22 DAYS IN 1942 BERLIN JUST PUBLISHED ON / Amazon.nl Amazon.fr Amazon.de

I found my great-aunt’s letter – a confession of how she saved her mother from death in a concentration camp – and the only salvation from such a horrendous death was the killing of her own mother.

This is the true story of how the perfect Nazi machine found and sent millions to their deaths.

Chapter 1

Berlin, 3rd September, 1942.

Thursday afternoon shortly after three

–  Mama was sitting in the bath tub; I was washing my stockings in the sink. We were talking. I had to keep an eye on your grandmother. She could not get out of the bath by herself.

The doorbell of our apartment rang. I froze – the terror had found us – I knew it.

I opened the door. A young woman of about nineteen or twenty years of age stood before me. On her jacket she had an insignia of some sort.

‘Eliza Johanna Sara Gerson?’

‘No. I am Clara Teichmann. Eliza Gerson is my mother.’

I asked the young woman, no more than a girl really, to come into the green room.

‘What do you want with my mother?’ I was shaking.

‘I only have to collect information.’ It seemed she felt she had to calm me and said, ‘it’s just a formality. I have to note down the names and details of everyone who lives in this building, you included.’

I tried to swallow down my alarm but fear had an iron grip on my throat.

     ‘You cannot speak to my mother,’ I said, ‘she is extremely ill. She is bed-bound and has not left our apartment for a year. You will have to speak to me.’

This was not strictly true. Mama complained of aching feet and a weakening of the arms and shoulders.

The reason she had not been walking out in town was because I could not bear to see my own mother with the yellow star on her coat, insulted and abused by over-zealous, strutting young Nazis and spiteful passers-by. Suddenly everything was allowed. Children spitting on old Jewish men and women, pushing them into the gutter or throwing handfuls of dirty water at them had become a kind of street entertainment …

 Clara beckons the young woman into the living room.

      ‘We have nothing to hide,’ she says with a tremor in her voice, detectable only to herself as she pretends to rifle among papers in her écritoire. Glancing into the mirror above it she glimpses the girl sidling up to the piano, running a finger along the rosewood lid. Such a pretty girl, though not the blonde the Nazis want their young to be – this girl has dark hair, but bright turquoise eyes. With a yellow star on her coat she could easily pass for Jewish.

      She is too thin. A small scar runs up above her left eye, leaving a diagonal white stripe across the eyebrow where the dark brow hairs have not grown back – perhaps a fall on a sharp stone as a young child. It gives the girl a particular look, as if she was perpetually asking a question. Maybe that is why she has been chosen to do this work.

      Clara turns around. A guilty look from the girl as she quickly pulls her hand away from the piano.

–  The girl began writing everything down – all the dates of our lives, mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, dates of births, places of birth, marriages, deaths. She ran her index finger down the list. ‘I need to verify that this is all correct.’

Then she asked for Mama’s papers. Jana, our maid, came into the room and I said to her in Polish, ‘To jest koniec, this is the end. Go and find my mother’s identity card, and Albi’s ancestry booklet. They may be in Albi’s desk drawer.’ I simply couldn’t think where they were at that moment.

The blood had drained from Jana’s face. She ran out. After a few minutes she returned, empty-handed.

‘Are you Polish, like your mother?’ the young woman asked.

‘I hold a Lithuanian passport. My husband is German.’

‘Aryan or Jewish?’

‘My husband Adalbert Teichmann is a catholic.’

She unfolded a colourful chart from her bag.

I knew what it was: the 1935 Nürnberger Laws for the protection of German blood and the German honour, a sheet filled with little circles split into four, codes of who was fully Jewish, half-Jewish, quarter-Jewish, one eighth-Jewish, which grade of Jew could or could not marry – and who was not going to be ‘evacuated’ –  for the moment.

      ‘There is nothing about Catholics here. Just Aryan or Jewish,’ she said.

‘Aryan, my husband is Aryan.’ It took all my energy to pronounce the odious word that now decided our destiny. ‘Although I am half-Jewish,’ I said, ‘I am in the privileged category, because I have been married to Herr Teichmann since 1933.’

The girl laid a sheet of paper on the table. ‘You’ll have to sign this to promise that you will produce all information later, at the offices.’

I went to the drawer of the credenza. There it was: Mama’s Polish passport.

‘Here is my mother’s passport.’ I held it out to her and she took it with almost child-like hands. Like with all Jewish women, the name Sara had been added to Mama’s first names of Eliza Johanna.

