Victoria's War: A Novel

By Catherine A. Hamilton

 

Victoria's War is a work of historical fiction about 19-year-old Victoria Darski, a Polish Catholic woman sold into slavery during the Nazi occupation of Europe, and Etta Tod, the 20-year-old deaf daughter of a German baker who buys Victoria. Poland, 1939: Eager to study literature at the University of Warsaw, Victoria waits wit

• Language: English
• Publisher: Plain View Press, LLC
• Release date: Jun 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781632100696

Catherine A. Hamilton

Catherine A. Hamilton is a freelance writer of Polish descent whose articles and poems have appeared in magazines and newspapers including the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Oregonian, the Catholic Sentinel, the Dziennik Związkowy (the oldest Polish newspaper in America), and the Polish American Journal. She is the author of the chapter about Katherine Graczyk in Forgotten Survivors: Polish Christians Remember the Nazi Occupation, edited by Richard C. Lukas. Victoria's War. Victoria's War is her first novel, published by Plain View Press in 2020 . She actively publishes and blogs at www.catherineahamilton.com. Hamilton lives in the Northwest with her husband.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Lagodny, Poland—September 1, 1939

RADIO changed Victoria Darski’s world. It brought swing jazz and blues into her living room. And on the first of September, when she sat on the high-backed sofa and reached for the brass knob on the cabinet radio, it brought news of war.

This is a special announcement, the commentator said. German tanks crossed the Polish border in a devastating predawn attack that Hitler launched against Poland.

Victoria sat upright. Her hands trembled as she dug to the bottom of her black leather handbag and pulled out rosary beads, a cotton handkerchief, and her train ticket. Departure: 9. 1. 1939 11:00, the stamp on the ticket read. Her train would leave in two hours to take her to the women’s dormitory at the University of Warsaw. She was supposed to start her first semester tomorrow. The announcer was saying that all university classes were suspended indefinitely, but Victoria’s suitcases sat packed and waiting in the front hall closet. Can it be true? Victoria crossed one leg and then the other to buckle the straps on her platform shoes. She hurried to tell her parents the horrible news.

By twelve noon, Victoria joined her mother and her sister, Elizabeth, in kissing Papa’s freshly shaven cheeks, telling him to come home safely. The army reserves had called him into active duty. It was the first time Victoria had seen her parents cry in each other’s arms. When the long embrace ended, and the goodbyes were whispered, the Darski women—Victoria, her mother, and Elizabeth—remained at home, glued to the radio all hours of the day and night, believing that at any moment the Germans would turn back, that western Europe would come to Poland’s aid.

Victoria’s bags still waited in the front hall closet twenty-eight days later when Hitler raised the German flag on the Warsaw capitol building. She couldn’t listen to jazz because Chopin’s dirge was the only tune playing out of Warsaw. But she played the radio anyway. It was her only solace, her quasi escape from being held hostage in her own home. It muffled the sound of her sister bickering with her mother about the impossibility of cooking with little to nothing—no salt, no butter. Would there ever be potato dumplings again? Sausage or bacon or ham? Thankfully, over the noise of the cupboards slamming in the kitchen, Victoria heard Chopin.

That is, until Elizabeth stormed into the living room and said, Mother wants you to turn the radio off and come help me bring the laundry in from the clothesline.

Victoria didn’t look up. She straightened her dress hem and ignored Elizabeth. Not until Elizabeth switched the radio off did Victoria look at her sister. Elizabeth’s face was flushed brighter than the red polka dots on her blouse, and Victoria said calmly, I’ve been fourteen, Elizabeth. I know it isn’t easy, but at least try to behave like a lady.

Elizabeth crossed her arms defiantly. No. You need to help me with the laundry.

None of them had set foot outside in weeks, at least not past the clothesline in the backyard. Not since the German soldiers arrived in Lagodny and gave them strict orders not to leave the property. Being cooped up in the house was putting them all on edge. Victoria took in a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. "The point is, Elizabeth, I’d be at the university if it weren’t for Hitler. My suitcases are packed, sitting out there in the hall closet, and I don’t plan to let them sit there forever. There is a chance that Britain and France will show. They’ve declared war on Germany and this occupation could end, and when it does, I’ll be out of here."

Elizabeth’s perfectly round face and delicate features hardened. I’d love to see you go to Warsaw. I’m praying for it. Then I won’t have to watch you dress up day after day as if you’re going off to college, wasting your time on tying all that ribbon in your hair. Why can’t you face the truth?

