Terror in Treblinka

Paul Kelly

Description

Gerhardt Steiger was a high ranking official in the German Reich. He was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler as his leader and saviour for Germany... but unknown to many in the Reich, Gerhardt Steiger was a Jew. He loved his power as controller of all the concentration camps in the country and in order to please Hitler, he promoted the purity of the German race where any malfunction or deficiency in any man or woman should be obliterated and as a joke and for a laugh, he ordered that a young German girl who was a prisoner in Treblinka should be incarcerated in a small room with twelve mentally defective men and that she should be repeatedly raped.It was only after the war had ended and Gerhardt discovered from the information given to him regarding the concentration camps that the young girl who had been so savagely raped was his own sister. He left Germany in shame and in disgrace and went to Scotland with his Scottish wife and two children, feeling obliged to adopt the child that had now become his niece, but his folly brought about a curse to his whole family when he discovered that the niece, now named Freya, was a freak child who looked more like a pig than a human and Freya had her revenge in her own particular way.

Sujets

• Sagas

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782348986
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
TERROR IN TREBLINKA
By
Paul Kelly



Publisher Information
Published in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
Copyright © Paul Kelly 2013
The right of Paul Kelly to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.



Chapter One
It was in December 1946, just a week before Christmas and I was travelling on the 10.50 am from Paddington, hoping to arrive at Stella’s for lunch. My mother had just passed away after a long and serious illness and I felt a sense of relief, if somewhat tinged with guilt as I sat there, listening to the rhythm of the train wheels as they chugged onwards, without a care. I wished then that six months or a year would pass, so that I could say, as indeed so many have said before me... ‘ This is an experience you have to go through... Everyone has. Death is not an easy thing to accept when you have loved the deceased. Everyone has to go through this knife searing pain of loss and of emptiness’
I was ashamed... for I did not have that intense feeling of loss that I felt I should. I could not cry for my mother. I had cried so much when she was alive that I felt my entire emotions were drained and there was nothing in my feelings but emptiness. I wasn’t sorrowing and I certainly wasn’t grieving. Mother had suffered from trypanosomiasis, a type of sleeping sickness; a form of senile dementia and had been ill for the past thirty years, but not much was known of this debilitating disease at that time and even now, we have so much to learn.
My thoughts were distracted as a gust of wind swept through the small window of the carriage, just above my head and I jumped to catch my hat before it blew away. There was no-one in the carriage but myself, so I took my hat off and put it on the seat beside me, where I noticed that someone had left yesterday’s Telegraph and it had blown open at a page where there was an article about the impending unrest in the Trade Unions which was stirring up trouble for the Government, but strangely enough it was not that article that attracted my attention, but a small advert at the bottom of page six which caught my eye.
‘Nanny required for German family ...
Two little boys and another child expected’
I turned away for a moment and stared out of the window as the newspaper blew about again in the wind and kept repeatedly flapping against my skirt. I looked again and placed it neatly back on the seat beside me.
‘Nanny required.’
I was tired of nursing and had already given up my work as a Ward Sister at the hospital to look after mother and I was fed up with the stench of sickness and sour urine... of turning fifteen stone of flesh in bed whilst I washed and cleaned... and perfumed her... for the sake of the visitors who would come in their stream to see her, as they did at first... but none stayed. No-one wanted to be involved with a grumbling old woman who found fault at every turn and I couldn’t blame them... She was my mother and I had to care, but why should they? Yes, they were her sisters and her brothers, but they couldn’t be expected to do much for her. They were all married with their own families and I am sure, with troubles enough of their own and I could see the sense of relief in their eyes as they left the sick room, leaving their flowers and chocolates... to breathe the fresh pure air outside. I used to feel shame when they first came to visit us, but all that went after a while. I could have done with an afternoon off occasionally... or even a few hours would have helped but as I have said, they all had their own problems... and then the visits gradually dropped to once a fortnight... then once a month... and then they never came at all. Stella was the only one who regularly kept in touch, but even she had a large family, so she had her hands full... but she was always kind, even if it was just a telephone call to enquire how I was getting on... and always inviting me down to her place... if I could ever find the time. All the others sent us a card at Christmas wishing us well and with their sincere prayers, hoping that I was coping O.K. and I wonder what would have been the response if I had written back saying that I couldn’t and that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown... which was long due to me?
