Winter Passing (14 page)

“It can be difficult for Americans to understand. Austria is an old place. Your America is a new land. Our heritage has been war and changing hands. In my parents’ generation, this nation had been taken over, torn apart by differing beliefs, taken over again by the Allies, who were Soviets, British, and Americans, and divided among them, then given our freedom again. America is a land of discovery and settlement that has never been occupied by anyone other than itself. Unless you are Native American, you can find it hard to understand.”

“I’ve been quite in the dark about all of this,” Darby said regretfully.

“You are learning quickly. Are you returning to Salzburg soon?”

“Not for a few days or even a week, though I’m running out of time. There’s much to look for—time has become my enemy.”

“The secrets are not going anywhere, unless they are in human form. And then, yes, time is our enemy. What is your next move?”

“I may drive to Linz and maybe the concentration camp at Mauthausen. It wouldn’t hurt to check records in these places after I look here in Hallstatt.”

“Did you remember that I leave for a conference in Dublin in several days?”

“I didn’t. How long will you be gone?”

“Until 17 November.”

“I return to the States on the sixteenth. Unless I stay longer.”

“That is unfortunate. But if you return to your home, I will not stop looking. You have e-mail?”

“Yes, at my office. I’ll call or write you.”

“Katrine will be coming with me to this conference. I am sorry, but you are back on your own for a while.”

“And just when I was getting used to you two.”

“I know. I want to tell you—to find the answers you seek, think with an Austrian mind, not an American. You must discover what we are like, what we have endured. War had split our country. Evil triumphed, not for a short time but seemingly for an eternity. We have been hurt because of that, scarred forever.”

Darby paused, feeling the impact of his words. “I think that’s exactly what my grandmother would have wanted.”

Her luggage waited by the door. Darby stood on the balcony and said good-bye to Hallstattersee. As she turned away, she spotted something white upon the dark waters. A large swan floated along the edge with curved neck and pure white feathers glowing in the morning light. She hoped it was a message from above, telling her that everything would work out. The administration office had been helpful, proving that Celia Lange
had
been born in Hallstatt. There were other records that could be found at the church about family members who were either buried there or now the residents of the bone house. But Darby didn’t want to know that information. It was time to leave, to seek the next piece in the fragmented puzzle. She was hopeful, for she was finding some pieces, though the puzzle grew larger with every discovery.

Darby hauled her luggage down the stairs and rang the desk bell to check out. Sophie hurried toward her with a large smile on her face.

“I am so happy to see you. My grandmother told me something for you today.”

“She did?”

“Yes, she very thoughtful all yesterday and this morning she ask if you here still. When I say yes, she tell me some things.”

“What?” Darby didn’t know if she wanted to hear any more from the old woman.

“My grandmother saw your grandmother one more time after Anschluß, after the other Jews were gone from village. Your grandmother and Tatianna Hoffman came to Hallstatt. My grandmother not know why she come. Her family was gone and house occupied by different family. My grandmother was married and had a child already, and she did not talk to Celia. But they stay only one night in the village and came by train. But when they leave, a young woman pick them up in her car and they go with her.”

“Did your grandmother know the woman?”

“No. This last time she see your grandmother, but she hear that all family went to Mauthausen and not returned.”

“That gives me more to wonder about, but tell her I said thank you very much.”

“One more thing. She say one man might have information, but not know if he still alive.”

“Who is he?”

“He was a boy lived here in Hallstatt. He joined Nazis and was guard at Mauthausen.”

Darby grabbed a pen and paper from her purse.

“My grandmother say this man maybe know about Lange people who died there.”

“A man who knew Celia and Tatianna and was a guard at Mauthausen.”

“His name is Bruno Weiler.”

Darby drove from the village south around the lake. Had her grandmother taken the same route so many years ago? While Darby turned back toward Linz in Upper Austria, Celia had turned the opposite way, deeper into the Alps and Tirol region toward Switzerland. But in fleeing her homeland with Tatianna beside her, Celia had made a quick stop at her childhood village. Perhaps she had said good-bye to the place of her innocence, the place of first love.

Darby envisioned the girls fleeing the sleepy village with eyes turned in fear that someone followed. The sound of Nazi boots hid behind every crevice, in every corner. Would they make it out alive? Would they see each other again? Did they have any idea that these were their last moments together?

And who was the other woman? Perhaps the one who had written and told Grandma Celia of Tatianna and Gunther’s deaths. Darby also wondered why Gunther had chosen another route to escape—through the Sudetenland, which was now the Czech Republic. A completely different route.

