by Jana Zinser
Peter nudged Becca. “Look, it’s Charlie.” Becca and Peter waved to Charlie Beckman, seated by the window. Charlie waved back, smiling.
“Charlie, you’re going to England, too?” Becca asked her old classmate.
“Yes. I’m on holiday,” Charlie smiled and waved out the window to his parents. “My parents are going to come later. I’ll see them in a few days.”
“Should we tell him?” Becca whispered to Peter.
Peter shook his head. “No, he’ll find out soon enough.”
Hans and Stephen helped Peter and Becca put their suitcases in the luggage compartment above their heads. Hans reached for Peter’s violin, but Peter quickly pulled it to him. “Not the violin.”
Hans and Stephen found seats and sat down next to each other. Peter slid into the seat behind them, and Becca scooted into the seat beside Peter. He set the violin on the seat between them and laid his coat over it so it was hidden.
William, the Kindertransport interloper, slumped in a seat down the aisle. Stephen and Hans waved to him. William raised his chin in a reluctant jerk in reply.
Peter looked around. “Hey, where’s Eva?”
Hans turned around in his seat. “William, where’s Eva?”
William tilted his head to the side. “She didn’t want to go. You know what she’s like.” He shrugged, then yawned and closed his eyes, acting like this day was nothing special, like he fled Germany all the time.
Peter looked frantically out the window and saw Eva standing on the platform, with her arms crossed in defiance and her father’s protective arm around her. Peter could tell she was mad. “He stole her seat!” Peter whispered.
Stephen and Hans joined Peter in looking out the window at Eva. She saw them and gave a half-hearted wave. Peter’s heart pounded. He’d thought she was coming on the train. He hadn’t even said goodbye.
“If William wasn’t Jewish, he’d be a Nazi,” Peter said. He worried about what would happen to the prettiest girl in Berlin, trumped by her selfish brother.
CHAPTER 14
THE TRAIN WHISTLE BLEW
(January 1939)
A Nazi officer with narrow dark eyes stomped onto the train filled with frightened children. The nametag on his uniform read Becker. He swung his club randomly, pounding the seats and the walls. The children started and froze with the tension of terror infused in the very air they breathed when a Nazi officer was nearby.
The club landed hard against a suitcase and hit Noah, hidden amongst the baggage. A startled, muffled groan erupted.
Becker slowly stepped back. The silence of the train amplified his footsteps. He glanced around the luggage. Then he reached up and yanked Noah out from behind the bags. “Sneaky Jew, huh? Can’t be trusted. You’re off this train!”
As the children watched, Becker dragged Noah down the aisle by his collar. Marla, who had stepped onto the train, ran over. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Tried to stow away,” Becker said, holding Noah out like a wayward dog caught in a spilled garbage bin.
Marla reached for Noah. “I’ll take care of him.”
“No, this little swine needs to be taught a lesson,” Becker said.
Marla panicked. She looked over at Noah, so tiny, but standing so straight, his eyes clear and brimming with defiance. He was a boy with nothing left but his courage.
“This one’s mine.” Becker grabbed Noah’s wiry little arm and marched him off the train. “Stowaway! Arrest him!” he yelled to the police at the station.
Marla stretched out her hand to Noah as he was thrown off the train. She let her breath out, and with it came a groan. Her body went limp as Noah’s little body thudded against the ground.
The train whistle blew, pulling the children back into the reality of their own sorrows. They hung out the windows waving, pushing to get one last look at their families still corralled behind the fence. Parents bravely smiled and waved, as if they were seeing their children off for the first day of school. Some jumped up to see over the crowd and get one final glimpse of their children before the train took them beyond their reach.
Marla and Jules checked everything on board one last time. The train whistle blew again, warning of its impending departure.
Jules stepped off the train and waved to Marla. “Good luck, Marla. I will be on the next train.”
“Goodbye, Jules. All these children will thank you someday.”
Anna, Oma Greta, and Eddie waited in a crowded room at the police station across from Edelweiss Park for a train out of Germany, headed for the unwelcoming Poland. Anna hoped Hans had made the Kindertransport and was on his way out of Germany.
The Kindertransport was finally about to leave. A woman suddenly climbed over the gate and bolted to the train, carrying someone’s forgotten basket, which she held up to the open window.
She shoved the basket gently through Hans’s window, and whistled softly to him. “Here, young man, take this, careful. Please, be very careful.”
Gingerly handling the surprisingly heavy basket, Hans pulled it inside. Stephen, sitting beside him, leaned over for a look. “Who’s it for?” Hans asked the urgent woman standing outside his window on her tiptoes.
