“And these horrid intruders, many of them conscripted to the army from local farms, were often faces familiar to us, as customers at our father’s store. Did this give them a heightened sensitivity toward our plight? No, this gave them an outlet to vent against perceived in justices. We were the scapegoats for all their ills. ‘Yes, this Jew overcharged me on my tools or this Jew put his finger on the scale when weighing my purchase,’ when the reality was the storekeeper…for sure I know my father did…often extended credit to these boys’ families or added candy here or there when a hungry child stood eyeing the counter.
“On each transport, the truck and then the train, my family remained huddled together, as did the others. As you can imagine, we were exposed to all the indignities of loss of privacy for our physical needs. We did have room to sit, unlike other packed cars where I know people could only stand.” And then, as if an aside, she looked up at Rachel, saying, “You must understand that much of what I tell you, I learned after the war.”
And then she looked once more into space. “We each found something to focus on to occupy our time. For me, it was my sketching. Papa would use the time to instruct young Jacob on history, mathematics, and astronomy, as if we were on a family vacation in the summer and he wanted him prepared for the new school term the next week. Many of the others listened intently to the words of my father, a truly self-taught man. But another father, a rabbi, berated my own—‘Only Torah—only Torah— do not waste energy with words of the secular world.’ We knew the answer that would be coming from Papa— ‘So, Rebbe—where is God now? Tell me—where is our God now?’ And the rebbe and his family circle turned their backs on us and shunned us. It was good for me because I could laugh to myself, ‘There goes my match.’
“But I ask God still—where was he when we emerged from our railway car at our final destination? A phrase greeted us on the gates, ‘Arbeit Macht Frei,’ ‘Work Will Set You Free.’ Yes, we had arrived at Auschwitz.”
The words slammed into Rachel like a brick. Spontaneously, she moved closer to Ida and gently rubbed her back.
“The men and women were separated immediately; somehow we knew that would happen. I had initially retained a certain strength of spirit knowing I would remain with my mother. I had been watching the selection process intently. First, they would look through the valises—remove a few items for the bins—and then throw them on a large wagon and point for the people to follow an established line delineated by gender.
“They smiled at my mother’s haul—a few modest pieces of gold jewelry—some in the town had none— some coins and paper money—good—then the photographs of life—that would be trash.
“And now my bag was opened to them. And you know what it was—paintings and sketches—so many that they knew immediately they were not purchased. As I began to say before, during the transport, everyone occupied their time differently—I drew more. Without even being aware of it, I had begun documenting the Holocaust.
“Roughly, they pulled me aside. I thought they would kill me immediately. I screamed—I did not want to be separated from my mother.” Again a long pause, “I never saw her again. I never saw any of my family again, unless you count the smoke of the furnaces.” By this time, Rachel had grasped Ida’s hands so that she could hold and comfort her. But Ida had no tears, as if all those emotions had been spent long before Rachel arrived in New York.
“Allow me to be brief here. I was taken to one of the officers of the camp who the guards knew would appreciate their singling out someone with my ability—they felt they would be rewarded for their find—and I believe they were. For my time in the camp, I would be drawing constantly. But they tore my pictures documenting the horror of the trains. They wanted sketches of the officers in their uniforms and then naked sketches of the women they were using as their whores. Innocent Jewish women, like me. On this, please, I can say no more.” And again there was an extended silence that Rachel did not breach.
“Just before the camp was liberated and there was a mad rush to escalate the extermination, my main officer fled, simply allowing me to hide, as if that act would make me thankful to him. So you see—my art—my talent—was a blessing and a curse. Yes, it allowed me to skirt death. But, you know, because now they are starting to write more about those times— it is called ‘survivor’s guilt.’
“If my talent had been the violin, I might have been one of the pretty girls in skirts playing tunes like ‘The Merry Widow’ as the prisoners followed the path to the ‘delousing area,’ which was really the gas chamber. That memory might have even been worse.”
And now Rachel was the one to stare blankly and search for her voice following the emotional narrative. “But, Aunt Ida, maybe you are looking at this wrong— punishing yourself for nurturing a talent—maybe the moral is that we all need a talent—something that will distinguish us and make us valued. Something that will save us…”
Ida would hear none of it—while Rachel thought only of the word “survivor,” she could focus only on the word “guilt.”
Rachel
Chicago, 1976
Only weeks before her wedding, Rachel was kissing her two men good-bye and was returning to a prestigious suburb near her Chicago hometown for her first permanent staff assignment at her new magazine. When she entered the home of Blaise McCormick, she was overwhelmed on two levels. First was that she should have the good fortune not only to tour such a fabulous property, but also to get paid for it. And second was that instead of pandering to the whims and wants of the Twiggy-thin models, she was being pandered to by residents, proud and humbled that Architecture Today had chosen their property. “Would you like some coffee or tea? Perhaps should I move this vase? What can I get for you, dear? Are your accommodations satisfactory or would you care to stay in one of the guest bedrooms?” Now this was a dream job. A few times at these beginning assignments on Chicago’s North Shore, she was baffled by an owner’s mention of their friends, the Woodmere family, as if Rachel should know them, but she smiled noncommittally and offered no reply.
