Valhalla – Memories from the world in between! E-Book

Ingrid Schliebusch

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 207

Beschreibung

Valhalla" refers to an intermediate world from which the memories of people born in Romania and Berlin in the 1920s and who lived through the Second World War are transmitted. In the book "Valhalla", their memories are brought back to earthly life in order to resolve the suffering and pain that we are all connected to. The effects of the Second World War on the post-war period and into the 1990s of reunified Germany become a living reality through the events, thoughts and feelings described.

Leseprobe

Quote

Every life leaves traces. Traces in the memory. To follow them, to revive them, to deepen them, to internalize them, to fathom their meaning, in order to derive the answers to all questions - whether meaningful or not -

Dedication

For all people who carry guilt within themselves and seek it outside.

For Vadim, who showed me the way.

For my mother, who loved me and gave me my life.

For my father, who redeemed me.

Foreword

Germany, July 2021

These are my memories. Mine, those of my father Johannes, my mother Elsa, those of my two uncles Wilhelm and Vadim and those of other people. With Valhalla, I bring them back to the earthly world to release them. You are all connected to the suffering and pain that happened to us. You are all connected to it. There is no guilt, but there is fear of suffering, pain and death. This must end. Fear has become alien to life. It makes you inhuman, distances you from love and compassion. Just as it has done to me, it also distances you further and further from yourself. Fear must be replaced by love and trust. You need compassion for yourselves and for each other! Love, compassion and trust in yourselves! Then it will end.

Jakob Wilhelm

Prologue

"How do you recognize the truth?" asked the lie.

"You cannot recognize the truth, you cannot grasp it, because it encompasses everything. Truth is the highest authority, from it man speaks without words," answered Wisdom.

"I don't understand that. I'm often mistaken for the truth. People like me and I feel omnipresent. I have never met the truth. How can I find it?" asked the lie.

"You can't find it. You don't look for the truth. As soon as you start looking for it, it is no longer true. When it is no longer true, you find yourself. Once you have found yourself and recognized who you are, your being ends. The moment you end, the truth becomes visible," answered Wisdom.

"That means I can never meet her because she only becomes visible when my existence ends?" asked the lie.

"You encounter the truth every day, because it accompanies you. You cannot see it withyoureyes, you cannot hear it withyourears, but you can feel its presence," replied Wisdom.

"How does the truth feel?" the lie wanted to know.

"Stop and step aside, close your eyes and your ears, then you can feel it," wisdom urged the lie.

Lie closed her eyes and ears, stepped aside and paused, as wisdom had demanded.

"I don't feel the truth, I only feel fear," the lie said quietly. "Fear sits huddled in the dark, deep at the bottom of hearts, looking towards death."

"Give her your hand and lead her to the light!" cried Wisdom.

"How am I supposed to do that?" asked the lie.

"You are the lie, she will trust you. Promise her that you will conquer death together and she will follow you," Wisdom advised her.

The lie did what wisdom had advised it to do. She reached out a hand to Fear and promised her that they would defeat death if they came to the light together. Fear actually trusted the lie. Believing that she could defeat death, she allowed the lie to lead her to the light. The lie met the truth at the same moment that fear stepped into its light. In the light of truth, the lie ended its existence and with it the fear that held it firmly by the hand.

The ONE

"It'sme, don't you recognize me?" asked the one.

"No, who are you?" he asked back.

"It's me, you recognize me!" replied the one.

"How am I supposed to know if it's you? I don't recognize you!" he replied.

"If you don't recognize me, it's notme," added the One.

"It's you if I recognize you and if I don't recognize you,it's notyou?" he asked. "I don't understand your words! What do you want from me?"

"Why are you alive?" the one asked abruptly.

"Why am I alive?" he repeated the question.

"You're surprised by that question?" asked the one. "Why aren't you dead if you have no reason to live?" it followed up immediately.

"Who are you to ask me such questions? I can't make sense of it," he replied.

