“Good-bye. I’ll come home as fast as I can.”
It was good to be out in the fresh air, away from the terrors of the night. Out here, things seemed to be normal. Marianne passed a few morning shoppers with their string bags on their arms.
She loved going to the bakery; it had always been one of her favorite chores. It was the first errand she’d ever been entrusted to go on alone. She had only been seven then and her mother had waited at the corner for her the whole time she was gone. Mr. Altmann never let any child leave his bakery without a taste of something warm and delicious, fresh from the oven.
At the corner of the Schillerstrasse, a familiar name was gone. FAMILY SAMUELS, FAMILY SHOE REPAIRS, had been replaced with a new name – BAUM, SHOE AND BOOT REPAIRS. NEW OWNER. ARYANS ONLY.
Who would mend their shoes now?
Marianne reached the bakery and saw her face reflected in the window, splintered like the broken glass in the door. The heavy, wooden door frame was badly gashed, and the sign on the door said, CLOSED. A pile of shattered glass had been neatly swept up beside the step, which had dark stains on it. The display case was bare.
Marianne saw Mr. Altmann washing down the counter, and knocked on what was left of the door. Mr. Altmann looked up, smiled and walked toward her. For the first time since she’d known him – all her life, really – he looked old. His forehead had been clumsily bandaged; a little trickle of blood had seeped through the material and dried.
Mr. Altmann unlocked the door, and then quickly bolted it again.
“I don’t know why I do that; habit I suppose. Don’t look so worried, Marianne, it’s nothing.”
“Did they close you down?” Marianne asked.
“Temporarily. It’s not so easy to close me down, even if they do break the glass. Close me down? No. Your mother, is she well? And your father, he is away on business, I hear.”
“The Gestapo came last night, looking for something, but we are all fine now, thank you. What happened to you, Mr. Altmann?” Marianne said.
The baker began to sweep the floor.
“The usual things. This time a little more boisterous, perhaps. So they break a little glass, smash an old man’s head. Mostly, the police look the other way. This morning they joined in.”
Marianne said, “Some people leave.”
“Not me. My grandfather built this shop. I use the same oven he did. I was born here, and here I stay. I can wait out a little madness, wait for things to get better. Don’t look so sad. I’m going to fetch your breakfast rolls right now. The Gestapo didn’t spoil everything.”
When Mr. Altmann came out of the back room, he held a brown bag in one hand, and a triangular-shaped pastry in the other. “A little taste – warm from the oven.”
“That’s a hamantasch,” said Marianne, “Purim’s three months away. Why are you baking those now?”
“Because from now on the festival of Purim will be celebrated in my shop all year round. I want my customers to remember the brave Queen Esther and her cousin, Mordecai. I want them to remember how a tyrant, who tried to kill the Jewish people, was defied.”
Marianne interrupted, her mouth full of the pastry Mr. Altmann had given her. “I love Purim. It’s such fun to shout and clap in the synagogue, and wave noisemakers when Haman’s name is mentioned. What a wonderful idea,” said Marianne, licking the last of the jelly from her fingers.
“Exactly,” said Mr. Altmann. “After the cruel Haman’s death, the Bible says, ‘The Jews had light and gladness, and joy and honor.’ I wait for that time to return.”
Marianne said, “I know a boy who has a motor-horn. It would make a wonderful noisemaker, but he’d never let me borrow it. He can’t wait to join the Hitler Youth. I thought he was nice at first – kind, and fun – but they’re all the same.”
Mr. Altmann smiled at Marianne, and his eyes looked very bright, even through the cracked lenses of his spectacles. “It’s hard to speak out, to be one voice against so many, but there are always some if you listen hard enough. Not everyone is a hoodlum.
“Keep well, child. My regards to your mother. And Marianne, remember what happened to Haman? We know another tyrant whose name begins with the same letter, don’t we?”
Mr. Altmann made the sign of the letter H on the damp counter, and then quickly erased it with his cloth. He winked at Marianne. Marianne winked back, and stood on tiptoe to kiss Mr. Altmann’s lined cheek.
“Good-bye, be careful,” she said.
