Introduction

On Christmas Day, 1986 a seventy-year-old widow’s body was discovered inside a wheelie bin in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Despite a long and intensive investigation, the police fail to unearth a motive or identify a suspect. Lacking any clues, the police file it as a cold case. Some half a century earlier the Third Reich ramps up its offensive to arrest and deport to the East the Nazi regime’s classification of undesirables. As part of the sweep, a young girl is arrested along with her parents. They are placed in a box car and forced to endure a three-day harrowing train journey. The final stop: Auschwitz. On arrival she is separated from her parents to never see them again and is forced to suffer years of punishing labour, near-starvation and daily horrors. She is freed six years later when the Russian army invades Poland and liberates Auschwitz. Vindicated by her survival she sets out on a journey all the way around the world to Australia, in search of the one person that she blames for her ordeal in Auschwitz. Is that the clue that the police missed in trying to solve the crime?

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Excerpt

BERLIN

Winter 1941

I would have died when I was ten. But I didn’t, and you would think that that was my good fortune. Except other people that I hold dear died and another paid dearly in my stead for that stroke of luck. And, well, it is a strange and bewildering memory to behold, but back then, as I think of it, and I do think of it often, the shards of a shattered past that reflect on my life today are a constant reminder of how an orderly, ordinary life unravelled violently. It did so with such ferocity, and that may be the salve that quiets my troubled conscience; that no one, least of all me, had time to prepare or plan. The irony is that had my life not imploded I would not be here and the events that unfolded would have never happened.

It started well before I was even born. I was ten when I became keenly aware of the troubles. That’s how I often heard my parents, Heinrich and Alana Lipschutz, refer to the upheavals in Germany. I would be in bed, listening intently, late at night, to their hushed conversation in the dining alcove that was adjacent to my room. I could tell that they were upset and worried. But most of what they said I didn’t understand. They talked about evacuation, deportation, Palestine, Nationalsozialisten, Hitler.

On one particular occasion other couples came by, without their children, which I thought odd, and they all huddled around the dining-room table, drinking tea or wine, and the same words came up. Except a word that I had not heard before had them all in a state of panic: Kristallnacht.

I am Ruth. And it took a little while longer for the troubles to trouble me. I had just turned ten when I was called into the school principal’s office. Herr Baumgartner, a dour man with a permanent frown, asked me to sit down as soon as I came in. My parents were there too, seated with their backs to the door. As soon as I saw them I knew I was in trouble. My heart sank, and in a state of panic I thought back to every little misdeed that I had committed to prepare a defence for what might have come to light.

“Mr and Mrs Lipschutz,” Herr Baumgartner began in a hoarse voice, “Ruth is a wonderful pupil: well behaved, excellent marks, impeccable attendance. And for our part this school has tried to keep our pupils protected from all the troubles that are going on out there. As such I have been avoiding this. But…” Here he faltered and placed a piece of paper on the desk, right side up, facing my parents.

My father reached across and took the piece of paper and held it between him and my mother. They both read silently.

I could see Father’s face turn grave, like when he learned that Grandpapa had died, and Mother started sobbing.

“I am now forced to comply or I will be fired from this post and put in jail. Or even worse,” Herr Baumgartner resumed, seeing my mother’s distress.

My father was overcome with sadness and didn’t say anything. He just nodded and reached for my mother’s hand. Silently they stood up and both shook Herr Baumgartner’s hand, taking the paper with them. For the only time I can remember, Herr Baumgartner displayed a smattering of emotion. His hand quivered and, in a voice edged with pain, he said, “I am very sorry. I will go and collect Ruth’s things from the classroom. If you can just wait in the outer office.”

My parents did not speak until we got home. We each carried some of my school belongings: books, notebooks, drawings, old assignments, stationery and even a commendation that I had received from one of the teachers. A sad parade of departure from what had hitherto been my daily life.

At home, Father didn’t say anything other than that he had to go back to the shop. Mother made me a lunch of a marmalade sandwich, milk and chocolate biscuits: my favourite. But I couldn’t eat. I didn’t understand what had happened other than that I had been expelled from school for no reason, which had caused my parents to become very sad rather than angry with me. Finally, my mother sat down with a cup of tea and explained.

“Liebchen, you cannot go back to school for now. It is not your fault. It is all the troubles that we are having. It is for your own safety. Until then your father and I will arrange for you to be tutored at home.”

Up until this moment I had not realised my fate. In a matter of a few hours I had lost my friends, my daily activities and classes. I was no longer wanted. The suddenness of it filled me with a loneliness that I had never experienced before, and I burst out crying. I felt my mother’s arms embrace me and she started rocking back and forth, all the while making soothing sounds.

“Can I still go over to Anna’s?”

I would dearly miss my school friends, the classes, the activities, but most important was my dear friend Anna Jodl. We walked to school together, sat next to each other in class and walked back to Nu?rnberger Straße where we lived. We even stopped by my father’s shop on the way where we always got candy, a piece of chocolate or even a pastry.

My mother hesitated for a moment and then nodded with a tight smile.

I didn’t want to ask about the troubles. I had been hearing about them for a while now, and whatever they were, I couldn’t understand anyway.

A week later a large woman with tight black curls, a wide, pasty face and a loud voice arrived early in the morning after Father had gone to work. She introduced herself as Frau Sundmacher, my tutor. She told us that the school had given her the curriculum and that she could teach me as if I were in class.

Winter had come early and it was already freezing outside. I missed not walking in the snow with Anna; however, being tutored at home, even though I didn’t like Frau Sundmacher, made me feel like I still belonged. The weeks passed without the troubles getting any more troublesome.

