I was seeking God, yearning for an answer to the questions I had asked Rabbi Schacter at Buchenwald: Where was God? How could He love me and let me go through such pain and loss?
Throughout my life I had heard that everything happens for a reason, that God’s ways were mysterious but purposeful. I believed that. But something I read decades after my showdown at the mayor of Weimar’s house proved to me that in the end, in this life or the one after, God ultimately achieves justice. A friend shared with me an article from a 1945 issue of Life magazine about Nazi suicides following the war. Here is a portion of what it said: “In the last days of the war the overwhelming realization of utter defeat was too much for many Germans. Stripped of the bayonets and bombast which had given them power, they could not face a reckoning with either their conquerors or their consciences. These found the quickest and surest escape in what Germans call Selbstmord, self-murder. . . . In Hitler’s Reich, Germans stopped killing others and began killing themselves. In Weimar the mayor and his wife, after seeing Buchenwald atrocities, slashed their wrists.”
That day at the mayor’s home, God pricked my conscience. In so doing He spared me the guilt and shame of killing the mayor of Weimar’s wife. I didn’t need to kill her. She did it for me.
CHAPTER SIX
COMING TO AMERICA
Envisioning a future was an indulgence I had not allowed myself since my family’s capture. Despite all odds, I had made friends and survived by running cigarettes. But the weight of my father’s death prompted me to take a break from traveling and trading. The Gabersee DP camp in Wasserburg, Germany, became my home for six months. We played cards and soccer, met girls, and spent time getting to know new camp visitors. There were no work requirements. If you wanted to work, you worked. If you wanted to do nothing, you did nothing. I liked to work. My modestly successful business and expanding wardrobe boosted my self-confidence. At Auschwitz and Buchenwald, I’d worked thirteen-hour days without pay in deplorable conditions, interrupted only by the occasional beating. Now I worked because I wanted to. Better still, the government did not confiscate my possessions and the fruits of my labors. Earning and keeping my own money empowered me to help myself and others.
During my time off from black-market trading, I worked as a mechanic with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) area team’s motor pool, maintaining engines and vehicles as needed. I always enjoyed the challenge of working with my hands and making things better than I found them.
Still, somewhere along the way I decided that military service to one’s country was the surest pathway to manhood. That belief intensified after I learned of my father’s murder. I wanted the discipline and camaraderie that came through service to something bigger than oneself. With my short run in the Czech army completed, I searched for another way to give back. Others had died on the battlefields and in the gas chambers. My conscience would not permit me to sit on the sidelines of history.
One day at Gabersee, an older Jewish man told me about the Aliyah Bet. The Hebrew word “Aliyah” means “immigration.” “Bet” is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The man explained to me that Jews were engaged in a covert “second immigration.” The British, who controlled Palestine, had allied themselves with the Arabs to stop Holocaust survivors from going to the Jewish homeland. He said Jewish volunteers had launched a secret mission to smuggle Jewish refugees and survivors into Palestine. An underground network called the Brihah (“flight” in Hebrew) helped move Jews from DP camps in Germany, Austria, Italy, and elsewhere to port cities in places like Italy, France, and Greece. There, the refugees boarded boats bound for the homeland.
The Americans supported the effort and devoted 10 ships manned with 250 American veterans who had volunteered to help transport Jewish Holocaust survivors from Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. Holocaust survivors attempting to enter Palestine and intercepted by the British went to internment camps.
That was all I needed to hear. “How can I help?” I asked. The man smiled.
“Well,” he said gently, “you’re probably a little too young to help with something like this.”
“I’m eighteen right now and will be nineteen in August. I served in the Czechoslovakian army. I survived the Nazis and the concentration camps. I can help,” I said.
“What skills do you have?” he asked, only slightly less skeptical.
“I am an auto mechanic for the UNRRA motor pool,” I said.
“Do you know how to drive?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ve driven all kinds of vehicles.”
“What about a large truck?”
“Well, I haven’t driven one of those yet,” I confessed. “But I’m sure I can figure it out. Let me try.”
He said an American Army officer who also spoke German was in charge of our area’s Aliyah effort and that he would introduce me to him since I spoke and could understand German. “You mean Officer Taub?” I said. “I already know him. I see him at the motor pool from time to time. I didn’t know he was involved in all this. I will talk to him.”
A few days later, Taub and I discussed how I could be of service. Taub said I could start by driving the ambulance at the motor pool to get the feel of a bulkier vehicle. A few practice runs and I had the hang of it. Later he moved me up to larger trucks. Taub said after dark I was to take one of the motor pool’s bigger vehicles. Then, between twenty and thirty men and women would pack themselves into the truck. I was to drive the transport toward Italy and drop the refugees off at predetermined locations.
“When you return,” explained Taub, “the Americans overseeing the motor pool will arrest you and put you in jail for taking the truck. But don’t worry. The next morning I will be there to get you out.”
