Out of the Smoke Read online

  He heard her sniff. “But he grabbed me and kissed me anyway. I . . . I tried to push him away but he was really strong and—”

  Hans’s voice went cold. “What did he do, Lisa? Tell me.”

  “He tried to . . . uh . . . put his hand inside my blouse. Fortunately, we heard the others coming to join us, and he quickly stepped back. But he told me that if I said anything, he would come back and beat me up.” Lisa’s voice was almost a wail now. “What do I do, Papa? We’re going on another hike next week with them. I have to go. I can’t tell my friends why I don’t want to. But what if he tries to do it again? And this time. . . .”

  Hans could almost sense her shudder. He was silent for a long moment, his mind churning. What came out was a sudden random thought. “Is this why you called while Mama was at church? So she wouldn’t hear all this?”

  When Lisa finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “You can’t tell her, Papa. She’ll make me come home.”

  Before Hans could answer, the older woman’s voice sounded sharply in the background. “Alisa. Your time is up. Hang up now!”

  “What shall I do, Papa? Tell me quickly.”

  “Go to Miki and Gerhardt. Tell them what happened. They’ll know what to do and—”

  There was a sharp click and the line went dead.

  June 19, 1932, 3:35 p.m.—

  Bayerische Hitler Youth Camp, Southeast Bavaria

  By the time Lisa finished her story, Miki Borham’s eyes were spitting fire.

  “And what is the name of this pig?”

  “Günther. Günther Dangel.”

  “How old?”

  “I’m not sure. Sixteen I think.”

  Miki angrily kicked at the dirt. “Das Schwein! Onkel Hans was right to have you come and tell me.” She grabbed Lisa’s elbow. “Come. Let us go find Gerhardt.”

  As it turned out, Gerhardt was in the stadium. More than two dozen boys were playing a fast-moving game of Fussball. But the moment he saw Miki and Lisa, he trotted off the field. As he passed a bench, he scooped up a towel and began wiping at his face and upper torso. The temperature was nearing ninety degrees, and the field was now baking under a merciless noon sun.

  Lisa was awed as she watched him approach. Though Gerhardt was seven years older than she was, he had always been nice to his younger cousins and fun to be around. With his brownish-blonde hair and light blue eyes, he was as handsome as Miki was beautiful, though they were complete opposites. Lisa also knew there had always been a close bond between this brother and sister.

  “Guten Tag, Lisa,” he said with a broad smile. He wiped the perspiration off his face and tossed the towel aside. “Good to see you.” He looked at Miki. “What’s up?”

  “Can we talk?” Miki asked.

  “Sure.” Gerhardt turned and called to his team that he would be right back and then led the girls behind the bleachers where there was some shade. He sat down on the grass and motioned for them to do the same. As they did so, Miki jumped right in. “Lisa has a story to tell you.”

  It took Lisa less than a minute to recount it, and she blushed furiously as she did. Suddenly she felt like she was six again. As Gerhardt listened, he plucked angrily at the grass. When she finished, he stuck a blade of grass in his mouth and began chewing on it. “What would you like me to do, Lisa?”

  That took her aback. “I . . . uh . . .” Then she shrugged. She was so grateful to have someone to talk to, she hadn’t thought about what to ask for. All she really wanted was for it to all go away. “Will you help me?”

  Gerhardt let out a long, slow breath, nodding thoughtfully. Then, to Lisa’s surprise, he reached up and touched the slash of a white scar on his lower left jaw. He was no longer watching her but staring out across the wide expanse of the camp grounds. “Has Miki ever told you how I got this?”

  “No,” Lisa murmured. “I’ve wondered.”

  “Do you remember when my birthday is?”

  She thought for a moment and then shook her head. “In April. But I don’t remember the day.”

  “It is April twentieth.”

  Her eyes widened. “The same as Hitler’s birthday? Really?”

