by Bodie Thoene
To speak the language of a maniac like Hitler, according to the old woman, a piece of narrishkeit! Foolishness. Hitler had not only cursed the Jews with that paskudne mouth of his, he had cursed all of Germany! It was time for every Jew with brains to get out. To leave for the goldeneh medina, America, where the streets were paved with gold. And so what if the streets were not really gold? At least there were no Nazi thugs there. No Nuremberg Laws. No Nazi People’s Courts. No Gestapo or concentration camps. In America, Hitler was a character in the funny papers. That alone, to Bubbe, was worth more than gold.
This old woman, who led her little brood up the steps of the imposing Nazi edifice, had become an object of admiration and envy among the Jews of her Hamburg neighborhood. Frau Trudence Rosenfelt was an American, after all. She might have married Herbert Rosenfelt, may he rest in peace; she might have been fifty years in Germany, but she had never given up her citizenship in the Golden Land! Everyone knew she was going back. Every shmo, every shmendrick, every shmegegge on the block could see that. And no doubt she would manage to take her granddaughter and that tall noodle-of-a-husband Klaus, along with the children, too!
What only a few Jews in Germany could accomplish with a hundred trips to the Reich Office of Immigration, Frau Rosenfelt had managed to accomplish with a mere handful of visits to the stern Nazi officers who were in charge of granting or denying exit visas. Today the old woman had come to fetch the promised visas for her and her family. The precious Ausweis papers would be ready today at two in the afternoon. The grim-faced German officer with the thinning hair and the wire-rimmed spectacles had told her as much.
It was five minutes before two when Frau Trudence held out her American passport to one of the two tall Nazi sentries on duty at the door. The handsome young man stared hard at the faded photograph on the passport; then he stared hard at the wrinkled old woman who stood defiantly in front of him.
“Tell him in German that I am an American,” Frau Trudence instructed her granddaughter in English. “Tell him I may be an old woman now, but my passport is current, and I am an American!” She held her prominent nose aloft at those words. Her every mannerism dared the young man to attempt to stop her.
Quietly Maria repeated the words that Bubbe had proclaimed loudly in English. Mrs. Rosenfelt could have spoken in German, but she would not profane her lips with that language!
Now the sentry asked why Maria and Klaus and five little girls had also come to the office.
Mrs. Rosenfelt understood him and answered in English. “Tell this shmo—” she inclined her head slightly at the sentry as she instructed Maria—“that you are my family. Americans by right.”
Dutifully Maria repeated the words.
The sentry nodded curtly and stepped aside for the old woman and her entourage. They passed beneath the glare of the German eagle that perched on the swastika above the glass doors of the lobby like an iron vulture choosing which Jews to devour. Mrs. Rosenfelt had determined long ago that the Nazi appetite for violence would not be satisfied with the flesh of her family.
The children bunched up tightly around the legs of their mother and their aged great-grandmother. Klaus placed his long, thin hands on the shoulders of his two oldest children, Trudy and Katrina. Mrs. Rosenfelt was the only one who did not seem at all intimidated by the myriad Blackshirt SS men who emerged from the lobby elevator.
Other small cliques of hopeful Jews turned their eyes away from the tramp of Nazi jackboots on the marble floor. Mrs. Rosenfelt, however, followed the swaggering brutes with her eyes as they moved toward the doors and saluted the sentries with a chorus of “Heil Hitler!”
“Nebech!” the old woman muttered under her breath in a tone of derisive dismissal. So this was what she thought of those members of the master race.
Klaus raised his eyes in amused surprise. Then, as if capturing some fragment of her courage, he allowed himself to look at the Blackshirts as they pushed brutally through the crowd outside the building. A stream of additional epithets ran through his mind, but he would not utter them until they were all safely away from this cursed land. Klaus glanced back at the old woman who was also dressed completely in black. He had never seen Bubbe in any other color; Maria had told him that since Herbert Rosenfelt had died twenty-six years before, the dressmakers of Hamburg had been instructed to bring only black fabric for the fittings of Frau Rosenfelt.