"You demand a meaning in my questions, although you know no reason to live? What is thepoint ofyou living?" the One continued to ask.

"I livewithoutmeaning," he replied.

"Everythinghas a purpose," replied the One. "If everything didn't have a purpose, why wouldit?"

"I don't see any meaning in life. Maybe I can only recognize it when I'm dead," he added and turned away.

But whichever way he turned, the One always stood directly in front of him and looked at him in a friendly but challenging manner.

"Why are you askingmethese questions of all people?Ican't answer them for you!" he finally said.

"Iaskthem because onlyyoucan answer them! They end the moment you recognize me."

He paused and looked at the one thing as if he could only nowperceiveit.

"Areyouthe life?" he finally asked.

"Yes, it's me!" life replied lovingly.

"You're too late," he replied and sent it away.

Valhalla on a day without time

"Today!" shouted yesterday. "No, tomorrow first!" shouted today. "Now!" shouted the moment. "Be quiet!" shouted the future. "Otherwise the past will catch up with you, the time you're wasting."

After the ONE was gone

"I'm freezing, it's so cold here in the dark!" his heart complained.

"That's his coldness! Life has left us," his mind said.

"Where is life? Why is it gone?" his heart asked.

"He didn't want to have to think anymore, that's why he sent it away!" his mind replied.

"But you're talking to me, so he's still thinking!" his heart contradicted.

"Yes, he's still thinking, but he's not thinkingabout itanymore," his mind replied.

"About what?" his heart asked.

"About death. He no longer has to think about death because heisnow dead," his mind replied.

"He's dead?" his heart asked anxiously.

"Yes, he's dead. Actually, he hasn't been alive for a long time," said his mind.

"What do you mean he hasn't been alive for a long time?" his heart asked.

"He had long since turned his back on life and only thought about death," his mind explained.

"Why did he turn away from life?" his heart asked.

"He had lost interest in it. He kept asking me about the value of life, but I couldn't find an answer he liked!" his mind replied.

"That's sad. I can feel the loneliness and his fear of it. He closed me off so that he couldn't see himself," his heart said quietly.

"Now there is peace. All thoughts have been thought. There are no more new ones. Only his memories remain ..."

"... and his feelings," his heart added and asked: "What happens to us without life?"

"We no longer exist. Through life wewere.Without life, we are no more. His body passes away and we leave him. We are free now," his mind replied.

"Free? What does that mean, to befree?" his heart asked.

"Being free means that we are no longer part of him. We detach ourselves from him. Life is already gone. We are still here because we always go last," his mind explained.

"Where are we going?" his heart asked.

"I go up in the memories and you with me, because all memories are firmly connected with feelings and every feeling with a memory. We stay there until we are remembered and felt again by a person," his mind replied.

"I feel so heavy. I can't detach myself from him!" his heart lamented.

"The heaviness is not yours, it is here to stay. Only light hearts can detach themselves from the earthly," his mind explained.

"What is happening to her?" his heart asked.

"Other hearts will receive them," his mind replied.

"Other hearts will carry on this heaviness of loneliness, sorrow and fear?" his heart asked anxiously.

"Yes, she will stay here. Other people will take care of her and carry her on in their hearts," his mind replied.

"I feel the heaviness as the unspoken sorrow of his memories," his heart said. "He felt excluded from his own life," it added.

"He hasn't been alive for a long time," his mind repeated and stopped thinking. His heart let go of the heaviness and followed him.

Valhalla between the time

"The past will catch up with you if you look too long. Turn around! Turn around!" beckoned the future.

PART 1 - Memories from before time, in time and after time

Sachsenhausen concentration camp, April 1945 - Memories of Vadim

Death is omnipresent. It surrounds me. I smell, see, hear and feel death. I sense my passing, more than my life. I am passing away. Time stands still, but I am passing away. I am living backwards. I finally want certainty, the certainty that I will die or live. I can no longer live without certainty. I want to know when the time will come. Today, tomorrow, in a week? When will it be over? Better now, then I'll have certainty!