I shivered at the memory of that day. In 1938 all Jews, whether Jews or half-Jews, were ordered to surrender all passports and other identity papers. They stood in endless lines, watching as Jewish men had the name of Israel, the women the name Sara often carelessly scrawled across the true names in their passports as if they had no more value than a shopping list. Not only that – they also stamped the monstrous letter J all over the pages. Those who had not surrendered their papers in time found themselves with invalid identity proof. They risked arrest or worse every time they dashed out to buy a loaf of bread.

The girl raised her broken eyebrow. ‘This is in Polish. I can’t read it. You’ll have to translate. The sooner we do this, the quicker I’ll be gone.’ She rummaged in her bag.

I grabbed her sleeve, pleading with her, asking what on earth I could do to prevent your grandmama’s ‘evacuation’.

‘Don’t upset yourself,’ she shrugged, ‘nothing terrible will happen. I can’t tell you anything more. My job is to collect the names and details of everyone here. That’s all I know. For more information you must go to the Oranienburgerstrasse 31.’

Oranienburgerstrasse 31 – the vast Gestapo offices where murders were committed at a simple stroke of a pen.

 She handed me a pink piece of paper – the death sentence for my beloved mother …

    Clara has no breath to utter a single word. The girl slips out of the apartment door with a slight nod, making no eye contact. Clara hears her footsteps on the marble stairs up to the third floor. Why is she going up to Frau Braun?

      Clara’s door is open a crack – the Braun’s doorbell goes. There is a hushed conversation. Was it Frau Braun who alerted the authorities that Clara’s Jewish mother was hiding here?

      ‘The Teichmanns are the owners not only of their apartment but also of this whole building,’ Frau Braun hisses, ‘Jews! They own everything around here and we poor Germans pay them rent, in our own country.’

      Softly, Clara pushes her door to, waits until she hears the girl’s shoes clacking down to the Silberstein’s apartment on the first floor, before she tiptoes out onto the landing, leans over the brass banister, peers down.

      The girl rings the Silberstein’s door bell.

      The Silberstein’s two daughters, together with their two small girls have come to live with their ageing parents. The daughters’ husbands, both non-Jewish Germans, had given in to the pressure of the Nazi Party and filed for divorce – Germans were no longer allowed to be married to Jews. Those who refused to divorce were repeatedly threatened and harassed. What if Albi died? Clara knows she too would be taken like all the others.

      The echo of old Silberstein’s hoarse voice fills the stairwell as the girl fills in her forms. Names, dates, countries and places of birth of grandparents, great grandparents. Religion, of course.

 ‘I was given the Iron Cross in the First World War!’ the old man barks in indignation as if broadcasting to a hall full of people.

 Clara leans over a little further. Old Frau Silberstein, haggard and a mere shadow of her former elegant self, pushes in front of her husband who is leaning heavily on his walking stick.

‘Fighting for Germany,’ the old man shouts, ‘nearly cost me my leg.’

The young woman searches her bag and presses six pink slips into Frau Silberstein’s bony hand. From inside of the apartment the clear voices of the two small girls, the grandchildren, ring out.

      ‘Grandmama, Grandmama. Can we have a pretty pink paper too?’

      Frau Silberstein’s bony hand shoots out, shoves the girl away from the apartment door, right across the landing so the young woman’s back hits the brass bannister. If she reports this incident the Gestapo will raid the building at dawn, drag the Silberstein family into a truck, march her own mother, herself, young Jana out of the apartment, all would be taken to a Sammellager to be transported to a camp – maybe they would even arrest Albi for aiding and abetting Jews. Their doors would be sealed, the apartments emptied and pillaged or given as a reward to a loyal Nazi member.

– I made my way back to the bathroom – pull yourself together, I pleaded with myself. My angel of a mother was wondering where I had got to.

      ‘I’m being drafted to some war work or other,’ I lied, ‘I have to leave immediately and speak to someone to find out more about it.’

      I helped Mama out of the bath tub and dried her off. She had become frail, not only from the increasingly sparse food I could buy.

      Jews were not allowed to shop until after four in the afternoon when the German housewives had left the shelves almost empty. It was also the lack of exercise and fresh air but mostly of being a virtual prisoner in our home. All of this had sapped her strength.

      Thank God your grandmama believed my story. She had no idea that the young woman’s visit had to do with her.

      As soon as it was dark I ran to Doctor Breslauer, our house doctor in the Carmerstrasse.

      ‘What can I do?’ I implored him, ‘this must not happen to my mother. Please, I beg you, give us a certificate that will exempt her from transport.’

       ‘I cannot give you any hope,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard the same story from so many in the last few months. For people of your mother’s age, there is only one way… Come back tomorrow. Make sure no one sees you.

      I walked around the block. His comments took a while to sink in. I had to regain my composure before facing my poor mother.

      When Albi came home in the evening I told him what had happened. We decided that I should go to the Gestapo offices first thing in the morning and we would meet immediately afterwards.

