The Children's Train: Escape on the Kindertransport

by Jana Zinser

  Noah ran down the street past the police officer, who heard the breathless cries of the baker, and took up the chase.

  Marla, on her way to the Kindertransport office, saw Noah dodging the officer’s pursuit with the baker trailing behind. She recognized Noah as the Kindertransport stowaway.

  “Hey! I know you!” she shouted, as he passed. He glanced back and gave a slight wave, not losing a step.

  The baker stopped chasing Noah and bent over, his hands resting on his big knees and his heart pounding in his chest. Marla ran to him. He was breathing heavily from his pursuit. “What happened? What did the little boy do?” she asked.

  “He stole bread,” the baker heaved.

  “That’s it?”

  “It was a whole loaf!”

  Marla took out some money and slapped it in the baker’s hand. “Here. For the whole loaf. Perhaps, he was just hungry.”

  “You’re from England, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay out of Germany’s business.” The baker stuffed the money in his pocket and thumped back toward the bakery and the doomed frog.

  Noah, the little sprite of a runner, quickly ducked through a gap in the boarded-up door of his new home, the broken and looted Jewish watch shop. The officer stopped running. He looked around, but Noah had disappeared.

  Inside his watch shop shelter, Noah looked through an empty knothole as the policeman stomped, flailed his arms, and angrily walked away.

  Noah sighed. He had done it, outsmarted them again. He smelled the rye bread. His stomach growled. He tore a piece from the end of the loaf and quickly stuffed the spongy dark bread into his mouth.

  A shadow passed by the shop, but Noah didn’t see it because the partially boarded windows blocked the view. He was happy as he chewed the soft dark bread, the greatest banquet a homeless, hungry boy in Germany could ever ask for. The shadow slowly crept behind him.

  “Drop the stolen property, you thieving Jew boy!” the police officer snarled.

  Noah, startled, dropped the bread onto the broken glass. With the taste of the bread still in his mouth, he instinctively reached for it.

  The officer hit Noah’s arm with a billy club. “No! You are done now.”

  Noah grabbed his injured arm that surged with pain. He eyed the crust and the dark spongy bread he had worked so hard to get.

  “Bread is too good for you!” the officer said, spitting his venom at the little boy who had risked his life for rye.

  In the park in London, Priscilla watched from her wheelchair as Becca played hopscotch with other children.

  Becca hopped and reached for the white rock in the corner of the shakily drawn chalk box. Upside down and looking between her legs, she looked at Priscilla in her wheelchair all by herself, watching her hop. She picked up the rock and walked over to Priscilla. “Do you want to play?” she offered. “You could throw the rock, and I—”

  “You can do everything, can’t you?” Priscilla spun her wheelchair and rolled away. “Why would I want to play with you?”

  “I didn’t want to play with you anyway!” Becca shouted back. “I just felt sorry for you.” She turned and ran back to the hopscotch game.

  Priscilla’s rolling escape was interrupted when her wheel hit a crack in the pavement, tipping over her chair, and sending her sprawling to the ground.

  The children nearby righted the wheelchair and helped Priscilla back in. All the while she huffed and glared at Becca’s back, as Becca deftly hopped on one foot, ignoring Priscilla’s crash.

  Priscilla had been born as nimble and quick as any fairy sprite in the stories she liked to read. When she was little and her legs worked, she’d loved to run, jump, and pretend she was flying like the pigeons at Trafalgar Square, looking down on the poor people below who only had feet and no wings. Her imaginary flights had come crashing down at five, when she’d mysteriously contracted the polio virus, which rendered her legs useless. All the money her parents had could not buy her recovery, and Priscilla, the beautiful and lively fairy sprite, was paralyzed.

  She had a clear memory of the light and carefree feeling of legs that worked, and that made it even worse. With Becca living with her, Priscilla had a constant reminder of what she’d lost, her ability to soar over the commoners.

  At Stephen’s old Berlin house, Otto, Stephen’s old football school friend, now wearing a policeman’s uniform, stomped up the porch. He knocked loudly and rapidly.

  Nora looked out the window.

  “Open up immediately!” Otto yelled, looking displeased.

  Nora opened the door. Otto quickly stepped in and slammed the door closed. His demeanor quickly changed. He stood awkwardly shifting back and forth, glancing around.

  Nora stared at him. “Otto, you’re a Nazi?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You know my father. He’d kill me faster than Hitler if I refused.”

  Jacob walked into the room. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Otto dressed in his uniform. “Otto, is that you?” Jacob asked, staring at the transformation created by the uniform of hate.

  Otto nodded. “Hello, Dr. Levy.”

  “Have we done something wrong?” Jacob asked.

  “I only have a moment. I’ve come to tell you that you must leave, immediately. They are arresting Jews tonight. You must go, quickly.” Now Otto sounded more like his old self. “Wait for nothing.”

