Winter of the World (109 page)

The British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, unfolded his lanky figure and stood up to support Stettinius. His tone was faultlessly courteous, but his words were scathing. ‘My government
has no way of knowing whether the Polish people support their provisional government,’ he said, ‘because our Soviet allies refuse to let British observers into Poland.’

Woody sensed the meeting turning against Molotov. The Russian clearly had the same impression. He was conferring with his aides loudly enough for Woody to hear the fury in his voice. But would
he walk out?

The Belgian foreign minister, bald and podgy with a double chin, proposed a compromise, a motion expressing the hope that the new Polish government might be organized in time to be represented
here in San Francisco before the end of the conference.

Everyone looked at Molotov. He was being offered a face-saver. But would he accept it?

He still looked angry. However, he gave a slight but unmistakable nod of assent.

And the crisis was over.

Well, Woody thought, two victories in one day. Things are looking up.

(v)

Carla went out to queue for water.

There had been no water in the taps for two days. Luckily, Berlin’s housewives had discovered that every few blocks there were old-fashioned street pumps, long disused, connected to
underground wells. They were rusty and creaky but, amazingly, they still worked. So every morning now the women stood in line, holding their buckets and jugs.

The air raids had stopped, presumably because the enemy was on the point of entering the city. But it was still dangerous to be on the street, because the Red Army’s artillery was
shelling. Carla was not sure why they bothered. Much of the city had gone. Whole blocks and even larger areas had been completely flattened. All utilities were cut off. No trains or buses ran.
Thousands were homeless, perhaps millions. The city was one huge refugee camp. But the shelling went on. Most people spent all day in their cellars or in public air-raid shelters, but they had to
come out for water.

On the radio, shortly before the electricity went off permanently, the BBC had announced that the Sachsenhausen concentration camp had been liberated by the Red Army. Sachsenhausen was north of
Berlin, so clearly the Soviets, coming from the east, were encircling the city instead of marching straight in. Carla’s mother, Maud, deduced that the Russians wanted to keep out the
American, British, French and Canadian forces rapidly approaching from the west. She had quoted Lenin: ‘Who controls Berlin, controls Germany; and who controls Germany, controls
Europe.’

Yet the German army had not given up. Outnumbered, outgunned, short of ammunition and fuel, and half starved, they slogged on. Again and again their leaders hurled them at overwhelming enemy
forces, and again and again they obeyed orders, fought with spirit and courage, and died in their hundreds of thousands. Among them were the two men Carla loved: her brother, Erik, and her
boyfriend, Werner. She had no idea where they were fighting or even whether they were alive.

Carla had wound up the spy ring. The fighting was deteriorating into chaos. Battle plans meant little. Secret intelligence from Berlin was of small value to the conquering Soviets. It was no
longer worth the risk. The spies had burned their code books and hidden their radio transmitters in the rubble of bombed buildings. They had agreed never to speak of their work. They had been
brave, they had shortened the war, and they had saved lives; but it was too much to expect the defeated German people to see things that way. Their courage would remain forever secret.

While Carla waited her turn at the tap, a Hitler Youth tank-hunting squad went past, heading east, towards the fighting. There were two men in their fifties and a dozen teenage boys, all on
bicycles. Strapped to the front of each bicycle were two of the new one-shot anti-tank weapons called
Panzerfäuste.
The uniforms were too large for the boys, and their oversize helmets
would have looked comical if their plight had not been so pathetic. They were off to fight the Red Army.

They were going to die.

Carla looked away as they passed: she did not want to remember their faces.

As she was filling her bucket, the woman behind her in line, Frau Reichs, spoke to her quietly, so that no one else could hear: ‘You’re a friend of the doctor’s wife,
aren’t you?’

Carla tensed. Frau Reichs was obviously talking about Hannelore Rothmann. The doctor had disappeared along with the mental patients from the Jewish Hospital. Hannelore’s son, Rudi, had
thrown away his yellow star and joined those Jews living clandestinely, called U-boats in Berlin slang. But Hannelore, not herself Jewish, was still at the old house.

For twelve years a question such as the one just asked – are you a friend of a Jew’s wife? – had been an accusation. What was it today? Carla did not know. Frau Reichs was only
a nodding acquaintance: she could not be trusted.

