by Meryl Ain
On the other hand, she did not take her father’s behavior to heart in the same way her twin sister did. And as she grew older, she simply found him more and more annoying. She was embarrassed by the way he spoke and dressed. She hated his stinginess. Every time she asked for something that all her other friends had, his first response was no. And it did not escape her that her mother rarely bought anything for herself.
He was not generous, either with material things or with emotion. He could be animated and friendly at work or at shul, but at home, he brooded most of the time. He was only generous when it came to giving away bread and rolls to the neighbors at the end of the day. But JoJo knew that he couldn’t sell day-old bread. He never went anywhere other than the synagogue or the bakery, and he never took the sisters to the movies or a museum or the beach like her friends’ fathers did. She tried to steer clear of his outbursts. She didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire of the consequences of his anger. She had somehow figured out a way of doing what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it, and she liked it that way.
When Esther Zilberman came home from school and told her parents about Mrs. Cohen’s comments, they were of two reactions.
“It’s about time the truth has come out,” said Jakob.
But Eva was distraught. Did that mean she would now have to discuss Mengele’s experiments with her ten-year-old daughter? No way, she thought. That was not going to happen if she had anything to do with it. Of course, Esther, unlike the Lubinski twins, was already somewhat inoculated. She had heard the basics already, so she was not particularly shocked about what her Hebrew School teacher had told the class.
“Bronka and JoJo asked me if what the teacher said was true,” said Esther to her parents, “and I told them it was.”
“That’s okay, dear,” said Jakob.
“And I told them about the concentration camps and offered to lend them my copy of The Diary of Anne Frank when I’m finished with it.”
Eva said nothing in response to her daughter’s report of her interaction with the twins. What was done was done. But she decided she should alert Judy Lubinski about the conversation the twins had had with Esther regarding Mrs. Cohen’s remarks. It was the right thing to do; what if the girls didn’t mention it? Their mother needed to know what was going on.
Actually, she had an additional agenda. Although she had reciprocated by inviting the family to their home once after the birthday party, she really wanted to nurture a relationship with Judy. She seemed like a genuine, hard-working person.
Eva often felt she had nothing in common with her neighbors. The vast majority had been born in America and had very different backgrounds and experiences than hers. They might have lived through the Depression, but that was very different than coming of age in Nazi-occupied Poland. Many claimed they had not even known what Hitler was doing to the Jews. She found that difficult to believe, but she wasn’t sure.
She did not like the way the women—most of whom were housewives and did not work outside the home—spent their days. Once their children were in school, all they did was shop, play Mah-jongg, go to the beauty parlor, and gossip with one another. They showed off their new cars, fur coats, and jewelry. Every year, a few of the neighbors would pack their things and move to the greener, more spacious and affluent suburbs—Manhasset Hills, Roslyn, or Jericho.
Judy was different than the rest of them, Eva thought. She was certainly not living a frivolous life and did not seem to be materialistic. She was a fellow Pole, although she did not speak Yiddish, but her daughters comprised half of the girls in Esther’s Hebrew School class. Her daughters were lovely, and Eva was happy they were Esther’s friends.
She decided that instead of calling and risking that Faye or someone else might answer the phone, she would pay Judy a visit in the bakery. Judy had mentioned to her that she usually got to the bakery at about ten o’clock, so Eva decided to stop by the next morning.
As usual, Judy was behind the counter when Eva walked in.
“Hi, Judy,” said Eva with a smile.
“What can I do for you today?”
“I’d like two onion rolls, two plain, a prune Danish, and a cheese Danish.”
“And how are you today, Eva?” Judy asked as she put the items in a white bakery bag.
“I’m okay,” said Eva. “Where’s Aron?”
“He’s in the back. Do you want me to get him?”
“Oh no, I just want to talk with you about something important—woman to woman. Can you meet me later—just the two of us?”
“I guess so,” said Judy, with a look of alarm on her face. “But you’re making me nervous. Is something wrong? You have to give me a clue.”
“It’s about something that happened in Hebrew School yesterday?”
“Are the girls in trouble?”
“God forbid, no. Just something the teacher said that you should know about. What’s your schedule for the rest of the day?”
“I’m finished with work about two o’clock. Do you want to meet then?”
“Okay,” said Eva. “Let’s grab a late lunch at Brodsky’s.”
“See you then,” said Judy as Eva left with the bag of rolls and pastries.
Throughout the day, Judy pondered her forthcoming date with Eva. She decided that she wouldn’t tell anyone about it—not even Aron. While she was friendly and cordial to her neighbors, the people in the synagogue, and the customers in the bakery, she had no real friends. Long ago, she’d had girlfriends in Poland and a sister too. But since she had lived in America, she’d kept her innermost thoughts to herself, always on guard, and never daring to confide in anyone, except perhaps a bit to Faye.
She sometimes even felt left out of her daughters’ lives. While she tried to be interested in what they were doing, working and ministering to Aron’s needs was a full-time job. In addition, the twins had each other. Although they were developing into two distinct personalities, she began to sense that they were beginning to rely more on one another than on her.
