Your Eyes in Stars

by M. E. Kerr

  I said, “What does being nice to Dieter have to do with Elisa?”

  “Didn’t she tell you to be nice to a Jew? She did me.”

  “Dieter is not a Jew, silly.”

  “Before I went there tonight,” said Richard, “my father told me he saw Reinhardt Schwitter once in a men’s room, and he was circumcised. He said he had also heard somewhere that Schwitter was born Jewish. Doesn’t that make Dieter a Jew? And Wolfgang?”

  I said, “I don’t believe you! Why would Mr. Schwitter buy the town a Christmas tree every year?”

  Richard said, “Because he’s not religious. My father was born Catholic, but have you ever seen him at Holy Family? Not all religious people stay religious, and I don’t think Dieter or Wolfgang ever were.”

  What do you think of that?

  I remember you told me Jews in Germany now couldn’t go to concerts or perform, but the Schwitters are going to perform there, so I think Richard’s father has wrong information. When I told my mother what Richard said, she said Richard was crazy! She said of all people to accuse of being Jewish, the Schwitters were the most unlikely.

  When do you think you’ll be heading back?

  My mother is practically swooning over the idea I know Dieter because he is a Schwitter. He calls me just to talk sometimes, not about anything in particular, about anything that comes to our heads. He’s an intellectual like you, only he is very serious and worried about Germany. Seth calls him “the likable Schwitter.”

  I know you probably still think of Slater, and I don’t want you to keep from mentioning his name because I have trouble forgiving him for what he did. But have you thought about the way everything changed because of him? You might still be in America, and my poor father might still be in charge of The Blues, if Slater hadn’t escaped. At night I trace everything way back to my own blame in this. I never should have told you all the stories about the prisoners and how Daddy liked murderers to work at our house. You went and told your mother, and she got more and more afraid. Did you ever think that if I hadn’t done that, maybe Slater would have kept on doing his away work in our yard? Then Daddy would never have sent him to the Joys’. He wouldn’t have even known where they lived.

  I have never told anyone about Daddy’s helping the Joys out that way. Mother must have agreed with the idea, since she sent Myra over too.

  If Daddy had sent some other inmate to work there, Mr. Joy would still be alive. Slater might even still be loose. So here and now I want to apologize for my big part in all this trouble. Could God be punishing me for this by keeping you in Germany? I don’t think I even believe in God. There’s so much trouble in the world, if He is there, why doesn’t He do something about it?

  Are you in school or what? You say you don’t have time for boys, so what do you do? I can’t envision your day. What is it like? I am studying Spanish in school. They don’t teach German, or I would take that.

  Hasta luego and yo te amo, Jessica. Stars! Write!

  P.S. Send a photograph before I forget what you look like. I am having some film developed, so I will send you one too.

  June 3, 1935

  Dear Jessica,

  Yes, Wolfgang and Herr Schwitter are in Berlin. They will both be in the all-Mendelssohn concert given by the Jüdischer Kulturbund this week. Herr Reinhardt Schwitter will play the solo part in the violin concerto. Only Jews can attend, and only music by Jewish composers can be played. No Aryan music allowed! I am so disappointed, because I love Mendelssohn and I would like to hear the Schwitters play too.

  My father said he simply forgot Reinhardt Schwitter was a Jew, if he ever knew it at all. He said Germans have never paid attention to that until recently. Now it seems Judaism is not considered a religion but a race. No one has a choice to say they are or are not Jewish. It is a fact, on record.

  No, it is not easy for them, Jessica, they are not a popular race in Germany today. Of course I did not have an inkling the Schwitters are Jews. My mother cannot believe it.

  I have seen Wolfgang only one time on the street, then only long enough to tell him how sorry I was that Wurst had to be suddenly taken. Jews can no longer have pets. Without warning they were taken away.

  Jessica, I do not know when we will come back, but it will not be this summer.

  It is nobody’s fault.

  Of course I am disappointed, but I cannot always have my own way.

  With much love,

  Elisa

  P.S. Do not feel that you have to write so much to me. I have no time to answer. Then I feel bad. Notice Berlin address, but do not put your name on the return address. By now I know from whom the letter comes.

  September 14, 1935

  Arts & Science Academy

  Paris, New York

  Dear Jessie,

  How good it was to see you last weekend. I never used to look forward to going home for weekends, but now I do, and it is all because of you. I must say there is no one I talk with so easily. I wonder if you noticed that about us.

