Page 21 of The Berlin Sisters
‘I’m worried we won’t be able to do this much longer,’ Hanna said. ‘I always pray for the best, but sometimes I wonder—’
‘Whether it’s even possible for them to make it to safety any more?’
She sighed. ‘Yes. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep trying, but sometimes I think about all the people involved, all the pieces that have to fit together for this to work. It just seems more impossible with each passing month.’
‘I know. But all we can do is try, which is more than most people are doing.’
‘I wish there was a way to do more, to keep the families together instead of having to send children off on their own like this.’
Dieter grunted in reply, and she took that to mean he agreed with her but had no idea how to do so. Other than hiding more Jews in her own home, Hanna was all out of ideas, too.
They travelled in silence for some time as the ambulance bumped along. There were roads close to the hospital that were littered with concrete, timber, and other parts of buildings from the air raid the previous night, and about fifteen minutes out of the city they passed the smouldering remains of a factory that had been targeted by the Allies. As much as she hoped they would succeed in pushing back the German army and winning the war, Hanna also knew that the factory would have been full of young unmarried women and mothers who had to leave their children home alone or with grandparents to earn enough money to pay the rent, many of them casualties of the bombing.
‘Has there been any word?’ Hanna asked, turning her attention back to Dieter. ‘No letters since we last spoke?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know if she’s even alive still. Last time I demanded information, I was told I’d be arrested and taken too if I wasn’t careful.’
Dieter’s wife had been discovered to be half-Jewish, and they’d arrested her on the street and rounded her up with others who’d lived on their block. That had been two years ago, only months before Hanna had met him and so soon after her own tragedy – when the Nazis were intent on expunging from society anyone who had even a drop of Jewish blood.
Hanna looked out of the window then at a large carcass lying on the grass just outside of the city. It took her a moment to realise it was a horse, and although her first thought was how sad it was to see a magnificent animal lying dead, she also hated that the meat had gone to waste when so many families were so desperate for food. It was so much harder for those in the city, who couldn’t hunt or grow their own vegetables to supplement their rations.
‘Do you know what happened there?’ she asked as they slowed down.
There were other things smouldering around the carcass, as if it had all recently been burning.
‘They were a gypsy family,’ Dieter said, glancing through the window. ‘Most of them were moved on long ago, but these ones appeared last week.’
‘They were all taken?’
‘The story is that a little girl was found talking to them. She was seen patting the horse by a local man, who ran in andsavedher. He was lauded as a hero for saving her life, as if they were going to kill her.’
Hanna blinked away tears as she thought of what was happening around her. The cruelty, the depravity of her fellow Germans, their willingness to believe such lies, broke her heart.
‘They shot the horse, the husband and the grandfather, and they set the rest on fire before herding up the women and children.’
‘On a train headed for the camps,’ Hanna murmured. ‘If they’re even still alive.’
The Nazis hated gypsies almost as much as they hated Jews. As a very young girl, she’d been fascinated with the travelling families when they passed by her country house, often going to visit them under the watchful eye of her mother. She’d sometimes take jam or something homemade to them, and eventually her mother would leave and tell her to run along home after playing. The gypsy children were always easy to make friends with, because they were used to meeting new people as they moved around the countryside. But by the time she was a teenager, going near them had been forbidden, for fear that someone might see her.
‘Do you think it will ever change?’ Hanna asked.
Dieter looked across at her, and she could see from the hollowness of his eyes that he was as pessimistic about the future of their great country as she was.
‘There was a time when I did, but I don’t know any more,’ he said. ‘I want to believe that everyone will come to their senses, but it’s as if everyone has fallen for a spell that cannot be broken.’
‘If my sister can change the way she sees the world, then perhaps there is hope for everyone,’ Hanna eventually said.
‘You think she’ll keep your secrets? You trust her?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I do. She might still be conflicted, but not when it comes to family. She wouldn’t do anything to put any of us in danger.’
Hanna leaned back deeper into her seat, watching the world pass by. Some days she wondered if it was all worth it, but then she’d think about all the children they’d already saved, and all the others still needing their help. Which also made her think about how few of her fellow countrymen or women were doing anything to help those in need. She understood – perhaps she would have been afraid if she’d had children of her own to keep safe too – but it still broke her heart thinking of their acceptance of such cruelty, or simply their indifference to what was happening. But seeingthe way Ava had changed, it did give her hope that perhaps others would begin to change, too.
The children in her ambulance now faced a long journey; they had to pass through the resistance network in France and make it to Portugal before they’d be truly safe, but Hanna knew they were doing everything they could to give them a chance. She knew little about what happened once she passed them over, but she knew the city they would be billeted to, and she’d secretly recorded copies of their paperwork to ensure that, one day, it would be possible to find them.
There was only so far they could plausibly take the ambulance, and so they were heading for their usual meeting spot, just far enough out of Berlin on a country road that they wouldn’t be seen. Another ambulance always met them, and so long as they all stuck to their cover story, even if they were stopped they knew they shouldn’t have any problems.
‘He’s just ahead up there,’ Hanna said, sitting up straighter as she looked into the distance. ‘Let’s get this done as quickly as possible, just like last time.’
