Official Report

British Intelligence

Code: 3986

Kathleen Winfred

When the air raid sirens went off again, I was too tired, after a stressful past few days, to do more than grab a blanket to wrap around me and my glasses to at least halfway disguise me. Pirot had night shift, so she went down separately, and we did not walk together.

I reached the stairs, where Von Steubon was standing at the top, looking slightly agitated, directing prisoners and soldiers through the door and downstairs in an orderly fashion.

When I passed him, he picked Schubert up and handed the dog to me.

"I'll save you a spot," I promised him. He nodded, still looking distracted. I knew that the sirens, still going off, were making him ill at ease.

I found two spots along the wall (the bench seats were all taken, and I knew Von Steubon wouldn't be the type of German officer to make people move so he could sit on the bench), and sat down, setting Schubert in Von Steubon's spot to save it and wrapping my blanket around both of us.

It had been raining the past several days and the air had become quite chilly for the end of spring. Some of the prisoners without blankets shivered in the damp basement air.

Eventually, when Von Steubon could find nothing else to distract himself with, he sought me out. I gave him a slight wave to catch his attention.

He came over and slumped down against the wall, sighing heavily. Schubert jumped onto his lap, nudging his hand and trying to get his master to pet him

Von Steubon scratched Schubert's ears for a moment, before straightening to sit rigidly against the wall, his hands clenched in his lap.

As we were in close quarters, I was sitting shoulder to shoulder with the prisoner next to me, a girl I did not know, and with Von Steubon on my other side. When a bomb went off, close enough for everyone to feel the vibration of the explosion, Von Steubon went completely rigid, seeming so tense that I thought it was not possible for him to become any more stiff.

I hesitated, before gently touching his shoulder, making him flinch. "It's alright," I whispered, in German so as to keep our conversation from the prisoners on either side of us. "You don't have to pretend it doesn't bother you. I know, remember?"

He closed his eyes, and nodded.

I gently kneaded his shoulder, trying to get him to relax. Just when it seemed to be starting to work, another bomb exploded, this one close enough that we not only felt the walls around us vibrate, but the lights in the ceiling rattled and flickered somewhat, some of them going out.

Von Steubon had tensed up all over again.

"Talk to me," he said through gritted teeth, after a few moments. "Please," he added.

"Alright," I nodded. "Do you...have family?"

"A twin sister," he muttered. "Her name is Maddalyn."

"How old is she now? Does she live in Germany?"

"She is twenty-five now, and married, with children of her own. My nephew, Hans. My niece, Ada. I've never met Ada...I haven't seen them since the beginning of the war, and she was only born last year. I heard in one of Maddalyn's letters. She and her family moved to France; they live near the channel." He sighed, his eyes remaining closed. "I miss her, my sister."

"You were close?"

He nodded. "After our parents died...Our Aunt and Uncle took us both in. We've been quite close, ever since...something about losing our parents...One of my greatest fears is losing Maddalyn."

"If you don't mind my asking...How did you lose your parents?"

He was silent for a long while, and he kept his eyes closed, clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. I took his right hand and he held mine tightly, as if for support.

He took a deep breath, petting Schubert with his other hand. "They died in an air raid. In the First Great War."

Everything made sense then. "That's why, isn't it? Why you're afraid of the air raids?"

He nodded, half-heartedly. "But not just that..."

"How old were you?"

"Maddalyn and I were only infants. It was the last year of the Great War. I...obviously, I don't actually remember anything about that night...But I've been told things...I've seen pictures...I've heard stories...And it's...even at twenty-five, stuck with me."

"What made you decide to join the army?"

He sighed. "I was angry." He was quiet for a moment. "I thought it was...terribly unfair that I had never gotten to know my parents. I blamed..." He glanced at me, quickly, before looking once more at his hand resting on Schubert's head. "I blamed the British," he said, quietly. "I had heard that it had been a British bombing that night they died." He shook his head. "I was stupid. Despite Maddalyn's protests...She was much more willing to forgive than I was...I joined the army when Hitler called for volunteers. At first, I was just as...terrible as what you British probably think we officers are. I was bitter, and I put up walls, keeping everyone away. I was the type of soldier that is the pride of the German army: ruthless, ambitious, and willing to do whatever it took to advance Hitler's ideals. That's how I became an officer so quickly. Among the SS, I am the youngest Captain. I am not proud of that. The things I did to get there...I am not proud of."

