Eva, Hilde and Anna are on their way home from school, the limited High School programme organized downtown for those girls who have permission to be in Berlin, have returned from evacuation for various reasons or never left. The boys attend their own, separate school operated out of the famous old ‘Graue Kloster’.
The girls are dismissed at 12:30 pm, presumably to allow them to reach home before the midday air raid. The Yanks are punctual to the minute, and so it happens each and every day that the S-Bahn pulls into Wilhelmsruh station, just as the sirens go off.
Passengers are directed into the rough and smelly bunker dug into the ground right outside the railway yards. It appears poorly protected, becomes overcrowded at once, and the warden has the voice and authority of a drill sergeant. Worse, just 200m from the other side of the platform, the airplane motor works are located, blasting away at unimaginable decibels, assaulting passengers’ ears twenty-four hours a day every day. Hundreds of Russian PoWs are working there, looking thin and tired whenever they are seen in public.
Everyone assumes that these production sites, in plain view, and located next to the railroad tracks beside the S-Bahn, would be prime targets for blockbuster bombs. As the girls run down the steps from the platform to reach the tunnel and short path to the bunker, they see the Russian in his fatigues, pushed against the far wall. He holds up a small delicate item, a toy whittled out of wood. It is a type of rattle, sporting a circle of chickens on top of a circular platform, strings connecting them to a small rock tied into a knot below. The toy has been sanded and decorated with blue and red lines.
“Brot”, he whispers, “one loaf of bread”.
But a Warden shouts at the passengers pushing down towards the exit and makes shooing motions in the direction of the PoW, who is headed out the other way.
The moment passes.
No bombs will fall in the vicinity of the station or the manufacturing installations. Ever. But no one knows this yet.
The girls emerge from the bunker after the all-clear. They cannot forget the face of the young man with his treasure. Back on the train they agree to each try to bring a third of a loaf of bread the next day. Not to negotiate a deal. Their younger siblings are too old for his small toy. Just to help him out, between them. But when they arrive the next day, after school, with the sirens howling, and run down looking for him everywhere, he is not there.
So, plucking chunks of rye bread from their paper bags, chewing, they head into the bunker,
and after the air raid get on the next train and head for home.