Talking About Death and Nazis Can Be Awkward

What happens when you discover a skeleton in the closet?

This is a true story with real people and real events.

Once upon a time there was an English man and 2 Austrians.

Mike the Brit aged 50. Fritz age unknown, possibly late 80s and his sister known affectionately as Auntie Greta aged 99 and a half.

The whimsical name of Auntie Greta conjures up a picture of safety and comfort. It is a wonderful happy nickname. Although in reality there was nothing comforting about Auntie Greta.

Her shrivelled shell housed a mighty power house of frustrated sexual avarice that would have put a young’un to shame. There was no escaping her sharp predatory gaze and naughty behaviour, she glowed with the sexual promiscuity of a 16 year old that was truly frightening if not a tad disturbing.

Her character was larger than life and she was definitely no shrinking violet. She was prone to poking the younger guys in the ribs and chuckling mischievously as she cackled, “If I was 65 dot dot dot.”

That aside she was the perfect hostess, should you choose to call upon her. She had a lovely apartment in Vienna full of family pictures. Men resplendent in their uniforms adorned the walls of her spacious and chic apartment. She was always the perfect hostess. It didn’t matter what time you arrived, she would welcome you with a smile and serve up a tray of delights.

Fritz on the other hand was a quiet man, a man of repute, the manager of a private bank in Austria. He worked hard on his image and he presented himself as a reputable but poor member of society.

In reality it was all just smoke and mirrors. He talked constantly of his financial hardship and was very convincing in his monologue but in reality he had a high paying job with plenty of money to spare and all of his needs met.

Mike the Brit was in his late 50’s handsome and spritely, he had emigrated to Austria a few years earlier in an attempt to escape a bitter divorce. He was quite clearly clickbait for Auntie.

It was a normal night of no particular importance and Mike, Fritz and his 99 and a half year old sister sat at a table playing cards and Tile Rummy.

It meant the world to Fritz and Auntie to have this social interaction. They were happy, they were all happy.

They sat together swilling Sect (the Austrian alternative to champagne) and chewing the cud. They talked, they played, they reminisced. As they wandered down memory lane Fritz turned the subject to parents.

It was an open secret that Fritz had been very active in the second world war, he had been an important tank commander. Mike’s father had been equally active in the war. He had been a corporal in the war and his bravery had earned him recognition and even a mention in a historical book.

Casually Fritz asked,

“Is your father alive?”

“No.” said Mike,

“He was killed by a tank commander.”

Pregnant silence.

This could have killed everything: the conversation, their friendship, their life but where there is forgiveness, understanding and appreciation things can move on.

Mike recognised Fritz didn’t join the war by choice. Fritz had been forced to sign up and he had been given a serial number. Once you had been given a serial number there was no escape from the authorities.

A serial number was like a modern day bar code, you could always be tracked. Fritz had to do what he was told to do, even if it was the wrong thing to do. Whatever it was, he did it.

Mike accepted that sometimes Shit Happens. Sometimes what happens can be traumatic and devastating and we often think that we can never recover from the pain and the heartache we are given. But life can move on, if, but only if, you let it.

The pain of love lost is tumultuous. The loss of a partner the loss of a parent.

Loss by death.

Loss from betrayal.

They’re both different but they can both be devastating.

We say that it hurts to lose a loved one, it hurts to be betrayed but that’s stupid. Hurt is what you feel when you fall over and graze your knee or when you get a paper cut.

You don’t feel hurt when you lose a loved one. You don’t feel hurt when you are betrayed by the person you love most in the world.

Hurt?

Hurt, well that’s nothing.

Loss, betrayal they are an Earthquake of emotion, they are a Tsunami of overwhelming anger, rage, despair, heartbreak and confusion.

It’s like an invisible hand from the darkness that reaches out and brutally tears some life from your heart. As it rips the flesh from you the pain sears through your body, you collapse into a heap of writhing agony and your mind slips into the unknown darkness of despair.

Ironically, you are so busy living in your nightmare you don’t even know you are there.

It’s a darkness where you wonder in exquisite agony and confusion. A darkness that lures you into the labyrinth of despair whilst it silently, sneakily hardens your heart and builds a barrier of darkness around it and replaces love and light with a small hard stone of nothingness.

The pain of betrayal sears into your skin, it races through your veins and then down, down, comes a metal shutter to seal off your heart from more pain. No more light, no more pain, no more anything.

It would have been easy for Mike to point the finger of blame and say it was you or people like you who killed my dad. But he didn’t. Because sometimes we follow orders. Sometimes we trust the people in power and accept without question what they tell us to do because we believe they are better than us.

Sometimes we give away our power to people who have no right to hold it because that’s what we were told to do, because society says it’s the right thing to do. But is it?

That was then and this is now and there is no longer any reason why we should blindly accept authority. We are the captains of our own ship and it’s time we took responsibility for our journey and charted the course that we want to take.

Real life. It’s stranger than fiction.

What would you have done if you were Mike?

Comment below.