Anna At War

by Helen Peters

  Inka came out from the house and jumped on to Granny’s lap. Granny poured herself another cup of tea and stroked the cat as she spoke.

  “After I heard about my parents, I spent months consumed with grief. I had always made myself believe we would be reunited after the war, and now all my hopes had been destroyed. The future seemed utterly bleak and life didn’t seem worth living. I realised I was completely alone in the world and I didn’t know how to cope with that.

  “Uncle Bert and Aunty Rose were wonderful, of course. They said they would always be my family. They even offered to adopt me, but I wasn’t ready for that. I loved them, but I wanted my family. And I needed time to grieve.

  “The Deans were so kind and generous. And they understood, somehow, even before I did, that I needed to be reunited with Uncle Paul. He was my only living relative now. They dealt with all the paperwork and they managed to get permission for him to come and live with us in England.”

  “How did you all fit in?” I asked, thinking of the tiny two-bedroom cottage that Granny had painted such a vivid picture of in my mind.

  She smiled. “You may well ask! We happened to have a spell of lovely weather when Uncle Paul arrived, so Molly and I slept in a tent in the garden and he had our room. We loved sleeping outdoors – in fact, some nights, we didn’t sleep in the tent at all, just on a groundsheet under the stars. We would lie on our backs and look up at the night sky, and I would imagine my parents up there, watching over me.”

  I didn’t quite know how to ask the next question. “And your Uncle Paul? Was he… Was he all right?”

  Granny gazed into the distance for a minute before she spoke.

  “He was very different. He had spent two years in a concentration camp, and it was an old man who came shuffling up to me at Liverpool Street Station. I didn’t even recognise him. He seemed so much smaller than before. His hair was completely white and he was so thin and stooped. He looked as though a breeze would blow him over. But his eyes lit up when he saw me, and suddenly I realised who he was.”

  “Did he get better?” I asked, desperately hoping for a happy ending for Uncle Paul.

  “Gradually, he did. It was good that the weather was so lovely when he came over. He enjoyed sitting in the garden, looking at the flowers and listening to the birdsong. He fed the birds every morning, and some of them grew so tame that they would come and sit right beside his chair. He helped around the house too, just sitting at the kitchen table peeling vegetables and that sort of thing to start with, but more and more as he got stronger – gardening and odd jobs and so on. The Deans’ idea had been to find lodgings for him in the village once he got a bit better, but then they grew so fond of him that they didn’t want him to move out, and they persuaded Lord Hurstwood to build an extension on the cottage so that he could stay. He lived there for the rest of his life.”

  She smiled. “Mind you, I lost my cat to him. He loved Clover, and she adored him. They became completely devoted to each other. She would sit in his lap in the sun all day, purring away like a steam engine while he stroked her. She had no time for me at all once Uncle Paul arrived. But it worked out well, really, because I went away to university soon afterwards, and I couldn’t have taken her with me.”

  “So you got your place at Cambridge?”

  “Yes,” she said. “They offered me a place for the Michaelmas term of 1946, but I almost didn’t go. I was so shaken and battered by grief that going to Cambridge didn’t seem to matter any more. I told Uncle Paul that I didn’t think I should take up the place.”

  “Why not?” I asked, amazed.

  “I think I felt guilty.”

  “Guilty? About what?”

  “About being so lucky, perhaps. Why had I survived, when so many people had died? The Nazis murdered one and a half million Jewish children. They murdered my parents. What right did I have, not only to be alive, but to win a scholarship to study in the most beautiful place in the world?”

  “But you were studying medicine. To help people.”

  “That’s what Uncle Bert and Aunty Rose said. And I knew that, of course. But I couldn’t shake the guilt.”

  “So what changed your mind?”

  “That was Uncle Paul. It was so wonderful to have him back. You can’t imagine what a help it was to have somebody there from my life before the war, somebody who was a connection to my parents.”

  “So how did he change your mind?”

