Someday You Will Understand

by Nina Wolff Feld

  Omi’s last letter said they had gone to Highmount in the Catskills, where they may have spent Rosh Hashanah. He wondered how his family would fare during the first Yom Kippur after the war. Always one to mark holidays independently of their preordained place in the ritual calendar, he still felt the peculiarity of these High Holy Days. He never honored the fast, not then or at anytime after, but the unimaginable loss and the call to remember were palpable.

  On Yom Kippur, in a tremendous show of unity and strength, services were held in unexpected locations around the world, from the ruins of felled synagogues to makeshift shuls in DP camps in Austria and Germany, and even as far away as Okinawa, where services were held by the sea at the oldest church in Japan. Every voice was an instrument in an orchestra, every word breathed in the promise of a new year. Across cultures, people had gathered by the thousands to mourn personal and collective losses, to find hope and seek a blessing in their family’s absence. They gathered to pray with recovered and borrowed Torahs and prayer books sent from New York. Rabbis who had suffered devastating losses of their own led congregations of survivors and soldiers. Offering blessings of hope or just togetherness, they mourned and they renewed. The haunting melody of Kol Nidre was sung while unfulfilled promises made during the past year were forgiven.11

  It had been five years since his family had arrived in Brooklyn. Five years, and my father was right back where he started from, but under very different circumstances. This time he was the pursuer when the police gave chase. Utterly remarkable. He glanced over at the pile of magazines and newspapers on his nightstand and was aggravated with Omi all over again. While others took up the violin, she was fretting about epidemics in Vienna where he had yet to set foot.

  True, he was bored, but not bored enough to sit around all day and read or correspond with every branch of his family as his mother suggested. On the other hand, there were a couple of people to whom he felt sincerely obligated. His teacher, Monsieur Shoch from boarding school in St. Moritz, who was like a father to him when he was little, and Mr. Kresser. There was also his cousin Pierre. Pierre was different. In the last package that arrived from home, a letter from him fell from the pile. He was just bar mitzvah, and his father, Kurt, who was suffering from a heart condition, was due for an operation. My father made a mental note to send Pierre some coins and stamps for his collection as soon as he could. For now, though, he put his correspondence aside to meet his friend, who had just returned from a trip to Brussels. My father was anxious to hear about the condition of the city he had left behind.

  That evening, as they found their seats before the concert, his friend turned to him and whispered, “Wenn der Mann den Kasten durch gesagt hat, wir heim” (“When that guy has sawed his thoughts through that box [meaning the violin], we’ll go home”). My father was undone. The music was excellent, but every time he glanced at the lead violinist, who bore a look of extreme stupidity in the eyes of my father, he thought of what his friend said and had to do his utmost to muffle his laughter.

  He saw performances with incredible regularity while in Salzburg. The evening before the Bach concert, he went to the ballet. The night after, he saw a play at the newly reopened Landestheater. During the rise of National Socialist Republic, the famous gold and Rococo façade did not project the proper image, therefore the German Reich gave the theater a million marks for a renovation that transformed it into a showcase for Nazi culture. On August 7, 1939, Karl Bohm presided at the reopening, with Hitler in the audience as he conducted Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio. Mozart had been a court musician in Salzburg and his family prominent members of the community. In 1944, because the renovation reflected Nazi culture so perfectly, the theater was awarded an Allied bomb. It had only reopened just a few short weeks before the performance my father attended. Most in the audience were members of the Armed Forces, but a small percentage of tickets were distributed to Austrians.

  Later, at dinner after the concert, they sat for a long time conversing in French. My father was impressed by how well his friend spoke. He took mental notes of everything they discussed, so he could offer a report to his parents in his next letter.

  NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARTY [SWASTIKA IN EAGLE EMBLEM] GERMAN LABOR PARTY

  My Dears,

  . . . For the moment I don’t think [my group] will get a furlough because so many personnel are leaving for the US. Qui vivra verra. Today, I also received your letter (rather, the copy) for Credit Suisse. Thanks a lot. I’ll write them this evening, to inform them that I’m an American citizen and by virtue of this they can’t block my account. For the moment, I won’t be going to Switzerland, but still.

