Love Letters From Dresden

LOVE LETTERS FROM DRESDEN

PROLOGUE

I was forged in another time, a symbol of love and fidelity, when myth and magic still roamed the world. As legend has it, I was formed from the same stones as the swords Caledfwich and Clarent on the isle of Avalon, one-part Caledfwich and the other Clarent, and when given in love, become one.

For the hundreds of years since my creation, I’ve travelled the length and breadth of the world and can tell countless stories of kings, queens, peasants and paupers – for I have accompanied many. But in this story, I start at the end, with a person of no particular importance who has worn me since she was a little girl of four. I was a gift from her father, a rough, dull, worthless-looking ring he found abandoned on the ground, however, because I was given in love, the present was priceless, and bore with it a touch of magic.

This beautiful girl grew to become a mother, and now in her twilight years, an elegant senior. Many would say hers was an uninteresting existence, but that’s because they don't know the promise she keeps. As our time draws to its end, the hidden love letters will drift from memory, taking their secrets with them.

The wonderful tale I share is a tragedy, yet a story of fortitude and love, the chronicle of two exceptional women, their journey through war and a promise made and honoured.

My lady is sleeping, something she does more as age eats away at her energy, and in these winter years, the dreams take her back to darker times and places when unbeknown to my lady, I was walking beside her.

Come with me as we share the enthralling story of - Love Letters from Dresden.

CHAPTER ONE

AMELIA

Darkness envelops Amelia, lying unconscious in the bombed-out ruins of a building. The intense pain of a cramp that spasms in her leg jars her awake, forcing her clamped eyes open. It’s difficult to concentrate and at first her vision is unstable. As Amelia awakens, her hazy mind fails to absorb what’s just happened. She blinks and the surroundings start to harden. She tries to lift her head, it moves, but unable to find the strength, she gives up. Closing her eyes, Amelia drifts back into unconsciousness. The next time she comes to, Amelia is aware of her dire predicament, which causes fear to ripple through her entire body. Panicking, she struggles to be free. Disorientated, unable to move, she screams out for help but her efforts are in vain because words are unable to escape her closed lips. Once more the surroundings fade and Amelia drifts away.

Despite the bitter cold, fleeting rays of sunlight, peeking from behind grey clouds, penetrate the rubble to warm her numb face. This time, when Amelia opens her eyes, the panic and disorientation that overwhelmed her before dissipates, replaced by a dull acceptance. She is trapped under the debris of a bombed-out building. From her tomb she scans the surroundings; everything within sight is ruined. In the distance, a red glow is accompanied by the sound of a roaring fire. Lowering her eyes, moving them left to right, Amelia is able to explore her prison, and to her horror, she is sharing it with human remains. Revulsion morphs into panic as Amelia wiggles frantically, trying to escape, but it’s all to no avail. ‘Help me! Help me!’ she cries out, but nobody comes. I’m going to die, she whispers quietly to herself as tears swell in her eyes and dribble down her cheek. Amelia’s eyes become heavy and, with no fight left, they close to await the embrace of angels.

The freezing chill from the coldest winter in recent decades deadens the unconscious body of young Amelia Huber. Slowly she awakens and, for the first time in many months, she feels warm and at peace. In the distance, the bright light of a lighthouse signals its invitation. Subconsciously, Amelia knows that if she gives in to the contentment enveloping her body, her life will be forfeited. Resigned to her fate, she welcomes death as a friend, bringing relief from the evil, suffering and losses of a pointless war. The cosy light beckons and Amelia gently walks towards paradise, following an endless narrow path, lined on either side with beautiful flowers in radiant bloom and displaying all the colours of the rainbow.

In the distance and through her dreamlike trance, Amelia hears a man speaking; it is earnest, comforting, somehow familiar. Continuing to walk towards the light, Amelia sees that it’s her father. Feeling safe at last and curious about what he’s saying, she hurries to him. A devout Catholic, as a child, before she went to sleep each night, her father would read a passage from the Bible to her. He is reading from that book now and pauses, smiling at her approach, then continues.

‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.’

Amelia loved her father. “A daddy’s girl,” her mother would mutter to Hans Huber, as he soothed her despair at their defiant daughter, then sneaked a piece of buttered bread to her room when she had been sent to bed without dinner.

‘Where are you going?’ she would hear her mother ask crossly.

‘I’m just going to read Amelia her Bible passages, my love. God knows she needs it.’

‘Hans Huber, don’t you go using God’s name in vain to me. And I know what you’re up to. You’re spoiling her.’

‘My princess, how could that be?’

‘I’m no princess. Look at me, old and haggard. Too many years of hard work, and for what?’

