by Bodie Thoene
The Nazi border guards who inspected our exit documents sneered at our youth and the fact that we were on a honeymoon.
“Where are your skis?” laughed one fat fellow with a Hitler moustache as he flipped through our papers.
His companion, a florid-faced civil servant, jibed, “They are not interested in the snow. They are only going to Austria to keep warm.”
I felt myself blush. Varrick held my hand tightly. He did not look them in the eye. I spotted Mr. Dean leaning forward, as if to spring into action if there was any trouble. Our identity folders were tossed back in Varrick’s face, and I heard the guard mutter the word “Jude” as he left us.
We entered Austria. Shane Dean, en route to Vienna, clasped our hands and wished us well as we disembarked. He warned Varrick: “Get out of Austria as soon as you can. The Anschluss is coming. Soon Austria won’t be safe for you either, American wife or not.”
Hours later, we were riding in a sleigh on our way to Kitzbuhl. I could not look at Varrick’s face. I felt like a child and he looked at me like a man—hungry and filled with desire. Our hotel room was grand, nicer than anywhere I had ever stayed before. The heavy furniture had marble tops. The room had mirrors on three walls: enormous, gilt-framed, glass panels reflecting not only whoever stood before them, but the entirety of the chamber, including the four-poster, canopied bed.
“No, don’t open it. Just leave it for now,” I heard Varrick say.
While Varrick tipped the bellhop for bringing up our bags, I wandered about the room, touching everything: table, chair, lamp, curtains, as if rehearsing the reality of where I was…and how my life had irrevocably changed. I needed to prove this was not a dream, but I also wanted to remember it all. If I was to leave my love, my husband, my Varrick, so desperately, painfully soon, I wanted to carry with me an exact image of our first night together.
When I glanced up from playing with a silver candy dish, I saw Varrick staring at me. On his face was a mixture of wonder and…something else. Something that frightened me and thrilled me, both at the same time.
“The manager sent up a bottle of champagne,” Varrick said, flourishing the dark green bottle. “Would you like some?”
“My father doesn’t approve,” I said, then stopped at the absurdity of what I had said. I was a married woman; a woman grown, no matter if the calendar might assert otherwise. “Yes,” I said with a toss of my head. “I think I would.”
Varrick struggled with the wire cage over the cork and then just as he succeeded in removing it, the cork shot out of the bottle and bounced off the mirror near my head. As Varrick ran to hold the gushing wine over a pair of glasses, we both laughed and laughed.
It was a very good thing to laugh just then—a very good thing indeed.
After passing me a glass of champagne, Varrick sat on the edge of the bed. He took a swallow, then patted the mattress for me to join him there.
When I did so, he smiled at me, the same shy smile I had seen when I had first met him. “To you,” he said, raising his glass.
“To us,” I replied, clinking the rims together. “To being together again soon, and to never being parted, ever again.”
Several quiet moments passed, with Varrick gulping the champagne and me sipping gingerly. I didn’t really like the taste but would not tell him so. He started to say something several times, pausing as if searching for the right words.
At last he said, “Do you, I mean, do you know…did your mother tell you—”
“How a married man and his wife behave with each other?” I replied in the best grown-up, matter-of-fact voice I could muster. I still squeaked a little, and color rose in my cheeks. “Yes, of course. I bet I’ve known longer than you have.” I instantly regretted saying that. This was not a school competition to prove which of us was smarter. “What I meant to say is, yes, my mother and father are very much in love. She explained to me what that means…in the way you mean it too”
Varrick looked incredibly relieved. “I’m so glad! I mean, well, I had that talk with my father, but he kept saying how when I married you…oh, yes, I’ve always known this day would come! How when I married you, I must not be impatient. How I should not scare…”
“Varrick,” I said, setting the tulip-shaped glass on the nightstand. “Stop talking and kiss me.”
He sighed happily, put his arms around me, and pulled me close. After that everything was just as it should be…perfect in every way.