  Granny paused for a while.

  “He got angry with me one day. It was the only time I ever saw him really angry. I was feeling utterly wretched about my parents. I kept torturing myself with thoughts of what they must have gone through. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had nightmares every night, even worse than the ones I’d had during the war. One day, I was feeling at rock bottom. I couldn’t stop crying. And I said to Uncle Paul that I should never have come to England. I’d abandoned my parents. I should have stayed with them and we should have died together. And he got so angry.

  “‘Don’t ever say that again,’ he said. ‘If they had had to watch you suffer too, in that place, and they’d been powerless to help you…’ He shuddered. ‘The only happiness they had was in knowing that they had been able to save you. The only hope they had left was the hope that you would go on to live a good life.’

  “‘But I can never thank them. I can never repay them.’

  “‘Anna,’ he said. ‘Every letter you sent repaid them. Every communication they had from you brought them hope. The knowledge that you were happy in England, well cared for, safe – that repaid them. And you know what you should do now?’

  “I shook my head. Uncle Paul took my hands and looked into my eyes.

  “‘Go to Cambridge. Be happy. Go out into the world and work and make a success of your life. That’s what your parents would want. That’s why they made that sacrifice, so that you could have a life. That is the best possible way to repay them.’”

  Granny looked at me and there were tears in her eyes again. “And he was right, of course. He was completely right. From that moment on, I knew I must honour my parents’ sacrifice by making my life count for something, by trying to be useful and happy, by always trying, in my own small way, to make the world a better place.”

  “Can I ask you one more question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you ever get in touch with Mr Rivers?”

  “What do you mean?” Her face, which had been so full of emotion, all at once became an unreadable mask.

  “When he gave you his card that day and offered you a job when you were twenty-one. Did you get in touch with him when you were twenty-one?”

  “Ah,” said Granny, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “That would be telling. Let’s just say, there are a lot more files in the vaults of MI5 that are still waiting to be declassified.” And she gave me the faintest hint of a wink.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  A Birthday Surprise

  Granny didn’t want a big fuss for her ninetieth birthday. So we didn’t go anywhere fancy. Instead, we did what she liked best, which was to fill our house with all her favourite people.

  There were all her children and grandchildren, of course. Granny was never happier than when her whole family was together in one room. There was her best friend, Molly, who had recently celebrated her own ninetieth birthday. She lived in Wales now, to be near her grandchildren, and she had just had a hip replacement, but she said she wouldn’t miss Granny’s party for the world. And there was Molly’s brother, Frank, with all his children and grandchildren. Frank’s son was now the carpenter on the Ashcombe estate, continuing the family tradition started by his grandfather.

  There were all Granny’s friends and neighbours in the village, and lots of friends from her work. To be honest, it was really lucky the weather was nice, because I don’t think everyone would have fitted in the house. Granny was having a wonderful time, moving from one group to the next, everybody showering her with love
and affection.

  But we were still waiting for one guest. Every time I thought about his arrival, my stomach turned over with excitement and nerves. This had all been my idea, and I had arranged everything. I’d been so sure she’d be thrilled, but now, as it was about to happen, I began to have terrible doubts. What if she didn’t want to be reminded of the past? What if it was too much of a shock for her?

  The doorbell rang. My stomach tensed into knots.

  Molly, who was in on the secret, glanced at her watch. Granny was in the middle of a conversation. Molly tapped her on the shoulder.

  “That’s for you, Anna.”

  “Who is it?” asked Granny. “I thought everybody was here.”

  Molly winked at her. “You’d better go and find out, hadn’t you? He’s come a long way to see you.”

  Looking confused, Granny walked down the hall to the front door. I hovered anxiously behind her. Molly squeezed my hand excitedly.

  A tall, broad man with white hair and glasses stood on the doorstep, holding the biggest bunch of flowers I had ever seen.