‘You’ll always be a princess to me.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ the princess said, shaking her head before glancing around their humble home. ‘Go on then, read to that daughter of yours.’

‘Ours, don’t you remember?’ he said, smiling wickedly.

‘Hans Huber.’ Maria exhaled with exasperation and then, trying not to smile, added, ‘Stop all this nonsense.’

Despite a tough and irritable exterior, Maria had a warm centre, tender and even sensitive, although most people didn’t get to see it. People wondered how Hans Huber, a kind and gentle man, tolerated his sullen wife. When Hans wanted to leave a function or meeting early, he said, simply, ‘My wife is expecting me home in ten minutes.’

They understood, without further explanation. ‘You’d better be going then,’ they would say in unison.

Watching her father, it felt like a lifetime since he’d last read to her from the Bible, though it wasn’t, it was merely a year prior, the night before she, sixteen-year-old Amelia, had clung to her father’s arm like a child of four and begged him not to go. Though he’d served in the First World War, his age and occupation, owning a tailor’s shop, it didn’t stop him, along with other men of his age, being forced into military service. With the war going badly for Hitler, the old men were rounded up, and after a week’s training, sent to fight the advancing Russians. As a soldier, he survived for three months before becoming one of the 30 million to die, casualties of the Eastern Front.

Having finished reading the passage, he closes the Bible and lifts his free hand, Amelia can see he is holding an object, light dancing from its surface. At first, she can’t understand what is shining, but as she looks closer, the half of a silver 5 Reichsmark coin pendant that hangs around her neck comes into view.

Amelia’s refuge is replaced by a welling of urgency, panic enveloping her. Instinctively she reaches for her neck, relieved that her amulet is still there, but when she looks back to her father, his hand is empty. Hans Huber smiles and Amelia understands that this isn’t her time to die. He lingers for a moment before fading, his soothing smile, the last thing she remembers of him.

The absent cold seeps back into her awakening, reluctant, weak body. Involuntarily, Amelia shivers. The peacefulness of the warm tranquil light has been shattered, replaced by a harsh, marred present.

As her eyes open, she observes a city that is now ghostly quiet. The intense sound of roaring flames spurred on by cyclonic howling winds has died away. Moving her head, Amelia looks above her: a ghastly dirty sky is cloaking the city in a shroud, an incarnation of death. A layer of ash is descending to suck away the last remnants of life from any who have had the audacity to survive. She slams her eyes shut, not to be at rest with her father, but as preparation of the fight for life.

Lying in the gloom, the reality for what has happened slowly returns. Amelia is trapped under rubble, in the bombed and charred ruins of Dresden, a city she calls home. Diffidently, she wiggles her fingers, tries a hand, then an arm, leg and foot. Nothing appears broken, although her whole body is riddled with pain. Amelia struggles, lifting her right arm, but hits timbers that lie across the top of her body. It is a miracle that she hasn’t been crushed and, although unaware, the timbers of the prison are also her saviour, having provided protection from the falling bricks and other rubble. Moving her left arm, the dirt covering it falls free. Wriggling from side to side she slowly edges forward, but each time, it consumes the little reserves of energy that still remain within her weak body. Steadfastly, resting regularly, Amelia struggles on until eventually she is free of her sarcophagus.

Struggling, she attempts to stand, but unsteady on her feet, falls down again. Trying a couple more times, Amelia gives up and decides to sit instead. Glancing about, Amelia sees that she isn’t alone. Nearby, only feet from where she has been trapped, are the dead remains of a girl of similar age. A lifeless leg and arm protrude from the bricks and, through the gaps in the rubble, she can see the outline of a corpse. Amelia gasps, shutting her eyes at the awful sight. A cold and powerful hand seems to enter her chest to wrap its icy fingers around her heart, intent on obliterating any remnants of human decency she may possess. Opening her eyes, she doesn’t call out or sob, not because of stoic resilience in the face of the grotesque realities of war, but because she’s numb. The capacity for empathy lost, or so it seems.

The coin, hanging around her neck, feels heavy as it brushes itself against her skin until she can ignore it no longer. Grasping it, her mind is flooded with the memory of the light and meeting her father. Slowly Amelia climbs to her feet.

CHAPTER TWO

THE RING

Over the centuries, I, Guinevere, have witnessed the worst of human barbarity; if anything has changed, it’s the ever-increasing capacity of mankind to kill on an industrial scale. By any standard of the time, the aerial bombing campaign over 13 to 15 February 1945 was enormous. The British and American bombers dropped 2,400 tons of high explosives and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs on Dresden. By the time their task was complete, 25,000 civilians were dead, torn apart or incinerated in the ancient cathedral city, capital of the German state of Saxony.