Victoria stared at Elizabeth. She had taken time on her waist-long French braid, elaborately weaving in the thin pieces of indigo ribbon. And why not? They had all the time in the world. But it never helped to reason with her little sister. Right now, I’m thinking how nice it would be if you didn’t treat me like the enemy. Victoria switched the radio back on. You go get started. I’ll be right out.

Victoria again turned up the volume. The lamplight threw a hazy glow over the front room, and she found a sense of comfort in the smells of her mother’s cooking. The midday meal would begin, as always, with soup. Today it would be a clear beet soup, followed by potato cakes and sliced apples. She was too hungry to care that the food would be served without salt or butter. They had run out of salt days ago, and no one could go to the market. No one could even so much as visit a neighbor to borrow some salt. Not until they had ID cards.

Even with the radio turned up loud, the dirge didn’t muffle the sound of the crucifix rattling on the wall behind the sofa. Someone was pounding at the front door and nobody but the Nazis made a heart-stopping knock like that. Victoria came to her feet, dizzy from fright, loathing the visitors outside, thinking how wrong it all was. That they were still banging and she needed their permission to leave the house. She was old enough to make her own decisions. Maybe this means our ID cards have arrived? Perhaps she could dispel her fear and go see Sylvia and borrow some salt. She and her best friend hadn’t seen each other in weeks.

Mother reached the door as Victoria detected through the curtain the silhouette of a man’s hat, the high-peaked cap and black leather brim she’d seen many times before.

"Untermensch, öffne die Tür!" the man demanded in a loud voice, but who knew what he meant?

Open door! a second man shouted.

Victoria peeked through the curtain at the grotesque skull-and-bones pin on his hatband, unique to the Nazis.

Victoria, go get your sister, Mother whispered.

Is it the ID cards?

Mother turned away from the door, her voice full of emotion. Go get your sister. Bring her down to the basement. Hurry!

Victoria scurried toward the hallway, but an explosion of gunfire cracked so close that she cupped her hands over her ears and fell to her knees. Through flashes of light before her eyes, she saw Mother motioning for her to follow her down to the basement. There wasn’t time to look for Elizabeth. Mother had already made it to the stairs leading to the basement. The men were inside the house.

Victoria reached the stairs and pulled the basement door shut. For a moment, she heard only the sound of her heart pounding against her chest. Then more gunfire bursts.

Down here, Mother said, gesturing from the landing below.

Her mother stood just three steps down, but Victoria couldn’t move. She was frozen there on the top step by the sound of gunfire and shattering glass. The basement door didn’t lock from the inside, but Victoria reached for the doorknob and held it with all her strength when boot heels pounded up the hallway and stopped outside the basement door. Victoria held her breath and gripped the doorknob. She felt it turning in her hand, slowly at first, and then the door yanked open and a gun barrel pointed in her face.

Behind the gun was a silver-eyed Nazi who grabbed her by the hair, shouting, "Komm raus! Raus! He dragged her up the steps and into the hallway where the second German shouted in a mix of Russian and Polish, On the floor!"

Victoria crouched at his feet. His friend went back after Mother, hauling her up the steps by the arms. He shoved her into the hall.

Mother was on her knees next to Victoria. Take me. Let her go. Please, Mother’s voice pleaded.

I kill slow whores, he said. Both of you. Down on your bellies. Before Victoria could move, the man hit her in the back with the butt of his gun and forced her head flat against the floorboards. He held her there, the gun butt against her face. Who else is down in the basement? he demanded of Victoria.

No one, Victoria managed to say through jaws smashed into the floor.

What he heard must have been Elizabeth on the back porch. Victoria searched for Mother’s face, to see something in Mother’s eyes that would tell her what to do, what to say, but she saw only the man’s black boots. My cat is down there. That’s what you must have heard.

He leaned on his gun barrel, pinching her face until she thought her teeth would break loose. She tasted blood. In a blur, his red armband—the white circle and black swastika, the bold-stitched letters SS—passed before her eyes. The back of his gloved hand smashed against her face, again and again.

Mother begged him to stop, but he and the other Nazi laughed. That’s where you both belong! Groveling on the floor. He spat in Victoria’s face and called her untermensch and turned to Mother. Where’s your mister?

I’ve only the girl with me, Mother said, her voice trembling. My husband is—

Elizabeth crashed into the house from the back door, crying, Mama! What’s happening? When Elizabeth reached the hallway and saw for herself, she screamed at the top of her voice, Mama!

Stay there, Elizabeth, Mother called out. Get down on the floor. Do what he says. Then to the German: Take me. Let the girls live.