  “Anna Schlesinger?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Granny, sounding puzzled. She hadn’t been Anna Schlesinger for over fifty years.

  “You don’t recognise me, do you?” said the man.

  “I’m afraid I don’t. Should I?”

  He smiled. “I’d be amazed if you did. I looked very different when you last saw me.”

  “Anna!” called Molly. “Aren’t you going to invite your guest inside?”

  “I’m sorry,” Granny said to the man. “Could you tell me who you are?”

  “Come in and sit down first,” said Molly. “It’s nice and quiet in the kitchen. Everyone’s out in the garden.”

  The man gestured for Granny to lead the way. She walked through to the kitchen, shooting Molly a querying look as she passed her. Molly’s face was full of suppressed excitement.

  “Tea?” said Molly.

  “Lovely, yes, please,” said the man.

  Molly went to the sink to fill the kettle. I hovered in the background. Mum saw us through the kitchen window and I beckoned for her to come in.

  Granny sat down and the man sat next to her. Mum appeared in the doorway and squeezed my hand.

  The man looked intently into Granny’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry to keep you in suspense,” he said. “I’m at a distinct advantage here. I’ve been looking for you for years, but you’ve probably forgotten I ever existed.”

  Granny said nothing, but she suddenly looked very alert, as though she sensed that something important was happening.

  “On 12th July 1939,” he said, “you travelled from Germany to England on the Kindertransport. All the way to England, you looked after a baby. You fed him and changed him and comforted him. You refused to let him be taken to an orphanage in Holland, and so, without knowing it at the time, you saved his life. You slept beside him on the boat and you handed him over to his foster carer in London.”

  Granny nodded. Her eyes were fixed on his face.

  He reached out and took both of her hands in his.

  “Anna Schlesinger,” he said. “My name is Ezra Neumann. I am that baby. I owe you my life.”

  Later in the evening, after all the crying and the laughing and the hugging and the talking, my grandmother gave a little speech. She thanked everybody for coming and for being part of her life.

  “I am so lucky,” she said. “I have led such a full, happy life. And I am grateful for that life every single day, knowing how many people would have loved my opportunities and never had them. Knowing how many people today, in troubled places all over the world, don’t have those opportunities.

  “And finally, I want to honour four wonderful people who, sadly, are not with us any more, but whose spirits will live on forever. Firstly, my extraordinary foster parents, Bert and Rose Dean. They weren’t wealthy. They didn’t have spare money, or spare time, or even a spare room. But they cared about what was happening to children in a country across the sea, and they offered to take in a refugee child. Had it not been for them, I would have been one of the one and a half million children murdered by the Nazis, one of the one and a half million children who never had the chance to live their lives.”

  She swallowed, and then she said, “And, most of all, I want to honour my parents, Ruth and Walter Schlesinger, who gave me life twice over. Once when I was born, and a second time when they put me on a train to England, knowing it might be the last time they would ever see me. I don’t know if I would ever have had the courage to make that sacrifice. But I know that I owe it to them to appreciate what I have and to remember, always, that every person in the world is equally valuable. That we all matter.”

  She paused. Her eyes were looking into the distance.

  “When I left Germany in 1939,” she said, “one of the last things my father said to me was, ‘Now, whatever happens, you must always be my cheerful, brave little girl.’”

  She came back to the present. She smiled at all the guests, and there was just the merest trace of tears in her eyes as she finished her speech.

  “And,” she said, “I think I have been.”

  Acknowledgements

  Anna is a fictional character and the story of the man in the barn is fictional, but all Anna’s other experiences, in Germany and in England, are inspired by the experiences of the children who came to England on the Kindertransport. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to all the Kinder who have given interviews and written about their experiences. For the scenes on the train, I drew particularly on the writings of and interviews with Emmy Mogilensky, including a detailed interview in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Archive.

  Many thanks to Jackie Sullivan, archivist at Roedean School, for finding evocative documents about the Jewish refugees who came to Roedean from Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1930s.