In the afternoon, after I finished my homework, I would visit Anna or she would come over and we would play together. Other times, my other friends from school would come over. Curiously, when they did, we would have to play at Anna’s. The troubles prevented them from playing in our home.

But then in February the worries grew; the troubles became incidents, and Helga arrived.

During one of those late nights of hushed conversations my mother started to sob. The radio was on, but it was turned down low. Despite that, I could hear a man speaking angrily, threateningly. Every so often he would stop and the crowd would roar, “Seig Heil” or “Heil Hitler”. I had heard Hitler before. Is this the troubles? Why is Heil Hitler preventing me from going to school or having friends over other than Anna? That night after the radio broadcast my parents added new words to the string that I had heard before: Juden, Gestapo, SS, vandals.

In the morning Father left for the shop, and when I was seated with Mother I asked her if she was feeling well.

She nodded and, with heaviness in her voice, added, “There was an incident at the shop.”

I wasn’t aware of anything different because I had not been by my father’s shop: I had not walked by since I was expelled from school. I waited for her to say more but she proceeded to quietly put the dishes away and clear the table so that Frau Sundmacher could have her cup of tea and start my lessons.

I couldn’t wait for the afternoon so that I could ask Anna what the incident was; I knew that she would tell me. After all, she still walked past the shop every day from school.

In the afternoon, as Frau Sundmacher’s considerable backside waddled down the stoop, I listened intently for Anna’s voice. She soon rounded the corner and bounded up the steps. This time she had another girl in tow, short and plump with dark wavy hair and brown eyes. Her face was freckled and her eyes had a malicious glint to them. Unlike Anna’s cheery smile, her friend’s mouth was turned down in a snarl, like a stray dog’s. Anna and I looked very similar, like sisters: me with blonde hair and green eyes, Anna with blue eyes.

“Ruth, Helga is staying with us. She is from Munich. Helga, say hello to Ruth. She is my dearest friend.”

The girl hesitated for a second, then reached out her hand to shake mine. Her hand had a cold, clammy feel, like a dead fish.

“Is she sitting next to you at school?” I asked.

“No. She is just visiting for a few weeks.”

I was relieved and my heart swelled with love for Anna.

“Why aren’t you in school? Are you sick?” Helga stood resolutely on the landing and stared at me reproachfully.

I shrugged. “It is all these troubles we are having.”

Helga pointed at my chest. “In that case, why aren’t you wearing a yellow star?”

My mother appeared at the doorway to our building, greeted Anna and Helga warmly and invited us in. As soon as we were seated around the dining-room table Helga started looking suspiciously around the room.

“Why don’t you have a picture of Adolf Hitler on the wall?”

“We don’t have a picture of Hitler on the wall either. Papa says he is a mad fool who should go back to selling postcards,” Anna answered for me gleefully.

As soon as my mother placed biscuits and drinks on the table, Helga scowled in disgust.

“We shouldn’t eat Jewish food; it is poison to German children.”

“Well, in that case my whole family should be dead. We have been buying food from Herr Lipschutz for as long as I can remember.” Anna dove eagerly for the biscuits and drank to the bottom of her glass, smacking her lips in satisfaction. “See?” She looked triumphantly at Helga.

In the end they left. I sorely missed not having Anna to myself for the whole afternoon, but I was glad to be rid of the horrible Helga.

Notwithstanding Anna’s friendship, I was left with a feeling of disquietude. I was being shielded from troubles that now affected girls my own age. Not just the expulsion from school: I was no longer separated, but segregated – I wasn’t allowed to stray too far from our house; I couldn’t have any friends over other than Anna; I was asked why I didn’t wear a yellow star, why we didn’t have a picture of Hitler on our wall; and Helga would not eat our food because we poisoned German children.

I am a German child.

This growing sense of isolation and silence that engulfed my life became claustrophobic. I wanted to lash out and protest at my unjust fate, but did not want to upset my parents any more than they were already.

But silence had its own deadly clamour that shattered our world soon after Helga’s visit. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Do you feel that Ruth’s role in keeping silent all those years about evading being arrested by the SS and Helga being taken instead was moral and ethical? Or does survival during wartime trump all.
2. In considering the overall role of Friedrich Becker, do you feel that he acted selflessly firstly enrolling into the SS to obtain a university degree and then to avoid being conscripted and sent to the Eastern Front to fight against the Russians – an almost certain death – deserting to Holland?
3. Again, how do you view Friedrich Becker’s role:
* in saving Emma’s life when she was critically injured as a member of the resistance;
* helping the surviving group of resistance fighters to escape;
* then hiding under the postwar cloak of a Jewish person while living cheek-by-jowl as a neighbor of Ruth, and even befriending her and ultimately becoming her lover;
* but at the end fearing for his life, he helped Helga dispose of Ruth’s corpse
4. Helga survived the camp and the war. But then she became hellbent on finding out how she ended in the camp in the first place. Once she learnt of her fate and how she became entrapped in
Questions from the author:

1. Ruth’s identity she set about finding Ruth and exacting her vengeance. Accepting that being incarcerated in Nazi camp left her traumatized for life, but then again at the age that was released, sixteen, ought she have gone about rebuilding her life rather than wasting it to exact her revenge?
* Or viewed another way, was seeking and finding Ruth was central to who she had become?
5. Taking the broad view of hostility against all Germans post WWII casting them all as barbaric and heartless Nazis, does Helmut Jodl’s compassion and concern for Ruth Lipschutz in saving her Jewish life above a non-Jewish one, Helga Dreschler, moderate your view that a great many Germans took life threatening risks to save Jewish lives?

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