Elizabeth sank to her knees in the hallway, whimpering loudly.

Maybe I want you and maybe I don’t. Maybe I want all three. But first, I want your money and your food. Everything you have belongs to Hitler. You don’t even have a country to call your own. So, you give me what I want and maybe you’ll live. And maybe you won’t.

Elizabeth screamed when he took hold of Mother.

Keep her quiet, will you! Make her shut her mouth! I hate screaming children! Make her shut up!

Mother told Elizabeth to hush, but she screamed all the more hysterically.

Victoria wanted to quiet Elizabeth, but she didn’t say anything. Not until the gunfire sounded. Not until her sister collapsed to floor, and Mother screamed, No! Not until Elizabeth’s polka-dot blouse was riveted with holes and her blood splattered all over Mother’s rosebud wallpaper did Victoria cry out, Elizabeth!

CHAPTER 2

Lügodenburg,

General Government of the Third Reich—1941

VICTORIA joined the orderly single-file march behind her mother, stepping quickly to keep up. More than twenty-five other women and girls walked in line to the sewing factory, as if in a silent film—silent because it was illegal to speak to one another in public, silent except for their eerie footfalls against the cobblestone and the faint sound of the river rushing over rocks in the distance.

While Victoria lived in the same town, on the same street, and in the same country-style cottage where her sister was shot, the Nazis had erased every trace of what signified Poland. For two years now, she had lived in Lügodenburg, not Lagodny. She served inside the General Government of the Third Reich, not in Poland. This was an official decree: It is prohibited for more than two people of Polish descent (nonfamily) to gather together at one time in public.

Victoria hadn’t made up her mind about whether or not to go to the underground meeting Sylvia had been hounding her about. Sylvia said she would feel less afraid of the Nazis if she learned how to fight back. She did help Mother smuggle foodstuffs, and she resisted in her own tiny ways. For the past twenty-four months, she did something very wrong to each and every German army shirt she made, something she’d never shared with anyone.

Fighting back didn’t come naturally for Victoria. Much of the time she wanted to run and hide from the world she lived in. But there was no escape. Not from Lügodenburg, because on the opposite end of the street stretched a tall wooden barricade topped with barbed wire, blocking the entrance into town. Two enemy trucks were parked in front of it, and more than two dozen SS men stood guard. She found no escape from recurring memories that came in a rush of images—the basement door being yanked open, the gun barrel pointed in her face, the sharp words she could not forget, I kill slow whores. The massacre of her sister. The bloodstained wallpaper that she’d washed so many times the roses had vanished in places.

When a woman stepped up beside her in line, Victoria cringed. She prepared herself for the dogs to come running into the streets, barking and tearing at the women’s clothes. The law required a single-file march. Victoria fully expected the woman to be mauled—or, at least, to quickly step past her and continue walking. But when the SS didn’t send out the dogs and the woman didn’t move up the line, Victoria glanced over. She realized why nothing terrible had happened. It was Miss Lindie. Victoria didn’t dare say a word.

Miss Lindie came from Dymu to work at the factory three days a week. She was born in Poland, of German lineage. Everyone knew she had signed the German People’s List and registered as Volksdeutch, along with a handful of other women in the sewing factory. Although they had lived in Poland for years, they didn’t consider themselves Polish, but rather ethnic Germans and Nazi sympathizers. Miss Lindie didn’t have any friends at the factory. No surprise there because Volksdeutch got special privileges. Not the least of which was that they received 2,613-calorie-per-day rations, which was the reason why Miss Lindie was so plump. That amount of food was huge compared to what was allotted to untermensch, ethnic Poles. Inferiors like Victoria and her mother got a starvation ration of 699 calories per day.

Miss Lindie didn’t pass Victoria but spoke to her. Morning, she said in German.

Victoria nodded politely and kept walking. She watched the back of Mother’s head, focusing on the loose braid that Mother had twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck. Yesterday two Polish women had been shot for talking in line, and Victoria wasn’t about to give the Nazis the pleasure of doing the same to her.

Miss Lindie nudged Victoria hard with her elbow and said, There are rumors. Someone told me your mother gives Jews food. Is it true?