Marianne walked out of the shop, her head held high, and Mr. Altmann watched her until she was out of sight. Then he turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN, and waited behind the counter for his customers.
When Marianne came back with the breakfast rolls, her mother was still sitting at the kitchen table. Her eyes were red. She pushed Mrs. Schwartz’s note across to Marianne. It read:
AS OF DECEMBER 10, 1938
JEWS ARE PROHIBITED FROM LIVING IN THIS BUILDING.
PLEASE VACATE APARTMENT TWO BY DECEMBER 9TH.
AT TWO O’CLOCK.
HEIL HITLER
HELGA SCHWARTZ
Marianne said, “She can’t do that. That’s just a few days away.”
Mrs. Kohn blew her nose. “Sorry, darling. She can. It solves some problems, really. I’ve been thinking we should visit Düsseldorf – spend some time with Oma and Opa. They’d feel safer having us there. You can share my old room. It will be good to be together in these dreadful times.”
“What about Vati – how will he know where we are? What will happen to our things? Will I go to school there?”
“I’ll get word to Vati somehow. Things can be replaced. They really aren’t so important right now. Perhaps the Schmidt sisters would store some of our furniture. They’ve always been friendly to us.
“As for school, I’m sure the Düsseldorf community will arrange classes for Jewish children. Opa will find out for us. Think what fun it will be to live in the house where I grew up. I’ll fetch our suitcases.”
Marianne hugged herself joyfully. How wonderful to go on a trip with her mother. Of course she’d miss her room, but Oma always let her sleep in the little attic, “the ship’s cabin” Opa called it. You could see the whole garden from there. All the fruit trees. Oma would have finished bottling the apples and plums, and would make plum tart, Marianne’s favorite, sprinkled with golden-brown sugary pastry crumbs. Absolutely no one in the whole world made plum tart as delicious as Oma’s.
Marianne loved taking Wolf, Opa’s German shepherd, for walks. He was nearly as old as she was. He growled if anyone even looked at her!
She’d take her favorite books, her new green bedspread, her collection of glass animals – there were ten now. Her postcards, and of course all her clothes, especially her new green velvet “best dress” with the lace collar. Oma loved to see her granddaughters dressed up.
Marianne heard the telephone ring, and her mother’s voice. A few minutes later, Mrs. Kohn came running into the bedroom. She took Marianne’s hands and whirled her around the room before collapsing, breathless, onto the bed.
“A miracle. Listen, Marianne, that was Mrs. Rabinovitch on the telephone. You know, the supervisor at the orphanage. Two of the children have measles.”
“Mutti, you call that a miracle? Are you feeling alright?”
“Don’t you understand? This means the girls can’t travel. They will have to wait for the next transport. You’ve been offered one of their places. It’s all happened so quickly, I can’t believe it. I have to give Mrs. Rabinovitch our answer in ten minutes.” “Mutti, what about you? Are you coming too? And Vati? How can we leave him behind? What will we tell Oma and Opa? Ten minutes? I’d need ten years to decide something like that. Mutti, how can we leave everyone and everything behind?” Marianne was walking up and down her room, her thumbnail in her mouth.
“Marianne, listen to me. No, don’t turn away.” Mrs. Kohn took her daughter’s hands in hers. “Look at me, darling. We don’t have weeks or days to decide. We
don’t even have hours. This transport is a rescue operation just for children. A Kindertransport. The grown-ups must wait their turn. There are bound to be other opportunities for us to leave.”
Marianne pulled her hands free. She was almost incoherent.
“You mean, I have to go by myself? No! Absolutely no. I’d have to be crazy to agree to something like that. I won’t leave you all. How can you even think of asking me that? Mothers don’t send their children away. Why did you say you don’t know how you’d manage without me if you didn’t mean it? Well, I mean it. I can’t manage by myself. Who would I tell things to, some stranger? Who’d wake me up to go to school? Who’d nag me, and tell me to be careful when I go out? Anyway, I refuse to be an orphan. I refuse to go. I’d miss you too much.” Marianne slumped down on the bed beside her mother, biting her nails.
