Women Of Courage: Daisies Are Forever Part 1

Daisies are Forever.

by Liz Tolsma.

To my aunt Lillian Tolsma, thank you for sharing your story. You are a courageous, G.o.dly woman and an inspiration to all you touch.

And to Ruth Lippert. This story is also yours. Your example of faith in difficult circ.u.mstances is an encouragement to many.

"Without remembrance, there can be no future."

DR. THOMAS KLESTIL, PRESIDENT OF AUSTRIA, AT THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF THE MAUTHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP.

"Oh merciful Lord . . . crown our effort with victory . . . and give us faith in the inevitable power of light over darkness, of justice over evil and brutal force . . . so be it. Amen."

SERGEI, ARCHBISHOP OF MOSCOW-27 NOVEMBER 1941.

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

JOHN 16:33 NIV.

"And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy."

PSALM 106:10.

GLOSSARY OF FOREIGN WORDS.

GERMAN.

ACHTUNG-caution.

BAHNHOF-railway station BITTE-please DANKE-thank you DER FHRER-the leader DEUTSCSCHES ROTES KREUZ (DRK)-German Red Cross ESSEN KOMMEN-come eat.

FLUCHT-escape FRAU-Mrs.

FRULEIN-miss GUTEN MORGEN-good morning.

HALTEN SIE-stop HERR-mister JA-yes KINDER-children.

KOMMEN-come KRISTALLNACHT-series of attacks against the Jews throughout n.a.z.i Germany LUFTSCHUTZBUNKER-air-raid shelter MUTTI-mother.

NEIN-no OMA-grandma ONKEL-uncle OPA-grandpa..

REICHSMARK(S)-German currency.

SCHNELL-quickly STALINORGEL-a rocket launcher nicknamed Stalin's organ.

STRa.s.sE-road TANTE-aunt TIEFFLIEGER-low-flying German aircraft.

VATER-father VOLKSEMPFNGER-people's radio VOLKSSTURM-German national militia.

ZUM FFENTLICHEN LUFTSCHUTZRAUM-To Public Shelter.

RUSSIAN.

APA-Typhus Quarantine.

NYET-no URI-watches.

ONE.

HEILIGENBEIL, EAST PRUSSIA.

February 8, 1945.

Bright red and orange explosions lit the dark, deep-winter evening. Gisela Cramer hugged herself to ward off the bitter chill. Her warm breath frosted the windowpane and with her fingernail she shaved a peephole. She didn't know what she expected to see. Maybe the Russians surging over the hill.

An icy shudder racked her. She couldn't block out the sights and the sounds of the last time the Russians found her.

Behind her Ella Reinhardt's two small girls giggled as they played on the worn green-and-blue Persian rug that covered the hardwood floors. Gisela's opa dozed in his sagging, overstuffed chair, his Bible open on his lap. His skin hung on his thin face. Every now and then he coughed and stirred, then settled back to sleep.

Each day her grandfather grew weaker. His condition worried Gisela, especially since he refused to see a doctor.

A Red Army mortar sh.e.l.l hit its target not far from them in town and rocked the earth beneath her feet. The vibrations almost buckled her legs. Her heart throbbed in her chest. How much longer could the German army hold off the Soviets? What would happen to them when they arrived?

Almost at the same instant, an urgent pounding began at the door, accompanied by Dietrich Holtzmann's deep voice. "Herr Eberhart. Herr Eberhart."

Not wanting Opa to have to get up, Gisela spun from the window, tiptoed over and around the children's dolls and blocks, and answered the door.

The breathless older man stepped over the threshold. The wind had colored his cheeks. He pulled his red knit cap over his ears, gray hair sticking out of the bottom. "I had to warn you right away."

Gisela held out her hands to take their neighbor's coat, but he shook his head. "I can't stay."

"Let me get you something hot to drink at least. Some ersatz coffee maybe?"

"Have a game of checkers with me, Dietrich. We can talk as we play." Opa sat straighter in his chair.

