by Donald Hunt
Erin was right. A year later, with no new resources, Germany defaulted on reparation payments. As punishment, France took complete control of the Ruhr area. Unemployment rose to 23% in only a matter of months. Even those with money found what they had evaporating. Families began selling things they didn’t need, then moved on to trade away their most cherished possessions and heirlooms simply to buy food. But as the savings of the bourgeois were being wiped out, there were still those few individuals who had money. Café’s with stylish ladies were available to foreign visitors in central Berlin, only a block away from the streets where starving children and the elderly languished in poverty. Along with malnutrition came other diseases; tuberculosis, rickets, and scurvy. One elderly writer, Max Bern, withdrew his savings of 100,000 marks for a one-day subway ticket he used to ride around the city. After taking in the ruins of his city, he went home, locked himself in his room and committed suicide.
The French occupation of the Ruhr industrial area was intended to humiliate the Germans. This spawned an undeclared war between the French troops and German citizens. German men and women could not accept their role as subservient to the French and the result was inevitable. The French did not use arms to wield their authority. They used arrests, deportations, and economic blockade to fight the German’s opposing tactics - strikes, sabotage and dissent.
To compound the onslaught of humiliation, the French began using African colonial troops. Giving an African authority over the Germans created even more hostility. Over time, the need to survive forced some liaisons between these troops and local German women. The racially mixed children who came into the world as a result, were viewed as inferior ‘Rheinlandbastarde’. As such, these children were accepted by no one.
Matters worsened. The majority of Germans had German Jewish friends and even relatives. But like the diseases spreading in the side streets, anti-Semitism was growing more contagious by the day. Germans were struggling and looking for someone to blame. Street talk and propaganda pointed to the Jews. Were they not controlling most businesses and banks? The economic problems brought on by the war were now being placed on the Jews. A new resentment was building against a group of people who were a convenient scapegoat.
Anna and Erin were not completely oblivious to this, but they were young and naïve, going about the business of being good students and fashionable ladies. They worked hard during class, studied hard afterwards, and lived for their weekends with friends and boys and family. The Sabbath was always a time of contentment. They attended Synagogue and spent the afternoon with their parents. The University was rife with ideologues whose tendency was to extol their personal viewpoints. So the Rabbi’s commentary on the Torah was a welcome change. Anna and Erin were fluent in Hebrew, and their families stayed amused at their attempts to confound the Rabbi with questions that would even stump the great minds of Jewish history.
“Did the great flood in the time of Noah cover the entire earth?” “Was the Tower of Babel in Mesopotamia?” “Why did Joseph show compassion to the brothers who sold him into slavery?” The Rabbi was a humble man and was visibly grateful when Anna’s father Hanz suggested the girls give him time to consider their inquisition.
Sundays were the only days that afforded the girls the luxury of sleeping-in. This was often followed by an afternoon at the Tiergarten or a performance at the opera. It was late May, a time of beauty in Berlin. Even the frequent thunderstorms were fascinating. The girls often donned their rain coats and umbrellas and stood outside to watch the lightning zigzag across the darkened sky in bold spears that hit the horizon and threw the city into silhouette.
The first Sunday in June was warm and the walking trails in the Tiergarten were lined with pink and white dogwoods. Rows of red and yellow tulips peeked out, surrounded by white daffodils, a fresco of tranquil colors. Strolling along the trails, thousands of Berliners sought to blot out the reprehensible forces surrounding them, if even for an afternoon.
Anna and Erin had gotten lost in the crowds. Anna, wearing a bare-backed sundress, absorbed the warm rays of the sun and the glances of more than a few young men in the park. She was aware of the dissonance in her country. But young people tend to live in the moment. It is difficult, historically, for them to denounce their feelings of immortality and instead, adopt an outlook that proclaims a bleak or frightening future. Nature does not seem to intend them to believe in the worst. So when they see it, they believe it will go away. It isn’t denial in the truest sense. It is youth at its best.
