A Delayed Life

by Dita Kraus

  For many years they owned a flat in Israel, and we saw them quite frequently. Sometimes she came alone, and we spent many hours talking. I was very fond of Mausi; she was practical, straightforward, inquisitive, and loyal.

  Our children knew about her past, and when they saw her, they would always repeat what I told them: “This is the woman who might have been your mother.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Teplice

  In late July 1945, I found Margit again. She was back in Prague and lived with her father, Elmer Barnai, who had come back from the concentration camps. Her mother and sister, Helga, had perished. Mr. Barnai was offered a job as administrator of German properties in Teplice-Šanov. The position included a flat for his own use, a very important advantage. Flats were so scarce, it was almost impossible to find a vacancy. The flats that had been vacated by the fleeing German occupants were soon taken over by all kinds of people. The best homes were of course grabbed by the officials; the rest were allocated to returning prisoners or other citizens who flocked back from abroad to their liberated homeland. A Housing Ministry had been established, and people could obtain a flat only by applying for it. When Grandmother and I started looking for accommodation for ourselves, there was no longer anything available.

  Margit’s father invited me to live with him and Margit in Teplice, where we girls would go to school and have our own room. I jumped at the invitation. Grandmother was apprehensive; she didn’t know who these people were. Mr. Barnai came for a visit and convinced Grandmother that I would be in good hands. He was eager for me to come, because Margit proclaimed that she would go back to school only if I came along. She felt too old to be a schoolgirl again. She was seventeen; I was sixteen. So my poor grandmother gave her consent. She knew she had no control over me anymore, and there was no prospect of a flat for her and me. What pleased her was that I would be at school again.

  Otto wasn’t so happy that I would not live in Prague. By now he was a student at the university studying comparative literature, philosophy, English, and Spanish. Every morning Otto and Ruth’s husband, Honza, would leave together to go to university. Honza, who had almost finished his studies when the Germans closed the Czech universities, was now completing his PhD. Ruth prepared sandwiches for them, spread with mustard for lack of anything better. Otto got a modest scholarship, which he divided into three parts: a third went for food, a third for rent, and a third for culture. He bought books and went to the theater at least twice a week. And he started writing. But about that I learned only later.

  In those months, soon after our return, he was still quite slim, and had he been a bit taller, he would have been quite good-looking. At first I found his round cheeks not so handsome, but he was so clever and it was so interesting and entertaining to be with him that I gave up my ideal of a tall, slim boyfriend.

  When we began our relationship, schools were still on vacation, and apart from running around to the various offices applying for documents, we were both free. We met often, sometimes in town, more often at his place. It did not take long until we became lovers. I was totally inexperienced; besides some kissing, I didn’t know anything about sex. But Otto was so gentle that I relaxed and relied on him. When I returned to Manya’s place after our first lovemaking, I was sure everybody on the tram could read in my face that two hours ago I had stopped being a girl and become a woman.

  * * *

  In the middle of September, Mr. Barnai had the flat ready in Teplice, and Margit and I could move in. It was fully furnished with the equipment of the former tenant, a physician; even his medical instruments were still there. Like most of the Sudeten Germans, he must have fled to Germany immediately at the end of the war. Margit and I now had our own bedroom with a balcony, a white double bed, white wardrobes, a white dressing table with drawers, and a mirror. We felt like princesses.

  Teplice, a well-known spa in the style of Karlovy Vary, was at that time full of refugees. They came mainly from the easternmost part of Czechoslovakia, which now belonged to the Soviet Union. The refugees flocked to the Sudeten towns that were emptied of the former German population and took over houses, farms, and businesses. They were nicknamed “gold diggers.” There was also a large group of displaced people from other countries, who were waiting to go back home. Mr. Barnai employed one of them as our housekeeper. She made a wonderful milk soup with noodles but left soon to go back to her native Romania. We then started to buy our midday meals from a nearby hotel.