Darby spent the morning driving winding roads through mountains and hidden lakeside villages. Ebensee was a lakeside village that had been a subcamp of Mauthausen. Traunkirchen. Gunskirchen. Traunsee. Darby had heard these names from her grandmother and tried to recall the stories.

By early afternoon, she entered the
Autobahn
highway, expecting masses of cars driving over a hundred miles per hour. Yet, though cars sped along, it felt like a comfortable rate. She was never quite sure how many miles per hour she drove on her way toward the industrial city of Linz with the speedometer in kilometers per hour, not miles. Sophie Gerringer had helped her find a place to stay in Linz and had told her a brief history of Austria’s second-largest city. Hitler had spent his childhood in Linz—a fact that surprised her. She hadn’t realized the German Führer was a native Austrian. Unlike Mozart mania, however, Hitler was not a claim to fame for the country. Perhaps if he had won the war there would be Adolf candies and delicacies. When Hitler returned to his hometown with his German storm troopers, he already had great visions for Linz: to recreate it as the Jewel of the Danube. He’d hoped to retire here, if permanent retirement hadn’t been forced upon him.

Darby followed the directions to the hotel and drove into the parking lot. The rural hotel sat on a green hillside with a view of the famous blue Danube River.

Only a few miles of bends downriver was Mauthausen Concentration Camp and its subcamps, Gusen I, II, and III.

Suddenly, as if struck in the face, Darby realized where she was going. Her carefully planned list with its connections and leads included the name of Mauthausen. And not just any concentration camp, but the one that had held and stolen the lives of members of her family, and most likely Tatianna’s life also. Number eight on her to-do list had once been a place of hell beyond hell, and for people with her same blood.

KZ Mauthausen. A place that stole tomorrows. Darby would be there tomorrow.

Brant jumped awake. His chest and back were beaded with sweat, and the sheets were damp and twisted beneath him. The screams from the nightmare continued to echo in his ears. He saw the images that tormented his sleep—black figures with children and babies clutched within their grasp. A monotone voice spoke above the carnage.

“My baby had dark hair and brilliant green eyes. He would smile and laugh when he looked at me. As I patted his back and rocked him at bedtime, he patted mine and snuggled close to my chest until sleep overtook him. My baby was torn from my chest by a soldier. They threw him into the air and used him like a clay pigeon. I embraced death to escape insanity. But by another evil, I lived. After the war, I married again and had two more children. But never do I stop hearing my first baby’s cry.”

Brant tried to shake the story from his mind. But unlike a nightmare his own mind concocted, this was a true story. One of the many he’d witnessed on tape. Brant had always been haunted by the stories, but evermore he was becoming consumed. It seemed his future was to be forever crippled with the sufferings of others. No one understood, except those who survived. Yet Brant did not belong with them either, for he had not lived through it—only witnessed their stories.

How Brant wished to talk to Gunther. How Brant wished things hadn’t changed. In other downtimes, the old man had words to help Brant through, to allow him to see the value of life and living once again. He tried to resurrect the words, but the sound of Gunther’s voice eluded him. He could only hear the cry of children.

Brant kicked the sheets and blankets from his ankles and sat on the floor, the metal sideboard cold against his bare back. The room was more than silent. It was empty just like his life. Suddenly he couldn’t take another day of it.

He turned onto his knees as he’d done when he was a child. “God, help me.”

At that instant, Gunther’s voice returned from a fold of memory. “Everyone asks how God could allow such a terrible thing.” Gunther’s voice resounded with spirit in each word. And tonight Brant listened again. “Why does man blame God? For I want to know how
man
could allow such a terrible thing. God gave man dominion over the earth. If we simply can’t care for one another or stop evil from breeding and growing—”

“But Gunther, I hear their voices,” Brant had said. “I dream about them.”

“I’ve struggled as you are.”

“I’m sorry, Gunther. Of course you have. I lost my mother to a disease, not by man. Why should I complain about hearing the sufferings of others? It should make me appreciate my life, not come to you complaining.”

“You struggle because you truly care. You don’t merely listen; you feel the words and hurts of others. That’s a good thing, though more painful for you. It’s easier to close your heart to others. But keep it open, Brant, despite how you bleed.”

“So where is God in all this—if we can’t blame him? You tell me he’s active in individual lives. Where was he?”

Gunther had faced him then, kindness in his eyes. “And you want to ask, where is he now?”

“Yes.”

“I do not know all the answers. But I know some things from my own life. I know God is quiet at times, but not absent. He hears our cries but allows man’s business. He allows man his own course.”