On this sunny afternoon, time seemed suspended and Anna was in her own cloud of contentment. She had no interest in politics. University life kept her isolated from much of the chaos. While her homeland was being pulled into anarchy at a frenetic pace, Anna was lost in her books and the laboratory. When she did allow herself to dwell on the current situation, her deepest concern was that too many of her countrymen seemed to be going along willingly.
As evening approached, Anna and Erin walked past the Brandenburg Gate and down Unter den Linden. They turned north on Friedrichstrasse to the Weidendammer Bridge that spanned the Spree River. The street name changed at the bridge to Chausseestrasse. This was one of the centers of Berlin night life. University students often brought what little money they had to the bars and cafés, enjoying the freedom and entertainment, but mostly unaware that Berlin was being transformed into the ‘Babylon’ of the world. The collapse of the country’s currency was leading to bankrupt businesses, unemployment, food shortages, and loss of housing. Marriage by middle class girls was accomplished by the paying of a dowry by the girl’s family. Even maids saved and saved so they could get married. As the money became worthless, so began the decline of the cultural structure for marriage.
One of the many consequences of inflation was the discovery among young girls, that virginity was no longer valued. Berlin’s prostitutes wandered up and down Friedrichstrasse and across the bridge to Chausseestrasse. Some strutted flagrantly in miniskirts and black leather boots. Others flaunted the image of youth and schoolgirl innocence, with pigtails and tight, white shirts. On occasion, a young girl turned out to be a young guy. They, too, needed fast money. When their physiques would allow it, make-up and effeminate moves could seal the deal as easily as any woman. Dimly lit bars often set the stage for hungry, high school boys to connect with government officials, financiers or any man prone to the affections of other men.
As Anna and Erin walked past the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on their way to the Romanische Café, one young girl caught Erin’s eye. She was standing in a group of several other women. When her eyes met Anna’s, she quickly looked away. She was tall and blonde, dressed in a low-cut orange blouse tucked into a tight, black leather miniskirt. Her high heeled boots hugged her thighs tightly, intended to draw the eye further up along her legs to the hem of her skirt. She carried an umbrella and had a jacket slung over her shoulder. She took a confident drag from the cigarette held in her right hand. A well-dressed man approached her.
“Na? Spazierengehen?” she asked with a smile. Her inquiry about where he was going and if he would like to take a walk was rebuffed.
“Noch eine zeit,” he replied. Another time.
It seemed a harmless encounter. But Erin knew exactly what was going on. “Anna! That’s Naomi Wiesner!”
Anna stared at Erin then looked back at the leather-clad blonde. Naomi had been a high school classmate. She had also played with Erin in the school orchestra. Anna had worked with her in student government. Without another word they turned to approach their friend.
“Naomi,” said Anna. “Naomi.”
Their friend turned toward them with downcast eyes. Her smile was gone. She had already recognized them and had tried to turn away before they saw her. “Come with us,” urged Anna.
Reluctantly, Naomi left the group of women and began walking alongside Anna and Erin. They walked silently together and entered the Café where
they found seats at a table in the back, in a quieter section of the mammoth building.
“Talk to us,” urged Anna.
Tears welled up in Naomi’s eyes. “Please, it’s okay.”
Anna took Naomi’s hand and held it for a moment. Then Naomi took a deep breath and began her story. Her father had lost his job at the Deutsche Bank. He migrated to the coalmines of Ruhr, but there had been no word from him in three months. Her mother took a job as a maid in order to care for Naomi’s three younger brothers. Then they were given notice they would have to vacate their apartment.
“So I must do this,” she said. Her bottom lip quivered but her jaw was set. “Does your mother know?” asked Erin.
Naomi nodded. “It kills her,” she said, steadying her mouth with her fingers. Her nails were painted a dark burgundy and they ran across her lips in quivering movements. Erin focused on this. It was too hard to think of what was really happening to her friend.
“Don’t you worry about…?” Anna started to ask. Then she stopped herself. She was studying medicine. It was natural to think about things like pregnancy and venereal disease.
