My Bridges of Hope

by Livia Bitton-Jackson

  Tommy is last. He averts his eyes as he shakes my hand. He turns abruptly and makes a run for the van.

  “Tommy!” I shout, sobbing, but he does not turn back. With one leap he bounds up the rungs and vanishes into the van’s interior.

  Through a haze of tears I see the other boys wave before entering the covered army vehicle.

  The convoy of vans moves out of the yard, and I stare into the cloud of exhaust fumes until the distant rumbling of the departing transport becomes a faint echo. I clutch the flowers and the other presents against my chest and move robotlike toward the hospital building.

  The gang is gone, and I am to face Vienna without them. They are my friends, my brothers, my soul mates. How can I face life without them? Will I ever see them again?

  I don’t want to stay in Vienna any longer. We must find another way to get to America.

  In our room I find an empty jar and put the lilies in water. They are my last reminder of the spring. The fabulous spring in Vienna that has just ended.

  Tomorrow is September, and I must brace myself for the approaching winter. It is time to move on.

  Back in Germany

  Feldafing, September 1949

  As the train approaches the German border, my stomach seems to be lodged in my throat. We are committing the most reprehensible act. We are returning to Germany.

  “It won’t be as bad as you think,” Mommy reassures me. “Our friends will be happy to see us. We have no alternative. Might as well make the best of it.” Mommy, the perennial pragmatist. For her, returning to Germany is just as unacceptable. Yet, she is able to extract an ounce of victory from every defeat.

  She is right. We have attempted every other option. In Vienna we waited eight months for our turn on the Czechoslovak emigration list to the United States. The U.S. Congress has established an annual quota—a fixed number of emigrants allowed to enter the country each year. The number varies from country to country. The Czechoslovak quota is among the best, we were told by informed sources—among all nationalities the largest number of applications approved are from Czechoslovakia. When we applied for emigration at the U.S. Embassy in Prague over two years ago, we received a number and were told to expect our turn within two years.

  “All you have to do,” our sources advised, “is contact the U.S. Embassy in Vienna with your quota number and inform them that you recently left Prague for Vienna and wish to receive your American visa here.”

  In his letters Bubi approved of this course of action. I mustered my courage and, in the English I learned at the Folk Academy in Bratislava, presented our case to the officials at the U.S. Visa Section. It was the first time I spoke English to native speakers, and I was thrilled to discover they understood me. They took notes and told me, also in English, to come back in a few weeks for an answer. A few weeks later Mommy and I were admonished to wait for our turn patiently.

  Finally, in September, we were informed by the Americans in Vienna that our Czechoslovak quota number could not be activated in Austria since Austria had its own quota. If we wanted to register on the Austrian quota, the Americans advised us, we had to establish Austrian residency. Once that was accomplished we could return to the U.S. Embassy and put our name on the Austrian emigration register. This response came as a painful blow. It was a transparent, disingenuous method of dismissal.

  The Americans’ rebuff was the last straw after the gang’s departure. I no longer wanted to stay in Vienna. Mommy and I decided to follow friends’ advice and register as refugees in a Displaced Persons Camp. Since the passage of the Refugee Emigration Act this year by the U.S. Congress, these D.P. Camps, holding Holocaust survivors and other refugees from all over Eastern Europe, offered the only hope of reaching America. It may be a matter of years, we were warned. Yet, it was an avenue. After the U.S. Embassy’s crude delaying tactics in Vienna, to Mommy and me it seemed like the only avenue.

  We packed our things once again and boarded a train for Linz. In the D.P. Camp near Linz there was no available room, so we went to Steyer, and then to Salzburg. These camps, too, overflowed with refugees and were unable to accommodate us.

  There we were advised to proceed to Germany, where the D.P. Camps were still open to new arrivals. So Germany remained our last resort.

  Night is descending rapidly as the train rushes through the Bavarian Alps. A shudder passes through my body. Once before I saw the terrible splendor of this countryside through the cracks of a cattle car carrying a human cargo of the wounded and dying.

