by Steven Uhly
Euphoria seized the passengers when they saw the proud ship that Haganah had bought somewhere in America, converted and sailed here to take them to the Promised Land. What organization there must be behind an operation like that, what power and what belief in the Jewish people! Such thoughts and others were an inspiration to the pioneers, who fell around each other’s necks as if they had already landed in Haifa and were disembarking and in a few moments’ time would kiss the earth of their new home. Anna embraced Peretz, who was simply Peretz, Aaron embraced Ruth, Sarah clung to her mother, as if she might get lost. Old François embraced all the women and children in turn. The Abramowiczes sang the song of hope and the others joined in, the children from Lindenfels singing the loudest. Even Dana the doll sang along. Even Ariel had shut his book, for here was the ship he had been preparing himself forever since he had been able to read.
Out you get! Quicker! the men shouted into the lorries. They had come to help the ma’apilim board. And to make them get a move on. For now was not the time for songs of joy. The port police could turn up any minute and declare the ship unseaworthy, any minute a warship could appear and block the exit from the port, the British could intensify their pressure on the French government, the next convoy from one of the billets around Marseille would arrive in Sète port.
The people climbed out of the lorries and stood in the harsh light of the Mediterranean sun. Where was the luggage? Over here! men called to them, indicating where the queue had to pass to avoid obstructing the loading of the ship. Other lorries had arrived, bringing food in tins, water barrels, sacks of potatoes, fruit, vegetables, dried meat, everything they needed to make it to Palestine alive. The quayside was overcrowded, Faster, faster! the men shouted. The cases flew from the luggage lorry back into the hands of their owners, who made straight for the gangway, straight up, straight onto the ship, where they were greeted by the American crew, This way!
The ship’s external size shrank on board to narrow gangways, tiny berths with low ceilings and small portholes, through which you could barely see daylight. A floating camp. A camp made entirely of iron. The people looked around, they looked at each other, as if trying to reassure themselves that they were all haunted by the same feelings.
How long have we got to hunker down here? Ruth asked when they were sitting on their beds, so densely packed that they could barely move. One thousand five hundred and thirty-six nautical miles, said Ariel, who knew such things. He put his book down and made his way through the ship. The adults looked at him in surprise, they had never seen the boy like this before.
Five minutes later he returned, accompanied by a powerful-looking man, who gave a friendly smile and told them in English that they had to remain in their cabins to prevent chaos during embarkation.
Outside they heard the next convoy, lorry engines, songs interrupted, men’s voices barking orders.
The embarkation of the three thousand five hundred and twenty adults and nine hundred and fifty-five children took until early afternoon. Meanwhile the sun was heating up those who had already occupied their quarters. The air was sticky, the light pale. They were forbidden from going on deck to prevent anyone from seeing just how many souls the President Warfield held in its steel belly.
At three o’clock the following morning the largest refugee ship ever obtained by Haganah sailed out of Sète port. Beforehand a number of short telephone conversations had taken place between Marseille, Paris, Tel Aviv and the ship. The pilot, who Shmaria Zamaret, the envoy in Mareseille, had bribed with a good deal of money, failed to turn up, so Shaul Avigur, head of the Institution for Immigration B, decided that the captain would have to go it alone. The ropes were untied and the helmsman tried his luck. The ship ran aground by the jetty; it took an hour before it was afloat again. Then everything went smoothly and the President Warfield steered its course out into the open sea.
A few miles away two Royal Navy destroyers were bobbing up and down. When the Ship of Jews emerged in the distance they weighed anchor and slowly gathered speed.
76
Paris, 12th July, 1947
Dear Mr. Bidault,
On numerous occasions in the past few months we have appealed to our French friends to help us in our difficult task in Palestine by taking all possible steps to stop the illicit Jewish traffic through France. The French Government have responded by giving assurances that among other things the validity of the visa would be closely scrutinized before they were allowed to leave France and that the provisions of the international conventions regarding the safety of life at sea would be rigorously applied to ships suspected of participating in the traffic.
As recently as 27th June I wrote to Your Excellency once again invoking your help and requesting in particular that a ship the President Warfield should be strictly controlled in accordance with the requests made to your Ministry by H.M.’s Embassy.
As I told you this morning, I was dismayed to find on arriving in Paris that not only had the President Warfield escaped from France but that she had been permitted to embark some 4,000 illicit immigrants, in spite of the fact that she possessed a clearance certificate valid for only one journey without passengers and in fine weather.
In the circumstances I must protest most strongly against the facilities which have been accorded to the President Warfield and I request that the French Government should readmit her to France with all the passengers on board as soon as arrangements can be made to cause the President Warfield to return.
I should also be grateful to learn that the necessary disciplinary measures have been taken as regards those who permitted her departure in contradiction with the assurances of the French Government.
I take this opportunity to remind you that among the suspect vessels in French ports are the Paducah and the Northlands which are at Bayonne and the Bruna and the Luciano and the Archangelos which are at Marseilles.