Mrs. Kohn took Marianne’s hand and held it tight. “We all have to learn to say good-bye to people we love, and there never seems enough time to prepare. But I am prepared to live without you, if it means giving you a future.”
Marianne said, “I don’t believe you. I won’t say good-bye to you, and that’s final.”
Mrs. Kohn said, “Marianne, I think you have to. You see, I can’t keep you safe anymore. I don’t know how. Not here in Berlin, not in Düsseldorf, or anyplace else the Nazis are. You need to live a normal life, to go to school, to have friends over. To play and walk anywhere you want. How can I let you stay in a country where you dread a knock on the door; where we are afraid to light our Sabbath candles; where our houses of prayer are destroyed? I don’t want you to grow up afraid because you are Jewish. Germany is a bad place to grow up in right now. One day it may be safe to live here again. For now, we must take this chance for you to escape to a free country.
“Vati asked us to be brave. Marianne, help us both to be brave enough. Agree to leave.”
“Vati said we should look after each other, remember? I can’t do that if I’m away from you,” said Marianne.
“Can’t you see how hard this is for me?” Mrs. Kohn tried to smile. “If you go to England first, it will be easier for Vati and I to follow you. It will mean we’ll already have a foothold in a new country. It could make it easier for us to get an exit visa.”
Marianne said, “On one condition. You must swear to come.”
Her mother said, “How can I do that? But I solemnly swear to try. Marianne, there is no time left. What is your answer?”
“Alright, I’ll go.” Marianne put her pillow over her head so as not to hear her mother leave the room to telephone Mrs. Rabinovitch.
The rest of the day passed much too quickly. Marianne began by piling all her “must-take-this” belongings on her bed.
Mrs. Kohn said, “Two steamer trunks wouldn’t be big enough for all of this. Look, I’ve made a list. The glass animals would really be safer at Oma’s, don’t you think?”
The pile on the bed swayed.
“The Tower of Pisa’s falling,” said Marianne. She started to laugh and then looked at her mother. They spoke at exactly the same time.
“I don’t want to choose, I love my things. I don’t want to go.”
“I never want to finish packing, or see you shut this suitcase,” said Mrs. Kohn. And then they hugged each other tightly.
Marianne thought, ‘I’m really saying good-bye. This is good-bye, and I don’t understand how it all happened so quickly. It’s a horrible dream, and I want to wake up.’
“Why don’t we pretend you’re going away to a holiday camp? It’s true in a way. Campers can only carry one suitcase because it’s a long way to the campsite, and there’s no one to help.”
“Is that what the Nazis said? I don’t mean the part about camp, more likely to be a concentration camp.” Marianne immediately wished she hadn’t made the flippant remark. She was always doing that lately, but it helped her to bear things more easily. Her mother’s ashen face made her realize this wasn’t the right time, but Mrs. Kohn answered Marianne as if she hadn’t noticed the cruel reference.
“Yes. Each child is entirely responsible for his own belongings, even the smallest children. No valuables allowed, nothing that might be sold, or you could have your things confiscated, and be turned back.”
“Terrific, you’d hear a knock on the door and it’d be me.” Marianne ran to the bedroom door and rapped on it sharply. She turned round dramatically, saw her mother’s stricken face and said, “I don’t know why I’m behaving like this. I can’t seem to help it. Sorry.”
“I know, my darling,” said Mrs. Kohn. “Let’s start again.”
Finally they decided on: hairbrush, comb, toothbrush and toothpaste. Dressing gown and slippers. Three pairs of socks. Three pairs of underwear – vests and underpants. Two sweaters – one red and one navy. Two blouses, two skirts. One pair of shoes, three handkerchiefs, paper and envelopes, and a German/English dictionary.
“You’ll wear your brown lace-up boots and your Star of David like you always do, under your blouse. And, of course, your winter overcoat. England is very cold and damp, I’m told.”
“What about my new dress – surely there’ll be special occasions in England?” Marianne stroked the velvet skirt of her party frock.
“I could make room, but you’d have to wear more underwear on the journey. That would leave us enough space.”
“Mutti, do you want me to die of heatstroke before I get there?” said Marianne, and this time she was only half joking.
“In December? You exaggerate so, Marianne.”