  “Are you cold?” Mommy pulls a sweater from my knapsack and drapes it about my shoulders. The train slows as it pulls into a station, and the conductor sings out the names of prospective stations. Munich is second on the chanted list.

  “Munich! Did you hear the announcement?” Mommy springs into action. “We have to change trains there … for Feldafing. Let’s get ready to disembark.”

  It is late at night when the train pulls into Feldafing. The stationmaster points to a cluster of dim lights hovering on top of the foothills, about a kilometer ahead. Those are the barracks of the D.P. Camp.

  It is raining heavily, and we walk in deep, sticky mud on the road to the camp. Chill raindrops slam against our faces like sharp needles.

  Vienna is far behind. The glorious spring, the radiant summer—were they only a dream?

  Also far away is the sunny beach of Tel Aviv, the gently rolling hills of Jerusalem, and the azure blue water of the Kinneret. Far away is the Negev Desert, where the gang is doing army service now. The war is over; cease-fire agreements have been signed with most Arab nations. A melody of hope dances in the balmy air of the land. What am I doing here in the wet, cold, sticky German mud?

  Our family relations—Ida, Gyuszi, Ily, and Jeno—welcome us warmly. “We have been waiting for you all week,” Ily exclaims.

  “All week? We’ve been awaiting your arrival ever since we got here,” Ida adds. “Thank God you’ve finally arrived.”

  “From here at least there is some hope of getting to America,” Jeno remarks, then adds a cautious qualifier: “Some hope. Some time in the future.”

  The four young people, nieces and nephews of my favorite Uncle Marton, spent a few weeks in Vienna, and there our family contact grew into friendship. When the four of them decided to continue their search for emigration opportunities in a D.P. Camp in Germany, they encouraged us to join them. Now we are here, and glad to see these congenial friends again. It is good to recapture fond memories and renew a sense of belonging. It is past midnight when we break for the night.

  The camp consists of wooden bungalows built by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency after the war to accommodate survivors who, instead of returning to their former countries, opted to remain in Germany—in transit to Palestine or the West.

  “Tonight you’ll sleep here in Ida and Gyuszi’s bungalow,” Jeno explains. “Tomorrow we’ll find you a bungalow, or a room in a larger building, and take you to the camp’s office to register. There you’ll receive identity cards and food rations.”

  The two army cots set up for Mommy and me in Ida and Gyuszi’s bungalow are a godsend. Within seconds after crawling under the coarse army blankets I sink into a deep sleep.

  A short time later I am awakened by a relentless stream of cold rain hitting my blanket. There must be a hole in the ceiling right above me. Quietly I get out of bed and drag the cot away from under the column of pouring rain. But this is not sufficient. I must find some container to catch the water, otherwise the bungalow will be flooded by morning. I pad around barefoot on the soggy earthen floor in search of a vessel. I come upon a discarded oil can and place it under the leak. It proves to be a disastrous idea. The jet of water strikes the tin can with an incredible din, waking everyone in the bungalow. I toss the can outside. Gyuszi suggests draining the water from the bungalow. Shivering in the cold, wet night, we all join in digging narrow canals on the floor and a wide hole under the door to allow for drainage, and quickly r
eturn to our warm retreats under the blankets. But sleep eludes us; the incessant rivulet buffetting the mud floor keeps us awake all night.

  At dawn, when light filters into the bungalow and I see my roommates sleeping peacefully at last, I feel better. Wading in a deep carpet of water, I get dressed, put on my raincoat and scarf, and succeed in tiptoeing out of the bungalow unnoticed.

  I head for the train station. I must get to Munich to find a job. I need a pair of rubber boots, warm stockings, and gloves. And so does Mommy. Where will we get the money to buy these? There is only fifty dollars left from the proceeds of the house sale, and we are saving that for starting a life in America. If we ever get there!

  A leaden curtain of rain obscures my first glimpses of Munich as I emerge from the train station. The terminal building is under repair, and I make my way among stacks of brick, wooden beams, and barrels of mortar out into the streets of the Bavarian capital.

  The first policeman I come across knows that there is a synagogue and a rabbi in Munich. He also knows that I can obtain the rabbi’s address from the police, and directs me to the nearest police station.

