by Bodie Thoene
I passed through the valley of death. I know now I must never return to Hitler’s Reich. What Eben said is true. What will come upon Jews now is worse than the Inquisition.
John Murphy is my angel in compartment 7A, watching over me tonight. But what shall we do about Papa? I pray Mr. Murphy can use his American connections to help us. I leave the train in Kitzbühel. He travels on. I have given him my address at the Musikverein in Vienna.
4
LONDON, ENGLAND
SUMMER 1940
A week had passed since Rosie and Sean Murphy sailed. No word came of their safe arrival, and a sense of dread knotted my stomach.
My ill-fitting, out-of-date clothing was picked from the charity barrel at St. Mark’s, North Audley. Murphy and I slept each night on cots in Loralei’s church office while more permanent quarters were being arranged.
Before each night’s air raid sent us scurrying for cover in the crypt, I dreamed I watched U-boats just beneath the surface of the Atlantic stalking the liner carrying my loved ones.
That same week Loralei and I said good-bye to Mama and Lori.
Lori, pale and drawn, stood between Mama and Loralei on the Number 2 boarding platform of Paddington Station.
Loralei embraced Lori. “You must rest, Lori.”
Lori nodded. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up.” Her eyes scanned the crowds of soldiers and fellow passengers as though she was looking for someone. For her mother, I wondered? For her baby boy? Did she hope she was dreaming? that she would turn and see them emerge from the midst of the crowd? Did she still hope the nightmare of her loss would come to an end?
Mama touched my cheek. “You must go on performing. Do what God has called you to do, Elisa, and when you can, come to Wales.”
“Pray for us, Mama.”
Mama hugged me tightly. “Maybe Christmas? Surely by Christmas all will be well and we’ll be happy again.”
“Oh, Mama! I pray we’ll all be in America for Christmas with Murphy’s family.”
It was a hopeful thought, but not likely. Instead of welcoming refugees, the U.S. seemed to be slamming the gates to those in need even tighter.
Loralei and I remained in the train shed for a long time after the locomotive chuffed away with Lori and Mama aboard. The smoke cleared, and still we stared down the empty rails in a mix of relief and longing for those who could escape the hell of London.
We cousins walked to the bus stop. Loralei promised she would do what she could to help me get my American visa and join my children. Kissing me on the cheek, she returned to her job at St. Mark’s, and I headed back to meet Murphy at the BBC.
It began to rain as I hurried toward the studio. I had forgotten my umbrella so covered my head with a scrap of the London Times that reported the sinking of several merchant vessels bound with supplies from America. I worried about Katie and Charles and Louis. Had their ship made it safely to America?
Murphy was waiting for me beneath the portico of All Souls Church, Langham. He hailed me as I splashed through puddles on the sidewalks.
“Elisa!” He smiled as I jogged up the steps and fell into his arms. “They made it off to Wales, then,” he said.
“Yes. Only an hour late.”
“It will be good for Lori. Poor girl. Your mother will be a comfort.”
“I’m worried about the Luftwaffe targeting the rail lines.”
“Not today. Good thing it’s raining. May put off the bombers for a while.”
“Poor Lori,” I replied. “Hardly a word. She’s still hoping it isn’t true, I think.”
“I’ve got news.” He pulled a yellow slip of paper from his pocket.
Telegram. Was it good news or bad? His crooked grin told me everything I longed to hear.
I gasped and tried to focus my eyes. The pigeons cooed like angel song high in the eaves of the church. “Tell me. Tell me, Murphy. I can’t read it.” Tears mingled with the raindrops.
He scanned the telegram. “From Mom. From New York.”
“Oh! Oh!” Pressing my cheek against the rough wool of his coat, I squeezed my eyes tightly and saw visions of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty as he read.
Safely home STOP All’s well STOP Pray you will come home by Christmas STOP Love MOM
“By Christmas!” I sighed, barely able to speak as images of Christmas trees and a world without rubble and death flooded my mind. “Oh, Murphy, if only!”
He gripped my shoulders and kissed my tears. “Main thing is, they’re safe now. Mom and Dad will take the kids to see the sights and then by Thursday…home. A little train ride to the farm and we can sleep again without worrying about them.”
I glanced at my pendant watch, opening the case to gaze into the faces of our children. Only then did I notice the time. “Murphy! I’m late for rehearsal.”
He popped open his umbrella, and we stepped out into the downpour. “Come on, then.” We hurried toward the studio. “And a bit more good news…sort of.”
“I don’t know if I can take any more good news. My heart is racing!”
“I said sort of. We’ve got temporary housing. It’s a seedy little rooming house a few blocks from here—a shared bathroom with a half-dozen roomers. Sorry, honey. Only until the office can find us something better.”
“I’m just thankful we’ll have a bed,” I replied, feeling the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders.
We kissed one another good-bye at the BBC’s front door and agreed to meet for supper after the evening broadcast. He left the umbrella for me and pulled his fedora low over his brow.