Three days into our planned honeymoon Shane Dean unexpectedly reappeared in Kitzbuhl. “The Anschluss is happening…now!” he said. “The borders are closed. Varrick needs to get out immediately. I’ll set it up for tomorrow morning.”
Suddenly our time together was shattered. We said our most intimate, personal good-byes long before the sun came up on departure morning. I promised myself I would not beg to stay with him. I would not make this separation any more difficult for my husband than he was already experiencing.
When dawn came, I was not sleeping, but I could not bring myself to wake him. My arms wrapped around him, hugging him fiercely. I committed to memory every bit of him in the way I had sought to record the room.
All too soon it was time to rise, dress, and pack. We would not leave one moment earlier than necessary. Still, the time flew by, despite every angry glare I gave the clock.
As if there were no Nazis, no possible pursuers, no danger to our families, we acted like the final act of his escape from Berlin was the beginning of a cruise to the South Seas. Varrick adopted a different air than I had seen in him before. He appeared ready and able to do battle with any threat. In between moments of looking fierce he stared at me, drinking me in and embracing me with his gaze.
I also had a part to play. I made certain luggage tags were securely attached. I contrived for every mission to carry me past Varrick near enough to touch him.
I touched the curl of hair on the back of his neck. When I adjusted the angle of the fedora he wore, I stroked his forehead. When nothing else suggested itself, I plucked imaginary lint from his sleeve, then let my fingers rest on his hand. “I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you, and…I cherish you,” he returned.
The porter came, and we silently followed our luggage to the lobby. My throat, already constricted with emotion, contrived to tighten even further at that. We uttered hopeful little glimpses of what our future life would be like.
“We’ll have a place of our own,” he said.
“You can finish school,” I offered.
“We’ll raise our own vegetables on—how do the Americans say it?—a bit of garden.’”
“Flowers,” I insisted. “Flowers too.”
All too soon Shane Dean arrived to assist Varrick in crossing the mountain to safety. There were others assembled who would pass into Switzerland today. Varrick stroked my cheek in one final embrace. “I’ll see you soon,” he promised.
I could not speak. I did love him, I discovered. I nodded. “Soon.”
7
The next time I ever saw Eben Golah was on the eve of great terror and tragedy. It was late afternoon on the ninth of November, 1938. Mama was in the kitchen, so when Eben Golah came to our home, I answered his knock. He asked to speak with my father, alone. I ushered him into Papa’s study, but I left the door slightly ajar after presenting him.
Such was the air of mystery around the man I could not help listening in the hallway outside.
What I overheard made me shudder.
“It will happen tonight,” Golah said to my father. “It will be the worst flexing of Nazi muscle yet seen.”
“How do you know this?” Papa queried.
Golah’s reply was dismissive of that issue. “Not important. What you need to know is this: tonight will be organized mayhem and destruction. Tonight the thugs will not be drunken rowdies too deep in their schnapps to stand erect. Storm Troopers dressed as civilians have lists of Jewish homes and businesses. It will occur all over Germany, tonight! Tomorrow
Hitler will give out the word this was a spontaneous uprising against the criminal, subversive Jews, but every torch is allotted a Jewish building; every club a Jewish skull.”
“The methodical Aryan setting about his chosen profession,” Papa said bitterly. “Is there time to get our friends out of Berlin? Country villages, perhaps…no?”
I knew from my father’s sorrowful ending groan that Eben Golah had shaken his head. I shivered as he answered: “There is no town or village that is safe.” He paused.
I held one hand to my mouth and pressed the other to my stomach as I gasped for breath. I had been working for months, unsuccessfully, to get Varrick’s family out of Germany.
Then Golah continued, “There is only this ray of hope.”
With difficulty I refrained from shouting, “What is it?” even as Papa voiced the same inquiry.
“Jewish homes and synagogues may be attacked only if there is no danger to Aryan houses and shops,” Golah said. “If you pack your friends into the church, lives may be saved.”
