The Violin

by Lindsay Pritchard

  Ruth and her father had a lavishly appointed twin suite with a bathroom and a balcony. Their personal steward was Jean who would fetch and carry on request.

  Standing at the stern of the boat in the evening sunshine, Ruth stood holding her father’s hand watching the wake of the ship recede into the distance. She wanted the journey to go on forever.

  However, after a week’s travelling, the idyll ended and the SS Bremen docked at the North German-Lloyd pier at 58th Street, Broadway.

  They stayed in a brownstone four-storey house in Brooklyn which Mrs Curley, an Irish widower, had made into a homely boarding house. Mrs Curley fussed over Ruth complimenting her on her prettiness and her manners. Michael established contact with Zachary Spiegel who had set up his bank account and also researched the possibility of naturalisation, housing and even the criteria for Michael to convert to the American bar. Zachary felt that Michael, with his legal and commercial knowledge and his facility with languages and experience of Europe, would be an asset to an international legal firm and had a series of introductory calls lined up. Mrs Curley offered to look after Ruth whilst he went about his business.

  “Sure, and she’ll be no trouble at all. She can help me with the baking while you take yourself off. We’ll be just grand.”

  After a heartening week with several promising leads, Michael, subject to verification of his legal standing, had two job offers. He felt optimistic and energised. Zachary had faithfully transferred the substantial family monies into the bank and Michael had looked at potential homes to welcome his family over. On their final day before boarding the ship for the return journey, Michael took Ruth along Fifth Avenue towards Central Park where they were to have ice cream and a turn on the boating lake.

  There was another surprise planned. They turned into 57th Street behind Carnegie Hall. It was 9.30am and central Manhattan was bustling with deliveries, newspaper sellers and commuters hurrying to work, eyes on the sidewalk. Steam escaped from vents in the road. This was the hum of a waking city.

  “Is this the way to the park Father?” asked Ruth politely.

  They stopped outside a shop where a smartly turned-out gentleman with a three-piece suit and a manicured moustache was just unlocking the premises. In the window hung a number of fine, polished violins.

  “Please. After you,” said the smart proprietor, ushering them into the shop before him. “Please feel free to look around and ask me if there is anything you need.”

  After a few minutes Michael introduced himself and Ruth, discussing Germany, Europe, the political climate and the Jewish diaspora.

  Conversation moved on to violins and, after apologising that his finances would not stretch to an authentic Cremonese violin, Emil disappeared into the back of the shop an index finger vertically enjoining them to wait.

  “Wait, and see what I have for you!”

  He reappeared with the battered violin case containing the Italianate.

  “Secured this a while ago from a most unlikely source. Busker really. He had no idea of its value although I could tell from the tone that it had great potential. I gave him fair value for it of course.”

  Michael acknowledged the point.

  Unfastening the hasps Emil said, “See here,” whilst holding the instrument carefully, “I have cleaned it, restrung it, carried out a few necessary repairs and I believe the tone is now of the first rank, even if the maker – John Johnson of Cheapside – was more of an ordinary luthier.”

  Michael held the violin turning it over and admiring its tiger stripes, passing it to Ruth who held it in two outstretched hands like a delicate bouquet of flowers.

  “Oh and see here,” said Emil, pulling out some yellowing papers from an internal pocket underneath the red velvet lining. “Authentication of its provenance which in itself adds lustre and history. It may latterly have been played on the street for a cent here and a dime there but it has passed through some renowned hands. Thomas Linley of Bath. Even a reference from the young Mozart. Marie Renard, a celebrated player from Paris. A reference to Senor Paganini.

  “This violin has been on a circuitous journey but – see, here – ” he indicated the note from M.E. Hill of London, “ this is proof of its heritage. So, look on it as an investment but,” nodding courteously to Ruth, “most importantly play it and feel its history and tone.

  “You know, to me, a violin is like a person. We start out in life not knowing how long it will last or where the journey might take us. We keep inside the reverberations of the most important people who touch us. We give love and we receive love. Sometimes our bodies and our minds ache for a little attention but we are what we came from and then what we make of ourselves. And the music we make lives after us.”

  Then, with a shake of his head that indicated that his musings had moved on to a more practical turn of mind Emil said, “Please forgive me my little excursion into philosophy. When you live with friends who have been alive for several hundred years then, perhaps, it makes you philosophical. Please, please, do try a little tune. See, here, it comes with this fine bow that I have also reconditioned.”

  Ruth looked at her father shyly and said, sotto voce, “Father, I am not sure.”

  Michael looked at her questioningly.

  “I am afraid to play. It is such a fine violin and I am still learning. And I am worried I might damage it.”

  “Please,” said Emil, “just try a few notes. It is robust enough. It has already survived almost two centuries. I am sure we do not expect you to be at concert level,” he smiled at Michael who nodded in agreement.

  “I think you are ready for such an instrument. This one will last you throughout your life or will serve as wherewithal should you ever need it.”