I shall be glad if, in view of the departure of the President Warfield, you will agree to maintain a warship in the vicinity of Marseilles with standing orders to stop any of those vessels which may leave port. You will realize that only a French vessel can take effective action to prevent clandestine embarkation of illegal immigrants in French territorial waters.
I am, Dear Mr. Bidault, yours sincerely,
Ernest Bevin
77
Lisa froze. She was soaked through to the skin. The rain did not stop, it changed. It was no longer pouring down, but falling steadily. The light was getting dimmer, at some point, before they noticed, it would get dark. Lisa felt unwell. She had wanted to hear the truth, but not in this way. She wrapped her arms around her torso and said, “Come on Grandma, let’s go. You can tell me the rest at home.”
Frau Kramer looked at Lisa, she cast a glance at the grave they were standing beside. She was freezing too, but she barely felt it. In her head it was autumn, a warm autumn, the beginning of September. In her head the woman carrying the small boy said, Come with me, I know where you can stay. The crowd dispersed, the guards looked away and Frau Kramer, with Lisa on her arm, followed the woman. She knew her way around Pöppendorf, she knew the corrugated iron houses with their narrow bunk beds, the damp air inside, the lack of space.
“It felt as if we’d come home at last,” Frau Kramer said.
“I’m sorry?”
“The camp. We’d finally gone back somewhere we already knew.”
“Grandma, please, let’s go!”
“Not yet, Lisa. Now, this woman took us to an empty bunk, it was right next to hers. She’d said to herself, We’ve got beds free, why shouldn’t this poor woman and her child sleep in our hut? When she put down her little boy I could see that she was pregnant. She reminded me of your mother, Lisa. She was about Margarita’s age, but there was something hunched and sad about her. I’ve got to tell you about her, Lisa. And right here. You know, it’s only now I’ve understood that Lübeck wasn’t a waiting room at all, even though that’s what I believed for so many years. Excuse me f
or being so flustered, I still don’t know how to tell you because it’s so strange, so . . .” Frau Kramer raised her arms to express something, but the gesture was of no help. She let them fall back down.
“The woman went away and came back with some food. I remember exactly, it was potato soup with bits of sausage! It was warm and the taste so intense, Lisa! I thought this was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted in my life. I had to make sure that you didn’t stuff your mouth and throw it all up again.” She smiled affectionately and looked so lost in thought that Lisa could not tell whether it was her being referred to here or the little girl in her grandmother’s memory.
“As we ate the woman told me that in the camp they got more calories than the Germans, but perhaps not for much longer. She said, The British want us to decide where we’d like to live, in France or in Germany. She smiled at me, I wasn’t taking in anything she was saying as I was so busy feeding you and eating the soup myself! Without thinking I said, France is definitely much better. The little boy teetered around awkwardly, like a child who’s only just learned to walk. He sat down next to you and watched you eat. He had big beady eyes and a sweet button nose, he was a handsome boy, Lisa, and he looked like his mother, just as you do.” She smiled again, the rainwater ran from her face down her neck and into her clothes, she did not notice.
“The two of you sat next to each other as if you belonged together,” she said. “But suddenly the woman said to me, You’re not Jews, are you?”
78
Shimon had seen everything. He had sat on his mother’s arm as if on a ship sailing across the Mediterranean, accompanied by six British warships, ready to come closer, while their boat was heading as fast as it could toward the land that had emerged on the horizon. Shimon had felt the jolt when the two frigates rammed the President Warfield, he had seen the men in uniform who leaped on board. He could still hear the loud report of the rifle that one of the soldiers had fired. And he was still thinking of Emil, who had lain perfectly still on the boards, staring up at the sky, continually at the sky, as if he had spotted something interesting to see there. Shimon looked up himself, saw only a few seagulls, and had been surprised by Emil, who could no longer walk, no longer talk and was no longer able to confront the British soldiers with the ax that he still held in his silent hand. One of the sailors had closed Emil’s eyes and Shimon kept watching to see whether he would open them again. But Emil did not even wake up when Aaron, Mr. Abramowicz and Peretz lifted him up and took him away.
Now, on his mother’s arm, Shimon felt as if he were going to sea again, the sky was just as blue and the crowd that had assembled at the camp gate reminded him of all those people who had gone up on deck when the British soldiers arrived. Shimon looked at the people’s hands, but they were no longer carrying potatoes or tins of food, they would not pelt the woman on the other side of the gate, even though she wanted to come in too, but was not allowed, just as the British soldiers should not have come onto the ship and yet they did.
Then something surprising happened. His own mother went with him up to the gate. Shimon was slightly scared, because the strange woman and the little girl were screaming so loudly he was unable to look anywhere else. His fear intensified when his mother opened the gate, maybe, Shimon thought, the woman was going to take out a gun and shoot him and his mother, just as the soldier had shot at Emil.
But he was surprised again, for the woman and the child suddenly fell silent and looked at him. And now Shimon saw that they had large, dark rings around their eyes and hollow cheeks. This sight triggered a familiar feeling in him, but he did not dwell on it for now the woman came up close and followed him and his mother through the crowd, which applauded him, and that was an even greater surprise for Shimon.
