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Paul Wozniak Blog Entry |
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December 23, 2022, 4:00:13 AM December 23, 2022, 4:00:22 AM 12/23/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Holiday Free Draw Friday." (Sorry, I use Free Draw Fridays to practice my characters although I'm not too good at it. I may draw something holidayish soon.) This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Untersturmführer (2nd Lt.) Paul Wozniak, sans cap (top drawing) and with cap (bottom drawing). He's one of the bad guys but has a secret that would make the other bad guys turn on him in an instant if they knew. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding his design, he's a gray poodle. (My poodle characters don't have those goofy fluffy cuts.) TUMBLR EDIT 1: Only tangentially related, but I felt like sharing. As I was finishing up Paul Wozniak's entry, I got the urge to try to dig around and find out if I really have German ancestry or not. I definitely have French-Canadian ancestry through my maternal great-grandmother--there are records--but all I had to go on for my dad's side of the family was vague word of mouth. My mother had told me I have Pennsylvania Dutch (German) ancestry, but there was nothing to back that up; plus, when I asked her more recently, this time she said my ancestry is Dutch--completely different thing. My surname sounds German and I'd been told it is--BUT, it's also a word in English, and Google searches told me it's more often found in the UK--it could be German, yet it could also be English, Dutch, even Ashkenazi Jewish. It isn't included on Wikipedia's list of German surnames. I'm not close to extended family, I won't post my name online for safety reasons (people tend not to answer me when I post questions on forums anyway so I've given up), and I figured my dad himself either doesn't know or doesn't care (he's the sort who finds lots of questions irritating)...so I decided to try Google again. All I had to go on was my paternal grandfather's name, and my hometown, where he'd also lived. I started there. This brought me first to the 1940 Census and my great-grandfather--as well as a tie to a Pennsylvania county with a high Pennsylvania Dutch population. I followed him to a genealogy site where I found my great-great-grandfather. I followed him to a personal genealogy site of Pennsylvania families, then followed that to various other sites. After a couple of hours (during which I took a break to work on my art for that day), plus a few additional details in the day or so after, I'd at last solved the mystery of my uncertain paternal ancestry and the origin of my surname. I learned that my family had resided in Pennsylvania for over a century before coming to Michigan. I learned that my family surname had changed spelling likely sometime in the late 1700s. I learned my ancestors immigrated from Europe to Pennsylvania in 1767 on a ship called the Sally. I learned that the earliest ancestor I could track down was a farmer named Georg, who was born around 1590. (Here the recorded trail I can find ends.) And I learned that my family and my family name could be tracked to a particular state in Germany: We are, in fact, of German descent. As for the name of the particular state in Germany from which my family originates?...my family comes from the state of Hesse. I make up lots of stuff, but I could not have made this up if I tried. Hope somebody enjoyed. TUMBLR EDIT 2: So all right. I mentioned previously that I'd explain this SS character's decidedly odd name, so here we go. I've made passing reference to newish character Lt. Paul Wozniak in previous entries, though until recently (I think it was Dobermann's entry?) never referred to him by name. This is largely because he only recently acquired one, and he had his first name quite a while before the last name came along. I had trouble figuring out what "Lt. Paul's" name should be but was already leaning toward something unusual; then "unusual" clearly developed into "Polish," so here we are. I went with one I knew how to pronounce (having attended school with a girl surnamed Wosniak, who I believe secretly hated my guts, but whatever). This is a matter I haven't looked into as much as others, but suffice it to say, the Nazis hated the Poles. I don't know if they were persecuted to the same extent as the Jews, but many Slavic peoples, Poles included, were considered subhuman, and often forced into camps. Lt. Wozniak, being in the SS yet having what comes across as a "forbidden" name, seemed like it'd make for a pretty juicy plot point. And there was a tiny basis