by Shmuel David
Then he reached under the bed and brought out the wooden chess box I remembered from Kladovo. At first, I was worried about infection, but I couldn’t resist his look of longing and gave in. He sat up, opened the box, and we began to set out the pieces. I found Yost a tough opponent this time. He wasn’t the same player he’d been in Kladovo, when we were evenly matched. He’d played a lot with his father and had improved.
While playing, he proudly spoke of his approaching bar mitzvah ceremony and that he was already learning his parashah. Mr. Goldman had agreed to teach him now, although he’d only be called up to the Torah on the first of March.
“You’ll come to my bar mitzvah, won’t you?”
***
The following day, when I got back from my work at the farm and was sitting with Father and Pauli eating breakfast, Mr. Goldman suddenly appeared in a state of great excitement.
“This is it! It’s finally come! Yesterday, I was instructed by the Eretz Israel office in Zagreb to fill out the forms they’d sent me and my wife and return them to the office as soon as possible.” We all knew he’d invested enormous effort in obtaining immigration permits for himself and his wife.
“Good,” said Father. “Your efforts have paid off. Never give up.”
“Yes. My son in Eretz Israel takes good care of us. In his last letter, he says he and Zigi Shneider were even invited to a meeting with Henrietta Szold.”
“Too bad I don’t have anyone there to do the same for me.”
“Make no mistake, it was no easy matter. It took a great many letters and meetings. But I knew it would all work out in the end. They asked us to have medical examinations. It sounds as if it will happen soon,” he said, his face glowing with happiness.
“Well, good luck! You probably have a great deal to do now.”
“Yes, I’m off to fill in the papers and then to the post office. They think I’m a nuisance there, but I don’t care,” he said, bundling up in his coat and putting on his wool hat.
“Do you want me to talk to Zigi about you too? Maybe he can use his connections with Henrietta Szold for you as well,” he said, and left without waiting for an answer.
***
Every morning, on my way to the farm, I’d meet Mr. Goldman on his way to the post office to see if there was an answer waiting for him. A quick look at his furious face and pursed lips under his mustache was enough to know I shouldn’t ask him about it. About ten days had passed since he’d sent off their questionnaires, and nothing had been returned to the post office for them.
In the middle of February, on a clear, extremely cold day, I was going past the post office as usual when I saw a crowd at the closed door and heard Rudi Lempel’s loud, upset tones. “The Führer” was arguing with someone there. Curious, I went over and saw Mr. Gottesmann standing next to Lempel, both of them listening to Mr. Goldman, who was gesticulating as if he’d lost his mind. It turned out he’d just had a difficult telephone conversation with the Eretz Israel office in Zagreb.
“A scandal. An absolute scandal. Those lazy so-and-sos in Zagreb,” he cried out in a broken voice.
“The office there must be in total chaos. I’ve always said papers should be sent with specific names on them,” said Mr. Gottesmann. “They can do whatever they like with those papers if they aren’t sent to specific people.”
Rudi reinforced his words, “We need to have someone there. Someone who will supervise administration.”
“I’ve been telling you all along that there’s something wrong over there,” raged Mr. Goldman. “How can Mr. Weinstein have received his immigration permit already when he filled in the forms after me? It turns out they haven’t even sent Rivka’s and my passports yet!”
“Impossible, they must have been sent,” interrupted Rudi. “The question is whether they received letters about it.”
“They say they received letters from the Jerusalem Executive Committee,” Mr. Goldman now spoke more quietly.
“But letters from whom?” asked Mr. Gottesmann. “Do they know who sent them? The Jewish Agency? the Mossad L’Aliyah Bet? Or some Jewish Agency department?”
“No. They don’t know exactly which Jewish Agency department. A catastrophic mess,” said the distressed Mr. Goldman.
“It’s not directed specifically at you,” Rudi tried to soothe him.
“The question is whether the office in Zagreb can delay the process by passive or hostile action,” said Mr. Goldman worriedly.