We are being dissolved. They are driving us away! They're driving us away! Those who can no longer walk will be shot. They are driving us! Death drives us across the fields. A death march of the living dead. Death drives us forward. Many remain on the route, simply lie down and die. They are certain that it is over. But it drives us forward, a last spark of hope for life, a last remnant of life that is still in our emaciated bodies. Nobody knows, nobody knows, but some still hope. Those who no longer hope are left lying there.

I fall, I lie down, I faint. I'm kicked in the side. I don't move. He goes on and lets me die - certainty at last.

I am lying down. Time stands still. It starts to rain. My face is getting wet. I am still alive. I am still alive!

I am pulled up. They put me on a cart and drive me away. To where? I feel the cart bump, I hear voices, but I don't understand the words. I'm lying in the straw, "more dead than alive", I hear them say. They lift my head and give me water. It runs past my mouth. I have no strength to open my lips. At some point, I feel it trickle down my throat. It is cool and soothing. I taste broth being poured down my throat with a large spoon. I have not forgotten what broth tastes like. I fall into a deep sleep.

How long have I been asleep? I am awake. I am alive. I can open my eyes and see. I can feel a hand gliding softly over my face. I can feel it, I can smell the scent of hay around me. I am alive.

I escaped death, they say. I waslucky.But I can't feel the luck, there was too much death around me. I can't detach myself from the images, the thoughts, the pain of the past years. I can't erase them, no matter how hard I try. I would have to want to forget them in order to go on living. I am alive, but notmylife. I lost that before time. I have lost it, my life. It seems so unreal to me, life after time. I should forget everything, I should start a new life, they say. "How does that work -forgetting?" I ask them. They look at me and yet they don't see me, they see the other person, the one left after time. I am alive, but I no longer exist. They don't know the answer to my question about forgetting, I can see that in their empty looks - no answer to the question of how to live without your life.

I've regained my strength. They're sending me away. I can't stay here, they say. I'm leaving, or what's left of me, after time. I let myself drift without a destination, without knowing who I am.

Berlin, September 1945 - Memories of Vadim

The war is over. I am free. To be free, to get my old life back, was my most fervent wish after imprisonment. Now I know that I can never get my old life back - regardless of whether I am free or not. In my mind, I will never be free again. My memories tie me down, hold me prisoner in Sachsenhausen. I meet the dead at night. I see their faces, their shining, staring eyes, their silent gazes. They reach for me, want to pull me along. I run away, but they catch up with me. I hear their screams, their soft whimpers, their gasps, their last breaths. I recognize their faces in the living and freeze. I am no longer afraid of death. No more fear. I feel hungry and thirsty, I freeze and sweat, I am tired but can't sleep - otherwise I only feel emptiness. Emptiness fills me up. It's as if I'm a sleepwalker who never wakes up from his nightmare. I no longer have a place in life, with the living. They see that when they meet me. So many people are throwing themselves into work now that the war is over. They are rebuilding, they say. They are building again. Labor is needed everywhere now. So many men stayed in the war, so many men. You can no longer tell who is good and who is bad. All the bad ones have disappeared, as if there had only been good ones. I rarely see sympathetic looks, people have experienced too much suffering and pain, there is no feeling left to share.

I work for shelter and bread. I haul stones and rebuild their houses. Where else could I go? I stay. When I work, I feel a little. My body aches. I am alive. Few ask where I come from, no one asks where I belong. So I stay. Nobody asks, and that's a good thing. What should I tell them? The incomprehensible has no words. People are silent about the suffering they have experienced, they are silent because they want their lives back.Theirlives. I understand that. I remain silent so that they can get their lives back - I have to remain silent for that. Their looks make me understand that they don't want to know anything about what happened behind the walls. It's so unreal, so unbelievable that they don't want to believe it, can't believe what happened behind the walls. Nobody wants to know, nobody knew about it, nobody heard or saw anything about it. Nobody.