From her black high-buttoned shoes to the tall black lace collar of her dress, Bubbe Rosenfelt was a visual anachronism. She did not seem to fit in this century, let alone in this terrible decade of flourishing anti-Semitism. She carried a reticule—black velvet drawstring bag—around her neck. Inside the bag was a small coin purse, a compact with powder, a mirror, and a handful of peppermint candies that she would present to her five great-grandchildren as rewards for appropriate behavior.
A pair of pince-nez glasses dangled from a silken cord attached to the third button of her blouse. If a child misbehaved, the old woman would simply raise those glasses to her nose and balance them there to cast a glare of disapproval toward the offender. Squabbles, tantrums, or sloppy table manners were stopped and corrected instantly with one narrowing of those faded blue eyes. Then the old woman would arch her right eyebrow slightly and let the pince-nez fall to the end of its cord. It bounced and swung from her bosom like a miniature hanged criminal. The effect was quite successful.
Confronted by these arrogant Nazi officials, Mrs. Rosenfelt had used the same tactics on them. It took a brave man to stare down the outrage in the old woman’s eyes. So far, not one Nazi bureaucrat had managed to do it.
At first Klaus had assumed that it was because of the way Bubbe Rosenfelt dropped the word American like a bomb. After all, Hitler still had hopes of appeasing the Americans. As their struggle to obtain exit visas had progressed, however, Klaus had begun to realize that the old woman’s citizenship had little to do with her power to intimidate. She simply treated the whole German master race with the utter disdain they deserved so completely. She was too old, she said one evening over coffee, to let these Aryan bullies shtup her. There was only one concern left in her life since they had stolen her beloved porcelain factory to make commemorative swastika plates—she was going to take her family home!
Bubbe was fearless because, at seventy-eight, she was unafraid for herself. Yet fear for her family had made her stand toe-to-toe with every Nazi official in the immigration office. “Go ahead! Throw an old woman in Dachau, why don’t you! And an old American woman, at that! Just see what the American press will have to say about you then!”
For three months the Nazis had hoped she would simply die. When she had not obliged them, they granted the papers. What every Jew in Germany needed now, Klaus and Maria decided, was a grandmother like Trudence Rosenfelt!
At precisely 2:00 p.m., Frau Rosenfelt stood before the desk of Colonel Hans Beich. Klaus, Maria, and the children stood behind her in an expectant semicircle.
“We have come for our papers.” Bubbe Rosenfelt fingered the pince-nez as she peered down on the balding head of the colonel.
The colonel spoke a heavily accented English laced with German idioms. “Frau Rosenfelt.” He appeared nervous. His voice was higher than usual. “You are quite punctual.” Rubbing his hand through his thin hair, he smiled slightly. “However, I regret . . . your papers are not here.”
“Not here?” she uttered with disdain. “Then you are telling me that the German Reich is not punctual?” This was a high insult to the Prussian sense of precision.
The colonel drew himself up. “There is some problem. The husband of your granddaughter—” he looked at Klaus for effect—“he taught chemistry at the University of Hamburg, no?”
Klaus felt himself grow hot beneath the gaze of the officer. Of course he had taught at the university. If Hitler had not created laws banning Jews from teaching positions, no doubt Klaus would still be there.
Frau Rosenfelt stepped between the colonel and Klaus. She held her cane
in one hand and the pince-nez in the other. “What has that got to do with anything at all?”
The colonel cleared his throat. He would have liked to continue to stare at Klaus as if he were an offender, but he old woman blocked his view. “The . . . authorities . . . felt that perhaps since his position was in chemistry . . . there was research going on at the university, and there was some concern that perhaps . . . Klaus Holbein might have some information that would be best kept within the borders of the Reich.”
This was utter and complete nonsense, Klaus knew. He was simply a professor. A teacher of chemistry. What could he know that might harm the Reich in any way? He started to speak, but the old woman inclined her cane slightly, a signal for silence in the ranks. The pince-nez was raised dramatically to the nose and she glared at the colonel with a look that made all the children cling to their mother.