  School had already started, but that was no problem. The whole state was still in turmoil, getting organized after the six-year-long occupation. We were put into the fifth grade of the Teplice High School, with students only one year younger, and the school director expected us to make up for the lost years. We had to take private lessons in Latin, provided by an old-worldly retired professor. Physics, mathematics, geometry, history, Czech language, and literature of the lower grades we should complete within the next two years.

  Father Barnai, as I called him from then on, was appointed by the court as my guardian, and since I had two sources of income—a state pension as an orphan and a grant from the Jewish Community—I was no burden on him. Margit’s father was very strict about morals; he felt responsible for our reputation, and we had to report where we were going. But we didn’t always behave according to his instructions.

  In spring there was a large student party, called Majales, for the whole school, with music and dancing. Father Barnai came along to chaperone us but left early and gave us a curfew. When Margit and I returned after midnight, Father Barnai met us at the door and smacked each of us on both cheeks with a pair of leather gloves. Why gloves, I don’t know. Perhaps as a symbol for the thrown glove like in the challenge for a duel? Margit and I couldn’t stop giggling and laughing into our pillows at the sight of Father Barnai in his long underpants wielding the gloves.

  The flat was well equipped; there were carpets and bedsheets and curtains, pots and pans and all the kitchen utensils, and Father Barnai brought whatever we needed from the German houses he administered. He provided a gramophone and a lot of records. Margit, who had learned ballet before the war, taught me some steps, and we danced for hours around the table in the large dining room.

  We both had nothing to wear, and that was a problem. The shops had hardly any wares, and the meager supplies were shoddy and unattractive. Moreover, one could buy them only with coupons, which might have sufficed for someone with a full wardrobe to replenish an item from time to time. But we needed everything, from underwear to stockings, not to speak of dresses, woollens, or coats. So Margit and I decided we would sew dresses for ourselves.

  We bought a box of blue textile dye and dipped two bedsheets, of which there was a good supply in the flat, into the vat with the blue water. When they were dry, we began cutting them up. First we cut a round hole in the middle for the head. Then we stitched two seams at right angles to make sleeves—by hand of course; we didn’t have a sewing machine—and then cut off the rest. When I tried to put the “dress” on, my head wouldn’t go through, and the hole had to be enlarged. But the thing didn’t look much like a dress—rather like a blue sack. So we added a strip around the waist to serve as a belt. On the shoulders we made several tucks and, in the end, stitched a hem around. In this attire we went to school. Strangely, no one in class commented or snickered at our models.

  Margit and I were rather popular with the boys from the higher grades. Unlike the girls in our class, we were more mature, and we both smoked. During the breaks we would stand in the corridor behind the staircase with the older boys and have a cigarette. One day we were caught by the professor on duty and had to report to the headmaster. The punishment was harsh; we were expelled from school. Margit laughed it off; she wouldn’t have minded quitting school, but I was extremely unhappy, especially because of Grandmother. What would she say? To lose my chance for an education for a stupid, petty breaking of the school rules?

  Father Barnai tried to
convince the principal to be more lenient. It turned out that the professor who caught us was an anti-Semite. We two were the only Jewish students in the school. We later learned that at the staff conference he was adamant and insisted on the punishment. Nevertheless, it was reduced to temporary expulsion. The next day I went to school after classes to speak to Mr. Weichet.

  Mr. Weichet had been Otto’s teacher in Prague before the war. Otto met him on the street a few days after his return from Terezín, and the teacher persuaded him to sit for his matriculation exam that very summer. Otto had already been in his matriculation class when the Germans banned Jews from schools. The advice was good, because Otto passed and could enroll at the university in the school year of 1945–46.

  Otto knew that Mr. Weichet had been transferred to Teplice and told me to give him his best regards. It so happened that he became our homeroom teacher. Thus I believed that he might intervene on Margit’s and my behalf.