I would like to not have to know anymore myself. No longer have to think, no longer have to dream. Repression helps the survivors. It helps the living. It's important that it helps the living. They work away their pain. They work to forget what they didn't want to know, didn't know, never heard and never saw. I help, I work, I eat and drink, but I don't sleep because then they come and catch up with me, the dead. Many are sleepless and restless, like me. I see suffering in their eyes. They want their old life back, but that no longer exists.

The children play in the rubble - laughing carefree. It's lovely to see them playing and hear their laughter. I find myself smiling as I watch them. For a brief moment, I can forget. I start carving animals and figures in the night. I was already able to do this when I was a little boy. My grandfather taught me. I give them to the children to experience their joy and laughter. When they laugh, I can forget. I start to remember my life, who I was before time.

Berlin, spring 1946 - Memories of Vadim

Who I am ... I have no connection to who I am. I don't feel like I belong to my past life. It seems foreign to me. I feel like an observer when I remember my past life, like a stranger. I don't feel my own life, I can only observe the stranger and become absorbed in it. When I am not observing, I am empty. Just as I watch the children playing, I look at my past life. When I remember, I see a boy who I must have once been. I see his mother. She is wearing a simple dress and an apron over it. Her hair is pinned back. She is young, works hard, is diligent. She looks after the house and the animals. We have animals, not many, but not a few either. It's enough to live on. We're doing well. We live in the country. My father works in the fields, my mother looks after the house and farm. I remember our geese and chickens running around the farm. I run after them. I enjoy chasing them until they cluck loudly and fly up. My mother admonishes me not to shoo the chickens, but I do it anyway when she's not looking. She carries my little sister in her arms. I play outside a lot, mostly with the animals. My grandparents live with us on the farm. Grandpa smokes a pipe and repairs fences and carts. Grandma helps around the house and in the garden. In the evening, I sit on a bench in front of the house with my grandfather. It's mild. The sun is already low. He carves animals and figures out of wood for me. He also carves a cart and a carriage for me. I laugh and he grumbles into his beard. I smell the tobacco from his pipe. I love sitting next to him, smelling him, watching his skillful fingers.

My face is wet. I watch the children playing again. They are playing cops and robbers with guns made from wooden sticks. It's easy to hide among the ruins. They are carefree while they play. Many of them no longer have a father, they don't even know what he looks like, what he sounds like, what he smells like. Their mothers are full of fear and worry, but they don't show it. They have to work. The children are hungry. There is not much left intact in the rubble, but sometimes you find something that once belonged to someone who lived there. Things that can be traded on the black market for food, soap and clothes. There is a soup kitchen. The women queue up to fetch soup and some bread for themselves and the children in their tin bowls and pots. No one complains, no one talks about what happened. Everyone holds on to the hoped-for future - everyone holds on to what is left.

The winter was harsh and once again claimed many lives. Especially old and weak people and children. They froze to death without shelter, too weak to save themselves. The others are too empty to mourn any more, for even more deaths. The mothers weep for their children - silently, and then they continue to work for those who remain. Some don't cry anymore. They fall silent and some disappear, are simply gone, like so many others who are simply gone.

"Vadim, get up, the sun is shining!" I jump up and look into a smiling face. I briefly recognize my mother, smell her, hear her laughing. A young woman looks at me. I'm here again. My name is Vadim, today is April 14, 1946, my 22nd birthday.

Transylvania - before time - Memories of Vadim

When I was a child, my grandfather told me about the great war that was fought here in our country. Transylvania was fought over. People forget if they are not remembered. The dead are forgotten. Romania suffered many deaths in the First World War. The country was plundered and bled dry. My grandfather told me about the large army made up of ordinary men who didn't know how to wage war. My father was one of them, but he never talked about the war. Neither did my mother. As a boy, I wanted to know who won the war. "Nobody," my grandfather said firmly. "Nobody can win a war, Vadi."