  I am enormously grateful to Emma Shevah, who sprang into action when I was trying to find somebody with in-depth knowledge of Kindertransport to read the manuscript. Emma contacted Dr Tom Haward at the UCL Holocaust Education Centre, who contacted Ruth-Anne Lenga at UCL, who contacted Janet Mills at the National Holocaust Centre. Thanks to all of you for being part of the chain of connections that led to Janet putting me in touch with Amy Williams, whose PhD focuses on how the Kindertransport has been remembered and represented around the world. I am incredibly grateful to Amy and to her lead supervisor, Professor William Niven, both of whom generously took the time to read the novel and gave me thoughtful and thought-provoking feedback. I am very grateful to Amy also for sharing with me some of her fascinating research and writing about the Kindertransport.

  Thank you to Sue Durrant – our chats about writing inspired me to approach the first draft in a different way from previous books. Thank you also for reading the manuscript and giving such encouraging feedback.

  I am incredibly lucky to work with the most wonderful team at Nosy Crow. Huge thanks to Catherine, Rebecca, Fiona, Hester, Karen, Beth, Erin and Lauren, who all read the manuscript at various stages and were enormously encouraging. Thanks also to Nicola Theobald for her fabulous cover design and Daniela Terrazzini for the beautiful artwork. Most of all, to my amazing editor, Kirsty Stansfield, thank you for the unflagging support and for the perfectly-expressed advice that helped me weave the different story elements together.

  Thank you to my wonderful children, Freddy and Dorothea, who help to inspire everything I write. (And I’m sorry I didn’t end up using your excellent title suggestions.)

  And lastly, as always, infinite thanks to my husband, Oliver, for all the discussions, ideas and feedback, and most of all for the unfailing support that makes everything possible.

  Author’s Note

  In 2017, my husband, Oliver, who is head of a secondary school, returned from the school’s Founders’ Day commemoration and told me about an elderly woman who had introduced herself to him after the service. Now in her nineties, she had travell
ed back to show her gratitude to the school that had taken her in as a Jewish refugee from Nazi-occupied Europe just before the outbreak of the Second World War. She described how her father, at the moment of parting as he put her on the train, had cut off her plaits, hoping that if she could pass as a boy then she would be safer on the journey. “I travelled all the way to England,” she said, “with my pigtails in my pockets.”

  We were both very moved by this account, especially the bravery and sacrifice of the parents who sent their children away to safety, knowing they might never see them again, and the courage of these children as they travelled alone across Nazi-occupied Europe to start a new life with strangers.

  I started to think about writing a story that would show how a young girl comes to be in a situation where she has to leave her family and travel to safety in another country. I began to research the Kindertransport, the coordinated rescue effort that brought ten thousand children, mostly Jewish, from Nazi-occupied Europe to Britain.

  I watched documentaries, attended talks, listened to recorded interviews and read many memoirs of former “Kinder”, as they named themselves. I also read a book called …And the Policeman Smiled: 10,000 Children escape from Nazi Europe, by Barry Turner. From this book, I was surprised to discover that one of Oliver’s relatives, Elaine Blond, was a leading organiser of the Kindertransport in England. From 1938-1948, Elaine Blond was a full-time volunteer with the Refugee Children’s Movement at Bloomsbury House. She had, as she said, “the official title of Treasurer,” but in fact “there was no such thing as job demarcation… I was available for any job that was going, from meeting the latest arrivals at the quayside to checking out prospective foster parents.” After the war, she helped to organise the resettlement in England of child survivors of the concentration camps.

  As I learned more about the Kinder, I was awed and moved by the courage of these children, who quickly learned English, settled into new schools and often excelled academically and then in their chosen careers. They had to find a way to deal with the constant worry about their families while forging new lives for themselves, often sustained and driven by advice their parents had given them in their final days together, as parents tried to cram a lifetime’s worth of guidance into a few days or weeks.