The Reckoning

We’d never really been close, my great aunt and I. There was the 70-year age difference, of course, but it was more than that... She had just never been the easiest person to know and she “didn’t suffer fools” (as she often liked to remind me).

When she finally passed, only months after grandma, I felt a disconcerting sense of relief along with sadness. The sisters were two of the toughest people I had ever known. Auntie and grandma had lived through two World Wars, Nazi occupation of their homeland, migration to a new country - even the Great Depression.

Hell, my generation’s great depression was losing internet access for a few hours.

“Were you close?” the lawyer asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I squirmed uncomfortably in the oversized leather chair. “She wasn’t close to anyone other than her sister. But, I cared for them both a great deal. I helped them around the house this year.”

My nursing studies had come in handy with them and while caring for them was not nearly as challenging as my other patients, it was made more awkward by the family relations. Yet, even in their nineties, they remained mostly self-sufficient. My duties mostly consisted of running errands and occasionally supervising a Mahjong game, their newest passion, while making lunch.

The lawyer pushed a small wooden box across the imposing mahogany desk. “Perhaps she had no one else - or she believed you had more in common than you think. Either way, she left this for you.”

My fingers traced the edge of the box. Secretly, I hoped it was filled with cash to pay down some of those student loans, but as I lifted the lid, my hopes were dashed as the only items revealed were a little black book and what appeared to be a handmade pistol.

Surprised, I glanced up at the lawyer as he, too, studied the contents. He broke the silence. “May I?”

I nodded and he drew the box back towards him, reaching for the weapon with a reverence reserved for family Bibles and beautiful women. “A Liberator. I’ve always wanted to see one.”

Seeing my confusion, he lifted the weapon, pointing it towards the wall of books in his office. "This, my dear, is the FP-45. A Derringer style .45 mm single-shot pistol. It was often called a Liberator.”

He examined it carefully, ensuring the chamber was clear before placing it back in its box. “During World War II, these makeshift guns were dropped en masse into occupied territory for the rebels. While easily concealed, they are quite inefficient and only accurate at a few yards - much like its cousin. They were used almost exclusively for assassinations, and occasionally for evading capture, by the LKP.”

“The LKP?” I inquired, avoiding the weapon and instead reaching for the little black book. The pages were nearly filled, each line holding a carefully penned list of names, ranks and dates.

“The Landelijke Knokploeg - a national assault group in the Netherlands made up of Dutch resistors. They sabotaged supply lines during the war and were quite well known for their assassinations of high-ranking Nazis and their sympathizers.”

Curiouser and curiouser, I thought, my favorite line from Alice in Wonderland sounding an echo in my mind. The titles next to the names on the page ranged from Nazi Field Marshall to Schutzstaffel.

“How well did you know your aunt?” He asked softly.

“Not well,” I admitted. My aunt had always worn a shroud of secrecy about her past. “She was born in the Netherlands. She and her sister came to the US as young girls, just after the war. Maybe her father gave the gun to her?”

“Possibly,” he replied with none of the reassurance I had expected. “Perhaps the book offers additional clues?”

I closed the pages and slid the book across the desk. “It’s just names, titles, dates. But, it’s a long list.”

He glanced through it and reached for his computer, typing in the first name on the list. Grunting, he typed in several others, before finally leaning back in his chair. “With your permission, I’ll have my assistant do some more research. But, it appears that all of these men were killed in action.”

“Well,” I grinned. “It was a war.”

He nodded, but his frown expressed his doubt. “There were rumors, stories of young girls who lured SS officers to a secluded area to execute them.”

“You’re not implying that she was one of these girls?” I said quietly. “She couldn’t have been more than 12 or maybe 13 years old when this was written.”

He shrugged. “Three of them became especially well known to the Nazis, yet only one of the girls was ever captured. She was turned over to the SS and tortured for 40 days, then executed. But, she never betrayed the other girls and they were never identified.”

What was he telling me? That my crazy great aunt; the one who made beautiful sculptures, sang when she was nervous, the woman who refused comfort and never married - was a Nazi hunter? Was he saying that my grandmother, a family-loving, devout Christian may have once been a rebel? A temptress? An assassin? It was a ludicrous proposition.

He scanned the book, flipping to the Inside of the back cover. He read it aloud, his voice a haunting whisper against the raging of my mind.

They arrived at night - the Jews, the gays, the women and children. Mother cared for them, hid them and helped to get them to safety. Then, the monsters came. They took our beloved books. The stories that fueled our passion, gave us hope, and they burned them in the night. Then they took our mother, but we were too quick. We left by the light of the moon to 6 Corelli street. This book is not vengeance, it is our reckoning of those who forgot their humanity. We destroyed the monsters so that we may stay human.

Stay human. They were my aunt’s final words. It was the closest thing to advice she had ever given me. Stay human, with all of the happiness, tragedy, fear, hate, love, frailty and strength that being human entailed.

This changed everything…