My grandmother was very religious. Like most Romanians, she belonged to the Christian Orthodox Church. She said that her faith helped her to endure everything. She lost four sons in the war. My father was the only one to return from the war. She told me about Valhalla. A place from Norse mythology that she had made her own in order to forget her dead sons and at the same time know that they were in good hands. "They stay in Valhalla, the forgotten dead. They can't leave Valhalla and wait," my grandmother said. "What are they waiting for?" I asked her. "They are waiting for their redemption," my grandmother replied. "Where is Valhalla?" I wanted to know. "Valhalla is the anteroom to heaven," she replied. I imagined Valhalla as a room that resembled the waiting room in the Bucharest train station that I had seen before. A large room with many benches where travelers wait for their train to arrive. "Why are they forgotten, Grandma?" I asked her. "There are too many of them. If we don't forget them, we can't think about the living," was her reply. "But how long do they have to wait until they are finally redeemed?" I asked, because I didn't like the idea of the forgotten having to wait an infinite amount of time for their journey to heaven. "They wait so long until they can let go of their lives. They carry heavy burdens, the forgotten dead. You travel to heaven with light luggage!" she replied, but I didn't understand at the time. Why do the dead have to leave their luggage behind? Why do the dead have luggage at all? These and other questions ran through my mind, but the look on her face told me that I wouldn't understand the answers, so I refrained from asking her these questions. "Life doesn't answer all questions, but all in its own time, Vadi," she said and stroked my hair.

I have fond memories of my grandparents. They both died before their time. First my grandfather and a little later my grandmother followed him. Both are unforgotten in my memories. I'm sure they got the first train.

Transylvania - shortly before the time - Memories of Vadim

My grandparents have left. My grandmother was looking forward to seeing her sons again. It wasn't difficult for her to leave after my grandfather. For me, the world was poorer without them.

I was 11 years old when my world began to change. I first noticed it in my mother, who became quieter and more serious. She became more introspective, sometimes just sitting there and leaving work behind. I thought to myself that she was sad about her grandparents and tried to comfort her. I told her that they both must have gotten the first train to heaven because we don't forget them. I remember her smiling and stroking my head, then she hugged me so tightly that I could hardly breathe. She remained sad and silent. My father became even more serious just before time. He listened to the radio every evening and talked to my mother about it. I was already in bed myself and only heard her talking quietly. Sometimes it got louder and I heard my father's voice more clearly. I remember him talking about the Iron Guard, but I didn't understand much of what he was saying. I was sure my grandfather could have explained it to me, I thought, and I missed him even more at that time.

Transylvania 1937 - Memories of Vadim

I didn't understand what was happening in our country. It became increasingly restless. The grandparents from Braşov came to our farm. They had suitcases with them and wanted us to travel with them. I had never traveled before in my life and was looking forward to a trip with my grandparents.

My mother had met my father at an agricultural fair in Braşov. Her parents had business there. They had a store where they sold agricultural equipment such as harrows, plows and flails. My grandparents belonged to the German-Jewish community. My mother was supposed to marry a Jewish merchant. My grandparents were not at all happy that she fell in love with my father, my mother once told me. A farmer, and an orthodox Christian one at that, had not been intended for my mother. But times were hard. The First World War was imminent and in the face of these uncertainties they finally agreed to a marriage. After the marriage, my mother moved to my father's farm. In 1916, Romania entered the war and shortly afterwards, first his brothers and then my father were called up to fight for our country. He stayed away for six years. I was born a year after he returned from being a prisoner of war.

When my grandparents came, my father didn't want to travel. He said he didn't want to give up the farm. He hoped things would calm down again. My grandparents left. We stayed.

Transylvania 1940 - Memories of Vadim