The Runaway Family

by Diney Costeloe

  “She was quite right,” wheezed Ruth, still winded from the kicks. “Worse if you’d come out.”

  This time Leah insisted on calling Dr Kohn. “We’ll pay him,” she said, guessing at Ruth’s dilemma. “You can pay us back in happier times.”

  Feeling so completely battered, Ruth could only accept their generosity. She hoped there was some money in the deed box.

  Dr Kohn came as dusk was falling, gratefully accepting the coffee Leah Meyer offered him. After examining Ruth, he said he thought that there was no permanent damage done, just very heavy bruising. He treated the bruises with ointment, gently rubbing it in while Ruth winced at every touch.

  “You were lucky,” he said. “They could have ruptured a kidney with kicks like that! Try and get some rest.” With a smile, he shook his head at the proffered money. “Not after last night,” he said.

  “What will you do, Ruth?” asked Leah, when only she, her husband and Ruth were left in the living room. “Where will you go?”

  “Of course you can stay here for as long as you want,” Leo had said, but Ruth had caught the glance that flashed between husband and wife and knew, though the offer had had to be made, it was not possible for her to accept. For one thing there was no room for them all. Already the Meyers had given up their bed, and she was propped up on the only other piece of furniture on which one might lie down.

  Ruth was pale with exhaustion and fear, her eyes huge and dark in her stark white face. Her ankle throbbed, she ached all over and her brain felt like cotton wool.

  What am I going to do, she thought wearily? We can’t stay here and we can’t go home… we’ve no home to go to.

  “It’s very kind of you both,” she said, “but I shall take the children to Kurt’s brother. I know he’ll take us in and… and,” her voice broke, “that’s where Kurt will come to find us.”

  “We’ll think about it in the morning,” Leah said kindly. “What you need now is a good night’s rest. I’ve got some aspirin. You take two of those and try and get some sleep.”

  Ruth took the proffered aspirin gratefully, but insisted on sleeping with the girls so that the Meyers could at least have the sofa to sleep on that night. “We can easily fit into that big bed,” she said, “and you need your sleep too.”

  When at last she was settled beside the girls, Ruth thought about the deed box she and Laura had rescued that afternoon. It was hidden under the bed, but she couldn’t examine its contents because the box was securely padlocked, and she had no key. Kurt had the key hidden somewhere, but that somewhere was in the ruins of the shop and Ruth had no idea where. It had never occurred to Kurt that he would not be there when the box was needed.

  There’s no alternative, Ruth decided. Tomorrow I’ll have to borrow some sort of tool from Leo and break the lock. Then we’ll go to Herbert.

  With the decision taken, Ruth tried to get some sleep, but her brain would not rest. Endlessly it re-played the riot, the storm troopers, the raid on the shop, the fire, and as a soundtrack to it all the baying of the mob, terrifying in its savagery, thundered in her head. Did that sound really only emanate from human throats? Her physical aches were as nothing compared with her mental torment. Her only concern was to keep her children safe, and with Kurt arrested, it was now up to her.

  Leo had reported back that the riots had been localised. “Just in our part of Kirnheim,” he’d said, “but they were carefully orchestrated… storm troopers whipping up the mob, encouraging the Hitler Youth to take part. Small riots, but breaking out everywhere!”

  “Didn’t seem like a small riot to me!” remarked his wife.

  It didn’t seem like a small riot to Ruth, either. It seemed to her that all Germany had gone mad; that persecution of Jews had become a national pastime. Going to Herbert seemed to be the only chance of safety. Herbert and Kurt were not close as brothers. Kurt had been happy to take over and run the family business, whereas Herbert had set out to better himself and worked as a clerk for a large legal practice in Munich. Ruth didn’t know him well, but surely Herbert would stand by his brother’s family in their time of need, it was just a question of getting to him.

  Eventually, lulled by the regular breathing of her daughters, Ruth dozed off and slept fitfully until the fingers of dawn pierced the curtains and woke her once again to the stark reality of what had happened to them all.

