The German Half-Bloods (The Half-Bloods Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Judith Weber, Hilde’s elder sister, set the dinner tray on the hall floor, cracked open the bedroom door and took a quick peek inside. When Hilde was between psychotic episodes, she liked to talk about much the same things as any other girl her age. Judith, buoyant with hope on those occasions, encouraged and comforted her sister until her lucidity disintegrated and she regressed into the withdrawn, unresponsive hermit who drowned in a well of paranoid delusions. Judith, therefore, erred on the side of caution whenever she entered, never knowing who she’d find inside the bedroom when she opened the door.

  As she looked at her sister, four years younger than she, Judith saw an antagonist, a person who drained her emotionally and physically imprisoned her. With kind Frau Bloomberg’s disappearance, outings with friends on a Sunday and days when she could wake up and make a simple decision to leave the house, were gone. Yet, for all the bad days, Judith clung to moments when love poured out of her, and the thought of not having Hilde with her was too terrible to contemplate.

  Hilde, lying on the floor, covered her face with her hands and through her fingers screamed, “Get out, you!”

  Undaunted, Judith said, “Your dinner’s here, darling. Shall I help you get into bed, so you can eat it on your lap?”

  “It was you who told the doctor to poison me. You’re going to be punished – they told me – you’ll die soon, too. I heard them say it. See, they’re saying it now. You hate me. I know you want to kill me. They don’t like you at all!”

  Judith turned on her heel and went to the door. Her eyes smarted with tears as she picked up the tray from the hallway floor and then placed it on the bedroom floor just inside the doorway. Hilde could shuffle on her elbows to the food when she was hungry. It was too distressing to watch her devour the dinner like a pig scoffing from a trough.

  In the hallway, Judith shut the bedroom door behind her, pressed her back against it and listened to the visitors speaking with her father further down the hall in the living room. She’d opened the front door to the men when they’d arrived, but her father had told her to leave them to him while she took Hilde her evening meal. She’d known one of the men all her life. He was Doctor Müller, the family’s physician who often called out of the blue. The other two men were strangers, and judging by their well-cut suits, shirts, and ties, were not from her neighbourhood.

  Unseen, she took a few steps towards the living room door to get a better sense of what they were talking about. Her father’s voice was clearly angry and upset with shouts of, “No. My answer is no!”

  “Adel, please listen. Hilde needs professional care and advanced treatments,” Doctor Müller responded. “You’ve done all you can for her, and you’ve done it as well as could be expected under difficult circumstances, but it’s time to let her go to these people. They’re the professionals who know how to deal with this horrible disease. They’ve studied schizophrenia and understand what has to be done to control the symptoms.”

  “If I let her go with them I’ll probably never see her again. I don’t care how qualified these psychiatrists are, they’re not taking my daughter from this house.”

  Judith marched into the room, defiant. “I agree with my father,” she said glaring at the back of the two strangers’ heads. “Hilde is lost at times, but she’s young. She can recover. Doctor Müller, won’t you sit down? You’ll wear out the floor tiles.”

  The two men sitting on the couch stood up. Judith walked to the fireplace, which placed her squarely in front of the visitors. She glanced briefly at the younger man but then addressed the elder. “Good evening. I’m Judith Weber, Hilde’s sister. Have you even met the patient you’re planning to remove?”

  She met Hans Rudolph’s icy smile with one of her own. He stretched out his hand, and she took it out of politeness. “Perhaps you’ll reach the correct diagnosis if you speak to Hilde in person,” she spoke in a high-pitched, accelerated voice. “We, my father and I will be glad to take your advice if you find her medication or care lacking. We know we’re not perfect. We make mistakes.” Judith looked at her father. “Shall I make a pot of tea for our visitors, Papa?

  “A fine idea, Judith,” Adel said.

  Judith served tea to the men, but no cakes; baking day was on Tuesdays. Then, she sat in a hard-backed chair with her legs crossed and her eyes firmly on Rudolph, who had the air of a so-called, superior Aryan person. She also noted her father’s defeated expression while listening to the psychiatrist’s grounds for admitting Hilde to a centre for the mentally ill. Nevertheless, she sipped her hot drink, analysing the continuing arguments and counter-arguments without interrupting once. She’d get her say, she thought. She’d put her case forward when the men decided to get off their backsides to examine Hilde, and if her father gave in to pressure, she would take over the fight.

