by Wendy Lawton
“Hella, you must sell your books. You may take your clothes and a few personal things.” Mutti put an arm around Hella. “I know it’s hard, but there are families much worse off. Think of all our friends who’ve not yet heard about their loved ones taken on Kristallnacht.”
Mutti often talked of those “worse off.” When they were younger, the girls used to roll their eyes at Mutti’s words. Now they knew the truth of them. Not that it helped much when facing another loss of their own.
“Anita, you are practically grown now—twelve years old. I will let you bring your new bear, Petzie, and your tiny Pimmie, but you must get rid of Teddy.”
Anita couldn’t speak. Teddy? Why Teddy?
“He’s so worn, I cannot patch his paw pads one more time. The joints are loose, and it’s just a matter of time before he’s in shreds. If he wasn’t so big, I’d let you keep him for sentimental reasons, but he is nearly as large as a small child. No matter how much I wish it were different, we simply will not have room.”
Anita wrapped her arms across her stomach. Mutti had given up so much and Hella had to part with her books—what could Anita say? She avoided looking at the bed where Teddy rested. “May I wait until the last day?”
Mutti put an arm around Anita. “Ja.”
As they sold their furniture and family treasures, Anita felt that sense of loss again. She kept telling herself that they were just things and that people were more important, but she couldn’t help grieving as each familiar piece went out the door. She looked over at Teddy. He seemed to represent everything about her childhood. And soon he’d be gone as well.
Stop it, Anita. They are only things. Most of the families around you are mourning the loss of people. How can you fuss over furniture and a tattered Teddy? After all, poverty was nothing new to the Dittmans. Ever since Vati had left, Mutti and the girls lived from day to day. Were it not for the kindnesses shown to them by neighbors and by Pastor Hornig, they often would have gone hungry. Anita’s stomach growled constantly, but since many of her classmates shared her problem, they’d learned to laugh at the chorus of stomach noises.
One night, a few days before they were set to vacate the apartment, Mutti opened the door to a tentative knock. Anita looked up expecting to see one of their neighbors, but instead, standing not more than three-and-a-half-feet high, waited a thread peddler—a dwarf. She wore tatters and had the gaunt look of starvation.
“Come in, come in,” Mutti said, leading the tired woman to the last chair in the house. “Would you care for a bowl of soup?”
Hella looked up from the floor where she sat doing homework. From the look on her face, Anita could see that she couldn’t believe Mutti was offering food. They’d each only eaten a half-bowl of soup tonight in order to save a half-bowl for tomorrow.
“Thank you. Are you sure you have enough?” The woman’s eyebrows lifted and she seemed to breathe in the lingering smell of the soup.
“Yes, it was left over from our dinner.” Mutti turned to Anita. “Please heat up a big bowl of soup for our guest.”
Anita got up to obey her mother, but she couldn’t help wondering what they’d do for food tomorrow. With the move to the ghetto at the end of the week, they would need every bit of their strength. Besides, in the waning days of December, the wind blew bitterly. Anita had noticed that the less food you ate, the harder it was to stay warm.
“Now please, show me your thread.” Mutti waited while the woman laid out six spools of thread. “I’d like that spool of cotton thread.” Mutti handed her the five pennies for the spool and still the girls said nothing.
After the peddler ate and collected her thread back into her satchel, Mutti opened a drawer. “I have a pair of gloves I’m not going to be able to take on our move.” She took out her only pair of gloves and gave it to the woman. “Can you use these?”
“Ja. God bless you.” The woman’s voice trembled. “God bless you all.”
Mutti let her out the door and turned around to face her daughters. “Don’t say it. I know we have nothing to spare. The only ones Hitler hates more than the Jews are people like her. Anyone who is special—handicapped or deformed in any way—will feel the full weight of Nazi hatred.”
