There was one notable exception to this rule, however. For some years he and his wife had been trying without success for a child. In fact Edward Mann was so frustrated by his lack of paternity that it came to haunt him daily throughout his life. Indeed, in time he would find himself virtually incapable of conducting a service of dedication to bless a newborn baby. Obsessed by their childlessness, he often came close to shaking his fist at God. Therefore it is not surprising that, although there was often warmth and laughter in the home, there was a permanent undercurrent of friction within the marriage. The gifted Bible teacher was angry. In his view his wife ought to have borne him a son. Had she not therefore singularly failed in her duty to him?
This was the home in which the Bechhöfer girls were to spend their formative years. The plan conceived by Alice Bendix for them to settle in California had fallen through at the last minute. Even so, the twins could count themselves among the lucky ones, for two places had been found for them on a Kindertransport to London instead. The same could not be said for the twenty or so other children from the Antonienheim, who never succeeded in crossing the German border. The bold slogan of the hour had been 'Save the Children'. The charity bearing that name was involved in what had become a desperate, last-ditch relief operation. Despite all the good work, not all the children were to be saved.
On 18 May 1939 the train carrying Susi and Lotte Bechhofer pulled into London's Liverpool Street station. It had been a 36-hour journey for the twins, who, the previous day, had spent their third birthday on a Kindertransport. Wearing identity labels around their necks and each clutching a small suitcase in one hand and a cuddly toy in the other, the bewildered little girls emerged onto the platform of the huge rail terminus. A voluntary worker in Munich had gone to some trouble to explain to them that they were leaving the orphanage to go on a long and very special journey -something that neither of them had ever done before. If this was meant to furnish a full explanation of why they were now in a strange place where everyone spoke a strange language, it had evidently not done the trick.
Within minutes of leaving the train, Susi and Lotte were to be seen walking off in obvious distress, a pitiful sight as they struggled with their luggage, determined to hang on to each other's hands as they did so. Ushered along by the good women of the children's refugee committee, they were in tears as they slowly made their way to a large, dimly lit room. There, women clutching clipboards and calling out surnames which sometimes they struggled to pronounce, were busy processing the 160 new arrivals.
The refugee committee had set up shop in an enclosed space by a taxi ramp at one end of the station. On one side were seats and benches for those children destined for hostels and camps. The other side had been designated for children already allocated foster parents, and it was here that Susi and Lotte were told to sit, although they did not know why.
'There I found these two children, little tots, having been lifted up onto the seat, with their legs dangling,' recalls Irene Mann, who had travelled up from Cardiff to meet the twins from the train. The Reverend Mann had been unable to accompany her because he was conducting an important funeral that day.
They looked very dazed and very bemused, wondering where they were. They were not dressed alike. They weren't looking as if they were identical twins. It must have all been very strange for them, wondering what had happened to them. So I held out my hands to them and I said: 'Come.' 'Nein,' they said, and shook their heads. So, I thought, that's a fine start. So I went back to the lady in charge and I said: 'Would you come with me and speak to them? Put them at ease. Tell them what I'm about to do.' And Lotte said to her: 'Are we going home?' To which the lady replied: 'If you take the hand of this lady here, she is going to take you home.' With that they jumped off the seat, held out their hands -I can see them now and came with me without further ado. I felt very emotional about it all. I just wanted to pick them up and run away with them.
But Irene did not give in to her impulse. When everything was in order she and the girls crossed London and boarded a train for Wales. Although poorly dressed, the twins has arrived in London spotlessly clean, and what was more Irene understood that they had behaved themselves impeccably on the long journey. Unable to speak to her foster children, she consoled herself with the fact that she could at least offer them the refreshments she had prepared beforehand. A few hours later they were in Cardiff, the girls having spent much of the time gazing out at the lush green countryside.
'When they arrived at our home,' the Reverend Mann would later say, 'I was of course there to meet them. I fell very much in love with them right away -for they were dear children indeed.'
