Lilli's Quest

by Lila Perl

  Helga backs Lilli up with a sarcastic remark. “When Hitler goes into Poland he will find many more Jews to kill. That will give him even more Lebensraum.”

  Mr. Hess looks a bit flustered. He’s been teaching these half-Jewish students because he needed the work, and the Bayers convinced him his undertaking would be kept secret. Before he can respond to the challenges of his too-well-taught students, there is a rapid knocking at the door, and Mutti enters the room, with Gerda directly behind her.

  Lilli and Helga are instantly alarmed, and Mr. Hess seems a bit taken aback, too. It’s most unusual for Mutti to visit the girls during the day. Her expression is sad, though she is smiling.

  “The papers have come for you, my Helga dear.” she says softly. Mutti is holding up some official-looking documents. “Your passport has been approved, and there is no time to lose. The next Kindertransport is to leave for England on September 1st. In just a few days. If war breaks out, heaven spare us, this train may be the last to reach safety. Gerda will help you pack the things you must take with …”

  Mutti never finishes her sentence. Helga, once the most obedient of the three Frankfurter sisters, hurls herself at Mutti, screaming furiously. “I told you I would never go. I refuse to give in to their threats and persecutions. I am not a mouse to be chased away with a broom.”

  Mutti brushes a tear from her cheek. “Be sensible, my child. You are one of the fortunate ones. There is room for only a limited number of children on this final transport. You must not give up your chance for freedom.”

  Lilli turns her back and walks to the window. She gazes down at the street below, which is almost deserted in the summer heat. She’s never told Helga what she overheard the night she spied on Mutti and Captain Koeppler. Tears spring to her eyes. Perhaps she and Helga have not been the closest of sisters, despite being only one year apart in age. Still, they have grown up together, and experienced the increasing harshness of the Nazi offensive against Jews. And, although they try never to speak of it, they are both almost certain they’ve lost Papa to the brutalities of the Buchenwald concentration camp. The mysterious postcards, with staggered dates but the same bland message, have long ceased to arrive. And Mr. Hess has whispered rumors of prisoners being worked to death in the harsh Buchenwald stone quarries. “You must fight such hatred all your lives,” Papa said upon being arrested on Kristallnacht. What, Lilli ponders, is the best way to do that?

  She turns away from the window. This is what she will tell Helga. It is, after all, what Papa would have wanted …

  But Helga is nowhere in sight. Mutti has collapsed onto the bed and is sobbing uncontrollably. Gerda is bustling out the door, calling after Helga in German, “Halt, Halt!” Mr. Hess is rapidly gathering up his teaching materials, preparing to make a swift exit.

  Lilli is much fleeter than the chunky-bodied Gerda, and easily slips past her on the staircase and races into the garden, just in time to see Helga disappear behind the untidy shrubs that conceal the hole beneath the crumbling wall. This time Lilli doesn’t hesitate. She dives crazily into the loose earth, wriggles through the opening, staggers to her feet on the deserted street, and chases after Helga.

  Both girls have always been fast runners, winning races even back when they were quite small and attended the German school. But today Lilli fears she will never catch her sister, who is sprinting ahead. She musn’t lose sight of Helga, whose drab clothing could easily help her to vanish into the crowd on the next street, where a trolley line runs and there are shops rather than large houses surrounded by garden walls.

  Where can Helga be going? Does she even know? Doesn’t she see the danger of attracting attention? Lilli has a vision of Helga causing a scuffle in the street and being arrested by the Nazi police, who will take her to headquarters. There, she will be forced to reveal the hideout of her half-Jewish sisters. Mutti and the Bayers will be found guilty, and they will all be swallowed up into one of the concentration camps.

  These images push Lilli to pursue Helga with a renewed burst of energy. The busy traffic street at the corner is already in sight, and Lilli has very little time to pounce on the fleeing Helga and bring her to the ground. She imagines herself a cheetah, an animal she saw once on a visit to the zoo, said to be the fastest land animal on earth. She wills herself to give all she has to the chase.