Just as I had watched the train until it was out of sight, I stood and watched Murphy stride away. I was mindful that every parting could be a last good-bye. I memorized his jaunty walk and the tilt of his head against the rain. In truth, I memorized every detail about him in case I would be left with only memories of love to sustain me.
My friendship with Irish actress Mariah Fitzgerald and the Spanish flamenco dancer Raquel Esperanza was first forged in flames of the Blitz and later sealed on the high seas of the North Atlantic.
For the sake of morale on the home front, singers, musicians, and actors continued to perform and broadcast daily at the BBC. Many of us had fled the Nazis. We were thrown together through triumph and tragedy, and our hearts were knit. An American correspondent writing for the Times called the BBC performers “living national treasures…as precious to freedom’s heritage as the paintings in the National Portrait Gallery.”
We were very much alive, though Hitler had pursued us and wished us dead. Those of us who had escaped the tyranny of the Third Reich could tell the truth about the Nazis and help besieged Englishmen keep their heads up. We could also bring an occasional smile in the midst of heartache. Our effective witness to the horrors of National Socialism became a problem for the Nazis. The Third Reich wanted the keepers of truth dead. The BBC building on Langham Place made a fine fat target for the Luftwaffe.
The bombing continued and intensified as Hitler determined to flatten London before invading England.
After my children arrived in America, and Mama and Lori left London, I felt the pangs of loneliness. I was glad for the safety of my loved ones but missed the company of those most dear to my heart. After I had embraced Mama and Lori for what we knew might be the last time in our lives, the worst bombing raids in history began.
I returned to work with a new determination that I would not fear no matter what was to come. The siren wailed, interrupting our rehearsal. Carrying our precious instruments, we tramped down into the bomb shelter of the building. The heavy steel doors were closed, sealing us in. We all knew that a single bomb on target could flatten the building and kill us in a moment, yet we were determined that if we were killed, we would go out playing the music of the Jewish composer Mendelssohn, as the highest act of musical defiance against the Third Reich. Members of the BBC staff, from janitors to typists, gathered round us in the gloom as we performed The Scottish Symphony,
with its strains of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
Aboveground, almost a thousand German aircraft crossed the Channel. The sky over England was darkened by this airborne armada, and, up to that moment in history, the Nazi force sent against us was the largest collection of aircraft ever seen.
Fighter Command had not expected raids on London but now attempted to intercept the waves of bombers. A huge dogfight developed over London and the Thames Estuary.
The country was put on the highest alert. Convinced that the German invasion of Britain was imminent, the signal of the impending offensive went out from the BBC. The code word Cromwell was relayed to military units. Church bells clanged to the crash of bombs. We felt the deep vibrations of the concussions all around.
We paused in our playing. I wondered what destruction we would find if we lived to ascend into the open air.
Suddenly I thought I heard a faint, frantic hammering on the shelter door.
Our conductor tapped his baton. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, let’s now play, ‘There’ll Always Be an England.’”
As we raised our instruments, I heard the banging again.
“Do you hear that?” I asked Martin Warrick, the cellist beside me.
The boom! boom! boom! of a nearby stick of explosives made us involuntarily duck our heads.
Moments passed. Our conductor stood erect and said again, “Always…Be…England.”
But this time there was no mistake. I was certain I heard someone pounding on the shelter door. Had someone been locked out? left aboveground?
I stood and declared, “Wait a minute. Listen. I think someone’s out there!”
Every movement froze. We held our breath. In a moment during the lull the voice of a woman was accompanied by clanging from without.
Martin’s eyes widened. “Dear God!” He thrust his cello into my hand and, with two other men, dashed up the flights of metal stairs.
We did not move as the fire door crashed open and the smell of cordite and the roaring of explosions suddenly filled our safe place.
The voices of two women mingled with the exclamations of the men who had gone to their rescue.
I recognized the soft Irish accent of the red-haired beauty, actress Mariah Fitzgerald, and the Spanish inflexion of the dark-haired Spanish dancer Raquel Esperanza. As we listened to their excited words drift down the stairwell, it was like hearing a dramatic radio broadcast.
Martin slammed the heavy shelter door closed. “What were you doing?” he chastised.
Mariah was breathless. “On our way back from lunch. The alarm sounded…we were…point of no return.”
Raquel’s voice trembled. “Too far to go back to the tube station. The whole sky is dark with Luftwaffe. We decided to try to make it here. Ran for it. But the door was sealed. We’ve been trying to make you hear us.”
Mariah finished, “Too awful! Fires everywhere. Everywhere! Bombs started fallin’ when we reached the front step. Saw a church go up like a house of cards. The Hun’d like to knock the BBC down first—make no mistake!”
Martin said, “Elisa Murphy heard you. All the rest of us—we were, well, it was Elisa who heard you through all the clamor, or you’d still be out there.”
