The Children's Train: Escape on the Kindertransport

by Jana Zinser

  At Bloomsbury House, Sebastian watched, from his office window, the boisterous celebrating in the streets. As quiet and serious as the declaration of war had been, it was as loud and as rambunctious when victory was announced. Tears were in Sebastian’s eyes as he watched the chaotic merriment of loved ones and strangers, dancing and shouting in the streets. He put his palms flat on the windowpane.

  “May the great name of God be exalted!” he whispered. Tears ran down the face of the burly, unflappable man who’d fought to save the children from Hitler.

  Marla walked into his office and gently put her hand on his arm. “We did it.”

  “Indeed. Quite remarkable, actually. What will you do now?” Sebastian asked.

  “Same as you, try to help the children find their families. But tonight, I’m going to find a handsome rebel and see if he can dance.”

  “Sloan?”

  Marla smiled. “Maybe. What about you?”

  “I’m going to go find my pretty Jewish wife, who has put up with me all these Kindertransport years, and drink wine. Finally, we have something to celebrate.”

  In the London streets that night, Stephen danced with a pretty girl in a swirling blue skirt.

  A beautiful girl with brightly painted red nails grabbed Hans and kissed him, then skipped off into the jubilant crowd.

  “Who was that girl that just kissed you?” Stephen asked.

  “I don’t know who the dame was!” Hans said, imitating Humphrey Bogart’s voice in the movie Casablanca. “But who cares? She kissed me!” He laughed loudly, a boisterous laugh that could only erupt from the freedom of victory. “I really like this end-of-the-war stuff!”

  “Yes, we’ll have to do this again,” Stephen said.

  “No, no, no, one war is enough for me,” Hans said.

  “Oh, it’ll happen again, but who will be the Jews next time?” Stephen asked.

  “I’m not thinking about that right now. All I know is Hitler’s dead, and we kicked Germany’s tail,” Hans said.

  Stephen twirled the pretty girl in the blue skirt around again. Hans grabbed another girl walking by. Both boys danced with an abandon they had not felt since long before they’d boarded the Kindertransport and fled their homes and everything they loved.

  In the London pub, The Blue Ox, the blackout curtains were opened. A relaxed Sloan and Mica, both smiling, looked very handsome. Sloan’s dark demeanor was gone. He was no longer a bear.

  Sloan, Mica, and Marla, now twenty-seven years old, celebrated inside with Peter. All except Peter clinked pint glasses of dark foamy ale. “Here’s to the end of the war and to Hitler’s suicide!” Mica said. “The cowardly wretch.”

  “I would have been happy to do it for him,” Sloan said.

  “Here’s to the kinder who will live to tell their stories!” Marla said.

  They looked at Peter.

  “Don’t look at me, I want to forget,” Peter said, quietly, as he let out a heavy sigh. He leaned back in his chair with his shoulders relaxed. “I just want to find my family and get my life back.”

  Marla picked up her glass and lifted it high into the air. “Here’s to Peter getting his life back.”

  “And that pretty girl from the camp,” Mica teased.

  “To the best young commando, but the worst driver!” Sloan said.

  “Unless he’s driving a dustbin lorry, and we’re about to lose our necks!” Mica corrected.

  “I’m a good driver!” Peter challenged.

  They laughed, and all except Peter raised their glasses, downing their ale. Peter stood up. “There is something I need to do.”

  He picked up his violin from the bartender. “Thank you for taking care of my violin,” he said to the barkeep.

  Then, with a short salute to his rebel friends, Peter left the pub.

  “He reminds me of me,” Sloan said.

  “Only good looking and kind,” Mica teased.

  Sloan laughed. “Another round of ale. The war is over! We can begin to live again.” He looked at Marla. “I hope you’ve got some shillings on you, Blue Eyes, because this could be an expensive tab.”

  Marla smiled. “I think we’ll be all right. My father owns this tavern.”

  Sloan lifted his empty glass. “Now, there’s a man I can respect, and you are a woman I can love.”

  Marla laughed and hugged him.

  “Another round!” Mica said.

  “And keep them coming!” Sloan yelled.

  As Peter hurried through the crowded and joyous streets with his violin, he passed a pub where the radio blared “I’ll Be Waiting for You.”

  I’ll be waiting for you

  No matter how long it takes.

  I’ll be waiting for you

  No matter what the stakes.

  I’ll be waiting across the sea,

  Just come home to me.

  Just come home to me.

  He hesitated at the door, listening to the song. It always reminded him of Eva. He had received a message from Jules, who had joined the British Army, telling him that Eva and her father were back home in Berlin.