  Falteringly, Ruth positioned the violin under her chin and drew the bow across the strings. The pure, clear tone that Maundy Cubitt had imagined when he commissioned its making rang through the shop. She played a few bars of Bach and the notes resonated through her hands and arms and into her young body. The violin had found another human to entrance.

  After a while she put the bow down, wondering how such a young novice as she had been able to draw out such a full, vibrant and lingering tone.

  Michael smiled.

  “I take it you like it?”

  “Father, I love it but… is it very expensive?”

  “Leave that to me and Mr Hermann.”

  She went to a corner of the shop, unwatched, and played more freely.

  “As you would expect,” said Emil, “I need to make a small profit on the transaction.”

  Michael nodded assent.

  “But I think that you will find that, as well as it being a beautiful instrument, that you have there a sound investment for the future. And your girl was meant to be with that instrument, I can tell. So I will give you a special price. You are my countryman and fellow Jew and I am happy to see that it will be in the hands of someone who will play it and love it as a member of the family.”

  A price was agreed and a cheque provided, drawn on the Kuhn and Loeb bank account.

  The two of them discussed the immediate future.

  Michael said, “Well we are booked on the return ship to Europe. God knows what we may find there as life was going downhill very fast before we left. But I must go back to Berlin to finalise all my business interests, collect some papers and then assemble the family.

  “I have established some contacts over here and set aside some money. I hope we can be accepted as immigrants and that I can set up in business and start our lives again. We just want to live a quiet, peaceful life away from the oppression, the prejudice. Germany is no place for the likes of us anymore.”

  Emil shook his hand.

  “And when you do return my friend, come and see me and I will introduce you to many like you who have taken that long and arduous road, not quite knowing the destination,
but who now enjoy freedom and opportunity in this great city and country.”

  The following day, with the sense that they were leaving the light and returning to darkness, Michael and Ruth boarded the return ship to Le Havre.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Returning to Europe after the open vistas, cheerful optimism, and bustle of New York was like re-entering a dark and narrowing tunnel.

  Michael had written to Miriam, safe for now in Brussels, advising that he had plans in place for their future in America. Before they finalised their travel plans, hopefully avoiding the increasing hurdles on emigration, there were some important documents and sentimental items that he had to retrieve from Pankow. At the Lerhter Bahnhof he tried to commission a taxi to take them to their home. The taxi driver looked askance at them.

  “Jews?” he asked.

  “Yes, we are Jewish but we are Germans, also,” protested Michael.

  “Not German enough to me,” he retorted. “Try somebody else.”

  Eventually they found a taxi driver who was prepared to take them, although for three times the normal fare.

  “Get in quickly and stay down. I’m not supposed to be doing this.”

  On arriving outside the family home, Michael and Ruth were shocked to find that the windows were smashed and the front door off its hinges. The remnants of some of their possessions were on the lawn in front of the house. Entering, they saw that pictures, artefacts and furniture had disappeared. The walls had been daubed with swastikas and ‘Jews Out’ had been painted in almost every room.

  They went from room to room, Ruth looking to her father to gauge his mood. She saw that he was angry and emotional.

  “So this is how they treat someone who fought for his country, brought up his family to respect the law and paid all his dues? And why? Because we are not blonde and blue-eyed!”

  There was nothing to retrieve. The house had been ransacked. The small cache of sentimental family jewellery had been taken. His legal certificates must have been burned, along with the remains of his books that they found amongst the ashes of a recent fire in the garden.

  Looking for explanations, they went to find Dittman at his restaurant. They found it closed with boards nailed across smashed windows. Hammering on the front door they eventually roused the old man.

  “It’s over,” he said, wearily. “It’s been madness the last couple of weeks. They see us as the enemy within and they pass laws daily to stop us going about our lives. Now we can’t own a business, work in shops in case we contaminate people. Can’t drive a car, take a tram, visit a library. We are classed along with criminals, blacks, gypsies as ‘impure’ people. My wife and I are too old to move so we will have to get by in a couple of rooms over the restaurant. You did the right thing getting Miriam and the girls out. Now, if you’ve any sense, you should follow them quickly with the little one,” he gestured to Ruth. “There is nothing for you here. Nothing.”

  Michael and Ruth went back to the family home and stood silently looking at the husk of what was once a home where laughter resounded, sunshine shone through the laurels and the smells of flowers and baking wafted from the kitchen. Michael shook his head and they left to find temporary sanctuary as they rethought their plans.

  Dittman told them that they did not have room but that they should go and see the Morgentalers, an old couple in a less salubrious part of Pankow.

  “They’re in their eighties which I suppose is why they’ve been left alone. One small shred of humanity amidst the barbarity.”

  *

  The Morgentalers had a small apartment with a spare attic room which Michael and Ruth gratefully accepted, moving in their small bundle of clothes and Ruth’s precious violin. Michael had only a little ready cash and he discovered that his Berlin bank account had been frozen – a request to make a withdrawal was simply met with a cold stare by the teller. How to get to Brussels and on to America? He considered selling or pawning Ruth’s violin. That would give them some cash to buy food and tickets and repay the Morgentalers for their kindness. He dismissed the idea.