Carla turned off the tap. ‘Dr Rothmann was our family physician when I was a child,’ she said guardedly. ‘Why?’

The other woman took her place at the standpipe and began to fill a large can that had once held cooking oil. ‘Frau Rothmann has been taken away,’ she said. ‘I thought
you’d like to know.’

It was commonplace. People were ‘taken away’ all the time. But when it happened to someone close to you it came as a blow to the heart.

There was no point in trying to find out what had happened to them – in fact, it was downright dangerous: people who inquired about disappearances tended to disappear themselves. All the
same, Carla had to ask. ‘Do you know where they took her?’

This time there was an answer. ‘The Schulstrasse transit camp.’ Carla felt hopeful. ‘It’s in the old Jewish Hospital, in Wedding. Do you know it?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Carla sometimes worked at the hospital, unofficially and illegally, so she knew that the government had taken over one of the hospital buildings, the pathology lab, and
surrounded it with barbed wire.

‘I hope she’s all right,’ said the other woman. ‘She was good to me when my Steffi was ill.’ She turned off the tap and walked away with her can of water.

Carla hurried away in the opposite direction, heading for home.

She had to do something about Hannelore. It had always been nearly impossible to get anyone out of a camp, but now that everything was breaking down perhaps there might be a way.

She took the bucket into the house and gave it to Ada.

Maud had gone to queue for food rations. Carla changed into her nurse’s uniform, thinking it might help. She explained to Ada where she was going and left again.

She had to walk to Wedding. It was two or three miles. She wondered if it was worth it. Even if she found Hannelore, she probably would not be able to help her. But then she thought of Eva in
London and Rudi in hiding somewhere here in Berlin: how terrible it would be if they lost their mother in the last hours of the war. She had to try.

The military police were on the streets, stopping people and demanding papers. They worked in threes, forming summary courts, and were mainly interested in men of fighting age. They did not
bother Carla in her nurse’s uniform.

It was strange that in this blasted cityscape the apple and cherry trees were gorgeous with white and pink blossoms, and that in the quiet moments between explosions she could hear the birds
singing as optimistically as they did every spring.

To her horror she saw several men hanged from lamp posts, some in uniform. Most of the bodies had a card hanging around the neck saying ‘Coward’ or ‘Deserter’. These had
been found guilty by those three-man street courts, she knew. Was there not already enough killing to satisfy the Nazis? It made her want to weep.

She was forced to take shelter from artillery bombardments three times. On the last occasion, when she was only a few hundred yards from the hospital, the Soviets and the Germans seemed to be
fighting only a few streets away. The shooting was so heavy that Carla was tempted to turn back. Hannelore was probably doomed, and might already be dead: why should Carla add her own life to the
toll? But she went on anyway.

It was evening when she reached her destination. The hospital was in Iranische Strasse, on the corner of Schul Strasse. The trees lining the streets were in new leaf. The laboratory building,
which had been turned into a transit camp, was guarded. Carla considered going up to the guard and explaining her mission, but it seemed an unpromising strategy. She wondered if she might slip
inside from the tunnel system.

She went into the main building. The hospital was functioning. All the patients had been moved into the basements and tunnels. The staff were working by the light of oil lamps. Carla could tell
by the smell that the toilets were not flushing. Water was being carried in buckets from an old well in the garden.

Surprisingly, soldiers were bringing wounded comrades in for help. Suddenly they did not care that the doctors and nurses might be Jewish.

She followed a tunnel under the garden to the basement of the laboratory. As she expected, the door was guarded. However, the young Gestapo man looked at her uniform and waved her through
without questioning her. Perhaps he no longer saw any point in his job.

She was inside the camp, now. She wondered whether it would be as easy to get out.

The smell here was worse, and she soon saw why. The basement was overcrowded. Hundreds of people were packed into four storerooms. They sat or lay on the floor, the lucky ones having a wall to
lean against. They were dirty, smelly and exhausted, and they looked at her with dull, uninterested gazes.

She found Hannelore after a few minutes.

The doctor’s wife had never been beautiful, but she had once been a statuesque woman with a strong face. Now she was gaunt, like most people, and her hair was grey and lifeless. She was
hollow-cheeked and lined with strain.

