by Mark Seaman
I can remember when Joseph and I were children and the excitement we felt when we moved, as a family, to Guernsey, with our parents finally able to realise their long held ambition of opening a tailoring business of their own. I can still see the look of emotion of my father’s face when he told us, “We’re on our way children. God has decided to shine His light on us and bless our dreams, my dears.”
Life was good for all of us in those early days on the Island and Papa’s work flourished until the Germans arrived. They tolerated us briefly for a while but it was obvious they had other plans for any Jews left living there. Things rapidly became more difficult, not only for my parents but also for the others living and working in that tiny Jewish community. Most of Jews who had lived on the Channel Islands had already left, making the move to England in the late spring of 1940 just before the Germans arrived. My father said that he and Mama had worked hard for their business and didn’t see why they should be made to give it up because of an unwelcome threat posed by a group of Nazi bullies. Mama wasn’t so sure and begged him to think again, but my father was a proud man and wouldn’t be turned. Things changed very quickly once the Germans established themselves on the island and over the next two years. It was clear that for the few of us left, mainly women, life was going to be made very difficult. Even the established island authorities made no move to protest, allowing the Germans to rewrite many local laws and regulations in their favour. They agreed to all Jewish business being labelled as such and eventually sold or handed over to non Jews, with many of them winding up under direct German authority. My father’s business came under the same rule and he was forced to place a sign in his shop window saying, ‘Owned by Jews’. Although we were small in number we were made to wear the Star of David on our clothing to mark us out as being different from the rest of those living on the island. The Germans told my father that he had to work directly for them and that they would handle all the paperwork in future instead of my mother. Mama may have feared the Germans but she wasn’t one to lie down easily and so protested, quite determinedly at first, against the unfairness and injustice being exacted on her and Papa. After a while though she relented, having little choice but to obey the orders that were barked at her; orders that became increasingly threatening in nature as each day passed.
“We make the rules from now on and you would be well advised to obey them,” a German officer snarled at my mother one day, placing his hand on his gun holster as he sat in front of her at the small desk where my mother managed the accounts. She realised any further protest was futile, and so along with my father simply got on with the work demanded of them, keeping their heads down and doing as they were told. After all how do you argue with the threat of a Luger pistol being pointed at you or worse, at your children?
Papa was forced to make suits, uniforms and other items of clothing for the German officers, but we never saw any money. I remember him asking one day about a certain payment that was overdue. He said with all the work he was being forced to do for the soldiers he was falling behind with his other clients and that it was becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet financially. One of the German’s started shouting at my father.
“Filthy Jewish dog. You should see it as a privilege to support the great German war effort in this way. How dare you ask for money and seek to make a profit from us.”
“I’m simply saying that I need some form of income if I am to buy food and meet the needs of my family.”
The officer became instantly more aggressive in his demeanour, taking hold of the roll of material Papa was holding and throwing it to the ground. He took his pistol from its holster and beat my father around the head with it, threatening to shoot him if he continued to protest.
“If you argue with me once more I will make sure you are never able to work again, and then how will you feed your stinking Jewish family.” My mother and I begged for his life and the officer replied that soon we wouldn’t be a problem for him to deal with as plans were in place to deport us along with the other remaining Jews on the island.
“Soon you and the others will be gone, and we will be able to walk the streets without having to hold our noses from the stench of you Jews.” Whilst we were shocked at his language we weren’t entirely surprised at the decision to expel us as they had already confiscated our passports and identification papers.
“You will have no need of these documents now as it will be us who decide your future movements from now on.”
Over the next few weeks arrangements were put in place to have any remaining Jews on the island placed under house arrest and readied for deportation. When the time came for us to leave we were allowed only one small suitcase each for our clothing and personal belongings. Anything of any monetary value was removed, supposedly to help raise funds for the German war effort although we witnessed watches, rings and the like being put straight into some of the soldiers pockets. We presumed these items wouldn’t make it to the war fund but would be held onto for more personal gain. Mama managed to hide a few pieces of jewellery in her bag and by concealing others in the hems of her dresses and coat, but everything else was taken from us.
We had no real idea of our final destination on the day we were herded onto the ship, except we were told it was bound for France and that we would be moved on from there. As we made our way gingerly up the gangplank to the ship’s deck we were surrounded by soldiers shouting and pointing their rifles at us.
“Keep moving, Schnell,” they bellowed as we moved slowly forward holding hands, as much for our own safety as for any comfort with the walkway swinging to and fro over the choppy waters below. We were forced towards the end of the ship and made to sit on rough wooden benches directly above the engine room which belched out foul smelling smoke and fumes that made us feel sick.
I remember looking back at the island, the distance growing between the ship and the coastline as we sailed away from our home towards an uncertain future, but one we knew would be very different to the life we had come to know and love in the couple of years we had lived on Guernsey, certainly in the early days.