  Against the onslaught of unrelenting rain, I march toward Moehlstrasse, the new Jewish ghetto in Munich. Mostly East-European Jewish refugees congregate in Moehlstrasse, a once busy commercial street totally leveled by Allied bombing. Here, in makeshift wooden huts, Jews from Poland, Romania, and Hungary opened little shops, injecting vitality into a ghost district. The simple but colorful Jewish shops are the only signs of life in the entire area. Moehlstrasse’s side streets are partial ruins: buildings with parts of the walls blown away; others with upper floors, or roofs missing.

  I enter one of these buildings and knock gently on a narrow door with peeling brown paint. It is the address of Rabbi and Mrs. Herschel Blau. The door is opened by a youngish man of medium height with a trim brown beard.

  “Can I help you?” the rabbi’s dark brown eyes register astonishment. I realize the unexpected appearance of a young blond girl on his doorstep in the gray hours of the morning calls for an explanation.

  “May I talk to you?”

  The rabbi opens the door wider and, still hesitant, bids me to enter. “This way, please.” I follow the rabbi through a clean, neatly furnished living room into the kitchen. “It’s warmer in here,” he says in way of explanation. A young woman with a kerchief about her head turns from her cooking stove and stares at me in shock. The “rebbetsen,” the rabbi’s wife, is a pleasant-looking woman in her late twenties.

  “I am a teacher of Hebrew and Jewish studies,” I begin by way of introduction, and notice that both husband and wife seem even more astonished. “I wonder whether there’s a Jewish school here. I’m looking for a job.” The couple gaze at me in stunned silence. I continue, now somewhat uncertainly. “My mother and I arrived from Austria late last night. We are staying with friends in Camp Feldafing.”

  “Feldafing? You came in from Feldafing this morning? In this horrible weather! You must’ve left at dawn. Have you had breakfast?” Without waiting for an answer, the rebbetsen declares, “You need something to warm you up.”

  “Thank you,” I reply, and for some strange, inexplicable reason, tears spring to my eyes. “A cup of coffee would be fine.”

  The rebbetsen helps me out of my raincoat and hangs it near the stove to dry. She points to a large stool. “Sit here, Fräulein, this is a warm corner.”

  Within seconds there is a steaming bowl of oatmeal, buttered toast, and a mug of hot coffee in front of me on the kitchen table. During breakfast I find out that the rabbi and rebbetsen, recently married here in Munich, are themselves refugees from Eastern Europe, she from Poland, and he from Romania. I also find out there is no Jewish school in Munich, but the rabbi promises to investigate job opportunities for me. Both insist that I stay with them for the Sabbath. When I politely decline, explaining that Mommy is expecting my return, they seem sincerely disappointed and make me promise to bring Mommy along for a visit soon. The rebbetsen presses a loaf of homemade kuchen on me and helps me into my coat, dried in the warmth of her kitchen stove.

  From the bombed-out building where the rabbi of Munich and his wife make their home, I carry away a secret spark. The grim first morning in Germany holds a ray of hope that propels me toward yet another new beginning.

  Camp Feldafing

  September 1949—October 1950

  Villa Park used to be the summer home of a German family in the resort area of Feldafing, the playground of the country’s wealthy elite. A whole string of these elegant villas, riding the hill above the barracks and bungalows of Camp Feldafing, is now part of the camp. Through Jeno’s connections, Mommy and I receive a room in Villa Park.

  Where are the former residents of these villas? Where are the pampered masters who used to occupy all twenty rooms of the villa, ride their horses on the lovely downs nearby, sail their boats on the lake at the bottom of the hill, or race their cars on the autobahn in the vicinity?

  Rumor has it that the families of top Nazis expropriated these luxury residences from the original owners. After the Nazis fled from the approaching Allied forces, the abandoned villas came under the authority of the International Refugee Organization, the IRO, which allocated them for our use, each room to another family. A strange hierarchy—German aristocrats, Bavarian Nazis, Jewish refugees. Mommy and I are the latest beneficiaries of the unpredictable pecking order.