in fact for giving an SS member such a name, so I couldn't pass it up. So what inspired such an odd choice? A fellow named...uh...Odilo Globocnik. *checks* Holy crap I spelled it right, though it took me a few backspaces. Anyway. Who is this weird-named dude? Long story short, he was an Austrian SS officer who participated in murdering the Poles, as well as various other garbagey acts. I shan't dwell on him as all he and Wozniak have in common is their odd naming circumstances. According to Wikipedia, Odilo (easier to type that than that surname) was Slovenian/Serbian/Croatian. I. e., Slavic. Yet he was still a high-ranking member of the SS and even participated in ethnic cleansing of other Slavic peoples. What up? I'm not sure if I understand what I'm reading right, but Odilo seems to have been another instance of the Nazis being big ol' flaming hypocrites when it suited them. Some of Odilo's fellows apparently ridiculed him for his non-Aryan name, but others, including Himmler himself, simply came up with an excuse: Oh, dude named Globocnik is TOTALLY Aryan! He just has a funny-spelled name because it was "Slavicized"! Yeah, that's the ticket! 🙄 I'm not sure what it was about Odilo that got him this easy pass, but there you go. It's similar in my story. Paul Wozniak, I believe, actually IS of Polish descent, so technically he should not end up accepted into the SS, but he is. He comes from a well-off family with connections--this plot point isn't developed yet, but perhaps they're even connected to Col. Rupprecht Heidenreich, which is one of the biggest connections you can get in this storyline without being connected to the Reichsführer himself. (Himmler never appears by name in my story though a guy who might be him briefly appears once or twice.) Heidenreich proves he's a hypocrite elsewhere in the story by expressing virulent antisemitism--e. g., he vows to shoot any Jew who sets foot on his land--while being a-OK having an affair with a half-Jewish woman (when she tells him this and asks if it'll be a problem, he outright says that makes it more "exciting.") Anyway, Wozniak's family are living in Germany at the time of the story and they consider themselves German and all that but, well, technicalities. They have big hopes for their son, big hopes he doesn't really share but he has no real say. They pull strings, insist they're not dirty Poles but they just have "Policized" names (yes that is a completely misused word there), he meets the SS criteria, and joins the Waffen-SS. Goes off to fight in the war. He's kind of young and definitely inexperienced, and the guy who ends up with him in his unit doesn't want to deal with the task of showing him the ropes, so passes him off to one of his other guys who has a lot more combat experience, having served in the Great War, and is named, you guessed it, Gunter Hesse. Hesse's not terribly enthused about having to babysit New Guy but doesn't complain, gives him a crash course in how things are done. Wozniak is a fast learner so it doesn't go too badly. His personality is quite different from Hesse's--Hesse is more of a loner, doesn't really "click" with most of the younger soldiers, is the quiet stoic type, rather humorless most of the time, definitely not chatty, and comes from a lower-middle class background--his parents were killed when he was an infant so he was raised in an orphanage and spent some time in poverty after being dismissed from the army. Wozniak is younger, more sociable, loves to chat and joke around, and as I already made clear comes from the upper-middle class, has never wanted for anything. The two of them shouldn't really get along, but Wozniak wears Hesse down and they become rather decent friends. They aren't always in touch with each other since Hesse actually serves in Vincenz Immerwahr's unit, but they meet and fight alongside each other often. So of course Wozniak catches word when Hesse submits a complaint against Immerwahr for acting inappropriately toward him. Immerwahr's interest in younger men (he's older than Hesse is) is well known by most in the Waffen-SS, though Hesse wasn't in the loop. Well, he is now, and he complains about it. And his complaint is promptly brushed off by the Allgemeine-SS, which investigates such things. Hesse is humiliated but has to abide by the decision; he just decides to try to avoid Immerwahr's company as much as possible until he can figure out how to transfer to another unit. Wozniak doesn't comment on the situation since he knows that'll just embarrass Hesse even more, though he does feel rather disappointed about it. Not because he's disgusted by Immerwahr's behavior, but because he has