Of those who survived the bombing raid, some wrote of their experience; however, my bearer, Amelia Huber, did not. Instead, I share the words of Lothar Metzger, which gives some insight to why those days still haunt Amelia’s dreams.

It is not possible to describe! Explosion after explosion beyond belief, worse than the blackest nightmare. So many people were horribly burnt and injured. It became more and more difficult to breathe. It was dark, all of us tried to leave this cellar with inconceivable panic. Dead and dying people were trampled upon, luggage was left or snatched up out of our hands by rescuers. The basket with our twins covered with wet cloths was snatched up out of my mother’s hands and we were pushed upstairs by the people behind us. We saw the burning street, the falling ruins and the terrible firestorm. My mother covered us with wet blankets and coats she found in a water tub.

We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and from, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from.

I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forgive them.

CHAPTER THREE

PENDANT

This autumn, eight years ago, I, Jacinta Kowalska, moved back from Germany to the UK where, for the previous fifteen years, I was an investigative journalist, to fulfil a similar role for an English newspaper. Also, I wanted to be closer to Mother in her later years and this influenced my decision to change jobs. Although One year past retirement age, I still wasn’t ready to cease but, whether I liked it or not, my career was drawing to a close. The newspaper industry had entered a tough new age, with the massive disruption caused by the emergence of social media and internet giants. The likes of Facebook and Google had been diverting advertising revenue away from the traditional media, so newspapers and television networks were no longer able to afford the salaries of a team of investigative journalists.

While disappointed to be redundant at the end of my latest assignment, part of me was looking forward to the free time, while frightened of how I’d fill the vacuum, especially as work had been my whole life: my husband, family, community and, most importantly, my identity.

***

‘Jacinta,’ I heard my mother call for the third time.

The previous few weeks had been difficult, even though the day had been drawing closer to when Mother’s independence had to be forfeited. Her latest fall had finalised the decision. It was almost a year ago to the day since Emma, my mother, had her first tumble, so remaining in the family home for this long had been quite an achievement. At least, that’s what I told her. The grim reaper was still distant despite the unsteadiness and the usual array of age-related medical conditions. At eighty-eight, she remained active and definitely “with-it”. Mentally alert. The time had come, however, when she needed to be where there was twenty-four-hour care, particularly at night when she became dizzy and disorientated, which caused her anxiety. Being the dutiful only child, I had already discussed what would happen when that day came. But, even so, leaving her at the care home was difficult, for both of us. Selfish though this sounds, I was distressed too. But I think it’s more than a feeling that you are failing in your responsibilities. It’s the reality of your own inevitable mortality that tugs at the consciousness. At least Mother had me but, having never married and with no children of my own, when this time comes, I would be alone. I think it was this thought that made me irritable and impatient with Mother. Secretly, I was frightened. My fate and my mum’s fate were intertwined at that moment; stupidly, I felt like I was the only person in the entire world who had to deal with moving a loved one into care. Part of me wanted to run away, hide, stick my head in the sand and make the whole thing go away. But life isn’t like that.

Despite what I’ve just told you, it would be easy to say that putting Mother into care is what made for a difficult couple of weeks, but that wasn’t the case. Sometimes you read about it in a newspaper, or watch it on one of those reality TV shows, the unveiling of a hidden secret, a skeleton in an ancient closet of a celebrity’s family past. It comes as a shock, however, when this exposure involves your own family. Less shock, perhaps, as confusion would be a more apt description.

What little I’d known about my father, had been snippets gleaned from a lifetime of a mother reluctant to mention the war. I knew his name was Karl Kowalski and, like my mother, he was Polish. He had been coerced into joining the Wehrmacht during the Second World War and was killed before I was born, but how, where and when, I didn’t know. As an investigative journalist, I ought to have tried to unravel his past, but I hadn’t, not with any conviction. Once, while researching a German soldier for one of my articles, I searched for my father’s military records, but he came back as “unrecorded”, which was not unusual, as many records were lost or destroyed in the turmoil of conflict.

I knew that I was born in December 1944 in Warsaw, so it said on my birth certificate, and that Mother fled Poland shortly after as a refugee, along with thousands of others, to Dresden in Germany. From what I knew of the history, there had been a Polish uprising against the German occupation. It started in August 1944, but was quashed by late autumn. The advancing Red Army had halted on the outskirts of Warsaw before moving in, during January 1945, to what was left of a once lovely city. The city, which had a pre-war population of 1.3 million, was down to 153,000. From my reading, people were frightened of the Russian soldiers with stories of mass murder and rape preceding their arrival. Millions of people, like my mother,....