Meanwhile Ludwig and my father cultivated the fields. They had purchased a workhorse to pull the rusty old plough, and they trudged along behind it. Ludwig gradually repaired a few farm implements, often tying them together with bits of binder twine. I spent many hours watching him patiently figure out how things worked. I also loved to walk with my father as he inserted single kernels of corn into the ground, rhythmically depressing the planter handle until it gave a satisfying click.
Aunt Anny took on the outside world. Armed with her dictionary, her ready smile, and her willingness to use gestures, Anny learned English. In Europe, people had frowned upon her refusal to bow to convention. Now her traits were seen as entrepreneurial. She decided to raise chickens. Each week she stood on the highway to hitchhike her way into Hamilton where she trudged door to door with a basket of eggs.
Helen wandering alone by the lift that became the henhouse
There were many setbacks, but gradually the farm began to produce a better yield. Anny added fresh-killed chickens to her load, and I was allowed to help clean them. First, they had to be eyed for plumpness and caught. This involved much squawking and ruffling of feathers with chickens darting madly about the henhouse. Ludwig did the actual killing by inserting a very sharp knife into their open beak. He explained that this was faster and more humane than cutting off their heads, which often resulted in headless chickens running about in crazed circles.
Next, the chickens were dipped into very hot water. It needed to be just the right temperature to soften the feathers without burning the skin. Then the chickens were hung by their legs from a long pole, and I was allowed to help pluck them, taking great care to not tear the delicate skin in the process. When even the most stubborn of pinfeathers had been removed, my mother would take the chickens to the stove where the iron lid would be lifted and the last small, almost invisible hairs would be singed over the open flame. Finally, my mother would slice open the hen’s bum and insert her hand deep into the cavity, pulling out guts, stomach, and liver all in a single quivering mass. Sometimes there would be eggs without a shell, and these would be scooped into a bowl for our meals as would stray bits of fat that could be scraped from the intestines. Any lumps of good fat along with the stomach, heart, and liver would be returned to the washed cavity as a treasure for the lucky purchaser.
The fields too began to produce increasingly respectable crops. Some fields grew wheat that had to be cut and bundled with twine into bunches that were propped against each other to form stooks, the little tent-like structures that many an artist has romanticized in paint. To me, the bundling and propping took forever, and I spent endless days sitting at the edge of the field under a tree that gave minimal shelter from the relentless sun. I watched as Anny and my mother, wearing high rubber boots to shield their legs from snakes as well as from the rough stubble, joined the men in this nerve-racking task. Rain at this point would ruin the harvest, and haste was of the essence.
Only when the wheat was dry could it be loaded upon a wagon and brought to the threshing machine, a gigantic contraption that needed to be booked far in advance along with its owner-operator. This in itself was a problem. Book too early and the grain might not yet be dry; book too late and a sudden rain meant disaster. Moreover, not only the thresher but also all the neighbouring farmers had to be available on that date, for threshing was very much a communal activity.
Ready for work in the fields,
mother in rubber boots to protect her legs from snakes
There was always much excitement on threshing day. Once the neighbours had been recruited to help, it was time for the women to start planning the food. This invariably threw my mother and Anny into a state bordering on panic. In their first year of threshing, the two women had prepared European food for the big midday meal. It was the best meal they had to offer: Kraut, Knödel, Schweinfleisch, and Kuchen. The farmers had taken one look, pushed away their plates, and walked out. They expected roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, and two boiled vegetables. Worst of all for Gretl and Anny, they wanted pie for dessert.
Although they eventually learned to “cook Canadian,” the art of pie making remained a mystery to both women. Their cookbooks were stuffed with loose bits of paper on which they had copied recipes from Robin Hood and Five Roses flour, from the backs of blocks of Crisco and lard, and even from bottles of cooking oil. Still their crusts remained rock hard. Neither woman ever succeeded in making the flaky mixture that seemed to be the innate gift of every Canadian farm wife. Finally, Mrs. Bates, our kindly neighbour took pity on them and offered to prepare the pies oven-ready for threshing day.
