Chapter Twenty-Six
‘Please don’t ask this of me, Amira,’ Hans pleaded. ‘I’m prepared to help you, but that’s not something you can ask of me. It’s not even within my remit, and if Gisele knew I’d done anything to help place you in harm’s way...’
‘How about you let me worry about how to tell Gisele. I’ll make sure she believes it was all my idea.’
He finished the rest of his drink and stared into the glass for a moment, before slowly looking up. ‘You have my word that your secret’s safe with me, but what you’re asking of me...’ He paused.
‘Hans, please. Just tell me how this would work. I imagine I can’t just turn up at the camp gates and ask to be admitted.’
‘Amira, no,’ he said, lighting another cigarette to replace the one that he had just stubbed out.
‘If I stay here in Berlin, Amira’s mother could see me and I could be discovered and sent to an even worse camp, one where I’d be killed on arrival, or the SS might come looking for me and accuse me of being part of a sham marriage.’ She levelled her gaze on him. ‘Hans, just tell me how you would send me to Buchenwald, if I were to do this. Hypothetically.’
Hans bent forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. He looked more serious than she had ever seen him before, as if he couldn’t believe he was even having the conversation with her.
‘There are a number of prisoners in the Fichtenhain Special Camp, which is essentially an isolation barracks set away from the main camp and not far from the armament factory. They are mostly people of importance, such as political leaders, but there was even a princess there until recently, Mafalda of Hesse. They have specially assigned guards watching them to ensure their safety, and I presume to make sure they don’t escape, and they receive much better rations and living quarters.’
Amira listened, leaning closer.
‘You spoke of the princess in the past tense,’ Amira said. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She was injured when the building she was in received a direct hit from an air raid attack. The doctor amputated her arm, which was badly injured from what I understand, and the official paperwork states that she died due to an infection after the surgery.’
Amira chose not to ask any more questions, horrified that a woman could lose an arm in such a way, let alone die from it.
‘The only way you would have a chance of survival inside the camp, would be if you and Fred could be transferred to Fichtenhain,’ Hans said. ‘It would all depend on him being transferred there, but Amira, if I’m being honest, he might well survive without you if he could be transferred. Why risk going there at all if—’
‘I cannot lose him, Hans. I cannot lose him, too,’ Amira said. ‘I know that he won’t make it without me. Having me there will give him something to fight for, a reason to live.’
‘You love him this much? That you’d risk entering a camp for him?’
‘I do,’ Amira replied. There is no other way. If I don’t do something, then Fred will just be another name, another person in my life to die at the hands of the Nazis. Another person to disappear from my life. ‘Hans, tell me you wouldn’t be prepared to do this for Gisele?’
Hans looked away, but Amira knew the answer. He loved his wife, and he’d stop at nothing to save her.
‘If I were to help you, and I’m not saying I am, but if I were...’ Hans groaned. ‘I would only do this if we had confirmation that Fred had been moved. I’m not letting you go there to enter the main camp, because I would be sending you to a near-certain death. I want to make it perfectly clear that I would not even consider it under those circumstances, because if I sent you there, we’d never see you again.’
Amira nodded, knowing that her unborn baby would die otherwise, although Hans would never agree to place her there if he knew she was pregnant. ‘That seems entirely reasonable.’
Hans looked relieved. ‘If I were to do this, I’d have to put in a special call to someone close to SS Oberführer Hermann Pister,’ he said. ‘He’s the camp commandant, and the only way to enter that camp voluntarily would be with his permission. He would have to make all the arrangements, but there’s no guarantee he will even consider your request.’
Amira’s body trembled at the thought of what she was proposing to do. I’ve spent all this time hiding, praying that I wouldn’t end up in one of those places, but Fred saved me when I didn’t think I could keep going. He doesn’t deserve to die in that camp if there is anything I can do to help him.
She looked down at her little dog, who was staring back up at her with a worried expression. ‘Can I leave Otto with you?’
Hans closed his eyes for a moment, but she saw his nod. ‘Of course, but I only wish there was somewhere I could send you, to keep you safe from all this.’
Nowhere is safe, not for someone like me, not anymore. It’s taken me all this time, but I can see it now. It was why she wanted to help protect Fred, to show him that he wasn’t alone, that he didn’t deserve such hatred and cruelty for being himself, to repay him for the way he’d nursed her through her grief.
‘Thank you.’
Hans stood, staring down at her for a long moment before buttoning his coat and walking to the door.
‘We’re going to get Fred back,’ she whispered to Otto, pressing a kiss into his fur as she hurried down the hall to the front door. ‘I’m not giving up without a fight, I promise.’
She’d been powerless to save her mother, and her father, and then Maxi, but so long as Fred was still alive, she could still try to save him.