Choices Part II

I write this story to explain to the two women that have given my life the only happiness it has known the full truth now. I do not expect that you will ever talk to me again once you read this and even in this I am ever the coward. I have less than three months left on this earth. Cancer will take me soon.

You both know already, and long ago forgave me for serving in the German Army during what is now called World War two, but there is much more to that story than I have ever had the courage to tell you, my beautiful nieces.

Your father Erich and I grew up fairly poor, but always happy. He had such an infectious smile and was always the favorite. I didn’t mind that, he was my favorite too and we spent many days exploring the world as children do. Our parents were kind in their way, but busy working most of the time.

They worked hard enough that they were able to send both of us to college. There Erich met Claudia. Oh how happy I was for him, such a lovely young woman and they were so obviously in love. I met my own Martha there too and while we would be happy for a while, she could never forgive me for the war and had left me, never to be seen again, by wars end.

Erich converted to the Jewish faith, because her family was very traditional. His love for her was that strong. over the next few years the two of you were born and they settled into life.

Meanwhile, Hitler was a rising star and more and more Germans were falling under his sway. He was going to make Germany mean something again. Going to put us back on the map, many were saying.

We were a country surrounded by enemies and infiltrated by them as well apparently. We began to hear about the Jewish problem more and more. At first I thought of your mother and father and couldn’t conceive of there begin a problem. They were two of the best people I knew. But as time went by I began to think about certain things that your mothers family did that were strange to me.

Traditions they followed that we as Christians did not. It seems inconceivable to me now that the young man I was then fell into the trap, but one has to understand the hold propaganda, when properly disseminated by an expert can have.

Many of us got caught up in it and found ourselves somewhere we never wanted to be. We were caught in a web of rumor and hearsay that became the truth. “Did you hear what the Jewish people were doing in such and such in such a place?” and a lot more like that. Truth had little to do with it, reason was not involved. We got to a place where the truth was whatever we were told it was, no matter how unrealistic that was.

I joined the army to help reclaim Germany and even though I hate to admit it. In those early days I was a zealot, an acolyte of Hitler, ready to bring death to the enemies of Germany.

We were asked to help identify any Jews that might be plotting against Germany, that were perhaps in league with our enemies.

I knew that through his work at the bank Claudia’s father had extensive contacts with many British people. By this time my first thought was that he was a traitor working for our enemies. I was hesitant to say anything however. I wanted to get my brother away from the corruption of the Jews, but I didn’t want to endanger Erich by reporting the family.

The sergeant asking the question must have seen something in my face, because he came over and demanded I tell him what I was hiding. I told him about my brother having married into a Jewish family and about the father in laws contacts with British banks.

In stepped an officer, in an all black uniform. A slim man, but intimidating, with a smile a shark would have been scared of. In a tone meant to comfort he told me that he understood. That to love ones brother was a great thing, but now I must love Germany more.

If I would show them where the Jews were, he would give me one chance to speak to my brother and convince him that he had made a mistake marrying a Jew. That if he were to abandon them and join the Army he could find forgiveness in the eyes of all true Germans.

I agreed and like the fool I am and have always been led them to the house. I went in and noticed they appeared to be packing. Probably to join their evil allies, I assumed. I tried to convince your father to leave with me and leave these Jews to their fate, but he refused.

Twice I tried to convince him and twice he refused me. I left angry. How could my brother choose Jews over me? I was his family.

When I reported back to the waiting soldiers that it appeared they were in the process of packing to leave, the soldiers immediately stormed the house. Seconds later they emerged again with all of you. dragging you and dumping you in the back of a truck.

When I asked what would happen to you all I was informed that it was none of my concern. That the Jews would be sent to be taught that their ways were not the ways of Germans and that if they learned to be German, they would be allowed to join us in making Germany what it once was.

I heard nothing about any of you after that. Rumors of the treatment Jews were receiving, but nothing about you all specifically. I served, I fought, I killed and became hollow.

Killing someone takes a piece of your soul and makes it dark. You never really get that back, what you get is the nightmares, if you are lucky. If not you come to love the killing and then your soul is all darkness.

I was sent to one of the camps that Jews were being held in, along with British, American and other POW’s. On my first day there I got the shock of my life. I saw your father working. It took me a while to recognize him, because he was so gaunt, so thin. He looked like a skeleton. It was all I could do to stop myself from running to him.

He was trying to get my attention during that day, but I couldn’t let them see that I knew him. A guard beat him for not working hard enough and I almost ran to stop it. Every fiber of my being wanted to go defend my little brother, but I could not. We both would have died.

A few days later I was informed that this current group of Jews was worn and broken and useless. They needed to be gotten rid of. They would be sent to the gas chamber in the morning. That meant that in the morning I would be marching my own brother into a gas chamber.

