Free Tangled Ashes by Michèle Phoenix Page B

Elise said as they approached the car that would drive her back up the hill and into the dense woods. “All women—all having babies,” she added, remembering the tall blonde who was due any moment.
    “German?” Karl slowed his pace to stretch the remaining time they had to speak.
    Elise shook her head. “Mostly French. But some from Belgium and other places too.”
    “And what happens to the babies after they’re born?”
    “None of them have been born yet,” Elise explained. “Why do you ask?”
    Karl stopped walking and faced Elise, the basket of groceries in his hand somehow mitigating the austerity of his uniform. “There’s a program,” he said. “I’ve only heard of it, but . . .” He lowered his voice. “It’s an SS program they call Lebensborn.”
    “Lebensborn?”
    “‘Fount of Life’ in German. I don’t know much, but your manor—they must be trying to start a Lebensborn in France.”
    “What are the Lebensborns for?” Elise asked.
    Karl shot her a warning glance, then darted his eyes toward the car. He lowered his voice. “Their purpose is to expand the master race,” he said. “Women go there to . . .” He searched for the right word. “They go there to deliver Aryan babies and give them over to the Reich—to be raised as Hitler would want them to be.”
    Elise wasn’t sure she was understanding correctly. Part of her hoped she wasn’t. “You mean—they’re having these babies to help with the war?”
    “It’s an act of loyalty. Himmler has encouraged SS officers to father children with Aryan women in order to—how do you say it? In order to expand the race.”
    “Wait . . .” Elise shook her head, unable to grasp the significance of what she was hearing. “These women are coming to the manor to give birth to Aryan children?”
    “Yes.”
    “And they’re going to leave here without them?”
    “It’s a most noble gesture. Their children will be adopted by worthy German families who will raise them in comfort, with Nazi ideals.”
    There was a trace of pride in Karl’s voice that startled Elise. “But why can’t they raise the kids themselves?” She was appalled. “The husbands come to visit all the time—can’t they take the babies home with them after they’re born?”
    Karl resumed walking. The driver from the manor saw them coming and got out of the car to open the back door for Elise. “They probably aren’t the women’s husbands,” Karl said, his voice low. “Himmler made it clear that marriage was not to get in the way of the expansion of the Reich. The instructions are to procreate as much as they can, with as many devoted women as are willing to conceive.”
    Elise stopped abruptly. “Are you telling me that . . . ?” There were so many questions in her mind that she couldn’t narrow them down, and the driver was waiting rather impatiently for her to climb into the car. “So what you’re saying is that the manor is a—a baby factory?” she asked, her voice hushed with incomprehension.
    Karl shrugged, his voice almost inaudible as she brushed by him to bend into the back seat. “It’s a place where SS officers and the women they love can prove their allegiance to the Reich.” Elise looked up and caught the glint of approval in his eyes. “There is no limit to what a true soldier will do for his Führer.”
    Elise tracked Marie down immediately upon her return tothe manor, filling her in on the sordid details she’d learned from Karl, but neither of them fully believed his story until the first of the mothers gave birth a week later. They could hear her moaning and screaming upstairs for hours, the nurses running in and out of the delivery room for most of the afternoon. Just before suppertime, Marie heard the sound of a crying newborn and shushed Elise, who had been engrossed in the telling of one of her lengthy stories. They both tiptoed out to the foot of the stairs and listened to the infant sounds reaching them from