I hadn’t chosen the events of the past few days, but they’d brought about a revolution in my life. I was going to take a step toward the kind of freedom every salary-slave secretly dreams of, to become self-employed. The money Tarık had made for me was certainly going to make things easier. It no longer mattered that I didn’t have a regular paycheck. It would be enough to make a little here and there. Of course at some point, I was going to have to deal with health insurance and some kind of pension plan.
Perhaps if this had happened a few years from now I would have taken a different attitude. I might have been more frightened, more worried about security. But now I felt I’d found freedom.
The more I thought about it, the more grateful I felt to Max. He had no idea, of course, what he’d done for me. He was the reason I’d been slandered in the newspaper and then fired. It was because of him that I now had this opportunity to grow and change, and escape a life of dreary and meaningless servitude.
Before I went to bed, I spent some time on the internet. I looked up the weather in Germany. The whole country was freezing, and it was snowing in Bad Arolsen.
Then I went to the www.its-arolsen.org page and read the conditions for access to the archives. The records were open to relatives of victims and to governments, but researchers could also examine them. They only asked a nominal fee for photocopies and copies of compact discs. I had to fill out an application form, but I could do this online. I filled it out, using my position at the university. After all, I was still officially on the books as an employee until the end of the month.
I checked the hotels in Bad Arolsen. It was a spa town so there were quite a few hotels, and they weren’t very expensive at this time of year. I made a reservation for two nights at the LandKomfort Hotel. It would cost me 47 euros a night, and from the pictures, it looked clean and comfortable. Then I started packing my heaviest winter clothes.
The next day I got up early and prepared breakfast for Kerem. I left 100 lira for him on the table. Then, after watering all the plants I went into Kerem’s room. He was asleep, so I leaned down and kissed him.
I texted Ahmet to remind him to pick Kerem up from school, then put on my thickest coat and my winter boots, picked up my suitcase, and set out to start my new life.
CHAPTER 19
The airport in Frankfurt was so busy and crowded I felt overwhelmed. People rushing here and there, from one plane to another, dashing from one line to another, constant announcements, planes landing and taking off every minute, thousands of people wrapped up in their own lives and adventures, hardly aware of the people around them, everyone playing the leading role in their own movie.
I went to an airport bookstore and bought a guide to Bad Arolsen. I asked whether they had any books by Erich Auerbach, but they didn’t have them in German, let alone English.
On the train I looked out across the frozen landscape and thought about all that had happened here over the years, times of terrible war and times of peace and prosperity, Roman legions and invading Goths; princes, poets, and scholars; the Nazis and the armies that defeated them; a devastated nation rebuilding itself; the iron curtain and reunification.
Then I dozed off for a while, and when I woke I looked at the pictures in the book on Bad Arolsen. It looked like a beautiful town with its baroque houses, parks, and chateaus. The Grand Avenue, I read, was lined with exactly 880 oak trees. The picture had been taken in summer, of course, and the trees would be bare now.
The Augustinian convent of Aroldessen had been founded here in 1113. It had been the seat of the Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont from the seventeenth to the twentieth century and had been the capital of the independent Waldeck State until 1929. I must confess that I’d never even heard of the Waldeck State. The International Tracing Services, or ITS, had been established here in 1946, and was run jointly by the International Red Cross and the German government.
It was almost dark by the time I stepped onto the platform at Bad Arolsen, and it was very, very cold. I got into one of the white Mercedes taxis waiting in front of the station and we made our way along icy streets to my hotel. Snow sparkled in the streetlights.
After settling into my room I went down to the hotel restaurant, had the fried trout the region was famous for and a large glass of beer, and then went back to my room to check my emails. There was a message from the Turkish Foreign Ministry to the effect that they had no records pertaining to the matter about which I’d inquired.
Then, suddenly, I felt very tired, so after a hot shower I got between the clean, sweet-smelling sheets and fell right asleep, without having to take a pill.
In the morning I left the hotel alert and full of energy. When the taxi dropped me off in front of the ITS, I felt a surge of excitement. As soon as I stepped out of the taxi, I was struck by the deep silence, almost like the silence in a cemetery. And then it struck me that it was, in a sense, a kind of digital cemetery containing the memories, personal details, and pictures of millions of war victims.
I crossed the garden, entered the building, and told the stout, middle-aged man at the information desk that I had submitted an application the day before. He asked for my identification, found my application on the computer, and made a photocopy of my passport.
For some reason I blurted out, “We had German Jewish scholars at our university during the war.”
The man smiled indulgently and said, “I know. Have you read our rules?”
“I have.”
“Very well. Your registration is complete. Please follow me.”
I’d imagined I’d be led through miles of shelves stacked with files, but instead I was led into a large hall that contained nothing but tables, chairs, and computers.