As Susi and Lotte were being prepared for bed that first evening of their new life, it was quite obvious that they were very weak, especially Susi. She had become so thin that the Manns could count her ribs with ease. Lotte, who seemed somewhat hardier, had rather more body fat and was one-and-a-half inches taller. The Manns summoned their doctor, who immediately explained that, as a result of malnutrition, Susi and Lotte were in great danger of developing rickets. He added that because both girls were deficient in calcium, the bones in their legs were nowhere near as strong as they should have been.
Before the twins' arrival the Manns had befriended a Jewish couple, the Vellishes, themselves refugees from Vienna. It was a relationship which was to prove invaluable, because for the following three months Mrs Vellish would turn up every single morning to speak in German with the girls, outlining to them what Irene had planned for them that day, as well as teaching them their first words of English. The twins soon became very fond of her and, increasingly, of their foster parents too.
That first summer Irene threw herself with great enthusiasm and energy into her new role as a mother.
In the afternoons I would take them out. I was obliged to get a double pram, though, because it was just impossible to take them for a normal walk -they simply didn't have the strength in their legs. I put them side by side and said to myself: 'Right, I don't care what other people think -at least like this they'll get some fresh air.' One and a half miles away we had a park, where we would go and feed the ducks, and I would point out the flowers and talk in English to them. It took me no time at all to love the children. But I felt that the important thing was not to force ourselves on them, but to win them over gradually. It all seemed to go well, for they were as happy as the day was long.
The new foster parents soon detected in the girls the same character traits that had been so evident at the Antonien-heim. Whereas Lotte was warm and outgoing, Susi was clearly more timid and withdrawn. 'The twins were so opposite,' Irene recalls. 'Nor were they really close. Once I could see in the garden that Lotte had her two arms around Susi. She was rocking her and, half in English, half in German, she was saying: "Susi, my Susi, meine Schwester, mein lovely sister..." and Susi was sitting there like a little statue, just enduring it, and clearly waiting for the ordeal to come to an end.'
During the twins' first autumn in Wales, war had been declared. All the while their English was improving, but the same could not be said of their health. Over the following months they both succumbed on four occasions to bronchitis, a weakness which the family's GP was quick to attribute to the change in climate between Munich and the Welsh capital.
'My wife made every provision for their health and strengthening, and I did my part too,' the Reverend Mann recalls. 'For one whole year, if not more, at 5.30 in the morning my wife rose and pressed out an orange, and took the juice into the children's bedroom, where they drank it readily and happily. This seemed to help quite considerably, for slowly they began to gain strength.'
Within twenty-four hours of settling into their new home, the twins had been kitted out with new sets of clothes. The heavy Germanic boots and thick white cotton underwear in which they had arrived were discreetly put aside. 'I felt that they must be made to look as English as possible in order to mix with other children,' their foster mother remembers. 'We bought them
complete new outfits, but always dressed them alike.'
Some months before receiving the twins, the Manns had been asked to attend an interview in London with members of the children's refugee committee. During a lengthy discussion the committee expressed concern that the sisters would be baptized. Indeed was this not inevitable, they asked, with a prospective father who was a Baptist minister? The Reverend Mann soon found himself giving a hasty tutorial on the practices of the Baptist Church. Contrary to popular belief, he explained, it does not baptize infants into the Christian faith; nor has it ever sought to do so. Thus he was able to reassure the committee that there was no possibility whatsoever of Susi and Lotte being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. With a collective sigh of relief, the committee declared itself reassured by the Reverend's words.
All non-Jewish prospective foster parents were required to give an undertaking not to convert their foster child. In fact they were asked to endeavour to maintain to the best of their ability his or her Jewish identity. Here again the Manns were able to satisfy the committee. However, whereas they were to remain true to their pledge not to baptize the girls, on the issue of their Jewish identity they were not to fare so well. For as soon as the twins set foot in their new home their Hebraic roots were quietly forgotten, never to be mentioned again. The Manns were in no doubt: Susi and Lotte were to grow up as Christians, attending Sunday school and participating fully in their church's many activities.
