VANISHED: If Hitler Had Won The War - A Novel by C.K. LIM

Author:C.K. LIM [LIM, C.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-04T22:00:00+00:00

21. THE PAST

September 1941

“Have you heard?” Ivan asked the moment he and Thomas met on the street. “Konstantin von Neurath has been replaced.” Without waiting for Thomas to respond, he pulled out a baton of rolled up newspapers and shoved it into Thomas’ hands.

It was early morning. A thin mist shrouded the city as they find their way to the bus stop to catch their ride out to the munitions factory. The streets were still quiet ahead of the rush hour. At any moment, the loudspeakers the Nazis had installed at every street corner could crackle to life, announcing a new decree of some sort.

As they walked, their shoes crunching the gravel, Thomas unrolled the baton of newspapers. There, on the top fold of the front page, a picture of a uniformed man with a long face and prominent nose greets him solemnly. He read quickly, eyes glancing up every so often at the road ahead as he walked.

“What do you think? Do you think this Reinhard Heydrich will be like Neurath?” Ivan asked, his steps matching Thomas’, equally brisk.

Thomas reflected on Ivan’s question, casting his mind back to Jan Opletal’s funeral procession from two years earlier.

What happened to Jan Opletal had been a profound misfortune. Everyone thought so. He was a medical student at Charles University who had called for the rise of the Resistance. Thomas didn’t know him personally, only that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Like many of his peers, Jan Opletal was there at Wenceslas Square on what would have been the Czech Independence Day had they not been occupied by Hitler. The crowd protested the occupation, sang the Czech national anthem and shouted anti-German slogans. There weren’t only students there that day, there were other civilians too. The demonstration gathered strength as more and more people joined in. When protestors began to throw stones at German shops, the police fired shots into the crowd.

Two people died. Jan Opletal was one of them.

After his death, Jan Opletal’s coffin was laid out and driven through Prague. The funeral procession was a sea of solemn people clad in dark colour clothing. Thousands of students had shown up, and – in their gathering strength – morphed into an anti-Nazi demonstration.

The uprising was met with brute force. Soldiers piled into the streets, chasing down students with their gunfire. In the aftermath, Konstantin von Neurath ordered for all the universities to be shut down. Two thousand students were arrested. Nine student leaders were lined up against the wall and shot. More than a thousand were taken away, their final destination unknown, their fate uncertain.

Thomas and Ivan escaped by a hair’s breadth. They were lucky. It all came down to that. Thomas knew then that they were no match for Hitler’s army. If they were going to defy the occupation, they had to do it covertly, not overtly.

“If Heydrich is anything like Neurath, the best we can expect is for things to stay the same,” Thomas said as they both reached the bus stop just as the bus came trundling down the road, coming to a halt.

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