  Other items that may interest you: report on Brussels, Sept. ‘45. Source: a soldier who had just arrived from there. $1 = 44.2 BFr.

  Prices: higher than in peacetime but on their way down to an acceptable level. One can get EVERYTHING in restaurants. Price of a good meal, in a good restaurant: $1.65 +. Excellent meal, super special: $4–$5. The price of black market American cigarettes—which is a good indicator—only $.85, compared with the fantastic prices elsewhere. All consumer items are available in the stores and department stores as well as the restaurants. A lot of cars on the roads—large quantities of American-made ones, as usual. Even some from 1942 [the last year of production]. Luxury items are expensive. A portable typewriter costs in the $200 range. A fur coat, around $500 +.

  There is rationing, but it doesn’t seem to put anyone in any danger. The newspapers have 4–5–6 pages. Price 2 BFr. Auvers: the port is damaged, the city as well, otherwise essentially the same conditions. . . . The Belgians are very nice to the soldiers—that is not the case in France.

  People seem to have a lot of money—and are spending it. Inflation? Maybe, but I’ve been told prices are on the way down. It’s true that I didn’t see all this myself, but the guy that I “interviewed” gave me the information. . . . I would really like to go see for myself—and I’d like to see if our suitcases etc. . . . are still there.

  Well, I have other letters to write.

  Good night

  Madame, Mademoiselle, Monsieur.

  Kisses, your

  Walter

  After the concert he went back to his apartment, finished his letter, and enclosed a government check for $175 in a separate envelope for deposit into his personal account. His parents would receive the letter sometime during mid to late November, if it didn’t get lost in the army mail. Soldiers were allowed to send only their salary plus 10 percent back to the US each month and to return to the States with no more than $200. No matter how hard he tried, he could spend no more than ten to fifteen dollars a month. He watched as the rest of the money he’d accumulated lost its value. He then pledged to use his free time and resources to settle the family’s accounts and property and somewhat begrudgingly to check on the whereabouts and condition of his parents’ friends. It was against army policy for soldiers to communicate with civilian Germans, but he would try.

  Along with his application for Brussels, he put in a request for a furlough to Paris to settle some accounts there and then he would focus on their Swiss bank accounts in hopes of transferring monies to the United States a few months hence. His real goal was to return to Brussels, and if Switzerland proved impossible, he figured it wasn’t a bad idea to just leave the account open [so there would always be some money in Europe should the need arise]. Since he was returning to Linz on assignment after having been in Salzburg for two weeks, he used the rest of the evening to pack.

  The next morning, with a voluminous amount of baggage and Private Pflug to assist him, he set off for the train station. Pflug was a good guy but simple—all brawn and no brain and rather square-headed, with prominent, distinctly Germanic features. He was just what my father needed. The rain had finally stopped. My father pulled his lapel a little tighter in the fresh, crisp air. Everything looked different in the sun. As they made their way through Salzburg, he noticed the light of autumn accentuating shapes a
nd colors of buildings, highlighting this guilty city’s morphology. After almost three weeks of living on the gray scale, color in any hue was welcome.

  When they arrived at the Salzburg train station, Pflug unloaded the baggage while my father went to secure a reservation on the next train departing for Linz. He soon found that the special train he had hoped to take was no longer running.

  “Look, I have urgent phone orders from my HQ to get myself to Linz without delay. And by the way, I’m with G-2.” Verbal economy was my father’s specialty.

  “Lemme see what I can do, Sarge.” My father watched as the train sergeant wrote something into a log book. There seemed to be no problem at all.

  “Arright. The Mozart Express is leaving at 19:18 and will get you inta Linz at 21:30. It operates outta Vienna. When it pulls in, go right to 2nd class with your buddy and you’ll find your compartment. Here.” He handed him two tickets, and looked down as if to continue his previous task.

  Without missing a beat my father said, “Who’s conducting?”

  No answer.

  “Thank you ever so much for your kindness. Oh, and would it be too much trouble too use your phone?”

