The Runaway Family

by Diney Costeloe

  As November came and went, they faced another, potentially more difficult, problem. There was almost no wood left for the stove, their only source of heat. Helga tried to buy logs from the woodcutter, Franz Beider, whom she met in the market square. He had always supplied her with logs at her old house, but now he refused to sell her any.

  “I haven’t enough to be wasting them on Jews,” he snapped, when she asked. “Need them for the rest of the village.”

  “It’s not for myself, Herr Beider, as much as for my grandchildren,” she explained. “We’ve no wood for the stove. It’s very cold this winter, we shall freeze.” But Franz Beider simply walked away, saying loudly to Frau Wessel from the grocery store, “She’s got a nerve!”

  That night, however, there was a tap on the door, and when Ruth opened it a crack, Franz Beider stood outside. He pushed at the door, and she was so surprised that she allowed him to step past her and come into the house. He walked into the tiny kitchen, where the whole family was huddled round the stove.

  “Got some logs for you outside,” he said in a half-whisper, as if he could be overheard. “Get ’em indoors quick, before someone sees.”

  They put the light out before they opened the door again, and he hastily manoeuvred a wheelbarrow into the room. Tipping it up, the logs cascaded onto the floor.

  “We ain’t all Nazis,” he said to Helga. “You was good to me in the old days. I’ll try and bring you a barrowful now and then. Can’t promise… if someone informed…” He nodded to Ruth, whom he had known as a child, “I’ll do me best.”

  “How much?” began Ruth, but the man shook his head.

  “Better days will come,” he said. “You can pay me then. In the meantime, keep the little uns indoors, eh?” Then he opened the door once more and slipped out into the night.

  Ruth and Helga stared at each other. They both found they had tears in their eyes, it had been so long since one of their neighbours had treated them with anything but abuse, let alone generosity. They stacked the logs neatly beside the stove; if they were careful, thanks to Franz Beider, there was another week’s warmth there.

  “Only potatoes and cabbage,” Helga said, one afternoon a week later as she put the shopping basket on the table. “And it’s definitely round the village that you’re here.”

  “Mother! You’re bleeding.” Ruth rushed over to Helga and, pulling the hair away from her forehead, inspected the cut above her eyebrow that was oozing blood. “What happened?”

  “Hitler Youth,” replied her mother, allowing Ruth to dab at the cut with cold water. “Hitler Youth in the square. They saw me coming out of the shop and began their usual chanting, then one of them marched over to me and said, ‘There’s Jewish spawn in your house. All you dirty Jews crammed in together. We don’t want any more Jews here. Get rid of them!’ Then another joined in. ‘Yeah,’ he said ‘Get rid of them… or we will!’”

  Ruth stared at her mother in horror. “What did you say?” she whispered.

  “Say? I didn’t say anything. You don’t answer those boys back, Ruth. You know that. No, I just turned away, and that’s when they started throwing stones. One hit me on my head.”

  “And anywhere else? Did they hit you anywhere else?” asked Ruth anxiously.

  “Only bruises… no more blood.”

  That night, as they finished the vegetable broth that had been their supper, there was a loud crash against the front door. Memory of the Gestapo raid on Herbert’s flat sent Inge off into hysterical screams. The twins began to whimper and Laura stared white-faced at her mother and grandmother. There was another bang on the door, as if someone had hit it with a hammer, and then the chanting began. “Jews out! Jews out! Jews out!” followed by shouts of laughter and a brick that smashed the kitchen window, showering the floor with glass. The children huddled together, all of them crying now.

  “Let’s move the children upstairs,” Helga hissed, as she cradled against her.

  Ruth shook her head. “No,” she said vehemently. “Never upstairs again.” However, she went upstairs herself and peered down into the alley. There was a small group of boys outside, happily chanting and firing stones and bricks at the house, but none of them seemed to come nearer than the lane, and after a while they gave one final shout and raced off, back towards the square.

  “I don’t think we can stay here,” Helga said to Ruth when they had finally settled the frightened children. “The children aren’t safe here.”

  “They aren’t safe anywhere,” pointed out Ruth. “And anyway, where else can we go? It’s the same everywhere. At least here we know the people. They may taunt and torment us, but surely they wouldn’t do us any physical harm.”

  “It isn’t just people from the village, though, is it?” replied Helga. “New people have moved in, people who only know us as the Jews that are left. They’d like to get rid of us.”

  “No one would want to live in this house,” said Ruth bitterly.

  “Probably not,” Helga agreed, “but they don’t want us to live in it either. No, I seriously think we should consider moving away.”

  “But where?” Ruth tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. It was all very well for Mother to say they should move on, but they had very little money and no obvious place to go. At least here they still had a roof over their heads. “Where do you suggest we go, Mother?”

  “To Edith, of course.”

  “But Edith’s in Vienna.”

  Helga shrugged. “So, we go to Vienna.”

  “Mother, I don’t think we can. They may not let us out of Germany. They caught Herbert trying to leave.”

  “He was trying to take money with him,” said Helga. “Didn’t you say he hid diamonds in his shoes?”