Before long the ancient Hebrew songs the girls had heard so often at the orphanage began to fade from their minds. They were replaced by the hymns and powerful singing of the Welsh chapel, where darkness, death and burning hell were never far from the lips of the fiery preacher who was now their father. The Reverend Mann had not the slightest desire to broadcast the fact that he and his wife had taken in German Jewish children. And he did not.
While Susi and Lotte were lucky to have escaped with their lives, much had already been lost to them, despite their tender age. Abandoned by their father before their birth, they had experienced precious little bonding with their natural mother. True, the Antonienheim had become familiar and given them a degree of security. But now that too was gone. And inevitably, as the months passed, their grasp of their native language began to falter. At the same time a subtle campaign of attrition was allowing their Jewish roots likewise to pass into oblivion. Was there anything left to be stripped from the twins?
Indeed there was, for their official identities were also in process of being transformed. It had all been planned. Although of course they would not have understood it, by the time they arrived in Cardiff their birth-names had been struck from the record -at least in the minds of their foster parents if not legally. In fact it was to take most of two decades to complete the process, although the clear intention took effect from the start. The Manns had no difficulty in convincing themselves that their reasoning was sound and in the best interests of the twins. The last thing they wanted, they were quick to agree, was for the girls to be persecuted or punished in some way for having names that were manifestly not British in origin. The very idea of putting them at risk in this way was unthinkable, and all the more so now that Britain and Germany were at war.
And yet instead of simply calling Lotte Lottie, and Susi Susan, the Manns decided on a more radical solution. The giving of completely new names served their purpose well, for it wiped the slate clean. A new, non-German, non-Jewish life was to be forged for the twins, one wholly untainted by the rather unsavoury middle-European past to which the couple had been made party. Thus it was that Lotte metamorphosed into Eunice Mary, while Susi was henceforth to be known as Grace Elizabeth, a name to honour a Christian virtue.
Anxious to present an ideal image of happy family life to a sometimes inquisitive world, the Manns now found it imperative to bury all links with the girls' Bechhöfer ancestry. For anyone who might ask awkward questions, the Manns' answer was brief. Hardly anything was known: the orphanage in Munich had been destroyed by fire three weeks after the twins had arrived in Cardiff, and all the records with it.
However, the fantasy went further, for the Reverend would become extremely irritable if anyone suggested, directly or indirectly, that Eunice and Grace were anything but his own flesh and blood. And this despite the fact that it is not easy to explain the sudden arrival of two three-year-old children in a family. He would defend his claim to true paternity with such vigour that sometimes it seemed that he had succeeded in convincing himself. And if, from time to time, this spirited defence demanded a white lie or two to bolster the myth, then so be it. After all, was it not in the best interests of the girls?
And to Susi, the twin to whom the Reverend Mann now began to devote an increasing amount of time and affection, to the point of possessiveness, her foster father's message could not have been clearer. 'Remember one thing and you will not go wrong,' he would repeatedly instil in the more fragile of his charges. 'That your name is Grace Elizabeth Mann and you are mine.'
THREE
House Rules
In Cardiff tongues were beginning to wag. At least that was the message reaching the Reverend and Mrs Mann. In fact, unbeknown to them, the gossip had been going on for the best part of two years, ever since they had taken in the young refugees from Germany. Perhaps they had been naive, for from the outset their ambition had been that their foster daughters should become indistinguishable from the other children in the vicinity, and that they should slip quietly into the Welsh way of life. In short, their fervent hope was that not one finger would be pointed at the twins, questioning their origins or singling them out from their peers. But such hopes would soon be dashed.
Little Eunice, now five years old, had been the first to let the cat out of the bag. As Irene Mann was towelling her after a bath, Eunice looked into her eyes with an intensity that made it clear she was seeking some kind of reassurance.
