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We leave the barn and walk to the house.
“Do you have any idea how you’re going to get them out of France?” My words are whispered so only Johann can hear them.
“No.” He looks determined but also resigned to the difficulties he faces when it comes to saving his friends. “I’ve heard rumours of families in Germany and Austria who tried to hide their Jewish friends. It didn’t end well for all concerned.”
I study the face of the man who is a paradox. Johann’s sister is deaf, a target for Hitler. The same sister and his mother are trying to escape the Gestapo. His best friend is dead at the hands of the Nazis for desertion. And his other close friend and his family are fleeing for their lives, fleeing from prosecution because they are Jewish.
Yet he is a captain with the German Army, the country that is responsible for all his anguish.
“Why do you fight for Germany? You’re not even German.” I’m stepping into dangerous waters with my question, but I need to know. I need to know what kind of man he is and how much I can trust him.
“According to the Anschluss, Austria is now part of Germany. And therefore, the Austrian Army is part of the German Army.” Johann glances up at the house where Jacques’s room is located, and he threads his calloused fingers with mine. “Come with me.”
My hand recoils at his touch, almost jerking out of his grasp. But if going with him means getting answers to my questions, I need to give him a chance to explain. I need to trust him, even if he has only earned a tiny taste of it.
But I’m also not naïve. I’ve heard Wehrmacht soldiers are raping French women. If I go with him, am I putting myself at risk of that happening to me?
“I swear I won’t hurt you,” Johann says as if sensing the reason behind my reluctance to go with him. “I just need to talk to you. To explain things without the risk of being overheard.”
My hand relaxes in his, and I nod while praying I’m not about to make a costly mistake.
He takes me to the pond, his safe haven. It’s far enough away from the farmhouse and road to not be seen or overheard. The early rays of dawn poke above the horizon, the sky a striped pattern of muted indigo, mauve, and orange.
He releases my hand and sits on the grass near the bank of the pond. I sink down next to him.
Johann doesn’t say anything, and I don’t push for him to start talking. The quiet, awakening sounds of nature fill the silence, helping me to temporarily forget the war. Allowing me to breathe.
After what feels like ten or so minutes, he releases a long, slow breath. “When my mother first heard the early rumours about Hitler rounding up certain groups of Germans he felt were a burden on society, she ignored them.” Johann’s voice is almost distant, as though he’s reading a schoolbook relaying the facts, but the subtext of emotion is buried deep within the words. Easily missed. “Austria wasn’t part of Germany, and she had no idea if the rumours were true or not. She didn’t know who was being targeted and what was happening to them. She turned a blind eye to it. Then she heard how the Germans were performing surgeries so those individuals couldn’t have babies. Again, she ignored the rumours. She finally grew worried when she learned the SS was targeting deaf people—including children.”
I close my eyes against the pain I imagine would be on Johann’s face if I were to look at him. I would be horrified, shocked, furious if Hitler’s hatred targeted Hazel for something like this. Any of this.
“Anja, my sister, was attending a school for the deaf in Vienna. Our mother begged her to come home. She told Anja she needed her help with the shop. That saved my sister’s life, because eventually it wasn’t safe to be deaf and living in Austria. The teachers at the school told the SS where they could find the deaf adults and children. The people who were supposed to protect them practically handed them over to the murderers.” Johann’s tone tightens, anger and pain and worry streaking his words like blood from a wound.
“My mother knew they couldn’t stay in Austria anymore. But she also knew it wasn’t safe to tell anyone where they were going, including me. I found a note hidden in a place my mother knew I would look. She told me they couldn’t contact me because it was too dangerous.”
My throat and heart ache for what he is going through, losing his family that way. Not knowing where they are and how they are doing. At least I know Hazel is safe in Bristol. It’s my whereabouts she knows nothing of.
Johann’s mother was right to believe it was too dangerous to contact Johann. If the SS had tried to torture the information from him, he might have broken and given them what they wanted. Even if he hadn’t wanted to give it to them. That’s why each member of the SOE and the resistance networks and circuits knows as little as possible. If one of us is captured and tortured, we don’t know enough to bring down the main networks.
“I joined the Wehrmacht because I thought by joining the Army, it would ensure Anja and my mother are safe. The Germans would see I am cooperating with them. I joined the Army and not the SS because I didn’t want to be any part of the Nazi regime.”
“But isn’t the Wehrmacht also part of the regime?” I know some details about the German Army based on my SOE training. The original Army officers didn’t support Hitler and were executed or forced into retirement. Members of the Nazi party replaced them.
“Most of them, yes. But if you are viewed as not supporting the party, you’re at risk of being accused of being communist or socialist or some other threat to the regime. And that would result in imprisonment and possibly death.”
Germany isn’t Johann’s birth country, but Austria is now part of Germany. From what I’ve heard, the majority of Austrians welcomed the Anschluss. They willingly joined the German Army. They willingly threw in their support for Hitler.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, uncertain of his motive for revealing his family history and his reason for joining the Wehrmacht.
“Because I want you to understand. I’m not here because I want to be. If I had my way, there would be no war, my mother and sister would be safe, and I would be doing the job I loved.”
“But you could still turn around and tell your commanding officer about the hiding space in the barn. As soon as you’ve relocated your friends, there’s nothing stopping you from turning against my father and me.” And I have no doubts that Major Müller would either kill us himself if he knew about the hiding place in the barn, or he would turn us over to the SS or Gestapo.
My heart pounds hard and heavy in my chest at that possibility and my skin prickles with fear. Even the brilliant colours of the sky do nothing to ease my body’s reaction.
“You’re right. There is nothing stopping me. But I won’t do that. No one else needs to know about the hiding spot. But I do ask you not to take any more risks. Risks like what you were using the cellar for. My presence here doesn’t keep you safe, Angelique. Just the opposite. Major Müller is curious about you.”
An uneasy feeling slithers into my belly. “Why is that?”