Mrs. Bates really was a dear, sweet woman. I spent many days tagging behind her as she worked her magic in the kitchen. Unlike my family, she never seemed too busy to let me watch, and my questions did not bother her. I don’t know how we communicated, for in those days, I spoke no English.
So that I could learn English as soon as possible, my parents sent me to First Grade at the one-room schoolhouse at Glanford Station when I turned five rather than wait until I was six as was the norm.
Before I was allowed to attend school, my parents made me promise never to say that I was Jewish. If a teacher asked for my religion, I was to answer, “I am Czech.” There had been several long debates at home about whether people would believe that there was a Czech church. In the end, my parents decided that Canadians knew so little about Czechoslovakia that no statement about the country and its people would sound too far-fetched.
I do not remember my first day of school. I suspect that I have blocked it from memory. Children who have not been taught kindness can be cruel. These children of Ontario farmers who had never encountered a non-English speaker must have viewed me as a rare bird indeed.
I do remember the years of being taunted at every opportunity. My very name gave rise to great hilarity, especially after my parents were overheard using its affectionate form. “Helly” works fine in German, but not in English. Put this together with Waldstein, so close in sound to Holstein (the black and white cows that many of my classmates milked before and after school as part of their daily chores), and you have the makings of endless mockery.
My lunches were another source of daily amusement. I dreaded opening the little red pail that my mother so proudly packed with leftover treats. While others removed crisp new waxed paper from their coveted lily-white sandwiches, I’d have meat on thick slices of rye. To make matters worse, my meat was not thinly sliced roast beef or ham, but slabs of tongue and other cheap cuts. I never got used to the fake barfing of my classmates as they watched me open the brown butcher-paper wrapping so carefully saved to last out the week.
Except in unusually warm weather, lunches were eaten at our desks. There was nowhere else in the school, except that one room and a little cloakroom where, in winter, we hung our sodden coats and lined up our boots. All winter long, our lessons were accompanied by the smell of drying woollens. The wood stove adjacent to the cloakroom always seemed to be lit. Many a morning, I welcomed its glow after ploughing my way through ever-shifting snowdrifts. How early those poor teachers must have arrived to ensure us of this cozy welcome!
The teacher I remember most fondly is Miss Martindale. I picture her as having glasses perched upon a small nose, fluffy brown hair, and a very warm smile. Somehow, despite the clamouring of a roomful of students of all different grades and abilities, she managed to find time for me. Once I had learned to read, Miss Martindale just kept giving me more books and skipping me ahead until I was more than two years younger than were the others in my grade. While my interest in books has never waned, skipping two years unfortunately increased my social isolation even further.
Helen sets off for her first day at school, September 1941
After school, I would rush home in search of Ludwig. At least I did until my mother told me how much I hurt my father by not seeking him out first. Hurting my father was the last thing I intended.
Still, Ludwig was
so much more fun. Ludwig took me by the hand and introduced me to each of the cows by name as he made the rounds, doling out the pre-measured quantity of food to each. Ludwig allowed me to scramble up the ladder and sit on a bale while he pitched straw through the chute. Sometimes he’d manage to catch one of the cats we kept in the barn and hold it gently while I buried my face in the soft fur. Some afternoons when he had harnessed old Dolly to the stone sledge to fetch the empty milk cans from the highway, he’d lift me way, way up, onto her broad white back and let me ride. But this only happened if my mother wasn’t around because she’d start screaming, “Careful, she’s going to fall” until he’d lift me off and deposit me far from the menacing horse.