Victoria didn’t answer Miss Lindie, but she felt sick to her stomach, partly because she hadn’t had enough to eat for breakfast. But more because of what was beneath the folded patterns inside her sewing box. In a small thread compartment at the bottom, she’d hidden a small sack of flour. The Darski women could supplement their meager rations because they had a garden. The harsh reality was that the Germans had split the Polish population into racial categories. Every household had to complete the Hereditary Registry. Once the census was completed, people were placed into one of three categories, which was documented on their ID cards: Volksdeutch, Polish extraction non-Jewish, or Jewish. The Nazis then imposed food rationing based on these categories. And this was why Victoria and Mother helped their Jewish friends, because the dreadfully low ration the Germans allowed for Jews was 300 calories per day.

If it is true, you should be worried, Miss Lindie said. There’s more than one person that says she helps Jews.

Isn’t that strange? I’ve heard the very same thing about you. Can’t trust anybody these days, can you? Before Victoria knew what she was saying, the words had popped out of her mouth.

Miss Lindie quickly walked out of line, moving past both Victoria and her mother, her nose in the air. She continued on her own, glancing back only once before she slipped inside the factory entrance. Volksdeutch didn’t need to stop at the ID checkpoint because the guards all knew who they were. Besides that, Miss Lindie was cozy with a particular member of the Gestapo who worked as a guard at the factory.

Before Victoria reached the guard’s kiosk, one of the men stepped outside with Miss Lindie. She pointed Victoria out to the guard. Trembling, Victoria felt sure she was about to be arrested or shot dead.

Victoria Marie Darski! the guard called her name aloud, which rarely happened.

Yes, sir. She shuffled up to the kiosk and handed him her ID card.

"I have instructions to keep your arbeitsbuch until the end of the day."

Yes, sir. Victoria didn’t dare question him. The arbeitsbuch was both her work card and ID. It was mandatory for all Polish people, Jews and Catholics alike, to have the arbeitsbuch on their person at all times. It also protected her from arrest, as carrying the ID card was proof she was in compliance with the compulsory work mandate under Nazi rule.

Victoria entered the two-story brick sewing factory behind her mother and walked down the narrow hallway plastered with public notices. Mother had stopped at the propaganda posters, pretending to read one notice or another. The Nazis were compulsive about posting public decrees.

PUBLIC DECREE:

No citizen of Polish descent living in the territories of The General Government of the Third Reich may have in his/her possession or make use of the following: bicycles, automobiles, radios. These items will be confiscated by the Gestapo.

Any citizen of Polish descent who is found in violation of this decree on the use of transportation and communication of the G. G. register will be subject to arrest and confinement in the concentration camp.

Commander Franke, General Government of the Third Reich

PUBLIC DECREE:

This is a categorical warning to the non-Jewish population who are helping Jews. All violators are subject to death for:

1. Supplying them with food or rations.

2. Selling them foodstuffs.

Commander Franke, General Government of the Third Reich

You know they’re kidnapping Catholic women who don’t have ID cards and sending them to Berlin, Victoria, Mother whispered. He kept your ID. If you don’t have ID, you can’t come to the factory, and if you don’t work, they will take all our ration cards, our house. They’ll put us both in prison.

Don’t worry, Mother. He’s giving it back when we leave tonight. They love my sewing. Did you see they’re confiscating radios? Victoria said, changing the subject.

Mother nodded that she’d seen it. What did Lindie say to you?

She gossips. No one listens to her.

The Gestapo listens to her.

It was nothing. Victoria kissed Mother’s cheek. Shouldn’t we get going? Victoria moved up the hall without admitting to her mother how terrifying it had been when the guard took her ID. And even more frightening was what Miss Lindie had said.

Victoria was used to the thick metallic smell of the sewing room. One hundred treadle sewing machines sat in ten tidy columns: ten machines across, ten deep. The machines were portable and made of highly polished steel and labeled with its German brand name in large print just beneath the stitch-length knob: Nahen. And each one rested on a small wood sewing table that was numbered and assigned to a particular worker.

Victoria and her mother set their sewing boxes on Rachela Maczovic’s desktop, which was situated squarely at the front of the room. Rachela immediately put them on the floor and, standing up, scooted them under her desk with her foot. Rachela was a stunning beauty with milk-white skin and long black hair, the wife of the Jewish shopkeeper. She was a talented designer and seamstress who knew everything about sewing. Most important to the Nazis, she knew how to use the modern sewing machines. For this reason, she was put in charge of the sewing room.

How are the patterns coming along? Rachela said.

Slowly, but they’ll be finished soon, Victoria said, forcing a frown, afraid Miss Lindie might be watching.

Good. So, everything’s fine? The patterns haven’t become too difficult? I mean, if it’s too much of a burden, you don’t have to do them. I’d understand. Rachela gave one of the sewing boxes another nudge, trying to make sure it was completely out of sight.

