by Moya Simons
In their own hatred.
Where are you?
Not in the coiled bread on Friday nights
Nor in our prayers.
What have we done
That you abandon us?
FRIEDRICH BECAME NICER as my clumsy writing improved. We played cards and board-games and sometimes he let me win. Sometimes I won all by myself. When this first happened, he asked, ‘How did you trick me?’As time passed, he just nodded. ‘I am a good teacher.’
How could I not smile at this? For moments there we were just ordinary children playing together without a care in the world.
We were both skinny and there were shadows under our eyes. Food rations, though, were still available in quantities that were better than what I’d had with my family.
‘Hitler wants to keep us fed. He is scared of the German population turning against him if we become too skinny,’ reflected Heinrich one evening. We were eating vegetable soup with potatoes and bread. Sometimes Gertrude was able to get a few eggs, which was a rare treat. It depended on what the shops had available.
I wondered sometimes about Mrs Liebermann, the kind lady who’d met Mama each week with a bag of food. What had become of her? Horrible things happened to Germans caught helping Jews. Had she been caught? I promised myself that no matter what happened, I’d talk about her one day, and Gertrude and Heinrich, because people everywhere would need to know when the war ended that not everyone was bad.
Quite suddenly, rationing became harsher. The war was not going so well. Hitler asked Germans to make sacrifices on the home front.
‘Where do you think your parents and your sister are?’ Friedrich asked me once as I dipped bread into a thin vegetable soup. One by one their faces flashed before me, their outstretched arms imploring me, asking me to do something to save them, or to come to them because they were fine. How could I ever know which? I answered by putting my hand on my heart, the universal sign of love.
He frowned. ‘I’m sorry, Rachel, I know you love them, but they’re probably dead.’
‘Freddy, stop that,’ Gertrude said.
A husky squeal came from my throat. Salty tears dropped one by one into my soup.
‘I can’t stand this,’ complained Friedrich, his voice rising. ‘Even if that awful wail you just made means you’ve got a voice in there somewhere.’ He finished his soup then stood up and stamped his foot. ‘Outside, everywhere, everyone is crying. We are doing badly in this war. Do you know that? We were winning not long ago. The Americans are going to invade us by land any time now. The Russians won’t give in. If we lose the war things will go worse for us. I’ve heard they will do terrible things to us.’
His grandfather said quickly, ‘Freddy, keep your voice down. And don’t worry about the Americans and the Russians. They can’t be worse than the Nazis.’ He noticed how Freddy trembled. ‘Come now, give your old Opa a hug.’
Freddy hesitated then threw himself into his grandfather’s arms. ‘I love Germany but I don’t know what to think.’
‘I love Germany too,’ Heinrich answered, kneading his grandson’s shoulders. ‘But we will come through this all right. I feel it in my bones.’
Once, while his grandparents were out buying food with ration cards, Freddy asked me, ‘How come you are poor? Aren’t all Jews rich from the money they steal from the rest of us? Where do you hide your gold and diamonds?’
I looked at him. Who tells you such nonsense?
‘No diamonds?’
He marched up and down the room like a soldier, then creased his brow. He folded his arms. ‘When your voice comes back, which could be any moment, you can call me Freddy. But only while you live with us. Once you’re gone, if you ever see me, you must call me by my proper name. Friedrich.’
Hmm. I shall think about that. Freddy, who thinks he is better than me. No. I shall always call you Freddy.
One day, flicking through Miri’s journal, I found a poem that Miri had never read to me.
Jakob Jakob
Judenhäuser Jakob
Jewish Jakob
Smiles at me
He’ll be leaving
Says he’ll miss me
Wants to kiss me
Tenderly
Did Jakob really say that to Miri, I wondered. A love story going on with Jakob at the Judenhaus across the road from us. Or had Miri made it up?
Freddy raced into the bedroom where I was sitting on a cushion on the floor, scanning the journal for entries I hadn’t read before. ‘My grandmother told me that Jesus was Jewish.’