  I know you probably want news of Elisa, so I am enclosing three pages of Wolfgang’s latest. This letter will probably explain, too, why I made no effort to call you this week. As you can imagine, I am not in a mood to talk. None of this has been told to the newspapers because my mother fears reprisals if it got out that we are trying to make an incident of what is happening there. We have other means of communicating with family and friends who know more about the political climate in Germany.

  Last month my father was taken away for sitting and talking with Mr. Stadler on a park bench. Stadler too was grabbed, but not put in the truck my father went into with others who had made various “mistakes.” Aryans are not allowed to sit with Jews anywhere in public and vice versa. We do not know what became of Mr. Stadler. We are concerned for Father, for he may have been shipped off to the mysterious “unknown destination” with other Jews.

  They have wanted Father for a long time but waited until the Jüdischer Kulturbund Mendelssohn concert was over. My father was a feather in Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’ hat. Not only did the Kulturbund make it look to the world as though the Reich is not abusive to the Jews, but also they boasted there was the famous musician Reinhardt Schwitter, who came from America to star in its concert!

  There is no word about my father. Jews are whisked away for any small infraction of rules and sometimes never seen again. Or they are simply grabbed from the streets for no reason. This is particularly true of ones they suspect are Communists or professionals like teachers, doctors, etc. Even if someone is just too brilliant to suit them (a Jew should not be brilliant!), it is enough. They take away (to God knows where) anyone from a poor tailor to a university professor or a rich manufacturer.

  Certain Aryans disappear too, particularly friends of Jews.

  I will call you soon when I know the next weekend I can come home.

  Sincerely,

  Dieter

  Please send back the pages of Wolfgang’s letter. They are for your eyes only.

  (ENCLOSED)

  (p.3) and I feel ashamed to write of missing Wurst, but he was like family. No one knows what became of the pets. One can only hope they were killed instantly, but more likely they were sold somewhere, for a lot were pedigreed dogs and cats. Sometimes they were thrown out windows or collars they wore were tightened until they choked. Anyone who had a fish or bird: Fish were dumped in street, and birds hung by their necks out the windows on strings.

  I saw Elisa Stadler at the Stadler apartment for a short time just days before Father and Mr. Stadler were taken. Father and I had gone there to discuss giving Grandfather’s Beckstein piano to Mrs. Stadler. She did not even dare accept the gift for fear of looking as though she had strong ties with us. Too bad, for soon came the SS to snoop around Grandfather’s house, and they threw that beautiful instrument out the third-floor window. They like to throw things out windows!

  (p.4) Elisa behaved so strangely. I always felt we were slightly attracted to each ot
her, that in the right circumstances we could have become friends. When our father asked me if I would like to visit Germany in January, ahead of schedule since he and I were going over in spring, I was so pleased to hear I would be company for Elisa on the crossing and look out for her there. At our party last summer I sang “The Very Thought of You.” I looked directly at her. I was sure she felt that. I also called her from New York once, but midway in the conversation she became cold and cut it short. I don’t know what I said or even if it was something I said.

  Then Fate intervened, and it was some time before I saw her again. Once, here on the street. She was with others but stopped to say she was sad about Wurst. The second time, at her family’s apartment, Elisa was remote and spoke little to me. She asked me if I thought Myrer sounded like a Jewish name to Germans. I said Jews spelled that name Meyer, usually, but who knows what a postal inspector would make of it? I think she was receiving packages from Jessie Myrer and was worried that postal inspectors were watching her mail. Then she abruptly ended our conversation by leaving the room without a word to me.

  Mrs. Stadler said Elisa had gone to her old school expressly to say hello to a schoolmaster named Kai Kahn. He had just then been made to clean the street with his beard by a contingent of SS men. The incident was in progress. Mrs. Stadler said Elisa was very upset by it, and she offered it as an excuse for the sullen way Elisa received me.

  (p.5) She may be genuinely worried and afraid. You don’t have to be a Jew to worry about what will happen next. Our grandfather’s maid of twenty-two years was told she could not work anymore for Grandfather since she is an Aryan. They are not allowed to work in the house of a Jew or even serve a Jew in a café. I don’t know where Martha will find work, and I don’t know how Grandfather will manage without her. He is so weak now, and she was the only one who could coax him to eat. They were like father and daughter. She cannot even visit him, for it is against the rules to go to a Jewish house.

  Do not tell all of this to Mother. She is worried enough as it is and even threatens to join us. She must not! Even though she knows it is dangerous, she wants to be with Father. Please don’t you get any heroic ideas about accompanying her. Don’t ask for trouble, Dieter!