I was horrified. That night I didn’t sleep. This was a nightmare. I already felt such guilt that my brother was here. That night I realized something that had been apparent for a while, but that I had been ignoring by focusing on duty and my commitment to Germany.

This was evil! pure evil. Hitler was not the great savior, but the great destroyer. He had helped to turn an entire generation of Germans into killers of the innocent. He had used propaganda to convince us that we were surrounded by enemies and that the Jewish people were the worst of the lot.

At dawn I got up and dressed for the worst day of my life. I moved slowly out into the yard. Not seeing or hearing anything. In my mind, all I could see was the day your father was taken, replaying over and over. This time, I wasn’t angry at him, I rose up and smashed that sergeant in the face. running forward I warned your family to run.

I was shot for my treasonous act, dying cold and alone in the street. But your father heard the noise and you were all able to escape. Oh how many times I have wished that was the truth. How many times I have looked at you girls over the years and wished I could have given my life to save his.

In the end it was terror that defeated me. I watched as they marched your father up. I have never seen a human so resigned to his fate. He knew what was going to happen. He looked me in the eye and it was all I could do to hold back the deluge of tears that wanted to fall.

I nodded my head slightly to let him know I knew him still. He smiled very slightly at that and nodded back. Then he was gone from my sight and a short minute later from life itself.

That night when I went back to my bunk, I buried my head in my pillow and cried, like I hadn’t cried since I had been a child. I held that pillow so tight to drown out the screaming I knew would be ripped form my lungs. I had killed my brother today, the man I should have given my life for, not taken his from him.

Once I had cried myself out I became very still and emotionless. I knew what must be done. Hitler needed to die. Germany needed to be free of this madness. As the old saying goes “Cut off the head of the snake.”

I was Hitlers man no longer and I meant to help end this war in anyway I could. Very carefully I let it be known among the allied prisoners that any that could give me information on how to get in touch with the allies would be well received.

I will not bore you with the details of secret meetings and blindfolds etc. But in the end I got what I wanted. A contact on the outside that wanted information and a spy.

Eventually I was moved from the camps and ended up in Berlin. This was too good an opportunity to miss. I was set to spy on certain officers and get any information I could on troop movements and such.

I think some of my commanders began to suspect me or at least someone close to me. When I reported this to my handlers they decided it was time to get me out of Germany. for the valuable information that I had gotten them I would be repatriated to the US. I declined.

When asked why, I told them. My brother had a wife and two daughters. I do not know what happened to them and I will not leave until I find out. If you want me to leave, that’s what I want. I want to know what happened to them and if they live I want them to come with me.

It took some time and I kept up with information gathering while I waited. Worried that every day one of my superiors would put a hand on my shoulder and that would be it for me. The day never came. I do not know if it was God or dumb luck, but I was never found out.

About two months later I was contacted using the usual channels and a meet was set up. They had found the information I had asked for. They made it clear, that only the fact that the information I had given had led to several allied victories, had made this possible.

Firstly they informed me that your mother was dead. She had not lived through the forced march to the camp and was now one of the innumerable frozen bodies dotting the trail.

Somehow you two had been smuggled away from the Army and hidden all this time. They had found out where you were. They had set it up so that I would be re-united with you as I left Germany and the three of us would flee to America.

Again the details of that trip are long and boring. But suffice to say that we made it to the US. The rest of the story you know as you were here.

I learnt many lessons from all of this and over the years tried to instill those into you girls. Tried so hard to make sure that, in what way I can, I break the cycle of pain and misery.

Tried to teach you that those in power, seek power. They are not our friends and no matter the side they appear to be on, they are first and foremost on their own side. That no deed done in hate or for the sake of greed can ever be a good deed.

The lesson that should have been learned from Hitler is that anyone can fall into darkness. Humans are pliable creatures and capable of monstrosities that even they would have balked at before they fell into the dark. That anyone of use can one day wake up, look in a mirror and scream “What am I?”

I do not expect your forgiveness. I have asked God to forgive me many times, have asked Erich to forgive me and even Claudia. But I do not expect you girls to forgive me.

Raising you, was a privilege and my penance for the evils I committed. If I have to burn in hell for eternity, then I will accept that punishment, as long as I know you two are safe and happy. You have good lives and good jobs now and I could be no more proud, if I was your father. I know he would be so very proud of you.

Perhaps, instead of forgiveness, I should be the coward one more time. Take this story, tell it to other people. Let the world understand the truth.

That hatred can never bring peace. It only ever breeds hatred. That no group of people are ever just one thing. Not even a single person is just one thing. Take the worst human you know and look deeply and you will find someone that loves them, or someone they love.

The world would be a much better place of we focused on the things that make us the same, rather than those that make us different.