"I don't have time. We're leaving, Bettina and Katya and me. Tonight. Whoever is left in town is going west, as far and as fast as possible. By morning the Russians will pour in from the south. You need to come with us. All of you. Take the children and get out of here. It is too dangerous."

Gisela had feared this moment for many days. Though she had pleaded with her family to leave, they delayed. Opa's health was too poor.

Gisela peered at the girls, now clutching their dolls to their chests and staring at Herr Holtzmann with their big gray eyes. Another shudder ripped through her. She knew all too well the peril they would be in if they didn't leave before the Red Army arrived.

Opa's hands shook as he grasped the chair's armrests to stand. "Ja, it is time to leave. We knew it would come, though we prayed it wouldn't."

Her cousin Ella stepped into the living room from the tiny kitchen, wiping her cracked hands on a faded blue dish towel, then tucking a strand of blond hair behind her ear.

The cold wrapping itself around Gisela intensified. How would Opa make the trek? They had no car, no horse, only bicycles. "Are you sure they will be here by morning?"

Herr Holtzmann nodded. "If you wait for daylight, it will be too late. Pack whatever you can and get out of here. My sisters and I are leaving within the hour."

Gisela rubbed her arms. "What about Opa?"

Her grandfather shook his head. She recognized the determination in the firm line of his mouth. He couldn't be thinking about staying here. Surely not.

Herr Holtzmann pulled his red knit cap farther over his ears. "Go. Right now. Get out of this place and head west."

Ella ushered their neighbor into the frigid night. "We will be ready in an hour." She took a moment to lean against the door after she closed it, breathing in and out. Gisela followed her lead, willing her galloping heart to settle into a canter. Another nearby blast rocked the house, reverberating in her bones.

Closer. Closer. They were coming closer.

In her memory, she heard those soldiers kick in the door. Heard screams. Gunshots.

She clutched her chest, finding it hard to breathe, and snapped back to the present.

They had to run.

An hour. They would leave in an hour. She drew an unsteady breath and steeled herself. "We can't let them catch us."

Deep sadness and fear clouded Ella's face. "You leave."

Gisela took a step back. "What about you?"

"What about Opa? He will never survive the trip. He needs me. And the Red Cross is depending on me. With so many refugees already in the city, the DRK can't do without anyone." She squared her shoulders and straightened her spine.

Gisela glanced at Annelies and Renate playing once more, now pulling a colorful tin train on a string. "What about the girls? They can't stay."

"I want you to take them."

Had Ella lost her mind? Gisela couldn't leave her opa and her cousin here alone to face a horrible, certain fate. Those screams she had once heard rattled in her brain again. "Nein. I won't leave without you. Both of you. Let us get packed."

Opa stepped in front of her, his arms crossed. "Ella and I discussed this weeks ago, when the Russian offensive began. You will take the girls and go. She and I will remain here. When the fighting is over, we will join you."

"If all of us don't go, none of us will." Gisela headed toward the kitchen. Ella grabbed her by the shoulder, her fingers digging into Gisela's flesh. "You're not listening to me. I am not going. And Opa can't." Annelies and Renate ran to their mother and clutched her leg.

Ella lowered her voice. "I will help you get ready and give you whatever money I have, but you have to be the one to take my children. I have the nursing skills to take care of Opa. And when the war is over, this is where Frederick will come looking for me. If I'm not here, he won't be able to locate me. Bitte, bitte, take my children to safety. Opa and I will join you as soon as possible."

Chilled to the core, Gisela bit her lip. The pleading, crying in Ella's voice pinched her heart. Should she take the girls and leave her cousin and Opa behind? "You know what awaits you if you stay."

"You have to do this. For my sake. Save my girls. Take them from here. It's their only chance."

The fluttering in Gisela's stomach meant she would never see Ella again. Nor Opa. Her throat constricted, making speech difficult. "Think about this. Your girls need you. Their father is gone and you are all they have left. I'm not their mother. I'm not enough for them. You have a responsibility."

The color in Ella's fair face heightened. "And I have a vow to my husband. This isn't easy for me to send my children west. Believe me, my heart is breaking. And your parents did it for you. I am asking you-begging you-to do this for me."

