Introduction

In the seaside resort of Heringsdorf, ninety-four-year-old Hermine Voßberg is watching her favorite show about antiques and knickknacks with her son and daughter-in-law. When the appraiser discovers a sterling silver beaker with a cryptic engraving from 1944 in an antique desk, Hermine bursts into tears. Under questioning from her bewildered son, she reveals a secret she’s been carrying for many years. It is the story of Paulina, a Polish resistance fighter, who was desperately searching for her niece in enemy Germany. When the two women met on an isolated compound, they must make a pact against barbarity and despotism.

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Excerpt

Excerpt from Chapter Two

Warsaw, General Governorate, late July 1944

“Make way for a German!”

With those words, the tall, broad-shouldered man shoved Paulina to the curb.

The dainty young woman with the hazel-colored curls stumbled into the street. She almost dropped her basket. As she righted herself, Paulina caught sight of the silver skull on the peak of the man’s cap. He stood on the curb, looking down at her. That’s when she made out the white letters SD for Sicherheitsdienst—the German intelligence agency of the SS on the black patch on the left sleeve of his uniform.

She quickly lowered her gaze and busied herself with the linen cover on her basket. This region of Warsaw had been under German control for years now, and she couldn’t be too careful. Under no circumstances could she afford to let a German intelligence officer see the disgust in her eyes. Or the fear.

“What’s that you’re hiding?” He rudely pushed her hand away from the basket.

“Just bit of bread and potatoes from market. So not get dirty.” Paulina spoke the enemy’s language as fluently as her native Polish, thanks to her German grandmother. But in this case, she deliberately made mistakes. While the Germans demanded that the Poles in the General Governorate converse in German with them, anyone who spoke German too perfectly might be considered a conspirator.

The officer pointed at the cloth. “Remove it!”

“Yes, Officer.” She carefully moved the cloth to the edge of the basket.

He leaned forward and eyed the dark brown loaf and a handful of wrinkled potatoes in the basket. “And what are you hiding underneath?”

“No hide.” Paulina lifted the bread and moved the potatoes around. “Can I go on now? Must cook for mother. Old and sick.” Every time she was inspected, she would claim that she had her mother to care for. Her mother was long dead. She had thus far been successful in this ruse.

But this time the officer did not motion her to move on.

“You will speak only when spoken to!” he bellowed. “I’m not interested in hearing about your mother!”

“Yes, Officer.” Paulina was beginning to sweat. And not just because her jacket was much too warm for the summer heat. She suppressed the urge to wipe her neck. Every move she made might arouse suspicion, and that might end badly for her.

“ID card!” The officer snapped his fingers.

“Yes, yes. Must get from inside jacket, ok?”

The officer waited. “Nice and slow. Otherwise...” He placed his hand on the gun, plainly visible in his holster.

Paulina could barely breathe as she handed him the document. “Here.”

He leafed through it. “Paulina Piotrowski? Born July 10, 1922 in Danzig?”

“Written in ID, no, Officer?”

“Don’t get fresh, missy! Or we’ll be continuing our conversation elsewhere, is that clear?”

“Please excuse, Herr Offizier.” Paulina almost suffocated on the submissiveness in her voice.

The officer tapped her ID card on his hand. “Where’s your work permit?”

“No permit. No work. Because of mother.”

“I see!” The officer raised his eyebrows. “So that’s how well you Polacks are doing, thanks to us! You can still afford to laze around! Well, no wonder that it didn’t take us more than five weeks to win the war against you.”

It took all of Paulina’s willpower to suppress the rage that welled up within her.

“But now we’re your masters and we’re about to teach you some discipline! The next work order’s going to send you to the Reich. I’ll see to it myself!” he said, waving her ID card in the air.

Thinking he was about to return the card to her, Paulina extended her hand, but he quickly withdrew the card and tucked it into his pocket. “Not so fast! We need to be able to find you. Work sets you free, don’t you know?”

He roared with laughter and marched on.

Paulina trembled. She wiped a strand of hair from her sweat-drenched forehead. That was close! She did not even want to imagine what would have happened had the officer taken her to the Gestapo headquarters to verify her information. The details were mostly correct, but the identity card itself was forged.

In a way, Paulina would love to be there, a fly on the wall, when the German police showed up to detain her—because the address on her ID card belonged to a church and not a residence. The Germans always considered themselves smarter than the Polish people under their rule, and that was their big mistake. That’s how Paulina was able to distract the SD officer with the potatoes and the loaf of bread. And that was also how he had neither noticed the bulge under her jacket where her pistol was concealed nor suspected that instead of coming from the market, she was coming from shooting practice with her resistance group. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. What do you imagine when you hear the expression “Fount of Life” (in German Lebensborn)?

2. Why do you think kidnapped the Nazis blond and blue-eyed children in occupied territories like Poland?

3. Do you think history mirrors the eternal fight of good against evil?

4. What do you think – how much courage is required from a single woman in order to save a child from Nazi-Germany in the midst of war?

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