  Peter had paid his debt to his people in Germany, but it was no longer his home. He had to get Becca. Together, they would find his mother and sister, and bring them to London.

  At the Cohens’ house on 16 Poppleton Circle, the family celebrated the end of the war. The lights were all on, and they drank tea with milk and ate empire biscuits. Harry and Mrs. Daniels had a small glass of brandy.

  Outside the house, hidden by the bushes, Peter took the violin out of his case. He caressed it like a long-lost friend, familiar but uncertain. He placed it underneath his chin. The violin felt so much smaller in his large hands.

  Under the faint light of a sliver of a yellow moon, the lone violinist played. The music started out softly and grew in volume.

  Inside the house, Becca heard the music and put her biscuit down, unsure of what she heard. She ran to Mrs. Daniels, grabbed her hands, and pulled her up. “Mrs. Daniels. Get up. It’s him! It’s Peter! He’s come for me!”

  Mrs. Daniels struggled to get up out of the chair. “Then run to him, Becca! The war is over, and we are all free!”

  Becca took off running to the front of the house. Mrs. Daniels shouted to Harry, Doris, and Priscilla, who were listening to the radio. “The violin serenader is back! Peter has come for her!”

  Harry, Doris pushing Priscilla, and Mrs. Daniels ran to the front lawn after Becca.

  The violin played the lilting tune of “With God By Our Side” that filled the air with the clear and sure notes that only Peter could play.

  “Becca, is it Peter?” Priscilla shouted.

  “Yes, yes, I know it’s him. I feel him,” Becca yelled. “He’s here.”

  Peter sang.

  We are marching forward, with God by our side.

  We will not leave our path, for He will be our guide.

  Becca ran down the lawn toward the mus
ic. “Peter? Peter?”

  Peter stepped out from behind the shadowy bushes, at last revealing himself.

  “Blimey!” Mrs. Daniels exclaimed.

  “Peter!” Becca screamed.

  “It is him! Becca was right! Peter has come for her,” Priscilla said.

  Peter dipped and swayed with the notes, as he walked up the lawn to Becca, playing his violin with a vigor he had not felt in years. He sang.

  Hold my hand, lift our voices

  In prayer across the land.

  For we have made our choices

  And together we will stand.

  Peter’s music blossomed against the cool night air. He was back, and Becca ran to him, dancing around him. He turned to her each time she circled him, and their homecoming was the melody of their hearts together again.

  When his song ended, Becca threw herself into his arms. “Peter! I knew you would come for me!”

  Peter hugged her with one strong arm, and with the other he held the violin. “I never forgot you, not even for a minute.”

  The war was over. Although it had taken so many things from them, their apartment, their butcher shop, their father, their childhood, and even their country, they still rejoiced, because they had survived. They had found each other, at last, and Hitler had not won.

  CHAPTER 47

  LOST AND FOUND

  (June 1945)

  A few days later, at the London Red Cross office, lists of the survivors were taped to the windows. People crowded around to read the lists, hoping their loved ones, by some miracle, might have made it through.

  Hans and Stephen fought their way to the windows. Hans pushed Stephen in front of him. “You go first,” he said.

  Stephen stepped forward and quickly read the long list. None of his family was on it. He moved to another list. His family wasn’t there either. He moved to another, and then stared. His mother’s name, Nora Levy, was on the last list.

  He blinked and looked again. He reached out and touched her name, as if to make sure it was real. “Nora Levy,” Stephen said in a faraway whisper, as if he couldn’t believe it. He turned to Hans. “She’s alive! She made it. I am not a hopeless orphan anymore!”

  They hugged each other. There was quiet relief and an unburdening of the weight that had sat on Stephen’s young shoulders for seven years. It was a hesitant celebration.

  “Now, your turn,” Stephen said.

  Hans stepped forward. He searched the lists, jostled by the surging, anxious, and often weeping crowd. He couldn’t find anyone on the list. He turned and shrugged. Stephen walked up and searched, too. Not one member of Hans’s family was listed.

  Hans shook his head.

  “No one is left, not even Eddie,” he said, accepting his greatest fear, a final reality. What Hans had feared all these years was true. They weren’t ever coming back. There would be no promised reunion for Hans.

  Eva, extremely thin, but stylish in a wide-shouldered dress cinched in at her tiny waist, waited with her father on the porch of their old house in Berlin. Her hair, somewhat grown out, had a slight curl.

  She and her father watched as Olga, a chubby version of her younger self, and her parents hurriedly moved their things out of Eva’s house. Two American servicemen, with guns and broad grins, supervised.

  As they left, Eva held out her hand to Olga, who stared at Eva’s thin, outstretched hand.

