I ushered Nikolas and Maya upstairs and we packed some extra clothes and toys into a bag. Mrs. Wirth said she would be smuggling us into her mansion, where we would live in her basement. She told us we would have to be quiet and never leave the basement, because if her husband found out she was hiding Jews, she would be arrested for sure. That was okay with me. Being quiet and staying in the basement was a small price for our safety, and one I was more than willing to pay.
It was mid-afternoon . Mrs. Wirth had given us beef sandwiches and we were tucked into the backseat of her car, riding through the beautiful German countryside. Eventually we arrived at the mansion. It was a pretty thing, although I got the feeling we would never see any of it but the basement. Mrs. Wirth drove around the back of the house and parked next to the back door. "Just go in that door and then go down the first stairway on the left," she instructed us. "Be seen by no one. I already told Alessa, the maid, that you were coming. I'll check on you whenever I can. Good luck."
With that, we clambered out of the car and snuck through the door. We tiptoed down the staircase and were greeted by a startled young woman in a maid's outfit. She brought us into a corner shielded by discarded furniture and artwork and showed us to our bed. She told us that during the day we were not to speak louder than a whisper or leave the corner. Maya and Nikolas fell right asleep on the large bed covered in luxurious blankets. I, however, could not sleep. Instead I pondered this strange turn of events. Why should we, just three children, be here, relatively safe, while so many others toiled in brutal concentration camps? Why should we be together while countless others were not only tortured by starvation, beatings, and physical labor, but with the torture of uncertainty, of not knowing if loved ones were safe or unsafe, dead or alive?
The next morning, I woke to three large pots of steamy broth on the table beside the bed. I shook my siblings awake. "Wake up," I told them. "Breakfast." After the broth had been devoured, I tended to my siblings, keeping them busy until lunch. Then dinner. Then we slept. And it went on like that, days after days, weeks after weeks,
weeks after weeks, months after months, months turning into a year. An empty shell of the life we once had. Never seeing daylight, never seeing anyone but each other and occasionally Alessa. Oh, we kept busy. Nikolas and Maya drew. I especially liked writing, probably because it helped me escape from the dingy basement, if only for a little while, and into a world of my own creation. A world of peace and unity, love and frienship, instead of this cruel world of bloodshed and animosity.
September 1945. World War II was over, but would it ever really be over? The feelings of hate and enmity, the colossal losses would last for eternity. At 17, I took over as head of my family. Our mother had died in a concentration camp, and I was all that Maya and Nikolas had left. We moved back into our old house. Mrs. Wirth's husband had been arrested and hanged for his part in the war, and she and Alessa now lived in a house near ours. We had them over for dinner often. I could never find a way to repay Mrs. Wirth for what she did for us. The risk she had taken to help us, the courage it took to hide us when she knew the consequences, were too big to compensate for. It was okay, though. Those months of secrecy and hiding under her cover had formed a lasting bond between us. We loved her almost as a mother, and she loved us almost as children, but she would never replace our own mother, whose noble act of being taken to give us time to escape had saved our lives. We missed her constantly. But at least we had each other, unlike so many others.