Jerusalem Interlude

by Bodie Thoene

  In her mind she recited the prayer for Sabbath evening as Papa had taught her. It did little to comfort her. Ahead was the street sign: Dzika Street. Her heart lifted. Only five more blocks to the home of Dr. Letzno!

  The doctor was a friend of the family, a Jew who had also once lived near Muranow Square. He had grown up there within the safety and security of that society, yet when he had reached manhood he had gone out to study at the University in Prague. He had become a physician—quite renowned, Papa said. When he returned to Poland, he moved into the world of Saturday Warsaw. It was difficult to tell that he was not one of them. On Dzika Street he spoke Polish without a trace of Yiddish accent. Only when he returned to Muranow did he use such words as Gottenyu, and oy! He seemed a Jew again, even though he did not wear a yarmulke or worship any longer at shul. Papa loved Dr. Letzno—loved him like a brother. Papa forgave Dr. Letzno for moving away from Muranow Square and turning his back on his heritage.

  But at this moment, the girl could not forgive the doctor for living a world away in Saturday Warsaw. Because he had turned away, now she must run coatless through the streets of the Catholic Poles! She must violate the Sabbath and dodge the children playing hopscotch and the women hefting their groceries and the men smoking on the street corners.

  “Is someone chasing you?”

  “Where is such a little beauty running without her coat?”

  She did not answer. She would not. Her accent would be taunted, her identity revealed.

  Only one block more. The beautiful house of Dr. Eduard Letzno loomed ahead. Shining automobiles were parked along the curb of the towering three-story structure. It was built much like the houses at home on the Square, but although this house had two chimneys, both of which emitted smoke today, everyone knew that Dr. Letzno had not moved away to find a better house.

  A tall wrought-iron fence surrounded the house—not a fence to keep people out, but only an ornament. The girl stumbled again and reached out to grab the bars of the fence for support until she could find her breath again. Papa’s note was crumpled in her hand. She exhaled with a little cry of pain when each breath did not fill her tortured lungs.

  Inside the grand house, a string quartet played. She could hear the music and see a crowd of people in the parlor. Pulling herself hand-over-hand along the fence, she stumbled toward the front steps. There was a party inside. The house was full of Saturday people, and Dr. Letzno was their host. She would be brave. She would not cry as she faced them.

  The stairs reared back, daring her to climb. Clutching the wide banister, she struggled toward the massive front door until at last she leaned against the wood and reached up to grasp the brass knocker. She let the metal slam down and them slam down again. The music continued. She could hear laughter and voices through the door, then footsteps and the rattle of a hand on the doorknob. The door was opened in sudden and violent welcome. They had not expected a girl to tumble panting into the foyer.

  The delicate white hand raised the crumpled note to a black-coated butler. “For . . . Doctor . . . Letzno! Please . . . urgent!”

  “My God, how far have you run? And without your coat on such a day! Herr Doctor! Dr. Letzno!”

  Her task completed, the girl buried her face in her hands and sobbed in spite of her vow not to. There were rapid footsteps. The music did not stop, but the laughter died away.

  “Who . . . well! It is Rachel Lubetkin! Rachel! Without your coat! You ran? Why did your father not telephone?”

  Rachel could not speak. She could not tell the doctor that they had cut the telephone lines into the old Jewish section of Warsaw. Perhaps even one of those who sipped champagne in this very house had done the mischief!

  The doctor put his arms around her and helped her across the black-and-white tiled floor. He guided her into a paneled room with green velvet curtains and walls of books, placed her on a leather sofa, and poured a glass of water, which he held to her lips. “Easy, now . . . you are blue with cold.”

  “Please . . . it is Mama . . . she is . . . ”

  Dr. Letzno tore open the envelope and read the message in a glance. He chuckled to himself. “Some kinds of labor will not wait, Rachel—not even until Sabbath is over.”

  ***

  Sabbath came to every town in Germany, but this night there was no Sabbath rest. The streets of every city teemed with people shouting, “Send the Jews to Palestine!”

  In Berlin, in Leipzig, in Cologne, it was the same: “Send the Jews to Palestine!”