Mutti joined Hella on the floor and extended her arm for Anita to join them. “When I opened the door and saw her standing there, I felt compelled to offer help. This may sound strange, especially to you, my little Hella, but I felt as if God told me to feed and care for her. The Bible verse that kept going through my mind was the one that says, ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.’”
Hella sighed. “I wish I could believe like you and Anita do, but all I know is that times are hard and I get so frightened about whether or not there’ll be a next meal.”
Anita didn’t say anything. Like Mutti, she believed in God—but like Hella, she worried. Is there something wrong with my faith?
“I’m new at trying to hear the voice of God,” Mutti said. “Maybe it was nothing more than my own pity. But we’ll know soon.” She playfully pulled on one of Anita’s braids. “If it was the Lord who instructed me to offer it, He will replace what we ’ve given away and then some.”
It didn’t take long to find out. The next day Frau Schmidt came over with food—a pot of savory soup, fresh baked bread still warm from the oven, and fruit. How long had it been since they had had fruit? The food would last for several meals. After Mutti thanked her friend, she raised her eyes toward the ceiling in silent thanks.
The next day someone came to look over the last of the things in the apartment. He offered a fair price for the lot; but when he came to the little chair on which the peddler had sat, he offered twice what it was worth. Mutti smiled as the man counted out the money into her hand. After he left she said, “I’ve had my answer. How about the two of you?”
Hella just smiled and shook her head, as if to question Mutti’s mental state.
Mutti smiled. “I’m grateful because I’m convinced that over the next months, or even years, we will have to rely on God’s provision and on His protection more and more. Whenever I’m tempted to question God’s hand on our lives, I will think back to this day.”
As their last day in Zimpel dawned, Anita knew she had one last task left to do. Before anyone awoke, she picked up Teddy and carried him down the stairs to the basement. Mutti was right; Teddy was too tattered to sell. In fact, he was too far gone to give away. But he always had the kindest face and despite the wear, his gentle expression never changed. Anita gave herself a little shake. It didn’t matter. He would have to wait on the rag heap in the basement until the ragman came.
As she settled him onto the pile, Anita remembered the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of his son, Isaac. She wished God would provide a substitute for Teddy as he had for Isaac, but she knew she was being silly. To mourn over an old plaything when people all around her were being discarded seemed somehow sinful.
As she walked toward the stairs, she looked back and saw that familiar face looking back at her. He’d been her comfort and her confidant. Good-bye, Teddy. I will never forget you.
Auf wiedersehen
Hella, aren’t you amazed that no matter how drastically life changes, we always seem to fall back into a routine?” Anita sat next to her sister on the streetcar coming home from school.
“I know. Sometimes I think a person could get used to anything. It reminds me of frogs. If you were to put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he ’d hop right out.”
“Eeuuw. What an awful thought.”
“I’m making a point, silly.” Hella shook her head—a movement she managed more often these days. At seventeen she was considered a real beauty. She wore her hair parted to the side in a long shiny bob, and when she shook her head, it drew attention every time. “Do you want to hear or not?”
“Sorry.”
“If you put a frog in a pot of cool water and slow
ly heat it, the temperature rises slowly and the frog doesn’t realize he’s in hot water until he’s boiled.”
Anita made a face.
“Sometimes I think we’re like frogs. As long as our trouble is cranked up one little bit at a time, we’ll sit contentedly in the pot.” Anita gathered her books together.
“This is our stop, so I think I’ll hop out here.” Anita smiled at her frog reference, but Hella didn’t catch it.
Their old apartment had been crowded, especially when the boarders lived there, but this tiny apartment in an old brownstone gave new meaning to the word cramped. Four families lived in each apartment in the two-hundred-year-old building. In the Dittman apartment they shared their space with three other families, not to mention hundreds—perhaps thousands—of bedbugs. The cracks in the windows let in all kinds of other flying insects. Anita didn’t even want to think about the vermin that lurked deep in cubbyholes and cabinets.
