part of the occupying force in postwar Germany.
He told of the half-naked, emaciated men and women standing in the snow. Of the bodies.
He had expected his father to be furious, but instead the elder Holz grew deathly quiet.
Leadenly he sat down on their gaily printed sofa.
He beckoned his son to sit next to him.
'You have heard of the so-called atrocities before, have you not?' his father had said softly.
Lothar admitted that he had.
'How long ago did you first hear?'
'I do not remember, Father. All my life.'
'And why did you wait until now to question me?'
'The pictures,' young Lothar had said desperately. He remembered one of a group of German ci-vilians being led past a row of corpses. They were Jewish women who had died on a forced march. Des-iccation had made their faces chillingly deformed.
They almost appeared to have been mummified.
'The pictures were horrible.' Lothar shivered at the recent memory.
'And why was that?'
'Well.. .these people were dead. Murdered.'
His father stroked his chin pensively. 'Would it This was what she said to her young husband—a camp guard who saw his marriage as an opportunity to move up—many times over.
But the person she had the hardest time convinc-ing, apparently, was herself. She had climbed into a bathtub of warm water one sunny afternoon when Lothar was four. With her she had brought her husband's straight razor.
After that, Lothar and his father were alone. The year was 1951.
And from that day forward, not an hour went by in his young life where Lothar did not remember his mother fondly. But the day his father hinted to him what his mother had been during the war would alter his perceptions of right and wrong forever.
Lothar had received a fine education. English, Spanish and French were all taught at his exclusive school, in addition to his native German. He learned each language fluently. Mathematics was never his forte, nor any of the sciences. But he was persuasive and well liked, by students and instructors alike.
However, this early acceptance by his peers was short-lived. Once he had learned the truth about his mother, his grades began to fail.
His father was called, but he didn't seem interested in his son's problems. The elder Holz's drinking had grown worse with each passing day, and though he was still a relatively young man, he looked older and more haggard as his advanced alcoholism ravaged his system.
He died nearly a year to the day he had first told his son the truth about his mother.
At nine years of age, Lothar Holz was an orphan.
He had no other family. The only relative his father had ever spoken of was his father-in-law, but the man had died during the war, a victim of the Russian and American advance in the death throes of the old power system.
He thought he was completely alone.
Lothar was in the small flat where he and his father lived. It was the day after his father's death. There would be a service of some sort, someone had told him, but he didn't wish to attend. Lothar didn't love his father, although he missed his presence in the shabby little apartment. It was a strange feeling for a nine-year-old to have, and with no one to share it with, Lothar had sat in a dusty corner of his father's bedroom and cried for hours.
He was sniffling quietly when he heard a knock at the door.
He assumed it was another woman from the apartment building with a plate of pastries. When he went to answer it, he found a reed-thin old man in a black topcoat and gloves. The man asked if he could come in. Lothar assumed he was a mortician, such were his gaunt features and pallor. He let him inside.
The man had stepped through the apartment carefully, as if he did not want the grimy carpet to soil the soles of his shoes. He seemed displeased at the stack of empty liquor bottles piled on the floor.
Lothar felt ashamed. He wished he had thought to throw out the bottles. Quickly he tried to pick up a few items of clothing that were draped over the backs of chairs.
'Do not bother with that, Lothar,' the old man had said.
He sat down on the sofa, careful to first brush it free of crumbs.
'I'm sorry,' Lothar said with a timid half shrug.
He felt as if he was apologizing for his entire life.
'Do not apologize,' the man said. 'Never apologize for that which you cannot control.'
Lothar almost said he was sorry again but stopped himself. He nodded his understanding to the man.
'Good.' The man sat straight on the battered sofa. His back was as rigid as a board. He spoke without preamble. 'Lothar, did you ever wonder where your father got his money?'
'Excuse me, sir?'
'Surely this flat cost your father money? The rent, Lothar.'
Then Lothar knew. This was the landlord. He knew his father paid someone so that they could continue to live there. His young mind raced. He had no money. His father had died the day before, and this man was going to evict him today.
The old man saw the look of fright and immediately sought to ease his fears. He explained that he and his friends had been helping his father out for quite some time. It was a debt, he said, they owed to their past. And their future.
It made sense. Though his father never seemed to work much, there was always food on the table and clothes on his back. Lothar had never thought of it before, but the money must have been coming from somewhere.
'We are a network of friends,' the old man had said. 'There are more of us than anyone imagines.
We help other friends when we are able. In your case, we weren't as much helping your father, but the grandson of a friend. A great man.'
'My grandfather was a member of the Gestapo.'
The man seemed surprised. 'Your father told you this?'
'I learned some on my own. Some from my father.'
The old man smiled. 'Then you appreciate his greatness.'
'My grandfather was a murderer.'
Now there was shock on the visitor's face. 'Lothar, you are mistaken.'
'I am not,' Lothar said. 'My grandfather was a murderer. And my mother, as well.' His neck and cheeks grew red as he spoke.
'Is this what the drunkard told you?'
'It is the truth.'
The old man shook his head resolutely. He tried to explain to Lothar the old ways. He tried to tell him that, though his father was an aberration, he had come from a great family. His mother and grandfather had served the Fatherland well. As their heir, he had earned the help of the old man and his friends.
The orphaned boy was horrified.
Everything he had, everything he knew, his entire life had been purchased with the blood of those poor dead women in that grainy black-and-white photograph he had seen a year before.
The old man offered to continue assisting Lothar, but he no longer heard him.
Lothar left his father's apartment that night for the last time.
He lived for a time on his own. Scrounging for food, working odd jobs here and there. Some of the Americans stationed nearby felt sorry for him. They gave him food, clothing. In the winter, someone gave him an old pair of service boots. It was never enough.
Most times he had barely enough to eat, and more times than he cared to remember he went to sleep hungry.
Not even one year had passed before he sought out the old man.
He was hungry, dirty and frightened. He justified his decision by repeating to himself that, though he didn't