It’s not a burden. Everything’s fine, Mother said. The small talk between them was always the same. They all knew things weren’t fine. Mother glanced at the guard. His back was turned, but he was near enough that she could hear him snoring. Lowering her voice, she said, He’s still asleep. Any word from the mister?

We should get to our sewing machines, Mother, Victoria said, but her mother hushed her.

I’ve heard nothing, Rachela whispered. Both their husbands had volunteered for the army the same day. Since their names hadn’t appeared on the bulletins of those killed in action, they could only assume they were both POWs somewhere in Germany or in the Russian gulags. The Nazis had commandeered the Maczovic store during the rampages of October 1939 and stole their money and food. They’d left the women, Rachela and three daughters, in the ransacked family apartment above the shop, where they’d continued to live. That is, until last week, when Rachela and her girls were forced to move into a tiny one-bedroom apartment with her sister. The Nazis started building fences topped with barbed wire to surround block after block of apartments and small houses. Rachela and those Jews who had ID cards could come and go to work and the market, but they hadn’t yards in which to grow vegetables. They could literally starve without extra food coming in. Mother had said from the beginning that no public Nazi decree was going to stop her from doing the right thing.

We’re bound to hear something soon. We can’t give up hoping— Mother stopped short. The guard came to his feet and walked toward them, his footsteps unnatural and heavy. The flesh around his eyes was red and swollen.

Get working! His speech was thick and slurred.

Victoria moved quickly to her sewing machine ahead of her mother. She sat down on her stool at table twenty, directly behind Mother at table ten.

Sylvia had table nineteen, and she glanced up at Victoria, trying to communicate something with a puzzled look on her face. But Victoria ignored Sylvia and threaded her sewing machine. She unfolded the drab green fabric she’d left there the previous evening. She pretended to be busy and slid the cloth under the needle, lowering the sewing foot, but she was watching the front desk from the corner of her eye.

The guard towered over Rachela. What’s in the boxes? he said, loud enough to be heard over the buzz of the sewing room, waving his gun toward the sewing boxes Rachela had carefully slid under her desk.

The things we need for sewing, Rachela said. Scissors, straight pins, paper for pattern making. She stood up. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.

Open it, he said.

Rachela first pulled out a pair of scissors, then a tape measure, the marking wheel, several spools of gray thread, pins, needles, and two small pieces of gray fabric, and finally, the pattern paper. The guard nodded his approval and returned to his post at the door. He was a fool and a drunk. He knew nothing about sewing or sewing boxes or thread compartments or the risks women were willing to take to help others.

Mother gave a quiet sigh of relief before starting her machine.

Victoria folded the twelfth shirt she’d made for the enemy that week, complete with her tiny signature, a little straight pin sewn inside the collar. She took pleasure in the thought that some Nazi would get pricked in the neck. This was her secret act of sabotage, minor as it might be.

The sewing room was packed today, noisy with machines making Nazi clothes. Every day there were more and more Jewish women being assigned to the factory. Every day the citizens of Lügodenburg watched as entire families of ethnic Poles were forced to the trains bound for Berlin. And every day trains marked General Government of the Third Reich would arrive packed with Jewish people from all corners of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Rachela paced up the aisle, offering to help anyone who might need it. She paused next to Victoria, and glancing at the guard, she dropped a note in Victoria’s lap.

Meet me at the cutting tables!

Victoria recognized the handwriting. She looked over at Sylvia and shook her head no. Victoria wasn’t going to risk it. Any infraction and she’d lose her work permit. Sylvia glared at Victoria, nodding yes, insisting. Sylvia motioned with her head for Victoria to look at the guard. He was nodding off on his stool.

VICTORIA leaned against the cutting table where several wicker bins filled with bolts of fabrics ranging in color from khaki to gray to green lay on the floor at her feet. She took a bolt of gray wool and laid it on the table, measuring three meters’ length. The wool was stubborn, stiff, and difficult to unroll, and it was impossible to pull the selvage edge together evenly. Victoria pinned the brown paper pattern onto the wool—another winter coat for the enemy. Sylvia joined her.

What’s so important this time? Victoria asked, glancing at Sylvia, at the guard, and back at Sylvia.

You know we have a meeting tomorrow, right?

Victoria nodded and cut along the pattern line without looking up. And you know that more ethnic Poles are being sent to Berlin every day. I want to be one of the lucky ones who’s stuck in the General Government working in a sewing factory. At least I’m with Mother.

"No one is saying