Author's Notes: Hey there, so… Give my shit a shot, I know you wanna. Who can say no to a nice Nazi killin' story? Well, I can't.
Disclaimer: I'd be really honored to own em all, but sadly don't, I'm just borrowin' em for a bit of playin' and will gladly return em without too much damage.
LaFayette Mansion, France March 1944
03-03-1944, 03-15am
A blond woman in a heavy navy blue coat walks up the steps to the mansion. It looks like it always does and still it makes her feel lonely. She is alone now, just the servants and herself. The Jewish family the mansion belonged to for generations is now safe, hopefully already on the ship to America. They left reluctantly, but knew that they would face worse if they stayed and the couple, Claude and Rebecca LaFayette, knew that they had to let go for the sake of her three young children: Jacob, 14, Zac, 13, and Noelle, 7. They trusted the woman to keep the mansion safe and relied on her to do the same with their former servants which they couldn't protect.
She takes a deep breath and enters the house. Now is not the time to ponder on how plainly unfair and cruel this all is. She throws her coat into the walk-in closet, then crosses the entrance hall towards the parlor. There they are. The maids, Lies and Karolina, two gypsies whose parents were shot when the Nazis took over. The caretaker Josef, a Jew who escaped from Innsbruck after the Anschluss and found work with the LaFayettes. They all look at her, expectantly. What they are expecting, she doesn't know. Do they think she is going to turn them in? Do they think she's going to kill them? No. That woman is German, yes, but that is the German that practically saved the LaFayettes, and the trio for that matter, from certain death on her own - a person not to mess with.
She faces them and smiles. They aren't completely at ease with her yet and she even understands them. She wouldn't be if she was in their situation. She clears her throat.
"Listen, and listen good," she begins in French even though she knows they all speak German, but wants them to see it as a sign of her good intentions, "I will say this one time and one time only, because from this very second on your life depends on your acting. I got you three fake papers, they are flawless, believe me. You are going to learn every single detail of your identity tonight - the details will be invented by yourself, but keep as close to things you know as possible. If you say you've lived in a city, know stuff about the city. If you say you've done this and that for a living, know what you're talking about. Fine?" she looks at them expectantly and they nod staring at her with big eyes, "Good. Now here, Lies, your name in front of other people will now be Claire Gaustod. You're 19." she hands the older girl the papers, "You were born in Amiens 17 years ago. Karolina, you're Sophie Gaustod from now on. You were born in Saint-Quentin shortly after your family moved there because of your father's Job. Both your parents are dead - father died in the Blitzkrieg and your mother after a long disease - pick which one." the younger girl takes a few tentative steps towards her and takes the passport, "-and Josef. You are from a little village in Tyrol. It's called Kramsach. You and your family came to Innsbruck when you were 4, but they died and you lived with your grandmother who passed away when you were 20 and after Germany occupied France you moved here. Your name's Michael Gartner and you're 31 now." Josef opens the passport and looks up. The person in the picture has far lighter hair than him.
"What's with the hair?" he asks.
"If you three don't have any other questions any more, I will ask you to drive me to my hotel. I'll officially arrive here tomorrow afternoon. We will take care of the hair in my hotel room." she smiles. "So?" Lies and Karolina eye each other and then Josef.
"No, Mademoiselle, no questions." Karolina speaks up, "And, Mademoiselle-" she looks at her intently, "thank you."
"You can call me Mariza in private." the woman smiles at her warmly, "And you are most welcome."
So, I thought that I won't just use names that don't mean a thing, so that's the names I used that refer to someone.
Claude LaFayette named after Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (Stauffenberg plot)
Karolinathat's what I would have been called if I was a cute child
Josef (and his alias Michael) my grandmother's older brother who died because of resistance against Hitler and my
greatgrandfather who hated it, but kept silent for his wife and nine children's sake
Sophie Gaustod named after Sophie Scholl, a student sentenced to death because of resistance with her brother
and fellow medical students who were part of the "Weiße Rose"
Mariza Hohenberg named after Emmerich Kálmán's protagonist in "Gräfin Mariza"