The Runaway Family

by Diney Costeloe

  Still stony-faced, Frau Schultz opened the little drawer in the telephone table and pulling out a piece of paper, she thrust it at Ruth. “Help yourself,” she sniffed, and, turning away, opened one of the doors and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Ruth turned back to the children who, except for Laura, who was still standing by the window, were seated in a neat row on a sofa.

  “I’m just going to ring Uncle Herbert,” she said. “You sit still like good children, and then we’ll have something to eat. Laura, just keep an eye on the twins while I’m on the phone.”

  Ruth picked up the phone and gave the operator the number on the piece of paper.

  “Durst, Hartmann and Weber. Good afternoon, how may I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Herr Herbert Friedman, please.”

  “Herr Friedman. Whom shall I say is calling?”

  “Ruth Friedman.”

  “Hold the line, please.”

  There was a long pause and then a man’s voice. “Herbert Friedman. May I help you?”

  “Herbert? It’s Ruth.”

  “Frau Friedman.” His voice was neutral; clearly Herbert was not going to acknowledge her on the telephone. Ruth decided she must be direct.

  “I am at your apartment, with the children. Frau Schultz doesn’t want me to wait for you.”

  There was a moment’s silence at the other end and then Herbert said, “That is quite in order, Frau Friedman. Thank you for calling. Good afternoon.” The line went dead.

  Herbert arrived an hour later, his face red with the exertion of running up the stairs. He came into the apartment, and, shedding his hat and coat in the little hallway, walked into the sitting room to greet his sister-in-law.

  “Ruth!” He extended a hand and placed a token peck on her cheek. He looked at the children ranged along his sofa, but immediately turned his attention back to their mother. “Where’s Kurt?”

  Ruth, who had risen at his entrance, sank back into the armchair where she had been sitting. “Taken by the storm troopers.” Briefly she told him what had happened.

  “Kurt told me to come to you,” she said at length, “so here we are. This is where he will look for us.”

  “But my dear Ruth, you can’t stay here!”

  “Where else can we go? Everything we had has gone, Herbert, I’ve almost no money and four children to look after. They have the clothes they stand up in, as do I. They’re your brother’s children, would you put them on the street?”

  “Who knows you are here? Who else have you told about me?”

  Ruth was puzzled. “What do you mean, who else knows about you? I haven’t told anyone about you. Kurt will know where to find us when he is released.”

  “Thank God for that,” breathed Herbert. He looked again at the little family camped in his living room. “Well, you’ll have to stay for tonight, obviously, but tomorrow we must find you somewhere else to live.”

  “We only need one room, Herbert, and you have one to spare.”

  Herbert’s face turned a darker shade of red. “You have searched my apartment? How dare you, madam!”

  “Of course I haven’t searched your apartment,” snapped Ruth. “I have, however, opened the doors and glanced into the rooms. You have two bedrooms. I assume you only sleep in one.” With an effort she softened her tone, it wouldn’t help to antagonise her brother-in-law. “I agree it’s not ideal, Herbert. If we were able to find somewhere else we would, but I have no money to pay any rent. If we stay here, I will ensure that the children don’t disturb you when you are at home. I will also keep house for you, if you wish.”

  “I have Frau Schultz,” Herbert said, grasping at a straw.

  “Indeed you have,” agreed Ruth. “I saw what she’d left for your supper. I have made you stew with dumplings. It is hot and waiting in the oven now.”

  3

  Ruth made the children as comfortable as she could in Herbert’s second bedroom. It was not large, but it had a double bed in it, and by moving this against the wall, she was able to make space for some pillows on the floor beside it. The twins and Inge she tucked into the big bed, and Laura she settled on the pillows.

  “Where will you sleep, Mutti?” asked Laura anxiously.

  “I’ll be on the sofa in the sitting room,” replied her mother, “just across the passage. If you need me in the night, you only have to call.”

  Once the children were settled, Ruth returned to the living room. Herbert was sitting at the table, the remains of his meal in front of him.

  “They seem well-behaved children,” he remarked. “Have they gone to sleep?”

