The Rise and Fall of the Great Barbate

CHAPTER 1

Today is August 25, 1939. Nazi Germany is now the superpower of Europe, and Hitler is threatening to invade Poland, my country. Britain and France are almost at war with Nazi Germany, while the Soviet Union is siding with the Nazis and will perhaps soon also threaten to invade my country—my beloved ‘Polska’, my Poland. Spain has just ended its bloody civil war, with Franco taking total control of his nation, while in Italy Mussolini reigns over the Italian Empire, controlling Abyssinia (Ethiopia), Albania and Eritrea. The war in Europe is imminent, and I feel a very sinister and chilling wind heading for Poland, as if nature is announcing the arrival of war to our lands. We must be prepared for the worst.

These days, Europe seems to be a chessboard, with all its pieces ready to move forward with plans to commence battle, to fulfill ambitions or defend territories against those foreign countries that wish to extend their homelands to other regions of Europe. Major political powers of the continent are preparing their armies for the worst, investing heavily in new armaments and troops that will instigate the biggest conflict Europe will ever experience. The ambience of the cities of Berlin, Moscow, Paris, London, Rome, Krakow, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Oslo, Stockholm, Prague, Helsinki, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Budapest and Brussels has quickly changed to an ambience of war, which many people who suffered through World War I say will be worse than all the previous conflicts Europeans have been involved in so far.

I am now approaching my parents’ house, located in the Kazimierz district, the old Jewish quarter of Krakow, to attend one of the family meals my mother, Georgeanna, always prepares on Sundays. As I arrive, my father, Tedorik, comes to the porch to greet me with a heartfelt ‘witaj’, which means ‘hello’ in Polish. My older brother has just arrived from Warsaw. My sister has also come today and is helping my mother in the kitchen. My Uncle Rafal, who lives in the countryside, is also visiting the family. I am very happy to see my brother again, the brother who I have not seen since he left Krakow to work in Warsaw. He will remain for a couple of weeks to help my father with our family business, a café situated near the Basilica of St. Mary, south of the Krakow Market Square. Our café is very famous in the city for its delicious pastries and gourmet coffee from Brazil.

It is now 6:00 p.m. and the table is ready. My father raises his cup of Polish vodka in a toast of victory for the treaty of mutual assistance that Poland has signed with Britain. My mother lights the candles, and we say our usual prayers of the day with an intense faith that I have not seen before. Today we are having lamb and potatoes with a very good sauce my mother loves to make for special occasions. Soup, Polish bread and vegetables accompany the meat. My father firmly believes that Great Britain will defeat Hitler before Nazi Germany starts its territorial expansion to other countries of Europe.

Our table conversation has been completely focused on Nazi Germany and its intentions of invading Poland. My father and Uncle Rafal repeatedly reaffirm that Britain and France will defend our nation in case of a German attack. My mother is quietly praying instead of talking, in light of her premonition of what will soon happen in Poland. My sister is supporting my father and uncle’s opinions, perhaps as a sign of complete denial of the reality Europe is confronting these days. My older brother says he will immigrate to Moscow if the Nazis launch an attack on Poland. While the conversation flows around me, I eat my meal without saying a single word, since I sincerely believe neither Britain nor France will defend our nation from what is coming. I believe our fate as a nation is already written, and our only hope is to survive what is coming, perhaps to abandon Poland forever. Unfortunately, most of my family members deny that reality.

After finishing our family dinner, I quickly say my goodbyes to my parents and Uncle Rafal, who remain in the kitchen eating dessert and listening to the radio. My sister and brother are avidly discussing the upcoming music festival in Warsaw. I head toward my apartment near the Jagiellonian University, where I have been pursuing my career in political science. I walk briskly through the Kazimierz district, where my family resides, until arriving at my apartment located in the Old Town district of Krakow, where I find a thick letter waiting for me. It is from Ada Eissmann, my Austrian fiancée. I can hardly wait to read her news, and think that perhaps she is finally ready to set the date for our wedding. Then again, perhaps she is playing a joke on me, as she tends to do. Why would she leave a letter for me under my apartment door when she also lives in Krakow?

I then notice that the letter is postmarked ‘Salzburg, Austria.’ Has she left the city without telling me? I grow confused; I do not understand why this letter is marked with a Nazi symbol and a Salzburg return address. I hurriedly tear open the letter and glance over what my beloved fiancée has written, feeling deep sadness even from the beginning, from her first words.