A muffled thud rattled the walls of our house. Seconds afterward, screams and cries echoed down the street.
Heedless of revealing my eavesdropping, I rushed into my father’s office to join the two men at the window. “I’m too late,” Golah said, his shoulders drooping.
“Papa, what?” I demanded.
“They’ve bombed the synagogue,” he said, pointing at the flames shooting from the roof of the Jewish house of worship. A column of black, oily smoke ascended over Berlin, joining thousands of sacrificial pyres set ablaze all across Germany.
“I must go,” Eben Golah said. “The mob is gathered in front of the synagogue for now, enjoying the spectacle. As soon as the novelty wears off, they will fan out through the Jewish homes clustered nearby. If I use the alleyways behind the synagogue I may help some to escape.”
“I’ll go with you,” Papa offered.
Eben Golah shook his head. “Save your own flock, Pastor Bittick. The others are in the hands of Adonai.”
My father clasped Golah’s hand, hugged him, then the messenger raced away, pausing only to note my mother’s stricken face and the fear in my eyes. “Courage,” he said, and he was gone.
My father set me to work telephoning those members of our congregation who were Jewish by heritage. “I’ll run to the ones who live nearest,” he instructed, giving me their names. “You call the others.” There was no safety in Messianic faith tonight. Even if they were not already marked on Nazi lists, many Aryan neighbors would be happy to denounce Jewish Christians to the Storm Troopers.
Though the list of the telephone exchange was alphabetical, the number I first requested was the Kepler residence.
There was no answer.
The next three homes I contacted were answered by fearful voices. “It’s Lora Bittick Kepler. My father says, ‘Go to the church. Go to the churchyard door. Take blankets, but go now.’” Then I rang off.
Feeling justified by my trio of successes, I tried the Keplers again.
Still no response.
Two others did not pick up, then I got three more grateful reactions of: “Yes! Yes, right away. Thank you!”
When I asked for the Kepler home yet again, there was no corresponding buzz to show it rang. Clicking the receiver, I asked the operator to check the line. She replied that it was dead, but in any case the switchboard was overwhelmed with emergency calls, and I must now stay off the line.
My father reappeared, and I gave him my report, emphasizing my failure with Varrick’s parents. He tried to reassure me: “Richard Kepler and I have spoken of this before. He’s a good man. He’ll remember what to do.” My mother stood in the doorway, balancing a stack of coverlets and family heirloom quilts. To her, Papa said, “Stay here and keep the door locked. I won’t be back tonight, but I’ll try to get home tomorrow.”
At that my mother verbally put her foot down. “We will not be separated,” she said firmly. “If you’re going, so are we. Mothers will need help with babies, won’t they? And with keeping the children entertained and quiet?”
When Papa opened his mouth as if to protest, she said quickly, “We’re all going.”
Papa insisted on checking first to see if it was safe for us.
Moments later, Papa, flanked by brownshirted Stormtroopers, was forcibly returned. “We’re being expelled from Germany,” he said glumly to Mama. “Your citizenship saved us. But we must leave.”
We returned to Brussels, and Papa took his place again as headmaster of Alderman School. Varrick joined the British as a translator and liaison between British and Belgian forces. Jessica’s husband, William, was in the Belgian army.
We lived in blithe, foolish hope there would be some great falling out between Hitler and Stalin that would, in the end, destroy both tyrants.
It was not to be.
And so we lived our ordinary lives, worrying about things that had no significance except to distract us from looking at the stars. I longed for a baby. Whenever his duties did not call him away from Brussels, Varrick was always eager to assist me in fulfilling this ambition.
I continued to work for the hour when we might see his family escape from the Reich. Our hope to win their freedom was the preoccupation of our every waking hour. In those brief visits when Varrick came home on leave, we divided our time between the visa offices of the U.S. Embassy and the British Embassy. Our letters during the long months of separation were filled with disappointing news about denied visas and immigration quotas that had already been filled by needy children.