  Chapter Ten

  Paul Vogel admired the combative spirit of the young woman sitting opposite him. Unlike most Jewish families he’d met in the weeks since his arrival at the hospital, Fraulein Weber didn’t seem to be intimidated by Rudolph’s sharp tone, on the contrary, she looked ready for a battle of wills.

  Paul continued to study Judith. She was intriguing: not a classical German beauty like Hannah, who had the sought-after golden curls and pale skin, no, this young woman was dark, more exotic with almost black, penetrating eyes afraid of nothing and no one, or at least that was the impression she gave him. He’d been drawn to her the minute she’d marched into the room to give Rudolph a dose of what’s what. He liked her voice, soft yet sure, her expressive, full lips that shone with a colourless balm, making them both beautiful and natural. She wasn’t particularly tall but had perfect curves, evident under her dress and apron. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her dark brown, almost black curls, framed her face like a wide, old-fashioned bonnet.

  Paul caught Judith glancing in his direction, and embarrassed, he turned away to focus on Herr Rudolph.

  “... so, you see, you cannot cope because you can’t possibly understand what you’re dealing with,” Rudolph was saying.

  “We understand Hilde’s moods, Doctor,” Judith parried back, “and we’re getting better at managing them. You might not know this, but my grandmother had similar deformities to Hilde’s, yet she married and bore children – my father – look at him, he’s turned out all right for someone who had an imperfect mother. He’s worked hard all his life, and we’re just fine, aren’t we, Papa?”

  Adel nodded. “We’re all right, love. I’ll grant you, Herr Rudolph, Hilde’s unpredictable at times. When her illness struck, we were afraid of what she would do or say. We were even a bit scared of her when she started talking to invisible people, whom she said gave her orders, but she’s been like this for almost three years now, and she’s not done any real harm to a living soul.”

  “I believe there have been numerous complaints from your neighbours over the years about noise and such like,” Rudolph said.

  “Yes, but our neighbours understand ... I ... please don’t take her away from us.”

  “Your neighbours have reported her several times.” Rudolph opened a file and scrolled down the page with his index finger. “Ah, yes, once for screaming abuse out of the window. Another time she ripped off her blouse, exposing her breast as she was being pushed along the street in her wheelchair – would you like me to go on?” Without waiting for an answer, Rudolph stood up. “I would like to see her now. Doctor Vogel, come with me.”

  Judith jumped to her feet.

  “No, Fraulein,” Rudolph pre-empted her. “You will wait here with your father and Doctor Müller. I want to see how Hilde reacts to strangers without people she knows being present.”

  Paul remained at the bedroom door, quietly taking notes and genuinely shocked at Hilde’s wet nightdress and the smell that emanated from it. Her piercing eyes were like those of a monster he’d seen in his childhood comic books; bulging, pop-eyed.

  “You people are pigs. You’re going to hurt me,” Hilde spat. “You w
ant to kill me. You want sex with me – I see you – I know you!”

  “Who told you those things, Hilde?” Rudolph asked.

  “They did. They told me you were coming. You want me to die – you and Judith. She puts shit in my food. They saw her do it. They want me to kill her, but I won’t. Judith is nice.” She looked at the window, pointing to it. “Didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you?”

  “Who’s there, Hilde?” Rudolph asked.

  “People – people are there, stupid man – Jew pig!”

  Paul continued to write down every word being said until Rudolph asked for his help to hold Hilde still while he examined her leg, toes, and ears.

  Hilde screamed. Paul, positioned at the upper half of her body, attempted to restrain her by pinning her arms above her head. She had incredible strength and aggression for her age and gender, and as he concentrated on her hands, she managed to lift her head off the floor, twist it and bite into his arm like a rabid dog. Aghast, Paul groaned as she sunk her teeth deeper into his flesh.