“That doesn’t sound logical,” said Mr. Gottesmann with his confident know-it-all tone. “They’re just a conduit; whatever they receive they have to pass on.”
“They’ve just told me over the telephone that they received a telegraph from Jerusalem informing them that immigration permits have been sent to someone who filled in the forms after me. How is this possible? Their passports are already on the way to Zagreb, whereas mine and Rivka’s haven’t been sent,” he raged again, positive there was some deliberate malice here, some intervening hand.
“You’re just getting yourself upset, making up stories and theories that upset you even more,” said Rudi.
“Neither of you seems to understand what’s going on here. This isn’t a conspiracy at the Zagreb office. I think someone here is mixing up the immigration permits and giving them to someone else.” He stopped to take a breath, “have you heard of Moishe Flashkis?”
“Of course,” said Rudi. “He’s one of the General Zionists who emigrated a year ago.”
“Yes, and you know what? He was the one who speeded up Weinstein’s immigration permits. I know. I also turned to him for help.”
“I’ll be happy to check it out for you in Zagreb. Give me a few days,” said Rudi.
“And if the problem isn’t in Zagreb,” said Mr. Goldman. “Then I think I know who might sabotage my efforts here, and you all know who I mean.”
My heart broke for the idealistic, Zionist Mr. Goldman, who so believed in Zionist Movement institutions and had now received a ringing slap in the face. The Eretz Israel office in Zagreb treated him with contempt, led him on, and didn’t help him in his distress. I couldn’t understand how come Mr. Goldman, with two sons and his friend Zigi Shneider in Eretz Israel, wasn’t able to overcome institutional bureaucracy. I was uneasy about our situation, because Father had no connections in Eretz Israel. If this was what had happened to Mr. Goldman, with all that help from Eretz Israel, what would happen to us? When would we, if at all, get our immigration permits?
A few days later, Mr. Goldman again sat with Father in our kitchen, trying to resolve his situation and find a way out of the bureaucratic maze in which he was entangled. Father mainly listened, occasionally nodding his head. Mr. Goldman held his cup of tea in both hands, staring at the tablecloth, sadness and despair on his face. Mother came in every now and again to serve more tea.
“The hardest part is what’s happening with the boys in Eretz Israel,” he said, following a long silence during which only the sound of cups on saucers and sips of hot tea could be heard. “I expected more help from them, particularly Arieh, the eldest one. I understand that he’s very busy actively building his future on the kibbutz, building the country. Ach… How good it is to be immersed in an ideal. That’s how I was when I stopped identifying with Hungarian nationalism and became a Zionist. Ach… What I left behind there! What a comfortable life I led in Hungary! I left it all to emigrate to Eretz Israel, anticipating a certificate on a dubious luxury boat,” he said with a sigh. “I even wrote about it in my last letter to Arieh. Afterward, I felt uncomfortable about pressuring him with my problems when he’s in the throes of fulfillment.”
“As for me, if you only knew what a good and pleasant life we led in Belgrade” Father mused. “That boat, all four hundred of us crowded on it, I used to rent a similar one for a private pleasure cruise with family and friends every Sunday.”
“
I saw you boarding at Vukovar,” said Mr. Goldman. “You looked like a wealthy family. You had no idea what you were doing in all that dirt and crowdedness, and dressed in clothes more suited to the opera, too!”
“Don’t remind me of the opera. We used to go at least once a month, and elegantly dressed too. Louisa, with her fox-fur collar and fancy hat, and me in my black frock coat and bow tie; we had a driver to take us to the opera house.”
“But it was more than just a comfortable life,” said Goldman. “I’m talking about life and action for an ideal. When I believed with all my heart in the ideal of Hungary for its citizens, I acted enthusiastically out of belief, no matter the location or conditions. Afterward, when I discovered Zionism, I acted out of a burning passion for the Zionist ideal, including the desire to leave everything and emigrate to Eretz Israel.”
“I also see myself as a Zionist, but I only decided to leave when I saw Louisa breaking down, after anti-Semitism started in Vienna and Germany, after what happened to her grandfather on Kristallnacht. He was found at his store with both legs smashed.”