When she and Hella walked in the door of their room that afternoon, they knew something had happened. Mutti sat at the table with an envelope in her hands, turning it over and over.
“It’s our visa, right?” Anita could feel the excitement bubbling up inside her.
“Not exactly.” Mutti sighed. “We’ve been waiting on these papers for more than a year. Pastor Hornig worked on this at every opportunity before the Nazis burned the Help Organization.”
“I know,” Hella said, as she piled her books in the corner. The Dittmans had reapplied after they lost the Help Organization.
“It’s been harder and harder to wait,” Mutti said, “especially with war threatening.” By late 1938 no one questioned that the country moved toward war. Marked Blackouts happened regularly now—these were practice drills in preparation for attack. The authorities ordered all lights turned off in the city so potential night bombers couldn’t find targets. Everyone installed black shades in their windows and had to keep lights off during the drill. During Blackout the darkness was so complete that people had to wear fluorescent pins outdoors so they wouldn’t bump into one another.
Mutti opened the letter to show the girls. Papers had come, but they were for Hella only. Mutti felt inside the envelope as if to see if she’d missed anything. “At least Hella has her documents.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but Anita could see the tightening of her jaw. “Surely ours will come in the next few days. We must make plans for Hella to leave and we will follow her the moment our papers arrive.”
“No!” Hella looked stricken.
“At first,” Mutti said, “I couldn’t bear to think of the three of us separated, but the more I considered it, the more convinced I became that Hella must go to England.”
“Oh, Mutti …” Anita’s stomach clenched.
“I know it will be hard to part, even if for a short time, but we mustn’t turn down this opportunity.” Mutti folded her arms across her chest in that way that always meant she’d made her decision.
As Hella prepared to leave, Mutti and Anita waited for their papers.
Soon after Mutti’s decision, Anita came home from school with more bad news. Hitler had finally closed the parochial schools. With no advance notice, that day had been her last at Bethany. The good-byes had come hard. Bethany had sheltered its students in the midst of upheaval. Anita had no idea if she could continue her schooling. Where would they find money for tuition?
Like so many things in Germany, it was out of their control.
“We’ll cover Anita’s tuition at public school.” Pastor Hornig caught Mutti after church to tell her. “I wish we could scrape together enough for books, but perhaps she can borrow them from someone.”
“You are too kind, Pastor. You do so much for others; I worry about your own family.”
“The family shares my anguish for our persecuted friends. Don’t you be worrying, Hilde. It fills me with joy to see you growing in your faith.” Pastor Hornig smiled. He and his fellow pastors—Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others—remained in what they called the Confessing Church. They refused to knuckle under to Nazi oppression and they came under increasing scrutiny. Pastor Hornig knew he was black-listed, but he also believed God would sort it all out.
So Anita started yet another school. Since she’d last been to public school, the persecution of non-Aryans intensified. Students and teachers alike took great delight in mocking the Jewish students. It didn’t help that Anita fell so far behind the other students. Without books, she relied on trying to remember what the teacher said. She took notes as well, but she discovered that some things were only found in the books—the teachers never mentioned them in class and yet often put them on the exams.
It wasn’t long until Anita dropped out of school. There was little chance of learning without books, and it became difficult to put up with the bullying and the physical torment. Besides, she wanted to spend time with Hella before she left. How Anita hated the thought of yet another good-bye.
But the day came for Hella to leave. True to his word, Pastor Hornig and the people at the Help Organization provided her with money and introductions to the people who would help her in England. Mutti and Anita walked with her to the train station.
“It cannot be much longer until our papers come. Pastor Hornig assures me they’ve been sent.” Mutti took Hella’s hand and kissed it. “The separation will be short—surely it will.”
Hella said nothing. She kept blinking her eyes. The situation inside Germany was volatile. Anything could happen. Here it was—August 31, 1939—the end of summer. Who knew what the winter would bring?
