Chapter 21 The Moringen Library #2
“My goodness, Derek!” she exclaimed. She embraced him, then ushered him in and up the stairs.
She made tea for him and begged to hear about life since the wedding, which her husband’s illness had kept the couple from attending.
When Derek shared about Helene’s detention and his fruitless search for her, Franzisca wept for him.
He handed her a handkerchief, and she blew her nose, then looked around.
Since she and her husband had moved from Dirschau, beauty was one of the few things that comforted Franzisca. They had brought
a good bit of the furniture from their former home, and their new house was like a little Versailles. She did her best to
keep it sparkling clean. They had moved to be close to their daughter, Lucia Maria. “Lucie,” as they called her, had only
one son, but her husband, Erwin Rommel, was an instructor at the German War Academy at Potsdam. He was often away, and it
was a great help to Lucie to have Bernard and Franzisca close by. Erwin had just been promoted to lieutenant colonel, and
changes were in the air for the family.
“You know, I could speak with my son-in-law. He has contacts in the government. He’s not a member of the Party, but Hitler
thinks highly of his ideas. He even showed the Führer the manuscript of his upcoming book. He hasn’t finished it yet, but
it’s to be called something like Infantry Attacks,” Franzisca explained.
Derek nodded but did not want to get his hopes up. Up to that point, every attempt he had made on Helene’s behalf had failed.
“In her last letter, Helene let me know she’s pregnant. I can’t let our child be born in a concentration camp.”
“No, no, that won’t happen. I’ll see to it,” Franzisca assured him.
They continued talking, and when he left to walk back home an hour later, Derek was no longer so downcast. His step was much
lighter than on his aimless wandering to the Mollins’ house.
Looking around, Derek concluded that Berlin had definitely become subdued. The revolts and street fights had come to a stop,
but so had the frivolity and vivacity of one of the world’s most cosmopolitan capitals.
When he opened the door, Kaiser bounded up to see who it was. The cat, who had lost several pounds since Helene’s disappearance, always waited anxiously to see if his mistress would return. Deflated, he slumped back to his basket.
Helene’s recovery was slow but steady. When Ruth could no longer postpone her patient’s discharge, she told Helene it was
time to leave.
That morning it seemed that spring had come in full bloom. The snow on the mountains had melted, and carpets of flowers spread
out on all sides. Persephone had once again escaped the underworld and coaxed nature awake from its lethargy.
“Thank you so much for everything, Doctor,” Helene said to her savior.
Ruth touched Helene’s belly, smiled, and handed her a small bottle of vitamins.
“Come by every week for a checkup, and take one pill a day. Each time you come I’ll try to have a basket with extra food for
you.”
“I don’t know how to . . .”
“Every now and then, not very often, we come across someone who lights up our way. Helene, you’re one of those people. You’re
always concerned for the well-being of others and, of course, for your books.”
Ruth handed Helene the two volumes she had loaned her weeks prior.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Helene objected, though she was touched. But Ruth insisted, and Helene finally accepted the tomes and nestled
them under her arm.
Helene had almost closed the door behind her when Ruth remembered something. “Wait!” she called out, “I have something else for you.” She ran to her room and pulled out a heavy suitcase.
Helene thought it might be things for the baby, though she still had a few months to go. The old brown suitcase Ruth held
out did not seem special or important in any way. Helene clicked it open, and there before her were about thirty books of
various sizes and shapes.
She gasped in surprise. “Where did you get these?”
Ruth straightened up and, in remembering, her face took on a look of grief.
“Not long ago a woman named Gudrid passed away here. She was an elderly professor and had come to Moringen just about six
months ago. Her own students, whom she had taught for years, denounced her as an enemy of the state. She never got over it.
They sent her to Moringen as a prisoner, and she worked in the kitchen, but her health and mental state were not strong. She
fell ill soon enough and was brought to the infirmary. I was taking care of her until just a few days before you showed up.
To tell the truth, taking care of you has helped me get over Gudrid’s death.” Ruth was tearing up.
Helene took her hands and said, “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, this world has gone mad. What’s the point of living in the kind of place we’ve turned it into?”
Helene, who wondered the same, had no answer to offer.
“I know you’ll use the books well. Give the women in your barrack a bit of hope.”
They embraced. There was nothing sweeter in that horrible camp than the proximity of another kind soul. No blanket or coat
could offer a warmth to match it.
Helene dragged the suitcase out as best she could. Anna and Alice were waiting outside for her and helped her carry it to the barrack.
“What have you got in here, boulders?” Alice asked.
Helene smiled. “No, something much better!”
Most of the women were at work, so the barrack was empty when they entered. They hoisted the suitcase onto Helene’s bed. She
sighed deeply at the dust that wafted up, already missing her clean sheets and mattress in the infirmary. Then she opened
the suitcase and reveled in the oohs and aahs of her friends.
“Books!” Anna and Alice exclaimed in unison.
“Yes, but no one should know about it. We’re going to make a little library with these books, but we can’t let word get out,
or they’ll get confiscated. We can only tell the women we trust.”
Alice and Anna were delighted with the idea. They pulled the books out gently and examined each one. Most were novels, but
there was one volume by Sigmund Freud and another by Immanuel Kant.
“Look at all this,” Helene said. “The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Goethe’s Faust . . . .”
Anna picked up a few and chimed in, “Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, Les Misérables. . . . Have you read all these before, Helene?”
“Oh yes, and they’re wonderful. We’re going to make the first library Moringen has ever had. We’ll help our fellow prisoners
escape a little, even if only in their imaginations.”