Waltraud: A True Story of Growing Up in Nazi Germany by Tammy Borden

Author:Tammy Borden [Borden, Tammy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-09T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Summer 1943

W e lived on the corner of Elmstrasse and Murrgasse Street in a beautiful two-story house with a half-hip gabled roof. Vati would have approved. I was sure of it.

The owners lived in one half and we lived in the other. They were an older couple who kept to themselves mostly, except for the occasional exchange while hanging laundry out to dry or paying rent. Our side of the house was large enough to have my own bedroom, which was a big relief. But it was hard to go back to having to walk outside to the outhouse. Oh to have an indoor bathroom again, let alone my own.

Mutti was less on edge than she was in Rautheim. Even so, I rarely saw her smile. I rarely saw any emotion. Except for one morning when I woke up before the sunrise.

A giant yawn came from deep inside as my feet shuffled into the kitchen. I rubbed my eyes and Mutti came into view. Clutched between her fingers was one of Vati’s letters. She kept them in an old wooden box with ornate carving, the one she hid away in a closet in her bedroom.

The box sat open on the table with a stack of letters nearby, looking like they’d been read for the hundredth time. Did she put herself through this tortuous ritual before break of dawn every morning while everyone else was still asleep, reading old letters and notes from Vati in the morning’s stillness?

At the sight of me, she sniffled and sat up straighter, snatching up the letters and placing them back inside the box.

“Mutti?”

“You’re up early.” She closed the lid and fastened the latch. “Are Werner and Anneliesa up, too?”

“No. I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d drink some tea.”

“There’s hot water on the stove. Help yourself.”

I made a cup of tea and sat next to her in awkward silence. I stared at the box.

“Is everything all right?”

She brushed her skirt. Moments passed.

“Just wishing we would get another letter,” she said.

I wished the same. In fact, every time I sorted the mail, I’d look for any coming from soldiers, hoping against hope there would be another one from Vati. There wasn’t.

“Can I read them?”

Mutti’s eyes softened and I swear she winced at my request. She reached for the box and opened the lid.

The folds in the paper were starting to rip in several places, confirming my suspicion she read them often. The dates went all the way back to his time before the war began when he was conscripted for training in Braunschweig. I counted the years in my head.

It couldn’t be. Six?

The math didn’t add up. Had it really been that long? It was an eternity all the same.

All I wanted was for things to be the way they were when I was a child, when I was oblivious to the evils lurking around every corner, when our family was whole and happy, before power-thirsty men sent Vati and millions of others to do their bidding.

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