Buch lesen: «I Remember - Ich denke an ...»

Once on the moving train, it was like turning a page of my life. After the painful separation from all that was secure and dear to me I felt almost elated, as if we were on our way to a new phase of freedom and maybe to a life without fear. The train was chugging along. There was a smell of burnt coals as smoke slid past our windows. We were alone in our compartment.

Suddenly I looked up and saw my mother’s face turned pale. She produced a document out of her handbag and with a trembling voice she read out to us the frightening words of our “Ausweis”⁷ with its official stamp and date: our German permit had expired the previous day. We should have been out of Germany today. Mother was panic stricken. She felt that this document could cause us problems at the border and that she had to get rid of it. Against Vladi’s advice, while I was crying bitterly, frightened and confused, she tore it up into bits and pieces which she threw out of the window of the moving train, like flurries of snow flying in the wind. She closed the window and we huddled together, waiting silently for our arrival in Saarbrücken scheduled for 6.00 p.m.

When we reached our destination, few people got off the train and the platform was almost empty. We stood there with our few belongings, trying to decide what next, until my big brother Vladi, bright and attentive, spotted the “Zollamt”⁸, the Customs Office. We slowly crossed the silent station, and after a moment’s hesitation we went to it. We were met by a Gestapo man with ice blue eyes and a face cut in steel. He was dressed in Gestapo uniform, all in black: the tightfitting belt around his slim waist, the shiny boots and the typical casket with its Nazi insignia on his hat and on his jacket.^8a

He motioned us into his office and ordered Mother to show her papers. With trembling hands she handed them over. He skimmed through them and then insisted that an important document was missing with an official stamp and a permission to leave Germany and to enter France. Without it he categorically refused to let us catch our 7 o’clock train to France. Our hearts sank. … Mother tried to explain how and why she tore up the missing document and that she had been afraid it would detain us, and cause problems. But he said: “No, madam, it is now that you have a problem. There is no way I can let you leave Germany. You must wait for tomorrow. …” Until then we would not be allowed to leave the station. We had to spend the night in the “Bahnhof Buffet”⁹. He took us there and left us – in this bleak, empty, cold, so-called “restaurant”.

I remember the one light bulb hanging down on a wire over our heads, the table bare, made of cheap wood full of greasy stains. The benches we sat on had no backing, and were too narrow to recline or to rest on. Vladimir had to go to the toilet, which was just outside the “Buffet”. He returned quickly rather upset. The toilet “lady” asked him for money for the use of the toilet. He had none. So she refused him. Mother had already changed all our money into French francs. Instead, she gave Vladimir an apple for the lady who took it and let him use the toilet.

Reunited in the “Buffet”, we nibbled on our picnic. Vladimir tried to cheer us up and played some German melodies for us on his accordion. It did make us forget for a moment where we were and we even laughed a bit.¹⁰ Soon we were alone in the “Buffet” as it closed down for the night. We tried to rest, or even to catch a wink of sleep. It was cold and bleak outside, but it was very cold inside as well, with bad light and horrid gray walls. Alone and frightened, we rested our heads on the table and cuddled together. But we could not sleep. I stopped crying but from time to time a tremor went through me.

We waited for the night to pass, not knowing what horror would befall us in the morning. In the silence of the night, the station seemed totally deserted, no more trains arriving or leaving. Sometimes we heard a distant whistle, or voices. But suddenly there were footsteps and the door was opened. In came a man in the same uniform as the one worn by the officer with icy eyes. This man, however, had a kinder face. At first glance we were startled by him, but not terrified. He said in a gentle voice, “Woman, what are you doing here in the middle of the night with two little children?” Mother explained how and why we had been detained and forced to spend the night in this waiting room. The man looked at us, obviously distressed. Then he said: “No, you cannot spend the night in this place.” He told us to take all our belongings, and in the cold of the night, on the empty station, he urged us to follow him back to this office where we had previously been. He insisted that we sit down, and as I was crying, he reassured me not to be afraid. Then he made a series of phone calls, trying unsuccessfully to find a place for us to spend the night. Even the “Jewish Community House” had no room and offered to put us up in a hotel. For some reason he didn’t accept their offer, said he would take care of us himself, and whisked us off to a hotel, across from the station.

We arrived in an empty, dreary lobby with a prominent picture of Hitler above the concierge’s desk. Our Gestapo man paid for a single room for the night, and reminded Mother to be back in his office at the station at 7.00 a.m. on the dot. Once together in the little room, we were in heaven. Vladimir and I were tucked in the single bed – sardine fashion – and Hildi, my exhausted mother, sat up in an armchair facing us. On the dreary beige, flowered, papered wall there was another picture of Hitler. We were too shaken and scared to get a real sleep. But at least we dozed off a bit in the quiet, heated room and had a little rest, regardless of the occasional eerie click clack of roaming Nazi officers patrolling the streets.