I saw two children, a boy and a girl in dark clothes, at a table near the window. It seemed odd to see children in a place like this, and the children themselves seemed odd, seemed somehow very old. The man left me there, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The boy said something in German, in a deep voice that sounded adult.
I gestured that I didn’t understand, and he whispered in English, “Please sit down. They’ll attend to you in a moment.”
I realized that he and the woman were little people. Their heads barely reached above the table. I smiled and thanked him. A little later a tall, slim woman with brown hair came over to me and shook my hand. She introduced herself as Angelika Traub, asked me what I wanted to look up, and guided me to one of the computers.
“I want to look up Herbert Scurla.”
“Was he a victim?” she asked.
“No, he was a Nazi official. I’m looking for information in his reports on the professors who went to Istanbul University in the 1930s. I’m particularly interested in any mention of Professor Maximilian Wagner.”
“That’s not a Jewish name either.”
“No, but he was a victim.”
There were thousands of entries under Scurla, and most of the documents she pulled up were stamped with the emblem of the double-headed eagle. We narrowed the search down to Istanbul University, and eventually found the report on the Jewish professors in Istanbul that Scurla had presented to Hitler. We entered Maximilian Wagner’s name, and my heart jumped when I saw that they had the documents Scurla had taken from Matilda Arditi.
Angelika went out to fetch the files, and I waited impatiently, cracking my knuckles and barely able to stay in my seat. The two little people gave me a look of sympathy and understanding. Then Angelika returned with the files, placed them on the table, and left me alone with them.
I lifted the cover of Max’s file slowly, as if I were lifting the lid of a tomb, and the musty smell of old papers rose up. I sifted through manuscripts and notes in German, and then I found a number of photographs: a young Max, and beside him a beautiful dark-haired woman. Nadia!
She had high cheekbones and deep soulful eyes, and looked straight at th
e camera with a frank and honest expression. There were pictures of her alone as well, in different settings, and in all of them her sensitivity and the strength of her character were reflected clearly. These were the pictures that had been removed from Nasip Street in 1942, and I could hardly believe that I’d found them.
I went over to the little people. “Do you know if I can get copies of these?”
The man said, “Of course. You’re not allowed to take anything out of this room, but the people on duty will help you.”
“Are you relatives of victims?” I asked.
We couldn’t have a conversation because we had to whisper. The woman suggested we go out to the cafeteria and talk there.
“I’d like that,” I said. “Let me just get the copies I need first.”
I returned to my seat and glanced through the rest of what was there. Then suddenly I saw it. I picked it up, unable to quite believe it was real. A yellowed sheet of music titled Serenade für Nadia, Maximilian Wagner.
My eyes began to fill with tears, and it took me a few moments to compose myself. Then I pulled myself together and asked if I could have copies made. The man on duty told me to wait in the room.
Frau Traub came within a few moments, and I showed her the music and the pictures I wanted copied. She took the whole file with her and returned in about five minutes with the copies.
“You can pay the cashier,” she said handing me a receipt. I thanked her. “Excuse me but there’s one more thing,” I said.
She looked at me.
“The Tatar Legions!”
“What is that?” she asked.
“A number of Crimean Turks fought on the German side and retreated with them. They were settled in Northern Italy and Austria, but when the British captured them, they were handed over to the Red Army. Some of them killed themselves and the rest were shot by the Russians.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” she said. “Are you looking for someone in particular?”
“Yes, my maternal grandmother. Her name was Ayşe, but her people didn’t use surnames then so I don’t know how to search for her.”
“I’ll help,” she said. “But there’s something you have to do to first.”
“What?”
“You have to make some additions to the form.”
“Why?”
“Before, you were acting as a researcher. Now, you’re acting as a relative of a victim. You have to state this on the form.”
I returned to the information desk, explained the situation, wrote what I had to write on the form, and returned to the room.
The two little people got up and introduced themselves, shaking my hand very politely. They came up only to my waist. They were Romanian. I’d thought they were husband and wife, but they were brother and sister.
They were delighted when they heard I came from Istanbul. We went to the cafeteria and Mr. Ovitz asked what I would like to drink and insisted on getting it himself. His sister and I sat at a wooden table. Ovitz brought coffee and cakes on a tray that seemed so large in his hands that I feared he’d drop it.
As we drank our coffee, I told them that my research was related to Romania, and how happy I was to have found the photos of Nadia. They knew the story of the Struma.
They told me that they were writing a book about their ancestors and that they’d been coming here every day for weeks.
When I asked whether their families were victims, the man said, “Yes, you could say that. People assume all the victims were killed in the camps, but our grandfather and his family were among the few people who survived.”
The family, seven of whom were little people and two of whom were of normal height, was sent from Romania to Auschwitz. Here they were stripped and led to the gas chambers with the others in their group. The gas had just been turned on when Dr. Mengele had it shut off and the little people brought out, then made them drink milk and vomit to alleviate the effects of the gas they’d already breathed in.
