Taking a firm hold of Adina’s hand, Ezra hauled her back the way they had come, ushering Freyde ahead of him.
‘He’s right,’ he told them. ‘Let’s go back and see if Ariel is still asleep. We can do nothing here. We will just be in the way.’
When they entered the kitchen minutes later, Freyde stared about her in dismay. She had worked tirelessly to make the house into a home, but a lot of the work she had done had been ruined. Even so, she was well aware that she and her family were fortunate. At least they still had a home and they were all alive, unlike many others.
‘Can you manage here?’ Ezra asked as he tugged his warm coat on. ‘I’m going to go back and see if there is anything I can do to help.’
‘Of course.’ She hurried away to fetch the broom and began the task of sweeping all the broken glass into a corner. ‘But please be careful.’
When Ariel returned with Adina, they worked together to put the room back into some sort of order. Adina taped large pieces of cardboard up over the windows and set the kettle on the fire to boil as there was no gas.
Ezra returned three hours later, bleary-eyed and looking immensely sad.
‘I was just speaking to one of the Home Guards. It seems that the damage is extensive in the town centre. Saint Nicholas Church took a hit too and Vicarage Street School has been virtually destroyed. He told me that the death count is up to a hundred already and God alone knows how many have been injured.’
‘Then may God have mercy on them,’ Freyde muttered, and as she hung her head and clasped her hands together, they all began to pray.
Chapter Six
1942
‘I wish we could have some word from Dovi,’ Freyde sighed as she kneaded a large lump of dough at the table.
Adina knew how much her mother fretted about him. ‘It is hard for mail to get through, Mama. No doubt when we do hear we shall get three or four letters all come together,’ she said optimistically.
Every day, word of the atrocities of war reached them on the wireless, but at present the whole town was in a state of great excitement about the proposed visit from King George and Queen Elizabeth. Adina was busily stitching costumes for a play that the children at school were planning to put on for their parents at Easter. The play was going to be about the animals on Noah’s Ark and she had already stitched her way through two elephants, two tigers and two giraffes; now she was just putting the finishing touches to the second monkey costume. She was content with her life at present – or at least, she would have been, had it not been for the nagging worry about Dovi. It seemed like a lifetime ago since he had enlisted in the Army.
She was now eighteen years old and her father always teased her that she was turning into a beauty although Adina did not agree with him. To her mind her eyes were a little too large and her long dark hair a little too unruly to be classed as beautiful by modern-day standards.
She had recently been befriended by Beryl Tait, a girl her own age who lived just down the road and who often popped into the shop on errands for her mother. Adina and Beryl had hit it off straight away, and since then a whole new life had opened up to Adina. Sometimes they went to the cinema or for a stroll in the park, and whilst Adina was aware that her father wasn’t wholly approving of her new friend, she could see no harm in getting out and about a little. Tall and slender with sparkling blue eyes, Beryl was a larger-than-life character, she had to admit, but Adina found her highly amusing and loved every minute of the time they spent together. Beryl was the youngest of four children but the other three had flown the nest to get married and so now her parents spoiled her shamelessly – a fact of which Beryl took full advantage.
This Thursday, the girls were planning on going to see Gone With the Wind at the Palace Cinema, and Adina was looking forward to it. She was actually planning in her mind what she would wear when her father came through from the shop.
‘The postman has just been,’ he informed them as he flicked through a handful of mail. ‘I swear he gets later every day and no doubt it will be nothing but bills.’
He suddenly stopped talking and drew one envelope out to stare at the postmark. It was from Cologne and was no doubt from his banker friend, who had promised to keep an eye out for his parents when they left.
Tearing it open, Ezra read it, then dropped unsteadily onto the nearest chair.
‘What is wrong?’ Freyde asked.
‘It is from Abram Kaufmann, as I thought,’ he muttered. ‘He is sending me news of my parents, but it is not good, I am afraid.’
Freyde quickly took off her floury apron and hurried across to rest a comforting hand upon his shoulder.