On the grounds of the McCormick property, in the expanse of back lawn that bluffed gently to the magnificent Lake Michigan, were seven distinct planting areas, a private botanical garden. Had Mrs. McCormick herself not been an amateur horticulturist with a vast knowledge of her grounds, Rachel would have felt thoroughly ill equipped to conduct the interview. But Blaise McCormick offered a wealth of knowledge about each annual and perennial and the European gardens on which her designs were based.
Over the two days of her assignment, Rachel became increasingly enamored not only with the landscaping, but with the lyrical narration of the owner, with her captivating and eclectic dress style. And then a further idea came to Rachel. What if she convinced Architecture Today to expand to a new media and produce a television special on Great Homes and Great Owners. Ideas were developing in her mind that she would let remain at this point on the back burner. Who was she to pretend that she had enough experience in the field? How naïve she was to think that she didn’t need a great deal more tutelage in all related fields before she was qualified to even make the proposal.
It was her work personality, with its wizened nods and “of courses,” and “oh yes, I am familiar with that,” that helped her to bluff her way through this initial amazing assignment. And such a loquacious socialite as Blaise McCormick was most comfortable and would be most forthcoming when she had no competition for knowledge, just a responsive ear like Rachel’s. In the future, though, she would be better prepared, because she knew she should be more the one in control, knew the traps journalists fall into when they are in too much awe of their subjects.
And these were all things that Rachel would come to understand in her new field. The subject could be as much the homeowner as the home—each with a distinct personality, most often in a tandem mold. But most magazines missed the opportunity to feature this. The totally traditional mansion—with no painting dating past 1907, for instance, was most oft
en hosted by a soft-spoken, modestly dressed couple, who needed to be prodded with each description.
In the most contemporary homes—where horizontal lines, multi-levels of glass windows and leather furniture in black and white would present themselves, there would be similarly dressed owners in all-black or all-white linen fabrics, wrinkling at the photo shoots. Black-rimmed clear lenses and blacked-out sunglasses identified the interchangeable residents. Rachel didn’t seek out those assignments, though, for she found the homes so minimalist that she was often struck with “writer’s block.”
It was actually on her honeymoon at the Plaza Hotel that she expanded her professional vision. But first, on that sacred, romantic weekend, she fell even more in love with Richard than she could have believed. In the morning, emerging from the movie setting of the magnificent bed, she walked over and pushed the drapes aside to reveal the horse carriage lines fronting Central Park. Richard awoke almost simultaneously from her stirring and took his place behind her. He put his hand around her waist and once more began to lower the straps of her nightgown so he could gently caress her shoulder and kiss her neck.
“Good morning, Mrs. Stone,” he whispered in her ear, as he slightly nibbled it.
“Good morning, husband,” she returned. They had never been so truly alone, feeling the luxury of waking up together, knowing that no one was wanting them right now—that the only people needing them that morning were each other. And so with just the slyest of smiles, they returned to the bed and replayed the scenes from the night before.
But later, when Richard had left the room to grab a newspaper and wait for her at the restaurant for breakfast, after she had time to luxuriate in a morning bath in the opulent suite, she called her editor and said simply, “We’re doing hotels too.”
Her first such assignment was the Drake Hotel in Chicago, boasting the city’s premier location as gateway to the Magnificent Mile of Michigan Avenue. It was one more assignment that would prove a magnet to her, pulling her back to her hometown, to the comfort of her roots.
Rachel would introduce the property by pointing out important historical notes. “In the palatial Italian Renaissance style, the Drake was built in 1920 at a cost of $10,000,000. The vision of the flamboyant architect Ben Marshall, working for the Drake family of hoteliers—he not only designed the impressive exterior, but was extolled for his interior shopping arcade, destination restaurant, the Cape Cod Room, and magnificent ballroom, the Gold Coast Room. Over the years, the guest registry would include such notables as England’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip and Winston Churchill, U.S. presidents Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower, and even Walt Disney.”
The management treated Rachel royally, offering her a magnificent corner suite. Out one window and the shopping mecca of Michigan Avenue presented itself. Out another window, and you were overlooking Oak Street Beach on Lake Michigan, as the steady parade of cars on Lake Shore Drive swung into view. There was no conflict of interest in her accepting luxury accommodations like this, as it might have been had she been a journalist writing a review. When you do an assignment spread in a pictorial magazine, it is already assumed that a positive, even exuberant write-up will follow.
She was even allowed a discreet peek at the guest list of the Drake, which revealed, for that weekend alone, among the guests—one rock star with a six-room entourage of band members, stagehands, light and sound coordinators, managers, and possibly some female groupies. The hotel management intimated that a security deposit of several thousand dollars had been required, as past entertainers in that particular field had done everything from stealing towels and lamps to trashing rooms.
Elsewhere in the hotel, a senator from a neighboring state was enjoying the Chicago summer with his family, although rumors were floating that when they went off on their museum explorations, he went off to a room on a lower floor, also charged to his Capitol Hill account.