  The distance between the sisters begins to shrink. Lilli is getting closer and closer. Finally, with one fierce effort, she hurls her body into the air, thrusts her right arm as far ahead of her as she can, and catches the sleeve of Helga’s blouse.

  There is a loud thud, followed by a cracking sound that sends a wave of sickness through Lilli’s body. Her stilled prey lies before her, moaning in pain.

  Four

  True to his promise, on September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler sends Nazi Germany’s fiercest fighting divisions into neighboring Poland. True to their promise, the governments of Great Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later. World War II has begun.

  The morning of September 1 finds Lilli and Mutti on the busy street with the trolley line, on the very block where Lilli tackled Helga to the ground just a few days before. Mutti, always much more stylishly dressed than the average German Frau, wears a flowered-chiffon summer dress and a brimmed straw hat, tilted at a charming angle.

  Lilli, already tall for her age, walks beside her mother. She is dressed in her usual khaki clothing, high socks, and sturdy shoes. She carries both a small suitcase and a backpack. Her heart is racing. She could never have imagined this scene until the day of Helga’s accident … Helga, who now rests with her broken arm and dislocated shoulder in a cast, attended in the attic room by Gerda and a hired nurse.

  After Helga’s fall, people began to gather, seemingly from nowhere, muttering and making suggestions for lifting her from the ground. Several older men and women scolded Lilli for having knocked her sister down. The police were sure to be arriving at any minute to investigate the hubbub.

  It was Gerda who saved the day, huffing and puffing as she caught up with the runaway and her pursuer. With great strength and care, she lifted Helga to her feet, carefully embraced her wounded arm and shoulder, and walked her back to the house, with Lilli trailing shame-facedly behind.

  “Just a bit of roughhousing,” Gerda soothed the slowly-dispersing crowd. “They are sisters and members of the Hitler Youth.”

  The harried days that followed were taken up with Mutti’s daring plan to have Lilli substitute for Helga on the Kindertransport.

  “How can this happen?” Lilli asked her mother. “I am a year older and Helga and I don’t look alike. They will not honor the passport. And what will happen to Helga, and to the rest who remain behind?” Lilli insisted that she was cheating Helga of a chance for freedom that was rightfully hers.

  Mutti was gentle but persuasive. “You wanted to go from the very start, Lilli. How foolish to waste this chance for freedom. Once you are in England, you may be able to save us all.” With that, Mutti pressed into Lilli’s hand the name and address of Papa’s brother, Herman, who lived in America. Lilli remembered hearing her parents speak of the American relatives, with whom Papa had corresponded for years prior to his arrest. Herrman knew of their plight, but had been unable to help the family because of his country’s strict immigration laws. So, for Lilli, the Kindertransport would be more than just an escape from Nazi Germany—it would also be a mission to find a way to contact her uncle.

  Before her departure, Lilli tried to make peace with her sister. “What are you so worried about, Lilli?” Helga remarked cynically. “You know I didn’t want to be sent away like a scared bunny. I’ll stay here and fight for my rights.”

  “What rights?” Lilli exclaimed. “You haven’t any here in Germany. Where were you even running that day? Into the arms of the street police, or those brutes, the Brown Shirts, or straight to the Gestapo itself?”

  Helga turned away, gingerly lifting her right arm and shoulder in their hard cast.

/>   “We won’t talk about it anymore,” she pronounced.

  The trolley is crowded and noisy, and there is an air of excitement everywhere. All along the route, groups of Hitler Youth are marching through the streets, cheering and carrying flags and large banners bearing swastikas. The news of the Fuhrer’s invasion of Poland has traveled fast, and the German people appear to be supporting him in his reckless grab for conquest and power.

  Mutti and Lilli sit rigidly side by side and do not speak until Mutti announces, “We will get off at the next stop.”

  Lilli peers out the window. They are still a few blocks away from the bustling railroad station. Mutti explains that it will be better to say goodbye at some distance from the train platform, as the Nazi authorities frown on too much public display.

