Visions of Heaven

By wordsmith

“Visions of Heaven” by Karola Feld

“At long last I got hold of you!”

“What do you mean? And who are you?” Lola asked the young girl who stood in front of her.

“That doesn’t matter” she replied. “I know you have written a memoir; I do know that your name is Lola, that you were born in Belgrade, and that you are Jewish. However, there are many more questions that I would like to ask you, so please can we go to a small café and talk?” The young inquisitive girl said.

“Well, not really” Lola responded, and started walking away. What she didn’t tell the girl, was that about an hour or so ago she overdosed herself with a cocktail of drugs and had been expecting to leave this world very soon.

“Oh, please, don’t go away!” cried the girl. Then, to her horror, she saw Lola collapsing onto the ground with a smile. “Help, help!” the girl screamed, but it was too late. Lola was gone.

Lola was floating among the blue and grey clouds. Up and up, further away from the world she no longer belonged to, and didn’t like any more. She reached the gates of heaven, which she easily opened and entered into another world. What a relief! At long last she stopped floating, and stood on her feet. Lola hoped she would meet her mother and father, her daughter, two late husbands, family members, and many friends. Suddenly Lola noticed a dog following her, “Amber” she shouted, “My darling dog, I didn’t expect to see you here! Wow, I am so happy.” Maybe, she thought, there were a few more of her dogs waiting for her.

Lola continued walking up and up, and Amber followed her. So far there were no human beings to be seen. How strange, where had they all gone? Certainly not to hell, she asked herself. But, being of a resilient personality, she continued walking and exploring the surroundings.

Lola was rather intrigued and surprised by the scenery which differed from what she had envisaged. The ground wasn’t smooth; there were no waterfalls, or lakes, variety of flowers, trees, bushes, and where were the angels? Instead the ground was covered with pebbles, and as she looked up she saw in the near distance, up the hill, a large cave. The cave looked rather inviting and Lola was curious about what might be inside.

Lola suddenly grasped that she wasn’t hungry or thirsty, and remembered reading that food was no longer necessary in heaven for sustenance, only for pleasure.

Lola continued strolling and looking around. As she neared the cave, she all of a sudden noticed that there was actually a dual entrance to the cave with large cracks formed in the rocks running parallel to each other. She cautiously entered, and Amber followed her. The light in the tunnels was quite bright so she could look around quite easily and see if anybody was there. She continued walking and exploring the area.

Out of the blue she heard voices coming not too far from one of the entrances to the tunnel. “Strange, who is talking there? I better hide and listen. Who knows who these people are?” She found a large crack in one of the rocks, and crawled into it together with Amber, from where she could hear and see the talkers. Lola could hear only male voices, and was surprised to realise that she could understand what they were saying. She stretched her body on one of the flat rocks, and peered directly at four men sitting on a fairly wide slab. Whilst looking at them, she thought that she had gone demented, and for a minute or so her eyes blurred as the diffused light emphasised the difference in their faces, which to her astonishment, she recognised. She pushed her body further forward and saw the first face. Quite impossible, but yes, it was Adolf Hitler’s vertical, bushy toothbrush moustache. His body was emaciated and warped, while his clothes were black. Lola asked herself what Hitler was doing in heaven? He surely must have been sent to hell!! Lola remembered her mother telling her that a toothbrush moustache signifies power. To her surprise the next person seated not far from Hitler was Josef Stalin, another man who should have been in hell! Vaguely, Lola noticed his facial pock mark scars, and his thick walrus moustache drooping over his mouth. He was wearing a peaked cap and a light grey tunic. His left arm was slightly hanging over his thigh.

Lola was getting very agitated and upset at seeing these two men, and wondered who the other two men were. She gasped in disbelief when she saw Winston Churchill and Josip Broz Tito. She noticed Churchill’s rather bent shoulders and his beautiful large hands. He was wearing a brown suit, and smoking a cigar. Interesting, where did he get the cigar? In Lola’s opinion Churchill deserved to be in heaven. Tito wore his classic hat, glasses, a grey suit and several rings on his hands. His face was very familiar to Lola as she grew up in Yugoslavia, and attended the elementary school there. At that time Tito was the President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He was known to have been a dictator; however, under his leadership, Yugoslavia prospered, and opened its borders to the Western world. Therefore he most probably had the privilege to be in heaven.

Getting over her immense shock, Lola was determined to listen to their conversation, so she pushed her body right to the end of the flat surface. Not far from the slab there was a biggish gap expelling foul odour and black rays. She guessed that this must have been the spiral stairways all the way down to hell, from where Hitler and Stalin must have struggled up escaping from the tortures of that foul place to get a breath of heavenly air. Can that be true? Even if it really is not the case, both of the brutal dictators were there.