This confused me. Jesus was Jewish? It sounded familiar. Had Papa told me this? How could Jesus be Jewish? Hitler had said that all Jews were sub-human. What did that make Jesus? How strange, I thought, that if Jesus were alive he’d be taken away to some camp like other Jews.
‘I shall read our Bible and immediately discover this lie,’ announced Freddy, waving a finger in the air. He went to the bookshelf then ran out of the room.
Much later Heinrich asked, surprised, ‘Freddy, you’re reading the Bible?’
Freddy didn’t answer. I watched as his eyes grew large with astonishment. He threw the book to the floor and screamed, ‘Even the Bible tells lies.’
‘What lies, Freddy?’ Gertrude asked wearily.
‘Jesus cannot be Jewish. It says here that the people called him Rabbi. It’s not possible. That means if he was alive now…’
‘…he’d be rounded up and sent away like the other Jews,’ his grandmother finished. Then she added, ‘It’s true. Jesus was a rabbi.’
‘That can’t be right. How can I believe the Bible and believe Hitler? Hitler wouldn’t lock up Jesus. He wouldn’t.’
‘Freddy, be quiet. Keep your voice down. How many times do we have to tell you? Do nothing to draw attention to us.’
Later, bombs fell in the distance, whistling as they dropped. There was an explosion, then silence, suddenly broken by screams outside the window.
‘Come, down to the cellar,’ said Heinrich.
‘We can’t take Rachel and I won’t leave her,’ said Gertrude firmly. She put her hands on my shoulders. Another bomb whistled outside, then met its target. I saw light flashing behind the curtains and heard a huge thundering noise. Then screams. I trembled under Gertrude’s solid hands.
‘We should not have hidden her.’ Heinrich paced the room, his hands on each side of his head. ‘I know. I know. She is only a child. But there is talk that our rations are going to be reduced further, and then how will we stretch our food? And the bombs? This is madness. Where do we go? You won’t go to the cellar without her, now I won’t go anymore without you.’
Freddy said nothing.
‘While we live, she lives. I still earn a little money sewing for the woman down the road. We can sell the necklace my grandmother gave me. The only crime of Rachel’s family was being Jewish. I will not let her die like so many Jews.’
Could my family be dead? No, it was not possible. I heard Gertrude’s words but they washed over me. Papa’s furry beard covered by a mound of earth; Mama’s face always moving, smiling, stilled by the silence of death; Miri lying somewhere in a grave, her blonde hair spread around her like a shroud, her bottle of half-used scent lying beside her. Not possible.
The bombing had stopped. We heard people climbing up the stairs back to their apartments.
I ran to the chair in the bedroom and rocked myself to and fro, stroking the world’s longest scarf. Mama, Papa, Miri—where have you gone? I’m here. Can you hear me call for you? Erich, are you playing the violin somewhere? Agnes, I wouldn’t mind your tantrums, honestly I wouldn’t. I don’t care that you used to pinch my ribbons. It doesn’t matter. Papa, when can I speak again?
Freddy opened the door. He looked at me and said, ‘I’m sorry, Rachel, sorry about everything.’
IN THE COLD winter of December 1943, Leipzig was badly bombed. Heinrich, Gertrude, Friedrich and I heard the sirens warning us of an attack. Together we lay bunched up under t
he big double bed. I curled into the fold of Gertrude’s arms. Heinrich held tightly onto Friedrich.
‘Why won’t you, at least, go to the cellar, Freddy?’ he asked him.
Friedrich didn’t answer, or if he did, the answer was lost in the whistle and thunderous crash of bombs.
We waited while the bombs dropped, clutching each other. Moulded into Gertrude’s bony body, I tried to retreat to my old fantasy world in Mama and Papa’s wardrobe but it was too difficult.
I had no idea how long the noise went on for, but it finally stopped, and there we were, together and alive. Slowly, painfully, for we were stiff, we crawled out from under the bed.
The building was still standing. Heinrich went to the window, pulled the curtain aside and looked. ‘There’s fire everywhere,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how this building stayed up. The war is lost no matter what Hitler says.’
We could hear crying from somewhere within the building and the careful shuffling of people returning to their apartments. Someone knocked on our door.