She was talking to an adolescent who was at the age when a girl can seem too voluptuous for her years, having womanly breasts and hips but the face of a child. The girl was sitting on the floor,
crying, and Hannelore was kneeling beside her, holding her hand and speaking in a low, soothing voice.

When Hannelore saw Carla she stood up, saying: ‘Good God! Why are you in here?’

‘I thought maybe if I tell them you’re not Jewish they might let you go.’

‘That was brave.’

‘Your husband saved many lives. Someone ought to save yours.’

For a moment, Carla thought Hannelore was going to cry. Her face seemed about to crumple. Then she blinked and shook her head. ‘This is Rebecca Rosen,’ she said in a controlled
voice. ‘Her parents were killed by a shell today.’

Carla said: ‘I’m so sorry, Rebecca.’

The girl did not speak.

Carla said: ‘How old are you, Rebecca?’

‘Nearly fourteen.’

‘You’re going to have to be a grown-up now.’

‘Why didn’t I die too?’ Rebecca said. ‘I was right beside them. I should have died. Now I’m all alone.’

‘You’re not alone,’ Carla said briskly. ‘We’re with you.’ She turned back to Hannelore. ‘Who’s in charge here?’

‘His name is Walter Dobberke.’

‘I’m going to tell him he must let you go.’

‘He’s left for the day. And his second-in-command is a sergeant with the brains of a warthog. But look, here comes Gisela. She’s Dobberke’s mistress.’

The young woman walking into the room was pretty, with long fair hair and creamy skin. No one looked at her. She wore a defiant expression.

Hannelore said: ‘She has sex with him on the bed in the electrocardiogram room upstairs. She gets extra food in exchange. No one will speak to her except me. I just don’t think we
can judge people for the compromises they make. We are living in hell, after all.’

Carla was not so sure. She would not befriend a Jewish girl who slept with a Nazi.

Gisela met Hannelore’s eye and came over. ‘He’s had new orders,’ she said, speaking so quietly that Carla had to strain to hear her. Then she hesitated.

Hannelore said: ‘Well? What are the orders?’

Gisela’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘To shoot everyone here.’

Carla felt a cold hand grasp her heart. All these people – including Hannelore and young Rebecca.

‘Walter doesn’t want to do it,’ Gisela said. ‘He’s not a bad man, really.’

Hannelore spoke with fatalistic calm. ‘When is he supposed to kill us?’

‘Immediately. But he wants to destroy the records first. Hans-Peter and Martin are putting the files into the furnace right now. It’s a long job, so we have a few hours left. Maybe
the Red Army will get here in time to save us.’

‘And maybe they won’t,’ Hannelore said crisply. ‘Is there any way we can persuade him to disobey his orders? For God’s sake, the war is almost over!’

‘I used to be able to talk him into anything,’ Gisela said sadly. ‘But he’s getting tired of me now. You know what men are like.’

‘But he should be thinking of his own future. Any day now the Allies will be in charge here. They will punish Nazi crimes.’

Gisela said: ‘If we’re all dead, who’s going to accuse him?’

‘I will,’ said Carla.

The other two stared at her, not speaking.

Carla realized that even though she was not Jewish she, too, would be shot, to prevent her bearing witness.

Casting about for ideas, she said: ‘Perhaps, if Dobberke spared us, it would help him with the Allies.’

‘That’s a thought,’ said Hannelore. ‘We could all sign a declaration saying that he saved our lives.’

Carla looked enquiringly at Gisela. Her expression was dubious, but she said: ‘He might do it.’

Hannelore looked around. ‘There’s Hilde,’ she said. ‘She acts as a secretary for Dobberke.’ She called the woman over and explained the plan.

‘I’ll type out release documents for everyone,’ Hilde said. ‘We’ll ask him to sign them before we give him the declaration.’

There were no guards within the basement area, just at the ground-floor door and the tunnel, so the prisoners could move around freely inside. Hilde went into the room that served as
Dobberke’s underground office. She typed the declaration first. Hannelore and Carla went around the basement explaining the plan and getting everyone to sign. Meanwhile Hilde typed the
release documents.