KATIA
(Fictional writing from the book The Katia Stories, copyright 2011).
The story of Katia is in large part based on the experiences of a refugee girl in 1945. She was fleeing west to escape an advancing army. It had become evident that women, even little girls, would not be safe, once the Soviet army advanced into the ruins of towns and cities. Katia’s story is not very different from stories that many little girls could tell – girls who were or are innocently caught up in a war they neither wanted nor understood, girls who live somewhere else today or, in the past, have lived in different parts of this world:
* * * *
It had only been a few weeks ago. It was evening. Katia’s mother, despite her physical discomfort, had smiled at her daughter when she said that it was time to go to the hospital. “Our new baby is coming,” she had whispered.
“When? And where is the baby?” Katia wanted to know.
“I will get our baby at the hospital. And I will come home with our new baby. We will take care of it together, right? Little babies need a lot of love!” Taking a package out of a cupboard, Katia’s mother continued “I have a present for you. This is your own baby, and that one is home already!”
Katia’s face changed to a dreamy delight when she saw the doll her mother was giving to her. “She is so beautiful….”
“Yes, my little girl. And you must love her and protect her, take care of her at all times. She is your baby. But I must go now.”
“Can my doll and I come with you?”
“No, sweetheart. They will not let you in. Hospitals are not for healthy little girls. But I will be back in a few days. I promise. Your doll will keep you company in the meantime. Do you have a name for her, yet?”
“Yes. I will call her Kaethe. That’s a little like my own name. And it was the name on the box she was sleeping in when you gave her to me…..”
That very night, the course of the war rapidly changed. The Soviet army advanced faster than anticipated.. Artillery shells began to rain down on the city. Even some parts of the hospital that earlier bombs had left standing were hit, but the obstetrics section was still functioning.
“You are in the middle of labor,” the physician said to Katia’s mother. “You can’t leave now. The nurses and I will stay here with you. May God protect all of us. Maybe we will get out of this alive….”
“Maybe not,” one of the nurses added.
“Go, Joachim”, Katia’s mother tried to persuade her husband, “Get out of the city. And get Katia away from the Soviet army! Please go!”
“I want to be with you…” he insisted.
“There is nothing you can do for me here. You can do something for Katia. Please, get my little girl out of here. Take her west, far away from the war. Keep her safe. Take care of her, please!…Please!”
Later that night, Katia and her father managed to get onto the last train that was traveling west. Each of them carried a suitcase containing the minimum clothes they would need. And, of course, Katia was cuddling Kaethe, her baby doll, tightly within her arms. Joachim had to push hard to get both of them far enough into the train carriage before the door closed. Hundreds of refugees were squeezed together. The old steam engine whistled once and slowly moved westward. The train took them 27 miles to the west, but was forced to stop where the tracks had been mangled by a recent air attack.
“Maybe you can get another train if you walk to the next station. It’s not far.” the conductor said to no one in particular as he joined the throng of refugees himself. They walked. The next station westward indeed was not far – but it was empty. The personnel had fled, probably on an earlier train. There would be no more trains. No choice: the refugees, among them Katia and her father, had no choice. They were forced to continue on foot, slowly walking westward.
“I am so tired,” Katia mumbled, “and Kaethe is tired too. Can’t we sleep somewhere, some time?”
“No, we can’t. Someone said that the Russians have already taken our city. They are coming this way!”
“What about mommy? I want my mommy,” Katia cried.
Joachim tried not to let his daughter see his own tears. “I hope God will protect her.” Three long days and nights they walked westward. At one crossroads, they were stopped by a band of soldiers moving east. They were old men, drafted as a last defense against the advancing Soviet troops. Carefully they studied all the refugees. Two men were pulled out of the throng, Joachim and a limping 60 year old. “You two will come with us to fight the Soviets” the sergeant announced. “We need all able bodied men to stop those bastards.” “I am not able bodied. I have a bad case of arthritis.” Katia’s father objected
“Don’t make us laugh! Look at all of us. Do you think we are young and able? Besides, what kind of work do you do?”
Joachim worriedly answered: “Well, I was a chef at the Grand Hotel in the state capitol.” “Great,” the elderly sergeant laughed. “You can cook for us – if we ever find anything to eat.” “But I need to take care of my little girl…”
“Let her go west with the rest of all those people.” The sergeant took his revolver from its holster….you don’t have a choice! You will come with us. Or, do you want your daughter see you get hurt?”