‘Heinrich, Friedrich, you weren’t in the cellar. Are you okay? And Gertrude too. Is she sick?’
I ran into the bedroom and hid under Freddy’s bed.
Freddy laughed as he told me later. ‘Opa opened the door a crack. It was that nosy woman from upstairs. He said, “Can I help it if my Freddy gets diarrhoea? We couldn’t get downstairs in time.”’
I laughed a silent laugh with him.
The next day, Freddy discovered that his school had been bombed. He ran home then took his grandparents to see the burnt-out remains of the school. No-one had been killed. He told me of the layers of broken desks, of books turned to sawdust. How the portrait of Hitler had been split in two. He talked about the rubble in the streets, and how most of the windows in buildings had been blown out and there was glass everywhere.
I listened, without a lot of interest. I thought, so what if your school has burnt down? So what if you can’t go to Hitler Youth meetings anymore? So what if there’s broken glass on the streets? Now ordinary Germans are feeling the chill of winter. Now they know how it feels to really be at war.
My ears did prick up when he mentioned that the portrait of Hitler had been split in two. That was very good news and if I’d had a voice I would have cheered.
Friedrich tickled me. ‘Hey, Rachel, you must start talking. I need someone to talk to. I’m going mad.’
I held on to Mama’s scarf and smiled.
Hitler’s portrait was split in two. Ha ha. About time.
Freddy thought the smile was for him. He smiled back.
Chapter Thirteen
THROUGHOUT 1944, I watched the seasons change as buds formed slowly on a tree outside the window and birds nested in its branches. I saw fledglings grow and fly away. Freddy, having no-one else around, turned to me for company.
Gertrude cut down some of her own clothing to make me dresses. I wore Freddy’s socks. I was now eleven. I envied Freddy when he walked outside the building although he never went far. The streets of Leipzig were bomb targets and no-one felt safe.
It rained a lot in the summer and autumn and wind whipped up the dust of shattered bricks in the streets, the result of all the bombing. How cold was that winter. I wore layer upon layer of clothing and was still freezing. There was no coal for heating available anywhere. Were my parents all right? And Miri, and my aunt and cousins? Had they been reunited with Uncle Ernst? Were they all alive? When you see the images of people so clearly in your mind, they have to be alive, don’t they?
When his grandparents were asleep one night, Freddy woke me. He shook me gently by my shoulders. ‘Come, Rachel. Come outside. Be very quiet.’
I awoke confused, at first thinking it was another air-raid. The light was on, though flickering. There would probably be a blackout any time. Freddy already had his dressing gown on and tied up at the waist.
Was Freddy mad, I wondered. Outside? I didn’t know what it was like to go outside anymore. How long had it been? I clambered excitedly up from my bed on the floor and took a coat from the wardrobe to put on top of my long nightgown. Was it possible, after all this time, that I’d be outside the apartment?
Freddy opened the apartment door quietly and we crept down the wooden staircase, past the family living downstairs. Freddy occasionally turned to me, his finger held vertically over his lips. Be quiet. He seemed to have forgotten that I didn’t have a voice.
The building’s heavy front door groaned as he opened it. Outside the air smelt smoky. Across the street we could see the ruined skeletons of buildings. We sat on the narrow steps leading from the entrance to our building down to the street.
After being hidden for so long, I’d become used to being in a kind of tomb. The cold air bit me, heavy smoky air, but it was still outside air. Above me was a real sky, not viewed through a window.
People were about. A man in a horse-drawn open cart came by. The trotting of the horse’s hooves reminded me of my old fantasy of open fields. The cart was filled with something. A boot fell off the back and landed on the road. I saw what looked like a bare foot sticking out from a covering as the cart went by.
Freddy put a thin arm around me. ‘The war must end soon. This cannot go on. Food rationing is getting worse. Oma cannot buy potatoes anymore, and there’s less bread. Even Hitler can’t keep us fed properly now.’ He did not say that I was eating their food.
Where are all the people going? I gestured with my hands.
‘They don’t know where to go. Nobody knows where to go. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere at all. We are trapped by ourselves.’