As the two beauties appeared before us, covered in dust, carrying their shoes to aid their flight, we began to applaud.
Mariah stretched out her arms to me, and Esperanza followed. The two women, weeping with relief, rushed to embrace me.
Once again we raised our instruments and began to play “There’ll Always Be an England.” This time Mariah and Raquel joined their exquisite singing voices in harmony with the orchestra as the bombs resounded like a kettledrum.
“May this dear land we love so well
In dignity and freedom dwell.”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Though worlds may change and go awry
While there is still one voice to cry
There’ll always be an England.”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Every person in that bleak, stifling shelter began to sing as London burned above us.
“Surely you’re proud; shout it out loud,
‘Britons, awake.’”
BOOM!
“Freedom remains. These are the chains
Nothing can break.
There’ll always be an England.”
There was not a dry eye among us that day.
Mariah, Raquel, and I became three sisters from that moment on.
Though German bombs fell on the Thameside docks, many fell on the residential areas around them. East and southeast London were devastated. Firestorms that ravaged the city served as signal lights directing the second wave of bombers in the evening.
Buildings all around the BBC were hit, yet the studio remained intact.
The next day, Mariah and Raquel broadcast to the world the story of what it had been like to be locked out of the shelter during the raid. Then they told what it had felt like to be brought into safety and welcomed. That terrible hour on the outside while destruction rained down seemed to be a parable for so many of us who had escaped from Hitler and found refuge in England. I was called to the microphone and shared the story of my escape from Berlin and Vienna and Prague and my hope that America would open its gates to refugees who had no place left to go.
The BBC conductor told how music of the Jewish composer Mendelssohn was forbidden to be played in Hitler’s Reich. Then the orchestra performed Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony.
We ended the broadcast with Mariah and Raquel singing “There’ll Always Be an England” while I played solo violin.
“And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me.”1
We three could not imagine that our voices and our music would reach halfway around the world.
Winston Churchill visited the studio to speak to America after our performance. He shook our hands and told us our testimony to America might well help change the course of the war by awakening hearts to our peril.
Mariah, Raquel, and I stood outside the radio room to hear him defiantly announce: “Hitler has lighted a fire that will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe.”
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him.
MATTHEW 2:11 KJV
CHRISTMAS EVE, 1936
HOME OF THE WATTENBARGER FAMILY
KITZBŰHEL, AUSTRIA
The presence of the Lord is here in this little house in the Austrian alps—Kitzbühel. The Wattenbarger family with whom we are staying are people of deep faith. They are simple farmers and woodcarvers. Beside the hearth is the most beautiful hand-carved crèche I have ever seen. It is not hard for me to imagine that the hymn “Silent Night” was first written and sung in these mountains.
Frau Wattenbarger asks me to play my violin. I remember Christmas past in our beautiful home in Berlin. Music and laughter. Snow falling on the ground. A whispered secret and knowing glances. The scents of pastries and the Christmas goose filling our house. The midnight chiming of the tall old clock in our foyer.
And then I remember my last moments in the house with Papa: “Your great-grandfather traded a matched team of horses for the old clock. I wish I could carry it away in my pocket. Wish I could carry away your mother’s piano too. Glad you play the violin, Elisa dear. It is small enough to carry out of Germany.”
Mama and I are so worried about Papa, but we cannot speak openly about it. Where is Papa? I wonder what will become of us. I must return to my work with the orchestra in Vienna. Mama and my younger brothers cannot ever go back to Germany now. What will become of other Jews who have not been able to leave Hitler’s Reich?
I look at the Christ Child lying in the manger and remember there is more to the nativity story than the one, beautiful silent night of Christ’s birth. More than
shepherds. More than wisemen. More than the bright star. More than angels singing “Peace on Earth!”
Herr Wattenbarger opens the Bible to the Gospel of Matthew and begins to read, coming to this last part of the story:
“Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.… ‘A voice was heard…Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.’”2
I lay down to sleep beside Mama, but I hear her quietly weeping and the peace of the season is not in my heart.
Like Herod the Great, Adolf Hitler is a butcher and a madman. What, then, will become of all the Jewish babies left within his power?
1 “There Will Always Be an England,” Ross Parker and Hugh Charles, summer 1939, popularized by Vera Lynn.
2 Matthew 2:16, 18 ESV
5
LONDON, ENGLAND
SUMMER 1940
I steeled myself to get back to work.
The strains of Beethoven’s Fifth drifted from the practice room as I hurried down the corridor with my violin.
Raquel and Mariah poked their faces round the corner of the women’s dressing room and snagged me as I tried to pass.
“I’m late!” I cried.
“Come on now, darlin’!” Mariah did not let me avoid them. “Don’t tell me you’re unfamiliar with Beethoven, now.”
Raquel flicked the lapel of the ragged dress I had rummaged from the charity barrel at St. Marks. “So sad, eh?” She linked her arm in mine.