By 6.00 a.m. we were up sharing half of the single breakfast allotted to us. With the other half mother made “Butterbrot”¹¹ sandwiches, as we didn’t know when we would eat again. At 7.00 a.m. we were in the Nazi Customs Office. Our friend and guardian angel, traitor to his cause, was there to greet us. We so much wanted to show him our gratitude. Yet we were too afraid of his uniform and all that it stood for to really trust him and to show our feelings.

He took us to the bleak “Bahnhof Buffet” and treated us to hot chocolate. Then he told me and Vladimir to watch our luggage and sit tight while he and Mother were going to get the necessary permission for us to leave Germany. They promised to be back in no time. But again I burst into tears and started screaming. People were looking at us, and again Vladimir began to play his accordion to cheer me; but I continued to cry, sure that we would never see our mother again.

Later, Mother told us how they ran to catch the tram and how our new friend virtually pushed her into it. When they got off, he said to her: “Now, please, keep your mouth shut! I’ll do the talking.”

They went to an official building with a big Nazi flag blowing in the wind. Many people were queuing up outside, but he pushed Mother past all of them and ran with her upstairs. They entered an office where a stern-looking bureaucratic official was sitting behind a big desk. Once more our man pushed Mummy forward and said: “I have here a fine Jewish lady who needs help in a hurry. Her children are alone at the station.” He then shoved onto his desk a paper that he had already filled out, and said that he just needed an “authorized” stamp from him that would be the passport for our departure to France. With great reluctance the Nazi stamped the paper, and off they fled, down the stairs, past the long queues, onto the tram and back to the station. “I wish I too could leave with my family,” he had told Mother whispering. But Hildi was still terrified and afraid to trust this man – even to cast him a smile. She was too traumatized, and almost to the last moment she suspected that this kind man might be fooling her.

Without delay our guardian angel rushed us onto the platform to catch the 9 o’clock train to France. He helped us to collect our belongings and pushed us onto the train. As Mother was about to board it, the dreaded officer of the day before appeared. Stern, and with angry eyes, he shouted: “This woman must be examined.” “Our” Gestapo officer then explained to Hildi that she must hurry to the little tent-like house on the platform, where a woman would examine her. Vladimir and I had to remain on the train. We watched Mummy run off and again I started to scream. She, too, turned back to us with saddened, frightened eyes while she was running.

Ushered into the tent-like hut, Mother was met by a tall, tough-looking, angry woman dressed in white like a nurse. She made her undress and examined every hole and crevice of her body. But outside, our good friend was waiting for her and rushed her off, yelling: “Hurry, hurry! Don’t dress, but just come as you are!” She barely man-aged to cover herself with the coat, then she rushed off to her children on the train, holding on to her clothes and shoes, while the long laces of her corset were sweeping the floor. Breathless and flushed, she grabbed the railing as “he” pushed her onto the slowly moving train. He stood there waving to us until we were out of sight and we too waved back, finally convinced that he really was our Friend and Saviour. We did not even know his name, and would probably never see him again. This was good-bye for ever! Next to him stood the other Nazi officer, observing the scene with cold eyes and an angry face. The train was almost empty. We sat in silence, each with his own thoughts, and I remember saying a hushed prayer for this man who, I was convinced, had saved our lives. We watched the bleak countryside slide past our window, and before we knew it, the conductor announced our arrival in Metz – our next home for a while.

Of course, no one was there to meet us at the station. Our friends had given up all hope of ever seeing us again. When we had not arrived at the announced date, they were sure we had been deported. What a relief and joy, when we three bedraggled and tired people walked into their simple but kind and welcoming home. We only stayed a few weeks, but to me the days and nights were like one, and they seemed endless. I had taken ill with a very bad and constant belly ache, and the doctor foresaw the worst. He thought that I needed an appendectomy.

In the meantime my father, by then in New York, had been able to get us immigration visas for the United States, with the help of Aunt Mary, Uncle Max¹² and their children. It was a great dilemma for my mother: should she travel with a very [sick] child¹³, or miss the next boat, on which they had managed with great difficulty to obtain a cabin for the three of us. It was to leave from Le Havre in a few days.

Mother made the right decision and we were going to sail, in spite of my terrible belly pain. We left our friends in Metz with warm goodbyes and thanks. When the war was over, we found out that they had been deported and killed by the Nazis.¹⁴