Trapped by ourselves.
I guessed he meant there was nowhere for Germans to go, in the same way that Jews had been trapped. I moved closer to him and sheltered in the crook of his arm.
We sat there breathing in the smoky air, watching people move around, the darkness broken by eerie light coming from fires in nearby streets. Later we crept upstairs and when I awoke in the morning, I could not be sure if it had been real or a dream.
Freddy was already up. ‘Don’t tell,’ he whispered to me as I sat at the kitchen table. I smiled. We had a secret, Freddy and I.
ONE NIGHT THERE was a knock on the door. It wasn’t the thumping of Gestapo boots but a timid knock. Gertrude pushed me quickly into the bedroom. I peeked through a crack in the door and listened.
The lady from upstairs was there. She was a small woman with short blonde hair. She was dressed in black, as if going to a funeral. Her sharp eyes darted around the apartment.
‘Could you spare some food for my mother? She is sick.’
‘We have no extra food,’ grumbled Heinrich. ‘We can hardly manage ourselves. Look at my grandson. Skin and bone.’
‘My mother is sick,’ the woman repeated. She lowered her voice. ‘Sometimes I hear you, Gertrude, talking about the war in a bad way. Don’t you know you can get into trouble for that? Be sent away? It makes me wonder about you. Are you listening to the British broadcasts? You know that’s illegal. And why is it that you don’t come to the cellar when the sirens go? What keeps you in your apartment instead of sheltering from the bombs?’
‘In this dreadful war, my arthritis plays up,’ Gertrude said quickly. ‘I cannot get down so many stairs and Heinrich and Freddy won’t leave me alone. Madam, you have some cheek, accusing me of not being patriotic. It makes me wonder about what you might have to hide.’
The woman held herself as tall as she could and said firmly, ‘I have lost my husband and son in this war. I accept it. So don’t talk to me about patriotism. Did I mention that my mother is sick?’
‘I have a little pea soup,’ Gertrude said slowly. ‘Mind you, I am doing this for your mother.’
There was a clanging of a saucepan lid in the kitchen then a pause in the conversation, and a stiffening of the atmosphere within the room. Heinrich didn’t say a word. He stood with Freddy in front of him, quietly kneading Freddy’s thin shoulders, and stared at the woman.
; The woman didn’t look at Heinrich. She took the bowl of pea soup and mumbled her thanks. The door was closed and Heinrich said quietly, but loud enough for me to hear, ‘Rachel doesn’t talk. You don’t rave on about Hitler. I think the old bag is bluffing. Everyone is turning everyone in to the Gestapo for an extra slice of bread. Tell me again, Gertrude, why do we save this child?’
‘For the day when we shall stand up and be counted. For the day when this is over and we shall know we stayed human throughout this time of horror.’
‘Human? Gertrude, there are things going on in this war that defy humanity.’
‘We can’t stop the war outside, Heinrich. But here, inside this apartment there is no war, and we shall stay human.’
Heinrich opened the door to the bedroom. His eyes twinkled. ‘You, Rachel, our special little troublemaker. You can come out now.’
I ran straight into his open arms.
A few nights later there was the thud of heavy boots storming up the stairs. There was shouting. Somewhere in the building a door was kicked in. I could hear the terrifying sound of guns. Rat-a-tat-tat. People screamed. I couldn’t stand it. I put my hands over my ears.
I hid in the wardrobe behind layers of clothing. I sniffed the smell coming from Freddy’s clothing and my own. I remembered my parents’ wardrobe and the joy of being hidden there; the soft velvet darkness and the smell of their clothing, which was a security blanket for me. I’d lost track of time but it had to be nearly two years ago.
Freddy told me later, with a broad smile on his face, how, when there was a bang on our door, he had opened it despite his grandparents reaching out to stop him. A soldier had stood there, his gun raised.
‘You have a traitor living upstairs. He was hiding his Jewish girlfriend. What about this apartment? Is there anything unpatriotic going on here?’
Freddy, with his white-blond hair and cool blue eyes, raised his arm in a Nazi salute: ‘Heil Hitler.’