  2

  As Frau Meyer sat the children down for some breakfast, Ruth presented Leo with the box.

  “All our important papers are in here,” she told him. “Kurt has the key. Please can you break it open for me?”

  Leo inspected the padlock and then went to his toolbox and produced a chisel and a hammer.

  “I’ll have to break the hasp,” he said. “I’ve nothing strong enough to deal with the actual padlock. Hold the box steady.”

  With Ruth holding the box firmly in her hands, Leo placed the end of the chisel and levered it against the hasp. With a resounding snap the hasp broke away from the box, allowing the lid to come free.

  “There you are,” he said cheerfully, and turned away to replace the tools, leaving Ruth to open the box and inspect its contents unobserved.

  Settling the box on her knees, Ruth lifted the lid. Inside were several documents; the family’s birth certificates, her and Kurt’s marriage certificate, the deeds to the shop, which the family had owned for more than thirty years. There was Kurt’s passport and her own, which she had used when she had taken the girls to Vienna for her nephew Paul’s bar mitzvah, and a small bundle of money, held together with an elastic band. In a small box was a gold brooch, a present from her mother, and in another was a pair of pearl earrings that Kurt’s mother had given her on their wedding day. Ruth stared down, dry-eyed, at the contents of the box, all that was left of their family fortune. She didn’t weep, she was already beyond tears.

  “You’ve got to be strong,” she told herself, “so that we’re all safe when Kurt comes back.”

  Kurt not coming back could not be contemplated, and in the meantime there was Herbert.

  She told the Meyers of her decision as soon as the children had been fed.

  “You mustn’t feel you have to go,” Leo said. “What are neighbours for if not to help in time of trouble?”

  “You have helped, more than I could have dreamed of asking, but now it is time for us to move on,” replied Ruth. “I must take the children to their uncle. He will look after us until Kurt is released, and Kurt will know where to find us.”

  “Well, if you are quite sure…” In spite of herself, Leah could not hide the note of relief that crept into her voice. Taking in a woman and four children had stretched her home to breaking point, not to mention the danger to which it exposed her and Leo. The Nazis were out looking for Jews, and if you were a Jew it was best to keep your head down and pray that they passed by without noticing you. She knew it, her husband knew it and Ruth knew it.

  Ruth reached out and grasped her hands. “Quite sure,” she said, “we’ve burdened you enough.”

  “No burden,” smiled Leo, but Ruth could see the relief in his eyes as well, and knew that her decision was the right one.

  “How will you get there?” Leah, ever the practical one, asked.

  “We’ll take the train into the city and then the bus. It shouldn’t be difficult.”

  “Have you money?” asked Leah.

  Ruth had counted the notes in the elastic band, and had been relieved at how much Kurt had hidden. She smiled at her neighbour and said, “Yes, enough to get us there, anyway, and to pay back what I owe you, dear Leah.”

  The morning after the fire, Leah had looked at the children in their nightclothes and disappeared to the market. When she returned, each child had one set of clothes to wear, a pair of shoes and an extra set of underwear. Ruth had only the clothes she stood up in, but at least she had not been in bed when the riot started. The old lady had asked Ruth for nothing, but Ruth was relieved that she could now reimburse her for her outl
ay.

  “You’ve been so kind to us,” Ruth said, “but we can’t stay with you any longer.”

  “How will you contact your brother-in-law?” asked Leo.

  “I won’t,” Ruth replied. “He has a telephone of course, but I think it is better that we arrive at his house, unannounced. Then he must take us in, for Kurt’s sake.”

  “Do you think that he won’t?” asked Leah, surprised.

  “To be honest, Leah, I really don’t know. We were never close; perhaps if I telephoned he would think of some reason why we should not come, but,” she shrugged philosophically, “if we are all standing on his doorstep with nowhere else to go, I doubt if he would actually turn his brother’s family away.”

  “Surely that is not the only money you have?” asked Leo. “Did your husband not have a bank account?”

  “We did, but when things began to get difficult for us, he was afraid the bank might not pay us our money if we asked for it. He withdrew it all.”