'Mummy,' she asked, 'what is German?'
It was exactly the kind of question Irene had hoped never to hear. Struggling to keep her composure, she decided to make light of it.
'Why do you ask?' she replied as casually as she could.
'Because there's a girl at school who keeps saying to us that we're German. She says her father thinks because we're at war with Germany we should go back to our own country.'
When Edward Mann returned from chapel that evening he was furious. Eunice's innocent curiosity threatened to undermine everything he was trying to achieve for the twins. For him, fostering and adoption were akin to state secrets -not a matter for public debate. True, the taunting had come from just one five-year-old girl. But by her own admission she was repeating what was being said in her own home and perhaps others. Ever decisive, the Reverend Mann was in no doubt about what had to be done: if his daughters were not to be permitted to mix easily with their school friends, then they must change school.
'Right,' he thundered. 'They're too near the house, and they're too near the church, where everybody knows who they are and what they are.'
Within a week Eunice and Grace had been dispatched to a smart private school some distance away. Arrangements were made to transport the twins to and from school each day. But the Manns were sure that such efforts, in addition to the unaccustomed burden of school fees, were worthwhile, and indeed very soon the girls were thriving in a new environment where no one need know about their background.
But a change of schools was no magic wand. Some two-and-a-half years later, questions arose that the Manns thought had been buried long ago. And this time the twins were united in their quest. They had spent some time talking together about what was bothering them, and one evening asked whether 'Mummy and Daddy are our real Mummy and Daddy'. But unlike Eunice's earlier question, which had caught Irene completely off guard, this one was to receive a more thoughtful reply. It would be in the form of a story, Irene promised the twins, which she would tell them as soon as they were in bed. That evening Eunice and Grace could hardly get into their nightclothes fast
enough.
'Once upon a time,' their mother began, 'there was a very wicked man indeed, called Adolf Hitler. He was the leader of this country called Germany, and he was doing all sorts of cruel things to men, women and children alike. He just wanted power for himself and he was very cruel. So a lot of children were sent away from Germany so that they wouldn't get into his clutches -and you were amongst them. And that was how you came to us -it was all done properly, of course -so that you could have a happy upbringing.'
Eunice, warm and exuberant as always, needed no prompting. She immediately got out of bed and flung her arms around her mother. 'I'm so glad that God gave us you and Daddy,' she said joyfully. 'Isn't it wonderful!'
With such an enthusiastic response to her little story, Irene could have been excused for thinking that a very delicate problem had been dealt with once and for all, and for feeling relieved that there would be no more awkward questions about origins, identity and suchlike. So moved had she been by Eunice's display of affection that she had paid scant attention to Grace's quite different reaction to the story. Withdrawing into herself even more than usual, Grace had not uttered a single word -either of gratitude or reproach. But then, Irene told herself, such a mood was typical of Grace, always bottling up her feelings so.
By the spring of 1945 Germany had been roundly defeated and its cities lay in ruins. Hitler's monstrous reign was over. Together with the rest of war-weary Britain, the Reverend and Mrs Mann were looking forward to a prolonged period of peace and stability. Sadly, however, far from being able to bask in the sunshine of victory, the Manns were about to engage in a cruel struggle of their own -not on the battlefields of Europe but beside a hospital bed.
It all began innocently enough. When the twins had arrived, in 1938, Eunice had been slightly taller than Grace. Over the years Grace had slowly but steadily closed the gap and in fact had now overtaken her sister. The Manns did not make much of it, knowing that children's growth rates are unpredictable. Nor did the twins. But then Grace noticed another change in her sister: she herself could easily run to catch the bus to school, whereas Eunice would often struggle to keep up. As time went by Eunice's movements seemed to become more and more uncoordinated, and she developed a marked limp. Nor was there much respite at night, when she would often have bouts of vomiting for no apparent reason.
Rosa's Child Page 3