  “The war may be over, but that doesn’t mean people feel differently,” Olga said, as she turned and walked away. It was Olga’s turn to be displaced with nowhere to go.

  “I don’t believe that. Germany is as much mine as it is yours. You’ll see. Germany will rise again!” Eva shouted after her.

  Bert reached over and put his arm around her and smiled. “I should have let you hit her the night they took our house.” They laughed together like the old days.

  That night they wandered their old house. Many of their possessions were missing, but it was filled with so many memories. They remembered a time when life wasn’t perfect, but the horrors of the camps were unknown. They marveled at everything they had taken for granted: the running water in the kitchen, the comfort of their bathroom, and electricity at their demand. It was all overwhelming, and they basked in their victory.

  “We made it, Papa. We’re home,” Eva said. They sat at the kitchen table eating apple strudel and drinking hot cocoa, tasting each flavor and savoring the luxury on their tongues.

  “We are, indeed. Didn’t I tell you we would?”

  “Yes, you did. I wish Mother could see that we made it back home,” Eva said.

  “She can, and maybe now she can see how much we loved her.”

  “I wonder where William is,” Eva said.

  “We will try and find him in England.”

  Eva set her cup in its saucer and it teetered. “Can we go to England?” she asked excitedly.

  Bert smiled. “Yes, we will go and visit Peter, and find out what has happened to our William, as soon as things settle down.”

  Eva clapped and kissed her father’s cheek. “Do you know how much I love you, my dear, sweet Papa?”

  He kissed her back. “Yes, because I love you the same.”

  “You look tired. Do you want me to help you to bed?”

  “Yes, my little mouse. That huge soft bed is calling me.”

  With her arms around him, she helped him up the stairs to his old bedroom, hijacked by Olga’s family, but returned to them by God, who looks after his people.

  That night, as Bert and Eva slept in their family home with the memories of better times swirling around them, and the nearly forgotten warmth and comfort of beds beneath them, Bert’s heart finally gave out. He had survived the “Night of Broken Glass,” the Bockenburg camp, the Nazi killing camp, and the death march, but at home in Germany, Bert faced death on his own terms. His heart decided it had had enough.

  Bert never woke up, and Eva was left alone to find her way.

  A few days later in London, an old hunched woman limped to the hostel. Her clothes hung loosely on her thin frame, as if nothing was left of her but the bones. Holding onto the side of the house for support, she slowly knocked on the door.

  Stephen opened the door. “Hello, can I help you?”

  The old woman grabbed Stephen with thin scarred hands and pulled him to her in a hug. “Stephen! I have dreamed of this moment,” the woman said in German.

  “Mother?” Stephen said, recognizing the voice from a long-ago memory, but not the words or her appearance. “Is that you?”

  The old woman nodded and smiled, showing missing teeth under her split lip. It was Nora. “You look so handsome. So English.”

  Stephen stood stiffly, staring at her. The young, beautiful mother he remembered was gone. Standing before him was a weathered, bent old woman with patches of hair missing. Only the light in her eyes remained the same. He searched her face. Hitler had taken his mother’s beauty, but she had somehow held on to her soul.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak very much German anymore,” Stephen sai
d.

  “I said you look so handsome, so English,” Nora said, speaking in English. She stroked his face. “My little boy, finally, we are together. I dreamed of this since I waved goodbye at the Kindertransport.”

  Stephen smiled. His heart warmed to the sound of her voice, like a dream almost forgotten, but so much time had passed. “I’m not a little boy anymore,” he said, gently.

  Nora nodded. “I can see that. You have become a man without me.”

  Stephen reached out and held Nora’s scarred hand. “What happened to you?”

  “Some things are best left unsaid. We will leave for America in a week,” Nora said, matter-of-factly. “They are finally allowing us in.”

  “I don’t want to go to America. I want to stay here,” Stephen said. “I don’t want to start over again.”

  “You are my son. You’ll do what I say,” Nora said.

  “I’ve been on my own for seven years,” Stephen said.

  “You lived in England in safety, while we suffered.”

  “Yes, but we suffered, too.”

  “Shame on you. You should be grateful the Kindertransport took you out of Germany! You were the lucky ones,” Nora said. “You have no right to compare your life to the horrors those other children suffered, like Eddie and Eva.”

  “Eddie?” Stephen’s eyes teared up. “Eddie’s gone.”

  Nora’s face of stone, hiding suffering and unspeakable horrors, cracked, and a tear ran down her cheek. “Anna?”

  “She’s gone, too. Hans has no one left.”

  “But you and Hans are here,” Nora said. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. It’s been so long.”

  “We survived Hitler. We’ll survive this, too. We can survive anything,” Nora said. “We will decide together where we will live.”