The Bravest Voices

by Ida Cook

  We said what we could in the way of sympathy. And then she added, “But you haven’t heard the worst. I had with me all my jewellery. It represents all my capital, in any country to which I can escape. And I was so upset that I forgot to give it to my husband at the frontier. Now the order has gone out that all Jews must give up their jewellery. It’s all I have—my only means of living even if I escape.”

  Louise and I looked at each other. We were already loaded to the Plimsoll line with jewellery for other people and had firmly decided not to take any more. But at the moment, we would both have tried to take out the Crown Jewels, I do believe. Louise gave me a slight nod, and I said, “Don’t cry any more. Will you trust it with us? And we’ll try to get you a guarantee in England.”

  Oh, Lord! The terrible, heart-rending gratitude that the offer of these not-so-very-difficult services used to provoke. With more tears, and a few from us too I expect, it was arranged that we should visit her the next morning at the flat of a friend with whom she was living.

  There were two friends there, I remember, when we arrived. At first, I thought one of them had a bad cold. Presently I realized it was just that she had been crying endlessly. She had “lost her husband in the camp,” as the terrible phrase went, only a month or two before.

  Presently, she insisted on showing us his photograph. It was of a nice, ordinary-looking middle-aged man, and while we looked at it, she kept assuring us that he was such a good man and had never harmed anyone, as though the only thing she could do for him was to make unprejudiced people realize he had not been killed for any real crime.

  At last, the other friend said, in a faint attempt at consolation, “Don’t grieve so. They’ll be punished, these dreadful people who’ve done these things. They’ll be punished. Their turn is coming.”

  But the widow said simply, in tones of lead, “You can’t un-kill people.”

  I often thought of that afterwards, in the years of slaughter that followed. You can never un-kill people.

  We took the jewellery and went back to England. There was a very bad half hour at the frontier when the Black Guard came on the train and stayed there for some unknown reason, parked in the corridor right outside our compartment. But we got away without an examination of our actual handbags, which was lucky, as we had all the really valuable stuff, quite brazenly, there.

  We had decided that, if our amount of jewellery were discovered and queried, we were going to do the nervous British spinster act and insist, quite simply, that we always took our valuables with us, because we didn’t trust anyone with whom we could leave them at home. I don’t know whether the story would have “washed,” but it is a good example of the sort of silly lie I mentioned before. It often succeeds by the sheer force of its simplicity and because it makes one look rather a fool.

  Back in England, we were faced with the task of obtaining yet another guarantee. But luck was with us all the way in this case. One morning, a very old friend of ours phoned and said, “Could you come to tea this afternoon? I have a friend coming, and I think she might be good for a guarantee. She’s awfully nice and understanding and has a very nice husband.”

  Our friend also had a very nice husband, I might say. It was he who had given the guarantee for Mrs. Basch and Lisa, and it was he who pulled a string in Downing Street that time I went after the Maliniaks’ visas.

  I accepted the invitation, of course, and over tea, I launched into the story of our recent visit to Berlin. It was a wonderful afternoon! I didn’t even have to “fish” for that guarantee. The visitor looked at me kindly and thoughtfully and said, “I’m sure my husband would guarantee that poor woman if, as you say, she really has enough jewellery here to support herself.”

  With a secret sigh of relief that we had brought out the jewellery, I assured her that this was the case. In a very short time, the guarantee was forthcoming and Alice was dragged out of Berlin, with even a month or two to spare before war broke out.

  As I said earlier, she never saw her husband again. But she did make a reasonably happy life for herself here in England. And for many, many years—until she finally retired altogether—if I wanted to look especially nice, I used to go and see her, and she would make me a heavenly hat.

  The most truly melodramatic case was Walter Stiefel’s. He was the son of the elderly couple we had rescued from Frankfurt. When we were going to Berlin on that last visit, we were told about him and asked if we could help. Someone had already offered a home to his little girl. We were fortunate enough to get a home for him and his wife in the North West of England, and they got away at the very last moment. At the time, it seemed a fairly straightforward case to us. It was only about ten years ago that we heard the drama behind it all.

  Walter had made one of his rather rare visits to London, and we were talking together of old times. And I said sincerely—I was not being coy or corny—“In a way, of course, it was not really very dangerous for us, except for the smuggling.”

  Walter looked amused and replied, “It was much more dangerous than you ever imagined. What was really dangerous was when you handled someone who was in the Anti-Hitler Underground. I’ll tell you now—I never told you then—I was six years in the Anti-Hitler Underground. I was one of those who produced a secret news sheet. We printed it in the centre of a Berlin store at night, when the store was closed. No one had any idea we were there. I helped to produce and distribute it. And if, during those last weeks when you were helping me, I had been caught and made to talk—and don’t let’s pretend anything else, they could make anyone talk—not only would all my confederates have been arrested, but so would you.”