There was a long and terrible silence. The colonel began to sweat. He squirmed a bit. Then Bubbe Rosenfelt spoke. “So. First the Reich and the Führer deprive my grandson of his livelihood because he is a Jew. Then they say he cannot go elsewhere to find a life because he is a Jew. I will tell you what state secrets Klaus knows about the Reich, Herr Colonel. Klaus knows precisely which members of the Aryan ‘master race’ were unable to pass the course in chemistry at Hamburg University. A frightening thing to think of, that perhaps an Aryan might not pass a course taught by a Jew.”
“Frau Rosenfelt, I assure you, the authorities are checking—” The colonel could not tear his eyes away from the pince-nez. The old woman had him.
“Good! And while the authorities are checking, I shall wire my nephew, Franklin D. Rosenfelt, who will certainly wire the Führer when it is learned how badly we are being treated here!”
Klaus and Maria exchanged looks. The great-nephew Bubbe had mentioned was less than two years old. He lived in a place called Brooklyn and had acquired his unusual name when he was born on the same night Franklin Roosevelt won his second presidency. Of course, Roosevelt and Rosenfelt sounded quite similar to the German ear, and the Nazis did indeed suspect the president of being Jewish, but perhaps this was taking family connections a bit too far.
But beads of perspiration formed on the brow of the Nazi officer. “Franklin D. Rosenfelt? You mean—?”
The old woman rose up on her toes. The pince-nez stayed perched on her nose. There was power here. “Exactly!” spat Frau Rosenfelt. “My great-nephew. He will be quite interested to hear the trouble we have been put to over a few small documents. He will certainly relay such information to Hitler. The embarrassment of holding his relatives in Germany when they wish only to go home—” Now the old woman let the pince-nez drop to the end of its cord. It jerked and bobbed. The lynching was quite effective. The colonel put his hand to his own throat as he stared at the pince-nez.
He smiled nervously. “One moment, Frau Rosenfelt.” He said the name with an astonishing respect. He rose from his desk and clicked his heels before he hurried from the office.
One hour later Bubbe sipped tea in her parlor with Maria and Klaus. The five girls were presented with peppermints and sent off to the bedroom to concoct a play.
“I told Sadie that naming that child Franklin Delano Rosenfelt would come in quite handy as the years progressed. Oy! But I did not think it would be so useful so soon!”
Along with the peppermints, she had pulled out a handful of travel documents and exit visas from the black velvet handbag. She fanned them out neatly on the tea table and counted them again.
3
Barriers
Bubbe Rosenfelt had accomplished much through sheer bluff and bravado at the Hamburg Office of Immigration. All of that meant nothing, however, as she stood at the high counter of the American Consulate and peered through her notorious pince-nez at the stubborn American clerk.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Rosenfelt.” The clerk shrugged in bureaucratic helplessness.
“But surely you can see that the papers granted by the Nazis are valid for only two weeks! You don’t have eyes, young man? If my grandchildren are not out of here within two weeks—” she drew a finger across her throat in an unmistakable gesture—“Like a chicken at the butcher’s!”
The “young man” behind the counter was actually more than fifty years old. His gray hair was parted in the center, and he wore a high celluloid collar that had been an American fashion when he left the country years before. Years of experience had taught him now to turn away even the most persistent individuals. This old woman was no match for his expertise.
“Look, Mrs. Rosenfelt, there are laws now restricting the number of immigrants we let into America. Remember? Fifteen years ago there would have been no problem.”
“Oy! Fifteen years ago Hitler was hanging wallpaper, not Jews!” she let the pince-nez fall. “Fifteen years ago Germany was a cultured civilized country!”
“That may be so, but the fact remains that all quotas for immigration have been filled. For months the quotas of Germans have been filled. Every Jew, every democrat, every socialist in the Reich wants out of here. What are we supposed to do about it?”
“Give them a place to go, maybe? Save a few lives?”
“America is already packed with a lot of hungry people. Men out of work. Looking for jobs. Trying to feed their kids, see? Sorry, Mrs. Rosenfelt. There just isn’t any room on the list for your granddaughter and her husband and five more children. My hands are tied. The quota is filled.”
