The Watcher (27 page)

For the last two months, I have been living in a friend's home here. She lost her son and husband
during the war. We are both glad to be away from the destroyed cities and the sadness. It is beautiful here with the mountains around us. Still, Germany has changed forever. Berlin—and Germany itself—is divided among the Americans, British, French, and Russians, as you probably know.

I am sure you are concerned for Adrie. When she discovered you were gone she was extremely angry. Later she sat down at the kitchen table, put her head in her hands, and sobbed, so concerned for you she was, and the dangers facing you. As time passed, she seemed to accept the fact you were gone—and, hopefully, safe in Switzerland. (That is where she thought you might be. She tried to locate you there.)

You may already know, Adrie was eventually arrested for her part in war crimes. She will be in prison for five to seven years. She is alive and who knows? Perhaps she will eventually grasp what horrors the Nazis brought upon the entire earth. You will hear from her before long, I am sure. She loves you in her own way, you know.

Surprisingly, Admiral Canaris, Adrie's chief and head of Abwehr, was murdered by the Nazis. Come to find out, he was helping the Resistance all along. Life is strange. One never knows how things will turn out.

I hope we will meet again, darling, in a peaceful world.

Love always,

Frieda

Sometimes bad news did not come in the form of a letter. I found out in the newspapers that in 1944 there was an attempt to assassinate Hitler. Several Nazi officers—trusted officials—were indicted and hanged—among them, my borrowed, wonderful grandfather, Opa. I will never believe he had any part in the conspiracy. He hated what was going on in his Fatherland, but he would never kill or hurt anyone. His only crimes were helping Jews and others to get out of Germany. Hitler avenged himself by cruelly hanging anyone even remotely involved with the group of assassins. So my kind, wonderful, borrowed grandfather, Opa, was gone.

I worried about Johanna until Daddy discovered that the Bible Students in Germany—the
Bibelforscher
—were free at last, and held a convention in the very stadium in Nuremburg where Hitler vowed to eliminate them. We contacted the Bible Students in the United States and were told Johanna and the rest of her family were free. Fortunately, Johanna now lived in West Germany. However, many of the Bible Students in Russian East Germany were arrested and sent to Siberia for preaching their religion. I have written to Johanna, and I know I will hear from her.

We were able to find out something about everyone,
except Barret and Watcher. Despite all the hours, and calls, letters, and telegrams we sent, trying to locate them, Barret's whereabouts remained a mystery. Sometimes, I'd hear a dog barking outside, and I would fill up with tears.

“Would you like a German shepherd puppy?” Daddy often asked. “We'll get one anytime you say.”

“No dog could ever replace my Watcher,” I'd tell him.

Daddy never quit searching for Barret. He contacted every charity, lists of displaced persons in several countries, and even the prisoners who were in concentration camps and who were still living. Daddy and Mom knew very well how much Barret meant to me, what a good friend he was, and how alone he must have been since Opa died.

“Wendy, honey, sometimes we have to accept things that hurt us in order for the pain to finally go away,” Mom has said many times.

I was gradually realizing I might never find out what happened to Barret and Watcher.

A couple of weeks ago Daddy went to New York City—which he did sometimes for his work. One morning Mom had an idea. “Dad is coming home tonight. What do you say we plan a special dinner for him?”

Mom made Daddy's favorite—a standing rib roast with baked potatoes. I made the New England clam chowder that Adrie had served at the inn in Maine. I baked a chocolate cake with white butter frosting and wrote
I love you
in chocolate icing on the top.

Everything smelled so good, and I knew Daddy would
be delighted with our surprise. He had tried so hard to make me happy, searching for the few friends I had and lost. He was gloomy when he could not find a clue about Barret, because he hated to disappoint me.

“It's time to let go of the sadness and move on,” Mom said.

“I won't beg Daddy to search anymore,” I told her. “Perhaps it's better that I don't know what happened to Barret or to Watcher.”

That afternoon I was in the kitchen when Daddy's car pulled into the driveway.

Mom peeked into the kitchen—and to my surprise, there were tears in her eyes.

“Is everything all right?” I asked anxiously.

“Dad's home. Go on out and greet him.” As she gently pushed me toward the front door, I heard the car doors open, and a dog barking.

“Did Daddy buy a dog?” I asked.

“You know he always wanted a German shepherd,” Mom replied as she opened the front door wide. “Your dad always wanted a son, too—and what do you know—I do believe he found one of each!”

A sweet familiar voice called to me, “Wendy Vendy!”

At first I froze. I could not speak or move. Then I flew out the door, my feet never touching the ground. I flew down the flagstone walk to the front gate, and I flew into Barret's arms while Watcher jumped around us, barking joyfully, his tail wagging like a windmill in a gale.

If you have read my book
Shadows on the Sea
, you have already met Wendy Taylor when she was vacationing in Maine in 1942. She was a strong secondary character in that story, and at the end, she disappears with her newly discovered mother, Adrie. Readers often write to me asking, “What happened to Wendy?”

In
The Watcher,
we catch up with Wendy in Nazi Germany. Her mother, Adrie, a zealous Nazi, requires Wendy to renounce her former life as an American and become the perfect German daughter.