  October 10, 1936

  Dear Elisa,

  ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?

  Please just let me know that much if you can’t tell me more.

  I am so worried about you!

  Have a heart!

  Love, Stars, Memories, Jessica

  January 3, 1936

  Dear Jessica,

  The Reich wishes everyone to have the experience of Arbeitsdienst, which translates as “work service,” soon to become compulsory for girls. I already volunteered and will be assigned to a camp with factory workers. It will be good for me, and healthy.

  I have learned a lot about my homeland that I did not realize, particularly how unfairly we were treated by the Versailles Treaty in 1919. Germany was forced to pay the Allies an enormous amount of money; hand over all our colonies; accept full blame for the war; reduce the size of our military; and give land outright to Belgium, France, Denmark, and Poland.

  The map of Europe was redone, and we were forced into the Great Depression, which would make your own little depression insignificant! We were being punished for the war as though it were solely our fault.

  Hitler understood the feeling of humiliation and betrayal all Germans harbored. He alone has restored our pride!

  I never knew anything about this part of our history! I don’t think it was taught in any school I attended, for how could I forget such treachery! It makes me ashamed of myself for knowing all my various languages and quotations from literature but nothing about my own people and how they suffered. I was such a dilettante!

  Jessica, I now belong to the League of German Girls. In German Bund deutscher Mädel. I enclose a photograph of me in my uniform.

  See how proud I look. It is because I am dedicated to Germany, and my entire ardor will henceforth go into her service.

  You may be surprised, my friend, for when we knew each other, I was so ignorant and uncaring of anyone but myself. That is all past. I say auf Wiedersehen and wish you a productive and meaningful 1936!

  Sincerely,

  Elisa Stadler

  February 10, 1936

  Arts & Science Academy

  Paris, New York

  Dear Jessie,

  Your note with enclosed letter from Elisa Stadler just arrived. I wish I could be of help with regard to Elisa Stadler. My brother has not seen her since last fall, nor does he have any news of Mr. Stadler. As you know, our own father is in a concentration camp called Dachau, outside Munich, but we do not hear from him. We only heard that he was there from someone who was released.

  There are not many people released from these places. There is never anything about them in the newspapers, there or here. In case you don’t know, they are horrible places with guards and barbed-wire fences, and prisoners are taken there in airless, crowded trains. We hear rumors about them in the few letters that can be smuggled out of Germany. Guards make people work long hours in nearby factories, without pay or any consideration for their health. They routinely murder people without cause. No, there is not much about this in any newspapers. Eyes shut when it comes to Germany and what is happening to the Jews.

  My mother and I are expecting Wolfgang home this spring. Grandfather is so near death, he cannot last much longer.

  If Elisa is proud to be a member of the League of German Girls, she has become a convert to the Third Reich. I shook my head when I read what you wrote about being surprised she would join them, since she always said she would never join a sorority. Jessie, forget the Elisa you knew. Her letter is telling you that. If I were you, I would forget that friendship too. If you persist in writing to her, it is best not to mention names of people. That can cause them big trouble if her letters are being censored.

  I hope we can get together a lot during spring vacation. My family is not having any parties this year, as you can understand. But I have a better time with just you and me anyway.

  Pray that by then we have Wolfgang home and some good news about my papa and Mr. Stadler too. I’ll call you soon.

  Yours, Dieter

  * * *

  THE CAYUTA ADVERTIZER

  MARCH 10, 1936

  FORMER RESIDENT DEAD

  The American Red Cross reports that Professor Heinz Stadler, a visiting professor at Cornell University, died as the result of an accident in Munich, Germany, in December 1935.

  Dr. Stadler and his wife, Sophie Stadler, and their daughter, Elisa, lived for a while on Alden Avenue in the house belonging to Thomas and Gertrud Sontag.

  Heinz Stadler’s expertise was in agriculture, and he was learning hydroponics in Ithaca with the intention of teaching this new method of plant growing at the University of Heidelberg.

  Elisa was a student at Cayuta High East, and the family were communicants at Holy Family Church.

  The Stadlers had returned to Germany to bring back Mrs. Stadler’s mother. Recent political upheaval delayed them. Then Professor Stadler’s death canceled the return plans.

  * * *

  March 11, 1936

  Dearest Elisa,

  We have word here of your father’s death. There are no words I can find to tell you how sorry I feel, how much I think of you going through such sadness.

  We are reading Romeo and Juliet in school now. You’ve probably read it, but I never have, and I am so surprised by its power. For instance, if something happened to someone I loved, I would have this for an epitaph: