This is my last post A Nazi Officer’s Wife: How a Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaustt(The first three are here, hereand here.
Sometimes, what Edith Hahn Beer calls “personal morality” emerges.
Frida, the little girl who had lost ten teeth, began to wail: “Why is asparagus so much more important than people? (DRH: Frida and the author worked as slave laborers on asparagus farms in Germany.) Why do we even live if the whole purpose of life is so miserable?”
The supervisor was miraculously moved by her outburst and let us return to the cabin.
You see, even inhuman people were not always inhuman, and this was a lesson I learned time and again about how completely unpredictable individuals can be when it comes to their personal morality.
Werner, a German officer, falls in love with her and is not quenched even after he discovers she is Jewish, but she is a bad cook and lies to him about it.
Of course, this was a blatant lie: to understand Werner Vetter, one must remember that in Nazi Germany it was entirely possible for me to tell him I was Jewish, but it was essential for me to lie about being a good cook.
On lying to get scarce food:
“Listen to me, Grete,” he (Werner) said, “when you go to the pharmacy to buy special milk for your baby, don’t be surprised if they treat you like a tragic heroine. Because, to tell you the truth, I lied to them. I told them that you had already lost three children and they only needed to give you milk so that your fourth child would never come in.”
Even now, I can’t help but laugh when I think about it. Of all the things that attracted me about Werner Vetter, the one that warmed my heart the most was his total lack of respect for the truth in Nazi Germany.
