Page 10 of Hell to Pay
“I see why people have revolutions, anyway,” he said.
We caught up with the tour guide, who was talking while walking backward—quite a feat. At the moment, she was saying, “That’s a difficult question with no good answer. Whydidthe Allies bomb Dresden so mercilessly? It wasn’t a major industrial center or a harbor city. To terrify the population, definitely. To destroy one of the most beautiful cities in Germany and demoralize its people, also likely. The war was lost by then, in February of 1945, but the Germans fought on with no lessening of courage, so anything was tried that would break their spirit. And, of course, there was the sheer anger at Germany. Lashing out, hurting where they could. Whether the bombing was morally acceptable or in any way necessary—that’s another question. There are certainly many opinions.”
“Wait,” Alix said, because Alix would always say something, especially if it was a question of right and wrong. “Weren’t there something like a hundred and ten factories here making munitions and things at the time the city was bombed? How can anyone say it wasn’t an industrial city?”
“Dresden was not a major center of industry,” the tour guide, a young woman of the more officious variety, said stiffly. “Nothing like the port cities, or the industrial cities of the Ruhr Valley.”
“I don’t know,” Alix said, “a hundred and ten factoriessounds pretty major to me. Tens of thousands of workers staffing them, right? And it had huge rail yards, didn’t it? Look at where it is, almost on the border with Czechoslovakia. All those supplies and troops going East? You can’t imagine why the Allies would want to disrupt that? Not to mention the trains taking people to death camps. Can’t forget those.”
“There was no transport to death camps from Dresden,” the woman said.
“I beg your pardon.” That was, somehow, me. “There were trains from Dresden to Theresienstadt, and from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. That is well documented. Over six thousand Jews lived in Dresden when Hitler came to power, and at the end of the war? Forty-one souls. Two-thirds managed to emigrate while they still could, but the other two thousand? Yes, there were trains.”
The woman opened her mouth, then shut it, and her face had reddened. I went on, “I’ve always suspected that the biggest reason for the bombing was to help the Soviets. They were pushing westward, and still, as you say, meeting great resistance. If the movement of munitions and men, not to mention food and fuel, could be hindered or delayed, that would help them. The British and Americans probably thought they owed that help. The Soviets lost twenty-five million people, after all. Ten million soldiers and fifteen million civilians, possibly two million of those dying of cold and hunger in the Siege of Leningrad alone. Roughly estimated only, because how can one keep good records of numbers like that? We can hardly even imagine such loss, and I dare say it will have carried its weight in that decision.”
Ben said, “Seriously? And the Russians didn’t even start it, right?”
“No,” I said, “although Stalin certainly encouraged Hitler at the beginning. He had a bit of trouble deciding which side to be on, but once he did decide, the USSR did more than itspart. There were Russian prisoners of war here in Dresden, and many slave laborers from the East, men and women both, working in those munitions factories. A person could see them at any time of day being marched to and from work in their ragged little groups. Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians … many countries, and some French and Dutch as well. The factories ran twenty-four hours a day, you see, to meet the ever-increasing demands of the Reich. I’ve often wondered how many of those workers died in the bombings. Perhaps they’d have thought it a fair trade, but probably not. Everybody wants to survive.”
The tour guide had stopped walking. Her face, I noted with interest, had reddened. “Maybe you’d prefer to explore the castle on your own,” she said, “if you’re not enjoying the tour. There is an audio tour in English. You can get it on your smartphone.”
“Oh, no,” Alix said. “We’re enjoying it. We came on it hoping to be able to ask questions. You can probably tell.”
A middle-aged woman, whom you’d have picked out as an American before she opened her mouth, with her sportswear, white athletic shoes, and that abomination called a fanny pack, said, “It’s a bit rude, though, interrupting the tour guide and arguing like that.”
“I’ll say,” a bald man in a T-shirt agreed. Probably her husband.