  “And that’s what was in your strongbox?” Leo Meyer was incredulous.

  “Some of it,” admitted Ruth, not keen to let even the Meyers know just how much she had found in the box. “The rest he put in different places…” Her voice trailed away as she remembered the extra cash that had been hidden in the apartment and was now almost certainly ashes. She smiled bravely at her neighbour. “Please don’t worry, Leo,” she said. “You’ve both been kindness itself. I can manage on what I’ve got until I get to Herbert.”

  They insisted that she stay to rest her ankle and recover from her bruises for one more day, and Ruth allowed herself to be persuaded. She wasn’t looking forward to taking the four children into the city. As they left the following morning Ruth felt a rush of affection for the Meyers, and it was with tears in her eyes that she bid them goodbye.

  “There are some tins on the floor in the shop,” she said. “Please take them. I can’t carry them, they’re too heavy. I don’t know what’s in them, the labels have all burned off, but if they’re still all right, please have them. A sort of thank you… for everything.”

  The journey from Kirnheim wasn’t easy, but with Laura holding the hand of each twin and Inge clinging on to her mother, they took the train into Munich and then negotiated the two buses needed to reach Herbert’s suburb.

  “You must be very good on the train,” she warned the children. “We may have to sit in special seats. If anyone speaks to you, just smile, but don’t answer. Even if they are unkind,” she reiterated to the two girls, “don’t answer.”

  There had been some comments as they clambered aboard, but they were able to sit altogether in the corner of a carriage. The children, overawed by the strange journey, had behaved well, and the little family had been left alone. When they finally alighted in the district where Herbert lived, they were all tired. Laura carried Peter, Ruth carried Hans, and Inge walked between them, gripping her mother’s skirt firmly in her hand. Ten minutes later they were outside the building where Herbert had his apartment. Inside the porch, at the bottom of a stone staircase they were faced with a column of doorbells, each with a name beside it. Drawing a long breath, Ruth pressed the one marked Friedman. At first there was no response, then from above them a woman’s voice came echoing down the stairwell.

  “Yes, who is it?”

  Ruth looked up the stairs to see a face peering down at them. “It’s Ruth Friedman,” she called. “I’ve come to see Herr Herbert Friedman.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to see Herr Friedman,” replied Ruth, wondering who the woman was.

  “He isn’t here.” The face disappeared and Ruth heard a door close.

  Ruth rang the bell again, but there was no further response.

  “Come on,” she said to the waiting children. “We’ll go up.” Trailed by the children, she set off up the stone stairs, pausing at each landing to read the names beside the front doors. On the third of the four floors there were three apartments. Hartmann, Gruber and Friedman. She pressed the Friedman bell. Nothing happened. Inge began to pull urgently at her skirt.

  “I need the bathroom, Mutti,” she whispered.

  “Hold on, darling,” Ruth replied. “Won’t be long.” She placed her finger on the bell again and held it there. She could hear its insistent ring inside the apartment, but she did not remove her finger. Inge was dancing up and down beside her now, clutching at herself, and Ruth knew that the child wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. She put her mouth to the door and called, “If you don’t want a pool of urine on your doorstep, I suggest you open the door and let us in.” She continued her pressure on the bell, and at last the door opened a fraction and an elderly woman looked out at them, her face twisted with rage.

  “Go away!” she bellowed. “Herr Friedman isn’t here.”

  “Then we will wait until he is,” snapped Ruth. “In the meantime, my daughter needs the bathroom.”

  “You can’t come in.”

  Ruth was placatory. “Madam, I am Herr Friedman’s sister-in-law. These are his nephews and nieces. We have come with messages from his brother. Please let us in.”

  The woman looked at the little family standing on the landing, the mother leaning heavily on a stick, one of the children hopping up and down, clutching at her knickers, and with a sigh, she stood aside, saying as she did so, “First door on the left.”