“My sister will pick it up in Holland. Bless you.”
A Nazi officer ran over and pulled the woman away from the train, but the basket was already safely inside with Hans. The woman’s shoulders hunched, as if she was exhausted from the weight she had carried in that small basket.
Inside the train, Stephen and Hans stared at the basket. It was covered with a red-checkered cloth, like a picnic basket. “What is it?” Stephen wondered.
“Food, I hope. I’m hungry,” Hans said. “I think we’re rightfully entitled to part of it for the trouble of transporting it.”
Hans flipped off the cloth, prepared to see chicken and potato salad. But it was not a picnic basket filled with food. It held a baby girl.
Hans leaned out the window. “Wait!” he called, but the Nazi officer was dragging the woman roughly away behind the fence.
Hans looked at Stephen. “What do we do with it?”
Stephen read the note pinned to the baby’s clothes: “‘Karla Blinker will be picked up at the Holland train station.’”
“How will we keep her quiet until Holland?” Stephen asked.
Hans shrugged.
Peter leaned forward from the seat behind them. “I’m used to babies. I’ll help you.”
“Thanks, Peter,” Hans said.
Becca leaned over and played with the baby’s fingers. “I miss my Baby Lilly,” she whispered.
Outside the train, Arnold Beckman, Charlie’s father, nicely dressed, pushed through the crowd behind the fence. Arnold didn’t even let Charlie walk home from school by himself, and here he was, letting him go to England alone. Evelyn Beckman, a thin woman with a kind face, held on tightly to Arnold’s arm.
Suddenly, Arnold’s agony burst through his contorted face. “No!” he yelled. He shook loose of Evelyn’s loving restraint, jumped over the fence, and ran toward the train.
“Arnold,
don’t!” Evelyn called to her grief-stricken husband.
Arnold ran up to Charlie’s window as if desperate for one final goodbye, but instead he reached into the window and grabbed his little boy’s hands. Charlie stared wide-eyed at his crazed father. “Papa!”
“My son, I can’t live without you!” With an anguished cry, Arnold pulled little Charlie through the train window and hugged him tightly to his chest.
Evelyn pushed through the crowd, but she was restrained at the fence. “No! No!”
The police pushed Arnold and Charlie away from the train, and Evelyn pointed helplessly to the train, sobbing uncontrollably.
Peter leaned out the train window, watching Charlie’s horrified face, as he was suddenly back where he started and without his holiday train ride to England.
Peter pulled back into the train car as Becca looked at him with big scared eyes. “Where did Charlie go?”
“His father pulled him out,” Peter said.
“Why?”
“Heartbreak, I guess.”
“Looks like Charlie’s holiday is over.” Becca shook her head.
Charlie stared up at his frantic father. “I thought I was going on the train, Papa,” he said, his eyes wide with confusion.
“Charlie! Charlie! What have I done? Wait! Wait!” Arnold shouted, suddenly regretting his impulsive action. He picked Charlie up and ran with him alongside the train. But the police grabbed him and escorted him back. Arnold couldn’t undo his spontaneous rescue of Charlie from the freedom train.
He hugged Charlie and ran back into the crowd of parents, who wailed as the train readied to pull away, free at last to express their deep sorrow.
Evelyn hugged Charlie, her son, saved from being saved. “Oh, Charlie. I guess we were meant to stay together.” She put her arms around her husband. “Let’s go home, Arnie.”
The policemen began prodding the parents with billy clubs. “Go home!” they shouted. “They are ready to leave the station.”
The parents began moving slowly toward the exits, now openly grieving for the children they had lost, children they didn’t know if they would ever see again, children who would have a new life in England without them.
Jacob and Nora wept, clinging to each other in their sorrow. “Stephen is gone,” Nora murmured.
Stephen looked out the window and saw his parents’ despair, but it was too late to make things right for his bad behavior.
Becker strutted through the packed train compartment. “Your parents aren’t here now. You are to make no noise!” He struck the seats with his billy club. “No trouble, do you understand? At the border, your bags will be checked. If anything of value is found, it will be confiscated, and you will be sent back to Germany!”
Becker thumped through the train, glaring menacingly at the children, as he entered the next compartment.
Marla followed him, holding the children’s travel papers and passports. “What did you do with the little stowaway?”
“He was arrested,” Becker said, menacingly.
“He’s just a boy.”
“He is a criminal.”
The door between the cars slammed shut. Then the train doors were locked with the children inside. Becker swung off the train and was gone. The children let out their breath.