“Ha,” she heard Hitler say, “It’s good to see you. I wondered when we would meet to exchange our life experiences. I was surprised not to see you all in hell; never mind, now we are together, and can share our past and present. I am sure there are many details and encounters in our lives that no one has ever known or heard about. And I…..” Hitler was interrupted by Stalin:

“Wait a minute, I had an interesting and fulfilling life too, which many people never heard about, and in spite of it I was sent to hell. How unfair! Let me tell you, that when I was a youngster in Georgia, my mother sent me to Tiflis, now Tbilisi, to study to become a priest, but I never completed my education, and instead joined the city´s active revolutionary circles, distributing illegal literature, organising workers, and robbing trains to support the cause. By the way my name at the time was Josef Vissarionovich Djugasvili. When I was in my 30s, I took the name Stalin, which means “a man of Steel” in case you didn`t know.” I heard of Lenin, who at the time was hiding in Finland and hoped…”

“Stop!” said Churchill, “we know your past, so in spite of you being such a self-assured leader, why do you think you ended in hell? I had my ups and downs, but I was fair, in spite of being erratic at times. We didn´t meet in hell, because I was not sent there. I wonder how you managed to get to heaven in spite of your cruelty and unjust actions. I am sure that you must have threatened or bribed someone in hell to let you come up to heaven and mix with me and Tito. For a change tell us the truth.” Churchill exhaled smoke from his cigar and was going to continue talking when he was interrupted by Tito.

“Yes, Churchill is right. What are you and Hitler doing here?” asked Tito. I know that I was a dictator too, but my deeds in later life, saved me from hell. So, you and Hitler, go back to hell from where you came from. We don´t want to see you here.” Tito banged his hand on the slab and was about to continue, but Hitler stopped him.

“I agree with Churchill,” said Hitler, “I bribed two of the labourers who let me go for a short while; however, I am keen to tell you, and hear from you, about our lives unknown to the ordinary people. I have had a very interesting past, I am sure you´ll be amazed, and I am certain you had the same. However, I am in a hurry to tell my story as I don´t know how long I can stay in heaven, as the labourers are likely to pull me down, you can see the strings wrapped around my waist, so let me start, and you can ask questions afterwards if you wish.”

Lola couldn´t believe her ears when Hitler said:

“I have something to tell you that will shock you to the core.” He paused for a split of a second, and then yelled “I have Jewish blood in my veins! I was told that my father, Alois, who was an illegitimate child of Maria Schicklgruber. She worked as the maid of some wealthy Jews, but never disclosed who my grandfather was. I feel very humiliated and angry not knowing the truth. What I do know is that she eventually married a man whose surname was Hiedler, but still kept her original surname Schicklgruber. Sadly my grandmother died after five years of her marriage and Alois, who never concealed that he was he was illegitimate, went to live with his uncle. Alois was a successful civil servant, and his proud uncle convinced him to change his surname to Hiedler, and thus continue the family surname. When they went to register his name Alois spelt it Hitler, not knowing that it would be much easier for the crowd to shout `Heil Hitler` than `Heil Schicklgruber!´ So there you are.“ And he burst into loud laughter.

To Lola this revelation was new and shocking. She knew that Hitler despised and hated Jews partly due to his poor and hard existence in his childhood, and in Vienna, where he worked as a painter, and would have preferred to conceal his Jewish background. But no, he spat it out. Her thoughts were disrupted when she heard Tito´s loud voice. “I am surprised, then” said Tito, “that you showed such hatred for the Jews. You tried to eradicate them from the Earth. Did your family ties not give you any sympathy for them?”

“Afer all the Jewish medical practitioner, Dr. Eduard Bloch, looked after your beloved mother, and following her death, and the rise of antisemitism, you helped him emigrate to America. My feeling is that you were envious of their intellectual and business successes, which you wished to dominate and take over, but you knew that you had to do it by force. You compared them to germs, and blamed them for everything that was wrong in the world. The dire economic situation in Germany helped you achieve your objectives. Particularly, as in your opinion, the only way the German people can be strong if they were pure. Is there any nation that is pure?”

“Although you were born into a Catholic family,” Tito continued and said: “As far as I have heard, you were not a religious person as such. I also learnt that in spite of various women in your life, and your marriage to Eva Braun, you had homosexual tendencies. Would you admit it now?”

Hitler kept quiet, and didn´t respond, just ignored him, nevertheless he looked rather disturbed.

Stalin raised his arm and said: “Come on, Hitler raised Germany from poverty and created a strong movement, but his desire to rule the world failed him. I supported him for a while, but when he tried to conquer my country, I opposed him. I have no idea why I was sent to hell. I did everything possible to improve life in Russia, education, peasant’s life and agriculture, economy, health, and more. I helped Churchill to win the war against Hitler, but soon after my stroke, I found myself tortured in hell, quite unfair. Although I know that soon I´ll be back in hell, I am pleased to see you and tell you the truth.”

