Selected chapter extracts
The Escape from Berlin
Kurt was late, and Freda was distractedly and impatiently fiddling with her hair. She smiled with relief as he pulled up in his father’s gleaming Mercedes-Benz SSK. This was not the time to show how concerned she had been.
‘Where to? Have you booked a hotel?’ Kurt asked.
‘Leipzig, Stuttgart, and then Baden-Baden.’ That was as much as Freda would divulge. She liked Kurt. She would protect him. He was proving invaluable.
‘Search the Berliner Sonne newspaper building. Arrest Eva Lange. Take her office apart – we’re looking for papers with addresses, Baden-Württemberg addresses.’
‘You’re very secretive, Freda. You say you’re a newspaper journalist. Are you a spy?’ Kurt Graf laughed. He stroked her hair as he kissed her. He had quickly realised she liked this. She was the only attractive thing in this dingy boarding house.
‘What makes you think that?’ Freda kissed Kurt again. She needed him.
‘I’d like it if you were a spy. I’ve seen what we’ve done. I’m not proud to be a German. I saw you being dropped off in Paris to join the convoy. I heard you’re fluent in French.’
‘Would you be proud if you saved some Jewish children?’
‘Extremely proud. What are you up to, Freda? Are you using me? I thought we were only young lovers on holiday?’
‘You can safely return to Paris in two weeks when your leave is over. In the meantime, there is a small piece of kindness we can accomplish.’
‘Schmied, IA-751427 is the car we need to track. Kurt Graf, the son of a communist trade unionist, is, I think, part of a subversive underground ring. His mother says he’s holidaying to the south with his girlfriend Freda. Intensify the search – all roads.’ As Schmied turned to leave the office, Von Fügershof shouted out, ‘And bring in Eva Lange now. I need to know who this Freda is.’
Kurt and Freda laughed together as they neared the city of Stuttgart.
‘Stuttgart, my father’s home city,’ Kurt said. ‘It’s where he purchased his beloved Mercedes SSK. What a car for a trade union leader to own.’
‘We need to press on to Baden-Baden today.’
Later that afternoon, Kurt and Freda surveyed the airy room in an upmarket guesthouse located in the spa district and overlooking the Black Forest mountains. Freda looked out through the shutters, admiring the view. After last night’s accommodation, she had decided their budget could afford some luxury. She glanced down at the street. A uniformed policeman was looking at Kurt’s Mercedes SSK, before glancing around at the many hotels and guesthouses in the road. The policeman finally pedalled away on his bicycle.
They stood arm in arm in the shadows of a copse as the three police vehicles sped by.
‘We’ll retrace our steps in the morning, take another route,’ Freda said.
‘Can I set a fire? Set a snare?’
Kurt’s army training might prove helpful, she thought. ‘No fire, it’s too dangerous, Kurt. If you want to leave, please go now.’
‘I’m with you, Freda. I think I might be enjoying this more than is good for me.’
‘You’re telling me we have lost them. Interrogate the policeman. Ask him what he saw, and did anyone else see anything?’ Von Fügershof fumed.
‘But we now know their destination. The Jews are hiding in the Black Forest.’
‘Send in an SS mountain company. Cover the whole area. Open and search every house, shed, barn, outhouse, even pigpens and stables. Find Anya Keller and Gerda Neumann.’ I can’t let them make me look stupid, Von Fügershof thought.
They drove down the mountainside.
‘The Mercedes SSK is too conspicuous,’ said Kurt. ‘I’ll ditch it. We don’t need petrol. We need a new car.’
‘How?’
‘We’ll steal one. Easy.’
Freda smiled at him. ‘We make a good team.’
With a sad, backwards glance from Kurt, they left the Mercedes SSK neatly parked in an Offenburg side road.
‘Schmied, at the last location, they were travelling towards Bühlertal. Send instructions to widen the search to fifty kilometres south and east.’ Von Fügershof was doubly incensed now that they were searching for two parties: Anya, Gerda and the girls, and now Kurt Graf and his mysterious companion. The latter pair would be the key to finding the Jews.
Freda touched Kurt’s hand as they motored through the dappled sunshine. They approached Kniebis, then turned onto Strassburger Strasse, the main road into Freudenstadt. They left the village, looking for a sharp left-hand turn up to some hillside villas. Kurt had examined the map in detail and had convinced her he knew what to look for and where to go. Freda had fretted. Should she give Kurt the full address? She trusted him, but could he withstand torture?
‘Did you catch that number, Schmied?’
‘The 540K Roadster? No, sir.’
‘It’s Schneider’s stolen Mercedes. It had slowed, it was turning,’ Von Fügershof said. ‘Driver, pull over in the village. We need to place a phone call. I need a hundred troops into this village immediately. There’s a post office, quick.’
The three women stood staring at each other, searching to understand the situation. Wilma turned suddenly as she heard a vehicle coming up the hillside. Von Fügershof’s staff car came to a sudden stop, its wheels spinning in the lush meadow. Von Fügershof slammed out of the car, cursing the driver as he started towards the villa, pistol in hand.
‘Stand still, put your hands in the air. I will not hesitate to kill you all.’ Alerted by the noise, he glanced to the right as a Lanz Bulldog tractor with trailer drove straight at him. Von Fügershof swivelled and aimed straight between the driver’s eyes. Too late. The tractor caught him full on, and he fell under the wheels. He screamed in agony as his legs were crushed under two tons of tractor.
‘Kurt Graf,’ Freda said, smiling. ‘My hero.’ She turned to Gerda. ‘Quick, get the girls. Anya, come with us, we have to leave now!’
Von Fügershof lay in the military ambulance, Schmied by his side. His pain and anger were evidently not relieved by the morphine injections. Inside, Schmied was secretly ecstatic. His boss would be out of action for a long time.
‘That bloody driver, have him arrested. He sat there, his car stuck, while the Jews escaped past him, and I lay in agony. Only your actions to start a sweep search helped find me.’
Kurt followed the stream up the mountainside. The tractor’s wheels gripped on to the rocky outcrops around the boggy hollows, as they bumped up to the summit of the hill. Neatly camouflaged amongst the trees, Kurt stopped again and jumped down. ‘Enjoying the ride?’ he said, with a smile.
‘Where did you get this man from?’ Gerda asked, shaking her head.
Schmied scanned the map. Why should he send soldiers into the hills in search of Von Fügershof’s Jews? If Von Fügershof thought they’d fled down the hill into the valley, let him believe it. What have one poor woman and her two small daughters done to harm me or my loved ones? Even if I found them, what recognition would I get?
Kurt waited until nightfall in the village of Braiersbronn. Breaking into a building yard, it took him less than two minutes to fire up the builder’s Opel Blitz truck. They had eight hours until the builder started his day. By that time, they would be with Freda’s contact in Freiburg, Kurt thought, as he drove out of the village towards the pickup point.
An hour later, Gerda and Freda hugged for several minutes. Freda remembered their hug on the occasion of Daniel’s death, several years before. It was different now: the hatred was gone, and this was heartfelt.
The guide looked on impatiently, aware of the dangers.
‘Look after my family, please,’ said Freda. ‘They mean the world to me.’