213 Linzer Bundesstrasse, Salzburg, Austria.

August 15, 1939

Dear Pawel:

This was our last summer together. The war is coming and the red roses of war will soon pronounce an inevitable disaster for your beloved country. I can feel a very dark and bitter feeling for the Poland that you grew up in as a child, as a man, as my fiancée, as the father of the child I have growing inside my womb. In a matter of time, a fast-approaching nightmare will bring Nazi tanks and troops. The will of your country will succumb to the authority of Adolf Hitler. Poland will not succeed in its effort to detain the Nazis from occupying the nation. The history of Krakow, Warsaw and all Polish cities will soon be rewritten when Germans advance through the nation; half of the existing territory of Poland will be annexed to the Third Reich, while the rest of the country may be converted into another German protectorate. The decision by Hitler to invade Poland will cause tremendous changes in the lives of all Polish people, who will suffer the consequences an invasion can cause any country.

I am not Polish, I am not Jewish, I am not Czech, I am not a Gypsy from Moldova; I am an Austrian from Salzburg with a pedigree and a German accent that would never befit our love. This is the end, the end of everything we ever shared. I am joining the Nazi medical team as a volunteer nurse. I will be providing medical assistance to the troops in the newly occupied territories, such as the Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the ones that will soon be acquired by the Führer. Even though this is my father’s wish, I feel a very strong and deep calling to serve my Nazi heritage, which runs through my veins as a powerful harbinger of my own destiny. I will soon be moving with the troops to the newly occupied territories in Czechoslovakia, where I will serve our sick and injured soldiers.

The baby that is growing inside my womb, of whom you are the father, will be raised under the Nazi doctrine that my father, SS Commander Frederick Eissmann, has faithfully embraced and wants me to continue. I want you to forget that you ever fathered my baby. I have promised my father you will never see his or her face. I am deeply sorry for your pain, Pawel, but the war has forced us all to make sacrifices that we do not want to make, but that are completely necessary to achieve all the goals that Adolf Hitler pursues in the name of his people.

You will not belong to me anymore, Pawel—our time together has been succeeded by the power of the Nazi doctrine that has already revolutionized my thinking and captured the last remnants of my carefree youth. My heart is no longer free, Pawel, but already has an owner—a German SS officer stationed in Austria, who proposed to me during a Nazi party rally in Munich. I attended several rallies during one of my many visits to Nazi Germany before Austria was annexed to the Reich. I know this news will wound you deeply, but I cannot in all sincerity accept your love anymore, more so now that Nazi Germany will reign over all Europe.

The SS officer and I want to marry and have children who will serve our nation, the German nation that rose from the waters of the Danube River and the mother of our German heritage, which are the most loyal vigilantes and are represented at the top of the Brandenburg Gate. Berlin will soon be as big as Paris and New York, even London, Rome, Krakow, Prague, Madrid, Athens, Moscow and Leningrad. Such cities will never be as large and prosperous as we are going to be. It is our own destiny as a nation, as Germans, as the established power of a new world which will be built by the force of the whip and the iron hand of Hitler, who will smash any kind of rebellion throughout the European continent.

Austria has already been annexed, the armies of Hitler have taken Czechoslovakia, Italy has invaded Albania following Mussolini’s orders, and Poland will soon be our next stop. The British Empire will fall under the hands of Hitler when the Nazis invade Britain and capture London as a new city under the flag of the Third Reich. I have not heard anything about France yet, but perhaps they will soon be our allies just as the Italians became some time ago when Mussolini joined forces with Hitler.

Our Führer has consolidated his power. Now is the time to conquer everything that belongs to our Fatherland, just as the Nazis have constantly told us during our party rallies in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Bonn. Although I should not even talk to you any more, I strongly advise you to escape from Poland, escape from Krakow, because time is running out for you. I heard news from my father that deportation will start as soon as Hitler invades Poland. All Jews will be deported to camps, though which camps are not clear to me. You should pack your belongings as soon as you can and escape to France. I do not advise you to go to Italy, because the Fascist regime of Rome will sell you for even a fraction of Italian lire to finance their ambitious hunger for wealth. Italy has already signed a friendly treaty with Hitler that will strengthen Nazi power to all the corners that compose this great continent. Europe will be Nazi in a matter of time, and even the summer will be conquered by the power of this great Hitlerian dream. Winter will be annexed as part of our dominion.

