
“Tell her to get out,” the man said roughly to Lisa after hearing my footsteps. His hand covered her mouth. Lisa uttered a few muffled cries.
“This is what we do to whores wandering the streets of Nuremberg.” The man turned his body toward me while holding onto Lisa’s arms with one hand, the other still covering the lower half of her face. He was young—I could tell from his voice—and he wore a uniform under his unbuttoned coat, his pants stuffed into his calf-high boots. SS, I thought.
“A friend? Tell her to leave or she’ll be next.” He removed his hand from Lisa’s mouth for a second.
“Go!” Lisa yelled. “Leave!”
I stopped, my feet rooted to the ground, my hands and arms shaking with fear and fury. “No! Let her go and I won’t report you to the SS.”
He arched his head back and roared with a hideous laughter that echoed down the alley. “I am the SS.”
Lisa bit into his hand.
Screaming, he shoved Lisa against the stone wall and reached for the gun at his side.
We both rushed for him, she from the front, I from the side. I hit him with as much force as I could muster. As he grappled with us, the gun flew from his hand, landing with a metallic thud on the stones, sliding between my feet until it was behind me. He pushed me away, and I toppled backward toward the weapon.
Lisa kicked at his legs and groin.
I grabbed the weapon by the barrel as Lisa lunged for his arms.
He was about to encircle Lisa’s neck with his hands, when I smashed the gun’s butt into the side of his head. Moaning, he slid down the wall to the damp cobblestones.
I stared at the man’s splayed body. “Oh, God, I’ve killed him.”
Gulping in cold air, Lisa steadied herself against the stone wall. “I doubt it, but it’s fine with me if you have. One less Nazi rapist in the world.”
With outrage and disgust surging through my body, I kicked the man’s legs. The blows bounced harmlessly off his boots. I looked at the weapon in my gloved hand, wondering if I had drawn blood. A nervous chuckle gushed from my throat as I dropped the gun to the ground.
“Quick, while he’s out,” Lisa said, recovering her composure and pointing to the suitcase.
We ran to it, removed the letters and flyers, and threw the clothes back inside. We stepped out of the alley to find the street deserted. Luck was with us. Lisa stuffed the envelopes into the box as I concealed the leaflets under my coat.
As we hurried to the train station, I dropped them in the doorways of lifeless homes and businesses, making certain that no one was watching or following us. An exhilarating sense of freedom came over me as I placed them on the doorsteps. I had proven my worth as part of the White Rose and defended my friend against an attack.
Our only concern was getting out of Nuremberg before the attacker could alert the police. We cleaned up in the women’s room before boarding the train to Munich.
My nervousness broke out in unrestrained giggles as I looked at the solemn guards who paced the station with their rifles swung over their shoulders.
“I could take them on,” I whispered.
“Don’t let your heroics go to your head,” Lisa said in a shaky voice.
“Did he see what was inside the suitcase?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so because he only saw it coming toward his head as I tried to hit him with it. Fortunately, only my clothes fell out.”
A few minutes later we boarded the train. Because the suitcase was empty except for the clothes, we felt no need to travel apart. As I settled back in a seat next to Lisa, a disturbing thought entered my mind. If the man wasn’t dead, he’d notify the authorities as soon as he could. If the Gestapo was thorough in its thinking, which was usually the case, one phone call to nearby trainmasters, including the one in Munich, would put two women traveling together in jeopardy. We’d be questioned, and most likely arrested, as soon as we arrived.
We decided to get off the train at Dachau and find our way home, even if we had to walk.
* * *
Lisa told me what had happened as we sat in the back of a nearly deserted trolley on the outskirts of Munich. The SS man had followed her; so, deciding not to endanger us both and hoping to lose him, she had walked for a long time before ending up at the post box near the train station. She hoped that I might find her there. The thug was more taken with her looks than the contents of her suitcase—a fortunate occurrence—but his unbridled Nazi superiority led him to assault an unaccompanied female. I arrived only minutes after he had dragged Lisa into the alley.
In the course of a few hours, I’d metamorphosed from nonviolent resistance to physical assault, but I took solace in the memory of Hans, Willi, and Alex attacking the guards who’d bullied the prisoners.
Exhausted and happy to be free, we said our good-byes at the Marienplatz. Yet another surprise awaited me as I arrived home a few minutes before ten.
The tip of a cigarette flared orange near my door. I knew immediately what had happened.
I ran to him with open arms, hoping to smooth over his hurt feelings for standing him up on our date. “I’m sorry, Garrick,” I said, and I was sorry, but moreover I was ashamed of my stupidity for making such a mistake. I attempted to embrace him, but he stepped away.
“Where have you been?” he asked, anger bubbling beneath his restrained voice. His tone was clear, sharp, focused, unlike the last time we’d met, when his words were slurred by liquor. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”
His building rage frightened me, but unlike my encounter with the SS man in Nuremberg, my body urged me to flee, not fight.
“I was at Lisa’s,” I said, thinking as fast as I could under his malignant gaze. “She’s not feeling well and wanted company. I’m sorry I forgot—I’ll make it up to you.”
He stepped away from the door, threw his cigarette on the walk, and grabbed my arm. “That’s a lie. I went to Lisa’s tonight. She wasn’t at home and her parents had no idea where she was.” His grip on my arm tightened. “Where were you?” He shouted the question so loudly I feared he might wake Frau Hofstetter and the neighbors. Katze bawled behind the door, aware that something was wrong.
“We went to see a movie.”
“Which one?”
“Garrick, let go of my arm.” I tried to pull back. A cold, paralyzing fear coursed through my veins. I felt that he might strike me; indeed, he might do something worse.
He released me, and I stumbled backward on the walk, preventing a fall by clutching the bare branches of a bush.
“You’re like all the rest,” he said bitterly. “Like Hans, Sophie, and that Russian you like so well. All your fancy meetings and airs, only letting in those you approve of—like some childish secret club.”
“That’s not true,” I said, hoping to defuse his anger.
A warm yellow light appeared around the edges of the blackout curtain; soon the gauzy figure of Frau Hofstetter peered around it, her features flickering in the glow of an oil lamp. “Is everything all right?” she asked after opening the door. “I heard voices and the cat is yowling like a tiger.”
Katze sprinted out of the door and rubbed against my legs. I lifted the animal and cuddled him in my arms. “Yes, everything is fine, Frau Hofstetter,” I said. “Garrick was escorting me home. I guess we were having too much fun.”
Calm settled across Garrick’s face, which was what I hoped would happen. Placating his anger seemed the only way out of a tense situation.
The Frau scowled at Garrick. “It didn’t sound like fun to me. Come in, Natalya, or you’ll catch another cold.”
Garrick stared stone-faced at my landlady. I grabbed his hand and said, “Come by tomorrow afternoon and we’ll talk.” My fast-beating heart calmed, and, to make a show of it, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “See you.”
“Good night, Frau Hofstetter,” he said, and turned on his heels.
I followed my landlady inside and put Katze on the bed. For once, I was happy that the Frau had treated me like I was her daughter.
“He seems like a nice man,” she said as she left my room, but from her sarcastic tone, I knew she didn’t mean it.
“Yes,” I replied halfheartedly.
She ambled to her bedroom, the oil lamp in her hand, patches of light moving down the hall, like sunbeams flickering through a train window.
I made sure my front door was locked, never so glad to be safe, warm, and at home. Garrick’s angry face haunted me for most of the night.