Good-bye Marianne
Page 7
They both started laughing, remembering their first meeting. Ernest said, “Well, I just came to say good-bye. I brought you something.” He handed Marianne an oddly-shaped package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “You can open it when I’m gone.”
A harsh voice called from downstairs, “Ernest, I forbade you to go upstairs again. Come down this minute.” Ernest straightened up, his arm flew out and, for a dreadful moment, Marianne thought he was going to say, “Heil Hitler.”
Ernest stuck out his hand; Marianne took it. They shook hands.
“Good luck, Marianne. Perhaps you’ll come back to Berlin someday.”
“Good-bye. Thanks Ernest,” said Marianne.
Ernest ran downstairs, two steps at a time. The door of Number One closed behind him. Marianne went back inside her apartment and shut the door. She ripped open the parcel. Inside was Ernest’s most precious possession – the motor-horn. On the back of a postcard with a view of Unter den Linden, Ernest had written:
Marianne put the motor-horn in her coat pocket, and the postcard in her purse. Mr. Altmann had been right. Ernest was one of the brave voices.
“Who was that?” asked her mother.
“A friend,” said Marianne. “He came to say good-bye.”
In the subway all the way to the railway station, standing wedged tightly against her mother, Marianne was aware of Ernest’s present in her coat pocket. She repeated the words on the card silently to herself:
They comforted her a little.
Now and again, Mrs. Kohn smiled gently at Marianne. It was wiser not to speak in the compartment crowded with early-morning workers. Someone might be listening and cause problems.
It was a relief to get out at last into the frosty December air. Marianne looked at her watch: 7:15 A.M. precisely. There was still almost three-quarters of an hour left. She needn’t say good-bye yet.
“Please let me carry my suitcase, Mutti. I have to get used to being on my own.” Mrs. Kohn didn’t argue, she just squeezed Marianne’s fingers and then handed her the case. They walked through the vast pillared doorway of the Berlin railway station. Immediately they were assaulted by sights and sounds of such confusion, noise, and terror that Marianne’s questions were left unspoken.
The glass and steel roof of the huge terminal was high and cavernous. The daylight, which entered through the tall windows, seemed pale in comparison to the blaze of electric light that lit up every sad face. There were seemingly endless railway tracks, which Marianne knew sent trains all over Europe. SS guards stood every few paces. Some had powerfully muscled watchdogs beside them. Marianne was afraid to look at the dogs. She thought, ‘If one jumps up at me, it could tear out my throat.’ Their leather collars gleamed as brightly as their masters’ glossy boots.
Once they’d passed through the barrier, Marianne and her mother found the platform crammed with children of all ages. Some in brand-new clothes, others wearing hand-me-downs, or so many layers that their faces were red and sweating.
Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older and younger brothers and sisters stood in mournful clumps, trying to create a small, last-minute zone of comfort to make their grief at being parted more private.
Marianne and her mother walked along the platform, jostling for a place to be alone for a minute.
“The journey won’t be easy, Marianne,” said her mother. “Have you got your lunch?”
“Right here, Mutti. I won’t starve,” said Marianne. Mrs. Kohn straightened Marianne’s label.
“How will you all manage with only three supervisors amongst so many children? And they have to come back to Berlin as soon as you reach the Dutch border. They promised the authorities, and if they don’t keep their word, the Nazis won’t allow any more children to leave. Oh, Marianne!” She suppressed a sob.
“Mutti, please stop worrying. I’m almost twelve years old. I can look after myself. There are children much younger than me going by themselves.” Marianne looked at the faces behind the barrier. “I thought perhaps, I hoped, you know, that Vati might come to see me off too. I know he can’t. I understand,” said Marianne. “Tell him…” The rest of her words were lost in a hiss of steam as the big green and black and chrome train pulled into the station.
“I’ll tell him, darling. I’ll tell him good-bye for you.”
A voice over the loudspeaker announced, “All Aboard.” Pandemonium, as people pushed and scrambled to get their children on board and settled.
“The adults have to wait behind the gate, Marianne. Be quick,” said Mrs. Kohn.
The station clock pointed to four minutes to 8:00 A.M. Trains always left punctually in the Third Reich. Marianne grabbed her case and hurled it onto a wooden seat by the window to reserve her place, then jumped down the high train steps to spend her last precious two minutes with her mother.
The train filled with children. Last-minute advice was shouted and whispered. Marianne saw a little boy jump into his mother’s arms, saw her carry him away through the gate and out of the station.
“I love you, Mutti, I’ll write as soon as I get to England. I’ll be alright, I promise I’ll be alright. I’ll remember everything you told me.”
“I have to go. We are not allowed to remain on the platform. I’ll wave from behind the barrier till you’re out of sight. Never forget how much we love you.” Mrs. Kohn put her hand to her daughter’s face. She kissed her cheek and hurried to stand with the other relatives.
Marianne’s eyes were so full of tears she had to feel her way back onto the train. She lifted her suitcase onto the rack. The station guard slammed the compartment doors one by one. The noise echoed along the train.
