SURVIVING THE JUDAS FACTOR

September 12^th, 1943 rolled around.  I don’t know where I was when someone told me, “Go home, see your mother !”

Entering our suite,  I met Capt. Krell,  adjutant to my father.  What was he doing here?  His duty called for him to be in Russia.  Why ??  Icy fear gripped my heart.  Then the unthinkable took place:  while my mother sat in an easy chair not looking at ease at all, Capt. Krell asked me to leave the room;  he needed to be alone with my mother.

I obeyed dutifully,  all the time wondering, ‘Why?’  In the hall outside of our suite stood a large 200-year old wardrobe made of heavy dark wood,  probably oak.  Leaning against its age-worn sides,  I strained to hear the words being exchanged in the suite.  Obviously it was of momentous importance.  While shaking with apprehensive fear,  not being able to hear Krell’s words,  I heard Mutti’s frantic question, “Mein Mann? [my husband?]” followed by an anguished, “Der Junge?” [the boy?].

There must have been an acknowledging nod.  Suddenly the tall wing-doors to the suite swung open. I was asked in by Krell and confronted  my absolutely devastated mother.  Krell had reported that after the artillery fire had ceased  by noon of September 9th,  a date seared into my mind,  Hajo’s unit was commanded to take the hill now in the hands of Russian troops.  Hajo,  as machine gunner  in the lead,  was running up the hill when an enemy sharp shooter killed him with a shot into his forehead.  Death was instantaneous.

***

It seemed, we were traveling through a never ending tunnel.  The blacked out train with its hooded headlights  wound  through  the dark countryside like a camouflaged snake. And  then, suddenly, we could tell that we were approaching Berlin:  there was an ominous red glow in the sky ahead of us ! Berlin ! Bombed and on fire every night, its flames licking the sky,  now welcoming us in agony. We were coming home!

Later we struggled past unending mountains of rubble along once familiar streets. Now  all looking the same, just indistinguishable ruins. Friedrichstrasse off ‘Unter den Linden’, commercially once one of Berlin’s busiest streets and home to our former restaurant ‘International Café‘, was lined by heaps of bricks and charcoaled beams. There was not one building left.  In our layers of clothing -- I wore a pair of Hajo’s slacks tied  up with wire around the ankles to make them shorter, and Mutti’s overcoat on top of my own -- with our blanket bundles on our backs, we looked like pathetic clowns.  A couple walking in front of us, noticed the tragedy of the situation as well.  I heard her say to her husband, “Look,  Guenther, that’s what refugees look like.”