I made about a half-dozen human deliveries. Twice I got caught and had to spend the night in jail, just as Taub had warned. I didn’t mind going to jail. A place to sleep hardly felt like punishment after a long night of driving. It was like a hotel—with bars. The following morning, Taub would swing by and spring me out of jail, just as he promised he would. Running Jews for the Aliyah Bet made me contemplate sneaking into Palestine myself. What do you have to lose? I thought. At the very least you may find distant relatives, connect with your Jewish roots?
As if in answer to the conversations I carried on in my head, a week or two later a man called Goldstein sent news of a letter from the United States waiting for me at my previous address. Despite my earlier unsavory dealings with the Russians, I returned to Teplice-Sanov and back without incident. The return address indicated the letter had been sent from a place in the United States I had never heard of before, “Baltimore, Maryland.” I opened the envelope, which contained a letter written in Yiddish and an American one-dollar bill. It was from someone named Irving Berger, who claimed to be my maternal uncle. While in the DP camps, I had never received mail from a family member. I eagerly read and reread the letter.
I wondered at first whether the mail carrier had me confused with another Maximilian Grünfeld. But the multiple references to names and events only a family member could know reassured me of the letter’s authenticity. Oddly, Uncle Irving stated that he had included ten dollars. His generosity, it seems, had fallen victim to pilfering in the Russian mail. But it was the information in the letter, not the missing money, that intrigued me. Uncle Irving said my mother had never met him, or any of her other siblings, because she had been born much later, after her three sisters and two brothers had moved away. He said my mother’s oldest sibling was a woman named Aunt Elka, who also lived in America, in a place called the Bronx of New York. Uncle Irving said I had another uncle, Antonio Berger, who lived in the neighboring country of Mexico. Each mention of a relative I never knew existed brought smiles and tears. It was miraculous that they had found me amid the chaos and carnage. They tried. They cared.
I was unforgotten.
Uncle Irving said I should come live in America. He said the family woul
d gladly send me a ticket for the voyage. Questions flooded my mind.
How did he find me?
Should I forgo my plans to emigrate to the Jewish homeland?
Why should I make the hard journey to Palestine in the hopes of finding a relative when I have family in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Bronx, New York, already?
I should learn more about America. Eisenhower and the Americans liberated us. It’s the least I can do.
Yes, I will read everything I can find. When I see “United States” written in the newspapers, I will read the article, even if I don’t understand.
Wait . . . Officer Taub! He’s a mentor to me. I will translate the letter for him tomorrow. He will teach me and tell me all about Baltimore, Maryland!
The next day, I accosted Taub at the motor pool. “Sir, I have several questions for you about America,” I said excitedly in German. “May we speak a moment?”
“Sure,” said Taub. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, you see, I got a letter. My first one ever from a family member in all my time in the camps. It says right here I have an Uncle Irving who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. What can you tell me about this place?”
“Great city,” said the officer. “It’s very close to many major places in America. It’s not too far from the nation’s capital, Washington, DC. It’s also near two other big cities, Philadelphia and New York City.”
“What are the people and government like there in those places? Communists? Nazis?”
The officer burst into laughter.
“No, no, no. None of that. It’s freedom. That’s America. It’s a democratic government. The people decide.”
“So, no concentration camps or anything like that?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Try getting someone from Philly or New York in a concentration camp,” he said with a smile. I nodded like I understood what he just said. “Where’s this letter from your uncle?” Taub asked.
“It’s right here,” I said, holding up the envelope. “But it’s written in Yiddish.”
He took the envelope and looked at the return address.
“Read it to me and translate it for me,” Taub said.
I read slowly to make sure I translated it as accurately as possible.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Should I go to America? Or should I take my chances with the Aliyah Bet and try to get to Palestine?”
“Don’t even think of it,” Taub said. “If your Uncle Irving sends you a ticket, go! You’ll be happy. Trust me. There’s no place like America.”
“Yes, but what about Palestine?” I asked.
“What about Palestine? You don’t even know if you have family there. According to what you just read from that letter, you have at least one aunt and one uncle in America, with another uncle just south of the border in Mexico. Why would you give up being with your family members when you might not even make it to Palestine?”
Taub confirmed what my heart already knew. I was grateful to have an older man I respected offer wisdom as I faced a life-altering decision. The fact he was an American clinched the decision.
“I can help you gather the necessary papers you would have to fill out to go to the U.S. as a refugee.”
“Sir, I cannot thank you enough. I will do anything I have to. I want to learn all about America. I’m so excited,” I said. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“Hold on now. You need to understand. It’s a very, very long and complex process. The U.S. government has to approve you. That will take time,” he said.
“I understand, I understand. I’m just so grateful that you would explain America to me. I just want a chance to be with my family,” I said.
Learning about America and the faraway magical lands of Baltimore, Maryland, and the Bronx of New York became my obsessions. I carried the letter everywhere I went. I sent a reply to Uncle Irving at the address he included and thanked him for finding me. I said I would very much like to come to America to be with my family. We then began months of correspondence, each missive bringing me closer to my journey to America.