Just before the guard reached their compartment door, a woman threw in a rucksack, then lifted a little girl and stood her beside Marianne. “Please look after her. Thank you.” She kissed the child’s hand and moved away without looking back.
’I’m not going to talk about today,’ Marianne promised herself, ‘not even when I’m old and have children of my own. No one is going to believe this happened to us.’
The train whistled shrilly, and Marianne and the other children crowded round the window again to wave, until the station was left far behind. They took off their coats and scarves. It was a relief to be away from the tension of the station. One of the boys put the little girl’s case on the rack for her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m Sophie Mandel. I’m seven.” They all introduced themselves. Werner was the tallest of the three boys; Heinz was the one who had helped Sophie.
“I’m Liselotte Blum,” said a pretty girl of about fourteen.
“And I’m Brigitte Levy.” A plump, dimpled face smiled in a friendly way at all of them.
“I’m Josef Stein,” said a curly-haired boy who looked about the same age as Ernest.
For the first time Marianne looked at the small girl with short, fair hair and dark eyes, sitting on the edge of the seat. She held a doll. Her legs, in wrinkled brown stockings and tightly laced brown ankle boots, swung far above the floor. Marianne smiled at the child who had been put in her charge. “I’m Marianne Kohn,” she said.
They all stared at each other, not feeling a bit shy, and there was almost a holiday feeling in the air.
Brigitte said, “What an adventure.”
Heinz said, “I’m starved. I was too nervous to eat breakfast. I’m going to eat my lunch now.” They all opened their lunch bags. Everyone had a thick sandwich and a piece of fruit. Marianne had cake as well. They cut up their sandwiches and shared. Marianne sliced her chocolate cake into seven pieces with Josef’s penknife, and Sophie contributed an orange from the pocket of her blue and white striped dress.
After lunch they practised English phrases, and taught Sophie to say, “The sun is shining.” The compartment smelled of orange peel and chocolate. They were hot and thirsty, and dozed off after awhile. Sophie slept soundly, her head on Marianne’s shoulder.
The train sped on toward the border.
The children sat motionless, waiting.
The Gestapo entered the carriages, one officer to each compartment. “Passports.”
The children held out the precious documents. Marianne put her hand in Sophie’s coat pocket and, thank goodness, the passport was there. She held it out with her own. The officer barely glanced at the pictures. He pointed to the luggage racks.
“Open up,” he ordered.
They put their suitcases on the seat for inspection.
The Gestapo officer, with a quick movement, overturned each case and ran his black-gloved hand through the contents. He pulled out Werner’s stamp album and flicked carelessly through the pages, then put the album under his arm. When he opened Marianne’s suitcase, he pushed the party dress aside, reached down inside the suitcase, found Marianne’s bear, and hit the cherished toy sharply across his knee.
What was he looking for?
Marianne looked down on the dusty compartment floor, where her dress had slipped out of its tissue-paper wrapping. Under the green velvet sleeve, a small white envelope, with her name written in her mother’s neat lettering, protruded.
Silently, without seeming to move, Marianne stepped forward. Her foot covered the paper. Marianne tried to steady her breathing; willed herself not to tremble.
The officer opened the back of Liselotte’s framed picture of her parents, stepping deliberately on Brigitte’s clean white blouse, which had fallen to the floor. Josef’s prayer shawl was thrown aside. Sophie’s doll was grabbed, its head twisted off. Then the officer turned the doll upside down and shook it.
Sophie cried quietly.
Marianne saw Josef clench his fist and open his mouth. She knew he was about to say something that would anger the officer. In desperation, she curled her fingers around the motor-horn in her pocket and squeezed. In the small space, the sound was as deafening as an explosion.
The children watched. No one moved. Josef’s eyes met Marianne’s for a moment. She looked down.
A second pair of black boots appeared at the door of the compartment.
“Enough,” said a voice. Marianne looked up. The Gestapo were leaving the train.
Josef smiled his thanks. Marianne’s knees were trembling so hard she had to sit down. The train whistle blew, and the locomotive began to pick up speed.
Brigitte said, “Sophie, we’re in charge of the doll hospital. Fraülein, please hand your doll over for repairs.”
Sophie smiled.
With careful fingers, Brigitte twisted the doll’s head back onto the neck and said, “Good as new,” and returned the doll to Sophie.
Only then was Marianne sufficiently under control to pick up the envelope and take out the letter it contained. It read:
“My dearest daughter,
“You will be far away from me when you read this letter. It is so hard to let you go. I watched you sleeping last night as though you were still a small baby. I wished I could change my mind and keep you here, but that would be too selfish.
“You are going to a better, safer life. Here, there might be no life at all. One day you will understand why I had to let you go. If only we had more time together. Someone else will lengthen your clothes, buy you new shoes, tie your hair. Did it grow into curls as you always hoped it would? I miss you already. I will miss having to nag you for coming in late. I will miss complaining about your messy room, or you not doing your homework. I will miss your first grown-up party. Will you still love to dance?