  Gerhardt nodded. “So when I turned ten, I did what every son of strong party members does. I went to a huge rally in Munich and formally joined the Hitler Youth. And like thousands of other parents across the Fatherland, my parents ‘gave’ me to the Führer as their birthday present to him. But, to our great astonishment, the Führer was actually there in person. On that day, I swore my first oath of allegiance to the Führer, just as we still do every morning. But I guess Mama and Papa had told someone that it was my actual birthday, and that person told Hitler. So to my utter surprise, they called me up to meet him. He talked to me for a few moments and I had my picture taken with him. They later sent an autographed picture to me and my parents.”

  He looked at Lisa now. “I know that’s not a big deal to you, because Onkel Hans gets to see him all the time, and you’ve met him personally too, right?”

  She nodded. “Several times.”

  “Well, for me, it was the most exciting day of my life.” His brow lowered and his jawline was like stone all of a sudden. “Then two months later, I came here for my first summer camp, and my own personal hell began. You won’t remember, Lisa, because you were too young, but I was kind of a skinny little kid back then,” he said. “Thin as a rail, and afraid of my own shadow.”

  “You’re right, I don’t remember that,” Lisa said with a smile.

  “I do,” Miki laughed.

  “Anyway,” Gerhardt continued, “camp life was a horrible adjustment for me. But I got through it, only because one camp leader took me under his wing and helped me a lot. But my second year the nightmare got even worse. One older boy in my company took an instant disliking to me and decided to make me his personal project. His name was Fritz Rauchmann. He was my age, but built like a draft horse.” There was a flicker of a smile. “Kind of looked more like a jackass, though.”

  As both girls laughed, he went on. “Anyway, first it was just taunting me publicly. He called me every name you can possibly think of—sissy, scaredy-pants, mummy’s boy, weakling, rabbit—­because I jumped at the slightest sound. I tried to ignore him, but he wouldn’t let it go. In the last week of that summer, our platoon leaders brought all the boys out on the field. We had been ­encouraged to fight each other before, but this was a massive brawl, involving every boy in the camp, old and young, no division by age. We were in the stadium. They said that anyone left standing at the end of half an hour got to go into town and visit the cinema that night. Then they stepped back and blew the whistle.”

  Lisa was staring at him. She knew the leaders liked to foster what they called “strength through conflict” because it built character and courage for the boys. But ten-year-olds against sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds? She shuddered at the thought.

  “I hung back on the sidelines,” Gerhardt was saying. “Then one of the platoon leaders saw me. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the thick of it, yelling, ‘Get Rabbit! Get Rabbit!’ Care to guess who the first boy to jump me was?”

  “Fritz.”

  “Exactly, and two of his buddies. I ended up in the infirmary with a broken wrist and a cracked rib. Since it was the last week, they let me go home a couple of days early to recover.”

  “And what did Uncle Klaus and Aunt Heidi say when they saw you?” Lisa asked.

  Gerhardt was looking away again, angrily plucking at the grass. “My mother came into my room that first night and found me crying. She said four words, then turned around and stomped out.”

  “What did she say?” Lisa asked, horrified now.

  “‘German boys don’t cry!’” Gerhardt shrugged. “That was all.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Lisa cried. “Onkel Klaus and Tante Heidi?”

&
nbsp; “Don’t forget how the Führer saved our dairy farm, Lisa. It was horrible. One moment we were some of the most prosperous people in Graswang. The next, we—all three families—lost everything. And then this black car drives up during the funeral. Adolf Hitler gets out, comes over to your father, and hands him the deed for the farm, all signed and notarized. My parents don’t believe that Hitler is a god. But to hear them talk about him, you’d think they did. And ever since then, whatever Hitler asked for, they gave it, then doubled it again.”

  “So what did Onkel Klaus say when he saw you all beat up?” Lisa whispered, already guessing what was coming.

  “He didn’t ask what had happened. Or how I was doing.” He looked away, and his mind was suddenly back in his room that night.

  Miki waited a moment and then spoke for him. “Papa said, ‘Son, if you want me to, I’ll go down and talk to the camp leaders. I’m head of the party in the area, so they will listen to me. And nobody will touch you after that. But that doesn’t fix the real problem. And that is that you are a coward. And only you can fix that. And until you do, there will always be a Fritz Rauchmann in your life.”

  Lisa was shaking her head in astonishment. “And so you went back,” she said finally.

