Frau von Neurath's Piano

By: James Philip

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The piano was a 1912 Bechstein Model A Grand presented in a walnut, patterned case that was originally situated in the drawing room of the Schloss Marienhalle for some years, before it was transported to the what was at the time, the dining room of the Lake House. There it had resided in all its tonal splendour for some ten years before I set eyes upon it, little knowing that it would play such a pivotal part in my life.

I look at it today and the memories flood back.

It becomes harder to put them in their proper order, chronologies become muddled with the passing of the years, confused by conflicting passions and the distractions of emotions that have no right to be so…discombobulating…after all this time. Even as I set eyes again on the Bechstein, Etta’s piano, I am rooted to the spot.

In my mind’s eye I see her again at the keyboard in her finery, not a hair out of place, serene, majestic…
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The German tragedy of the first half of the twentieth century was not one but a myriad of tragedies that coalesced into the industrial-scale atrocity of the Holocaust and the disintegration of the society in whose name it had been perpetrated.
But of course, we know the logical conclusion of Nazism.

Those living through it did not, and could not even if they lived in a nation that condoned and facilitated its evil; tyranny corrupts…everything.

From the pen of the creator of the Timeline 10/27/62, New England and Europa Reich series comes a story not so much about the headline horrors of Hitler’s War but about the day to day catastrophe experienced through the cracked prism of personal histories.

While there is life there is redemption, and sometimes…atonement.