By mid-summer, the Commandant must have felt that he had complete domination of our town, because he sent most of his soldiers to the front in the east. In their place came a group of German administrators: office workers, managers, nurses, doctors, teachers and police.
These new people were quite different from the Volksdeutche refugees who had already settled in after arriving on the heels of the army. These ones weren’t starving and ragged. They wore good clothing and spoke in a cultured way, and seemed to be on friendly and familiar terms with each other. It seemed that they had worked together as a team before coming to Viteretz.
They were also different from the military, which was nearly all men. This new group included a surprising number of female teachers, nurses and office workers. From the snippets of conversation I was able to hear at the house, I realized that these new people were true Nazi believers.
And what did the Nazis believe?
I pieced it together from bits of their conversations. The Nazis had a complicated way of putting people into categories. The Commandant used different terms to describe the various groups. The ones who were considered good were called Aryan, German and Volksdeutche. These were part of something the Commandant called The Master Race. The Nazis thought everyone else was “subhuman.”
I witnessed the actions of one true believer with my own eyes as I was walking Krasa to a farm in the country to be bred — we hoped she’d get pregnant so she would continue to give milk for another year.
This woman wore a white cloth over her hair and a white smock over a light blue dress. It wasn’t until I was closer that I saw the arm band with the red cross on it and realized she was a nurse. She had set up a first-aid station on a horse-drawn wagon, and she was slowly making her way down the street, looking after the medical needs of the refugees. She dressed an infected eye for an elderly man and gave some sort of needle to another, then she rocked a crying baby in her arms as she carried on an animated conversation with the mother. She seemed to be very good at her job — that is, for those she considered part of the Master Race.
A lineup of Volksdeutche had formed, but a young boy wearing a skullcap approached her. He cradled his forearm, which seemed to be resting at an odd angle. His face was smudged with dirt and there was a rip in the knee of his trousers.
“How did you hurt your arm?” asked the woman.
“I, ah … tripped,” said the boy.
“It looks more like you’ve been beaten.”
The boy didn’t say anything, but his face flushed red and he reluctantly nodded.
“I can’t help you,” she said. “You’re Jewish.”
“But my arm …” he said. “I think it might be broken.”
The nurse ignored him and walked over to the teenage girl who was next in line.
Anger boiled up inside me. Didn’t nurses take a pledge to help everyone who needed it? How would she feel if the tables were turned and it was her own son who needed help?
The boy walked away, now in tears.
“Excuse me,” I said, as I stepped alongside him. “Go to the brown house across the road from the church.” I pointed down the street.
He looked up at me, confused.
“There’s a lady doctor there. A Jewish lady doctor. She’ll set your arm for you, I know for sure.”
“Thank you,” he said.
I felt helpless and angry as I watched him walk towards the Kitai house. The boy had been denied care for no reason except that he was Jewish. Was this kind of thing happening in other towns as well?
* * *
With all of the crystal, paintings and silver arriving at the Commandant’s house, Frau Hermann kept me busy with dusting and polishing. These were easy chores that I did in silence, with the Commandant and his wife hardly noticing my presence. I often overheard snippets of Frau Hermann’s telephone conversations. They were mostly about luncheons and clothing and flowers. Herr Commandant wasn’t home much, as he had an office in the municipal building next door and his job took him other places as well. But when he was home, the bits I heard of his phone calls were troubling — about bullets, barbed wire and The Front.
I also learned that the Soviets and Britain were now on the same side of the war, fighting the Nazis together. This made no sense. Surely the British knew that the murderous Soviets were not much different than the Nazis? Couldn’t the British fight them both?
One morning in August I noticed the Commandant’s uniform jacket hanging on a hook by the entrance, with the edge of what looked like a telegram sticking out of the pocket. I looked around to be sure I was alone, then slid it out to read. The Nazis were nearly all the way to Leningrad. I thought of all the towns and villages between here and Leningrad. If people like the Commandant were in charge of all those other towns, I could picture the mass graves and the shootings there. Who would be left alive by the time these two horrible armies were finished?
The sound of Frau Hermann’s clicking heels startled me from my thoughts. I returned the telegram to the Commandant’s pocket and continued with my dusting. The Commandant’s wife bustled into the room. She was in high spirits, perhaps because she knew about the Nazis’ success in the war, but also because she was arranging a party for the newly arrived true believers who had come from the Reich to help with the running of our town.
* * *
Mama and I worked very hard on the day of the party. I was supposed to be keeping up with the dirty dishes in the kitchen, but at the last minute one of the Volksdeutche serving maids became ill.
Frau Hermann came into the kitchen and surveyed all of us who were frantically cleaning pots, polishing wine glasses and arranging food on trays.
“You,” she said, pointing at me. “You’re the same size as Wilma. You’ll have to take her place.”
She took me to a room beside the kitchen and pointed to a neatly pressed uniform draped across the back of a chair. “Put that on,” she said. “And tie your hair up. You’ll also need to wear those.” She indicated a pair of sturdy-looking leather shoes. “Hurry and dress, then go find Helga and she’ll tell you what to do.”
I would have much preferred to stay in the kitchen, rather than wearing someone else’s clothing and doing a job that I had never done before. What would the Commandant’s wife do if I made a mistake? But then again, the party might be a good opportunity for me to learn something that could help us stay alive. I’d have to be brave.
I slipped out of my own clothing and put on the black skirt and blouse, then tied the white apron over top, but when I slipped my foot into the first shoe, I realized they were too small. I curled in my toes and tied the laces loosely, but with each step they pinched.
When I found Helga, she redid my hair and adjusted the apron. “You’ll have to do,” she said, frowning. “I wouldn’t trust you with the drinks tray, but perhaps you’ll be steady enough to pass around this one.”
She handed me a silver platter laden with small open-faced sandwiches. They all looked delicious. Each small sandwich contained more food than I had eaten all day.
I balanced the heavy tray in front of me and watched as the guests shoved the tidbits into their mouths as they kept talking and laughing. I was certain that none of the guests saw me as anything more than a walking tray, and that was fine with me.
The snippets of conversation were mostly about the weather or life back home. There were a couple of conversations about Leningrad, and also something called “the Hunger Plan.” But the phrase that surfaced more frequently was “the Jewish Question.”
What did that mean? The way these Nazis talked, it was a problem for them, not a question.
By the time the party was over, my shoulders ached from holding the tray, and when I took off the shoes, my socks were stained with blood. I put my own clothing back on and went to the kitchen to help Mama finish up with the cleaning.
There was a mound of half-eaten sandwiches left over. “We’re not supposed to take any of this,” said Mama, but she and the rest of us filled our pockets. “What the Commandant doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
That night, as I soaked my bloodied feet in a basin of cool water, Mama, Maria, Auntie Iryna and I feasted on the leftovers. I had a stomach ache all night but I didn’t care.