My father has never been so proud of me, even more than when I graduated as a nurse from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He praises my name among his fellow SS commanders in Austria; how his daughter is serving the Third Reich with pride and commitment to the nation that has been formed after Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany. I was even hired by the Nazi youth organization as the new advocate in Austria for the Austrian youth who join Hitler’s armies to begin the expansion of the Third Reich to the west, east, south and north of the Deutschland.

The war has changed everything in my life. Any affection I ever felt for Krakow or the Jewish people has been converted into hatred, and the white doves from the beautiful parks of Salzburg are now dark with the intense wish of conquering and subjugating every single human being under the law of Hitler. Even if I used to love you, we can never be together. The almighty whip of the Nazi will has demarcated our love. Time has collapsed everything. The ashes of fire are coming to diminish Europe under Hitler’s iron hand. I’m advising you because I used to care about you, but my biggest fear is being discovered by the Gestapo and accused as a traitor of the Third Reich. That horrible thought invades my peace every day, even now, as I write this letter to you. I feel the Gestapo coming after me, to accuse me under the strict laws that Hitler has already imposed all around Germany and all the annexed territories, to persecute any single person who defies direct orders against consorting with Jews, risking jail or imprisonment at a prison camp.

I know, I should not be writing this letter at all, but there is an overwhelming urge within my heart, pushing my hands and mind, even my soul, to warn you that everything that is coming will soon have a devastating effect on your life. Part of my mind is already Nazi, while my soul remains that of the Austrian girl who used to love a Jewish-Polish man, live in the Jewish quarter of Krakow and walk down its streets. However, I cannot just think of myself anymore, and I do strongly believe in my Nazi heritage, as you can see in this letter. I feel a very strong force compelling my will every instant. I’m not free, I’m no longer free as I used to be, and I’m not the same Ada Eissmann anymore. My destiny has been written by my undeniable heritage, by my blood, by my German race, my skin, Aryan features and coloring. All of my past has been subsumed by the Nazi doctrine through the tremendous power of their words inserted like magic into my faltering mind.

Part of me knows that I have also dishonored my beautiful Salzburg, the place where I was born and raised as a child, because I have let the invaders conquer my free mind. My beloved Salzburg is not an Austrian city any longer, but a city under the Nazis. My own identity has been lost forever; my accent, my pride, my memories from my childhood, lost forever under the hands of Hitler, the ones where I was raised and taught to respect, love and defend my Austrian flag and pride. The Salzburg I knew and loved has been lost forever. Its landscape remains, but its freedom has vanished.

I remember my good days in Salzburg, the Sunday morning attending the Cathedral mass and our family lunches on meadows scattered across the mountains that surrounds the city. I remember its streets, its parks and its people living under the freedom of the Austrian government after the Austro-Hungarian Empire was destroyed during World War I. I remember my days as a carefree child playing across its plazas, eating Austrian desserts and fishing with my father along the many lakes that characterize landscapes covered by high mountains and beautiful villages along valleys, lakes and forests. Salzburg is now under the command of the Nazis. My father has been named Commander of the Waffen-SS of Upper Austria, due to our German heritage. There was nothing that we could have done to avoid our written destiny as part of this oncoming war that will raze every civilization in Europe.

Burn this farewell letter before I risk discovery by the Gestapo; burn it under a blazing fire far away in the Polish countryside where not even the birds will notice this ambiguous treason. Do not allow anybody to read it, for even the wind can be a Nazi spy. Let the fire consume this piece of paper until the ashes of fire are spread across the Polish skies, across the dust, across the water of the rain running away through the fields of corn and wheat. Do not let any pieces remain in the soil, because even the dust can discover my treason and threaten my life. By writing to you, I have dishonored my father and his beloved Nazi party, my blood and my Nazi present—; everything that makes my life part of this great Hitlerian dream.

Please save yourself! Perhaps one day, I will see you again, and the baby growing inside my womb will see the man who once gave him or her life.