Thoughts whirled like a snowstorm through Gisela's mind. How could she take care of the girls? Even if she got them to safety, what would happen to them after the war? Their mother would never come and their father would never find them, if he even survived.

And Opa. The Russians would not show mercy to an old, sick man.

Ella drew Gisela's stiff body close and whispered in her ear, her words laced with tears. "I trust you. I have faith in you. Bitte, for my sake, for the girls' sakes, take them."

"I will not separate them from their mother. If you don't come with us, I won't go either."

Ella released her hold and Gisela fled up the steep wood stairs to her second floor bedroom. The pictures of Opa and Oma with their children rattled on the wall as another sh.e.l.l hit its mark. They had no time to waste.

The room had a sloped roof and was tiny, with little s.p.a.ce not taken by the bed and the pine wardrobe. A small doily-covered bedside table held her Bible, a picture of Mutti and Vater, and a photograph of her beloved sister, Margot.

Without thinking much, Gisela grabbed all of her underwear, a red-and-green plaid wool skirt, two blouses, and a gray sweater and stuffed them into a well-traveled pea-green suitcase. All of it donated by Ella when Gisela arrived here last fall.

She yanked the drawer pull of the nightstand so hard it shook. Fighting for breath and to hold back tears, she picked up her Bible, the one she had always kept here, and the photos and stuffed them into her suitcase.

Hurry, hurry, hurry. The words pounded in her head in time to the pounding of her heart. What else must she take? Money.

A rusty coffee tin hidden in the back of her wardrobe held all the cash she had in the world. She withdrew it and removed the small wad of colorful reichsmarks, counting them three times to make sure she knew what she had. Or didn't have.

She folded the cash and slipped it into a pocket sewn on the inside of her dress, along with a handful of cigarettes from the tin. They were like gold, barter for whatever they needed. Anyone would sell anything for a cigarette.

She did much the same as she had two years ago when she traveled to East Prussia and to safety, away from her parents, away from the Allied bombs in Berlin. The war had caught up with her when she stayed with Tante Sonje and her cousins farther east in the country in Goldap.

And it had caught up again.

Lord, please keep us safe. Let us escape. I can't go through that torment again.

Her hands shook as she picked up her heavy suitcase and headed for the stairs.

Moments later, Ella appeared carrying a small overnight case. Gisela released her breath in a whoosh. At least her cousin had made the only wise decision.

Gisela charged past Ella and down the hallway. "If you help Opa gather his things, I'll pack what food we have, then change into something warmer. After I finish that, I will help you get the children ready." Not waiting for Ella's reply, Gisela made her way to the first level, the suitcase thumping down every step, Ella's footfalls echoing behind her.

The empty kitchen cupboards reminded her of the "Old Mother Hubbard" nursery rhyme her mother had told her ages ago when they lived in California. They contained not much more than those of that fictional character.

Gisela wrapped up what she could-a few loaves of bread, some potatoes and cabbages. She gathered vegetables canned last summer with produce from their garden and sticks of wurst. The sausages would travel well. When they ran out of food, they would have to buy what they needed until they depleted their cash.

She didn't want to think about what would happen then.

Gisela returned to her room. She pulled on two pairs of cotton stockings, three pairs of wool socks, a pair of pants, a serviceable blue wool skirt, a blouse, and a red wool dress. On top, she layered her knee-length black wool coat, thankful that her weight loss enabled her to b.u.t.ton it. Like Charlie Chaplin, she waddled to the girls' pink-papered room to help Ella dress the girls. How would they ever walk in all of these clothes?

Her cousin was getting Renate ready but again she didn't speak as she tugged a wool sweater over her daughter's head. As Gisela helped Annelies sit on the bed beside her sister and pull on two pairs of heavy wool socks, the child looked at her with round gray eyes. "Where are we going?"

"On an adventure. Doesn't that sound like fun?" Gisela willed her trembling fingers to tie the little shoe faster. "We will see different places and meet many different people. Perhaps we will get to ride on a train. Would you like that?"