As they went back into the camp Shimon watched the little girl and the little girl watched him. Then they were inside the large corrugated iron hut and went over to Shimon’s bed. The blue sky stayed outside, inside it was gloomy and damp. His mother pointed to the neighboring bed and said, It’s free. Shimon didn’t want to stay with the strangers on his own when his mother went off to the canteen, so she took him with her, but on the way back he had to walk on his own because of the two bowls of soup his mother was carrying.
Shimon wanted to sit beside the girl. He was so preoccupied by her that he was quite disconcerted when the strange woman started crying and very pleased when she spoke again. The little girl seemed pleased too, and when she had finally finished her soup she followed him. Everyone who lay here at night was outside, the two children could clamber over the empty beds without anyone complaining. Shimon showed the girl how noisily it resonated inside the hut when you struck the corrugated iron wall with a stone. He was delighted that this delighted the girl, and so the two of them stood by the wall with pebbles in their hands and hit it as hard as they could. Bang! Bang! Bang!
They did not notice that one woman was telling the other the truth, No, I’m not a Jew. They listened to none of the story that told of hiding and birth, flight and death. Shimon and the girl swapped pebbles and then went back to hitting the corrugated iron.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The two women paid barely any attention to the noise the children were making. The younger woman put her arm around the older one and said, I won’t betray you. The older one got the gist of it, We’re allowed to stay. They did not see that Shimon and Lisa had dropped their pebbles and were now walking hand in hand along the dormitory gangways. Suddenly Shimon stopped and thrust out his arms and staggered and went, Oh! Oh! Oh! as if he were still in the bowels of the ship and the waves were swelling outside, and the little girl staggered too and also went, Oh! Oh! Oh! and Shimon was delighted.
When the silence had become too prolonged and the two women were separated once more by unfamiliarity, the elder one said, “We lived not far from Konin. A day’s journey perhaps. That’s where Lisa’s mother had escaped from. Not only because she was a Jew. She’d shot a German.”
“In Konin?” Anna sat up.
“His name was Karl, like my son. I can’t remember the surname.”
“Karl Treitz,” Anna said. “Sturmbannführer Karl Treitz.” She listened to the sound of these words, she had not heard them for three years now. The two women looked at each other in astonishment.
“He served under Josef Ranzner,” Anna said hesitantly.
“Did you know him?”
“The morning before he died they brought along a Pole. I was just cleaning the steps in the foyer when they shoved him in the building. He called himself Piotr. He said there were more Jews in the church. Treitz didn’t want to believe him. But he went all the same. Later they brought the Sturmbannführer back, apparently the Pole had led him into an ambush. He was filthy from lying in the rain. I had to scrub the place in the foyer where they laid down his body.”
Anna looked behind her, where the children were rolling around in the central gangway and laughing. She thought of Josef Ranzner, bending over the corpse and talking to it, giving it orders. She glanced at the German woman. Nobody had come as close to her secret as this stranger, all of a sudden she felt the desire to confide in someone, for a fleeting moment she got the impression that it might bring her relief.
But the moment passed.
She thought of the journey on the President Warfield, of Haifa, where the British soldiers under the leadership of a Jewish officer had dragged them off the ship and disinfected them with D.D.T. as if they were worried about catching something. She thought of the passage back to France in three British warships, whose decks were secured with barbed wire. Of the three weeks at anchor in a French port, three long weeks during which they did not know what to do, the French government had offered to let them stay, they would even receive work permits. Would they be Jews amongst goyim again, in the minority again, strangers in their own country again, surprised by hatred again? She recalled the day of the ultimatum, Disembark by six p.m. tomorrow or you’ll continue on to Germany. Hanan! God
was not gracious. She thought of Peretz, who slipped off the ship to reorganize the flight with Ephraim Frank, alias Ernst Caro. What had she felt when he left? She thought of Emil, the final movement his mouth had made, she was the only one who had seen the name Emil had tried to utter with his soundless throat, his empty lips. But Sarah had escaped below deck when the British came. How pointless it had all seemed to her, life in its entirety. She thought of Ariel, who presumed nobody had noticed when he dropped The Odyssey into the sea as they set their course for Hamburg. His expression when he noticed theirs.
“So that’s the daughter of . . . ?” she said. She wanted to say “the murderer” but it did not seem fitting.
Frau Kramer nodded. “She’s called Lisa Ejzenstain,” she said.
79
Munich, 13th January, 1966
My skills in the field of combating the enemy are unappreciated by my direct superiors and H.Q. My knowledge about the structure of the partisan organizations in the former Warthegau—names, ranks, areas of operation, individuals now in key positions or possibly working in the West—seems to be insignificant for the Service. They make me feel like I am a discontinued model, one of those dinosaurs only tolerated because they served in the war. Sure, I am shown respect superficially, I have a company car, which is undoubtedly a privilege. I am deputy director, but I expect that was merely a measure to placate me. They fail to see that I have far more to offer in the fight against the Red Peril. I know the Poles, I know how the Russians fight, I held the fortress at Posen until the very last breath of the German Reich! But this Germany I live in now is no longer that great country brimming with might for which I once shed my blood.
