“You’re so still you’re silent motionless
I can’t watch and wait
Just to pay the price of your judgement…”
~ The Sound.
May & June 1942.
After months of constant combat, Kurt finally receives a letter from Elisabeth regarding the birth of their daughter, Liesel, in February. On hearing hte news, he breaks down and is consoled by Sgt. Otto, the only remaining soldier from their original squad during the Yugoslavia campaign. Meanwhile, Moshe passes away in theTheresienstadt Ghetto from dysentery.
Berlin has become a very different city, with numerous bombed out buildings around the city. Elisabeth routinely works twelve hour shifts at the hospital while Adele looks after Liesel, and Gertrud serves as a rescue worker sifting through bomb-damaged buildings for survivors and the bodies of those killed from air raids.
Succumbing to exhaustion, Kurt finally breaks down and takes the “vitamin packs” which Elisabeth forbade him from taking during his leave in Berlin the previous year. That night while pinned down in a babushka’s hut somewhere in Ukraine, Kurt reacts under the affects of methamphetamine and commits an atrocity.
