The Children's Train: Escape on the Kindertransport

by Jana Zinser

  “Coventry is a beautiful place,” Marla said, avoiding a direct answer about Peter’s farm accommodations.

  “Good,” Stephen said.

  “He’s so orderly. I wouldn’t think the mess of farming would suit him,” Hans said.

  “Well, now, it’s time for you to go, Hans,” Marla said, trying to avoid the topic of Peter, the gentle musician chosen because he was small enough to fit into the farmhouse attic.

  “Neither one of you forget me,” Stephen said. “You know where to find me here at the fabulous Dovercourt Inn!”

  “If a spot opens up, I’ll save it for you. We’ll go swimming.” Hans smiled.

  Stephen nodded. Hans turned to Marla. “London has swimming pools, right?”

  “Yes, and they’re filled with water, too,” Marla said, teasing them.

  “Don’t forget to find me a fraulein, Hans,” Stephen said.

  “The German gents need some English dames,” Hans said, imitating an English accent.

  They said goodbye with great German back slaps. “The first one to kill Hitler wins!” Hans called to Stephen, as he got into Marla’s car.

  The door shut, and Marla pulled away in her fancy car with Hans. Stephen remained in front of the Dovercourt Summer Camp. Thank goodness summer is coming soon, he thought.

  As Marla drove Hans to the London hostel, Hans ran his hand across the blue leather of the two-seater car. “This sure is a nice car. Are you rich or something?” he asked.

  Marla smiled. “No, but my father is. I spend his money and his friends’ money bringing Jewish children to England.”

  “Jolly good! Jolly good!” Hans said, with an exaggerated British accent.

  Marla laughed. She came from a wealthy family, not the lucky kind of wealth that was handed down through generations, but the hardworking wealth that was earned.

  Her father, Barnaby Kincaid, had grown up poor, but starting small and working hard, he opened restaurants and pubs across England and Wales. Then, he started buying buildings, and soon he was rich. He once confided to Marla that he never forgot the feeling of being taunted by other children for not being good enough. He had always taught Marla and her brother Dwight to reach out to those with less. Marla absorbed the lesson. Dwight had more of Barnaby’s father, the drunken sailor, in him, and the call of liquor was stronger.

  Now, Marla’s ambition was fueled by her father’s legacy of giving back and her guilt over not being able to save her brother, but she found that saving people was not as easy as she thought. Many times, like today, she found herself having to do things she didn’t want to do. Many nights she cried herself to sleep, not only for the children still in Germany, but also for the ones she brought to England.

  Hans watched the countryside pass by outside. Nearly two hours passed before they pulled up in front of a rundown row house in an urban residential neighborhood of London. Marla turned and looked at Hans.

  “Well, Hans, this is it. They’re expecting you, so you can go on in.”

  “Yes . . .” Hans didn’t move.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. If Peter and Becca can do it, then I can, too.”

  Hans took a deep breath and got out of the car. He waved halfheartedly to Marla, and then walked up alone to the row house that would be his new home.

  Inside, it was cozy and clean, if still in need of repairs. In the kitchen, other teenagers were busily cleaning up after dinner or doing their homework.

  A chubby German boy shook Hans’s hand. “Guten Tag! Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  The boy led Hans past a central bathroom in the hall and into a room with rows of beds. “It’s no Hotel Adlon, but it’s not bad,” he said, smiling.

  In April at Zbaszyn, although the camp had dwindled, there were still many people stuck there. Anna heard Germany was forcing Jewish people to move into designated areas in German cities called Jewish Residential Districts. Although she feared she might regret it, Eddie’s lung congestion, Oma’s frailty, and the deplorable living conditions forced Anna to seek better conditions.

  She had nowhere to go in Poland, and even if she had, she didn’t think Oma and Eddie would make it, so they left Zbaszyn in the dark of night. Without authorization, they crossed the border back into Germany on foot. They walked several miles, headed for the closest Jewish Residential District in Dinsdorf, hoping no one would recognize them as escaping no-man’s-land people.

  When Anna, Oma Greta, and Eddie arrived at the overcrowded, unsanitary designated area of Dinsdorf, Germany, they were cold, hungry, sick, and completely demoralized. Anna had heard that, although there were no walls or fences containing them in the district, the police marched the Jewish residents out of the district every day and forced them to work for Germany. But at least it was dry and there was food.

  In the faint morning light, Anna, Oma Greta, and Eddie shuffled along the hall of an apartment building and climbed the stairs, continuing to look for an empty apartment. It wasn’t until they reached the top floor at the end of the hall that they saw a door cracked open.

  Anna nodded to the door. “This is our last chance.”

  She pushed the door open, and a foul, repugnant smell burned their noses.

  “No wonder this one is left,” Eddie said. “It smells worse than the rat that died in our chimney.”