Churchill and Tito looked at each other and smiled, knowing that it was far from the truth. Stalin was known for his cult of personality, and was driven by his sense of inferiority, thus imposed fear and immense purges in the Soviet Union, and in other East European countries that he wished to dominate. “Let´s open his eyes,” said Tito.

“Josef, I hope you won´t mind me explaining to you the reason you ended up in hell” said Churchill. “First of all we all know that you distrusted the West, and were very keen to join Hitler, but when Hitler entered Russia, you quickly changed sides and opted to fight against him with Tito and me. But after our victory you returned to Russia and continued with your atrocities against your own people. You punished prisoners of war, the very people who fought for you. You sent them to the Gulag, to make sure they wouldn´t rebel against you. You controlled the population through fear and punishment, and acknowledged your despotism and were not regretful. So why are you surprised that you were sent to hell?”

Tito looked at Stalin, and said: “I could add many more facts of your cruelty, but I won´t bother, except to say that after WW2 you wanted to expand your powers over most of the East European countries, including Yugoslavia. But I refused to succumb to your force, and managed to detach myself from your authority and military intervention, so you expelled Yugoslavia from the Cominform (the European organization of mainly ruling communist parties), which enabled me to draw closer to the West.”

Suddenly Hitler raised his voice: “Stalin, you tried to get rid of me as well, but you failed; I was stronger than you, I eliminated many of yours and Polish citizens right at the beginning of the war. What a pity we had to meet in hell. But these two, so called Westerners, managed to stay away from hell in spite of their dictatorship, aggressiveness and brutality. “

Churchill intervened and said “Do you wonder why Tito and I were not sent to hell? I know that there is an ugly side of me, and I don´t deny it. I was temperamental, controversial; I refused to give in, even when things were going badly. I know that people accused me of my refusal for Britain to leave India, and considered Ghandi a threat. My relationship with the Unions was negative, I suffered from depression and called it ´the black dog` but when WW2 started I knew that here was my chance to prove myself and fight Hitler and save Europe. I formed an alliance with Roosevelt, and even with Stalin. There is no need for me to go on; you all know that we won and me saying ´If you are going through hell, keep going` and `never, never, never give in`. We won the war and Hitler committed suicide. My life…..”

Churchill was interrupted by a screaming Hitler. “I am being pulled down back to hell, please help, help me, don´t let them torture me.”

Nevertheless, it was too late. He was seen struggling and trying to remove his torn black clothes, but didn´t succeed and was gone down the cavity.

“Oh, no, Stalin shouted, “I´ll be next, help me escape!” but to no avail.

He was pulled down the hollow by force, and was gone.

Tito looked rather content and said: “Well, they deserved it. However, I know that many people would have thought that I should have gone to hell as well, as I was a communist and a dictator, and to be honest, for quite a while, I was. I had to be, as Yugoslavia hardly ever developed under the kings; the majority of the population was poor, uneducated and divided. When WW2 started the government joined Germany and Italy and they partitioned the country, while the young king escaped to England. Here was my opportunity to join the West against Hitler. I remember Churchill saying that I am a great man in spite of being a communist, and that one must respect an enemy one likes to have. After the war in order to build up a united Yugoslavia I had to enforce communism in Yugoslavia, and establish a socialist country, but I had to do it by force, and at times with cruelty. However, when I managed to cut my relationship with Stalin, I started looking towards the West and promoted self-management, education, encouraged freedoms in science, art and culture. Over the years Yugoslavia developed closer relationships with the West to the benefit of my people. So, I feel these were the reasons I wasn´t sent to hell. I must say I am proud of myself; I had a good, productive and interesting life. Like you Churchill, I am very pleased we had the opportunity to meet; now we can sleep in peace.”

Churchill and Tito looked at each other, got up from the slab, shook hands and left the tunnel to enjoy life in heaven.

Lola couldn´t believe what she has seen and heard. How was it possible that these four leaders met there? Who had organised it, and why? However, knowing that she would never get an answer; she felt very fortunate to have witnessed this most astonishing meeting. She pulled herself off the rock and together with Amber left the tunnel to continue her search for her family and friends.

Author Notes: I was born in Belgrade (ex-Yugoslavia) to Jewish parents. My father was killed by the Nazis when I was 2 years old and my mother had to take me and go on the run, hiding wherever she could - which was mainly with an aunt who was a member of the Communist party. The Second World War had a very strong effect on my life, not only for being on the run, but for losing many members of my family. For this reason the fiction and the politics of this era have always held a strong interest for me.

Recommend Write a ReviewReport