Some fifteen miles further along the crowded road, Katia was lucky. An aging farmer who had lived in some small town even further to the east had left his home a few weeks earlier. Selecting his best horse and wagon, he had loaded his small family, his most precious possessions and a bit of food onto that wagon. For some time he and his family had been moving west to escape the advancing army. One evening, the farmer’s wife saw an exhausted little girl, tightly holding a doll. Both seemed asleep in the grass at the roadside, reminding the farmer’s wife of a daughter she had lost. She asked her husband to stop the horse, climbed off the wagon, picked up Katia and her doll, and wrapped both of them in blankets. Her husband was a bit impatient, urged the horse to continue, slowed only by the crowds of tired refugees that continued toward the west. But Katia and Kaethe no longer walked. The farmer’s wife shared a bit of their food, but it was hardly enough. Several hungry days passed as the tired horse kept pulling the wagon westward.
“Horses need sleep too!” the farmer’s wife smiled when they stopped at a roadside meadow late one moonlit night. “We’ll sleep here for a few hours before we go on.”
Katia and Kaethe settled down in some deep grass next to a hedge. The little girl smiled at her doll: “You go to sleep too, please. We are both so tired. Right? Maybe in the morning we can find something to eat. Sleep well, baby. Good night!”
It would not be a good night. Katia woke to the sound of low flying aircraft. Suddenly machine gun fire rattled through the otherwise peaceful night. People were screaming. Refugees on the road scattered trying to find cover. Some could no longer move. Others were bleeding and whimpering. When the planes were gone, Katia with Kaethe in her arms ran toward the wagon. She saw that the farmer’s wife was crying; her husband had buried his head in his arms.
“Do we leave now?” Katia asked?” No. We can’t. We don’t have a horse anymore. I don’t know what we will do. Go on, little girl! Go with the others. You will not be safe here. Follow all those people. Go west.” Four more days Katia walked along tree lined, cobble stoned roads. For two days she ate parts of a not yet ripe sugar beet that she discovered in a field along the road. One morning, a woman invited her into a small roadside house and fed her soup made of water and barley. “I’ll trade your doll for mine,” the woman’s four year old daughter said. But Katia would not give up Kaethe. “No, I am going to keep her. I promised my mommy to always take care of her! Besides, she is my baby, and I love my baby!”
Another few days had passed. Now Katia’s boots were worn. Her feet hurt. She was tired. Very tired. “I can’t go on forever” she said to Kaethe. “And you are too little to walk by yourself. What do you think we should do?” But Kaethe could not answer. “I know you can’t talk yet. But I wish you could tell me. Should we stay here? But how can we do that?”
At that point a local girl in a flowing dress, about the same age as Katia, hesitated as she was about to walk by. “You have a pretty doll…” she said. “What is her name?”
“She is my baby. Her name is Kaethe.”
The local girl smiled warmly. “I like that name. Oh, my name is Maria. What is your name? Do you live around here? I have not seen you before!”
“I’m Katia. No, I don’t live here. I think I don’t live anywhere. My dad and I left a big city in the East when the Soviet army came. But they took my dad away. And my mommy went to the hospital to bring home a new baby. I don’t know where my mommy is…” Katia began to cry.
Maria walked a few steps closer to Katia and gently touched her. “Do you want to stay here? Maybe you can stay with us. I always wanted to have a sister. Would you?”
“I wish I could stay. But I need to go west – to get away from the Soviet army!” “But my mom said they are not going to come here!”
“Realy? Then I could stay. But where?”
“Would you like to be my sister?” Maria smiled excitedly. “I am going to ask my mom if you can stay with us!” Maria turned, about to run home: “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. We just live up there…the white house at the corner!” Katia sat down on her suitcase and gazed gently at Kaethe: “Do you want to stay here? I would, I think. Maybe we don’t have to be cold tonight. Maybe there will be something to eat. And maybe there would even be a bed that the two of us can sleep in.” Katia looked up and saw Maria disappear into the door of the white house. She turned back to face her doll: “I like Maria, I think. Do you? Maybe her mom will let us stay. Even if it is just for a while. Then I can take care of you. Remember, my mommy said that you are my baby. I am going to love you, always. Somewhere there must be a place where we can live together. Here maybe – or someplace else. Maybe we can even find my own mommy and daddy again…”
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