a crush on Hesse, too. And now he's just learned it'll never be requited, because Hesse is skeeved out by people like him. Le sigh. So now you see Wozniak in fact has TWO very big things working against him: He's of Polish descent, AND, well...you know. He never really wanted to be in the SS, that was his parents' idea, but here we are. Wozniak ends up getting seriously wounded and carried off to hospital; he sees Hesse, who helped save his life, standing and watching as he departs. He learns that he can remain in the SS by transferring to their noncombatant branch, the Allgemeine-SS, which deals in security and intelligence; it isn't glamorous but he transfers. He ends up serving Heidenreich's vast office dealing with recordkeeping and investigating complaints against SS officers. One day a new officer arrives in an adjacent office and Wozniak is surprised to recognize his old companion, Hesse--much similar to Wozniak, he too ended up wounded, and on the advice of the Waffen-SS physician who saw to his injury, Erich Arzt, decided to transfer so he could continue serving in the SS. Wozniak pops in to say hello and Hesse, surprised, greets him back. It looks like they'll be serving by each other yet again, albeit in a completely different capacity. Wozniak isn't one of the major characters, and over time Hesse's friendship with Theodor Schulte kind of supplants his relationship with him, though this is largely because Schulte follows him out in the field more often, and carries out unpleasant tasks for him, whereas Wozniak tends to work from the office. One big exception to this is when Hesse is assigned to investigate the deaths of Inga Dobermann, a close friend, and the Nazi official whom she killed before dying herself. (I believe this occurs before Hesse and Schulte meet, though I could be wrong.) It's outside the scope of this entry that Inga is NOT, in fact, dead, her death was merely faked by her husband and members of the resistance movement, the Diamond Network. Despite his years-long friendship with the Dobermanns, Hesse is again out of the loop, for obvious reasons. Inga's husband, Louis Dobermann, requests that the investigation be kept low key out of respect for Inga (actually, to avoid the truth coming out, that she's Jewish and not really dead); he knows Hesse has long had romantic feelings for her, and plans on this working in his favor. Indeed it does, with Hesse taking the lead in the investigation and asking Heidenreich to allow him to keep things quiet. He requests to work with only one other officer, and chooses Wozniak, knowing he can keep things mum. Wozniak has of course heard of the Dobermanns--they're a prominent Junker family well known for their philanthropy--though he's never really interacted with them, and doesn't know all the details of Hesse's relationship with them. (Louis Dobermann saved Hesse's life in the Great War, and Inga, who'd met the two men as they recovered in hospital, insisted on taking him in after he overdosed on morphine--prior to joining the SS, he'd lived with them and helped care for their daughter ever since. He now divides his time between the Dobermann estate and his SS-provided apartment in the city.) He picks up bits and pieces as the investigation goes on. One big hint about the exact nature of things is Hesse's reaction to Inga's "death." He initially reacts with numb shock, running on autopilot as he hurries to the estate to check out the crime scene and then returns to the city to seek Heidenreich's approval to investigate. Heidenreich calls Wozniak since it's quite late at night and most officers are at home; Wozniak agrees to meet Hesse early in the morning, while Hesse goes to get a few hours of sleep. Wozniak isn't quite sure why Hesse has gone to all this trouble, but starts to assume there's more to it than meets the eye. He shows up to work yet Hesse doesn't report to the office as expected, so Wozniak goes to his apartment, knocks, waits a bit. Hesse finally answers, groggy and bleary eyed, and lets him in; he's still dressed from the previous night but is rumpled, and asks Wozniak to wait a few moments while he washes and straightens himself up to head back to the Dobermann estate. Wozniak does so, but is vaguely perplexed; Hesse is well known for being a teetotaler, at the most he may have a glass of wine or beer once a week or so but he almost exclusively sticks to club soda. So why does he look so hungover? Wozniak wanders around the suite a little bit and notices that the door to Hesse's private quarters is cracked open; peering within, he notices something sitting on the bed: a small kit with a syringe. He knows exactly what that