‘The letter is postmarked early February,’ he told her gravely, ‘and Abram tells me that Mama and Papa were sent to a concentration camp that very week. He says that I must not expect any more correspondence from him for a while as it is too dangerous.’
Freyde paled to the colour of putty as she stared into her husband’s stricken face. A concentration camp! The mere name was enough to strike terror into any Jew’s heart.
‘But what can we do?’ she asked anxiously.
Her husband answered with a tremor in his voice. ‘Absolutely nothing. They are in God’s hands now. They were both old and frail, and it is highly unlikely they would even have survived the journey to the camp. It may be as well if they did not.’
Adina began to cry as she thought of the beloved Bubba and Zayda who had chosen to stay behind in Cologne when she and the rest of the family had fled. If only the old people had come with them. But it was too late for if onlys now.
‘I’m so sorry, Papa,’ she whispered as tears streamed down her cheeks and nodding, he quietly stood up and left the room to grieve in private.
That evening, when the family were all together, Ezra read out the Prayers for the Dead and lit candles for his parents. They then sat shiva throughout the night and the next day he gravely wrote their names in the family Book of the Dead.
The following evening, Beryl knocked on the back door and when Adina opened it she said, ‘I were wonderin’ if yer fancied a stroll round Riversley Park?’
Adina glanced nervously towards her parents who were listening to the wireless, and was just about to refuse when Freyde piped up, ‘Why don’t you go, bubbeleh? A little fresh air will do you good and there is nothing to be gained by sitting here.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked, seeing the disapproval flit across her father’s face.
‘Quite sure,’ her mother replied firmly. ‘But put your coat on. There is a nip in the air.’
Adina did as she was told, and once she had stepped into the yard after closing the door behind her, Beryl hissed, ‘What’s up? You’ve got a face like a smacked arse on you.’
‘We had word from Cologne yesterday that my grandparents have been sent to a concentration camp,’ she told her friend.
Beryl looked horrified. ‘Christ almighty,’ she gulped. ‘I’m so sorry, Dina.’ She tucked her arm into her friend’s and they set off down the entry.
‘Thank you,’ Adina said sadly. ‘They will be a great loss to our family. We have all missed them dreadfully . . . and now this.’
At the bottom of the entry they turned right and were soon strolling along the banks of the River Anker in the park. A couple of young men in Army uniform wolf-whistled at them as they passed by and Beryl giggled self-consciously as she raised her hand to check that her bleached blonde hair was in place. She was a terrible flirt, which was one of the things Adina found amusing about her.
‘How are your parents taking it?’ she asked, once the men had passed by, and when Adina stopped to stare into the water, Beryl took a lipstick from her handbag and slicked yet another layer onto her already scarlet lips.
‘As you would expect,’ Adina replied dully. ‘I just wish that we had forced them to come with us when we fled from Cologne.’
‘You can’t force anyone to do sommat they don’t want to do,’ Beryl said wisely. ‘So there
’s no use whippin’ yourself about it now.’
‘I suppose you are right,’ Adina admitted, and they moved on towards the museum in silence.
‘Are you still up for the pictures on Thursday?’
Adina shrugged. ‘It will all depend how my parents are. I would not wish to leave them if they are upset.’
‘Nearly everyone yer talk to ’as got sommat to be upset about nowadays,’ Beryl sighed. ‘The Matthews family at the end o’ the road got word yesterday that their Timmy had copped it. What a waste, eh? Timmy were a right looker an’ all.’
Just then it began to spit with rain and Beryl quickly inspected the back of her legs where she had drawn two straight lines with her eyebrow pencil to resemble stocking seams. It never failed to amaze Adina, how she could get them so regimentally straight. The only time she herself had attempted to do it, they had ended up all over the place and Ariel had fallen about laughing.
‘Come on,’ Beryl urged, hooking her arm through her friend’s. ‘We’d best shelter in the museum for a time else I’ll have to put the pipe cleaners in me ’air again tonight an’ I only did it this mornin’.’
With a wry grin, Adina hurried along at the side of her, glad that she had come. There was one thing that could be said for Beryl: she was certainly never boring.