  I met the teacher in the empty corridor and told him about how I had started smoking in the camps because the women said that it made one feel the hunger less. The result was that my poor teacher started crying. I felt awful; I felt guilty for using this argument, even if it was the truth. But it was unfair on my part to cause his tears, and it embarrassed me deeply.

  We were allowed back to school the next day; Father Barnai got a phone call from the school to tell him.

  I wrote to Otto about the incident; we wrote each other almost daily.

  His letters always began: My sweet little girl.

  Prague 11.1.1945 (sic)

  My sweet little girl, since I know how hard life is without cigarettes, chocolate, and love, I am sending the first two in natura. Unfortunately, the post office doesn’t deliver love, therefore you must be satisfied with my loving you at a distance.

  Otto

  On this occasion, though, he rebuked me, called me an irresponsible, immature child, and said he was disappointed in me. Afterward I took my studies more seriously to appease him and prove that I was not really stupid.

  During the year in Teplice, I went to Prague twice for a few days. It was agreed that I would return for good at the end of the school year and continue school there. Otto said he could not love me at a distance and practically made me choose: either him or Margit. It was not difficult to decide, although I regretted having to leave the comfort of Teplice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Wedding

  I finished the fifth grade of high school with Margit in Teplice and left with some regret, but I also looked forward to being with Otto again. The plan was that I should continue with high school.

  Uncle Leo and Aunt Verica had exchanged their modern, three-room flat in the center of the city for a small one in Košíře, a shabbier section of Prague. They were about to emigrate to America and promised to leave the flat to Grandmother. The exchange was to be carried out after their departure. The deal was profitable for them, albeit done without the approval of the Housing Ministry.

  I dutifully enrolled at the nearby girls’ gymnasium but soon developed such a loathing toward the school that I just quit. Instead, I decided to attend a school for applied arts. As a child I used to spend many hours drawing dresses for my collection of paper dolls, and the adults of the family decided I had a future in fashion design. So I went about fulfilling their prediction.

  I was now having a good time. Living with Grandmother was pleasant; she cooked and took care of me. For a while we were a small family. I got our furniture back from Lori’s friend, and I loved the feeling of having a home again. I slept on the couch in the living room, and Grandmother used the leather sofa in the kitchen. It was a bit cramped, but as Grandmother was rather short, she managed.

  Yet it soon emerged that the flat was infested with bedbugs. This was a nuisance, but we took it in our stride. These were nothing in comparison with the armies of such vermin in Terezín. We moved out for a few days while the flat was fumigated, but it helped only for a while, since the entire high-rise building was infested and the bedbugs soon found their way back into our beds. The bites itched, and I had to scratch myself, but otherwise I didn’t mind. A minor inconvenience—bedbugs, ha!

  I would leave for school in the morning, carrying my drawing board and paints. At noon I would buy a piece of pie or tart in a confectionery. Afternoons were spent with Otto, and in the evening I took the tram home. I felt free. Life was interesting, and Otto loved me. Only, when he took me to meet his friends, I became depressed because I felt so stupid and inadequate next to them. They discussed philosophy, politics, or new books and plays, while I was there among them like a decoration, pretty but dumb. I couldn’t join their conversation and felt that even Otto thought me naive and childish. I remember how he tried to explain to me what philosophy was, and how I pretended to understand, although I wasn’t sure I did.

  The idyll lasted only a short time. Uncle Leo and Verica did not get the visa to America and needed their tiny flat back. For me there was no problem; I just took my few belongings and moved in with Otto. But poor Grandmother had nowhere to go. Uncle and Aunt moved in, and she stayed in the kitchen, making herself even smaller than she was, not to be in Aunt Verica’s way.

  I still attended the art school, but we were planning to get married.

  It happened like this. We were returning from someplace in the center of town, and as we were waiting at the tram stop, Otto said in a quite casual tone, “I love you so much that maybe I will marry you.”

  He didn’t ask, “Will you marry me?” or “Will you be my wife?” He knew it depended solely on his decision; there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that I might refuse.