A few days later, Taub brought the stack of papers I needed to fill out to make my American voyage. I knew a little of what to expect from a friend I met at Gabersee, Kalvin Mermelstein. He was one of ten children, and his family were very close to my father. Even though all of his family members had survived the Shoah, Kalvin said he wanted a fresh start in America. He too had relatives in the United States, but he found that the extensive application could take months to process. Still, I had no idea how many hoops I would have to jump through to be considered for entry into America. I had to see a doctor, receive a battery of disease screenings, submit immunization records, undergo a background check, and provide documentation that I had an American sponsor who would take responsibility for me. I was happy to comply with all these legitimate and reasonable precautionary measures. But the volume and complexity of the paperwork made me worry that I might not be accepted.
Then one day at Gabersee I received notice from the United States government that my paperwork had been approved. I immediately wrote to Uncle Irving with the incredible news. He replied that he would send me clothes to wear for the passage and that I should watch for a ticket.
My cousin Mark Fendrich, Aunt Elka’s son, purchased and mailed my ticket, which I received a few weeks later. The ticket made the possibility of a new life suddenly seem real. I would sail from Bremerhaven, Germany, aboard the SS Ernie Pyle on September 11, 1947. We would arrive seven days later in New York City. My ticket from Germany to America cost $142.
My days helping with the Aliyah Bet were over. America had accepted me. The family I desperately sought was an ocean away in the land of my liberators. The trip couldn’t come soon enough.
As it turned out, the Aliyah Bet’s days were nearing an end as well. In July, an Aliyah Bet ship called the Exodus 1947 left the French port of Sète carrying 4,515 Jewish men, women, and children. A week later, British troops boarded the ship—now just miles from Palestinian shores—sparking a deadly skirmish in which two passengers and a crewman were killed. The British shipped the passengers back to France, but the Jews refused to disembark. The French told the British they would not assist in forcibly removing them, so the British decided to send them back to Germany. The news that a ship full of Holocaust survivors was being sent back to the country that had tried to exterminate them provoked international condemnation. At the end of 1947, the United Nations voted to cut Palestine into two countries, one Jewish and the other Arab. On May 14, 1948, the modern state of Israel was born.
I arrived at Bremerhaven on the day of departure carrying a small bag that held all my possessions. Standing dockside I stared down the length of the 522-foot wall of riveted metal. I had never seen anything like it. The Ernie Pyle, named after the legendary American journalist, was a military cargo ship. At 14,600 tons, it was among the largest cargo ships in the United States Maritime Commission’s entire fleet. I was impressed and anxious.
I stepped onto the ship and scanned the numerous smiling American soldiers happy to be headed home. I couldn’t understand their words, but their friendly countenances put me at ease. We all lined up along the metal railings as the ship moved out of the harbor. People waved goodbye. I did not. Instead I stood with my arms resting on the metal rails and stared at Germany as we drifted away from it. Even after the others had waved their last goodbyes and blown their last kisses into the air, I stared. That German landmass, receding with each wave our ship sliced through, would forever be the keeper of my family’s blood and ashes. As I took one long final look at the fading shoreline, I recalled my father’s final words to me on our last night together in Auschwitz: “Honor us by living, by not feeling sorry for us. That is what you must do.”
I won’t let you down, Father, I promised him. I’m going to do as you wished. I’m going to live a hope-filled and hardworking life, a life with enough happiness to fill the years each one of you lost. You wat
ch, Father. I will do this. I will make you proud of me.
I pushed myself up off the metal rail and looked each way. The crowds had long since dispersed to their cabins. I turned and smiled on my way to room C-40.
In addition to all the American soldiers on the ship, clusters of Jewish and German passengers made the voyage. I decided to join a group of Jewish men in a game of poker. I had developed an unhealthy confidence in my card-playing skills during countless card games in the DP camps. After a few hands with these men, I went looking for the only two people I knew on the boat. I’d met one of them, Danny Freid, at Gabersee. The other, a girl named Sylvia, I had first met in Teplice-Sanov. She was a little younger than I and had dark brown hair and a sweet disposition. Our paths had crossed on several occasions, but we were never more than friends. I found Danny but did not see Sylvia during the entire boat ride to America.
The first night on the Ernie Pyle proved to be my only good night of rest on the week-long voyage. The next morning I was so seasick I could barely get out of bed. Worse, the ocean currents had grown dramatically rougher overnight. The farther we sailed, the worse it got.
On day three of the trip, I forced myself to stumble out of my room and up to one of the top decks to get some fresh air. I wore one of the suit jackets the tailor had made for me in Prague. I looked out over the whitecaps cresting across the chop. Geysers of sea spray misted my face as waves slammed starboard. The cool water and blasts of air helped clear my head. The wind blew my coat back like a cape. I crossed my arms and gripped the lapels to keep the coat from flapping in the wind. When my legs got wobbly, I slid down against the wall and sat. Less than an hour later, a German girl a little older than I wandered out onto the deck. She looked green too. “Seasick?” I asked in German.
“Yes. I feel awful!” she said.
“Me too. The fresh air and being able to see the ocean is helping, though. Come join me,” I said patting the space beside me. She slumped down on the deck. We sat in a comfortable silence for several minutes before the ship got hammered by deep and rolling waves that sent us sliding on the water-slick deck.
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