“And my choices are what, Anna?” Naomi asked defensively. “It may be killing my mother. But at least she and my brothers have a place to live.”
This was a moment of reality for Anna and Erin. Here was a friend, a bright and gifted young girl, who had been forced into a dangerous and seedy lifestyle – in order to survive. She seemed to have no other choices. This was the most difficult part of the story to comprehend. Anna had always believed that having a good heart and strong values would lead to good things and a lifestyle that perpetuated good values. It is what her parents had taught her and what the Rabbi taught. How could the world be otherwise? How could it extract so high a price from so sweet a young girl? Naomi was good. She was now doing something bad – for the good of others. It was all suddenly upside down.
Anna and Erin ordered food so Naomi would eat. As they left the restaurant, they gave Naomi all the money they had and encouraged her to go spend the evening with her family.
“I don’t want to let go of you,” Anna said as she embraced her friend outside the Café. She pulled away and took Naomi’s face in her hands. “Be strong,” she whispered fiercely.
Anna and Erin walked silently home together sharing a profound sense of loss. Each girl quietly said a prayer of thanksgiving. Such a tragedy had not befallen them. There were untold miseries in their country, but they had remained unscathed. They were safe. They were blessed. Two young women on the cusp of a promising future could not think otherwise.
* * *
Explanations as to the cause or causes of the inflation were complex. Some held a conspiracy theory that accused the German government of trying to perpetuate a gigantic fraud. This idea laid blame on a government that deliberately allowed the mark to fall to free the state of its reparations debt. German industry could decrease its indebtedness by refunding its obligations with worthless marks. This assumed that the average German did not understand complex economics. So when the idea hit the streets, most were outraged. One banker told one of his customers that in all of Germany there were only three men who correctly understood economics and two of them were out of the country. At least they were able to laugh about this tragic situation.
Karl Helfferich, the Imperial Treasury Minister proposed an idea for an economic solution. The plan, which eventually worked, was a National Mortgage Bank (Rentenbank). The bank began to issue ‘Rentenmarks’ backed by the nation’s gold reserves, which were backed by a ‘mortgage’ on all of Germany’s land assets. With these measures the German people accepted the value of the mark at pre-war levels - 4.2 marks to the dollar. This created an attractive situation for foreign investors. British and American loans were acquired to launch a new business boom. Within five years an American journalist observed, “businessmen were in business, generals were still generals, and the number of street prostitutes had dramatically dropped.”
From time to time after Synagogue on Sabbath, the week-ends would find the girls going back home. As professional musicians, Erin’s parents were usually performing on Saturday nights, opportunities that allowed Erin to go back stage at the symphony. Marlene Eichenwald especially looked forward to these week-ends. She did not work outside her home and was especially lonely because of Hanz’s frequent travel and lecture schedule. She was delighted to spend time with Anna. Marlene had always been protective of Anna and tried hard not to show it. After all, Anna was grown and in graduate school. But every time she looked at Anna’s sweet, innocent eyes, she could see nothing but a little girl.
On this particular week-end, Hanz was returning from a conference in Zurich. The train from Switzerland was arriving Sunday at 4:28 p.m. The previous day Marlene and Anna shared lunch after Synagogue in the Tiergarten. The garden paths pulled them away from the crowds to enjoy the flowers. Today, Marlene had a special surprise. In the midst of the inflation crisis, and to some degree because of it, foreign investment was pouring into the country. Many of the older department stores were being refurbished with lavish surroundings. One of the largest was Wertheim’s on the Leipzigerplatz. It was only a fifteen-minute walk from the Tiergarten.
“Anna, I have been saving for this for weeks. I have a surprise! We are going to Wertheim’s for a little shopping and then to the theater.”
“And how did this come about?” asked Anna. She’d been so involved with her medical studies she hadn’t taken much time for a social life much less shopping.
“It’s time you had some new clothes and a night out. Your father makes plenty of money and I don’t want him to be burdened with too much of it.” They both laughed. “And the night out?”