“So you left out of fear, not so much because of an ideal. Many of my friends did so too.”
“Well, there was also less work at the office,” said Father. “At first, I didn’t realize the reason. It was only later on that I understood it was because I was a Jew.”
“My friend, let’s get back to our affairs,” said Goldman. “How do I find out exactly what is holding up Rivka’s and my immigration permits?”
“You know what, let me tell you my position here,” Father began his story. “Although we lived in Yugoslavia for thirty years, I don’t have Yugoslavian citizenship to this day. In the Great War, I was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army and was sent to fight on the Yugoslavian front. Although at the time it opened a door to the possibility of living and working in Yugoslavia, which was much cheaper than Hungary, and I lived there for all those years, I was refused citizenship because in the distant past, I’d fought against them. They don’t understand that I had no choice in the matter. I was recruited and trained as an engineering officer in the south-east division’s artillery regiment.”
“So you still don’t have a Yugoslavian passport? How will you get an immigration permit?”
“I have a Hungarian passport, and Louisa has a Czech passport because she was born in Pressburg, but I’m not a full citizen of the country in which I live. And moreover, the Hungarians are also angry because I moved to Yugoslavia and are threatening to cancel my Hungarian passport. Why do you think I chose illegal immigration?”
“So my situation could be worse,” said Goldman. “I see there could be worse situations.”
“Exactly,” concluded Father, taking a sip of cold tea. “I promise you that in the end it will all work out. We just need to be patient. I also lose it sometimes, but it will come, you know that. I don’t even have anyone in Eretz Israel like your Zigi who could talk to Henrietta Szold, and my children are here with me, and I have to take care of them, so what do you have to complain about?”
“I think I’ll be on my way now,” said Goldman. “Tomorrow is a new day. Let’s wait and see.”
“And that anger of yours, as long as you can’t prove that someone in the Zagreb office is against you, even if you suspect him, it will only cause you grief.”
“Thank you for your welcome,” said Mr. Goldman, turning to leave. He peeped into the kitchen on his way out. “Madame Louisa, thank you for the hot tea,” he said, and went on his way.
A day before Yost’s bar mitzvah, he and his mother came especially to invite us. Yost and I sat talking under the tree, and Elli, his mother, went in to talk with Mother. He was very nervous and said he wasn’t sure if his friends would come to the synagogue or the party afterward. Apart from me, he’d invited Chaim Shatzker, a boy his age from Vienna, who’d joined the transport with his mother.
Recently, there’d been a spate of rumors that about two hundred and fifty immigration permits for children and young people were on the way. But instead of being glad about the possibility of at last going to Eretz Israel as he’d dreamed of doing and meeting his beloved brother Grad on the kibbutz, Yost was very worried. He told me about his parents’ great concerns. Ever since they’d heard about the children’s transport that was about to leave, they couldn’t sleep nights and argued constantly about the fate of their child, who was apparently also listed for an immigration permit.
“They’re always arguing and forget that I’m in the middle and hear everything. Father supports the transport; he says my Aunt Ina and Uncle Albert will take me in. I don’t know them, but they’ll take care of me until my parents come. Mother’s reluctant; she says she doesn’t feel comfortable about taking their help. They’ve helped enough with my brother, who lived with them for several months. And apart from that, she says it’s dangerous to send a boy my age alone on a journey of several days through enemy countries. Father reminds her that I’m a bar mitzvah already, an age when you should be more independent, but Mother says that even if this is so, as far as she’s concerned, I’m still a helpless boy. It is so annoying. I want to go. I don’t mind traveling alone. The opposite. I want to get myself out of their bear hug. Look, Chaim Shatzker is my age exactly, and his mother has no doubts at all. She knows it’s temporary and that she’ll be joining him in two or three weeks’ time. You have to help me,” he begged. “Maybe they’ll listen to you. Tell them you’re older; you’ll be responsible for me until we get to Eretz Israel. They know you, after all. You protected me once before.”
