Parallel Journeys

Early in 1943, England and America bomb German cities, including Oberhausen, where Alfons’s parents and brother live. His brother and mom spend their nights in a bunker, but his “stubborn” dad won’t leave his bedroom.

Alfons is not in a targeted area and can stay in Wittlich and train for the C test—the top grade for glider pilots. They’re led by a Nazi named Winkler. He’s a talented pilot and a terrifying disciplinarian. When Winkler catches Alfons and Rabbit sitting behind a hangar, he goes after them on his motorbike. Later, he makes them run from his motorbike, driving the wheels into their heels if they slow down. Once they collapse, he lets them be. Alfons thinks Winkler punishes them for the sake of Germany.

Due to injuries and death tolls, the Nazis allow 16-year-old boys and men up to 65 to fight. They also put women between the ages of 17 and 50 in factories and open nurseries to care for their kids while they work.

Arthur Axman, Hitler Youth leader, promises to provide six million young people between the ages of 10-15. Kids harvest crops, gather clothing, and collect scrap metal. Teens take charge of big anti-aircraft machines. The Allies easily spot the huge weapons and kill the teens, who learn that war isn’t so “grand.”

To get his C rating, Alfons does five tests. On the fourth test, he disobeys an order to circle. He’s too close to the ground—he’ll crash. Winkler doesn’t care. If Alfons was in the war, he could be shot for disobeying an order. Instead, Winkler suspends him from flying and makes him do dirty work. After three days, Winkler asks Alfons if he would disobey an order again. Alfons says he won’t, not even to save his life.

Alfons completes his fourth flight, and his fifth flight, the final flight, feels like a “dream.” He and Rabbit get their C grade and will become Luftwaffe cadets. The alarm sounds. There are American bombers near Camp Wengerohr. Winkler thinks they’re going to a bigger city nearby and has the boys stay on the field.

Rabbit does a “free” flight—he can fly any pattern he wants. The American planes arrive, and Sergeant Baum flies his unarmed plane into their line of sight to save Rabbit’s life. Baum’s plan explodes, and he dies. Winkler reminds Rabbit that Baum died for him, so he owes his life to Germany.

Helen tells a neighbor, Mrs. Safir, about her choice to give Doris to another couple. Mrs. Safir has three kids, and she thinks Helen is a bad mom to put her daughter with other people. Helen wonders if she made the right choice.

Warsaw is Poland’s capital city, and Nazis turned a section of the city into a space exclusively for Jews—a ghetto that Nazis kept overcrowded and inhumane so that Jews suffer sickness and malnutrition. By April 1943, the population goes from 500,000 to 60,000, and the Nazis want to close the ghetto and send the Jews to death camps. Though they lack formidable weapons, the Jews resist and battle the Nazis for over a month.

Jo Vis finds a hiding spot for Helen and Siegfried in Zaandam, a town outside Amsterdam. They stay with a young couple who have two kids. The grandma lives by herself on the second floor. Helen and Siegfried eat with her and keep her company in her living room. They sleep in the attic. The couple grows nervous and asks them to leave. Many times, people hide Helen and Siegfried only to ask them to leave.

During the spring of 1943, Nazis arrive at Jo Vis’s home and arrest him, his wife, and a young man they’re hiding. Jo goes to Dachau, a notorious concentration camp, but Rinus Hille takes over the underground movement and helps Helen and Siegfried find a home with the Tjeertes family (even though they don’t have much room) and then with a “little woman” who lets them stay in the attic with her two teen daughters.

Rinus visits the couple and brings Siegfried books, and Siegfried fills 17 notebooks with his thoughts on the war and how things will be changed for the  better by the war. Ab sells their things and brings them money.

Juro and his wife arrange to see their daughter, Vera, who, like Doris, hides with another family. Officials arrest the wife and daughter at the train station and send them to Sobibor, a death camp in Poland.

Jews continue to die by the thousands, and the Nazis keep losing ground in their military battles with the Allies. The Allies launch Operation Overlord to retake France, and on D-Day (June 6, 1944), the Allis storm the beaches of Normandy in northern France. On August 25, 1944, the Allies occupy Paris, France’s capital.

Also, on August 25, two Gestapo officials and two Dutch police officers arrive at Helen and Siegfried’s hiding spot. They find a picture of Doris. They tell them if this is their daughter, they should take her and bring them to the family camp. Helen and Siegfried don’t believe them, and the couple stays in jail until a train takes them to a transit camp, Westerbork. Crowded, ghastly cattle cars then take them to an unknown destination. Wherever they’re heading, Siegfried doesn’t think he’ll survive.