In the evening, I loved to sit and watch Ludwig peel apples, the paper-thin peel curling unbroken in long spirals onto the plate. Neighbours with an orchard let us take all we wanted of the apples that had fallen to the ground, and we collected enough to last through the long winter evenings. Ludwig knew endless jokes and riddles and he never seemed too busy or too preoccupied to talk to me. Sometimes he’d teach me Czech tongue twisters: “Strc prst skrz krk,” the classic all-consonant line that means roughly, “Stick finger through neck,” and my all-time favourite “Trsta trstetz tria tribernek,” which involves three thousand three hundred and thirty-three red fire engines. Ludwig would laugh and laugh until I joined him.
As he sat peeling, I’d often count freckles on the back of his hands until the dots blurred. To me, Ludwig was so handsome. A head of tight red curls framed large green eyes, and a huge dimple sat squarely in the middle of his chin.
Both Anny and Ludwig had more patience than my parents did. They also seemed to be more cheerful, and certainly, they knew how to cheer me up. I still remember the little ditty Anny used to sing whenever tears gathered in my eyes:
Doodle-oodle-ei,
Doodle-oodle-life
Sagt my Wei’
Says my wife
Das Heferl ist zerbrochen
The bowl, it got broken
Hab’ kein Salz,
I’ve got no salt
Hab kein Schmalz
I’ve got no fat
Wie soll ich da kochen?
How can I be cookin’?
Neither of my parents could have coped without the help of these two amazing people. Ludwig the fixer was the real glue that held everything together. Whatever was broken, eventually he’d figure out how to repair it. To this day, I keep every bit of string that comes my way, partly as a frugal habit that does not die easily, partly in memory of the way Ludwig could tie things together. The same knack that he brought to broken machinery, he also brought to human relationships.
Ludwig and my father got along beautifully, but the friction between my mother and my aunt was constant. Old rivalries from their childhood surfaced repeatedly, and usually Ludwig poured soothing oil on troubled waters.
I often wonder at the source of Ludwig’s inner calm. He was not a very learned man, yet he had a wisdom that I find all the more admirable as I struggle to find my own perspective. There were frequent rumours that Anny had flagrant affairs. Did she? Or were the rumours just envy on the part of straitlaced outsiders who secretly admired her uninhibited social interactions? New acquaintances, both women and men, instantly felt they were her best friend. Anny knew how to reach out.
Ludwig, in turn, knew how to hold his tongue. After his death, Anny complained that it was the one piece of his advice that she had failed to master. Ludwig also knew how to recognize and foster the good in others. Just as he had encouraged me to sit unafraid on the back of a huge horse, so he helped others in later years. Long before “Native rights” became prevalent in Canadian consciousness, Ludwig began hiring men from a nearby reserve. Frequently, there were accidents and problems, but Ludwig never lost sight of what was right. He continued to support the men, and their families, who often became his friends.
At Ludwig’s funeral, there were all sorts of people. Absent were a handful of people that Ludwig had been unable to forgive, those who had turned their back when Jews had clamoured for entry to Canada. Some had been fellow Jewish immigrants more concerned with getting ahead in the new world than with reaching out to those stranded in Europe.
Anny had always been a woman of action, the one who grabbed life by the scruff of the neck and shook it until change happened. Just as she had taken the lead in learning English and in selling eggs, she had stepped forward in other ways. Ironically, the more Anny did, the more my mother’s resentment of her grew. Petty complaints, all voiced behind closed doors. Although her food tasted great to me and largely came from the same cookbook that my mother used, I grew up hearing that Anny was a terrible cook. Today, I still make her red current cake. The tart berries are covered with a sugared meringue, the two extremes evocative of Anny’s own sweet-topped turbulence.
Even though I knew my aunt as a lively, outgoing woman who talked to everyone and had many friends, my mother claimed that nobody liked Anny. My admiration of my aunt was another of those dark secrets I hid from my mother.
Sadly, the lifelong rivalry between the two sisters grew worse as they aged. After Ludwig died, Anny retreated into a shell from which she emerged only briefly. She threw up walls and rarely deviated from the rigid daily routine that became her life. It was her way of creating a semblance of control.