  With a muttered thank-you, Ruth hurried Inge into the bathroom, leaving Laura to bring the twins inside. The woman closed the door behind them with a snap and then led the way down a short passage to the room at the end. Moments later Ruth joined them with a much-relieved Inge and returned to the bathroom with the twins.

  Laura looked round her as she waited for her turn. The room was not large, but comfortably furnished, with a wide window that looked out over the street to a public garden beyond.

  Uncle Herbert’s got a nice view, she thought, as she looked at the joyful colours of the late summer flowers in the garden below. Tall trees gave welcome shade to a corner where several nursemaids sat gossiping, their charges blissfully asleep in their perambulators, and older children played on the grass, their laughter drifting up to the open windows above.

  Laura watched them enviously. How long was it since she had been to the park to play with her school friends? School friends. She had few of those now. Since Herr Hitler had become Chancellor, everything had changed. Her friends, or those Laura had thought were her friends, were no longer allowed to play with her. At school she and the other Jewish children had been made to sit at the back of the classroom. It was as if they had become invisible. Their teacher Fräulein Lederman, whom Laura had loved, had left and been replaced by another, Fräulein Karhausen. Fräulein Karhausen ignored them, leaving them in the back row to learn what they could without any further explanations. They were no longer allowed to play with the other children in the yard in break times, they had to eat their lunch in the classroom, listening to their erstwhile playmates running and shouting in the fresh air outside. Gradually the other children had changed from being the friends she had known much of her life into unkind strangers, at first simply avoiding or ignoring her and then actively hostile, calling after her in the street, “Dirty Jew!” Even Wanda, who had been her best friend ever since they had started school together.

  Her mother had tried to explain that “things” had changed. Laws had changed. People were afraid to speak to Jews, afraid for their own families if they were seen to do so.

  “They must put their families first,” Ruth had said when she had found Laura in tears one afternoon. “Wanda’s parents are afraid that someone will report them to the authorities if they are seen to be friendly with us.”

  “But she didn’t have to shout ‘Dirty Jew’ at me,” cried Laura, and her mother could only agree.

  Now it was the summer holidays, and there was no school. Laura played with the other Jewish children, but she missed her other friends. Until “things” had changed Laura had been almost una
ware of her Jewishness. Her family went to synagogue on a Saturday morning. Wanda’s family went to church on a Sunday. It hadn’t mattered before. Laura watched the children playing in the gardens below and wondered if any of them were Jews.

  “I’m sorry to intrude on you like this,” she heard her mother say as she came back into the room, “but I do have to see Herr Friedman.”

  The old woman who had let them in was standing in the room as if to see that they didn’t steal anything.

  “I told you, he isn’t here,” she said flatly.

  “But he’ll be back,” Ruth said with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. “We’ll wait.” She looked across at the dour face of the older woman and said again, “I’m Ruth Friedman, Herr Friedman’s sister-in-law.” She held out a hand, but the woman ignored it, so she let it fall to her side and said, “And you are Frau—?”

  The question hung in the air before, at last, the woman replied. “I’m Frau Schultz… I’m Herr Friedman’s housekeeper.”

  “His housekeeper?” Ruth couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “We didn’t know… I mean… I see.”

  “I come in most days,” Frau Schultz said. “I’ll be going home when I’ve finished preparing his supper.” She moved to the door. “He won’t be home till this evening. You going to wait that long?”

  “Yes,” replied Ruth firmly, relieved that the woman was not a live-in servant. While the children had been using the bathroom, she had gained some idea of the size of the apartment, and although there were several doors opening off the main passage, it was a very small apartment to house an extra five people. “I’ve brought some food with me, I’ll prepare it for the children when you’ve finished in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t know as I can leave you in the place on your own,” Frau Schultz said sourly. “How do I know that you’re who you say you are?”

  Ruth had had enough of the woman’s obstruction. “You don’t,” she agreed crisply, “so perhaps you’d better stay until Herr Friedman comes home.” As she spoke she noticed the telephone standing on a small table in the passage. “You could always phone Herr Friedman at his office. Do you have the number? I’ll ring myself if you like.”