I felt a sense of fear and growing unease in the pit of my stomach as I looked at my parents, noticing the expression of concern on their faces. Mama turned to Joseph and I, telling us not to worry and that everything would be alright as she hugged us close into her. This was not only to protect us from the stinking fumes and chill wind blowing across the ship’s deck, but also from equally icy stare of the German soldiers standing guard alongside us.
“Don’t worry, my dears, your father and I won’t let anything happen to you.” Joseph and I glanced at each other not doubting the sincerity of her words, but more perhaps her ability to see through those intentions as we watched the soldiers grimace and pull their long overcoats tight around themselves, seeking shelter from the spray being thrown on to the ship by the increasing wind against the waves. They were quite happy for us to get soaked of course as we turned up our own collars in an effort to gain even the limited protection from the elements they afforded. We held on tightly to each other for safekeeping whilst the soldiers grasped just as firmly to their rifles; a reminder, as if we needed one, that the real risk to our survival was not to be found in the turbulent seas tossing us from side to side but in the far darker menace standing beside us and threatening our very existence.
Three
Everything changed about a year ago when I met Chris, he took to Jenny straight away and she really liked him as well; it felt good having him around. I also enjoyed being in a proper relationship with a man again for the first time in a few years, especially a man who appeared to be interested in me as a person and in what I thought and had to say, rather than simply getting me into bed as had been Gerry’s primary objective. I’d been out on a few dates after Jenny was born but nothing serious as I hadn’t been looking for anyone else to share my life with at that stage, certainly not with all of the dema
nds that raising a young child brings, not until Chris came along anyway. We’d only been out once before but I knew I liked him, so when we met up in the pub that night for the second time I decided to tell him the truth and get everything out in the open. I didn’t want any hopes I had for a deeper relationship to come crashing down once he found I came as part of a package or not at all.
“Blimey, you’re a girl of surprises I’ll give you that. A ready made family, eh, not sure I was looking for that.”
“If you want to stop seeing me that’s fine,” I replied, desperately hoping he wouldn’t.
“I just wanted to be honest from the start.”
We spent much of the next hour talking about my time with Gerry and how Jenny had come into the world. Chris listened to all I had to say and then slowly got to his feet. “This is it,” I thought, “he’s going to leave.” He stood for a moment looking down at me and then smiled. “Tell you what, how about I meet her and we’ll see what she makes of me. Same again, is it?”
“Yes, thanks.” I looked at him quizzically. “Makes of you?”
“Yeah well, if she’s anything like her mum I’ll need to be on my best behaviour, wont I?” He smiled again, obviously sensing my confusion at his reaction.
“You know, so I make a good impression. I mean, I may be able to pull the wool over your eyes about certain things, but in my experience kids can see right through us grown ups, so I don’t want her eyeing me up and telling you to dump me do I?”
I smiled back at him, knowing in that moment I had done the right thing in telling the truth about my beautiful little girl. As he moved towards the bar I uttered a silent prayer that she would feel the same way as her mum did about this special man. I sat with a fixed grin on my face for the next few minutes until Chris returned carrying our drinks.
“They do a nice Sunday lunch here, perhaps the three of us can come this weekend. Mind, I hope she’s cheaper to buy for than her mum,” he said laughing as he placed my drink on the table in front of me. “Lemonade, wasn’t it?”
Spending time with Chris over the next few weeks made me feel vibrant and alive again in a way that I hadn’t experienced for some time. I felt valued, both as a woman and as a person in my own right, and more significantly for me, as a mum. I sensed from their very first meeting that he liked Jenny and would care for her. Within a few weeks it became obvious that she was becoming as important to him in our relationship as he was to us.
It wasn’t long before she and Chris would happily go off to the shops together or the park and Jenny would always come back asking when she could see him again. “Mummy, we had such a good time, can Chris come back tomorrow?”
I never had any concerns about the two of them spending time on their own, and quickly learnt to trust Jenny to his care. There were times they would pretend to gang up on me and, even though I knew they were only teasing, I would still feel a little jealous in how close they had become in their relationship.
“Shall we go to the park tomorrow, Jenny? Would you like that?”
“Only if it can be just the two of us. You know what a scardy cat Mum is when I go up high on the swings and she worries about me falling off. You never do that, do you, Chris? You push me as high as the sky.”
“I know, she can be a bit of a fuss pot at times.”
“I’m her mother; I’m allowed to worry about her.”
The two of them would then fall about laughing and say they were only joking.
“Of course we want you to come with us, you daft brush we were just messing about, weren’t we, Jenny?”
“I suppose so.”
Chris would always be the first to stop if he sensed the two of them had overstepped the mark with their teasing and would make a special fuss of me later or buy some flowers to reassure me that I was still first in our relationship.
Although I was encouraged by Jenny’s enthusiasm for him it was sometimes difficult to know how best to respond to her childish questions and reasoning about this new man in our lives.