  In Hamburg and Hanover and Essen people raised their fists and roared: “Send the Jews to Palestine!”

  In Dusseldorf and Bremen and Munich the fires of a million torches lit angry faces: “Send the Jews to Palestine.”

  Tonight the Jews who had come to Germany from Poland a lifetime ago were rounded up and placed under guard in police stations and concert houses and abandoned buildings. Twelve thousand men, women, and children huddled beneath the weight of those shouts: “Send the Jews to Palestine!”

  In every Jewish mind was the thought—the hope—that they might by some miracle be sent to Palestine! Jerusalem! Zion—a homeland where they might live in air not so thick with hatred!

  But it was not Palestine that the Nazis had in mind for these twelve thousand. The British would not allow more Jews into that land for fear of Arab reprisals. And so, magically, the raging mobs changed their cry to, “Send the Jews back to Poland!”

  Every Jew arrested in Germany that night had some former connection to Poland. The Führer, led by the will of his people, decided that, indeed these Jews would be returned to Poland!

  The Gestapo agents began to scream, “Sign here! You are being deported!”

  Those who protested that they had brought nothing with them for a cold autumn journey were told, “You had nothing with you when you came to Germany, and you will take nothing out!”

  All over Germany that night, groups of twenty were led from their places of confinement. Men. Old men. Women. Old women. All sizes of children. They were led through the streets, through mobs who spit and threw paper sacks of excrement onto these twelve thousand. “Send the Jews to Poland!” Dozens of locomotives leading hundreds of cattle cars were jammed full of Jews who longed for Palestine.

  Trains clattered along the tracks of Germany throughout that long and terrible night. The German people left the streets of their cities and went home to sleep a deep and satisfying sleep. Germany was safe from these twelve thousand Jews at last!

  ***

  Lazer Grynspan was having trouble breathing. His wife, Rifka, and daughter, Berta, leaned heavily against him. Others in their cattle car leaned against them until Lazer was crushed against the wooden slats. He drew his breath in short, shallow jerks. It was just enough to keep him alive.

  Throughout the night he thanked God that his son, Herschel, was in Paris. How wise they had been to send him to Paris, where he was safe and free! Lazer asked himself why they had not done the same for Berta after the Nazis had forced him to give up his tailor shop. Why had they not moved faster so they would not have been trapped in the Nazi cauldron?

  Lazer had a hundred reasons why, but now those reasons seemed small and foolish. He could not so much as draw a breath to whisper a prayer, but he prayed all the same. Again and again he thought of Herschel. He thought of Theo Lindheim, who had barely managed to escape. He wondered where those Jews who had left Germany of their own will had gone? Theo, Anna, Elisa and the two sons—they had money. That is why they could go. Lazer was only a poor tailor, and now he was leaving Germany anyway. Strange how Nazi hatred had leaned down to look at someone as small as a tailor. Why should the Germans care if a Jew stitched their buttons and hemmed their cuffs?

  The clack of the train wheels lulled many into a stupor that was not true sleep but semi-consciousness. People had long since stopped weeping. There was no strength for that. This nightmare had begun Thursday night, and it was almost Saturday morning! There was only strength to breathe and on
ly energy to pray for help—as long as the prayers were silent.

  Now the morning sun hovered just below the German horizon. Leaves on the trees were red and gold, and the sky took on the hues of burnished copper rimmed with pink and blue.

  Lazer Grynspan peered through the slats of the cattle car and knew the real reason he had not left Germany before. Was there any land on earth so beautiful? Any other time he might have said that the beauty of Germany took his breath away, but this morning it was the barbarity of the German people that left him breathless.

  Outside in a wide green field a farmer led his herd of milk cows to pasture. Did he know what cargo rode behind the slats of the cattle car that passed him now? The farmer did not look up. Peaceful morning. Beautiful morning. Lazer hoped the farmer did not know.

  It was almost six in the morning. The tick of the wheels began to slow. Someone moaned; then someone else; and suddenly the entire train began to moan as the brakes squealed a protest.