  I need not have worried about a job. Two days after our arrival I meet a former pupil from my Beth Jacob class in Bratislava. Soon a group of parents approach me with a request: Would I organize a Beth Jacob school for girls in the camp? Within a week after the commencement of my Beth Jacob classes, Mrs. Furman, the camp public school principal, offers me a position as teacher of English. English language is a compulsory subject in the curriculum of this elementary school administered by the Jewish Agency and run by the Refugee Central Committee.

  So now I am an English teacher on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, and a teacher of Jewish subjects after school. The public school job affords me a wonderful opportunity to learn both Hebrew and English. As the language of instruction in the elementary school is exclusively Hebrew, I am required to teach English through the medium of Hebrew. Since I am proficient neither in English nor in Hebrew, I study late into the night, sometimes until dawn, in preparation for each class.

  Even with all this feverish preparation I find myself only one step ahead of my classes. As if they feel my enthusiasm for the challenge of teaching, the children seem to relish learning English. They are eager to learn new words and often help me find the corresponding Hebrew words.

  The children in my classes speak many languages. Although Yiddish is the official language of the camp, the children chat in Polish, Romanian, Russian, and Hungarian among themselves. The school, however, is a microcosm of modern Israel—here the language is exclusively Hebrew. My pupils carry me along on the adventure of learning all about the country while learning the language. It’s thrilling to grow together with my pupils.

  Two or three weeks later I get a job teaching English in Munich at the ORT Vocational School and at the Hebrew Gymnasium on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love to take the train to Munich in the mornings and conduct classes to my peers at the gymnasium, and in the afternoons to people many years my senior at the ORT.

  Just when I think my every free moment is occupied, Rabbi Blau introduces me to a Habad group, an intellectual branch of the Hasidic movement, and I am assigned the most exciting task of my teaching career. I become part of an outreach project—on Sundays I travel with a team of Hasidic scholars to conduct lectures on Judaism at the various D.P. Camps throughout the American Zone in Germany. I get to know many places and meet many people. I get to know and touch many lives.

  Soon after our arrival in the D.P. Camp, Mommy and I register for emigration under the U.S. Refugee Act and begin the wait for our turn on the refugee list.

  While we wait, fall turns into f
rosty winter, then bright spring, and then the shimmering heat of summer is exchanged, once again, by heavy autumn rains. A year passes, and we are still waiting. And while we wait, we become old-timers in the D.P. Camp.

  Mommy is sewing again, this time by hand. We have no sewing machine, but this handicap does not daunt her. Neither does the partial paralysis of her hand, the result of an injury to her spine in Auschwitz. With the support of an elastic bandage wrapped tightly around her wrist, Mommy practices moving her fingers nimbly, and learns to stitch with amazing speed. While making beautiful dresses for little girls, Mommy makes many close friends among their mothers.

  Bubi is a senior at Yeshiva University in New York. He has a Kodak camera and is fond of taking pictures. In every letter we find marvelous snapshots of himself, his friends, Uncle Abish and his family, and of the university campus. I can barely recognize Bubi in these pictures. God, how he has changed since we parted three and a half years ago.

  “I hope and pray,” he writes, “that you will be here for my graduation.”

  Despite my intense involvement in multifarious activities, I carry with me a nagging sense of void, a raw yearning to be near him again. Next July my brother will graduate from college. Please God, let me be there.

  Good news reaches us from Israel. My friend Ellike, happily married to her cousin Moshe, is going to be a mother. Many of the other girls from the Home are also married and are busy building new lives.

  The gang members have all been released from the military. They are no longer a group—the realities of life have scattered them to distant parts of Israel. Andy found employment as a male nurse in a Jerusalem hospital. Tommy joined a kibbutz on the Syrian border in the north. Leslie, now a married man, retrained as an electrician and works for the Herzlia municipality. Peter is pursuing his ambition as an apprentice in a Tel Aviv furniture plant. Hayim waits on tables in a Beersheba restaurant. Julius and Stephan work at Tel Aviv University—Julius the poet in the library, and studious Stephan, attending classes by day and cleaning corridors by night.