Olga. We had been without any suspicion, all morning down in
our cellar. Though I had well looked once after Daddy in his study
and had asked him why he was so pale and whether he did not
want to eat something. He only smiled sadly at me and said:
“You will know it hereafter.” He still came down to us in the cellar
to lead the Sunday devotion. With a calm voice he read the 90th
Psalm: “Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations.”
How he must have felt when he read the verse: “So teach us to
number our days.”
Then he also read from the gospel that story where it is told us
that Jesus had compassion over the multitude and he added
simply: “Jesus is with us now too and has compassion over us.”
We prayed also, Daddy kissed you then the way he often did it in
those days, but this time it was the farewell forever, he knew it.
THE MARCH OF DEATH
About 11 am, I was upstairs again to fetch something. Then I heard
terrific rattling at the door and loud men’s voices. As I quickly
ran there, I saw my husband encircled by rough types who held
pistols in his face and yelled at him. Daddy looked back at me and
said to those hangmen, “That is my wife, but she is a foreigner.”
Those words stunned them somewhat and they lowered their
guns. One of them said, slightly disturbed, “We are not going to
do anything to your husband, he just has to come to the Police
with us, but he will be back soon.” I foolishly believed those words
at the time. Then two men searched the apartment, my husband
was not allowed to move from the spot nor to take anything
along. They also watched carefully what we still said to each
other. He asked permission to see the children once more, but
it was not granted. With great clatter and triumph the two men
who had gone to search our rooms, came noisily down the
stairs. “Here you see, he too is one of them!” For proof he waved
a red flag he had found in Sister Olga’s room; a Norwegian flag.
28 | Never Again: A Holocast Remembered