I could picture the panic that gripped them when the gassing began, families clasping one another, naked and vulnerable as they faced death, the gassing being halted and the Nazis coming in and removing naked little people, and then the doors being locked again and the gas being turned on…
Dr. Mengele had used them as subjects in the research he was doing on hereditary diseases. He put them in different sections. Every day he took blood and bone marrow samples, exposed them to radiation, poured hot and cold water into their ears, blinded them with chemical drops, and filled the girls’ wombs with liquid chemicals.
One day he had had them stripped naked and showed them to his colleagues, and on another occasion he had had them filmed, making them sing songs and do comical things, and then had Hitler watch it to amuse him.
The little people were rescued when the Red Army took the camp.
He told the story in a normal tone of voice, without dramatizing it, but it moved and horrified me, and it disturbed me deeply to think that people could do this to each other. Yet this building contained evidence of millions of equally horrific stories.
When we went back to the hall, Angelika Traub told me she’d found documents related to the Tatar Legions, but they were in German and Russian. I asked if there were any pictures and she said there was a group photo of the refugees in the camp in Austria. I asked for copies of the pictures and the Russian and German documents. Then I said goodbye to the little brother and sister and left the ITS building.
At the hotel I borrowed a magnifying glass and looked carefully at the picture of the inmates of the Drau camp. I examined each face, but could find no one in that wretched, miserable crowd who resembled my grandmother.
Much later I was to remember my thoughts on my return journey as I looked again and again at Nadia’s pictures and the score of the Serenade, of which I could read not a single note. It was while reading an essay on Pascal by Auerbach, titled “The Triumph of Evil.” He quoted Pascal’s statement that it was right to pursue what was just, but it was inevitable that the strong would lead. Justice without power is ineffectual and power without justice is tyranny. There would always be those who would undermine and overthrow justice that lacked power. We had to integrate justice and power by making the just powerful and the powerful just.
Justice is difficult to define, but we recognize power at once. We could not empower justice because power has negated justice and asserted itself to be just. Since we have been unable make what is right powerful, we have made power right.
The essay goes on to discuss those who value the state for its own sake, who praise its dynamic vitality like Machiavelli or who are concerned, like Hobbes, with the benefits the ideal state might bring. For Pascal, however, the state had no inner dynamics and the preference for one form of statehood over another was meaningless because all forms were equally repressive. Though I would not have been able to express it like this then, the essay summed up my thoughts at that time.
Before the plane began to descend, I took out my brown purse and looked inside. Four women were now looking at me from the plastic-covered pocket.
Maya, Ayşe, Mari, and Nadia.
CHAPTER 20
The flight attendant made several announcements while the plane was descending to Istanbul. One of them concerned transit passengers coming to Istanbul from abroad who were to continue on domestic flights. She announced that if these passengers were continuing to an airport that had customs facilities, they should complete their customs procedures there; but if they were continuing to an airport without customs, they should go through passport control in Istanbul.
This was an announcement that did not concern me at all, it was directed to the tourists on their way to holiday resorts.
But as the plane was descending and I saw how gray, dreary, and depressing Istanbul looked I thought, “Why not?” There was no one waiting for me at home, a
nd I no longer had a job to go to. I was free, and if I wanted, I could catch the next plane to Bodrum. I could use a break, and my parents would be very happy to see me.
I asked the flight attendant and she advised me to go through immigration control in Istanbul and then go to the domestic terminal to catch a plane to Bodrum. My suitcase had been checked in only as far as Istanbul.
I did exactly as she told me. I got out at the international terminal, waited in line, passed through passport control, and collected my suitcase. As I emerged and saw the crowds waiting just beyond the barrier, it occurred to me that it was exactly ten days since I’d stood there waiting for Max.
I went to the domestic terminal and checked flights to Bodrum. There was a flight in an hour and fifty minutes. I was delighted, and after buying my ticket and checking in my suitcase, I went to a shop and bought presents for my parents. I wasn’t going to tell them I was coming; I thought it would be better to surprise them.
I bought a newspaper and a magazine and sat in a café. The papers were full of the same old depressing news: the economic crisis, and politicians blaming each other for the situation.
I called Kerem but he didn’t answer. I wondered what he was doing, and if he was all right. I tried not to think about him, but the more I tried the more guilty I felt and the more I missed him. But it wasn’t going to be for long and it would all be for the better. I thought about calling Ahmet but decided not to.
I wondered if I was being unfair to Ahmet, but when I remembered how unhappy I’d been with him I decided I wasn’t. Then again, if I could change, if I could start a new life and become a new person, then perhaps he could too. I couldn’t expect him to transform overnight. He’d stood up to his father once, he could do it again, and perhaps, step-by-step, emerge from the cloud of intimidation and manipulation that had poisoned his life. If I could control my anger and be kind and supportive to him, perhaps I could help him.
Serenade for Nadia Page 25