Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

Wolfsons, their stay in Munich, and the summer at the beaches of Ca’ Savio. She did not tell me about Ingo’s flight, herparents-in-law, or Friedrich’s horrifying end. She just said Friedrich had died in 1944, and during the war he had workedon military-related projects, which had kept him from being drafted. This was not without precedent, I had learned thatother Jews had survived in secret military-related positions, among them several high-placed officers.I had not asked Katharina any further questions, but had left puzzled. There was something Katharina was hiding, which Icould not put my finger on. My father too never talked about Friedrich. Katharina had died in 1955."Tell me," I asked father on a sudden hunch, "was Friedrich a Nazi?"He became very pensive."After 1936 we never mentioned him at home. Friedrich was an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis. He joined the party in1935. It did not save his life, he was too intelligent and highly visible. I learned to hide, to be gray during those years—just an unimportant civil servant teaching the stupid sons of peasants. In 1944 rumors began to circulate that FriedrichDahl had been involved in spying for the Soviets together with Klaus Fuchs. But I don’t know whether there is any truth tothat. Fuchs escaped east, and Friedrich they caught."He paused. "Did you know that Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg was hanged in 1944? He was accused ofinvolvement in the assassination attempt on Hitler—as was Friedrich von Bredow, Annika’s father, who died the sameway."I was 13 when the Second World War ended. I should have known about these people. But they had beentotgeschwiegen, passed over in silence by my family for fear that we would be implicated in their fate. Their names werenever mentioned.My father was very tired, all his happiness about the photos of Alexandra’s grave had been destroyed by the horriblememories of his life.Next morning over breakfast my father, almost perky, asked. "Could one visit Georgia as a tourist? Now that I know aplace that I would truly like to visit, to beg my mother’s forgiveness for maligning her for years, I would really like to go."It was the first time he had voiced such a wish. Before he wanted nothing to do with the USSR. It would not be as happya trip as he imagined, I feared, too much had changed in Tbilisi, but it was now entirely possible. We made tentativeplans for such a journey.It was not to be. My father suffered a stroke. Mother wrote that he had become very difficult. He was in no condition totravel to Georgia.67.Alexandra's Letters1983One morning Konrad’s old watch stopped. It seemed properly wound. How annoying, I thought, now that Konrad’s andAlexandra’s life was finally beginning to unravel the watch that had kept me company gave up.I took it to a watchmaker. He looked at it. "It will need some cleaning, it looks as if it has not been cleaned for a hundredyears. Have you set it to run so slow?""Oh," I told him, "I don’t use it to count my hours, it runs at the pace of life in Eastern Europe, and you will find otherthings strange with this watch—it runs backwards. Please don’t change any of these oddities."He shook his head and laughed.He took out a few screws and found the spring was broken. That would be a major repair. I signed my name authorizingthe repair of the watch.When I came home, I found Andrea in tears. What had happened?She showed me a telegram. My father had died.We flew to Germany the following day. Mother was relieved to see us. "You don’t imagine how difficult the past year hasbeen." She said. "After his stroke, he could no longer speak. Later he recovered some of his speech: he was able to sing.But he was so indescribably despondent. When awake he sang Georgian nursery songs to himself and cried for hismother, in Russian. When I could no longer handle him physically, I had him transferred to a resthome. I found a nursefor him who spoke Russian. He insisted that the woman's name was Elisabeth."It was a dreadful time. I am so happy that you are here, and that he has been released from his long, unhappy life."She wiped tears from her eyes with her apron. "He died alone, fighting the restraints they had put him into to keep him inbed. He again and again demanded to go to Tiflis to ask his mother to forgive him his trespasses against her."210