ravensbruck2

 Almost home, Bertha Liedmater in her dark hat and wool scarf and wrapped in her warm coat against the driving rain,  lets go her son, Max’s hand, and he skips ahead on the broad pavement of Fassenen Strasse. Her husband Karl has his hand through the crook of her elbow. He walks with a pronounced limp, a memento of the first world war and that’s what catches the attention of the ruddy faced brownshirt, in his SA uniform, stumbling along, drunk and almost knocking them over.

‘Heil Hitler,’ grunts the young, ball-faced Stormtrooper from beneath his cap.  

Bertha nods back at him and exchanges a wary glance with Karl. He grips her arm tighter. They keep walking, but the Stormtrooper circles back, standing in front of them and blocking their way.

‘Heil Hitler!’ His right arm shoots out as if attending the Nuremberg Rally, fingers locked together and almost poking into their faces.

Karl lets go of her arm and takes a step backwards. Bertha stands her ground.

‘And good evening to you too, young man,’ she says.

He looks through the rain at Karl’s broad and weary face for an explanation.

‘Juden?’ his eyes narrow.

Karl shakes his head, ‘No’.

A woman with a bronze mother’s cross on the lapels of her coat, pushing a pram with two toddlers riding shotgun pushes past them smiling at the SA teenager.

‘Communist dogs?’ the brownshirt sneers.

Again Karl shakes his head.

The brownshirt steps closer, draws himself up to his full height of six-foot, on parade, and dwarfing them. Once more his arm shoots up and out. ‘Heil Hitler!’

Max returns and tugs at the flap of his mum’s long coat, trying to pull her away.

‘We are Jehovah Witnesses.’ Karl meets his eyes and it’s clear he doesn’t understand what that means.

His arm falls and he frowns and turns to the diminutive Bertha for a translation as if noticing her for the first time, but she remains tight lipped. 

Max pipes up, ‘Mum and Dad think Hitler is the Antichrist, and it’ll soon be the end of the world. And Jesus will come and reign for a thousand years. And you’ll be judged evil and flung into the fiery pit until the final days of judgement.’

‘Is this true?’ asks the Stormtrooper.

‘Yes,’ says Bertha, her hazel eyes burning brightly and meeting his gaze. ‘It’s all prophesized in the Bible.’

He hawks up and spits mucus in her face.

Max digs deep into his coat pocket and brings out an oversized hanky, which he hands to his wife.

The Stormtrooper slaps him hard across the cheek and laughs when he makes no effort to defend himself. He saunters away.

‘I hate you,’ Max shouts at his dad, and burrowing into his mum’s leg.