And when, at last, Poland was invaded in September 1939, word came to my father that Varrick’s father and mother and brother had simply vanished one night. Arrested by the Gestapo, they were three Jews among millions.
Our entreaties turned to the constant vigil of prayer for their survival.
With Varrick’s military duty and long absences, I turned my heart toward helping the refugee children. Jessica, Mama, and I worked every day among the displaced persons. Their sorrow was so much greater than our own. It put the blessings of our ordinary lives in perspective. Mama’s Texas friends made and shipped new clothes for our refugee children. Hand-me-downs were not accepted by the Texas Christian Missionary Society. New quilts. New clothes. New shoes. Hair ribbons and toy pop guns at Christmas to fight the Nazis. Mama personally oversaw the placement of 613 Jewish orphans in the U.S. A rabbi told her later that 613 was the exact number of laws in Torah.
She replied in her Texan way, “This isn’t about the laws. This is about all men’s broken lives being healed by God’s grace.”
I am sure he approved of what she said.
Then tragedy came to our home suddenly and without warning. Mama, the joy of Papa’s life and the anchor of mine, died of a burst appendix.
Could it be, we asked ourselves, when we all needed her so much? When the darkness of this world was illuminated by her kind heart and ready smile? Could the merciful Lord take away our rock when there was so much heartache poised to spring on our future?
Jessica and I had believed our mother’s strength was so much greater than ours. Suddenly, when we needed that strength to survive, we discovered it had become our own spiritual heritage.
PART THREE
A time of war,
and a time of peace.
ECCLESIASTES 3:8B
8
MAY 10, 1940
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
The drive across blacked-out Brussels was eerie. The whole city had a sepulchral feel. No street lights illuminated the intersections. No cheery glow escaped from any of the heavily curtained windows. Papa drove hunched forward over the steering wheel, guiding the Fiat as much by moon glow as by the feeble gleam cast from the shrouded headlamps.
Despite the earlier alarms there was very little traffic in the crooked lanes or on the main thoroughfares. It was as if everyone remained huddled at home, hoping by collective disbelief to turn the news of a German assault into a false alarm. The whole
city was waiting…and watching.
Though no one demanded an explanation of the late-night travel, and no one challenged us, I felt the presence of many eyes observing our every turn. Moonlight-induced shadows on rowhouse fronts turned windows and doorways into eye sockets and gaping mouths. Who lurked behind these wounds in the soul of Brussels?
The stillness of the seemingly deserted city made me feel like screaming….or telling my father to turn around and drive as fast as possible back home. Only familiar surroundings and comfortable memories could possibly lift the oppression I felt.
Out here in the inky blackness I was convinced Varrick was dead, lying facedown on a canal bank.
But what if that vision was wrong, was false, was wicked? What if he had escaped…and Jessica’s William too? I hastily added to my prayer. What if they had fled alive from the carnage and were even now arriving at the seminary? What if Varrick came for me, and I was not there to greet him? How would he ever find me again?
I was about to suggest all this reasoning to Papa when the next stick of bombs began to fall.
The sirens had not been wrong—merely premature.
Brilliant orange flashes lit up the sky behind them, in the direction of the factories and the warehouses and the rail yards. I clamped my mouth shut on my doubts. Papa had been right. Whatever fate had already engulfed William and Varrick, it was necessary to get Gina and Jessica and the unborn child out of harm’s way.
Suddenly, instead of retreating, I wished Papa would drive faster!
The delayed thunder of distant explosions reached us. Orange light raced across the streets, competing with and then overpowering the moon. New detonations reverberated among the canyons of homes. Crimson fingers in the sky reached out to seize the Fiat and hold back our escape.
Another stick of bombs stitched a row of destruction across the city. Then, unexpectedly, a final flash and a rumble came to me, almost abreast of the auto. Off to the right, much nearer than the rest, a wayward package of ordnance detonated. For an instant the flare silhouetted a church steeple, a familiar pinnacle.