  “And the twins aren’t on my passport.”

  “So, we’ll get them put on.” Helga was not to be deterred. “They want us to leave, Ruth. So, we’ll leave. We may end up with just the clothes we stand up in, but we shall be out of Germany and safe. When we get to Vienna, Edith will take us in, just until we find somewhere. Things are different in Austria. We’ll find somewhere to live, you can get a job of some sort, the girls can go back to school and I’ll look after the twins and keep house.”

  “That all sounds very fine, Mother,” said Ruth, “but it’s not going to be easy. I’m sure we’ll have to get permits to leave.”

  “Then we’ll get them,” snapped her mother. “Come on, Ruth! This isn’t like you. We can’t stay here waiting for someone to give us up to the Gestapo. Do you want the children to be put into an orphanage?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “Well, that will happen if we stay here. I thought we might be allowed just to live here quietly, but now the Youth have found us it won’t be long before the Gestapo do. Better to move away, and keep moving.”

  “And what do you suggest we live on?” demanded Ruth. “I have very little of Herbert’s money left. We can’t live on fresh air, you know!”

  “I know,” answered her mother soothingly. “But I still have some money, remember, from my house. Enough to get us to Vienna.”

  Ruth sank her head into her hands. “Oh Mother, I don’t know what to do!”

  “Tomorrow you go into Stuttgart and you go to the government offices and find out what permits you need. You have your passport, with the girls already on it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you take that and get the boys put on as well. Take mine too. We’ll all need permits if they are going to let us go… and if they aren’t…”

  “Suppose they seize the passports?”

  “That’s a risk we have to take, Ruth. Otherwise we sit here and wait for the Gestapo to come and find us.”

  Ruth looked across at her mother, so small and upright. “You’re very strong, Mother,” she said.

  “So are you, darling,” replied Helga. “Look how far you’ve already brought the children on your own! Now we have each other, and so we’re doubly strong.”

 
They agreed that Ruth should take with her all the documents in the deed box.

  “You don’t know what information and proof of identity they’re going to ask for,” Helga said when Ruth wondered if it was wise to have everything with her. “If you have your birth and marriage certificates, they can register the numbers if they need to. Let’s face it, you don’t want to be sent home for more documentation, do you? We need to get all this organised as soon as possible.”

  “Oh God, I hope we’ve made the right decision,” murmured Ruth.

  “It’s the only decision,” replied her mother firmly. “Apart from everything else, if Franz doesn’t manage to bring us some more fuel, we’re going to freeze to death in this house!”

  7

  Next morning Ruth left the children with Helga and set out to catch the morning bus to Stuttgart. When it pulled up in the market square, she took her place at the back of the group waiting to board. She stepped up inside and paused to pay the driver.

  “You! Jew! Out!” shouted a voice from inside the bus.

  She ignored the shout and handed the driver her cash, who took it from her, putting it into the money satchel beside him, but instead of handing her a ticket, said, “No Jews on this bus!”

  “But I’ve just bought a ticket,” cried Ruth in dismay.

  “No you haven’t,” grinned the driver. “If you’d just bought a ticket, you would have it in your hand, wouldn’t you? Now get off! You’re holding up my bus.” He gave her a shove and she almost fell back out of the door. There was a cheer from inside, and then the driver revved the engine and pulled away, leaving Ruth standing, in a cloud of exhaust, at the side of the road.

  She stared after it, and then gritting her teeth set off along the road towards Stuttgart. It was fifteen kilometres to the edge of the city, but Ruth hoped that she wouldn’t have to walk the whole way. There were other villages along the way where she was not known, and she hoped to be able to get on a bus in one of these. With her shopping basket, in which she had the deed box, covered with a cloth, she looked like any countrywoman on her way into the city.

  It took her four hours, two buses and a five-kilometre walk to reach the city, and when she did she was exhausted. Her clothes were dusty from the road, and her arm ached from the weight of the shopping basket, but she had made it. Now she had to discover how she could get the boys put on her passport so they could all leave for Vienna.

  She went first to the city hall where she made enquiries about the twins. She was sent to one office after another, and each place she had to wait until there was someone to deal with her enquiry.

  “Can you prove these children are yours?”

  Ruth produced their birth certificates.

  “Are you married to the father?”

  Ruth produced her marriage certificate.

  “Where is their father? They should be registered on his passport, not yours.”

  Ruth explained that she didn’t know where Kurt was, finally admitting that he had been arrested.

  “You are Jews. Your husband is a Jewish agitator.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “No. I mean yes, we are Jews, but my husband isn’t an agitator.”

  Wrong answer. “If he wasn’t an agitator, he wouldn’t have been arrested! Wait over there.”

  She waited and was sent to another office.

  “Why do you wish to leave Germany?”

  “We want to visit my sister who lives in Vienna.”

  “You have no passports for your sons.”

  “That is why I have come. To ask you to register my sons on my passport.”

  “Are they legitimate?”

  “Of course they are.”

  “Let me see your marriage certificate.”