Rabbit and Alfons can’t wait to become Luftwaffe. When another boy notes that a new Luftwaffe pilot typically only lives for 33 days, Rabbit replies, “Who cares?” Instead of flying, Alfons and the Hitler Youth gather in their local gym, and leaders tell them they must defend the West Wall—a 300-mile line of defense the Nazis built in 1936 to repel invasions.

After the address, the leaders summon Alfons to the stage. They make him the equivalent of an army captain and put him in charge of 150-190 boys. A train takes Alfons and his subordinates 40 miles to Remisch, where he makes the nuns give up their convent. The nuns don’t protest, but a teacher wonders how a 16-year-old boy got so much power. Alfons tells the teacher that the Hitler Youth is in control. His boys expel the teacher. Alfons orders the boy to shoot the teacher if he returns.

On the West Wall, Alfons and his unit work on construction and use anti-aircraft weapons. RAF planes spot German supply trucks and spray their machine guns, killing some of the teens, including a 19-year-old Unterbannführer (equivalent to a brigadier general in the U.S. army) who survived Stalingrad. Alfons replaces the Unterbannführer and controls 2,800 boys and 80 girls across four villages.

New boys arrive, and none of them are older than 15. Afraid of death, they abandon the group, and Alfons sends them to a punishment unit. One deserter is from Alfons’s hometown, so he tears off his insignia and sends him to a Remisch officer. He goes to the Russian front and doesn’t return.

An older leader tells Alfons to stop his troops from running away from the sound of gunfire. He says the Gestapo is more dangerous than the Americans but then takes it back. Alfons can report him for criticizing the secret police.

Army officers want Hitler gone, and on July 20, 1944, they try to blow him up in his East Prussian forest headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair. An officer with access to Hitler places a briefcase holding a bomb under the table, and it explodes, but the heavy table protects Hitler, though four people die. In the coming months, Hitler kills over 5,000 people due to the assassination attempt.

Near the end of 1944, an SS official drives Alfons in a Mercedes to a heavily armored, magnificent train. He meets Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments and War Production, and then Hitler. Though England and the U.S. pulverize German cities, Hitler promises victory, and Alfons cries—it’s the most glorious day of his life.

After three nights in the wretched boxcar, Helen and Siegfried arrive at their destination. There’s screaming and chaos. Helen asks a prisoner where she is, but he doesn’t reply. An officer asks Helen if a nearby child is hers, and she says no. The officer sends the child and her mom to the right and Helen to the left. Helen passes the first “selection”—she’ll work, but the mom and child will die.

The officer who inspects her is Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious doctor nicknamed “The Angel of Death.” While humming classical music, he decides who lives and dies by moving his thumbs right or left. He also performs tortuous medical experiments on pregnant women and twins.

Helen and the others receive a tattoo on their left forearms. They remove their clothes, and women officers search their bodies for valuables. A prisoner tries to get Helen’s shoes, but she keeps her shoes—solid shoes can be the difference between life and death.

Helen hears the voice of Anne Frank’s mom. Anne Frank and her family hid in Amsterdam. She, her older sister, and her mom die, but her dad survives, discovers her diaries, and publishes them, turning the adolescent Anne into an iconic figure. Anne’s mom trades her shoes for two extra portions of soup. Anne’s mom never gets the soup.

Helen sleeps in an overcrowded, windowless horse stable, and Helen dreams she’s in Amsterdam, trying to tell her friends about what happened to her, but they don’t believe her. The prisoners stand for roll call each morning and night—a grueling process where the officials count the prisoners. Helen doesn’t remember the count ever matching the number of prisoners.

Helen discovers the toilets—64 people can use them simultaneously, so they serve as a social space. She meets a man around there who tells her where she is: Birkenau, one of the many camps that make up the Auschwitz complex. He points out the gas chamber, where people—mostly Jews—die 24 hours a day. Helen wants to know how they can escape. The man says the only way to leave is through the chimney.

In October 1944, Auschwitz prisoners revolt. They throw rocks at guards and attack them with crowbars and hammers. The guards restore order and smile as they kill many people, including 650 boys ages 12 to 16.

The camps are disgusting, but Helen tries to keep herself clean by watering her body in any way she can, even if it means rubbing snow on her face during the winter. Lice cover her, and she gets scarlet fever. She gets better and tries to stay invisible. By blending in with the crowd, she survives three selections, and the Nazis put her on a cattle car to another camp.