His grip on my hand tightened again, and he closed his eyes, one lone tear trailing down his cheek. When he spoke again, his voice was pained.

"Sometimes...I can't sleep. I remember all the people I've hurt...all the lives I've ordered to be ended...and a few I've ended myself. The families I've grieved. All the lives I've ruined on my mad rampage to power and revenge."

I was completely silent, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Von Steubon, and letting him talk on his own. Another bomb exploded, but he did not even flinch.

"Eventually, I realized I was getting nowhere. I hated myself, and I hated the man I had become." Schubert, worried for his master, interrupted Von Steubon's words, nudging his hand and whimpering. Von Steubon patted him, half-heartedly. "It was a Jew, ironically the type of person who Hitler hates the most, who finally got to me."

He drew his legs up, resting his elbows on his knees and covering his face with his hands. "I...I used to work in one of Hitler's concentration camps. This man...I will never forget him. I had ordered a group of prisoners to...to the gas chambers...just that morning. One of them was his son. I had ordered a transfer of prisoners the day before. He had been separated from his wife because of the transfer and now had no idea where she was."

I could hear the tears choking his voice, and I wished desperately that I could do something, anything to ease his pain, and his guilt.

"He had lost everything. And what did I do? I only tortured him. I only took the hatred I felt towards myself and put it all on him...I let it fill me, until I was drunk on anger and hatred, only for me and who I had become...and I turned it all on him. I taunted him. I wanted him to hate me as much as I hated myself. I wanted him to react. But he only let me hurt him. And in the end...I yelled at him. 'Hassen mich, mich anzugreifen!' I told him. Hate me. Attack me. I wanted him to. Maybe then I would feel justified in hurting him."

Von Steubon turned to look at me, tear streaks on his face and pain in his eyes. This, perhaps, unnerved me the most. Von Steubon, at least the part of him I had seen, would never cry. And yet, now he was.

"He didn't," said Von Steubon, his voice a strange mixture of wonder and pain and amazement. "He simply looked up at me, from where he was on his knees, and forced himself to stand and look directly at me. And he said...He said..." Von Steubon looked at me, earnestly, as if trying to impart every feeling of that moment to me. "He said 'I forgive you'."

Gradually, his gaze returned to his lap. "I forgive you," he repeated. He shook his head. "He will never know just how much his words had shaken me. And I could never be the same. How could this man who, simply because of his nationality and beliefs, was a target for persecution and brutality at the hands of people like me, tell me that he forgave me?"

Several bombs exploded in close succession, but Von Steubon was too involved in the memories of his past to react.

"I was never the same person," he said. "I was too far in to escape the SS without being labeled a traitor and losing my life. No matter how wrong I knew I had been, I was still too much of a coward to want to die. So I started doing things...little things...to try to help the prisoners...to make their lives easier. The first thing was to find out where that man's wife had been sent and to arrange for them to be able to correspond through letters. I did other things...Eventually, my superiors decided that I no longer had the qualifications of a concentration camp overseer, and I was moved here. They didn't want to get rid of me; I had been too valuable to them in the past, even if I was not quite pleasing them now. And then...you know the rest, I suppose...I had been here for a few months when you came. Things were a bit worse when you first arrived, if you remember...I had not been able to change as much as I wanted to yet."

I looked at Von Steubon. "So it isn't just the bombs themselves that scare you..." I said, hesitantly. "It's the things they make you remember."

He nodded.

I leaned against his shoulder; he looked down at his hand, still holding mine, and seemed to be surprised, as though he had not realized, in his distraction, that our hands had ended up that way.

His eyes found mine, searching, his gaze unsure.

I gave him a small smile. He shifted, leaning against me as much as I was leaning against him.

Another of the explosions from earlier had left only a few of the overhead lights working and the room was mostly dark.

"Do you think you can sleep?" I asked him, gently.

I felt him nod, his head resting against mine.

"Good night," he whispered.

"Good night, Von Steubon," I said, softly.

"Freidrich," he said.

At first, I didn't respond, surprised by his wanting me to call him by his first name.

He must have taken my pause for not understanding.

"My name," he added.

I laughed quietly. "I know what your name is," I said.

I could tell he was smiling, even without looking at him.

"Good night then, Freidrich," I said, closing my eyes.