  A green sign with white lettering said: Neu Bentschen. Lazer knew this place. It was the German border station on the frontier between Germany and Poland. Lazer had crossed into Germany through this very station in 1911. His wife had been a beautiful bride then. They had fled Polish Russia as a wave of violence against Jews had engulfed the land. Thousands of Jews had died that year beneath the clubs of the Ukrainians and Russians and Persians. Lazer and Rifka had imagined they would be safe in Germany. Such a civilized land. They could raise their children in peace if they fled to Germany. It had felt true in 1911!

  As if Rifka read her husband’s mind, she moaned and managed to straighten her neck. “Here we are . . . again,” she croaked. There was no humor in her voice. They were returning to a land of anti-Semitism. Brutality toward Jews. Centuries of pogroms.

  But perhaps it is better than Germany, Lazer dared to think as the train finally jerked and shuddered and slid into place beside another train.

  The groans of the passengers continued, punctuated by shouts of German SS who waited at the station. Metal rattled. Bolts and chains crashed back. The doors were opened to the shouts of, “Out! Out, you filthy swine!”

  For a moment no one moved. Inside the cattle cars the bodies had been molded into one mass of human flesh that must break apart carefully, lest parts of it collapse and be trampled.

  Rubber truncheons landed on the legs of those who moved too slowly. The sun burst up as long shadows reached across the border into Poland.

  10

  Night Sounds

  Herschel Grynspan was only seventeen years old. Somehow he knew he would not live to see his eighteenth birthday.

  It was raining in Paris. Not a hard rain, not the sort of downpour that washes away the dust and leaves the air clean and transparent. This rain was a gray drizzle, obscuring the view from Herschel’s attic window and mingling with the smoke from the chimneys to coat everything with a dirty, wet film.

  At least the attic air was cool now. Herschel had hidden here for five months since Le Morthomme had stepped between his gun and Thomas von Kleistmann. As the old bookseller had crumpled to the ground, Herschel had run back along the narrow lanes of the Left Bank until he had come to the home of Hans Schumann. Hans had secreted him in the attic and there Herschel had remained through the Paris spring, the stifling humidity of summer, and into autumn.

  Hans had brought him food each day and news of each succeeding Nazi outrage. Hans provided him with German newspapers that carried the latest speeches by the Führer. Hans kept his spirits up. He promised that the hour would come when Herschel would fulfill his vow to teach the Nazis a lesson.

  When Herschel had openly spoken of suicide, Hans had taken Grynspan’s gun away and reminded him that there was only one way left for a Jew to die—for the cause!

  So it was that on this drizzly day, Hans carried a radio up the steep steps to the attic. A long cord trailed behind and music played as Hans emerged, smiling, through the trapdoor.

  “Herschel!” the swarthy young man hailed the captive. “See what I have brought for you!”

  Herschel could not manage a smile of gratitude. “Not a visa to Palestine.”

  Hans looked hurt. He held up the blaring box. “A radio. Music and news for you so you will not have to wait for me to come before you know what is happening in the world!” He set the radio on an upturned crate.

  “I would have rather have a visa to Palestine.” Herschel hated his own ingratitude, but he could not help it. Although he owed everything to Hans, he still felt like a prisoner.

  “We are trying. Such things take time. Perhaps they are still looking for the one who killed the old bookseller. Perhaps you would be arrested before you had a chance to improve your aim and kill a Nazi, Herschel.” The hurt look was replaced by determination as Hans fiddled with the tuning dial.

  “If I were in Palestine, I would not have to kill a Nazi.” Herschel lay back on his groaning metal cot. Why am I not more grateful for the radio? he wondered.

  “In Palestine you could kill Arabs and English—” He stopped midsentence as the dulcet tones of a French broadcaster came through the speaker.

  “Following the action, the German Minister of Propaganda issued a statement assuring the world that those Jews deported from the Reich all held Polish passports . . . ”

  Herschel’s breath caught in his chest. He sat bolt upright and leaned forward with both hands raised to silence any words from Hans. “My family!” he whispered. “They hold Polish passports!”