  I felt honored and elated.

  There was, however, a major obstacle. One of the many documents that were required to get a permit for marriage was a certificate from the population census of 1930. The population of the Republic had three choices of nationalities: Czech, German, or Jewish. My parents, whose mother tongue and education had been German, registered as Germans. I was only six months old, so their nationality was mine, too, of course.

  Now, after the war, I was a German, an enemy, and could not get the permit to marry. The Czech authorities had not yet managed to differentiate between the real Germans and the German-speaking Jewish survivors. I could even have been deported from Czechoslovakia to Germany.

  It almost happened to Grandmother. Soon after her return from Terezín, she saw her name on the lists of the German citizens to be expelled, which were posted all over the city. She was alarmed and frightened, and when she told me about it, I just laughed. It was so absurd and obviously a mistake; I thought she should just ignore it. But I was wrong. Grandmother tried to get her name erased from the list, but all her efforts were in vain. In her agitation, she did something that for her was quite uncharacteristic.

  She went to the prime minister’s office and asked for an audience. They looked in disbelief at the little woman in her old-fashioned black hat, but she insisted: just tell him Katharina Polach wants to speak to him. The secretary smiled condescendingly but complied.

  The prime minister came personally out of his office to greet her. Before the war he had been a member of Parliament and knew Grandfather well. It took only one phone call, and Grandmother’s name was struck from the list.

  I was not yet eighteen and, according to the law, still a minor. To be allowed to marry, I needed permission from the courts. Since Father Barnai was my legal custodian, I had to travel to the court in Teplice. On the appointed date we all—Mr. Barnai, Otto, and myself—appeared duly before the judge. First he just checked the data, but then he asked Otto, “What is your profession? What is your income? Where do you live?” The answers seemed to satisfy him, but then he sent the men out, and I was left alone with the judge. He looked me up and down carefully, probably to make sure that I was mature enough and normally developed. Then he leaned forward, smiled at me reassuringly, and said, “Is somebody coercing you into this marriage? Are you
marrying of your free will? Are you sure you want to be the wife of this man?”

  When I had answered, he explained, “In the meantime, until you are eighteen, you can either stay the ward of Mr. Barnai, or your husband can become custodian in his stead.”

  There was no question of my decision.

  “My husband will be my husband, never my custodian.”

  * * *

  I still did not have a permit to get married. I had the necessary domicile certificate and a document stating that I was single, an identity card, but I could not overcome the obstacle of the German census vote of my parents. Otto and I tried to have a Jewish ritual wedding. Rabbi Sicher, the chief rabbi of Czechoslovakia, had known Otto since he was born, having been Otto’s mother’s teacher at school back in Náchod, and he also conducted Otto’s bar mitzvah. But even he couldn’t help us. He was obliged to demand the same documents for a religious wedding as the civil marriage office.

  Finally I decided on a ruse as a last resort. I put on my stiff wide coat, which a tailor had made for me from the military blanket I had brought from Bergen-Belsen. (I had no other coat, anyway.) It made me look larger, and again I stood in the queue at the Ministry of Interior. The clerk was a young man. I looked directly into his eyes and said, “I must have a permit to get married in a hurry. I am pregnant, and my boyfriend is willing to marry me. But if he has to wait, I know that he will surely escape.”

  His face shed the mien of officialdom, and lowering his voice, he asked, “Will it be all right if you get it next week?”

  A few days later, I was finally in possession of the document I had spent so many months trying to obtain.

  The wedding took place on May 21, 1947. By that time I was indeed pregnant. Much later, Otto admitted that it was crucial for him to know that I could bear children. He felt the loss of his entire family so acutely that the most important thing for him was to create a new one. I was naive but did have my doubts when he took no precautions. Yet he assured me that since it was only a short time after the camps, he had not yet regained his procreative powers. I was easily convinced and believed him; in my eyes he was the authority on everything.