Page 19 of Hearts of Resistance
‘She’s been hiding Jews,’ Greta said. ‘All this time, she was hiding them right under your father’s nose, in the cellar. He thinks we all must have known but we didn’t!’
Sophia yanked her hand away and ran, her arms pumping at her sides as she dropped her bag and sped as fast as she could to the house. The front door was still wide open from when Greta had burst out, and she kept moving, straight through the entrance, skidding on the floor as hands reached out at her – soldiers surprised to see her come bolting towards them.
‘Let me go!’ she screamed, slapping at their hands and breaking free, not about to let them hold her in her own home.
She could see outside, could see men standing on the lawn, surrounded by beautifully manicured hedges. Sophia pushed the door open and fell out on to the patio, staring at them, wondering what they were all looking at. Walking now, she moved across the grass, her shoes sinking into the soft ground.
‘Get her out of here!’ a deep male voice commanded.
She saw her father then, watched his mouth moving, saw soldiers rushing towards her, and she looked up. First she saw shoes, then legs.
She tried to scream but it died in her mouth, and all that came out was a gurgling noise. They were strung up by their necks, nooses connecting them to the tree. An entire family. There was a woman, a man, two little children and...
‘No!’she screamed as the soldiers caught her and her legs buckled. ‘No! Father,no!’
Her mother was there too, standing on tiptoe on a wooden crate. Why was her mother there? Why was her beautiful, kind mother connected to the tree? What was he doing to her?
‘No!’ she screamed again. ‘Get her down! Take her down from there!’
‘Do it,’ she heard her father snarl. ‘And let this be a lesson to anyone hiding Jews. There will be no exceptions made!’
Sophia drooped, forcing her eyes to stay open as she saw the crates kicked out from beneath the prisoners, watched her mother struggle, her fingers frantically clawing at the rope around her neck. The two children stopped moving first, then their parents, but it was her mother who struggled the longest.
‘Let me go!’Sophia sobbed, trying to stand, doing her best to push them away.
‘Let my daughter go,’ her father said, storming over to her, not seeming to care that he’d just murdered her own mother in front of her.
‘Did you know?’ he demanded, grabbing hold of her arm and yanking her to her feet, fingers curled tight against her skin.
‘Know what?’ she mumbled, tears still streaming down her cheeks. ‘What have you done?Why?’
‘Your mother was a Jew lover. All this time she’s been keeping them here, under my nose, in my own home!’ His face was red, eyes bulging, veins standing to attention across his forehead. ‘Your traitor mother made a fool of me!’
She stood taller, using her one free hand to wipe the tears from her face and look her father in the eyes.
‘I will never forgive you. How could youkillher? How could you?’
Sophia broke free and tried to run to her, wanting to touch her, get her down and hold her lifeless body. But she was pulled away, the soldiers quick to capture her.
‘If I find out you or anyone else has been doing the same...,’ her father started.
‘What? You’ll kill your own daughter, too?’ she screamed at him.
He didn’t need to answer her. He’d been married to her mother for three decades, and he hadn’t hesitated in hanging her beside the poor family she must have fought so hard to conceal. How could she not have known her own mother was doing the very same thing as she? Risking her life to save others? No wonder she’d refused to visit the city!
Sophia collapsed on to the steps. She stayed perfectly still and waited for the men to forget about her. She blocked out their mutterings and laughter, filled with enough fury already without listening to their hateful words. Her tears had disappeared, though she knew they were only frozen for later. With her fists curled tight and her chin thrust up, she sat there, refusing to look at her mother. She couldn’t bear to see her face like that, her head at such an unnatural tilt.
Sophia took a deep breath and finally stood, her entire body shaking, and slowly walked towards her mother without making a sound. She bent her head, whispered a prayer and stood on tiptoe to reach for her hand.
‘I love you, Mother. I’m so proud of you,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll see each other again. I promise.’
Sophia quickly slipped her mother’s rings from her fingers, thankful they were slightly loose. She put them straight on to her own fingers before anyone saw what she was doing, head down like any normal grieving daughter.
‘God bless you all,’ she murmured to the family. ‘May you all rest in peace.’
She thought of her mother, so bravely hiding them in her own home. How long had they been here? How many times had her mother been bursting to tell her but not been able to? All the time Sophia had imagined confessing to her that Alex was hiding in her apartment, her mother had held her own secret. Sophia’s own fear of her mother knowing, of putting her in a position of having something to hide, had always stopped her, and now she was certain it had been the same for her mother, too.
‘Get her away from them!’ her father yelled out. ‘How many times do you need to be told?’
