Free Legacy of Sorrows by Roberto Buonaccorsi

the entry anthem ‘Ave Maria’ everyone in the church stood as Maria and her father walked slowly down the aisle. I had never seen such a beautiful woman; she was radiant. The afternoon sun shining through the stained glass windows of the church seemed to focus solely on Maria as she walked towards me. Her smile matched the radiance of the sun itself. I knew without a doubt in my heart that I was in love with this woman and would be till the day I died.

Chapter 6
    W hen the war ended, Hans Kuller was still in uniform and stationed near the Austrian border. He and the rest of his SS comrades knew that they had to very quickly decide what their next step was to be. Major Reder had already escaped to Germany and Kuller was thinking about leaving that very night for his home town of Munich in Bavaria. First, he would enter Austria and then make his way there. They were now having an open discussion in their barracks on what to do. Sergeant-Major Palframan stood up to address his comrades.
    â€˜The options are very clear, comrades. We are the SS, and in following orders, we had to do what many people would now view as war crimes. We can leave for Austria as an organised unit and disband there, or we can leave from here in civilian clothes individually.’
    Kuller stood up to reply. ‘You can all do as you wish. However, for me there is no alternative. I leave by myself tonight in the uniform of the Wehrmacht. My reason for this is very clear. If we leave from here as a disciplined body of SS soldiers, we will be arrested by the Americans or the British for alleged war crimes and put on trial. That trial may have one end: our execution. I will leave by myself in the uniform of a soldier of the Wehrmacht returning to his homeland. There will be many such soldiers on the road and I hope to go unnoticed amongst them.’ He stood to his full height, gave the Nazi salute, and walked out the door.
    It was early evening when he put on the uniform of a Feldwebel, a Sergeant in the Infantry and was about to leave the barracks for the vehicle compound when he came across some of his SS comrades in the courtyard. ‘Hans, listen.We will have a better chance of escaping if we all leave together as Wehrmacht soldiers returning home. We all have fake ID and we can take a Wehrmacht truck for transport. What do you say?’ Hans thought for a moment. ‘What about the partisans? They may attack us if they see a small military unit.’ His friend, Peter, an SS trooper, replied ‘Even the partisans are not so stupid. Why would they risk their own lives to stop five or six German soldiers returning home? There are thousands of them swamping the roads still armed and trying to escape a POW camp.’ Hans took his time in answering, ‘All right lads, but we have to leave now. If partisans or allied troops stop us we will have to fight our way out as our IDs are not that good and may not stand scrutiny.’
    They made for the vehicle compound and commandeered a military truck with no unit markings on it. Peter volunteered to drive and Kuller sat up front with him. The other four SS soldiers sat inside the truck with weapons primed and ready for action should they meet any trouble. They reckoned they were only about fifteen miles from the Austrian border and, if things went well, should be across it in a few hours.
    They were beginning to relax when an explosion seemed to open up the road in front of them. This was quickly followed by the sound of small arms fire and voices shouting. The men in the back shouted ‘Partisans!’ and began returning fire. Kuller and Peter opened their doors and jumped out of the vehicle onto the roadside. Already standing there waiting for them on the road were about twenty men dressed in a variety of military clothing and holding sub-machine guns aimed at them. The leader of the group shouted, ‘Sergeant, tell your men to stop firing or we will shoot to kill.’