And seven members of a major national sports figure’s family, whose team was in the off-season, were seen frequenting the lobby and lounges of the hotel. The football player, his wife, parents, and children were actually mannerly and quiet people, but all of such an enormous stature that housekeeping had already been in their rooms with three times the normal complement of towels and it had been necessary to repair sagging bed frames and replace a broken toilet seat.
Sarah
The St. Louis, 1939
Finally, her third night on the ship, Sarah did not immediately cave into the physical and emotional exhaustion of the journey and fall quickly to sleep. Now she stayed awake in bed and welcomed the solitude of her own reflections. It had been almost six months since she had to end her communications with Taylor. Inga, in her obsessive desire to protect both her and her daughter, would not even allow trusted contacts to notify Taylor as to their whereabouts. By the time they arrived in Hamburg, it had been almost two years since she had been enveloped in his embrace.
But even now, among this multitude of passengers aboard the St. Louis, every masculine silhouette of his approximate height and exhibiting his same general posture and broad shoulders would remind her of Taylor. The simplest imitation of his hand gestures or the echo of his inclusive laugh or the hint of his freshly groomed scent would transport her back into a dream state. She would be with him in Paris or Berlin or Potsdam, holding his hand or wiping croissant crumbs from his lips. Sometimes she thought she heard, not just remembered, the way he spoke, how his American-accented attempts at French or German made her cover her face so that he would not see the pathetic look it reflected. “OK, I have no gift for languages—I don’t want to be too perfect,” he would shoot back at her in his defense.
What a cruel trick that life was playing on her now. Two years ago, she had been a contented, fairly self-absorbed adolescent, not yet truly aware of the passionate secrets the adult world would unveil to her, certainly not yet fully aware of her own sexuality. When young men had leered and whistled as she passed by, she had never taken it seriously, had accepted it as a tease, almost a joke, not understanding the physical power of her presence. And now how ironic—that one wonderful man had changed her small world’s perception of love at the same time that one evil man had heightened the larger world’s perception of hate. On so many counts her naiveté and innocence were visibly diminished, but her dreams had not yet vanished; her optimism was reduced, but not depleted.
Now understanding more about love and life, she tried to be strong, to buy into her mother’s philosophy that if they survived their ordeal then the future would work itself out. In fact, she was wondering if her unexpected relationship with Taylor had actually been part of some master plan, that all that writing to him had given her a certain proficiency in English that would serve her well now, as if it had been her preparation for her new role on the ship.
When her mother had first presented her as an English tutor for the young family, she wasn’t even confident that she had the necessary skills for keeping children’s attention. She had always prided herself on being very adult. At school, she made friends easily and tried never to act intellectually snobbish. But she would always much prefer lingering behind in the classroom with the teachers at the lunch hour, continuing the discussion of a book or challenging herself with one more math problem, instead of wasting time gossiping with her classmates or experimenting with makeup.
As an only child, Sarah had never been required to babysit, to even watch young children for five minutes while their mother or nanny was otherwise occupied. She was not in an extended family with younger cousins living nearby and her older cousins were not yet bringing around babies. She could recall now just one young neighbor, Gerta, who was often at her house, always wanting her attention. Sarah was remembering how Gerta immediately noticed the Lebasque painting when it replaced the old one in the foyer of her home.
“I like that painting and that little girl in it. I never liked those frowning people that used to be on your wall,” little Gerta had said. Of course
, Sarah never told Gerta how the painting had appeared there, and now she felt guilty knowing how she had always ignored her, thinking she was too babyish to comprehend affairs of the heart, and missing the opportunity to nurture the interest in art they both shared.
Before the latest edicts forbidding Jews to attend college and dismissing Jewish instructors, Sarah was contemplating a future teaching at a university, certainly not babysitting at a nursery school. So it was a surprise even to her that on this ship she slipped into this nanny-type role easily and felt comfortable and fulfilled immediately.
Sarah had become a type of Pied Piper for a large group of children on the St. Louis—ages about three through ten, who began by tagging along with her and the Blumberg family. She taught them all English with activities such as putting them in lines and counting off and telling ages. On the trip west toward Cuba, she found that she had no trouble keeping them occupied from her memory vault of games she was recalling from her youth. But she would always think of a twist to help transition the children to English—for instance, saying, “Ready or not, here I come,” in English now.
But this sailing to freedom aboard the St. Louis would not turn out as any of the passengers had envisioned. As the ship broke through the first strong Atlantic waves and the salt water mist sprayed the views of the lower portholes, the majority of travelers had been busy unpacking their suitcases and feeling their anxieties would find a short reprieve aboard the cruise. Captain Schroeder and many of those on an ad hoc passenger committee, however, had been aware almost as soon as the ship left Hamburg that trouble might be brewing for them at their destination. The Cuban authorities were not going to honor the immigration documents of all but a small group of the passengers. It would be a combination of circumstances, ranging from blatant anti-Semitism to a general hostile environment for immigrants, from corrupt Cuban officials peddling false papers and demanding bribes, to the miscalculations of representatives of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee that would keep the St. Louis from finding safe harbor once it finally arrived in Cuban waters.
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