  Mother and daughter descend from the trolley and make their way through the congested streets. Lilli has already said goodbye to her Bayer grandparents and little Elspeth, as well as to Helga, the two sisters crying and hugging each other. Soon it will be time to say goodbye to Mutti, who remains a mystery to Lilli. Noting the presence of so many Hitler police and high-level Nazi officers surrounding the railroad station, Lilli thinks about the tall shadowy figure of Captain Koeppler. What is his true relationship to Mutti? Was Papa betrayed by Mutti’s “old school friend” or has he been helped? If Papa is alive, why can’t the Captain get word to them from him?

  “I will write to you, Lilli my child,” Mutti says as they drawer closer to the station. “And you will write to me. We must never lose touch …”

  “And you will let me know the first thing if you hear from Papa,” Lilli interrupts. “And tell me about Helga and Elspeth …”

  Their words are drowned out by the noise of blaring announcements, harsh commands, and the shrillness of the train whistle. A moment later, mother and daughter are being wedged apart by the steely shoulders of the uniformed police. They manage one last embrace before Lilli is swept away in the direction of the nearest railroad car.

  The Nazi guards shove the children onto the train like so many cattle. Toddlers are carried aboard by older children, and there are even some infants in the arms of brother and sisters, themselves no more than teenagers. No parents or guardians are allowed to go along. The only adults on the train will be the German officers.

  Lilli reaches a seat beside a window in the dreary car, which quickly fills up and overflows into the next car and the next. There are perhaps two hundred children about to travel on what will likely be the last Kindertransport ever to leave Germany.

  Lilli peers out the window, trying to get one more view of Mutti. She manages to catch a glimpse of her mother’s tall, lovely figure in the crush on the station platform.

  But with so many little faces pressed against the grimy windows, Mutti doesn’t see Lilli, who is waving furiously amid the clutter and tears of her fellow children. Soon only a tiny space remains in the window, through which Lilli catches a final view of Mutti, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Beside her, stands the tall, grim figure of Captain Gerhardt Koeppler.

  It’s almost a relief for Lilli to look away from the window into the stern face of one of the German soldiers, who are checking for name tags and luggage identification. The tags mean that the children have valid travel visas, or passports. Any child without a tag will be removed from the train.

  Lilli gropes nervously for her visa. It is there, pinned to her coat. Then she is asked to point out her luggage. The officer lifts up her backpack and suitcase, and seems to be weighing them. He hefts the backpack questioningly. “What have you got in there?” he asks with a grin, “the family silver?”

  Alarmed, Lilli gulps. “Books. Some English books to read.”

  The soldier’s grin widens into a toothy smile as he presses the pack to feel its contents and then sets it down beside Lilli. “Ha. Well, good luck to you then, Helga Frankfurter.” And he is gone.

  Helga! She is now Helga. Lilli must never forget this. She will be Helga forever. And who will Helga be? What will become of her?

  Lilli is still pondering this awful question when she feels a jolt and realizes that the train is leaving the station. Soon they will be clattering through the countryside on their way to the border with Holland, where they will at last be beyond the clutches of German authority.

  The seats in the train are arranged to face each other, so that some of the children are riding forward, and some backward. From her cramped position beside the window, Lilli looks directly across into the eyes of a bespectacled boy who, unlike many of the others, is well-dressed for the journey. He is so proper and neat that she can’t help smiling at him and, to her surprise, he smiles back and thrusts out his hand.

  “Stefan Korzak,” he announces with formal courtesy. Lilli imagines that if he was on his feet he would click his heels.

  “Li … Helga Frankfurter,” she replies, stumbling a bit. “Where are you from?”

  Lilli learns that Stefan is from a Jewish family in Austria. The country has been under Nazi rule since March 1938, so his parents have arranged for him to live with the family of his uncle, a businessman in England.

  “What about you?” he asks Lilli.

  Lilli hunches her shoulders. “I don’t know where I will live. But I do have an uncle in America. Perhaps I can go to live with him some day.”

  Stefan leans forward, his eyeglasses glinting in the staggered light of the rumbling train. “Don’t plan on it. They don’t let Jews in that easily.”