  There is no-one who will give me a fair price and I am not going to turn into a barbarian as well, he silently told himself – a decision that was later to save Ruth’s life.

  They lived hand to mouth for several months. With the family money in New York and his earning capacity reduced to nothing, he could only write to Miriam and tell her that there were short-term difficulties but as soon as he could assemble the money they would be on their way to rejoin them in Brussels.

  He kept from her what had happened to their home and the reduced circumstances in which they were now trapped.

  By the onset of winter in 1938, their bleak life had been reduced to looking for food from local fields and the secret kindness of some local folk. It was a desperate struggle to stay warm. At night in the Morgentaler’s attic they survived by wearing all of their clothes under some rough blankets they had found in the gardens of a gutted house.

  Michael knew that he could not live this way indefinitely and began attending clandestine meetings at the local synagogue. He and a few other activists resolved to put their grievances to the local authorities and ask for access to minimum amounts of food, water, fuel and necessary medical treatment. They were given short shrift.

  “There are no resources for the likes of you,” said Hauptmann, a local politician. “I don’t even know why I’m bothering to talk to you. On your way!”

  Michael, as the spokesman of the group, had attracted attention to himself as a Jewish political dissident.

  *

  Early in November, a convulsion ran through the community. A German Jew living in Paris assassinated a Nazi diplomat, Ernst von Roth. To the political leadership, this signalled justification for widespread reprisals. The Security Police issued instructions that anti-Jewish demonstrations were not to be organised by the party itself, but insofar as they erupted spontaneously they were not to be discouraged or hampered.

  Police were ordered not to intervene but to arrest and detain male Jews under sixty, particularly those with a record of political intransigence.

  Across Germany, cemeteries were desecrated, synagogues burnt down, windows smashed, homes and businesses looted and bonfires made of prayer books, scrolls and religious texts.

  In their small attic room in Pankow, Michael, hearing the shouting and noises of riots, attempted to remain calm. Ruth played her violin quietly to soothe her nerves. However, after they had gone to bed, in the early hours, the door of the Morgentalers’ house was broken down and security police burst through the low attic door.

  “Get up. You’re coming with us!”

  Michael did as he was instructed but asked, “What for? Where are we going?”

  “We know all about you and your subversive activities. And you’ll be going where we say from now on!” snarled a uniformed officer, pointing a gun at him.

  Michael gestured to Ruth.

  “That’s my daughter. She is only thirteen. I can’t leave her on her own.”

  “Suit yourself. Either you leave her here or she’ll have to come with you. I’m not here to argue the toss with you.”

  Michael did a mental calculation of the risks associated with both courses of action and decided, on balance, that Ruth would be better with him, particularly in the current environment of mayhem and anti-Jewish sentiment.

  They were bundled into the back of a lorry along with about thirty other adult males. They began what turned out to be a long two-day journey, passing though Leipzig, Weimar and Nuremberg. There was no food and no water. There were not enough seats for all so a number had to stand in rotation. They were unable to sleep with the motion of the vehicle and occasional stops for driver changes. The cold November weather seeped into the bones and Ruth huddled against her father who protected her as best he could. There were no stops for the occupants and Mich
ael covered Ruth’s eyes as his fellow prisoners urinated from the back of the truck.

  After what seemed an interminable two days and nights with only fitful rest, they arrived at a series of buildings near Dachau, northwest of Munich.

  They were ordered out of the lorry peremptorily. Michael looked about him. There was an entrance gate to the buildings over which, in wrought iron, was written Arbeit Macht Frei (Work makes you free).

  Michael was temporarily heartened at this believing that, perhaps, there would be forced labour rather than anything more sinister.

  The occupants were marshalled into one of the administrative buildings. Michael noticed that other similar vehicles were also disgorging a sorry line of humanity.

  An officer with a clipboard made them stand in line.

  “Now, listen! You are here for correction and to keep you from subverting the aims of the Reich. Our first job is to categorise you to determine your camp destination.”

  A guard had paperwork from the lorry detailing the designation of each detainee. Most of them, apparently, were political prisoners. There were also a number of other labels as the captives were all processed then made to stand in line.

  “Jewish subversive.”

  “Jehovah’s Witness.”

  “Homosexual.”

  “Catholic Priest.”

  “Common criminal.”

  The superintending officer, seated behind a desk, stood and pointed to Ruth.

  “Daughter of him – Jewish Agitator.”

  “Most irregular,” said the superintendent. “We must consider what to do with her. You know,” he said, addressing Michael, “you should really have left her with her mother.”

  Michael, responding quietly so as not to antagonise, said that that had been impossible. If it was acceptable, he asked, would she be able to stay with him?

  “No. There is no accommodation for women and girls, and your commitments here will not allow you to look after her.”