must be. When Hesse comes out of the bathroom, still drying himself off, Wozniak gestures at the kit and murmurs, "You sure you're good to go, Kamerad...?" Hesse glances at the kit but then nods, and Wozniak exits the room to let him get dressed. As they leave a few moments later he can tell Hesse never actually took the drug; something must have stopped him from doing so after he prepared the needle. Something else is to blame for his uncharacteristically shabby state when he answered the door. There's no smell of alcohol on him, so Wozniak assumes a completely different cause: Hesse must have cried himself to sleep. He still isn't sure of all the particulars, but now he can tell Hesse cared for Inga very deeply. Wozniak assists in the investigation by doing most of the behind-the-scenes work, such as digging into the SS personal records for information on the man Inga killed and why he might have been on the property in the first place. He's a bit more clear eyed than Hesse is about the whole affair, and senses something is fishy, but Hesse quickly shuts him down when he tries to suggest Dobermann may be hiding something; Hesse isn't stupid, Wozniak knows that he knows, on some level, that things aren't quite right. Yet Hesse deliberately chooses to ignore this, so Wozniak goes along with it. Both of them know Dobermann isn't telling the entire truth about Inga's "death," and is in effect using Hesse's feelings for her to ensure the investigation doesn't go too deep...and they allow him to do this, anyway. Hesse is a very by-the-book type (him filing a complaint against Immerwahr and expecting it to go anywhere is proof of this), so his behavior in the Dobermann investigation is very atypical indeed. The two of them basically pin the blame on the dead guy and let things rest there. As time goes on, Wozniak does get to learn that the Dobermanns are Hesse's big blind spot, with him willing to bend or outright break the rules for them, and not just in regards to Inga's death. Hesse feels he owes them, and he's devoted to their daughter Adelina--treating her almost like she's his own--so even though he gets into heated arguments with Dobermann himself, he lets them get away with almost anything. The presence of Tobias Schäfer within the Dobermann household is a pretty big sign of this. Dobermann rescued Schäfer from the labor camp while Inga was still "alive," and brought him back to the estate to serve as the in-home physician. The thing is that Schäfer is Jewish, and it's illegal for him to practice medicine; also, he's deaf, which in the Nazis' eyes makes him even more "subhuman." So Dobermann's actions here are a big no-no. Wozniak meets Schäfer only later in the story when he accidentally runs into him during a visit to the estate; normally, Hesse has Schäfer hide when Nazis visit, though this time there was an oversight. (The same thing happens with Hasso Reinhardt, who currently runs the camp.) Wozniak isn't terribly antisemitic, despite working for the SS; he's more curious about Schäfer's presence than alarmed. Especially when he learns that Hesse's first reaction to Dobermann showing up with Schäfer was to demand that he return him to the camp, where Schäfer was just about to be sent to the firing squad. By the time Wozniak meets Schäfer, he and Hesse are on generally decent terms, and as I already mentioned, Hesse actively participates in concealing his presence, now. It's weird but Wozniak chalks it up yet again to Hesse's devotion to the Dobermanns. He never tips off his boss Heidenreich as to any of these irregularities, partly because of his own secrets. At one point in the plot, a Lebensborn maternity home is bombed (still working out the details of this), and Wozniak, who was visiting at the time, ends up trapped with an unwed pregnant woman who goes into labor; he helps her deliver the baby. He runs into her (she needs a name now) later on in the story and learns she's going to give the baby up for adoption. This is normal; the SS established the Lebensborn maternity homes to provide for pregnant SS wives and unwed mothers, the latter of whom, if they're racially desirable enough, are expected to adopt their children out to SS families who don't have their own. Lebensborn helps protect these women from the stigma generally attached to being pregnant out of wedlock, and ensures their children a good home. Wozniak chats with this woman and gets to know a bit about her; she had a brief relationship with another SS officer, but he wasn't interested in making it serious, and bailed out when she discovered she was pregnant. Her family aren't thrilled about the situation, and threatened to disown