Gudrun Himmler's Secret Tales of the Axis

Sunday, August 8, 1943

It’s my fourteenth birthday, and Father forgot. Again. He doesn’t care about me at all! He’s off with Mr. Hitler again, chatting about some Nazi government stuff, leaving me working alone on my shift as a nurse working in Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital. I tend to our wounded soldiers streaming in from battle. I was especially picked for this job so I can listen to what happened in the warfront and report back to Father, since girls are trusted more by the soldiers. I’m also supposed to report whenever the soldiers are disloyal to Adolf Hitler, but I can never bring myself to tell Father about them. Maybe it would be easier if I actually liked Hitler, but I find him and his methods to be cruel and unjust. Even though I am basically a spy for the government, I still enjoy my job because I get to hear what’s going on outside this country. It always manages to astound me how terrible war is. Mankind truly wasn’t made for this. 

And the Jewish! I feel centipedes crawling in my stomach every time I think of them and the concentration camps they were forced to live in. Why would anyone do the things Hitler has done to another living, breathing, human? How can my father work so amiably with him? Does my father see him as the monster he is? But my father is not truly at fault. I know he is just trying to provide for us. I have heard all the stories he told me of his poverty-ridden childhood. But Hitler is not the only one I resent. I feel a curl of shame inside me at my own cowardice. I should be doing something to help those poor Jewish prisoners, but my fear of my father and Hitler, and the Nazi executioners gets the better of me. And if I did help them, where would I go? I would be shunned by my family and friends, and there were no ships out to Allied countries. And besides, I don’t have enough money to escape, since all of my wages are sent to Father. But I know deep down, that even if I did have the money and the means to liberate the Jewish and leave Germany, I wouldn’t do it. I’m just too agnostophobic. I know my fear will be the end of me, but I just can’t leave. It would also mean leaving my brother and unborn sister to the mercy of Nazi Germany. I just can’t leave here. It’s all I’ve known.

Anyway, enough about feelings and impossible wishes. Today my shift started at 7 a.m., so naturally I walked into the hospital at 7:30. The head nurse, Inge, sighed and waved me into the main room. Even though some feared the blood tanged air of the hospital, I found a certain clarity and focus while looking at the rows of beds and patients waiting to be attended to. It was also nice to not have the attention of drunk teenage boys catcalling to me on the streets. I knew I was different from the working force of girls, but I hated the attention, and knew that those girls deserved to be happy more than I did, since they actually worked. And I had found that my patients never tried to flirt, shocked as they were in their wounded states. 

There did seem to be one interesting patient today. None of the other nurses would go near him, and when I asked a nearby patient about him, the man sighed.

“Hans?”He asked, then leaned closer as if to tell me a secret. “That man has Jewish blood in him. Incredible fighter, no less devoted to Germany than any other soldier, but the generals don’t trust him. It’s a shame, really. He’s incredible in battle.”I frowned slightly. That was a terrible shame. How could the generals blame Hans for something he had no control over?

“Thank you for telling me,” I said to the man as I finished bandaging his arm. I brought some warm broth to Hans, who had already been patched up by a different nurse. Hans glanced up at me and narrowed his eyes.

“You’re Heinrich Himmler’s daughter.”He said. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Not one patient had ever recognized me before. Even against my better judgement, I felt suspicion creep in. “Are you trying to poison me?”Hans asked, nodding to the broth. 

“I’m not.”I snapped defensively. “That would go against my vow of safety and servitude as a nurse.”And though Hans probably didn’t think so, I took my vows very seriously. I would never purposely harm a patient, even if Father or Adolf Hitler ordered me to. Hans frowned skeptically, obviously doubting my fidelity. I sighed, rolling my eyes. Slowly, looking straight at him, I took a sip of the broth. “There. Disgusting, but not poisoned.”

“Disgusting?” Hans questioned.

“All hospital food is, in my opinion. If you want to survive the night, I recommend you drink that.” Hans’ frown deepened, but nevertheless, he carefully picked up the bowl (as if merely touching it could poison him) and drank all of the broth. I took the bowl from his hands. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”Hans didn’t say another word to me as I left his side to put the bowl in the kitchen several rooms down. 

I felt a great pity for him for being scorned by his higher-ups for something he couldn’t control. And now, I come back to the same question (or a variation of it): Would I help liberate the Jewish people in concentration camps if I had the resources and a speedy boat out of Germany? No. I wouldn’t. And that saddens me the most. I wouldn’t give up my privileged life with my family, even for a cause as noble as that. Maybe I’ll always be afraid. But I hope that one day, I will do what’s right. It just seems that the day isn’t today.

Gudrun Himmler