  “Thank you, Otto. You were always a good boy,” Nora said, hugging him.

  “There is no room for good anymore.” Otto clicked the heels of his black Nazi boots, turned abruptly, and marched out with the wide stride of a young man on his way to trouble, instead of a football game.

  As fast as they could, Jacob and Nora packed what little they could throw together. They stepped out the back door of their house, carrying suitcases and Jacob’s doctor’s bag. “What about Sylvia and Baby Lilly?” Nora asked.

  “They went to the postal office. We can’t wait for them. Hurry, go back in, and pull the curtains open. She’ll understand the message,” Jacob said.

  Sylvia walked up to the postal office, pushing Baby Lilly and two small packages in a buggy.

  Inside the postal office, Sylvia gave Mildred, the stylish lady behind the counter, the two packages from the buggy. Mildred smiled. “Hello, Sylvia.”

  “Hello, Mildred. I need to send these to Becca and Peter in England.”

  Mildred nodded and accepted them. She spoke to Sylvia in a quiet voice, all the while busily processing the packages. She glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “So, how are your kinder doing?”

  “They’re safe, thank God,” Sylvia said.

  Mildred nodded and smiled. She looked at the addresses on the packages.

  “They’re not together?”

  Sylvia’s eyes teared up, as she shook her head. “No, and I miss them, and Henry, and the butcher shop.”

  “Why didn’t you send the baby?” Mildred asked.

  “She can’t be without me.”

  Baby Lilly reached her arms out to Sylvia. “M
utti!” she squealed.

  “Or maybe I can’t be without her. She’s the only thing that keeps me going,” Sylvia said. “God sent me my children for a reason. Without them, I would have no hope.”

  Jacob, with a hat pulled down low, and Nora, with a scarf wrapped around her head, hid their suitcases and his doctor’s bag behind the bare but thick branches of the lilac bushes on the side of Klaus and Clara’s house. They walked briskly up the steps.

  Klaus opened the door before they even reached the top. Jacob took off his hat and nodded to Klaus, as if it were an everyday greeting. “Our things are hidden behind the lilac bushes.”

  “Don’t worry, Doctor. We’ll get them. Hurry upstairs now,” Klaus said. “Clara is waiting for you.”

  Sylvia pushed the buggy to the front of the Levys’ house and turned up the sidewalk. She stopped, abruptly, when she saw the curtains spread wide open. No one left the curtains open anymore, unless . . .

  She whipped the buggy around and hurried back down the sidewalk.

  A door opened in a black vehicle parked across the street, and Karl Radley jumped out. Sylvia grabbed Baby Lilly out of the buggy and ran.

  Baby Lilly, startled from being jerked around, flung her little body backward. Sylvia lost her grip and juggled the falling child. She slowed down and pulled Baby Lilly up into her arms.

  Gripping Lilly tightly, she turned sharply, and headed up the lawn between the houses, trying to avoid Radley. Baby Lilly cried. Sylvia had lost precious time, and Radley had the advantage. Within a few powerful strides, he was only a breath behind her.

  “Stop, or I’ll take you both down!” he yelled.

  Sylvia stopped. She pulled the crying baby into her arms, as tightly as she could, and turned to face him.

  Radley gripped her arm tightly. “Are you Sylvia Weinberg?”

  Sylvia looked at him and nodded, realizing there was no escaping this man.

  Radley reached over and pinched Baby Lilly. She screamed.

  “What was that for?” Sylvia demanded, her motherly protection overcoming her fear for a moment.

  “For your impertinence.”

  Sylvia patted Baby Lilly and made a shushing sound to calm her. She could see a red welt where he had pinched the child. “What have we done wrong? Why are you arresting us?” Sylvia asked as Radley pulled her back across the lawn.

  “For not paying for the repairs to the butcher shop. Keep that little howling pig quiet!” Radley barked, as he pushed Sylvia into the back seat of his car. “Where are the other girl and the boy?”

  Sylvia watched as the empty baby buggy rolled backward down the sidewalk and into the ditch, finally tipping over. Lilly’s pink blanket with the bunnies on it flew into the street, and a new, smaller Volkswagen ran over it. “They are safe in England.”

  In Coventry, Peter tried to balance on the three-legged milking stool. As he moved to pat the agitated white-faced cow, the unstable stool teetered.

  Peter tried to right the off-balance stool, but his leg jerked out, and the milking can tipped over. All the creamy white milk that Peter had worked so hard to get spilled onto the straw-strewn floor of the old barn.

  Peter buried his face in his hands for a second. Then he glared at the animal. “You are a cantankerous cow. I’m going to call you Olga, because you remind me of her. You’re mean and nasty, and you like to swish your tail.”