“And evil takes over.”

“Only the evil that man warrants. That goes for yesterday and today. But still in individual lives and as a collective world, God allows choices. He doesn’t want puppets to seek him. He wants man with a free will. Perhaps he is silent so that man’s work without his involvement can be seen. I do not know. But because of the choice God allows in man, innocents do become victims. While I don’t believe God wants this, he does heal all things and punishes all wrongs.”

“I doubt everything. I don’t know if I believe God exists.”

“I must believe in God because I’ve known both evil and love. I’ve tasted evil within myself and by what’s been done to me. This evil is alive, breathing, destroying. Yet I also have known the opposite of evil. I lived with an incredible, enduring love and found truth and hope in ashes. The good is often harder to find. Evil is easy. Love is hard. But one leads to death. The other to life.”

“How have you survived it all?”

“My faith in Christ. I see what is not in our vision. I hear what few are willing to listen for. I feel what most would say is not there.”

“I could never have such a faith.”

“Do you believe?”

“I think I do, but my doubt is as great. Sometimes it’s too much for me. How can I live with these stories in my head? How do they live?”

“I do not understand how the telephone works.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I do not understand how the telephone works. A few days ago, I made a call and really took a look at the telephone. I’ve been told about a huge wire under the ocean or satellites that transmit sound, but still, I cannot fathom how my voice can be spoken and delivered across the world in one moment. Yet I use the telephone regardless. I cannot understand the telephone, or the computer, or a thousand things that are made by man. How can I claim to understand everything about God? Yet can I give up on God because of my ignorance?”

Gunther had put a hand on Brant’s shoulder then. “One thing I must say to you. I think of you as my son and implore you. You must live, Brant. Live because you can. Live because others cannot. And in that, live for God.”

The words faded away, and Brant was alone again with only past moments. He wanted the old times he’d had with his mentor, when they’d meet for coffee and sit for hours talking. “Who will help me, Gunther?”

A breath of answer entered his thoughts.
Come to me, for I know all the answers
.

Brant felt like Jacob in the Bible wrestling with God. But he finally had reached the end. He could not live as he was, and so he put his trust in the one he did not understand.

As Brant bowed his head, he still heard the stories. But a new strength arose in him that told him to live, to love, to breathe.

The day dawned with glorious greeting. Life breathed in hillsides of green, in clusters of trees adorned with their leaves of many colors, in a windless day of warmth. And Darby was driving to a concentration camp.

She wanted to tell the day to be ugly and sad, that an eternal cloud of stark weather should cover the land south of Linz. The sun should no longer warm the earth; geraniums should no longer bloom in window boxes. But the design of nature with its tearing and healing of seasons didn’t mind her desire or her destination.

Darby followed the signs, exited the Autobahn, continued through towns, passing a McDonald’s and a gas station. A wide, clean bridge crossed the Danube, reminding Darby of her grandmother singing the words to “The Blue Danube,” Austria’s unofficial national anthem.

When Darby turned the car toward Mauthausen, a hillside community, a sudden chill prickled down her back. The sign for the village shared the name of its concentration camp.

The KZ Mauthausen sign pointed the way. The road wound upward past houses, a beautiful tree-lined curve, open fields, up and up. The road was a perfect place for a Sunday drive until she reached the top. There it stood—a walled fortress stretching across the horizon. Guard towers with pointed tops, a straight concrete wall surrounding it, and a red chimney silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky.

She maneuvered the vehicle between the white, straight lines of a parking space. A few other cars inhabited the paved lot along with a tour bus with advertisements for its other excursions—Danube Tours. Darby shook her head at the irony:
One of its stops took camera-happy tourists to a concentration camp.

With her arms still on the steering wheel, Darby leaned forward, letting her eyes trace the length of the massive blocked wall with five rows of barbed wire on the top.

It’s big. As big as I should expect, but bigger than I actually imagined. Tatianna, are you here? My family, are you waiting?

It was time to go in.

Darby carried her camera bag without the intention of taking photos, but for companionship. She stopped at the iron doorway. The structure towered above with a walled courtyard ahead. She felt small in the shadow of the massive stone walls.

No signs led her now, only blind direction.

I feel alone
, Darby thought, though she imagined the cries of thousands who hadn’t been alone, only dreamt to someday be.

She paused in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by the barbed wire–topped walls. Her entire life she’d denied that this place was part of her family heritage. She denied it from entering her life or thoughts. Now she was here. An instant thought told her to run, run, run.