  We were stunned. And intrigued beyond measure. All those years ago, we’d been heroines, without the pain of knowing it!

  Walter went on. “Don’t you remember how careful I was about meeting you?”

  “I do remember, we thought you were fussy,” I recalled. “And you wouldn’t give us an address, would you?”

  “I couldn’t give you an address,” he assured us. “I changed it every few weeks. I changed my whole identity six times during those years. Don’t you remember how we arranged to meet?”

  With an effort, we did. We were to meet him in a crowded railway station in Berlin—I think it was the Anhalter—and we were to recognize him because he carried under his left arm an English newspaper. But what we did not know was that suddenly, that day, English newspapers were forbidden throughout Germany and he couldn’t get one. So he bought a Dutch one and walked about with that under his left arm. But the Cooks didn’t jump to that. We thought he hadn’t come, and very worried, we went back to our hotel.

  The awkward thing was that we had long ago discovered that if you were doing the sort of thing we were doing, much the best places to stay were the big luxury hotels where the Nazi chiefs stayed. Then if you stood and gazed at them admiringly as they went through the lobby, no one thought you were anything but another couple of admiring fools. That was why we knew them all by sight. We knew them all, Louise and I. Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Streicher, Ribbentrop—who once gave Louise what we used to call “the glad eye” across the breakfast room at the Vierjahszeiten in Munich. We even knew Hitler from the back—because we all stayed in the same hotels. And there we were in the Adlon—where I suppose Hitler was probably having lunch.

  We retired to our room in gloomy doubt. But finally Walter dared to telephone—though of course the phones were often tapped—and he said, “I’m going to get into a taxi and drive round a certain block”—he described the block—“until you stand on a certain corner. And I will pick you up.”

  It all seemed unnecessarily melodramatic to us at the time. After all, we’re not a bit the James Bond type. We come from a very respectable civil-service family. But when Walter explained the background to us, we saw why it all had to be that way. Only, we were thankful we had not known at the time. It’s amusing in retrospect—wit
h everyone safe.

  I suppose the narrowest margin of escape in any of our cases occurred with a young Polish boy, the last of these stories I will tell. In October, 1938—before the big November drive against the Jews—the order had suddenly gone forth that all Polish Jews were to be expelled from Germany. Some were given twenty-four hours, some were given two hours, and some a quarter of an hour, depending on the merciful, or otherwise, disposition of the local official concerned.

  Curiously enough, I myself saw the departure of the Frankfurt contingent without knowing at the time what was happening. I saw a crowd of people being hustled like animals along the platform and, turning to my porter, managed to ask, in my inadequate German, “What on earth is happening over there?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, explained indifferently, “Only Jews,” and trotted on ahead with my luggage.

  Much later, I remember mentioning that incident to a friend of ours, and she exclaimed, “Oh, but, my dear, you didn’t see the end of their journey! I did. I was in a village near the Polish border, and the rumour went around that the Polish Jews were coming. For four days and nights, from all over Germany, trainloads of those unfortunate people were coming. Some were still in their nightclothes—they had simply been hauled from their beds—and some of the old people and children had been shot in the back because they hadn’t moved fast enough.”

  From all over Germany, they had been coming in their helpless, horrible misery. It was peacetime. People were going to the theatre, to the shops, on holidays, pursuing their normal lives, and that terrible procession threaded its way through their midst.

  I will not say that there was no protest, because I simply do not know. I will only say that I never heard of any protest being made on that occasion.

  And there they were, gathered together on the border. The Germans tried to thrust them out, and the Poles would not let them in. In justice, one must say that there was something to be said for the Polish attitude. Every country was having to refuse hordes of unidentified and unidentifiable refugees. In addition, many of these people were only technically Polish and could hardly speak a word of the language. There was obviously a war coming, and there were no means of checking the bona fides of this hastily assembled multitude.

  They were thrust into the improvised prison camp of Zbasyn. Great racing stables had once existed there, and where one horse had been, eight people were given space. And there they stayed all the winter.

  Some of the older people died, of course, but an astonishing number survived. In the spring, we received a letter from a boy there. To this day I don’t know how he got hold of our name and address, but news travelled quickly and by strange paths when there was any hope of safety involved.

  He wrote that he hardly knew why he was addressing us; he had no more claim than thousands of other people around him, but had heard that we were trying to help. His quota number for the United States meant about a three-year wait. It was foolish, he felt, even to ask—but could we do anything to save him and keep him alive during the intervening years?

  I wrote back as sympathetically as I could, hoping to give him the courage to go on. I told him quite frankly that we had several cases already waiting for the next guarantee we could raise. But I promised to put him on our list and not let his case out of mind until time and opportunity served us better.

  He replied that he could live for several months more on that alone.