  Ruth produced her marriage certificate.

  “Let me see their birth certificates.”

  Ruth produced their birth certificates.

  “We cannot deal with this! You are Jews. You must go to the Office of Jewish Affairs.”

  Another office building, another wait in another draughty corridor, but eventually Ruth was sent into a small office where an elderly man with grey hair and steel-rimmed glasses sat behind a desk. He wore civilian clothes, though there was a silver swastika pinned to his lapel, but he had the upright bearing of a military man.

  “What can I do for you, Gnädige Frau?” he asked with a smile.

  Ruth was so surprised at the politeness of his tone that she didn’t reply at once. The man waved her to a chair in front of his desk.

  “Please sit down.”

  Still more astonished, Ruth sat. At all the interviews so far she had been left standing while the official remained seated.

  “I need…” she began and then hesitated.

  “Yes?” The man was encouraging.

  “I need to have my sons’ names added to my passport,” she said, the words all coming out in a rush. “We are hoping to visit my sister in Vienna and…”

  “You have the passport there?”

  Ruth opened the deed box, and withdrawing her passport put it into the man’s outstretched hand. He opened it, glancing at the photograph, and then looked across at her. “I’m sure I can arrange this for you, Frau Friedman,” he said smoothly, “for a consideration.”

  “A consideration?” Ruth was uncertain. Was he asking for money? Presumably he was, but how much? Had she got enough? The questions flew through her mind before he replied, “These things normally take a great deal of time.” He looked at her slyly and added, “And I don’t think you have much of that particular commodity… do you?” His smile, which had appeared friendly at the outset, now took on a sinister quality, and Ruth dropped her eyes. “No,” he went on, “I don’t think so. But I can speed the process up… if we can come to some agreement.”

  “What sort of agreement?” whispered Ruth. “How much do you want?”

  “How much have you got?” The eyes glittered behind the glasses.

  “Not much,” Ruth said. “Almost nothing.”

  “What else is hidden in that deed box, I wonder?” He raised an interrogatory eyebrow. “What other treasures do you have tucked away in there?” He placed the passport on the desk and held out his hand.

  Ruth’s grip tightened on the precious box. “Our birth and marriage certificates,” she said.

  His hand was still extended. “And?”

  “Some earrings my mother-in-law gave me as a wedding present.”

  “I’d like to see those,” he remarked conversationally, as if she had wanted to show her present off.

  Ruth opened the deed box, and taking the earrings out reached over and dropped them into his hand.

  The man looked at them consideringly, holding them up to the light to view them better.

  “Pretty baubles,” he said, “but not worth much. What else?”

  “Just a brooch of my mother’s.” Ruth knew that there would be nothing she could do if this man, at first more sympathetic than any she had seen, and now so greedy, decided to take any of her jewellery. Again he held out his hand, and she passed the brooch over. He looked at it for a moment and then turned his attention back to Ruth.

  “This is like drawing teeth,” he said. “I think the best thing you can do is to hand the box over to me and I’ll have a look myself.” He got to his feet, and walking round the desk towered over her. Without another word he simply reached down, and scooping the box from her hands tipped its contents out onto the desk.

  “This looks more like it,” he said, and picked up the title deed to the Friedmans’ shop. “I think this would work.” He studied the document for several minutes before glancing back at Ruth, who sat white-faced on the chair.

  “Now,” he said, “here’s the deal. I add your sons’ names to your passport. For that you pay me one pair of pearl earrings and one gold brooch. I also get you five exit permits, which allow you and your family to travel to Vienna. For that you pay me one set of title deeds.” He smiled broadly. “Sounds fair
to me.”

  It’s robbery! Ruth wanted to shriek. Bare-faced robbery! She bit the words back, almost gulping them down into her throat before she said, “The title deeds aren’t mine to give. They belong to my husband.”

  “Indeed they do,” agreed the man affably. “But he’s not here, is he? You have the deeds, and it is you who are asking me for a favour.” His voice took on an edge of steel. “Don’t you think he would want you to use them to save your children? Or don’t dirty Jews feel the same way about their children as normal human beings do?”

  Of course we do, Ruth wanted to scream at him, that’s why scum like you can use them as a lever to get what you want. It’s because we love our children so much that we do anything, anything we can to protect them from monsters like you.

  But of course she said none of this. She just sat shaking on the chair in front of him.

  “Well?” he snapped. “I’m losing patience with you, Gnädige Frau.” This time the salutation was imbued with vitriol. “You have this one chance.” He picked up the passport and the jewellery and slipped them into a drawer of his desk, then he folded the title deeds. “What is it to be?”

  Ruth raised her head with as much dignity as she could muster and said, “It’s a deal.”

  “Good.” The man tucked the folded deeds into an inside pocket and stood up. “Back here, eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.”

  Ruth stood as well. “Will you give me the permits then, sir?”

  The man beamed at her. “You’ll find out tomorrow at eight, won’t you?” He rang a bell on his desk and a young SS man came in.

  “This woman is leaving, Schwarz,” he said. “Make sure she does.”