There were foreign workers everywhere. We prisoners of war in France were put to work ourselves.

Do you imagine we were always well treated? I for one didn’t go and hang myself.

Nor do I see what this could have to do with the dreadful crime committed against the Danner family. This is simply an attempt to revive old stories. There are some people, you know, who just can’t leave such stories alone. The war’s been over for ten years. So let’s lay those stories to rest once and for all. Times then were bad enough.

We all suffered. Everyone has his own burden to bear, but the world goes on turning. Times change. Wondering “what if?” does no good. No good at all.

Of course there were injustices, of course there were moments of despair. Every one of us went through them. But the war’s over. It’s been over almost ten years now, time we started forgetting.

I was a prisoner of war myself, and believe you me, it wasn’t easy. I was lucky. I managed to get home soon after the end of the war. Others didn’t have as much luck, but what about it? What’s over is over.

There are plenty of other problems, after all. But slowly we’re going uphill in this country. Don’t you read the paper?

I mean, look at the international situation. Right at this moment in time, since the end of the Korean War, the tension has relaxed slightly, yes, I agree. Our fears of another war are gone for the moment. But I can tell you, the communists in Russia won’t let it stop at that. You don’t suppose this man Khrushchev is any better than his predecessor, do you?

Very well, so now the last prisoners of war are coming home. At last, after almost ten years, but that doesn’t change anything; that doesn’t change the potential danger from the East. That’s why it was so important for us to sign the Paris treaties.

We have to act as an opposite pole. If only because—perhaps most of all because—the world has changed since the war.

That chapter, I would like to think, is now finally closed.

I do beg you not to go chasing after every rumor. I can guess where you heard that one.

And was that lady’s own conduct always so far above reproach that she can point the finger at others? I wouldn’t want to judge her, but one hears this and that.

I mean, there’s her husband at the front, defending his homeland, and his own wife stabs him in the back, has a relationship with a Frenchman. He’s fighting for the Fatherland and she fraternizes with the enemy.

The enemy is always the enemy, that’s what we said at the time, and you can’t deny the truth of it even now.

So kindly listen to me. The names of honest folk are being blackened, a whole village community is dragged into it. Just because a half-Jewish Polish worker hanged herself. The girl was probably unbalanced.

In my view, drawing such conclusions so long after the event is more than distasteful. That kind of thing gets no one anywhere. So let’s stick to the facts. Speculations of any kind are not constructive.

Particularly in the case of such an abominable crime. So if you would now excuse me . . .

O King of Glory,

O Son of God, Jesus Christ,

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world,

grant them peace!

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world,

grant them peace!

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world,

grant them peace everlasting!

Anna Hierl, age 24, formerly maid at the Danner farm

I saw it coming. Was I surprised? No, not me. Shaken, yes, I knew them all, I lived under the same roof with them for a while. But surprised, no, I wasn’t surprised. Somehow I’d always been expecting some such thing.

Old Danner liked to hire drifters to help with the harvest, you know.

Why? Well, he paid them less. Simple. You can pay a man less if he has a record and don’t fancy being reported to the police.

A fellow like that, there’s times he’s glad to have a roof over his head and a hot meal. And Danner was glad, too, on account of he didn’t have to pay them much. That was old Danner for you. Sly as a fox, and a skinflint.

I remember the old man showing one of those good-for-nothing deadbeats all over the farm. Now that’s something I can’t understand. Gave him a guided tour. Strutting around proud as a cockerel, chest swelling, backbone straight like he’d swallowed a poker.

He’d take those vagabonds all around the house and the farmyard.

Showed them all the machinery, so no wonder if one of them happens to vanish a couple of days later, together with some of the household goods.

I always locked the door of my room when one of those gallows birds was around on the farm.

There was one of them at the place once. Karl, that was his name, I think. Yes, I’m sure it was Karl. None of that lot liked giving a surname.

Easy to see why.

This Karl helped the old man get timber in from the woods.

It was right after the big storm in June last year.

They were getting in the trees that had keeled over in the storm. That’s not easy work. It’s been known for a man to be killed by a tree, or lose a leg. After a storm like that the trees are lying around all over the place. Sometimes stretched so taut, they spring right back when they’re felled.

Well, after less than a week, off went Karl. Disappeared without trace, and a couple of chickens along with him, not to mention some clothes and shoes.

And when someone tried breaking into the farm late last year I’d had enough. I looked around for a new job.

What happened then? I wasn’t at the farm myself, it was Barbara, Danner’s daughter, told me next day. I was visiting my auntie in Endlfeld, she was sick.

It was a Sunday, imagine that, a Sunday. While God-fearing folk are at church. I went to see my auntie straight after going to church. Barbara Spangler and her family, they went out into the graveyard after the service and then home.

When they got close to the front door, they saw that someone had tried forcing it. You could see the marks on the wood of the door, scratches everywhere. Like they were made by a chisel. It’s a wonder the burglar didn’t break the door right down.

Seems he’d been disturbed and ran for it. Just took to his heels and scarpered.

A thing like that didn’t surprise me, I mean any of the deadbeats that worked at the farm knew very well there was plenty to be had at Danner’s place.

Not just chickens neither. He always had plenty of cash stashed away in the house. That was an open secret. Anyone who ever worked at the farm knew it.

So well, like I said before, after that I didn’t fancy staying on at the farm anymore.

I was afraid the housebreaker might try it again, maybe at night next time. You hear about such things every day.

I mean, the farm’s very isolated. Ever so lonely.

So I didn’t want to be out there with them when winter came, not on your life. Twilight starts falling at three-thirty then, and by four o’clock it’s dark. You can’t see or hear a thing. So I packed up my belongings and went off. I found a new place right away.

If I hadn’t left the farm then, who knows, I might well be dead now too. No thanks. I fancy living a little longer, I like life far too much.

Otherwise I could have got on all right with old Danner and his family. I know the rumors. He was odd, so folk say. Him and his whole family.

Maybe that’s true, but I got along well enough with them. I did my work, and on my days off I went dancing or I visited my family.

Work’s work. You always have to work. No one’s going to pay you for idling around. A maid has to be able to work hard, and I like the work, too. Then on my free days I make sure I go out and have a good time.