  “That is exactly what it is,” Oma Greta said. “The death of trapped rats.”

  They pulled their sleeves over their noses and went into the putrid apartment. Inside were two dead people in advanced stages of decay. Maggots crawled on the bodies, and flies buzzed in swarms like in the back of the old Berlin garbage trucks parked by Peter’s house. But Anna decided death could be dealt with and the apartment could be their home.

  Anna and Eddie awkwardly carried the bodies, wrapped in old rugs, down the stairs one at a time.

  Once outside the building with the second body, they were intercepted by a police officer. “Drop them. Now,” he said, covering his nose from the decaying stench.

  “They need to be buried,” Anna said. “I will be glad to—”

  “They will be taken care of,” he said.

  “But they are very dead,” Eddie said.

  “You must be new here,” the officer said. “Do what you’re told or you will end up like them.”

  CHAPTER 22

  FAR AWAY FROM GERMANY

  (June 1939)

  The summer had finally arrived. Now, Peter’s freezing cold attic was stifling hot. He struggled to open his small window, as a horse neighed quietly in the pasture nearby. Then he picked up the opened package he’d received from his mother several months ago. Inside the box were chocolates that had melted into their wrappers, sheet music, and a letter.

  He licked a bit of chocolate left in a corner of a wrapper and read the letter again: Dear Peter, Baby Lilly and I miss you and Becca so much, but I am so grateful you are safe in England, even if you aren’t together. Things here seem to be getting worse, but I know if we wait it out, someone will do something, and things will eventually improve and we will be able to join you. Hopefully, we can be t
ogether again soon. Please find Becca and play your beautiful music. No matter what happens, I will love you forever. Mutti.

  “No matter what happens,” Peter repeated to himself, as he took one of his new sheets of music and spread it on his thin dirty mattress. The song was called “God Save the King,” Britain’s national anthem.

  He studied the music, memorizing the notes. His fingers moved in the air to make the soundless tune that only he could hear inside his head.

  He blew the dust off his violin, and, carefully, pulled it out of the case. He wiggled his fingers and grabbed the bow, holding it poised in the air and hesitating. Then, he played a few notes.

  His blistered fingers fumbled on the strings. Mad that his fingers could no longer summon the melody, he gripped the bow and intentionally made the screeching strings howl like a lonely wolf. The startled horses in the field neighed loudly and bolted wildly, frightened by the violin’s harsh, reverberating sound.

  Peter’s fingers were thick and slow, and their dance of music was gone, sucked into the chores of a farmhand. His angry music scared horses. His beautiful melodies had been reduced to the terrifying wolf sounds his mother used to hate.

  He hung his head and gently put the violin back in its case, like a dead body in a casket.

  He looked at his hands, turning them over. “I am a butcher,” he said to himself.

  Arnold crept through the shadows of his damaged Berlin apartment in the ransacked house. When no one was looking, he ran up the stairs to his dark apartment. He burst through the door waving a piece of paper. “Come here! Come here!”

  Evelyn and Charlie ran to him. “What is it, Arnold?” Evelyn asked.

  “Did we win something?” Charlie whispered.

  “Yes, my son. We won freedom! We’re going to America on a boat! Uncle Ernst did it! God has provided a safe passage out of here. We are saved. We’ll leave from the Port of Wilhelmshaven. I knew we’d make it! I knew it!” Arnold laughed. “I’m so glad I pulled you from that train window. Something good is finally happening. I told you all we needed was faith.”

  They danced and hugged each other. “I can have us packed in no time,” Evelyn said, laughing, “because we have so little left!”

  Arnold hugged Charlie and swung him around like he used to when he picked him up from school.

  “Where is America, Papa?” Charlie asked.

  “Across the sea, far away from Germany, and that’s all that matters!”

  Charlie looked into his father’s eyes and patted his face. “You won’t change your mind this time, will you, Papa?”

  “No, not this time, Charlie. Nothing can stop us now.”

  It was late summer, and the weather had grown warm and rainy in London.

  One afternoon, there was a knock at the hostel door. Hans opened the door to see Stephen standing on the doorstep with a suitcase.

  “Telegram for Hans Vogner!” Stephen pretended to read a telegram in front of him, as Hans stared. “Hitler’s a sissy boy. Stop. Must destroy. Stop. Send bombs. Stop.”

  “Get in here, right now! We’ve been waiting for you. I’ve told everyone about you,” Hans said.

  “I’m doomed, then,” Stephen said.

  Hans pulled him in and hugged him. “What took you so long?”

  “I couldn’t leave the horse meat sandwiches,” Stephen said, laughing.

  That afternoon, the boys went down to the neighborhood swimming pool. They stood outside in their suits, holding their towels.