  Gerhardt’s expression was grim. “Not that summer, because camp was over. But yes, I went back the next summer. But the very day the doctor said my wrist and ribs were strong enough, I started working out. That fall, winter, and spring I went on long, punishing hikes. I started lifting weights. I took a boxing class.” He grinned. “And then I went back to camp the next summer.”

  “What happened?”

  “The first week we were there, our platoon leader called for another general brawl with all the boys. Fritz and his two Neanderthals came straight for me. I pretended to be frightened, then when Fritz grabbed me, I head-butted him in the face.” He grinned. “I broke his nose.”

  Lisa clapped her hands. “Really?”

  “Ja, ja,” Miki said eagerly. “Sent him to the infirmary. The other two boys quickly found someone else to pick on.”

  “Wow! Just like that.”

  “No, not just like that, Lisa,” Gerhardt said. “Oh, nothing else happened for a while. They stayed clear of me. Then about four nights before we were to go home, they came for me in the middle of the night. Fritz and four others. They dragged me outside, pinning me down.”

  “You should have hollered for the counselor.”

  Gerhardt snorted in disgust. “The counselor was in the door of his tent watching. When he was sure I had seen him, he went back inside and pulled the flap shut. It wasn’t his problem. It was my problem.”

  He turned away, and Lisa saw that his jaw was clenching and unclenching. So Miki spoke for him again. “Do you know what a Totenkopf is?”

  “Ja. A skull and crossbones.”

  “Ja, ja. And do you want to guess what kind of ring Fritz was wearing that night?”

  “A Totenkopf ring?” Lisa gasped as she realized the source of Gerhardt’s scar.

  “Yes,” Gerhardt said. His right hand came up and he ran his index finger along the scar. “I spent another three days in the infirmary where they stitched it up. Then I went home. Camp was over.”

  “What did your parents say when they saw what had happened?” Lisa exclaimed.

  “Nothing. I told them I had slipped during a hike and hit a rock.” He held up his left hand. “Then I went out and bought this.” On his ring finger he wore a Totenkopf ring that was made of some kind of jet black metal. She hadn’t noticed it before.

  Lisa’s eyes were wide. She was shocked, amazed, horrified. And so proud of him that she wanted to throw her arms around him.

  Miki reached out and touched Lisa’s shoulder, so she turned around to look at her cousin. “That next summer when Fritz showed up at camp, he had been promised that he would become the platoon leader. But when everyone saw that he had a scar on his jaw in the same exact place as Gerhardt’s, and that he and his two buddies gave Gerhardt a wide berth, and that Gerhardt was wearing his own ring, the boys’ camp director made Gerhardt the platoon leader instead, even though he was only fifteen.”

  “So you didn’t wait until you came back the next summer?” Lisa asked, speaking to Gerhardt.

  “Oh no, I knew it had to be solved before then.”

  Her mind racing, Lisa sat back, studying her cousin’s face. Then, finally, she nodded. “I understand what you’re saying, Gerhardt.”

  That seemed to please him. What he said next was spoken with great gentleness. “Lisa, you have to know that if you let this Günther creep have his way with you, half the boys in camp will come knocking too.”

  “I know,” she said forlornly.

  “My English literature teacher taught us a quote from the American author Robert Louis Stevenson. He said this: ‘You cannot run away from weakness. You must sometime fight it out or perish. If that be so, why not now and where you stand?”

  Lisa stared at the ground, feeling sick, but knowing what she had to do. She got to her feet. “Danke, Gerhardt. I understand.”

  He and Miki got up as well as she turned and started away.

  “Lisa!” Gerhardt barked.

  She turned back. He was grinning broadly. “Just because you have to solve this yourself doesn’t mean that you can’t get some training from someone who knows what you’re going through.”

  She gave a little cry of joy, ran back and threw her arms around his neck, and hugged him so tightly he thought he might suffocate. When she finally let go, he smiled. “Let’s meet back here tonight after supper, and I’ll show you a thing or two.”

  Chapter Notes

  The information on the Hitler Youth camp and its programs, practices, values, and the kinds of experiences the youth had there, including the ­deliberate toughening up process and brutal discipline, comes from an excellent three-hour documentary on the Hitlerjugend (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjqoGYEKSIk). It includes many interviews of those who were part of the Hitler Youth when they were younger.

