The House of Blood and Tears by Lenore Eidse

Author:Lenore Eidse [Eidse, Lenore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781512764765
Publisher: WestBow Press
Published: 2017-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

IT’S FRIDAY!

It was Friday! What was special about Friday? Friday was the day that single girls were cautioned to stay off the streets because the Nazis picked up girls to be companions at their Friday night parties. There was always an abundance of wine, women, and song on Friday nights. One saying went thus: “If you have a large pickling barrel, that's where you keep your daughter on Friday night.” One of Anje’s friends warned her, “I was picked up one evening, Anje, and you don’t want that to happen to you. The German men—some of them are very elegant and charming, but they know the effect alcohol will have on a person who is not used to drinking it. Others are very aggressive and won't take no for an answer. So they ply the young girls with hard liquor, and they can get anything they want from them. They went too far that night, and they stripped the clothes off this girl and handed her around the room on top of their hands above their heads, and anyone could feel her as she went by. This poor girl was almost unconscious from drinking, but it all came to a sudden stop when their captain entered the room. He called rank on them, and they all snapped to attention; and the poor girl fell to the floor. He said something to them in German—I couldn't understand it, but I could tell it was a tongue lashing for their behavior. You know, Anje, many girls are raped on a Friday night, so be careful.” As an afterthought, she said, “But there was one bonus from that night. When I left, I stuck one of the officer's revolvers under my sweater, and nobody even noticed.”

“How did that happen?” Anje asked.

Her friend laughed. “You know, the soldiers get very careless with their guns when they have been drinking. Some of them hang their gun belts over their chair, and others hang them up on the coat hooks by the door. That's how I got the one I stole.”

Anje thought, I am fifteen years old, and I am not interested in guns or soldiers. And she realized that her friend didn't actually tell her what had happened to her on Friday night, and she didn't want to know.

The Germans loved to sing, and as Anje was passing by the café they loved to frequent, she could hear them singing one of their favorite marching songs, “Erika.” One night an accordion player was in their midst, and they harmonized as they lustily sang while clapping their hands vigorously to imitate the sound of the drums at the end of the stanza.

“On the heath a little flower blooms and it’s

called: (clap, clap, clap) Erika,

Hot from a hundred thousand little bees that

swarm over (clap, clap, clap) Erika,

Because her heart is full of sweetness, her flowery

dress gives off a delicate scent.

On the heath a little flower blooms and it’s called:

(clap, clap, clap) Erika.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.