  “For God’s sake, Vogel, she’s a cripple. Control her!” Rudolph shouted just before Hilde kicked him in the face with her good leg.

  The two men rose from the floor, panting. Rudolph looked down at the young girl who was cursing like a coalman and threatening to set her invisible friends on them.

  Paul had no illusions about what was going to happen. Herr Rudolph had brought an ambulance based on Doctor Müller’s written report regarding the girl’s symptoms. He’d also studied her health records and had made his decision before even leaving Brandenburg.

  “I’ve seen enough,” said Rudolph, straightening his skewed tie. “I’ll speak to the family, Vogel. You get the ambulancemen in here. Tell them to bring a stretcher and restraints. Now, before we leave, I want you to tell me what medication I should give to calm her down for the journey.”

  Paul didn’t hesitate. “Amobarbital, sir.”

  “Very good, quite right,” Rudolph mumbled, leaving the room without a backward glance at the screaming girl.

  While the ambulancemen waited in the hallway for further orders, Rudolph and Paul spoke to Adel and Judith.

  “It’s decided. We’ll take her now.”

  “Please don’t,” Judith panicked.

  Paul, who was not expected to speak, suggested that she get a breath of fresh air outside while her father and Herr Rudolph discussed the paperwork.

  “I’m not leaving my house or my sister,” Judith snapped at him. “Tell them, Papa. Tell them they can’t take her.”

  Judith glared at Doctor Müller. “How could you do this to us? You’ve known Hilde all her life. Why did you report us?”

  Müller’s eyes were steady. “I didn’t report Hilde to anyone, Judith,” he shrugged. “It’s the new law. The Ministry of the Interior began registering children with disabilities at the beginning of August. It was my duty to conform...”

  “Duty,” Adel interrupted. “Hilde’s condition is perfectly manageable here at home. You said so yourself on more than one occasion.”

  “On the contrary,” Rudolph butted in. “Your daughter has a malformation of the limbs, a condition that is listed in the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses. I have also diagnosed a severe form of childhood-onset schizophrenia.”

  Judith’s eyes smarted with tears. “Don’t try to confuse us with all that mumbo-jumbo. Can’t you just give us medicine? Teach us how to help her?”

  Rudolph shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t. I read in her records that she began to display symptoms at the age of thirteen, couple that with the way her condition has deteriorated since then and the hardships you and your father are suffering...”

  “We’re not suffering. We love our Hilde. How would you know anything about us?” Adel blazed.

  Paul couldn’t take his eyes off Judith, weeping loudly and drowning out Rudolph’s words. Taking the initiative, he took her arm and forcibly escorted her into the hallway where he instructed the two ambulancemen to watch her. He saw no need for her to hear the lies that Rudolph was about to speak.

  When he returned to the living-room, he closed the door behind him. Adel Weber sat on the edge of his chair, elbows resting on his knees, head down and fingers running through his hair.

  “Doctor Vogel, please inform Herr Weber why it is in his and his child’s best interests that we take her with us.”

  Paul gulped. He was acutely aware of his mouth opening and shutting without releasing a single word. This was the first time he’d been ordered to make the standard speech to families.

  Paul recalled his meeting with Rudolph almost a month earlier. “Now that Germany is at war, previous laws and protocols can be overlooked,” Rudolph had informed him as he’d read from a classified document. “Furthermore, we have been granted permission to adopt a less rigorous standard of assessment, which means we will have a quicker approval process. The programme has also been expanded to include older children and adolescents, and we can take Jewish and minor Jewish-Aryan half-breeds at will. I am going to set up a special section in the basement for them and I want you to work there under Hauptsturmführer Leitner’s supervision. You remember him from your graduation party, I’m sure.”

  While Paul waited for Herr Weber to calm down enough to be able to listen, he thought about his own father being threatened and vulnerable to attack. Papa had foreseen great profits from war, and it appeared he’d been correct in that assumption. Only a couple of weeks earlier he’d received a lot of money for a new product ordered by Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, Chief of Hitler’s Chancellery and the head of the Euthanasia programme. Bouhler had visited Brandenburg at the end of September, and during a luncheon had mentioned Paul’s father by name to Rudolph. “Vogel has agreed to develop as much as we need,” the man had stated. Paul had not been told what it was his father was developing, but Papa had sounded deeply troubled the last time they’d spoken to each other on the telephone.