“Chris is so funny, Mummy, why didn’t you meet him before and then he could have been my real daddy?”
Mum and Dad also took to Chris pretty much straightaway as I think they could see for themselves that his concern for both Jenny and I was genuine and also, that he wanted only the best for the two of us. His relationship with them was important to me as well of course, but more especially, I felt, to Jenny with her now being old enough to know what was going on, and with her grandparents already being so caring and protective of her.
One day when Jenny and I were talking about Chris she asked me directly about our plans for the future and wasn’t shy about making her own suggestions.
“Mummy, I love Chris and I know you do as well and Granny and Granddad really like him so why don’t you marry him and then he can be my proper daddy and not just a pretend one?”
“Well you certainly say what you think, young lady, I’ll give you that, but it’s not that simple. It’s not just up to you and I, Chris has to want to get married to me as well. And for now we are still getting to know each other at lots of different levels, some of which you will only really understand when you get older. Anyway, what’s brought on this sudden urgency for us to get married?
“All my friends have got proper dads and I want to be able to talk about Chris and moan about him like they all do when they’re in trouble or grounded and the like, and I can’t really do that while he’s just your boyfriend. You can dump your boyfriend but you can’t just get rid of him like that when you’re married, can you?”
“That’s very true, and also the reason we have to think very carefully before we consider taking such a big step.”
I didn’t want to get into a serious discussion between the two of us that I knew we wouldn’t resolve and so tried to move the conversation on by injecting some humour into it.
“It seems to me you’re more interested in having a dad to moan about to your mates than you are in the happiness of your mum?”
“Oh, Mum, you know what I mean.”
Actually I wasn’t entirely sure I did know what she meant but on talking with some of her friends’ mothers I discovered that moaning about how strict fathers could be at times was some form of perverse badge of honour that youngsters liked to wear, and one that Jenny felt unable to fully join in with. Even though I had been known to lay down the law at times when she misbehaved or got into trouble at school it still wasn’t the same as being able to complain about your dad being unfair and out of touch. He was the greater threat apparently in response to any perceived acts of disobedience by a youngster when it came to demonstrating appropriate respect for the family book of rules. It was your father who was deemed to be the real ogre in the relationship when it came to handing out differing and supposedly unwarranted forms of punishment; at least as far as Jenny’s circle of friends were concerned. Mum’s threats it appeared just didn’t carry same weight in the battle of child against parental understanding and discipline. I wasn’t sure if this was an attack on mums for being more understanding than the man in the house or a compliment. Either way I decided to leave that particular line of questioning unanswered for now.
Although this started out as a bit of fun the more we talked over the days ahead the more I think Jenny felt she really would like to have a permanent father figure in her life rather than just my dad who, although wasn’t particularly old, still carried the name of “granddad” as far as she was concerned.
This led on to conversations about her own father, such as, who he was and where had I met him that sort of thing?
“You never really talk about him, Mummy, what was he like?”
She’d never really asked these questions before, previously just accepting what I’d said when she was younger; that we hadn’t got on and that we didn’t see each other anymore. When we’d had those sorts discussions in the past
I’d always concluded by adding that it didn’t make any difference to the way I felt about her. I told her since the day she was born that she was the most precious thing in my life and that nothing had, or ever would happen to alter that truth. She’d seen a picture of Gerry in the past but had shown no real interest in knowing anymore about him. Even as she grew she’d never really wanted to know where he was or indicated that she might like to meet with him. I think she’d just got used to the fact that he’d never been a part of her life. He clearly didn’t matter to me, so why would she want to have any involvement or contact with him herself? Yet suddenly here she was asking some very real questions about him, about the two of us, questions that began to bring back memories about times and events that I’d placed firmly at the back of my mind and had all but forgotten about.
“Was he a nice man? If you didn’t like him why did you choose him to be my daddy?” The harder I tried to answer Jenny’s increasingly challenging questions about Gerry the more it raised fresh doubts and uncertainties in my mind about my own birth, my parents, and why I’d been abandoned at such an early age. This went on for some time until I finally realised I did need some answers to these misgivings and unanswered questions; questions that became louder in my head with every passing day and each one now demanding a response.
“Who was my father, what was he like? Had my mother made a mistake in getting pregnant as I had?” And if that were the case, the most telling question for me still remained, “Why had she given her baby away? Why hadn’t she kept me and tried to do the best for me as I had done with Jenny?” Our experiences in becoming pregnant may have been different but surely a mother’s love for her child is still absolute, no matter what the circumstances, or was I being naive?
I knew from the first that I would keep Jenny, that she was my daughter and my life, and I couldn’t understand why my own mother wouldn’t have felt the same way about me. I decided I needed to find out what had really happened and who this woman was; a woman who, although I didn’t know, was occupying more and more of my waking thoughts each day.