Later that week, Freyde took Ariel and Adina into town and to Ariel’s delight she was able to catch sight of the King and Queen as they passed by.
‘Fancy being a real Queen,’ she sighed as she stared dreamily at Queen Elizabeth. ‘If she was my mama I’d be a princess, wouldn’t I?’
‘You already are a princess – to us,’ Freyde told her fondly.
Adina smiled. It had been a difficult week as they all tried to come to terms with the news of their grandparents’ fate, but today had lifted their spirits considerably and now she had this evening to look forward to when she was going to the cinema with Beryl. Life wasn’t all bad news.
When Beryl turned up on Thursday evening, Ezra put down his newspaper and gave her a disapproving glare. Tonight she wore a crimson dress that was cinched in tight at the waist with a wide black belt, and her hair was curled in the Veronica Lake style that she tended to favour. Her face was thickly plastered in Max Factor pancake foundation and her lips were scarlet. Adina felt quite plain at the side of her. She herself was wearing a white blouse that she had made out of one of her mother’s best pillowcases and then trimmed with lace, and a plain black pencil skirt that reached just below her knees.
‘Would you like me to come and meet you when the film is finished?’ Ezra enquired. He was not at all happy about young women walking about unaccompanied after dark. But then he had had to adapt to a lot of different customs since coming to live in England. Had they still lived in Cologne he would have been searching about for a nice Jewish boy for Adina to marry by now, and they would have sat Shiva properly for his parents, which was too impractical with the shop to keep open.
Beryl looked horrified at the very idea. ‘Thanks, Mr Schwartz, but we’ll be fine,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll get your lass back safe and sound, just you see.’
‘Hmm.’ Ezra sniffed disapprovingly before shaking the newspaper and burying his head in it again.
Once outside, Beryl told her, ‘There’s some German prisoners o’ war been shipped into the grounds of Astley Hall an’ my mate reckons there’s some right tasty blokes amongst ’em.’
‘Beryl!’ Adina was appalled. ‘But they are Germans!’
‘So?’ Beryl retorted huffily. ‘They’re still blokes, ain’t they? An’ we could certainly do wi’ a few more o’ them about. All our lads are off fightin’ in the war.’
They moved along in silence for a time but Adina could never stay annoyed with Beryl for long. ‘So how long will the prisoners of war be stationed here?’ she asked eventually as curiosity got the better of her.
Beryl shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Fer the duration o’ the war, I expect. Me dad got wind that they’re goin’ to be set on repairin’ the railway lines an’ the places that ’ave been bombed, but I don’t know if that’s right. They reckon the grounds of Astley Hall is covered in Nissen huts to accommodate ’em, but I don’t know how true that is neither.’
By now they were approaching the end of Edmund Street and there they turned right towards the Palace Cinema.
‘Come on,’ she said as she saw the queue outside. ‘If we don’t get a shufty on there’ll be a full ’ouse an’ we won’t be able to get in.’
Grinning, Adina allowed herself to be tugged along. It looked set to be a good night.
When they came out some time later, Beryl sighed as she thought of Clark Gable. ‘Ain’t he just the most ’andsome bloke you’ve ever seen?’ she asked, and then before Adina had a chance to answer her she went on, ‘So what we doin’ tomorrow then?’
‘Oh, I can’t come out tomorrow,’ Adina told her apologetically. ‘I always spend the Shabbat eve with my family.’
‘What the ’ell is the Shabbat?’
Adina tried to think of the best way to explain. ‘I suppose it is like your Sabbath on a Sunday,’ she told her friend eventually, ‘But our Shabbat begins on a Friday at sunset and lasts until sunset on a Saturday. Back in Cologne we observed it fully, but since coming to England we have had to restrict the hours because of the shop. We are not allowed to work on Saturday but spend it in prayer, study and holy songs. We have had to forego many of our religious ceremonies since coming here because there isn’t a synagogue close by, which means that Ariel may have to miss her Bat Mitzvah.’
‘An’ what exactly is one o’ them?’
