Читать книгу Women of education and of humanity - Helmut Lauschke - Страница 3

Of women who gave the example

The names are invented

It is the understanding with the courage to love and the sacrifice for the other, which gives man the will to live with survival in misery and distress.

City Commander Ilya Igorovich Cherebilski: "I learned from Major Voroshilov that Mrs. Elisabeth Hartmann is the Jewess of your family, who was declared dead and kept hidden on a farm from the Nazis for many years." Eckhard Hieronymus: "That my mother-in-law survived the system of the extermination of Jews I owe this to a civil servant in Wroclaw, who had the insight and the incredible courage to issue an official death certificate with stamp and signature. If he had refused to issue this certificate, which most officials did when it came to rescuing Jewish people, then that kind-hearted woman would have been gassed long ago." Commander: "I must confess that I admire the courage deeply, which some Germans have proven against the system of terror and extermination. It's just not that all Germans have run after the tyrannical and violent madman and his deluded vassals blindly. It honors the few Germans, while the majority persists in dishonoring and opportunism. If I receive precise information from Major General Perschinski on where Mrs. Hartmann is staying, I will let you go to Halle to pick up your mother-in-law." Eckhard Hieronymus: "Thank you very much, Mr. Commander."

The Peoples’ Poem by Eckhard Hieronymus Dorfbrunner on the occasion of the conversation with the Russian city commander Ilya Igorovich Cherebilski in the narrow attic of his daughter Anna Friedrike in the second week after the end of World War II:

You peoples, when the blood is shed, your sons are silent. Then luck is broken too.

Dreams remain lying on the ground, where once youth jumped and knocked, there it is now quiet, completely dead quiet. Who wants to stay there?

Spaces that are in the light do not tolerate deadly cold. The wind blows, heavenly child! What's that scolding.

Therefore do not forget the mothers’ love, do not waste the children's hearts! Do not give them to shoot anymore, because the pain will then be too big.

You can cry as you like, life does not come back when the son has fallen dead. Peoples! Take it to heart.

After several weeks had passed, on a Wednesday afternoon Major Voroshilov came to the clinic and told Anna Friederike the message from the commander that the search for the grandmother had been unsuccessful. The city commander of Halle, Major General Perschinski, had communicated this, after he had made every effort to find the grandmother. Although there were inhabitants with the name Hartmann, but they denied on interview a family relationship with Mrs. Elisabeth Hartmann from Wroclaw. Nor could a trace to the farmer Ludwig and Martha Lorch be found who had taken Frau Hartmann on their horse cart. Commander Cherebilski deeply regrets having to give this message.

Anna Friederike to her son Boris: "You know that this is the reason why we kept my grandmother Elisabeth Hartmann, nee Sara Elisa Kornblum, hiding on a farm." Boris: "What were the courageous farmers once again who risked their own lives?" Mother: "These were Ludwig and Martha Lorch, who showed this humanity and accomplished their great work. It still saddens me that we no longer met my grandmother and these brave peasants after the war, who had taken so much sacrifice and renunciation during the terror regime. They were with the escape horse cart on their way to Halle, where they had not arrived. You know that your father, Ilya Igorovich, when he was the city commander of Bautzen, had hired his colleague, the city commander of Halle, Major General Perschinski, to search for my grandmother and the peasants Lorch." Boris: "Yes, that's what you said. But the search was not successful.” Mother: "That's it, and I firmly believe that your grandmother, Luise Agnes Dorfbrunner, never overcame this shock. The shock of her mother's loss after the many years of hiding from the Nazis on the farm at Lorch's, and then the death of your kind-hearted grandfather, she could not handle in her life.” Boris: "Mother, I feel your pain. Now it is time for you to overcome this pain. You have had enough of it in your life. You should not suffer any longer. You should relax, because you also have reason to be thankful that you have survived the horrors of the war, the escape from Wroclaw and the first post-war days in Bautzen.”