Yes, she would like to have a friend. Eva was Polish and had clearly been scarred by her time in the concentration camp. Judy could see that she had a difficult husband too. She remembered how people had told her that Eva had chastised her husband for bringing up Auschwitz at the twins’ birthday party. Judy had gone into the house shortly after the incident to bring out some more soda, and she’d spotted Eva coming out of the bathroom with a tear-stained face and swollen eyes. Yes, maybe they could support each other. She could use a friend, and she bet Eva could as well.
Throughout the day, she imagined what it would be like to unburden herself to Eva. In the seven years she had lived with Faye, she was the only person in whom she confided. Surprisingly, Faye, the yenta, was satisfied with the lack of detail; Judy had given her all of the information she craved. She had merely wanted to solve the mystery of Judy’s heritage. She knew she did not look or act Jewish. She was not interested in hearing about suffering during the war. She was suffering in the present. In Becky, Faye had her own albatross.
Judy was certain that Eva had a terrible story to tell. But Eva had always been a Jew, not like herself, who had waited until the war was over to embrace the religion that Hitler had tried to extinguish. She knew that Eva’s suffering was far worse than anything she’d experienced. She had seen and heard enough to know that. So how could she complain to Eva that her own mother had died when she was eighteen—a loss that had transformed her life for the worse?
Should she tell Eva what she did during the war? Despite all she had endured, perhaps Eva would look at her with disdain because of her Polish Christian heritage. Auschwitz was, after all, located in Poland.
At five minutes to two, Judy stuck her head into the back room and called to Aron that she would be leaving for the day. Aron barely looked up from his paperwork as she said goodbye. She thought to herself that she could run off while he was at work, and he would never notice. He would only realize she was gone later when he was at
home and needed something—food, a clean shirt, a pair of socks, someone to snap at. She was proud of herself that she had not told him about her lunch with Eva at Brodsky’s. She might never tell him about it.
As Judy sat down at Eva’s table at Brodsky’s, she said, “Thanks so much for inviting me, Eva. I’ve never eaten here. Of course, Faye takes out deli from here and ordered the food for the party, but I’ve never sat down and been served. I feel like a princess already.”
“Well, then I’m glad we decided to meet here.”
Eva ordered a corned beef sandwich, and Judy asked for a turkey sandwich with Russian dressing.
“How about sharing some French fries,” Eva asked. “And let’s get something to drink. I’m going to have a Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda.”
“Sure, why not? I’ll have a cherry soda.”
“So,” began Eva. “How were the girls yesterday after Hebrew School? Did they say anything or did you notice any change in their behavior?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, Bronka threw up on the way home yesterday. She seemed upset, but I thought it was because she wasn’t feeling well. Although, you know, she’s very sensitive and sometimes does get physical symptoms. And then I took her temperature and she didn’t have fever. She went to school today, and I haven’t heard from the nurse that she’s sick or anything.”
“Well, let me tell you what happened yesterday in Mrs. Cohen’s class. It might have something to do with her vomiting.”
Eva proceeded to repeat the class discussion about Hitler and the Nazis as Judy looked somber.
“I guess it was only a matter of time that they should hear something. I told Aron we should have told them.”
“It’s a bissel ironic,” said Eva. “Your husband doesn’t want to say a word, and mine can’t stop talking about it.
“But that’s not all,” she continued. “Your girls asked Esther what she knew, and she told them about the concentration camps and the gas chambers. I’m sorry they heard it from her, but you know how the kinder are; what’s on their minds is on their tongues.”
“That’s all right,” said Judy. “I don’t blame Esther or Mrs. Cohen. We can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen. We have to talk about it if we don’t want it to happen again. I’m just not sure what age is appropriate. But I guess the time has come. Do you have any ideas about how to handle it?”
“Well, you can tell them you know Mrs. Cohen mentioned it in class. I don’t know if I’d tell them that we met and you know about their talk with Esther, but that’s up to you. Esther is reading The Diary of Anne Frank, which is about a young girl hiding with her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during the war. You might want to broach the subject, give them the book, and then ask if they have any questions.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting.”
“Oh, and one more thing. Mrs. Cohen is no longer their teacher. I don’t know if she got fired or quit, but Jakob told me the talk at minyan was that she was gone. They seem to think it had something to do with what she said.”
“Oh, no,” said Judy. “That will really upset Bronka. I know she likes her a lot. I think it’s because she can see that she’s a very earnest person, just like she is.”
Suddenly, a siren began to wail outside, followed by the sound of a car coming to an abrupt, screeching halt in front of the restaurant.
Both women froze in silence.
Judy was facing the door, so she saw the policeman enter first. He was big and tall and walked with a swagger. She noticed his gun was showing.
Eva saw the look on Judy’s face and cried out, “What, what’s going on?”
“Turn around,” said Judy.