‘A Bat Mitzvah is celebrated when a girl reaches the age of twelve. She is then a daughter of the Commandment. A Bar Mitzvah is celebrated for a boy when he reaches the age of thirteen, and he is then the son of the Commandment, and from then on we have to keep the Ten Commandments.’
‘Sounds a bit borin’ to me,’ Beryl commented. ‘But then I suppose it’s each to ’is own.’
And with that, the two girls began to talk about the film they had just watched as they hurried homeward in the dark.
Chapter Seven
Later that month, as she was making her way to school with Ariel, Adina got her first glimpse of the German prisoners of war who were stationed within the grounds of Astley Hall.
The men were walking in a procession along Coton Road, making for the railway lines. She wasn’t altogether surprised as her father had told her some time ago that they had actually volunteered to do any necessary repairs about the town. It was even rumoured that they had offered to rebuild Coton Church, although Adina had no idea if that was true. The townspeople, despite their initial disapproval at having the prisoners there, were slowly beginning to accept them. In fact, the people who had actually spoken to them said that they were a very well-mannered group of men.
They bowed their heads politely as they passed Adina and Ariel, and one man in particular caught Adina’s eye. He was a head taller than most of the other men and ridiculously handsome, with golden-blond hair and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. When he saw her looking at him he flashed a friendly smile in her direction and Adina blushed to the very roots of her hair.
‘That man smiled at you,’ Ariel stated. ‘Do you fancy him, Dina?’
‘Of course I don’t!’ her sister snapped, more sharply than she should have. ‘Whatever are you thinking of, to say such a thing?’
‘Well, he did smile at you, and you were looking at him too,’ Ariel retorted indignantly.
Not sure of how to answer, Adina quickened her footsteps. ‘Come along or we shall be late,’ she scolded, and secretly amused, Ariel did as she was told and the subject was dropped.
Adina arrived home for lunch in a light-hearted mood on her own that day, as Ariel had starting staying at school to eat with her friends. As Adina passed the shop-front, she saw that the Closed sign was on the door. It wasn’t like her father to close the shop unnecessarily, and she hurried up the
entry wondering what was wrong.
The first thing she saw when she entered the kitchen was Mrs Haynes from next door leaning over her mother who was sitting at the kitchen table sobbing uncontrollably. Her father was seated at the side of the fire, staring unseeing into the flames.
Seeing Adina, Mrs Haynes lifted a telegram from the table and handed it to her without a word.
The girl hastily began to read it.
It is with great regret . . . Corporal Dovid Schwartz . . . missing in action. Presumed dead . . .
Adina felt her legs buckle and dropped into the nearest chair. Shock mingled with disbelief was coursing through her. It couldn’t be true. Dovid couldn’t be dead. He was her big brother. And then she reread it and began to clutch at straws.
‘It says he is missing, presumed dead!’ she said. ‘So that means he is probably still alive somewhere. He could be in a prisoner-of-war camp. We mustn’t give up on him until we know for sure. We have to believe that he will come home.’
‘That’s the best way to look at it, luv,’ Mrs Haynes told her sympathetically. ‘At least yer have hope to hang on to, which is more than I got wi’ my Anthony, God rest his soul.’
‘I would know if he was dead,’ Adina went on. ‘I would feel it . . .in here.’ She thumped her chest as if to add emphasis to her words as her mother looked at her from red-rimmed eyes.
‘You can’t give up on him this easily,’ Adina scolded her. ‘We will get in touch with the Red Cross – they will help us, I’m sure.’
Her mother nodded, but deep inside she had a terrible feeling that her beloved boy was gone from them for good.
In May 1942, more than 1,000 aircraft were sent aloft by the RAF to devastate the city of Cologne, which had once been the Schwartzes’ home. Within 90 minutes, 1,455 bombs had been dropped and over 2,300 fires were started. Vital machine tool and chemical plants were crippled and 3,000 buildings were destroyed, leaving 45,000 civilians homeless. Every available plane was used from the new Lancasters to the ancient Whitleys, and among the 6,500 crewmen who flew them there were many who had not even completed their training.
A Band of Steel Page 6