her if she didn't get the situation "taken care of" somehow. Abortion is illegal for Aryan German citizens, due to the low birth rate, so Lebensborn is her only option. Despite all of Wozniak's efforts to get her to laugh or smile, she remains gloomy and vaguely hostile, so he asks if she even wants to put the child up for adoption; the look on her face makes it clear she doesn't. She simply has no other choice. Wozniak suddenly hits upon an idea: He proposes. Out of the blue. (Yes, similarities to Ludolf Jäger's and Magdalena Jäger's tale, though keep reading, it's different.) He'll marry her, and pose as the officer who got her pregnant, insisting he's had a change of heart and has decided to marry her after all--this should resolve all her issues with her family. New Mother just gives him the most flabbergasted stare. Wozniak: "Well...?" New Mother: "What are you even getting at--?" Wozniak: "Exactly as I said. What do you say?" New Mother: "I say you've lost your head! What nonsense is this? We hardly know each other." Wozniak: "So? I get the feeling that's pretty common with this thing, ja? Sounds like you didn't know the other fellow too well, either." New Mother: "You're really terrible at this, you know?" Wozniak: "And yet you're not saying nein." New Mother: "And neither am I saying ja! You're being a horrible Arsch. Last thing I need right now is jokes." Wozniak: "For once I'm serious. And so what do you say? Ja or nein?" New Mother: "What do you think? I'm not even interested in you like that!" Wozniak: "...Huh. I suppose I should be offended. I guess it's a good thing I'm not interested in you like that, either." New Mother: (angrily) "And what's that supposed to mean--?" (blinks) "...Oh." Wozniak explains: He's not being ENTIRELY selfless with his proposal. A marriage wouldn't benefit just her, it would benefit him as well: His family have been nagging at him to find a nice wife, settle down, have some kids. None of which he's interested in doing in the least. But they're getting kind of pushy about it, and the SS is too, since they request their eligible members to have families. Here, they can kill two birds with one stone: He can placate his family and the SS and help cover up his preferences by marrying her and claiming her child as his own, while she placates her family by marrying the "father" of her child and not getting disowned. She's very reluctant about this scheme, as it strikes her as terribly unfair to expect him to give up his own chance at a relationship by helping her; to which he frankly responds, "I already have no such chance, not unless I want to be executed." New Mother knows of course that the Third Reich forbids the sort of relationship Wozniak would be interested in, but she admittedly never thought about just how harsh the consequences can be--Wozniak doesn't look at all like the sort of person who'd be put in a camp or outright killed, yet he is. Still, she feels so much guilt over this--"It isn't fair, this isn't the way it should be"--that he has to do a lot of convincing to bring her around that it actually benefits him more than her, and she has nothing to feel bad about, she's not responsible for his happiness. They plan to visit their families before seeking permission from the SS, since the blessings of their relatives should carry some weight. Accordingly, they go to meet her parents first. New Mother's parents watch in consternation as an unfamiliar car pulls in, an SS officer gets out (it's almost never a good thing to get a visit from the SS, so although they're good law-abiding Germans, they're nervous), then helps someone out of the passenger side--it's their daughter, and she's carrying a baby. They hurry out to meet her, wondering what's going on; when New Mother awkwardly introduces Wozniak, and he clarifies that he's the same officer she'd been seeing previously, they're surprised, but everyone goes inside to talk over tea. Wozniak is of course asked about his name (he provides the same BS story his parents always have--he's Aryan German, just the family name was changed when they lived in Poland--and they agree it must be true, he wouldn't have been allowed in the SS otherwise), and when asked the circumstances of him being there now, after he'd dumped their daughter, he expresses great contrition, explaining how when he saw her with their baby he realized what he had turned his back on; he's had a change of heart, and wishes to start a proper family. They ask how the two of them met in the first place; New Mother gets flustered, but Wozniak comes right out with an elaborate story that even explains why she didn't answer the question ("She's