back as the Bronze Age, when the indigenous Balt-Prussians had traded their only precious resource, amber, with the outside world in exchange for metal to use in jewellery, tools and weapons. For centuries the region had remained so remote that although Tacitus and Ptolemy had mentioned it in their writings, Pliny the Elder referred mistakenly to the Samland peninsula as an island: Amber Island. Like the shards of amber that washed up daily on the local beaches, there were other bits and pieces of rarely mentioned history that marked the region: on conquering Samland seven centuries earlier the Teutonic Knights had stolen the non-Germanic tribe’s name and used it to christen their own empire. Prussia rose as one of the most militant and chauvinistic of all German states, despite the fact that many of the assimilated Baltic Prussians, including Ida’s clan, silently traced their names and lineage to a pre-Germanic past. But on that summer afternoon in 1940, no one was thinking about the village’s history as they gathered on the Platz to sing, laugh, drink, dance and make merry in honour of the news they had heard on the radio.
Ida, though, wasn’t quite ready to join the party and remained apart, nervously fingering her bracelet as she watched Karl reach the ancient church the Knights had built above the village.
‘Have you seen the sharpening stone?’ a voice called behind her.
She turned. Her father had come out of the slaughterhouse, cleaning a knife on a piece of cloth. When he saw her face he said, ‘I told you, you’ve nothing to worry about.’ He hobbled over to her and sat down beside her – always a struggle with his wooden leg. He’d lost his own defending East Prussia from the Russians in 1914 at the battle of Tannenberg. ‘Paul will be fine. The army’s in control. It will be over soon.’
Ida knew he wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear. ‘It’s in the kitchen,’ she said, ‘in the drawer to the right of the sink.’
Günter grabbed the iron railing and pulled himself up again.
‘I’ll tell one of the children to clean the slaughterhouse,’ she said. ‘Go and join the men when you’ve finished. I must start cooking.’
‘We’ll do it together, over the fire pit. It’s you who should join the party. Come on! Up!’ He spoke to her as if she were still a child, but she stood up and straightened her dress, forced herself to smile and went out on to the square.
‘Ida!’
Romy, Werner’s mother, was coming towards her. Günter rolled his eyes and turned away.
‘Mr Badura was just telling me you managed to buy some cloth when you went to Königsberg last week. I was wondering if you had any left over – I’m trying to finish a blanket for my cousin. She’s expecting next month.’
‘I think there’s a little. I’ll have a look later.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d do it now? I wanted to finish it tonight and we might miss each other this evening.’
Ida went into her home and located the rest of the cloth with which she had made Leyna a new dress.
‘Can I give you something for it?’ Romy asked when Ida handed it to her.
‘There’s no need. My best wishes to your cousin. Now I must help my father with the pig.’
‘Would you like my help?’
‘The slaughterhouse is too small for a crowd,’ Ida said. ‘We’ll catch up later, after we’ve eaten.’
When Romy had gone Ida started to close the door but saw Leyna running through the gate, so she opened it again. ‘Mutti, Werner’s teasing me! When are we going to eat?’
‘I wish you and Karl would stop asking that.’
They walked through the house and out of the back door where they found Günter smoking and gazing into the pasture.
‘You call that work?’ Ida joked.
He dropped the cigarette, grabbed Leyna and flung her into the air as she shrieked with delight, ‘Put me down, Grandpa!’
Soon a side of pork was roasting over the open pit beside the slaughterhouse where a group of men had gathered. Each generation had its favourite songs and as the afternoon wore on the villagers began to sing. Even the boys on the square stopped playing and started to sing a Hitler Youth song they had learned from the older boys at school:
We march for Hitler through the night.
Suffering with the flag for freedom and bread.
Our flag means more to us than death…
The old men, all veterans of the last war, laughed bitterly. ‘What do they know about death?’ one muttered.
Another called, ‘Go and get us some of the bread you’re singing about. We haven’t finished eating yet.’
The children were silent – until they realised that the men were laughing at them. Then they sang even louder:
We march for Hitler through the night.
Suffering with the flag for freedom…
That autumn, each Thursday after lunch, Karl, Peter and Leyna waited on the hill outside the village beside the road that led to Fischhausen. From there they could see nearly two kilometres down the long straight road as they looked for the postman, trying to guess when he would appear. The younger two had to rely on their brother’s word because he wouldn’t let them see the watch their grandfather had given him.
Once they were certain the postman was on his way, they sprinted into the woods, along the path and down the hill, across a glade and back up the opposite hill to the church. When they reached the cemetery they stopped to catch their breath, then ran down into the square just before the truck arrived.
They wanted to be ready in case their father had sent them a parcel. They were the only children in Germau who received sweets in the post each month, but they waited for the postman each week in case he had sent an extra one. Ida made them open it at home – otherwise, she knew, they’d eat it all at once. Each evening, after they had done their piano practice, she would give them a little until everything had been eaten. The children took their daily ration outside to where the others waited.
When a picture appeared in the newspaper of soldiers marching along the Champs Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe, Karl cut it out and, in the field beside the church, showed it to the other village children, saying that his father was among the soldiers at the rear. Peter supported him although both knew that Paul hadn’t marched into the city with the troops. Karl refused to share his sweets with two boys who didn’t believe him. ‘Who else would have sent us chocolate from Paris?’ Karl asked.
The boys considered this and agreed it must have been his father. He rewarded them with a nibble that seemed more delicious than anything German.
‘Maybe my father will go to Italy,’ one said, ‘and send us something even better.’
‘Italy’s already on our side, stupid. They’ll probably send him to Africa where they don’t have sweets.’
By now they’d eaten what Ida had given them.
‘See if your mother will give you more,’ one boy said.
‘She won’t. She said it’s almost gone.’
‘Let’s go and look for the secret tunnel, then.’
Immediately the children forgot about Paris and ran off. Mr Wolff had once told Karl about a tunnel that, long ago, monks had dug beneath the church. It opened somewhere in the woods and offered a last means of escape to those besieged in the building. It had rarely been used, however, since the time of the Teutonic Knights who had trained with arms and studied military strategy with the same devotion they showed to the Virgin Mary. Mr Wolff, the local coffin maker, enjoyed sharing his knowledge