Marianne said, “Are we going to have a fight?”
“Of course,” said her mother, “isn’t this a normal day? Come here, wicked daughter, and give me a hug. I forgot something. Fold your dress in tissue paper. We’ll manage.”
As soon as her mother left the room, Marianne squashed her teddy bear down the side of the case. He was quite thin after years of hugging. She couldn’t go to sleep without him.
Marianne shut the case, then walked round the room with it, testing its weight. She smiled at her mother as she came back into the room. “I can manage this really easily; it’s not heavy at all,” she fibbed.
“Here are ten marks. The Nazis won’t allow you to take more than that out of the country. It’s very little, but as soon as you are settled, I’ll try to send you more. Now put five marks in your purse and I’ll pin the other five inside your coat pocket. Just to be on the safe side.”
“You sound just like Emil’s mother,” said Marianne, and stopped. She remembered Ernest. She hoped she’d never see him again.
“Here is your passport. You’ll need to show it when you cross the Dutch frontier. The ss will come aboard, or perhaps the Gestapo. Don’t be afraid. Your papers are in order – you are on the list of children permitted to travel. Marianne, you know what I’m going to say.”
“Be careful, don’t draw attention to myself, be polite. I know,” said Marianne.
“No smart remarks. You always make jokes – they could be misunderstood,” said her mother.
Marianne looked at her passport. She clutched her stomach. “Oh, the pain, it’s awful.” She bent over in agony.
“Oh, my darling, what is it? Appendicitis?” Mrs. Kohn helped Marianne to the bed. “Sit down and tell me where it hurts.”
“It’s just the picture – I look so awful. It’s even worse than my school one. And look at that dreadful red J. Do they think I’ll forget I’m Jewish?”
“Marianne, you see what I mean, you have to stop this playacting, at least till you get out of Germany. Once you’re over the border, you’ll be safe. Promise me to be sensible.”
“Of course I promise. I’m just nervous. My lips will be sealed. I could even put a handkerchief over my mouth and pretend I’ve just come from the dentist and can’t talk. Alright, I’ll stop. Just teasing.”
Mrs. Kohn shook her head in mock despair. “You won’t like this either, I’m afraid, Marianne.” Mrs. Kohn put a cardboard label tied to a piece of string arou
nd Marianne’s neck. “We have been told all children have to wear this as identification. See, I’ve printed your name, destination, and your number – 206.”
“I feel like a piece of luggage. Let’s hope I don’t get lost.”
Mrs. Kohn said, “We’ll put all your things in the hall. We must leave at six in the morning. It’s a long way to the railway station.”
Marianne said, “If I have to listen to one more thing about tomorrow, I’ll scream.”
“But I haven’t even told you about the boat that’s waiting at the Hook to take you to England.”
Marianne continued quite seriously, “Please, let’s not talk about tomorrow anymore. Do you know what I’d like to do? Bake a chocolate cake for your birthday and eat it tonight.”
“Before we do that, I have to give you one more thing. Don’t groan, it’s an early Hanukkah gift. It’s from Vati too, and we want you to open it now.”
Marianne undid the daintily wrapped parcel. Her mother had glued paper candles on the tissue paper. For once Marianne took her time. She threw her arms round her mother’s neck.
“I’ve so longed to have a copy of Emil and the Detectives of my own. I won’t even peek at it until I’m in England. I’ll save it, something from home to look forward to. Thank you a thousand times.”
Mother and daughter went into the kitchen with their arms around each other.
Next morning at ten minutes to six, Marianne stood in the hall, dressed and ready to go, with the luggage label fastened around her neck. Her mother was in the kitchen, making a big lunch for Marianne to take on the train.
There was a knock on the door. Marianne opened it.
Ernest, dressed in the outfit he had worn on that first day when he arrived in Berlin from Freiburg, stood there. He was holding a small package. “I’m going back today,” said Ernest hesitantly. “Home to Freiburg.”
“I’m leaving too, in a few minutes,” said Marianne. “I’m going to England.”
“I bet it’s a long way on the train,” said Ernest. “Watch out for men in bowler hats.”
Good-bye Marianne Page 6