And then to the two women’s amazement, Irv Rosen with his large flash camera around his neck and tiny Jakob Zilberman followed the cop into the deli. To Judy, the threesome looked so absurd that she put her hand over her mouth. She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. But then she remembered that she had planned not to tell Aron about her rendezvous with Eva. Now she would be forced to share this very odd situation with him. How could she not tell him? It figured—the one time she wanted to do something just for herself and keep it secret, and she’s exposed. But she had to admit, whatever this scenario was, it was much too interesting not to report to him.
But poor Eva was in shock. Her fear of men in uniforms had not dissipated much since the war. And what the hell was Jakob doing with a cop and a newsman in Brodsky’s Delicatessen?
“Should we go over and say hello?”
“Absolutely not,” said Eva. “Let’s just sit here and see if they notice us. Maybe we can find out what they’re up to.”
“Is Sid Brodsky here?” The police officer barked at the cashier in a loud voice.
“No, he’ll be back at four o’clock.”
“Do you have someone named Rudolf Schmidt working here?”
“No, no one by that name works here.”
“We’re looking for a blond man with a crew cut. He makes deliveries for Brodsky’s”
“Perhaps, you mean Roy Smith. He’s in the back.”
“Maybe. Please ask him to come out. We want to ask him some questions.”
“I’ll get him for you.”
The frightened cashier went to the back room of the store, where Roy was assembling Eva’s corned beef sandwich.
“There’s a cop and two other guys who want to ask you some questions. I think it has to do with a delivery you made. Sid isn’t here, so they asked for you.”
“What happened? Are they accusing us of shortchanging them on the cold cuts?” The deli man, who spoke with a German accent, was smirking.
“I don’t know,” said the cashier, “but you better go out. Luckily, it’s quiet now, so go out and get it over with. I have to go back to the register.”
The cashier led Roy to the front of the store, where Detective Sergeant Moe Solomon, Irv Rosen, and Jakob Zilberman were waiting to pounce on him.
The deli man looked at the three men and thought of the Three Stooges. They were obviously Jews, here to complain about an order. But did they really need to bring a cop with them?
Moe said, “I have a few questions for you. Can we sit down somewhere where we can talk?”
“Why don’t you sit at the first table over here?” said the cashier.
The four walked to the table and sat down.
“So what’s the difficulty?” the deli man said with a smirk. Jakob would never forget that smirk or the sound of his voice. “Problem with a delivery order?”
“No, not at all,” said Moe. “This man,” he pointed to Jakob, “has an issue with you that we would like to resolve.”
“And it’s not about corned beef or pastrami?” The deli man said, smirking again.
Jakob had his back to Eva and had not noticed her. He began grinding his teeth as he felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest and his palms sweating. Irv had told him to sit next to the accused, so if he wanted to snap a picture, he could capture both of them together. Irv and Moe were on the other side of the table.
“Let’s get straight to the point,” said Moe, “We don’t have a lot of time. Are you not Rudolf Schmidt, who worked at Auschwitz Birkenau ordering naked men, women, and children into the gas chamber?”
“Of course not, I am Roy Smith.”
“And where were you born—the Bronx, Alabama, or London—with that accent? Don’t tell me you’re not a German.”
“Well, of course I was born in Germany, but I knew nothing about what was going on.”
“When did you come here? You better tell the truth because I can check,” said the cop.
“I came in 1949.”
“And when did you change your name?”
“When I entered the country.”
“Who did you come with?”
“I came by myself.”
“Who do you live with now?”
“My wife and my two children.”
“What is your wife’s name and your childre
n’s names and ages?
“My wife is Margaret and my children are Brian who is eight, and Doreen is five.”
“Is your wife German too?”
“No, she was born here.”
“What is her heritage?”
“Her parents are Irish.”
“What does your wife know about your time in Germany?”
“I told her that I was a soldier in the German Army, that I had nothing to do with the extermination of Jews. In fact, I had no idea what was going on at the time. I only found out when the war was over, and then I left the country as fast as I could. Who would want to stay in a country that committed such atrocities?”
“And does your wife believe you?”
“Why not, of course she does.”
“Because you’re not telling the truth,” said Moe. “I know you’re lying.”
“How do you know I’m lying?”
“Because I have proof. Proof that will cause you to lose your job. Proof that can land you in jail. Proof that can get you deported. Proof that will make your wife want to divorce you—if not kill you—and you will never see your children again. So you better tell the truth. If you tell us the truth, I may even let you go. But we must have the truth from you, and then we will see what I will do with you.”
Moe was lying; he had absolutely no proof. But the deli man didn’t know that. He was frightened. He had been living a lie for close to ten years. He had built a family on that lie. He liked his life here. Margaret was a nurse who worked the four-to-midnight shift at JHNQ—and with her earnings and his salary and tips, they lived quite comfortably in Queens. While his wife was at work, he watched the children, gave them dinner, and put them to sleep each night. What’s more, Margaret was a devout Catholic, and she would never tolerate the wanton killing of human beings. She would leave him in an instant. And then where would he be—back in Germany?