I was an only child and this was my lot. I could like it or lump it, but someone had to do the necessary and mother never stopped telling me how much had to be done and how and when and where, after she had reminded me of everything she had given up for me when I was young. It is strange to love someone and to despise them at the same time I think, but I did love mother more than I could ever say and words would fail to describe my feelings towards her. She was my own flesh and blood... the woman who had given me birth and life and all that I had... but I was tired... I was thirty-six and I felt like sixty-six. The last ten years of her illness were the worst by far and I was sixteen when she really began to know what her illness was doing to her. Daddy had been wonderful when he was alive, but he died just two years after I took my S.R.N. and I stayed at home from then on to do what I could. I was always glad I had trained as a nurse as it stood me in great stead when I had to cope with mother, but sometimes I regretted even having thought of taking up nursing. I would wish that I had felt the call for some other vocational task, like teaching or the prison service... or even a Convent at times, when I was very low.
‘German family... two little boys’
The Telegraph flapped in the wind again.
***
I buried mother with the respect and dignity that she would have wanted, with an abundance of flowers and wreaths and the most superior coffin I could find. I remember it was called The Duchess and it was made in fine teak and I knew that would have pleased her. Her grave was a mass of colour and all the relatives attended in full mourning. I watched their faces... Some were crying and some in deep repose, meditating on the effect of their loss or whatever, as mother was a woman of considerable means.
‘Dearest sister... darling auntie... In fondest memories of a heroic soul who suffered her illness bravely... ‘ I cried at that, but it wasn’t grief... and I came away from the cemetery thinking that at last she was happy and that I had done all I could for her, but I felt guilty then... and I still do now. I think I always will but she was free at last from pain and suffering and I thanked God. I also thanked Him for taking me away from the mood swings and the anger and the wrath. I knew all this was because of her illness, but I still felt it and there were times when I could have gladly strangled her... and yet, I too put flowers on her grave and stood in mourning with the rest of the family for the brave and tolerant lady she was. Was I a hypocrite? I ask myself time and time again and I console myself that she will understand now that she is with God.
‘German family... German family. .. One expected.’
My eyes caught the advert again and I straightened the paper and took it once more on my knee.
I remember thinking how of all the patients I had nursed in my hospital career in the various London hospitals, both in medical and surgical wards, I had never ever known a patient as impatient and as self-willed and obnoxious as my own mother. I could never remember the time when she was a young happy woman and I would wonder what Daddy saw in her to have wanted to marry her. She must have been beautiful and attractive and alluring, I suppose... to him, but she could fight me all day with her mind, if her body would not allow her to move... and even into the night, I knew she was there. She slept little and was more alert at night than she was during the day. I would try to sleep on the small put-you-up bed in our room with the windows closed tight as she could not stand the air at her body and the place would smell like a barnyard of pigs. I sometimes took a damp cloth to bed with me so that I could hold it against my mouth to help me to breathe easier and a handkerchief soaked in eau-d-Cologne was a great help too. She didn’t mind the latter. It was feminine and delicate, she thought and she liked anything that was feminine and delicate. Her eyes would give me her instructions when I knew she couldn’t move her body and I would obey. It was the only way... there was no other, or she would cry and I couldn’t stand that. Daddy was twenty when he married mother in 1910 and she was two years older than he. Her illness was blamed on my birth in the same year as they had to get married and Daddy took care of her for the first years of her illness until he was taken himself with consumption when he was thirty-two.
‘Nanny required... German family in Scotland.’
The advert loomed larger in my eyes the more I stared at it but somehow I was transfixed and couldn’t look away. I screwed up the paper and threw it to the other end of the compartment.
There was an article on Alzheimer’s disease in yesterday’s Times ... that sounds German. I read recently that someone had written a thesis on this disease and I wondered if mother had something like that, but it didn’t matter now... and if it was something that resembled her illnes