Sentimental Journey by Jill Barnett

Author:Jill Barnett [Barnett, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Historical, War & Military, cookie429, FICTION / Romance / Historical
ISBN: 0671035347
Google: ZMK8FiHzd9sC
Amazon: B003YUCGMI
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Published: 2010-08-08T21:00:00+00:00

“HOCH AUF DEM GELBEN WAGEN”

The RAF planes stationed in Malta had managed with uncanny regularity to destroy German supply ships crossing the Mediterranean with fuel, food, munitions, and mail for the Afrika Korps. Estimates were that as much as fifty percent of the cargo lay at the bottom of the sea. This is what the supply officer told Rheinholdt when the lorries finally arrived, so many days late.

Inside his tent, not long after the supply trucks had driven away, he opened the last of his three letters and read it as he smoked a cigarette and walked toward his cot:

Dearest Frederick,

I have only just sent you a letter, one I wrote yesterday. I must now write another. I have very bad news. Joseph’s family is gone, everyone. The SS came and took him, his father, his mother and sisters. They are still in Berlin, but no one will say where. I have heard that once anyone is on the trains to the camps, it is impossible to get them released. There are terrible rumors. I do not know if you have heard what they say about the internment camps, but it is so horrible I cannot write the words.

They did not take Liesel and the children. They were not home at the time. But they have disappeared. No one knows where they are. I wonder did they pick them up on the street? We do not know and cannot find out.

Frederick, I do not understand this. Your father saw this coming. What kind of men do these things to people, to Germans, to women and children?

Rheinholdt read the last line of the letter and for a moment did nothing. His jaw grew tight, and he wadded the paper into his tight fist. He threw the cigarette on the ground and crushed it with his boot.

This letter should have been on one of the ships that went down. It belonged on the ocean floor. He took deep, long breaths to control the anger that made his hands shake. He wanted to hit something.

His little sister and her beautiful children. His niece and nephew were just four and two.

He sat down for a moment because he felt suddenly empty. His friend Joseph, his brother by marriage. He ached for the family that had been so much a part of his life that he always thought of them as his good friends. That they were Jewish did not matter. That anyone was Jewish did not matter!

He felt a good million miles away and completely impotent.

His father had been right. He had become part of those politics. His feeling of shame was so intense his face grew hot. His hands still shook, his knuckles were white, his breath shallow. He turned, pulled his satchel out from under the cot, and dug furiously through it before he pulled out a bottle of schnapps, opened it, and took a long drink that burned down his throat.

He rested his head in his hand for a minute. There were tears in his eyes.

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