  “Sure, but don’t take too long.”

  He thanked the sergeant once again when he hung up, then walked off to find Pflug nearby, surrounded by the baggage. The private looked so empty-headed and dazed. They relocated to a café until it was time to board. As soon as the train was in motion, Pflug fell asleep with his head cradled in his jacket, buttressing the window. He looked like a child who had fallen asleep on a school bus, cheek stretched by the weight of his head and drooling slightly onto the fogging glass. With several hours to kill, my father wrote. He reached for his typewriter and opened the black box where it was stored. Leaning it against his lap, he reached for a piece of stationery from a file he always kept close, his fingers grazing the perfectly embossed Nazi state eagle in the upper left corner as he removed the sheet. He stamped “M/SGT Walter C. Wolff—Documents Center G-2 USFA” under the letterhead in black ink and began to write. The next time he looked up, the train was pulling into Linz. Pflug woke with a start as my father began to unload the baggage from the train to the waiting car.

  “How did you pull that off?” asked Pflug through a yawn.

  “It pays to phone ahead,” said my father. “Now give me a hand loading this stuff and let’s be on our way. We should have been here hours ago.”

  Once they were in the car, he turned to the driver and asked, “How are things here? Anything changed much in the past few weeks?”

  “We had really bad weather, lots of rain. Today’s really the first sunny one we had in weeks. Other than that, same ol’ same ol’. Well there’s the DPs. There’s some kinda demonstration goin’ on at one of their camps. They should be happy they’re free, never mind this uprising shit. We’ve been told to keep the journalists out.”

  My father asked, “And why is that? What if the press did get hold of it? So?”

  Keep the journalists out, indeed! He would see to it that Jewish agencies in New York would hear about the conditions these poor people had been forced to live under since liberation. He suppressed his anger. How, after all they’d been through, could anyone even fathom placing the Surviving Remnant, his coreligionists, with the very Nazis who had guarded them and murdered their families? As soon as he had a moment, he would write to Ellen. Demonstrating was a good sign: it meant that the Displaced Persons were gaining strength in body and spirit, breaking the silence they had been forced to keep for a dozen years. Contradiction was a death sentence under the Reich, and they were now, after all, in the First Amendment zone.

  “Why do you care, Sergeant? It’s just a small group of Jews demonstrating.”

  My father ignored the query. They were almost at the residence anyway, and he had little if any patience for some cretin who couldn’t put two and two together. Just Jews! He had heard of a man named Simon Wiesenthal who had approached the Americans almost immediately after his release from Mauthausen with a list of every war criminal with whom he had come into contact during his four and a half years shuttling between death and forced labor camps. He must have quite a list. He would make an appointment to see him this week. The war might be over, but anti-Semitism was as virulent and persistent as ever. In Austria, the civilians blamed the Jews for their own persecution. They believed that the Jews had brought the Holocaust on themselves, the Jews were solely responsible for their own demise, and it was because of the Jews and not the Germans that Austria was in ruin. My father steadfastly hated the Austrians more than the Germans, probably because he felt that the average Austrian civilian took no responsibility for his part in the Holocaust. He’d find that man.

  Meanwhile, his initiative to enlist help for the DPs, from his inner circle back in the States, was beginning to gather momentum. After Omi’s disapproving response to his letter informing Mrs. Roosevelt of the DPs’ plight in the American zone, my father had resent the letter to the one other person whom he was certain would take immediate action, Mrs. Lee Rosenthal, his best friend Monroe’s mother. He probably received her response when he returned to Linz:

  September 28,1945

  Dear Walter:

  Ellen has been very noble and is typing this letter for me because I have had some difficulty with my writing hand. I want to first apologize to you for not writing much sooner. Perhaps you will understand when I tell you that I have been terribly worried about that son of mine [my father’s best friend, Monroe] from whom I had not heard for nine weeks until yesterday. Monroe went through the whole Okinawa campaign and two days after the island was secured—he was hospitalized for combat fatigue and an acute stomach disorder. Apparently, he was seriously ill, because he remained in the hospital for over five weeks, after which he was sent to the Philippines, where he is now. His letter was in a cheerful tone and he seemed to have recovered completely. As for myself, I believe I finally achieve a figure as a result of this war and my son’s laziness.