  He laughed and righted the milking can. He patted the restless and snooty cow he’d nicknamed after Eva’s cruel friend. He didn’t want to milk the cows, but he didn’t have a choice. Emil expected him to do all the farm chores in exchange for his staying there. Peter thought Emil was getting the better deal, but he had no other options, so he milked the cows, even the ones with bad attitudes.

  A lone butterfly, a schmetterling, circled over Olga’s head and fluttered down, hovering over the milk bucket. Peter thought of an old German tale that said butterflies were witches trying to steal the cream. It reminded him of how butterflies used to hover around Becca.

  Olga’s tail swished across Peter’s face, and he laughed, “Stop it. Okay? Okay?”

  The butterfly flitted away.

  “How about I trade you a song for your milk?” he asked the haughty cow. Olga rolled her big cow eyes and mooed a reluctant acquiescence.

  Peter sang “Schmetterling.” Olga stood still, listening, and Peter milked her until the bucket was full again. Peter had earned his meager keep for another day.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE FIRST ONE TO KILL HITLER WINS

  (April 1939)

  Eva sat down on her bunk in the Bockenburg Camp barracks. She grimaced and bit her lip as she pulled off her shoe. Her foot was bloody and blistered. Pus oozed out of open sores. She wrapped a dirty strip of cloth around her foot and lay back on her bunk. She was asleep before the blood seeped through her unsanitary makeshift bandage.

  Jacob and Nora sat on the mattress on the floor of Klaus and Clara’s attic. The doctor read a newspaper with the headline “MASSIVE ARRESTS OF JEWS.” Nora crocheted lace doilies, not a very useful hobby, but beautiful nonetheless. It helped her pass the empty, agonizing time. The only bright spot in their lives was the knowledge that Stephen was safe in England.

  They left the house in disguise from time to time, to visit consulates, embassies, and government agencies to complete the necessary paperwork to emigrate. Although England was their goal, they were willing to temporarily go anywhere that would take them. But they knew Jewish doctors and other professionals were Nazi targets. It was safest, they felt, to stay hidden in their friends’ attic as much as possible, until they could get out of Germany and find Stephen.

  The sunrise in Coventry reflected off the attic windows of the small farmhouse, as the cows chewed the grass in the field. The horses pawed at the ground right underneath Peter’s attic window. The rooster sat on the barn roof and crowed a complaint against the crotchety old farmer and his ugly wife, and from his thin mattress in the attic, Peter silently agreed.

  From the bottom of the stairs, Emil pounded on the wall. “Peter! The cows need milking, and the wood needs chopping. This isn’t like Germany. We work hard in England!”

  Peter put his hands around his throat and pretended to strangle himself, until he flopped his tongue out, closed his eyes, and tilted his head down. Sometimes, it was hard to tell if England was an improvement over Germany. But Becca was here, so he would put up with the farmer trolls, until he could develop a plan to rescue her.

  Hans stood with his rucksack outside the main hall in Dovercourt. Stephen fidgeted beside him.

  “Since we’re obviously not cute enough to get a family, I figured we’d stay together here,” Stephen said.

  “I could refuse to go,” Hans said.

  Stephen shook his head. “Good luck with that. It didn’t work for Peter. Be glad you’re getting out of here.”

  “What’s a hostel anyway?” Hans asked.

  “I don’t know, but if it has heat and no horse meat, it’s better than this place,” Stephen said, and Hans laughed.

  William arrogantly strutted by and nodded curtly to Hans and Stephen
. They gave each other a surprised look, shrugged, and ran after him.

  “William! Hey, where are you going?” Hans asked.

  “Did they find you a family?” Stephen asked, unbelievingly.

  “Me? No, I don’t do family very well. I’m almost nineteen. I’ve got my own business to attend to,” William said. “I’m taking the train out of here before they try to put me in a hostel.” He pulled a cap down on his head and walked away.

  Hans and Stephen looked at each other.

  Marla pulled up in her two-seater car, a 1934 MG PB Airline Coupe. It was a two-toned blue sleek car that only the rich could afford. She honked and waved at Hans and Stephen, waiting for her in front of Dovercourt, an unsuitable place to call home.

  They were startled, but then, they waved back. “Here comes the great kinder boss,” Hans said.

  Marla got out of the car and smiled at them. “Who wants to get out of here?”

  Hans and Stephen looked at each other. “All of us!” Stephen answered.

  Hans walked over and picked up his rucksack. “Keep practicing your strikes,” he told Stephen.

  “The English boys might win, now that you’re gone,” Stephen said.

  “We’re fierce, because we have one thing they don’t have,” Hans said.

  “What’s that?” Stephen asked.

  “Nothing to live for!” Hans said. The boys laughed.

  “You boys will find your way home again, I promise,” Marla said.

  “If there’s anything left,” Stephen said.

  “How’s Peter? Does he like the farm?” Stephen asked.