The wheels began to move as the train pulled away from the station platform, and slowly the children’s train left Berlin. The city and suburbs outside gave way to woods, lakes, rivers, distant mountains, small towns, and villages.
It rained. Lightning flashed, and thunder shook, as the train traveled across Germany. The train cars were crowded with the sounds of children talking, laughing, crying, and shouting. It was hard to tell which was louder, the children inside or the raging storm outside.
Peter remembered his nightmare of that terrifying feeling of hurtling through the darkness, with no direction and the horrifying fear of what would happen when it stopped. Now he was living it.
Stephen and Hans slumped in their seats, with the baby in the basket beside them. Peter stared out the window, with Becca wedged against him and the hidden violin.
CHAPTER 15
TO THE HOLLAND BORDER
(January 1939)
Back at Stephen’s house, Nora, Jacob, and Sylvia slumped on the couches in the living room. Baby Lilly fidgeted, arching her back, throwing herself against the couch in an uncontrolled baby rebellion.
“Did we do the right thing?” Nora asked.
“We did the right thing, for right now.” Jacob sighed.
Sylvia snuggled with the wiggling baby. “I feel like I gave away my soul. Without Baby Lilly, I would give up.”
“If you give up, they win,” Jacob said.
“I think they’ve won anyway,” Sylvia responded. “They’ve divided our families. Our children are gone, our businesses ruined, our friends taken away in the middle of the night. What is left to take?”
“Our lives,” Jacob said.
“They break us apart little by little.” Nora sighed. “The house seems so empty. It will never be filled again.”
The Kindertransport chugged to a stop. “What’s happening? Why did we stop?” Peter asked, gripping Hans’s seat.
Hans looked out the window, but could see nothing but darkness. He handed the baby basket to Stephen, and then opened the window. Rain poured in. He leaned out briefly, looking ahead. “Looks like the track is flooded.”
The baby woke up and cried. Stephen quickly handed the baby basket back to Hans. “What do we do with the baby now?”
“How should I know?” Hans turned to the seat behind him. “Peter!”
Peter took the basket on his lap. He put his little finger in the baby’s mouth and gently rocked the basket. The baby quieted and sucked.
As the rain pelted the ground, the train workers dug a ditch to drain the water.
The children shifted restlessly inside the locked train. Too nervous to sit, William got up and paced in the aisle. “Come on! Come on!”
“You got somewhere to be, William?” Hans teased.
“Yes, out of Germany, you idiot!” William hissed, turning on Hans.
In Berlin, Arnold, Charlie, and Evelyn walked down the street on their way home. The police had already stopped them twice.
From the shadows, someone threw a bottle at them. It crashed in the street, barely missing Charlie. Startled, they jumped and looked around, searching for the assailant. There was laughter from the behind the corner of the nearest building.
Arnold picked up Charlie and put his arm around Evelyn. They hurried on.
“I wish we all could have gone on that train,” Charlie said.
“Maybe we will, Charlie,” Arnold said. “Maybe we will. Uncle Ernst lives in America, and he is trying to help us.”
“I hope the other kids have a nice holiday,” Charlie said quietly.
Arnold let out a shaking gasp. His wife put her arm around his waist and pulled him forward, toward the relative safety of their newly evacuated apartment.
> At the Berlin police station next to Edelweiss Park, Noah was curled up in a ball in a crowded jail cell with wall-to-wall Jewish men. He didn’t cry. He had become accustomed to being alone and afraid. In another section filled with women and some children, Oma Greta, Anna, and Eddie still waited.
The Kindertransport finally rumbled to a stop at the last German station before the train crossed over the Dutch border. A Nazi border guard with close-cropped hair and suspicious eyes barked orders. “Schnell! Schnell! The Jew train has arrived!”
All along the length of the train, German border guards banged on the train doors and unlocked them for one last inspection. The door swung open. Two guards stepped into Peter’s car. One of the guards tapped the other guard’s shoulder. “Now comes the fun, huh, Gregory? I’ll take the next car.”
Gregory smiled. “Luggage inspection!” he called.
Hans quickly took the sleeping baby from Peter, put her back in the basket, and hid the basket behind his rucksack on the floor.
Gregory, holding Marla’s list of names, stomped down the aisle. “This train reeks of Jews!” he shouted.
The children sat up straight against their seats, their faces forward. No one spoke. No one dared look at the Nazi tormentor. The children barely breathed. Hans glanced at the baby, blocked by the rucksack and covered with the red-checkered cloth. His forehead broke out in sweat beads.
Gregory checked off the names on the list. He approached William. “What is your name?”
“William Rosenberg.”