Ada

*     *     *

My Austrian fiancée mailed that letter to me that fall of 1939. I was appalled by the contents of her letter. I could not believe that her mind was already controlled by the Nazis. What of my baby, knowledge she had hidden from me while she was still living in Krakow? Sadly, I knew I would never see my baby as long as the Nazis remained in Austria, nor could I safely visit the country. I would be killed within seconds if I visited Salzburg to see my baby. I felt as if Ada Eissmann had kidnapped a part of my soul. She had profoundly torn apart my heart, and it lay shattered in pieces. I hoped God could forgive her sins and help her, change her mind so she would once more be the woman I loved, just as she was while living in Poland. I was deeply saddened that my child would grow up believing Ada’s lies, without knowing the real man who gave him or her life. I was achingly aware that he or she would be raised under the Nazi doctrine, ignoring its Polish heritage and culture.

I never expected Ada to abandon Krakow so soon, even if the war was rapidly approaching. She had always been an advocate and a feminist who defended any ethnic minority group discriminated against in Europe. I believed her free spirit was consumed and even destroyed by her continuous exposure to Nazi doctrine. Her father was the one who introduced Ada to the Nazi world by forcing her to attend Nazi society parties in Germany, even the rallies that occurred around Berlin before 1939. She was transformed then, from a liberal radical to a Nazi member subjugated by the strange and hypnotic force of Hitler’s seductive and flamboyant speeches. Poor Ada, who abandoned her identity to follow those who forced her to become the person she is today.

While she had still lived in the city, I had started to notice that her thinking was being transformed, even ensnared, by a strange force or personality. One morning, while walking together to a clothing store in Krakow, she said to me that a marriage between a German and Jew was not possible under any human law. I remember how painful it was to listen to those words. Even then, she seemed to be losing her free mind when she said to me that our love was becoming a great burden for her and her family. She even admitted to me that she was currently attending Nazi society parties in Berlin while on vacation with her father in Germany. It made me very sad to hear how my fiancée was being transformed from a beautiful Austrian girl full of life to a bitter puppet of the Nazi doctrinal system. That morning, she even hinted at a possible cancellation of our wedding if the Nazis took control of Poland. I guess that inevitable destiny had already been written for us, and we were already being trampled under the stronger power of a world that would never have existed if Hitler had been defeated during the early stages of the war. Hitler was a very intimidating figure during the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s, one feared by the armies of France, Britain, Poland and even the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany’s powerful warfare machinery was at its highest technological state at the time, superior to that of all countries in Europe.

That morning, as we walked across the streets of the Old Town district of Krakow, I began to realize that my fiancée was not Ada Eissmann anymore. She was lost, her mind was lost, even the last remnants of her personality were already being taken over by Hitler’s seductive doctrine, just as many Germans had also experienced at the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power. Ada, poor soul, saw her free, spirited mind transformed by the inhuman thinking of the Nazi doctrine that quashed the simplest notion of a civilized world in Europe. That same morning, we continued walking together, holding hands until arriving in the neighborhood of my apartment building in Krakow. It was the last time I saw her face before she abandoned the city during August of 1939.

Our last moment together was painful and deeply sad. Her face looked confused and perturbed, like a child harassed by a demoniac force trying to demolish her identity and her will through a violent conflict of feelings. Her eyes looked tragic, and the few words she could say to me were premonitions of her upcoming decision to abandon Poland forever. She looked like a victim of the seductive doctrine of the Nazi regime. While not yet a supporter of the Nazis, she looked like a soul just being kidnapped by their propaganda, which had already conquered Germany and spread its insidious power across the borders of Europe. As I watched her cross the streets, leaving behind my neighborhood as she walked toward the Jagiellonian University, I wondered if I would ever see the old Ada again. After she had confessed to me that she was uncomfortable with our relationship, I had to wonder where our relationship was headed.

As I discovered days later, that day, instead of going to the Jagiellonian University as she had promised to do, Ada went directly to her apartment situated in the Kazimierz district, grabbed her belongings and departed on the next train that would take her to Prague and later to Austria. She left Poland choking back tears, her soul appalled by her sudden departure from a city she loved and the man she had promised to join in Holy matrimony. All her dreams were shattered that day—her wedding in the mountains of Bavaria, her honeymoon in the port of Cannes on the French Riviera, her expectations of being a good mother, just as her own mother, Eva Kaiser Eissmann, had been before dying of a heart attack in 1933. She gave up her dreams of working as an advocate for the Jews in Krakow, her long-awaited expectations of working as a nurse in the colonies of Africa, and her feminist ideals of a Europe that provided more opportunities for women, one that accepted all ethnic minorities by giving them the same rights as all citizens. The life that she always wanted was completely torn apart, past the point of no return.