“I feel a part of me has died too,” she whispered to the shadows watching from every crack and crevasse. “Perhaps that’s why I can’t find love or peace. Part of me died here also—is that it? Not body or soul, but heritage and past.”

Darby stood a moment longer. She heard voices from the parking lot, and a couple entered the silent courtyard. Holding hands and a tour book, they’d come to learn and remember. Wasn’t that what this place was for—to help people never forget? The interruption brought her back to the place and her mission.

I’m here for a purpose,
she reminded herself.
I’ve come to search for information, facts, answers. I’m looking for Tatianna, maybe my family too. Information is all I seek; nothing else.

Darby moved toward the end of the courtyard, where wide concrete stairs led upward. Beside them was a plaque in both German and English. She paused to read while the couple passed.

In remembrance of the members of the Second Armoured Division of the US Army who liberated the camps of Mauthausen, Gusen, Ebensee, and others nearby in Upper Austria in May 1945. Their deeds will never be forgotten.

She climbed the steps and stopped at the top. To her left, monuments stretched away toward what appeared to be a massive gorge, which broke off as if the hillside had been eaten away. Darby assumed it must be the granite quarry with its “Death Walk” stairway. She wondered if any of her family members had died on that stairway. Had they stumbled under the weight of granite slabs as Nazis bashed clubs against their bodies? Had Celia’s father, brother, or aunt died this way? Anyone against Nazi policy could have been sent here. What did those faces look like? She didn’t know and wasn’t sure if she wanted that knowledge even now.

Darby turned away from the memorials and quarry and walked beneath another set of stone archways with buildings beyond. A man in a booth sold tickets, tickets to a concentration camp. She understood the need for payment, since the place needed upkeep and financing. But still it made her shiver—she was paying to see where her family was murdered.

Darby handed the man the schillings and asked for a guide or map.

“Bookstore,” came his simple reply. She considered asking for more information, if only she knew German.

Darby entered the main area of the camp, which stretched across the top of the hill. She spotted a bookstore sign beside the structure. When she stepped inside the small room, she saw that several other people were there, perusing books and videos. Darby glanced through the resources too, picked out a few in hopes of finding more information, and bought a guide. On her exit back into the sunshine, Darby held the door for an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Their eyes locked for a moment. Was that sorrow she saw?

“
Merci
,” the woman said as she passed. A French woman.

What’s your story?
Darby wondered as she watched the frail woman gaze around the little store. Darby wished she could have Grandma Celia with her, or someone to hold her hand and share this experience.

Guidebook in hand, Darby tried to refocus on facts. First, get a general overview of the camp, then look for the information needed.

She glanced from map to buildings and walls. The barbed wire atop the granite wall stretched around the camp on three sides. Another barbed-wire fence, once electrically charged, marked the back. Behind her was the entrance gate, while in front was the camp’s main roadway with the roll-call area—where she now stood. Housing or “blocks” lined the left side of the road. At one time these buildings had been the first in several rows of blocks that housed prisoners. Upraised foundations marked where the now-missing blocks had stood. A kitchen unit, laundry building, sick quarters, and brothel—everything the Nazis needed—were in the front. Behind were the inmates from all over Europe—political prisoners, gypsies, criminals, “anti-socials”—with the farthest from the front being the Jewish block. Darby plodded down the long row to the last foundation. A headstone stood in the center with the Star of David and individual rocks covering the top. Darby reached for a stone on the ground and put it on top of the headstone with the others. She paused, feeling the heaviness of the moment, then moved back to the roll-call area.

On a granite wall near the bookstore entrance several plaques caught her eye. This was called “The Wailing Wall.” Darby found the irony in the name. The famous “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem, built next to the last-standing remnant of Solomon’s temple, was a place of prayer for Jews. This wailing wall was for tears and death during long hours of torture.

Darby breathed in slowly. What did she feel? Was this even real? She moved on, walking in and out of buildings, looking at photographs and reading the guide. For minutes, she forgot where she was, as if she’d entered a library or museum. The next minute she again heard the deafening silence of a death camp—a scream that yelled, “I was murdered here, right where you stand and hold your guidebook. They murdered us all, and here the world ended.”

Darby entered a grassy area surrounded by shorter granite walls. The manicured lawn was covered with stone crosses and headstones with the Star of David. No markings rested above individual bodies, since the entire site was a mass grave. Did Tatianna rest here, her body twisted together with Darby’s other family members? Or was she in the ash pile behind the camp, dumped down the hillside slope where grass and flowers and trees now grew?