As they stood at the station waiting for the train, Anita put her arm around her older sister’s waist. “Don’t worry about us. Always remember how many times God covered us with His hand of protection. No matter what happens …” Anita couldn’t finish her thought and the train whistle kept her from trying.
As Hella stepped onto the train, Anita reached out one last time to touch her fingertips. “Auf Wiedersehen, dear sister. May God keep you in the shadow of His hand.”
Mutti could not hold back the tears. As the train pulled out of the station, Mutti asked, “Why do I feel as if I shall never see her again?”
Mutti and Anita’s hopes of joining Hella ended just three days after Hella’s train pulled out of Breslau. On September third, England and France declared war on Germany and all the borders were sealed. Escape was no longer possible.
“I’m glad Hella got out,” Mutti would often say to Anita in the days following. “The Lord knows what He is doing, neh? Perhaps because of your faith, He knew you would be better able to weather the gathering storm. Ever since you were a child, storms never fazed you.”
Soon after Hella left, three of Mutti’s sisters, Tante Käte, Tante Friede, and Tante Elsbeth, moved into the cramped quarters with Mutti and Anita. They did their best to respect each other’s space, but with so many people in such a tiny space, they practically tripped over each other.
Mutti and Anita walked to church by themselves on Sundays since Mutti’s sisters were religious Jews. Sometimes the mother and daughter barely spoke, reveling in the quiet and the space.
Pastor Hornig always greeted everyone at the door of the church. He tried to keep up on everyone in his congregation. He wanted the church to be the safe haven in the storm. “Anita, I’ve learned of a Christian woman, Frau Michaelis, in Berlin who’s willing to take you in. She’s German, but her husband is Jewish. He escaped to Shanghai and her two sons to England.” He put a hand on her shoulder, “I know your apartment is crowded. And since you left school …” He didn’t finish his train of thought as he shook hands with one of the older men of the congregation. As the man went inside to take a seat, the pastor continued, “Frau Michaelis longs for a child to keep her company … her apartment is spacious and she agreed to pay for your schooling and books. I think Berlin will be safer for you. Outside the ghetto, you know.”
Anita looked at Mutti, but her mother didn’t say anything.
“You go in an
d sit down,” Pastor Hornig said. “After you’ve thought about it and prayed about it, let me know.”
They decided Anita should go, even though it meant another painful good-bye. Anita had feared that her mother might be arrested and unable to get word to her, but in the end they admitted that it could happen with Anita in Breslau just as easily. In spite of having made the decision, Anita’s feeling of uneasiness persisted. Why would a German take the risk of inviting a Jewish girl into her home? It didn’t make sense.
As Anita boarded the train to Berlin, she tried to memorize her mother’s face. Would she ever see Mutti again?
My life is one good-bye after another. She thought of Vati and Hella. I wonder what Hella is doing in England? Her letters, smuggled in through a Dutch friend of Pastor Hornig, told of Hella studying for a nursing career. Vati had remarried and wrote on occasion, but mostly, he had moved on. So many friends left behind—Frau Mueller-Lee, Frau Schmidt, Gunther … the list seemed too long to recount. And now, Mutti …
Mutti stood with her on the train platform, wringing her hands. “I’m so thankful to see you out of the ghetto, but how I shall miss my ray of sunshine.” Mutti took Anita’s hands in hers. “When loneliness threatens, I will think of you going to a wonderful school, eating healthy food, and keeping a generous Christian lady company.”
Anita couldn’t speak. She put her head on Mutti’s shoulder.
“We will be together again. I know we will. You must not worry about me. Remember the verse Pastor Hornig always repeats from Isaiah 51: ‘I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand—I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth, and who say to Zion, You are my people.’” Mutti took Anita’s shoulders and gently moved her back, looking at her face as if to memorize it. “When you start fretting, you just picture me sitting under the shadow of the Lord’s hand.”
The train whistle blew. All the smoke and noise cut off any further conversation.