“Šebesta, I have received a complaint from your superiors. It seems you are not saluting in the appropriate manner.”
I made up my answer as I went along. “In my family, we always greeted one another with ‘guten tag’ and it’s very hard for me to break the habit. My father used to say that it was important for one’s greeting to have meaning. The first thing to do when you encounter someone is to wish them a good day. It would be inconsiderate to do otherwise.”
He appeared unconvinced.
“Also, to proclaim ‘Heil Hitler’ when the führer clearly does not need a simple worker’s support when he is doing so well just doesn’t seem right. So I prefer to greet people with words that have significance.”
He seemed baffled. “Very well, Šebesta, I will include it all in my report.”
Just when I thought we were done, he looked at me again and his upper lip twitched slightly. His tone changed. “There is something else. You are scandalizing the company with your relationship. She is the widow of a hero.”
This made me uncomfortable and I hesitated. He stared up at me from behind his desk as I locked my fingers behind my back. I was no longer registered as living in Traudl’s apartment although we often spent evenings together. I knew of the prohibition on relationships between German women and “fremdarbeiter,” foreign labor. I reminded him that Dr. Högn was very happy with my work and pointed out that I had a contract approved by the Ministry of Work.
I added cautiously, “The widow needs protection during the bombardments, sir.”
He looked at me with repulsion. I could tell that he despised me, abhorred the fact that I was different. He wanted me to be scared, and this was enough to make me defy the fear that took hold of me when he first mentioned Traudl. He snapped the pen down onto the desk. “Go, Šebesta, out!”
That night in the apartment, Traudl burst into tears and said that she too had been called in for questioning about her living arrangements.
In March 1944, to compound the assault on Berlin, the U.S. Air Force started to execute raids during the day. At night, the British attacked. The Allied assault on German cities was unprecedented. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed between 1943 and 1945. Each raid by the Royal and U.S. Air Forces consisted usually of a thousand bombers, each dropping tons of explosives and incendiaries. It would have been impossible for my father to know what to wish for, more bombardments that heralded death but also the defeat of Germany, or a hiatus from the bombardments. My father was forced to join Berlin’s effort to soldier on.
The day after the first daylight raid, the political commissary of Warnecke & Böhm called Zdeněk and me to his office. He never bothered with niceties and went straight to the point.
“Tůma, Šebesta, you should be honored. The Allies, in their desperation at losing the war, have taken to bombing defenseless cities. We do not have enough firefighters in Berlin, so I have chosen you both. I have volunteered you to represent the company. You are young and strong and should continue your tasks as you have been doing them, with the same working hours. But whenever you are needed you will make yourself available to work as firefighters as well.”
Just as we were wondering if we would get paid for this honor, he said wryly that we would each be rewarded with a weekly pack of cigarettes.
It was not clear why we had been chosen. We were indeed young, and I am tall, but neither of us was particularly strong. Zdeněk and I debated the reasons for the “honor.” Perhaps it was because as Slavs we had cohabited with German women, even if, officially, it had only been for a couple of months. Or perhaps it was revenge for refusing to say “Heil Hitler” despite the rules. I wanted to be thought of as a slightly mad scientist, uninterested in anything political, focused simply on his formulas and experiments.
Now I was going to have to be a mad scientist who fought fires.
The father I knew was softly spoken, but it masked a relentless tenacity. His underlying boldness and strength of purpose were inviolable. Despite this, I never saw him as someone who was physically brave or daring. The strength he embodied was in every way connected to his mind and had very little to do with his body. It was not that he particularly lacked physical strength. He was tall and rangy. He jogged, played tennis, skied. As he approached sixty, he would carry me on his shoulders and twirl me in circles in the garden. He loved to play. When he was closer to seventy our massive rottweiler would pick up a long fallen branch from one of the dozens of tall palms that bordered the garden, and my father would join in a tug-of-war with him, leaning back with me against the weight of the determined dog.
Still, I cannot imagine him as a firefighter, as for that he would need a physical strength that was devoid of caution and fear. My father was always dynamic and brave, but also careful and considered. Any risk was taken after a prudent weighing of the potential benefits and costs. Perhaps he knew that his stint as a firefighter would be surprising to me; perhaps he felt the same need I do to prove his story, to me, to others, to himself. And so, once again, he left me a document that did just that.
A letter from Warnecke & Böhm stating that my father was part of the volunteer fire brigade
This letter, dated three days before the Germans officially surrendered in May 1945, confirms that my father was a valued member of the fire brigade for fourteen months starting in March 1944. It was signed by the manager of defense and the medical officer of the company, who noted that Jan Šebesta had to stop after suffering a severe concussion while on duty.
The explosions threw us off our feet. The air pressure hurt our ears. The thumping was so deafening that I failed to realize the chaos around me. I shouted for Zdeněk because I wanted to know that he was alive, that I was alive. People were screaming, pushing, and running away from the plant.
I ran toward the destruction.
I could see a small fire being put out through a smashed window. There were wounded to take to the hospital. My eyes found Zdeněk’s in the crowded and smoke-filled corridor.
We were among the lucky ones.
A colleague from the lab, the head of another section, a tall man, gloomy but sympathetic, had died in the bombardment. His lungs exploded with the pressure, his face and torso were so disfigured that he was unrecognizable. Two German workers placed his body in a sack to be collected in the morning. I watched as they closed the bag with a double knot of thick string and attached a tag. They also attached a note saying Do not open, ensuring the parcel would pass the security guard stationed by the warehouse door without interference. Once they were done with their grisly wrapping, the men made a careful record in the lab book, accounting for the materials that had been used.
The tag attached with string around the sack read:
From: Warnecke & Böhm. Berlin.
Contents: Dr. Ing, Carl Kemph.
Weight: 78 Kgs.
It struck me that these were the tags we used when we sent out packages of lacquers. But I don’t think the Germans found this strange. They simply called the relevant office for the collection of corpses. Somehow the phone lines were working still. Everything that could be fixed after each bombardment was efficiently put right. The Germans were remarkable that way. Water, electricity, transport, phone lines. Everything that could be mended would immediately be repaired. It was a clear order from the Reich and the Germans were good at following orders. It was one thing at which the Nazis, especially, excelled. So a few hours after every bombardment, life carried on as if nothing had happened. Everything that could be repaired would function again.