  Just about that time, I was asked to speak to a church congregation. The church members were proposing to adopt a refugee child among them. They needed both sympathy and a sense of urgency aroused in the congregation. I went very willingly, but was somewhat disconcerted to find that I had to address my audience from the pulpit. However, by now I was not easily put off. Money was running out fast, and my tongue—which had never served me badly!—was my best remaining asset. I said what had come to be known disrespectfully in the family as “Ida’s little piece” and went away again, hoping that I had done some good.

  Three weeks later, I received a telephone call from the clergyman of the church. Had I, he wanted to know, a case that required a guarantee and about three years’ hospitality? Some other congregation had taken their refugee child; now they had lots of sympathy and no refugee. He left the choice to me, but suggested that, as they certainly had enough money and hospitality to cover three years, the chance should go to someone who needed the full amount.

  It was such a chance—such an unexpected offer out of nowhere—that I felt it should go to our poor Polish boy, who did just exactly what was being offered. But first he had to get his papers in order. These were, as will be imagined, many and complicated. Indeed, some people died because they sent the wrong papers, and no one had time to straighten out the case and send them detailed instructions.

  Back came all the completed papers, accompanied by one of the most heartfelt letters of incredulous joy I have ever received. And, nearly as pleased myself, I rushed off to Bloomsbury House where the next stage of proceedings would have to be undergone.

  I interviewed the girl who usually dealt with my cases, and she congratulated me wholeheartedly on the sudden stroke of good fortune. Then she took one look at the papers and exclaimed, “Oh, my dear, how terrible! We have just had an order today that we must not accept anyone with a higher quota number than 16,000. He is 16,500 and—”

  We stared at each other in dismay.

  “I can’t write back and tell him that,” I pleaded. “I can’t. He’s nearly mad with joy at the thought of release. Think of something! You must think of something to get us out of this.”

  She was a most resourceful girl. After several moments’ thought, she handed me back one of the papers and said, “Go home and take this with you. I will write an official letter, dated three days ago, asking for the missing paper, and the case will date from the time of the first letter in the file. That will qualify it before the new rule came into operation.”

  And on such details people’s lives hung.

  I did as she suggested, and the case began to take the accustomed course. There were the usual delays and hold-ups that one could not always foresee, and it was August before the coveted British visa was granted.

  By that time, Louise and I were in Germany on the last visit we were to make there before war broke out. I received verbal information, via a network of mutual friends, that the visa had been granted, but that the boy was in further difficulty because every boat out of Poland was fully booked up to the end of the year. Most people knew that a war was coming now, and every available escape route was jammed. He could not, of course, travel by train through Germany. But there was just one chance left. It might be possible for him to get passage as one of the people in charge of a children’s transport, if I could send him money for his fare.

  From Germany, this was impossible, of course. But we sent word that, if he could let us know in England what he needed, we would send it.

  Louise and I reached home less than a fortnight before war broke out. By the time we knew what money was necessary, the few days left were cruelly short. I telegraphed the amount. Almost at the same time, the Germans marched over the Polish frontier.

  I telephoned the shipping office concerned to ask if the boat had left in time. They had no news then, but told me the next day that the boat had got away, although no one knew who was on board. They suggested I had better come down to the London Docks when it came in, and see for myself.

  On one of those cloudless, brilliant afternoons when all of us knew at last that war was upon us, I waited anxiously at the harbour. I shall never forget the arrival of that boat, the last children’s transport from Poland. There were 200 children ranging from four-year-olds to youths of about fifteen and sixteen. Every one of them had had to leave his or her parents behind. All the parents were later murdered, I suppose.

  I see them now, in melancholy recollection, coming slow
ly down the gangway, carrying their little bundles and gazing around on a strange world. None of them spoke English. None of them had a hope in the world, except to live, instead of being killed. I had nothing but a passport photograph by which to identify my Polish boy. But, when he finally came off, he was unmistakable.

  He told me that, at the last minute, there was some final hitch in connection with his Polish papers, and he had had to wait, sweating with anxiety, while the matter was argued out afresh. Then, at the very last possible moment, he was allowed to go, and he rushed on board almost as they were removing the gangway. The last man to board the last boat that left Gydnia. Then civilian shipping had ceased, and the war had begun.

  He was also the last of our successful cases. I remember very vividly all the people we interviewed on our own last journey to the continent. In every instance, we were too late to do anything. Perhaps that is why one remembers them so well.

  For many heart-rending years, we both used to recall a particular family. The father was a Jew and the mother was an Aryan. He had been rounded up with all the others the previous November and sent to Dachau. Although he had gone in as a fine, strapping man in the prime of life, he was discharged to hospital six months later, half dead from heart trouble brought on by being forced to carry weights beyond any human capacity. In addition, he had lost a foot from frostbite.

  Like all Aryan women married to Jewish husbands, the wife had been advised to divorce her husband. Her refusal to do so meant she could not officially be employed. She scraped along as best she could, doing cleaning for the few kindly or courageous people who dared to employ her. In this precarious way, she tried to support her three boys and one little girl.