  “You sure it’s okay?” Stephen asked.

  “It’s England,” Hans said, nodding.

  “When Hitler invades England, then where will we go swimming?” Stephen asked.

  “If that happens, we’ll have bigger problems. Come on!” Hans snapped his towel at Stephen.

  In the Cohens’ London living room, Priscilla played with paper dolls. Becca handed Mrs. Daniels a returned letter she had sent to her mother. It was stamped: Nicht Lieferbar.

  “What does that mean?” Becca asked, pointing to the word.

  “Undeliverable, I guess. It’s been returned. It means she’s no longer at that address, but she’s probably fine,” Mrs. Daniels said. “She moved. That’s all.”

  “But she has no place to go,” Becca countered.

  “Come on now, love. Let’s go have a bit to eat,” Mrs. Daniels said. “You, too, Priscilla.”

  Priscilla shook her head. “I don’t want to eat with her. She has to go. Hitler didn’t want her, and I don’t either.”

  Becca’s face grew red, and she turned on Priscilla, the pampered invalid. “Hitler doesn’t like people whose legs don’t work, either. He thinks they’re weak and not perfect.” Becca shook with anger. “I know why your parents wanted me to live here, not because they wanted to help me, but because you needed a friend. No one likes you, but it’s not because of your legs. It’s because you’re a brat, Priscilla. You think you’re better than everyone. You make everyone miserable around you.”

  Priscilla wheeled toward her. “You don’t know what it’s like to sit in this wheelchair on the playground and not play hopscotch. I used to be able to fly before I got polio. I hate my legs, and I hate you!”

  Becca stomped her feet. “Well, my Papa’s dead, and I’m afraid my mother and baby sister will never get here. I had my brother, but your family didn’t want him, so I lost him, too. I hate you, and I don’t want to live here anymore! I don’t care about your stupid legs!” Becca grabbed the handles of Priscilla’s wheelchair and spun it in a circle.

  Then she ran out, leaving Priscilla shrieking: “Send the little Kraut back to Germany!”

  After returning from the pool, Hans and Stephen sat on their beds in the hostel. Stephen folded a letter back up after reading it out loud.

  “Where did you get the letter?” Hans asked.

  “Marla brought it to me.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Stephen answered.

  Hans motioned to Stephen. “Read it again.”

  Stephen unfolded the letter again. “We’ve had a lovely visit with your parents and have persuaded them to stay. They send their love. We will stay in touch. Yours always, Klaus and Clara.”

  “They’re in the attic again,” Hans said.

  “How long can they last?”

  “Klaus is a brave man. He will protect them.”

  Stephen nodded. “If he can.”

  That night, Priscilla’s wheelchair rolled to a stop just inside Becca’s door. Becca lay on her bed with her face to the wall.

  “Becca? You know what you said about me being mean?” Priscilla asked.

  Becca suddenly turned over and sat up. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good. Don’t let your mother send me back to Germany.”

  “I wanted to say, without my legs, I’m not special anymore. I feel mad all the time.”

  “But legs don’t really matter. My Papa’s legs didn’t work either,” Becca said, “and he was very special.”

  “Really
?” Priscilla paused. “I don’t actually want you to go.”

  “Danke. Thank you,” Becca whispered, air escaping as if she had been holding her breath.

  “Maybe we could be friends,” Priscilla offered.

  Becca looked at the girl who had made her life in England miserable and saw her for what she really was: a sad, lonely little girl, a lot like herself. Becca nodded.

  “Good, then,” Priscilla said, smiling.

  At the Bockenburg Camp, Eva dipped her cup into the large barrel filled with rainwater and flicked the bugs out before she drank. She filled it up again and gave it to her father. “Remember when we used to make big mugs of cocoa and eat the delicious apple strudel from the bakery?”

  Bert nodded. His slight pudginess was disappearing. “Yes, my pants no longer fit me.”

  “Do you think we’ll we ever have cocoa and apple strudel again?” Eva asked.

  Bert gripped the cup Eva had given him like a mug and blew on the pretend hot chocolate. “You can be sure of it, my little mouse. When we are free, we will gorge ourselves on all our favorites. We will celebrate that we have survived, and I will proudly be your plump papa again.”

  CHAPTER 23

  THE RIGHT TO BE DIFFERENT

  (August 1939)

  Sebastian sat at his desk in Bloomsbury House, surrounded by files, each with a child’s name on it. They were piled high, appearing to reach to the ceiling like a tall, unstable tower. He grabbed his head in frustration.

  Marla stood beside him. “Sebastian, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s strange, I think, that freedom depends on money. Don’t get me wrong. It’s timing, politics, bravery, and luck, but mostly money, and that is something we’re running short of.” He patted the side of a file stack. “There are so many more children.”