Winfred

93

Official Report

British Intelligence

Code: 3986

Kathleen Winfred

Freidrich,

Sometimes, people say that the greatest gift someone can give someone else is the giving of themselves. I suppose that’s what I’m trying to do with this letter; I will try to give you some of my thoughts.

First of all, I struggled for days…weeks, even, to decide what to give you for your birthday. You may wonder how I even know when your birthday is. I admit to sneaking into your office with Pirot to look in the personnel files.

July Twenty-second.

All the time I spent worrying over it and you won’t even be here.

Still, though, I wanted to give you something. I couldn’t think of the perfect gift…so I decided to write you a letter telling you all the things I’ve wanted to say most recently.

Recently, you’ve been distant. You’ve been discouraged. I can tell.

I don’t know why. I know part of it. You told me that you feel sometimes as if you are not making a difference for the prisoners.

I promise you, you are.

I know for a fact that, when I was a prisoner, you made things much better for me. I was fed well. I had a blanket.

And you were kind to me.

I collapsed in the snow and you helped me up, and inside. You cleaned my wound. You gave me soup.

That was the first time I took notice of your kindness.

If you don’t want to take my word for it, take Virginia’s.

She’s in another prison now, and she says she wishes she could come back here, because she’s now realized just how well you treated us.

But I know that’s not the whole problem. Maybe it’s a part of it. Maybe it’s small; maybe it’s big.

I think, however, that there is more.

I don’t know for sure what it is; I can only guess.

Are you discouraged, Freidrich, because of what you have to endure when you go back to meet with your superiors? Are you tired of putting on a brave face for everyone else when the things you’ll have to face are painful?

I may not be right, but my job was to be a spy…It was to read between the lines. You disappear to go off and meet your superiors. Then you come back and…Once, you had a cut on your cheek, and I saw it. Do you remember? You came for Schubert. I was still a prisoner. You said it was nothing, but the look in your eyes said it was something. And the time you found me asleep at my desk? You were hurt then too. Your forehead.

I read a letter sent to Heinrich Schwab. It said that you would be returning from your punishment.

What do they do to you, Freidrich? What do they do to make you so discouraged?

I only know that I hate them for it. I can’t help but hate them. You do so much; you work so hard at doing right. And they only hurt you for it.

I suppose I should not spend this entire letter reminding you of whatever it is you have to face when you see them.

I can only say how much I appreciate what you’re doing…and all you’ve done.

Whether the prisoners realize it or not, you are brave, and caring, and your kindnesses make their time spent in capture better.

I do not like to see you be discouraged. I wish I could help you.

I wish that I could repay all the times you’ve helped me. I feel as though I cannot name them all. I feel as though I could never repay them, even if I spent the rest of my years trying to.

Virginia, at the end of her last letter, told me to ‘stay brave’.

Stay brave, Freidrich.

You didn’t let them break me; you don’t let them break the prisoners.

Please don’t let them break you.

I debated on how to close the letter. I spent time pondering how I should sign my name. Finally, I signed it simply:

Yours sincerely,

Kathleen Winfred