“Personally, I’m tired of being told to feel bad about our past,” another American man said. “We shouldn’t have bombed this city, we shouldn’t have bombed that one. We shouldn’t have dropped the H-bomb, even though Japan had made it plenty clear it would fight to the last man, and how many of our boys would have died taking the home islands? It was war, and we didn’t start it. If you don’t want none, don’t start none, right?”
“True,” a tall, lean man said, British this time. “Dresden andCoventry are sister cities, in fact. No doubt you would have been getting to that,” he said politely to the guide. “Jerry bombed Coventry to smithereens long before we bombed them here, not to mention what the Nazis did to London. They went to the air straightaway. They thought air power was their big advantage, you see, and they were right, because we weren’t ready, and the French didn’t help, folding like they did. Hitler wasn’t counting on British pluck, though, was he? Just stiffened our spines, is what it did. Our brave boys went straight up into the air against the Nazis and died by the tens of thousands for it, but the Germans never set foot on our little island. The only reason Germany didn’t destroy our cities the way we did theirs was because they ran out of bombers. We were better at it, you see, we and the Yanks.”
The tour guide was frankly goggling by now. I was sure nobody had ever stirred the pot on her tour quite as effectively as Alix. My granddaughter, you know, is a princess, and for all my protests, there’s a certain attitude one can’t help. You can call it arrogance. I prefer to call it the courage of one’s convictions, and a certain confidence in the way one faces the world.
However, one must also be courteous. I said, “We’ve delayed your presentation. Please continue.” The guide didn’t look as gratified as I’d have hoped, and she definitely looked like she wanted to throw Alix out of the window, and possibly me along with her, but she went on.
It was something else to think about, anyway, and we did not, in fact, see any of the family rooms, or anything that would have given me a real jolt—or offer any clues as to the whereabouts of a certain emerald tiara, but then, we hadn’t reached the vaults yet. I was nearly positive by now that it would be there. I was steeling myself for it. Where else would it be, if it had been found? And mustn’t it have been found?
We went through a few more of the state apartments andthen were deposited in the courtyard again. I checked my watch, which my father had given me long ago—ridiculous, how attached one becomes to certain possessions, no matter their monetary value—and said, “It’s nearly time for our tour of the vaults. I think I’ll sit down for fifteen minutes first, though.”
“That’s all you’re going to say about that?” Ben asked, sinking onto a bench beside me. “That was, like, epic. I don’t know who was right, but I’m betting it’s you and Alix.”
A small young woman whom I’d noticed on the tour, with short brown hair arranged to stick up, black-framed glasses, and an air like the more impudent type of squirrel, said, “Can I barge in here rudely and ask whether you planned that? To confront her like that?” American, clearly.
“Nope,” Alix said. “I just didn’t like the whole victim thing, like here was Dresden, just peacefully minding its own business until, bam! Somebody drops tons of bombs on it for no reason. Somehow I doubt it.”
“Still,” the young woman said, “bombing civilians. It wasn’t even collateral damage, right? They just straight-out wrecked the place. I get that it was both sides, but?—”
I said, “You’re right, although in fairness, targeting systems weren’t as good back then, and the bombers missed their targets more often than not. But it’s not the way war should be waged. That was the reason for the Nuremberg Trials and the formation of the United Nations, which, interestingly, happened at around the same time as the bombing here, while the war was still going on. They were trying to set out rules that countries could agree on so this wouldn’t happen again. A noble goal, and while it hasn’t always worked, the world was definitely a more peaceful place in the second half of the twentieth century than it was in the first.”
“You explain things so well,” the young woman said. “Areyou a retired history teacher, maybe? Or a professor? Oh—I’m Ashleigh.”
“Marguerite Stark,” I said. No point in trying for formal address with Americans. They would jump to “Marguerite” no matter what. “My granddaughter Alix and her fiancé Sebastian, and Sebastian’s nephew Ben. And no, not a teacher, but I grew up in Dresden before the bombing.”
“That’s amazing,” Ashleigh said. “Have you been back a lot since?”
“No. This is the first time.”
She said, “Would you be interested in being interviewed for my channel?”
