Dancing Under the Red Star Read Online Free

mother groaned, an involuntary cry from deep within, but then she quickly covered her mouth with her trembling hand and, in German—my parents’ language of love—softly whispered to him as if only the two of them could hear, “Ich immer liebe dich” (I love you always).
    My father could not reply, and I tried to push the photo into his hand as they shoved him toward the door. One of the men put his hand against my chest and sternly said, “No, now back away!” I flung myself toward my papa and screamed, “Please…Papa… please! You leave him alone!” The other officer grabbed my arms and yanked me away from my father.
    I was violently thrown to the unforgiving hardwood floor by a power that I didn’t see coming. Strangely, I felt no physical pain; I think my heart absorbed it all. The photo lay beside me on the floor. Mama screamed as she saw me fall hard on my back, and she threw herself down to cover me.
    The men dragged my precious father out the door.
    I cried, “Please, let me kiss my father good-bye, please!” But they slammed the door shut behind them.
    From the hall, the men yelled at my mother and me, “Do not leave this apartment!” Neither of us moved for several moments, but then, unable to contain my dread, I cracked open the door. My father was being pushed down the stairs, and even though he resisted, it was to no avail. One of the officers looked back at me and shouted, “Didn’t I tell you to keep that door closed?”
    I drew back inside our apartment, but through the door and from the bottom of the stairs, I heard my father calling, “I’ll be back! You’ll see!” Mama was still on the floor, on her knees, sobbing so hard that her shoulders and her whole body shook. My anger died down as I saw her like that, and I knelt to hug her with an urgency and desperation I had never felt before. She was now all I had, and I was now all she had…and we held on to each other.
    Clutching each other tightly, we cried until I thought there were no more tears left in me. I don’t know how long we stayed on the floor, but it surely must have been hours. It felt like days, an eternity—all in one Russian summer afternoon. We held on to each other, trying to grasp that Papa was gone and wondering if we would ever see him again. But he’d said, “I’ll be back! You’ll see!”
    The sun was no longer shining through our window as it had on that perfect morning. Now it was dark, and not just because it was evening. We sat there forever, and we spoke no words. What was there to say? At seventeen, this new agony was beyond any of my words. Finally my mother asked if I was hungry, and I said, “No,” but I glanced toward the table and saw my papa’s untouched bowl of strawberries. Waves of pain seared me again, and Mama tenderly stroked my hair. Calling me by her favorite name for me, she said, “Maidie, you should eat something. You must hold on and try to be strong. This is not the end, I promise you. You must have faith and not lose hope. Never give up hope. God will get us through this.”
    I’m not sure that I believed her. Although she sounded convincing, I knew her words were as much for herself as for me. Papa was the love of her life, and I knew that her anguish cut deep—very, very deep! I don’t know if we said anything else after that, but I recall lying in my bed and hearing my mama weeping well into the night. As I drifted in and out of sleep that troubled night, I kept hearing faint, muffled, whimpering sounds from the next room. My father was forty-six years old. My mother was forty-three. I had just turned seventeen. Our life, as we knew it, was over. I tossed and turned, trying to understand how this had happened.

    The NKVD was the most powerful and feared Soviet institution under Stalin, who used it to eliminate all potential opposition to his leadership until he was the unchallenged leader of both party and state. Now he was purging the party rank and file and terrorizing the