“Please try to understand, Marianne, why I must miss all your growing up, all these special things. Because I love you, I want to give you the very best life there is, and that means a chance to grow up in a free country. Here there is only fear.
“I pray that you, and all the children whose parents send them away, will find loving families. I will think of you every day, and wish for your happiness, and that you will grow up into a good and honorable person.
“Wherever you are, wherever I am, at night we will be looking at the same sky.
Always, your loving Mutti.”
Marianne was crying. This time she did not attempt to hold back her tears. “It was a letter from my mother,” she said.
Werner blew his nose noisily. Josef turned his back and started throwing all his stuff back into his suitcase. Marianne watched him spend a long time folding his prayer shawl before clicking the lid of his suitcase shut. Liselotte and Brigitte had their arms around each other.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” said Sophie, and held out her hand to Marianne.
When they got back, the others had repacked Sophie’s and Marianne’s things as well as their own.
The train steamed into a station – a Dutch station! The children on the train went wild. Windows were pulled down, hats and handkerchiefs waved, voices shouted greetings, strangers shook hands.
Women, wearing clogs, handed drinks and bags of food through the open windows.
Werner took in a huge basket full of white rolls, butter and cheese. There were even bars of chocolate for each of them. A note with GOOD LUCK was pinned to a clean, white napkin which covered the food. The compartment which minutes before had been tense, angry and tearful, hummed with laughter and thanks.
“Good-bye.”
“Safe journey.”
“Thank you.”
The train passed through the neat Dutch countryside, and the sound of children’s voices floated out of the windows, over the dikes and windmills, into the December skies. A train of sadness had been transformed into a holiday train.
Josef began the song, sung at the end of the Passover meal – the festival that celebrates the flight of the Jews from Egypt and the journey to the Promised Land. What did it matter that it was the wrong time of year? Weren’t they an exodus of children?
Just as they began to sing the verse about the Holy One, “Blessed is He,” the train stopped.
The train emptied its load of children. Eager hands helped them down the steps, patted cheeks, found luggage, tucked chocolate bars into pockets, and pointed them towards the quay. Tiredly, they filed out of the small, clean, train station and into the cold December darkness of the cobbled square.
“My face stings from the wind,” said Sophie, running to keep up with Marianne. “Where is the sea? Why isn’t it here?”
“I can smell it, mmm, like herrings. We’ll be there very soon.” The long line of children followed the path down to the water.
“My case feels as though there are rocks in it,” Marianne said to Sophie. “Can you still manage your rucksack?”
A ripple of sound, like seagulls calling each other, shivered through the weary procession. “The ship, the ship.” Everyone took up the cry.
There, looming up out of the darkness like a great white bird against the gloomy December sky, was the boat. They could see it clearly, shifting impatiently on the waves, eager to be free of its moorings.
Marianne said, “It’s called De Praag. Look, the name’s painted on the side.”
Some men in uniform waved and came running toward the straggling line. The small travelers stopped moving. Sophie grasped her doll more tightly. Marianne took her free hand.
Could it be a hoax? The Hoek of Holland. That reminded Marianne of the hooks of the swastika. Were the Gestapo going to drown them?
A whisper filtered through from the front of the line. “They’re friends, pass it on. Sailors from the ship. The uniforms are British.”
A cheer went up from the ship as the first children reached the wooden gangway and climbed excitedly on board. Marianne stood leaning over the ship’s railing, looking out into the darkness. So many children still to come. How had the train held them all? So many parents sitting tonight with empty places at the table.
Ruth out there in that friendly country. Would the
y meet again one day?
Other children joined her at the railing, wanting one last look at land before they sailed, at all they were leaving behind.
“What are you thinking about, Marianne?” asked Sophie beside her.
“My father said to me once, ‘We can be together in our thoughts, even if we don’t live together.’ I’m remembering, storing up so I won’t forget.”
The ship’s engines began to hum steadily. The last child was on board. Sailors removed the gangway. The ship started to move.
“At last. We’re going. Tomorrow we’ll be in England,” said Marianne.
“What a long journey,” said Sophie.
“Yes, but we’re almost there.”
The ship sailed on, into the darkness, into safety, into the future.
AFTERWORD
Good-bye Marianne is a work of fiction based on factual events.
The De Praag arrived at Parkstone Quay, Harwich, England on the morning of Friday, December 2, 1938 at 5:30 A.M. On board were the children of the first Kindertransport. There were to be many more, organized by the British government, and helped by the Children’s Refugee Movement and dedicated people who offered aid of every kind.
Irene Kirstein Watts lived at Richard Wagnerstrasse 3, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany until she was sent to England by Kindertransport on December 10, 1938. She was then seven and one-half years old.
The transports continued until the outbreak of the Second World War in September, 1939. The Kindertransportes were a lifeline that rescued 10,000 children from Europe.
The Nazis murdered one and one-half million children under the age of fifteen.
Copyright © 1998 by Irene N. Watts
Published in Canada by Tundra Books,
75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9
Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,
P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901