“How many a month is my country letting in now?” she asked bitterly.
“A thousand.”
“Only eight hundred,” the old woman corrected. “And such a big place, too.”
“And what kind of life do you think anyone is going to have if we throw away the quotas and let every undesirable—”
Mrs. Rosenfelt slammed her cane on the counter to silence this discussion.
The head of the clerk snapped back in startled indignation.
“Enough talk, already!” Her faded blue eyes blazed angrily. “The Nazis have not made it half as hard to leave as you make it to go. How long is this waiting list of yours?”
“A year.” He continued to stare at the cane. Perhaps this mad old woman would decide to use it on him.
Mrs. Rosenfelt’s eyes narrowed. She smiled shyly and reached out to touch the clerk’s threadbare suit. “You look like a fellow who could use a new suit of clothes. Perhaps shoes, also? Or an automobile?”
His eyes widened and he drew back from her. “Bribes won’t do you any good. It’s been tried. I’m telling you, the list is the list. That’s the only way.”
“Then you are a fool.” She leaned forward. “Two weeks we have before the papers expire.”
“You can go back to America anytime.”
“Oy! So now you think I would leave them?”
“Work on this back in the States. Send for them.”
“Two weeks the Nazis have given. No more. They will not renew their travel documents.” Her gnarled hand was clenched in a fist. “Your kind I have seen a thousand times. Money is a language you understand. This is a language I can speak, nu? List or no list, we must leave Germany within fourteen days. We will leave, and you will be a rich man for having helped us.”
The clerk stared sullenly at the stubborn old woman in front of him. She was making it impossible. Yes, the lists were full, but perhaps there was another way. There was the freighter. But there was a waiting list for that as well. A share for him and a share for Captain Burton. No one needed a visa to get on a freighter like the SS Darien.
“Maybe there is a way.”
“I thought so. Nothing but a lot of shtuss you are giving me. Always there is a way.”
“There is a ship leaving Hamburg Tuesday morning. Maybe I can get your family a place on it.”
“I thought you could. And where is this boat going?”
Now the clerk smiled. “Away from Germany, Mrs. Rosenfelt.”
“That’s it? Away? So, away to where?”
“Just away. For you that should be good enough. You can go ahead to the States and work on their papers in the meantime. Day after tomorrow the ship leaves, and they are safe.”
How could it be that a ship could leave Germany without a destination? The old woman nodded once and frowned with the realization that the quota of every nation was filled to capacity with the names of hopeful, desperate Jews. And so such a ship would become its own nation, an island of refuge until a port could be found.
Slowly Bubbe Rosenfelt raised her pince-nez to her nose. This was not what she had bargained for, yet it was better than nothing at all. “And how much will this cruise around the world cost? I am listening. How much to save the lives of my family?”
***
The doctor was Czech, Charles knew, but now the kind man spoke to him in heavily accented German. “Never was there a little boy so lucky as you, Charles.” The broad face hovered over him like a bright full moon. The doctor looked like the man in the moon, Charles thought, but he could not tell him that. Charles could not communicate well at all since Louis had gone. Now that he was feeling better, Charles thought how very much he would like to see his brother and share his secret that the man in the moon had swooped down to help him through this latest illness.
The doctor squinted as he took Charles’s pulse. “Strong. Yes, yes. You are feeling better now?”
Charles nodded. He was much better now than he had been that first dreadful night they had arrived in Prague. His ears had become infected, and for days he had endured searing pain. There were, in fact, days which were only a blur in his memory. Images of Elisa and the tall American, John Murphy, floated through his mind. Charles liked the American who was always telling him tales about America and children who lived there. He liked Herr Theo, who also had been ill; and he liked Anna, who sat and read to him by the hour and stroked his hair as his mother had once done. Yes, Charles was feeling better, but the one ache that had not receded was his longing to see Louis again. Louis. Father. And in the darkest nights when the pain awakened him, he cried for Mommy, although he knew she was gone to heaven.