  When Hitler came to full political power in 1933, membership in the Hitlerjugend became mandatory for all German youth, not just the children of party members. When war broke out in 1939, there were 8.8 million youth enrolled—about 80% of the population of that age group. Young men in the older groups were immediately sent off to war. Near the end of the war, even twelve-year-old boys in the Hitlerjugend were pressed into service and sent into battle, often with no more than a week or two of training.

  July 19, 1932, 2:15 p.m.—Eckhardt Home

  Emilee shut the door to Nikolaus’s bedroom quietly behind her and then listened to make sure he was going to stay asleep. Satisfied, she wiped at her brow with the sleeve of her dress and started down the hall. She stopped again at Inga’s bedroom door and listened for a moment. Nothing. Sehr gut. Hans’s mother was seventy-one now, and while she was still in excellent health and her mind was as sharp as ever, she tired more easily and often took midday naps, something unheard of two or three years ago.

  As she passed the door to the master bedroom, Emilee was tempted to slip in and take a quick nap herself. It was a hot summer day and the house was sweltering. Though sorely tempted, she sighed and continued on out to the living room. But since that room had two south-facing windows, if anything it was even more sweltering than the bedrooms. She decided she would go outside and see if there was any breeze at all.

  As she opened the front door, she pulled up short. Her husband was sitting on the first step of the porch, partially in the shade of the walnut tree. “Hans?”

  He jumped. “Oh.” Then an embarrassed smile. “Guten Tag, Schatzi.”

  She moved swiftly to stand over him. “What in the world are you doing home?”

  “Reading the mail.” Hans smiled and held up the letter he was reading. “We got a letter from Mitch and Edie West
land.”

  Emilee put her hands on her hips. “Hans Otto Eckhardt. It is not yet three o’clock and we are less than two weeks away from the next election. What are you doing here?”

  He patted the step beside him. “Sit down. It’s quite a long letter and filled with news.”

  “Did you get fired?” she exclaimed.

  He hooted softly. “I wish!”

  “Hans!” The word came out like a whiplash. “Why are you home so early?”

  The bitterness turned his face into flint. “Because if I had stayed another moment, I would have gotten into a catfight with Ernst Roehm.”

  That rocked Emilee back. “No, Hans. Not Roehm. Don’t you tangle with him.”

  He ignored that. “With the Führer up in Hamburg for a major rally, Ernst is strutting around the office like an old rooster. Since Chancellor von Papen lifted the ban on the Sturmabteilung a month ago, his storm troopers have been raising hell all over Germany. What was Papen thinking?” Then he answered his own question. “He wanted to make Hitler look bad.”

  Emilee sat down beside him. “Ja, I’ve been reading about that in the newspapers. They’re saying this is the worst civil unrest we’ve seen since those first years after the Great War. And they’re blaming it mostly on the Nazi Party. That’s not going to help you get votes.”

  “Don’t you think I know that, Emilee?” Hans snapped irritably. “Roehm claims that he has little choice. He’s been trying to hold his men in check now for months, and that’s like trying to rein in a pack of rabid wolves. So as soon as the ban was lifted, the S.A. hit the streets seeking battle and blood. And they quickly found it with the Communists, the unionists, and the more leftist-leaning Socialists. In Prussia alone—and much of this is in Berlin—there have now been 460 incidents of pitched street battles, leaving eighty-two dead and four hundred seriously wounded. Eighty-two, Emilee! Think of that. That’s a whole village in some places. A week ago Sunday, in other places around the country, eighteen more people were killed. And yesterday in a suburb of Hamburg, right before the first of Hitler’s big rallies, Roehm’s men came in the hall arm-in-arm with the local police.” He threw up his hands in disgust. “Can you believe that? It is bad enough when the Brown Shirts cause trouble, because everyone knows that they’re an arm of the National Socialists, but now they come escorted by the very ones who are supposed to be defending the people? An hour later nineteen people were shot dead. Another three hundred were wounded. This is a huge black eye for the party. Yet Hitler is too busy to deal with it.”