  “Nearly twelve thousand Jews of Polish origin have been rounded up throughout the Reich, and as the German people demanded their immediate expulsion, they are being shipped by train toward the frontier between Germany and Poland . . . ”

  Hans looked first at the radio and then at Herschel. He clucked his tongue in sympathy and shook his head. “Been going on since Thursday, I hear. No doubt your family is among them.”

  Herschel cried out. “Papa . . . my mother and sister!” He cradled his head in his hands as Hans punctuated the reports of violence with the certainty that Herschel’s parents must be among the thousands of victims.

  “I thought you would want to hear.” Hans frowned. “Something to keep up your resolve, eh, Herschel? A man must be brave in times like these. I was afraid you might be slipping. But you were born for braver things.” Hans shrugged and adjusted the tuner to eliminate the faint crackle in the reception as the broadcast shifted to live coverage of the chanting Germans in Munich. “Jews to Poland! No more Jewish swine in Germany! Jews to Poland!”

  ***

  Night fell over Warsaw with brittle coldness. Sabbath was ended, and once again smoke from the Jewish section of Warsaw mingled with the smoke from Catholic chimneys.

  Aaron Lubetkin sat at his massive desk and tried to concentrate on passages of the Mishnah. A green-globed desk lamp cast a ring of light on stacks of books and papers, but increasingly, Aaron found his eyes wandering to the lighted hallway and the banister of the stairs that led up to the bedroom.

  The children had long since been put to bed by Frau Rosen. Rachel had not stopped shivering until she soaked in a warm bath. Aaron felt badly that he had sent his daughter on her errand without so much as a thin sweater. Etta would not be happy if she knew. She would have sharp words for him if she ever found out.

  The house had been silent since Dr. Eduard Letzno had arrived with his black bag in one hand and Rachel at his side. Etta was always silent at times like this. She did not cry out as some women did in childbirth. Her labor had begun nearly four weeks early. Eduard’s face betrayed the seriousness of premature delivery. Etta understood the danger, and she did not wish to frighten Rachel with a display. After all, perhaps one day Rachel would give them grandchildren and it would not be good to fill her young mind with a terror of childbirth.

  Etta was able to think of such things even when the contractions were four minutes apart.

  Practical, beautiful Etta.

  The thought of her made Aaron’s th
roat tight with emotion. How could he live without her if something went wrong? He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He had not turned a page in his book for nearly three hours. After Dr. Letzno had come and expelled him from the room, he had gone through the motions of normalcy with the children; then he had retreated here, just beneath the room where Etta labored.

  The floorboards creaked above his head—Eduard’s footsteps. The encouraging voice of Frau Rosen penetrated into the study, then the voice of Eduard: “That’s it, Etta!” Muffled, but understandable. “Once again!” Still no sound from Etta.

  Aaron stared up at the ceiling as if his gaze could pierce the rafters that separated him from her agony. His own breath was heavy with the exertion of his thoughts. “That’s it, Etta,” he whispered. “That’s it, darling.”

  Suddenly her silence was broken with one explosive cry. “Aaron!”

  Aaron felt the blood drain from his face. He jumped from his chair; it toppled backward, spilling a stack of books onto the floor. Taking the stairs two at a time, he reached the landing within seconds. He threw open the bedroom door, then stopped.

  Etta lay on the bed, draped in a sheet and quilt. Her hands grasped cords tied to the bedposts. Her head was thrown back, and her teeth gritted with the strain of her effort. Mrs. Rosen supported her shoulders. The doctor was reaching out to guide a tiny, crumpled form from her womb.

  No one noticed Aaron as he stood panting and ashen in the doorway.

  “Once again, Etta! He’s almost—”

  “She called me,” Aaron blurted out.

  “Close the door, Aaron.” The doctor’s words were clipped, preoccupied.

  Aaron continued to gaze wide-eyed at Etta. Damp hair clung to her face. Her eyes were squeezed tight. Aaron breathed with her. He clenched his fists and moaned softly. Tears stung his eyes. He had never seen her like this, never witnessed—

  “Close the door, Rebbe Lubetkin!” Frau Rosen barked her command. “The draft.”