  Now, about the letter concerning the DPs in Europe. I was very much disturbed by it and immediately had photostatic copies made of it, one of which I sent to the Joint Distribution Committee after deleting your name and the names of your friends. The J.D.C. has apparently been deluged with complaints from soldiers in Germany and apparently found it necessary to send out many copies of the enclosed circular letter to men and women who were writing to them in a critical vein, because their sons were writing from Germany to complain about the condition of the Jewish DPs. Their obvious question was: “Why are we giving so much money to the J.D.C. if nothing is being done?” I am sure you will be amused to know that it was your letter which drew a reply from them. As I said before, I am sending you a copy of it. Also, your letter appears in the Jewish Morning Journal with your name deleted. Ellen will send you a copy. I think we have aroused some feeling in the public.

  As for the practical end of all this, I have organized a group of women who will begin this week to send their first 500 packages and we hope to have at least 2,000 in the mails before October 15th. After that, of course, we will need requests from soldiers for packages. I don’t know how you can manage that, but if you can get enough requests, I promise you that I can get enough packages.

  Now, what worries me, Walter, is that we are perhaps helping a little bit in a small way the DPs in Linz. However, there are so many other camps which need to be serviced. I wonder whether we can get the chaplains and soldiers of those camps to organize, or do you think that, since General Eisenhower has appointed a man to advise him concerning Jewish affairs,12 that this whole condition will be taken care of. Let me know about this.

  I would appreciate it very much if your chaplain would drop a note to:

  Mrs. Philip Silverberg

  150 Mckenzie Street

  Manhattan Beach, N.Y.

  telling her how important these packages are and perhaps describe the gratitude of the DPs on receiving them. It will be very helpful, since
Mrs. Silverberg has aided me tremendously in this cause, and, what is more important, she seems to have many untapped resources for more money and more food.

  I think I have written enough now; Ellen will strike any minute, so I will close. I am delighted that you are having such a wonderful time at the expense of the US Government. Be a good boy.

  Cordially,

  Mrs. Lee Rosenthal

  P.S. You will be amused to know that I waved such a big stick at Mr. Sobel,* the head of the J.D.C., that he offered to send me to Europe, I think, perhaps to get rid of me. So, don’t be surprised if I call you sometime soon.

  Will you ask Cpl. David Aronson if he knows a Mr. Mankuite who is general manager of the Rokeach Factories? Mr. Mankuite insists that he know this man, that he loves him dearly and I don’t care whether it is the same David Aronson or another one. The name certainly produced a great many canned foods for us.

  As if he were running a postal relay race, after receiving the letter from Mrs. Rosenthal he wrote another one home to empower his sister to do more:

  HQ DOCUMENT CENTER, G-2, USFA

  APO 777, C/O PM, NEW YORK, N.Y.

  LINZ, AUSTRIA

  October 10, 1945

  My Dears,

  . . . I received a letter from Mrs. Rosenthal . . . to be expedited to Vienna. It will go by special courier, but I have no guarantee that it will be delivered to the proper hands. It will be expedited by civil courier in Vienna. I put Austrian stamps on it.

  Good work, Chère Ellen. Congratulations. Now, slowly but surely the US is moving. The propaganda effort must continue in favor of our “coreligionists.” I have just written to this Mrs. Silberman, whom Mrs. Rosenthal mentioned. I gave her the Gabriel Heatter13 treatment, very flattering. I don’t know the woman, but it is always effective. Here are some examples:

  “Our cause is important and very urgent! A severe winter is rapidly approaching, and our DPs are not adequately cared for. I don’t believe our conscience could ever rest if the women and children, and men who managed somehow to escape and survive the horrors of the Nazi extermination camps—would now perish, perish after we delivered them, after we had the chance, the privilege, the honor, and the responsibility to feed and clothe them.”