Historically, Nazi Germany was the epicenter of a true horror story where the unthinkable—known as the
Holocaust—
actually
did
happen. This was when the “Final Solution” was initiated, the plan to exterminate the entire Jewish Race. There were thousands of individuals of various religions and ethnic groups that were also persecuted and there are thousands of true stories yet to be written about them.

As I created
The Watcher,
I wove true historical facts into my plot to show how Nazis also turned their evil obsessions upon
three
other groups.

1)
Lebensborn
(meaning “fountain of life”), was formed by Heinrich Himmler in 1935, where he hoped to create a perfect race of children who would one day rule the world. The children of the Lebensborn program were born of blond, blue-eyed German mothers. Their handsome fathers were
Schutzstaffel
(SS) officers, who were already approved as having German forbears for many past generations. The children born to them belonged to and were under the protection of the SS. Thousands of children were born in the Lebensborn program. Others, who were blond and blue-eyed, were stolen from countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland—like Hunfrid in my story.

After the war ended, the Lebensborn children who were born in occupied countries were ill-treated because of their German heritage. For example, ten thousand or more children were born to Norwegian mothers and German fathers. However, when World War II ended, many of their offspring were homeless, orphaned, and victimized. It was not until the year 2000 that the prime minister of Norway formally apologized for the cruelty shown to this group.

I was shocked to discover the concept of Lebensborn originated in California decades before Himmler's project.
http://hnn.us/article/1796

There were many Lebensborn Homes around Germany and other countries. However, I could not find one in Berlin. So I created a home there to introduce Johanna
to the plot, and to keep the story focused in Berlin.

2) I have used the
Bibelforscher
in my story as another group that was mercilessly victimized by Nazis. Bible Students were also known in Germany and around the world as Jehovah's Witnesses.

Wendy's new friend, Johanna, represents this Christian group of German citizens who could not conscientiously take part in the war efforts or the armed services. They considered themselves as citizens of God's coming kingdom and obeyed the Biblical command, “We must obey God as ruler, rather than men.” They would not salute
(Heil)
Hitler as their savior. Most stood firm and were either executed or sent to concentration camps and forced to labor, where they were required to wear the purple triangle to identify them. Amazingly, all they had to do was sign a paper renouncing their religion and they could go free! Very few took that way out.

The
Bibelforscher
kept in constant contact with the world outside, bringing news of the concentration camps, murder of Jews, and persecution of Christians via their
Watchtower
magazines, which were smuggled in and out of Germany through hidden mountain paths at midnight or in a myriad of other ways. Although they were few in number, their steadfastness angered the SS and Hitler obsessively. “We will wipe out this brood from the face of the earth,” he vowed.

A wing at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, is dedicated to the
Bibelforscher
—Jehovah's Witnesses—for their firm stand against war and the fierce persecution they
endured. Documentaries and videos of
Jehovah's Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault
can be found at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum site: ushmm.org. Several other documentaries and videos are available on the Internet. Search for “Jehovah's Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault.” For more information, visit
JW.org
.

3) A question has hung over Germany and the world since that dreadful war: Why did the German people tolerate the horrors of the death camps, the final solution, euthanasia, etc. in their country? The White Rose resistance group was a group of German students who did speak out against the Nazi regime. These young people felt it was the duty of citizens to stand up against an evil regime that sent hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to death. So they spoke up anonymously. When they were found out, they were given a show trial by the fanatic judge Roland Freisler, who ordered their execution by
Fallbeil
(a German variation of the French guillotine).

Today the German nation recognizes the White Rose group's courage and levelheaded reasoning during a time when logic, choice, and freedom were lost. A statue honors them in Munich and the government has issued stamps to memorialize this brave group of German young people. You can read about them at:
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html
.

My amazing daughter, friend, and advocate, Deborah Balas, for her TLC and encouragement as I underwent surgery and worked on this story as well.

Kristan, Stephanie, Jennifer, Lisa, Scott, and Judy—for visits, calls, goodies, and the joy that kept my writing muse alive and glowing.

Gabriele Mues, MD TAMHSC Baylor College of Dentistry, and her expertise in the mystery of the missing tooth.

Marita Smith, for translating much of my text into German.
Ich liebe dich!

The Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and the Jewish Virtual Library, who, through their programs and
archives, keep the history of the Holocaust alive in the hope that such horrors will never happen again.

Ruta Rimas, my talented and considerate editor. Cheers!

Claire and Larry Krane, who made sure I ate well as I journeyed to 1942 Germany. Thank you, as always, for affection and friendship.

My writing group: Thanks for your candor and support over the years.

Congratulations to June Estep Fiorelli, for her new book,
Stuck Toast and Mud Pies: Poems For Kids
; Gail E. Hedrick, for her award-winning book,
Something Stinks!
; and to Elizabeth A. Conard for her book,
Tori and the Terrific Tiger
. My, aren't we the creative bunch?

My Pi Iota Gamma sorority sisters, for listening patiently to my breathless and continual chatter about World War II history—a group hug is coming up!

Also b
y Joan Hiatt Harlow

Shadows on the Sea (
a companion to
The Watcher)

Star in the Storm

Thunder from the Sea

Blown Away!

Joshua's Song

Midnight Rider

Secret of the Night Ponies

Firestorm