      After dinner your father sat down at the piano and played some Chopin – sad music; it always calmed me down. Albi loved Jazz but no longer dared to play it in case a neighbour might hear it and denounce him. That is how people had become. Hitler’s lot called Jazz ‘jungle music, negro music’, or worse …

Friday 4th September, 1942

Morning, seven o’clock. Shivers creep down Clara’s back. Is it cold? No time to go back for a coat. She hurries out of the building overlooking the Savignyplatz. The early morning sun, already autumnal, catches the tree tops in the square.

How can the sun shine on such a terrible day? She glances back. On a wrought iron balcony of the four-storey apartment building, bought by her grandfather in the early eighteen hundreds when he was in his prime, one of the Silverstein daughters is watering her mother’s trailing geraniums. Clara waves at the young woman, tries hard to smile. How much longer will the Silverstein’s daughter be tending flowers? Their colourful splendour will be extinguished when this family is taken.

Clara turns the corner into the Kantstrasse, then into the smaller Carmerstrasse. On the cobbled street outside number 6, a building much like her own, vehicles have pulled up. Between two black cars stands a van with the back doors gaping open. An official in a long black leather coat waits, hands on hips. Four brown-uniformed men have stationed themselves by the portal. Clara holds her breath – she can’t turn back. It would look suspicious. She raises her head, looks the other way with an arrogant, lady-like air and crosses over to the opposite pavement. Her body turns to ice, her legs are leaden – she forces herself to put one foot in front of another.

Why did they come with two cars and a van? They must be taking someone important away or are they expecting resistance?

Another twenty meters. As she approaches the heavy carved portal of number 6 grinds open and the brown-uniformed men spring into action. A small tousle-haired boy emerges. He is hugging a yellow teddy bear to his chest. One of the bear’s eyes is missing. An old man follows, looking shrunken in a grey coat with a black fur collar. His face is ashen, the eyes sunken under fierce eyebrows. His cheek bones jut out like stones. He is bowed and coughing, straining under the weight of two suitcases.

Behind him tiptoes an old lady, frail on high heels, wrapped in a fur coat, carrying a leather case. An elegant handbag dangles from her arm. Her stockings hang wrinkled on her legs, a sign that she has lost a lot of weight. The leather-coated official grabs the boy by one arm, lifts him up and pushes him into the van. A younger woman carrying a baby and a case clutches a rolled blanket under her arm. She is also elegantly dressed as if the family was going for an afternoon of Kaffee und Kuchen in one of Berlin’s fine cafés. Her face is drawn; her hastily pinned dark locks escape from under her small burgundy velvet hat. She hands the baby to the boy the van and tries to climb into it, exposing her stocking tops. One of the Brownshirts points to her lacy underwear, grinning to the other one – they stand and watch her struggle.

A few steps more and Clara will be level with them. She knows she should look away but she cannot take her eyes off the family. She wants to fix the images, freeze the moment, stop time, turn what she witnesses into a photograph that in future people will gaze at, not knowing what came after the camera shutter has clicked.    

The old man, probably the grandfather, stumbles off the curb under the weight of his cases. His knees give way and he remains kneeling on the cobbles, panting. His elderly wife tries to help him back onto his feet. With an impatient gesture the official in the long coat steps forward. Two of the Brownshirts grab the old man under the arms, drag him to the van and throw him in like a sack. They heave the old lady into the van.

Three more people emerge, a plump woman – she must be the cook or a relative – and two young women, probably maids. Half-hidden behind them a small girl appears. She stops for a moment, her large dark eyes querying the man in the black coat. From her hand dangles a pair of pink ballet shoes; the laces trail on the ground. Her dark curly hair is pulled back in a tight bun. Was she told she was going to her ballet class? She sees her family in the van, looks from one uniformed man to another. The leather-coated man bends down to her and says something – she nods. He steps back and makes an encouraging hand gesture. The girl pulls herself up, puts her heels together with the feet pointing outward, does a little plié, rotates her leg, a croisé, raises herself and stands on points even though her small red shoes are not built for it. She looks up at the officer for approval. He laughs, applauds. The girl smiles. He picks her up like a doll and lifts her into the van, pulls a large handkerchief from his pocket, wipes his hands and throws the handkerchief into the van. The van doors fall shut.  

Clara chokes. They will brutally man-handle her mother like this when they come. Married to an ‘Aryan’, the yellow star does not yet mark her out. One of the Brownshirts has spotted her. Though it is forbidden to Jews, she makes a small gesture of Heil Hitler. She is shaking. Don’t look – don’t look, she prays.

A roar of engines; the van and the cars drive off. Clara glances back – the old man’s suitcases are left in the gutter of the cobbled street.