embarrassed that it isn't as romantic as she thinks it should be"). Her parents buy it hook, line, and sinker, and leave the room a moment to talk amongst themselves. New Mother: (whispering) "What was all that??" Wozniak: (whispering) "I had to say something, you weren't answering!" New Mother: "How did you learn to--to LIE like that? Like you do it every day!" Wozniak: "I DO do it every day! I sort of have to!" Parents return to the room, give Wozniak a gentle finger shake over "his previous behavior," but for the most part are too thrilled to be angry. They offer their blessing. The two next visit Wozniak's parents. They're even more surprised than hers: "We had no idea you were even seeing anybody," his mother exclaims, "and now you show up with a baby?--why did you never tell us?" This time, Wozniak hems and haws, and New Mother speaks up--"He's embarrassed that it isn't as romantic as he thinks it should be"--and repeats the story Wozniak had told. His parents excuse themselves a moment. Wozniak: (sideways glance) "I must be rubbing off on you already. You did that a little too easily." Wozniak's parents reappear, give their blessing. Next up is the SS. Considering that both Wozniak and New Mother have already met SS physical/racial requirements, this step is the easiest of all; the most complicated aspect is the marriage ceremony and the baby's christening. Wozniak warns New Mother these might be weird. They go through with it, then depart, newly wed, New Mother carrying the baby and both of them staring off into space, brows furrowed pensively. New Mother: "You're right. That was...weird." Wozniak: "That's sort of how we do things." New Mother: "What was that book he kept reading aloud from...?" Wozniak: "Ah...Mein Kampf." New Mother: "Oh." Wozniak: "I don't recommend it, it's not very good." New Mother: "Ja." New Mother repeatedly agonizes over their choice to pose as a couple, feeling like she's depriving him of his own life, and Wozniak has to keep reassuring her otherwise. Over time it becomes clear she's actually developed some feelings for him after all, though he has no interest in reciprocating (a fact that he feels apologetic about, but it's not like he can do anything about it). They have to deal numerous times with awkward situations such as sharing a bed and keeping their families convinced they're into each other, as well as why no more children seem to be forthcoming...I haven't delved very much yet into all this, so I'm not sure how far they're both willing to go to maintain the act. They do grow to genuinely love each other in an unusual way, though, so the marriage isn't as pure a con job as it started out as. Wozniak participates in Hesse's investigation of the murder of their boss, Col. Heidenreich; everyone is stunned when the killer turns out to be his own wife, Eva, with the assistance of...Capt. Arzt, who tended to Hesse's injuries and suggested he join the Allgemeine-SS all those years ago. Eva is hanged, whereas Arzt commits suicide while Hesse and Wozniak are taking him into custody. Wozniak sees Hesse's former blind devotion to the SS starting to waver, and he spends more time with his mistress Sophie; Wozniak catches wind of Hesse proposing to her, and encourages him to follow through--and soon. Ominous news is trickling in from the Eastern Front that the war is taking a bad turn, and Wozniak tells Hesse this might be a good time for him to retire to the country with Sophie--Hesse is surprised when Wozniak admits he's making similar plans in case things get worse. Surprised, because Wozniak is still young, and so resigning from the SS now seems premature. Hesse gets the same advice from SS major Jan Delbrück, who just returned from the front and so knows what's going on. Unfortunately for Hesse, he ignores this advice, although he does indicate to Sophie that he'll leave the SS if they refuse his request to marry her; events come to a head before he can act, and he, Schulte, and Sophie don't meet good ends. Delbrück and Wozniak--independently of each other--are more clear eyed, and take action sooner. Delbrück barely makes it out of the city as the Allies arrive, while Wozniak hurries to fetch New Mother. She's bewildered when he bursts in, dressed in plain clothes, and tells her to get the baby and a few belongings as they have to leave right then. He urges her to contact her parents and tell them to leave as well, but a telephone call to them results in nothing: They've decided to stay where they are, confident the enemy will be defeated. Wozniak tries to suggest they go pick them up but New Mother cuts him off--turns out her parents have gone full Nazi, she's certain they