  “Go ahead, Doctor Vogel,” Rudolph snapped with impatience.

  “Yes, of course, sir.” Paul cleared his throat. “Herr Weber, Hilde will be taken to a special section where she will receive improved treatment. She will be assessed for the first few weeks...”

  “No, I refuse,” Adel snapped.

  “You can’t refuse us,” Paul forced the response. “If you don’t allow us to take her you will be in danger of permanently losing custody of her. Our country is now at war, and we in the Reich expect parents to cooperate with us for the sake of the child and for the country’s wellbeing.”

  “What the blazes has my daughter got to do with Germany’s war or its wellbeing?”

  “If Hilde is at home you are required to care for her, are you not?”

  “Yes, at times, but I don’t mind.”

  Paul swallowed hard. “That is not the point, Herr Weber. The Reich needs soldiers and workers, skilled and unskilled. You can’t contribute to Germany’s war effort if you and your daughter, Judith, don’t work because you have responsibilities at home.”

  “That’s preposterous. I’m in the Arbeitsfront. I pay my labour dues. I work full-time, but I’m always home in the evenings to be of help to Judith – no – no! I’ve had enough of this. Go on, get out both of you. Get out of my house, now!”

  “If you refuse us once more, you and Judith will be called up for labour duty.” Paul’s dead-pan voice surprised even him. Adel’s face turned white, as though the blood had instantly been drained out of him. Paul had seen this reaction in the parents of a three-week-old deformed baby boy the previous week at another admission. The procedure had sickened him then, and it sickened him now.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hannah Vogel

  Chislehurst, Kent

  England, October 1939

  Hannah and Frank had arrived in Britain on August 31st. They’d spent two days in Berlin at the Vogel family’s home before taking the train from Berlin to the Netherlands and then a ship to
Harwich in the South of England. They had gone straight to Hannah’s Aunt Cathy in Chislehurst, who’d been beside herself with worry after receiving a telegram from her sister, Laura, advising her of the young couple’s imminent arrival.

  “You look beautiful, darling,” Aunt Cathy said, putting the finishing touches to Hannah’s glorious hair.

  On this, her wedding day, Hannah had elected to wear a pale-pink, silk suit adorned with a string of pearls at her neck and pearl earrings to match. She’d swept the front of her hair back and it was pinned by a mother-of-pearl comb. The rest had been left hanging down her back in loose curls. “Thank you, Aunty. I hope we manage to get some nice photographs in the garden. I’d hate for the rain to spoil them.”

  Alone, Hannah studied her reflection in the dressing table mirror. She looked as radiant as a bride could be apart from a sadness in her eyes that she hadn’t been able to shake off. The short ceremony at Bromley’s Town Hall was over, and now the party with family and friends would begin. Everything was perfect, she thought, except for all the imperfect things that were happening in the world, and her family not being with her.

  She and Frank stood on her aunt’s front porch welcoming the wedding guests who would soon enjoy a luncheon in Aunt Cathy’s spacious garden at the back of the house. Her aunt had insisted upon having a marquee erected after the previous week’s thunderstorms, but luckily the sun was just peeking from behind a cloud and beginning to warm the damp autumn air; a good sign for the afternoon to come.

  The civil marriage ceremony that had taken place only an hour earlier had been far from Hannah’s dream wedding. Both she and Frank had decided not to go through the rigmarole of publishing banns and attending church on four consecutive Sundays. After all, as she’d pointed out to her aunt, her father wouldn’t be there to smile a father’s smile at his beautiful daughter when he handed her to her future husband, nor would her mother be able to fuss over her wedding dress or mop her emotional tears from the front pews as all mothers loved to do. She’d insisted that she wouldn’t need a white wedding gown or bridesmaids and flowers, while secretly longing for those things. But, more important than all the wedding palaver, she’d married the man she loved; the man she might have lost had she not taken the bold decision to leave Germany when she did.