There was always a reason why Anny could not make the short trip to Hamilton. Monday was laundry, Tuesday was ironing, Wednesday was hairdresser, Thursday was banking, Friday was shopping, and weekends were unsuitable. Although my mother routinely smuggled her little white lap dog into stores, restaurants, and local buses, my mother claimed that because of the dog, she could not board the bus to Brantford.
Three days before she died, I visited Anny for the last time. She was lucid but ready to rejoin her beloved Ludwig in the next life. She had no desire to see her sister again. After Anny’s death, the letters that Max and Resl had sent to both sisters before the war were nowhere to be found.
Letters to Canada
JUST A SINGLE SET OF LETTERS, dated April 2,1939 and sent to us in Antwerp, had restored each aunt and uncle to me. I seemed to hear them speak and watch them act. In 1996, with those letters in my lap, the family I had not known began to take shape.
I trembled with my father’s sister Martha as she contemplated an uncertain future for herself and her children. I agonized with her husband Emil Fränkel as he hesitated, not knowing which way to turn to escape the Nazi net. Stretching across the miles and through the years, their longing to be with us reached deep into my heart.
I shared my Aunt Else’s hopes as she smiled in the face of adversity. Her efforts seemed to parallel my own struggle to smooth life’s bumpy road with food and cheerful conversation. I felt comfortable with her husband Emil Urbach, and saw the parallel between his directness and the abruptness of which I often stand accused. Even Emil’s unsolicited advice to my parents seemed to echo my misguided efforts to be helpful. All too often, without being asked, I propose solutions to the problems of others.
However, it was in my Uncle Arnold that I most clearly recognized myself: fundamentally optimistic but rooted in reality and alert to human possibility. It was with great eagerness, therefore, that I opened the next letter in his handwriting. The letter is dated June 25,1939. Much had transpired since that first letter from all six of my aunts and uncles in Prague to my parents in an Antwerp hotel. As of April 16,1939, my parents had become Canadian farmers. How eagerly my father would have seized the letter, seeking some reassurance that the sky was not falling upon his family.
Arnold’s letter does not disappoint. Its tone is newsy and chipper. There are many comings and goings. My grandmother Fanny had been to Prague, to visit the family and to check on the progress of her youngest grandchild, the “uncommonly cute” Dorly. Arnold paints life as warm, familial, and comfortingly normal.
As always, there were many visitors at Else’s and the conversation was lively. Of co
urse, we talked about everything under the sun, but the main topic of conversation was you. Repeatedly, we discussed your new living conditions and there were great debates ranging from coping with your lack of drinking water to what you should plant in the fields. Well, these days we who are “left-behin-ders” must become more multi-faceted than ever and learn to understand much that is new.
Still, if this was a normal family visit, why did my grandfather Josef not accompany Fanny? Did she go alone to start the search for accommodation? In March of 1939, Hitler had declared Bohemia to be a “protectorate” of Germany, and by August, Jews living in the provinces of the protectorate had been ordered to resettle in Prague within the year. Fanny and Josef would soon be forced to move.
Arnold avoids troubling my parents with matters they could not change. However, he points out that Emil Fränkel has resisted all pressure to sell his house and his business premises in Linz, despite the new laws in Austria that bar Jews from owning property. In desperation, the man who assumed interim control of Emil’s business affairs had come all the way to Prague to persuade Emil to sign over the property to him.
In 1996, safely under my own roof, I began to rethink what my parents meant when they said, “When we fled, we lost everything.” Because I have been both fortunate and frugal, I own my home and do not wake up wondering if someone will take it away from me. Yet in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, that is precisely what happened. The government simply changed the law. Jews could no longer own property. Whatever they owned was simply taken by the state, and the state signed over to Aryan citizens any property that it did not keep. That is how we “lost” our home and the store in Strobnitz, how my mother’s parents “lost” their home and their store in Germany, and how the Fränkels “lost” everything in Austria.
Letters From the Lost Page 6