  Lilli feels for Herman Frankfurter’s address, which is sewn into the pocket of her blouse, and shudders. She doesn’t want to talk to Stefan Korzak anymore. He is surely one of the very lucky members of the Kindertransport, clean, and well-dressed.

  Babies, in the arms of children Lilli’s age, cry incessantly. Every now and then the smell of vomit wafts through the car. Some of the young travelers have motion sickness; others are frightened. Gerda has packed a lunch for Lilli of bread and cheese and fruit. But her stomach is turning and she wants nothing to eat. She leans back against the hard wooden seat and shuts her eyes. But images leap before her … her goodbyes to Helga and Elspeth, the barking orders and rough handling of the Nazi guards at the railroad station, her last glimpse of Mutti with the menacing Captain Koeppler at her side …

  Lilli is awakened by the sharp, jerky movements of the slowing train, and by the sound of cheering coming from within the railroad car. Stefan Korzak is leaning toward her with a gleaming smile. “We have come to the Dutch border,” he announces. “We are free, Helga Frankfurter. Free!”

  Lilli rubs her eyes. She is being crushed by her seatmates, who have swarmed to the windows, seeking their first view of Holland, a free country (even though the Fuhrer has already made plans to swallow it up, along with Belgium and even France).

  Stefan, who has a better view of the Dutch railroad station from his window, informs Lilli that “the Nazi guards are leaving the train. And the Dutch train conductors are coming aboard. Goodbye to Hitler!”

  There is more cheering, not only for the unarmed, blue-garbed trainmen entering the cars, but also for the many Dutch women and children who have come to see the Kindertransport pass through on its way to the seaport. Train windows have been opened and the kindly visitors are passing sandwiches and chocolate bars, even cups of hot cocoa, to the clamoring hands within. Lilli finds herself gulping back tears of surprise as a chocolate bar wrapped in gold paper is thrust into her hands

  Too quickly, however, the train sounds its whistle, warning of its imminent departure for the ferry slips on the North Sea. “Goodbye!” the visitors cry out as they slowly disperse. “Good luck to you for a safe landing in England.”

  It’s late in the day when the weary and sea-sickened Kindertransport travelers arrive in the English port of Harwich. They are taken to the assignment center, where they will meet their hosts. The children, so happy and refreshed during their brief stop in Holland, are now limp, and many of the little ones have fallen fast aslee
p. Even Stefan Korzak looks a bit roughed up despite his fine clothing. He suffered a sick stomach several times during the crossing, and Lilli couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. But when his uncle and other family members come to claim him—and he and “Helga” exchange formal farewells—Lilli becomes envious again.

  She has been sitting on a bench in the assignment center for what feels like a very long time. Little by little her younger companions have been offered homes, their luggage collected as they have gone off to live with their new families. But Lilli, who appears older than her twelve years, is repeatedly passed over. What if nobody wants me? she worries. I’ve come so far. Mutti said I would be safe here, but where will I live?

  Her thoughts are interrupted by one of the refugee officers overseeing the welfare of the diminishing number of Kindertransport arrrivals. “Not to worry, dear,” says the pleasant-voiced woman. “I promise you’ll have a bed tonight and a warm meal.”

  “But where?” Lilli asks anxiously. An Army transport has arrived to take several of the oldest refugee boys and girls to an orphanage. Lilli is not sure what a British orphanage is like, but it does not sound like the “good home in England” that Grossmutter Bayer had described. “I want to live some place where I can go to school and … and skate and do sports, and go to the cinema …”

  “Of course, of course, all in good time,” the officer assures her in a friendly manner. “But meanwhile, dear, we must assure that your basic needs are taken care of. Please collect your things and come with me.”

  With a sinking heart, Lilli slings her backpack over her shoulders, picks up her suitcase, and haltingly approaches the waiting transport.

  Five

  The daylight hours of an English summer seem to go on and on. It is still bright out as Lilli bounces along on a country road in a battered farm truck, seated between her new family, a Mr. and Mrs. Rathbone, instead of in the Army transport that was to have taken her to the orphanage.