won't come along, and what's more, they'll definitely never accept it should they find out the truth about their marriage--she suspects they may even become dangerous. Right now, it's best for them to focus on themselves, and the baby. He's surprised that she's willing to leave her family behind--he'd made the same decision regarding his own--but all she has to say to that is "We're the family now, ja?" She gathers some supplies for the baby, they get bundled into the car, and head out of the city and toward the mountains, where Wozniak reasons they stand a better chance of surviving. He says he knows someone he can contact for help after things settle down a little. While I was taking a small break from typing this, Wozniak revealed the rest of his story to me, and it doesn't end the way I'd originally thought. Here we go, though. He and New Mother hide out in the mountains for a bit, then make their way toward Poland, where Wozniak says he still has extended family who might be able to help. (Here is where New Mother--holy cripes do I need to find her a name, by this point she's not exactly a new mother anymore--asks, dumbfounded, "Your family really does come from Poland?--you have Slavic blood? How on earth did they let you into the SS??" Wozniak simply confirms that yes, he's ethnically Polish, and also his family had connections, which counts for more than blood, apparently.) He tracks down a distant cousin who, from the looks of it, knows of his service in the SS. Relative agrees to meet him in an out-of-the-way place with some material to aid him, though it's not a friendly meeting. Relative: "You have some real nerve showing your face here." Wozniak: "I appreciate your help." Relative: "Well, I don't appreciate seeing you." (nods at New Mother) "Who's she?" Wozniak: "This is my wife." Relative: "Wife--? Oh, this is rich. So you married one of them, too. Nice." Wozniak: "I don't want to take up your time--" Relative: "Don't worry about me, I don't want you taking up my time, either. Here. I do you ONE favor." (hands over some documents) "Papers you people love so much." Wozniak: (looks at papers; they're in Polish, but New Mother can tell they're identity papers for three members of the Wozniak family) "Who are they?" Relative: "WERE they. Don't worry, they don't need these papers anymore." Wozniak: "What happened to them?" Relative: (livid) "Don't you dare act like you don't know. Now I did my part. I don't want to see any of you ever again." (leaves) New Mother: "Paul...you had family who died in the camps?" Wozniak: "I didn't know any of them too well. Haven't been here since my parents left. Anyway..." (tucks papers away) "We're them, now." New Mother can tell the tense interaction wears on him, but doesn't press. He gets the papers back out later for them to study and remember the details (Paul Wozniak's new name, for example, is Piotr (Peter) Wozniak) and ends up with tears flooding his eyes, but says nothing about what he's thinking. The three of them manage under their new identities to secure some funds and a small cabin in the woods--Wozniak deems living in the country safer than returning to a city--and they squeak by on hunting and gathering, supplementing this by doing minor jobs for their few distant neighbors who mostly keep to themselves. It isn't easy, but at least it's a living, and the two of them genuinely care for each other and the child. Things are sure to get easier as time goes by. That's where I thought Wozniak's story basically ended, with the little family making it by on their own, relatively content. But a bit more emerged. They live this way for a year or so, maybe three, and are quite resilient and happy with each other. Winter arrives and it's always a difficult season but by now they know how to handle it. One day Wozniak heads outside to go hunting in the woods, but halts as soon as he notices footprints in the snow; further examination shows that during the night, someone came up to the cabin and tried peering inside. Feeling dread creeping up inside, Wozniak orders New Mother to lock the windows and door and to take the child and hole up in the cellar for now, and not come outside for anything; she repeatedly asks what's going on, but he doesn't answer, just insists: "Not for ANYTHING." She obeys, locking up everything after him and taking Child into the cellar--their food and supply stores are down here, so they can stay for a while--and waiting, filled with dread. After some time she hears it--a gun blast. Then a few moments later, a second. She huddles hugging Child tight, fighting not to burst into tears or to hurry out of their shelter, but there are no