“Well, Anna, we are going to a musical. It’s called ‘It’s in the Air.’ The cast is mostly unknowns. But one of the girls is getting very good reviews.”
Marlene looked proud, as though she’d just received an award. “Sounds interesting,” Anna replied. “What’s her name?” “Marlene Dietrich!”
The following day, Marlene and Anna ate a late breakfast, then Anna tried on the new clothes. They laughed about times gone by, times that were less hectic, more tranquil. The train from Zurich was running two hours late, so Marlene dropped Anna at her flat so she could study. She waited at the bottom of the stairs until she saw Anna disappear safely behind her door. These were uncertain times. Though Marlene, careful as she was, had no real concept of the dangers from which her daughter would need protection.
Chapter 3
Einstein
Marlene returned to Central Station alone. The terminal was always busy but this evening seemed more crowded than usual. Eventually finding a seat, she tried to read for a few minutes to pass the time, but soon found herself mesmerized by the throng of travelers continually passing in front of her. She watched young mothers as they clutched their children’s hands, somber faced men stiffly making their way through the lines of waiting passengers, old couples inching their way toward the stairs. A young girl walked past and glanced absently at Marlene. She was chatting with a friend, her face alive with an excitement and innocence Marlene had seen on Anna’s face a hundred times. Her thoughts began drifting back to the days just before the war. Anna had been a gangly teenager and Hanz a promising young instructor in physics at the University. The world had seemed light.
The Eichenwalds had a Sunday tradition. They took the trolley from their home on Kaiser Wilhem Strasse to the Kranaler Café on Friedrichstrasse. Marlene remembered the last time they had made the outing. That morning had started out no different than any other.
Hanz and Marlene had stepped to the edge of the street, protectively cushioning Anna between them. This had been their habit for years. But Anna was now almost thirteen years old and making a graceful exit from childhood. She seemed to be skipping adolescence altogether, moving from little girl to young lady without warning.
She was already significantly taller than her mother, but that wasn’t the only thing people were beginning to notice. Anna’s dark hair caressed her face in waves, framing a porcelain complexion and striking, aquamarine eyes. Her smile seemed to be available for everyone. And there was no mistaking the new way in which she carried herself, the poise that had moved in overnight, replacing pre-teen awkwardness.
Anna Eichenwald was on the brink of womanhood. She was beginning to develop a sense of confidence in herself, studying the magazines for fashion photos and hairstyles, then mirroring them in her bedroom in the evenings. Occasionally she swept her long hair up on top of her head, securing it with combs that allowed a few dark tresses to escape. This gave her an older, almost glamorous image, and one that disturbed her father.
On this particular Sunday, Anna was thinking about the upcoming school year. Sporting a new outfit, a birthday gift from her parents, Anna moved easily, her long legs carrying her gracefully along the sidewalk. She seemed to float between parents, lost in her own magical world of clothes and boys and carefree dreams.
Hanz looked down at his daughter with pride, then flashed back to another Sunday, the one that brought Anna into his life. It had been raining when Marlene went into premature labor. Hans had rushed out of their home in Munich, heading first for the local mid-wife, then to retrieve the family doctor, who lived another three kilometers down the road. Dr. Baader had already expressed his concern about Marlene’s elevated blood pressure and the swelling in her legs. Too often, he had attended women with Marlene’s problem, and the outcome had been disastrous for both the mother and the child. Dr. Baader did not like to give false hope and had shared his concerns with Hanz. He explained the complications and also the fact that the successful delivery of a child was sometimes out of his control.
Hanz had listened to the prayers of the rabbi in his synagogue, but he was not a man prone to prayer. That changed when Marlene went into labor. He prayed as he worked his way to the doctor’s home, and he prayed as they took the harrowing buggy ride back to his house and charged through the front door. But they were too late. The mid-wife stood in the middle of the front room, sweat dripping from her forehead. She was holding a baby girl, a healthy baby girl.