I was in a very uncomfortable situation. My back came out in a cold sweat. I really wanted to help Yost. He was my protégé. I wanted to tell them, “Leave the boy alone. It’ll be good for him to get out of here. I promise to protect him.” But I knew I couldn’t. They were his parents, and I couldn’t interfere. When I told him I couldn’t do it, he suggested I speak to my mother. She knew his mother and might be able to influence her.
We went into the house, and judging from the conversation issuing from my parents’ bedroom, I understood that Ellie had confided in her. Mother understood Ellie. She told Father that if I were bar mitzvah age, she would also refuse to send me alone on such a dangerous journey. “In our case, if Hanne were going alone, he wouldn’t have any family in Eretz Israel who could take him in and care for him until we arrived. With Pauli, it’s different; he’s older and far more independent.”
I reflected that during the long months in Sabac and Kladovo I’d changed a great deal, so I felt insulted by Mother’s comment. I might have been a spoiled little boy four years ago, but not now.
When Mother told Father the story, like Yost’s father, he couldn’t understand Elisheva’s resistance.
“The boy has grown, Louie,” said Father. “I was extremely independent at his age. They can’t coddle him all his life. If they don’t let him go, he will always be dependent on them.”
The next day, we all went to the bar mitzvah. Mother had managed to unpack and iron our best clothes. Yost’s parents greeted us at the door of the synagogue. They, too, were wearing their best clothes. Max wore a light, slightly creased festive jacket and a fine tie. Elisheva looked very elegant in a long dress.
Mother and Ellie went behind the curtain of the women’s section on the other side of the synagogue. Pauli, Father, and I joined those already seated. Yost was already on the podium, dressed like a young man. He told me his mother had sewn those clothes for him according to his size and had begun to work as a seamstress for one of the men’s stores in town. This work contributed to their family budget.
I saw how nervous Yost was on the podium with the prayer shawl on his shoulders. He stood between Mr. Goldman, who was ready to hear the Haftorah he’d been working on for a whole month, and Mr. Weis, who was also the chazzan. The scene reminded me of how I’d stood in Yost’s place just four years previously, in the great synagogue, in fron
t of a large and frightening audience; I’d forgotten the words of the Haftorah, remembered only the melody, and I’d lost my speech notes.
Yost did well. He read the verses clearly and confidently. Mr. Goldman’s glowing face was proof of his satisfaction.
All the guests gathered in the only room of their modest apartment on the outskirts of town. It was beautifully arranged. Elisheva served a yeast cake she’d baked and lemon juice and sugar she’d prepared, and the ceremony was very dignified. Yost had nothing to be ashamed of, because apart from Chaim Shatzker, four other classmates came. All the children were talking about the approaching journey while Yost listened sadly; he already knew he wouldn’t be going with them.
A few days after the bar mitzvah, a messenger from the Eretz Israel Zagreb office came to Sabac with the long-awaited papers: 244 immigration permits for Aliyah youth under the age of eighteen. He announced that all those entitled to a permit should be at the Sabac train station in two days’ time, at seven in the morning, ready to board the train that would take them toward Eretz Israel.
Mother wept with joy. “Do you understand, Hanne? This is it. It’s over!”
She hugged me, tears in her eyes, as if she and Father were irrelevant, as long as Pauli and I could get out of there. I didn’t know whether to jump for joy or wipe away tears that refused to flow. The only thing bothering me was whether or not Inge was included on the list.
On a stormy, rainy evening, we gathered in the basement of the mill. We sat on wooden benches from the dining room to receive last instructions from group counselors regarding what to pack, the route, and most importantly of all, eligibility. We were divided into groups according to organization affiliation, and a leader was chosen for each group. I was with the Mizrahi group, together with Inge, who sat beside me. She whispered her great fear that she might not get an immigration permit. Although no one knew her real age, Inge, with her responsible role, and mature appearance, didn’t look as if she belonged in a youth group, despite the fact that she was part of the Vienna Mizrahi youth group and attended lessons at our school, when time and work allowed it.