more gunshots--and no other sounds at all. Only after a few hours have passed without anything else happening does she instruct Child to stay hidden in the cellar, then ventures out. The cabin is just as it was left; no one's tried to enter. She unlocks the door, taking a rifle and sled with her--in case he's hurt--and follows Wozniak's tracks into the woods. Wozniak has followed the other set of tracks. As soon as he catches a flicker of movement among the trees, he makes a noise--deliberately giving away his location--then, hearing the snow crunching, he hurries deeper into the trees and away from the cabin. The fact that nobody tried to break in in the night makes him hope that whoever this is isn't interested in his wife or child, but he leads them as far away as he can just in case. Finally he turns and his pursuer emerges: An unknown man with a shotgun, which he aims at Wozniak as soon as he sees he's turned around. He undoes the flaps on his cap to show his face and yells, "Do you remember me?" Wozniak has to squint at him for a moment or two, but at last a vague memory comes back to him; some years ago, when he and Hesse had been visiting the labor camp, a group of newly arrived prisoners had paraded past; one of them had stared keenly at the two SS officers, making eye contact with Wozniak; his stare had unsettled Wozniak and he'd turned away. That was it, that was the total of their interactions--yet Wozniak remembers him, and the man now says, "You do remember me. Good." He approaches, shotgun still aimed, as Wozniak slowly steps back, hands raised. Stranger: "I told myself to never forget your faces. After I got out of that place. Tried tracking you both down. Couldn't find that other bastard. I guess you'll have to do." Wozniak: "Bitte..." Stranger: "Pretending to be a Pole to hide in plain sight. Sneaky, even for you fellows. You know some of you even put on prisoners' clothes to get away? Clever, but not clever enough." Wozniak: "Bitte, I have people who depend on me..." Stranger: (screaming) "SO DID I!" (raises gun) (voice cracking) "Maybe you'll meet them! Since I don't believe in Hell!" (fires) There's a special kind of irony in Wozniak concealing his true ancestry all this time to protect himself, yet in it not protecting him when he needed it to, I guess. He falls to his knees, topples over backwards, goes still. The shooter stands there a moment, then approaches and kicks Wozniak's foot a couple of times--"Get up. Wake up." No response, so he nudges him with the gun barrel; Wozniak is limp. Then, unexpectedly...shooter starts gasping and shaking and his eyes flood with tears. He halfheartedly wipes them away. Stranger: (crying) "They're still gone. It's not supposed to be like this." (sinks to his knees, drops shotgun, starts sobbing) "It isn't fair. Nothing's changed. I did it for nothing." (removes pistol from his belt, puts it to his head) New Mother had heard two gunshots. She crests a rise, panting from all the trudging, then spots it: two forms lying still in the snow in a clearing. Lets out a cry--"Paul!"--and stumbles toward him. She drops down and pulls his head and shoulders into her lap and cries, "Nein, nein, nein, Paul," and hugs him tight, but he's growing cold by now. She eventually pulls herself together enough to dig a hole in the snow--pushing the stranger into it and covering him up--then gets Wozniak and the guns onto the sled and, still weeping, pulls him back home with her. All she can think of are the relatives he left behind in Poland; they made it clear they never wanted to see him again, but she makes plans to get to them anyway. She wants Wozniak to have a proper burial. New Mother's story continues a little bit longer, but that's pretty much it for Wozniak's; I toyed with the idea of him having been wearing some sort of armor under his clothes and playing dead after the shot, but that was silly, and Wozniak himself wouldn't have it. I guess I don't like the thought of too many "bad guys" getting off with happy endings--even though Wozniak tries to be good, and never murders anyone, and never wished to be in the SS in the first place--he likely would have ended up a victim himself if he didn't join--still, he COULD have defied his parents and refused to join, or at least quit after being wounded rather than transfer into the Allgemeine-SS, whose investigations and recordkeeping often helped out the Holocaust as much as the actual killings did. He had a choice, and technically he is a bad guy. He survives the war, but not for very long. [Paul Wozniak 2022 [Friday, December 23, 2022, 4:00:13 AM]] [Paul Wozniak 2022 2 [Friday, December 23, 2022, 4:00:22 AM]] |