Her father could himself be transformed into a very angry man when he believed it was necessary, due to his strict and dictatorial character. Ada once confessed to me that during her last trip to Austria, her father had slapped her face repeatedly when she had told him she was determined to marry a Polish Jew. Her father had ordered one of his male servants to lock her up in her room until she understood that our love was a crime in Nazi Germany, that her marriage could jeopardize his wishes of becoming one of the highest-ranking of Hitler’s SS commanders in Austria. He had taken her to the train station in pouring rain, to the train that would take her back to Poland, making her promise to return to her country when she graduated from the Jagiellonian University. He had told Ada that he would send men to hunt her down if she ignored his will and his wishes to see his only child marry an SS officer. Ada had been devastated, and just one choice remained for her when her father advised her about an incoming invasion of Poland by Hitler, months after her last visit to Austria. Her father had warned her that she could be mistaken for a Jewish-Polish woman and be killed if she did not abandon Krakow before the invasion.

*     *     *

A couple of days after Ada’s disappearance from Krakow, the Polish media released bad news about an incoming invasion by Nazi Germany. Shocked by the sinister implications, I found myself wishing that Ada were still there. On a sudden impulse, I decided to visit her apartment, situated in the Kazimierz district, hoping against hope that she would not have left without seeing me. I was told by an old Jewish lady who lived next door that she had seen my fiancée walking across the street with her belongings in the direction of the train station several days earlier. Pain pierced my heart when I heard that news. The reality of her departure sank in, flooding my heart with grief. She had left Krakow without even saying goodbye to the man she had once promised to love forever and whose child she carried.

CHAPTER 2

After Ada left the city, sinister news continued to appear in the city newspapers. All over Poland, people commented about the incoming invasion of our country, following orders from Hitler. There was a great fear that powerful German aircraft would destroy Poland, bombing our cities until we all saw our own destruction. The Polish government was mute, apparently accepting the inevitable invasion of our country. People fearfully prepared themselves for a possible outbreak of war across Polish territory. The signs were all there, demonstrating and warning that Hitler was going to attack Poland—it was just a matter of time.

Hitler had already invaded Austria, and appalling news was released by the Polish Army that the war was approaching Polish territory, suggesting an inevitable attack on the country within days. The Polish Army tried to convince the Polish people that an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany was almost impossible, due to the Polish Army’s capability to defend the nation. The majority of the Polish people clearly doubted that the Polish Army could defeat Hitler’s intentions. Germany was the superpower of Europe at the time, with one of the best armies in the world and the most modern weaponry on the continent. It was very clear to all Polish people that there was nothing Poland could do to stop the invasion.

One day, our destined future became a reality. Germany sent her armies to Poland while Polish units formed across the border to defend our last hope of freedom. Poland was at risk, at great risk of being destroyed by Adolf Hitler. It was almost impossible to believe that the Polish Army was defeated in a matter of weeks, after the powerful Nazi troops invaded our nation. Our rudimentary weapons could not hold back the unbreakable power of the Nazi troops, which demanded the total capitulation of Polish lands, to be subjected to the total authority of the Third Reich. One by one, day by day, night by night, minute after minute, Polish flags were removed from the fallen towns and cities of my beloved Poland and replaced by Nazi flags. Even the green grasses of the valley succumbed to the bitter smoke of Nazi weapons, which spread over the land.

*     *     *

How saddened I am to see my fallen country burned by the foreign troops who invaded our lands to initiate a remarkable phase of destruction within the Poland that I love. Warsaw has fallen; Krakow has fallen—both without significant resistance from the already defeated Polish Army. People are screaming in the streets of my neighborhood, hiding their gold and possessions before the Nazi troops completely cover the city. My family is already hidden in the basement of our building, and my father has already stored a great amount of canned food in the attic in case there is a possible shortage of consumables. The windows of my parents’ house in the Kazimierz district have already been shot at several times by troops trying to scare people off, to thwart rebellion by the civilian population. Only a few remnants of the Polish Army remain in hidden and isolated villages near the new Soviet borders. Former Polish territory has also been occupied by the Soviet Union. The Polish Army has fallen and no one can save us