  “They will very shortly,” answered Ruth. “They’ve had a long day, and a very frightening few days before it. They can feel safe here.” She sat down at the table opposite him. “I’m sorry we had to come, Herbert. I know it’s inconvenient to you, but we had nowhere else to go. The dear people who took us in had no room for us either, and they had their own problems.”

  “Don’t we all!” said Herbert testily. “You shouldn’t have rung me at the office, Ruth.”

  Ruth was startled at his sudden vehemence. “I’m sorry, Herbert, I didn’t know what else to do. Frau Schultz refused to let us stay, and I preferred not to stand in the street with the children until you came home.”

  Herbert shuddered. “No, that would have been worse. One can’t afford to have attention drawn to one these days.”

  “Has there been trouble here, too?” asked Ruth.

  “My dear Ruth, there has been trouble everywhere. Even those of us who are fully assimilated are being watched. I am lucky to keep my place at the office. It’s only because the senior partner is Jewish that I have not been replaced. That is why I cannot afford to draw attention to myself by receiving private phone calls in office hours.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sorry, Herbert. I won’t phone again. I am sure Kurt will be home soon, and then we can move away and try and start again.”

  Ruth was sure of no such thing, but she knew Herbert had to get used to the idea of housing his brother’s family indefinitely. He was a bachelor, set in his ways and she could quite understand how he shuddered at such an invasion. He had her sympathy, but it was not going to stop her doing what was best for her children.

  “In the meantime,” she continued, “I can look after you as well. When does Frau Schultz come? I don’t want to get in her way.”

  “She won’t come again until Friday,” Herbert replied. He got up from the table and picking up his newspaper, carried it to his chair. It was a firm indication that the conversation was over, and that he expected Ruth to clear away the meal.

  The rest of the evening was passed in silence. Once the dishes were done, Ruth went into the bathroom and washed the children’s clothes. Tomorrow she would have to set about finding them some more. At last Herbert bid her goodnight and she was able to settle herself down on the sofa, trying to get comfortable with the pillow and the blanket he had found for her. Despite feeling exhausted by the events of the day, and with her shoulder and her ankle both aching abominably, it was a long time before she slept.

  When Herbert had left for work the next day, Ruth set about the housekeeping. Frau Schultz had clearly been doing the minimum she could get away with, and the state of the kitchen left a lot to be desired. First, however, she had to occupy the children. Herbert had found them each a notepad, the sort he used in his office, and provided a pencil for each from his desk, so Ruth sat them round the table in the living room with some schoolwork. Laura and Inge each had a page of sums to do. The twins joined the dots she had drawn on the page to form letters.

  When the front door opened and Frau Schultz made her appearance, every one of them was fully occupied.

  “Good morning, Frau Schultz,” said Ruth, surprise in her voice. “I didn’t think you came to Herr Friedman today.”

  The old woman ignored the remark and pushed her way into the kitchen, demanding, “What do you think you are doing in my kitchen?”<
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  “Cleaning it,” replied Ruth succinctly. “It’s dirty.”

  “Herr Friedman doesn’t complain.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t,” agreed Ruth, “but it doesn’t alter the fact that it needs a good clean.”

  “In which case, I’ll leave you to clean it,” replied Frau Schultz. “You can tell Herr Friedman I’m not working for him while the place is a Jewish orphanage. If he wants me back, he can come and find me. And you can tell him he owes me a week’s wages, which I’ll come and collect on Saturday.” With that, she turned abruptly and left the apartment, slamming the front door behind her.

  Ruth sighed. Now Herbert had lost his housekeeper, not that she deserved that name if the grime round the gas stove and the state of the floor were anything to go by; but Ruth could only hope that she could be persuaded back when she and the children had moved out.

  There was little food in the larder, and just one plate of cold meat in the tiny refrigerator that stood in a corner of the kitchen. Certainly not enough to feed them all, so when the kitchen was clean, Ruth gathered up the children, and with a little of her carefully hoarded money in her purse set out to buy a few basic groceries. The children’s clothes would have to wait a little longer.

  It was a glorious summer’s day, and as they emerged from the apartment building Ruth felt the sun on her face, and for the first time in days her spirits lifted. They were in an area where no one knew them; for a while they would have the luxury of not being branded Jews. Gathering the children round her, she made her way down the street to the shops she had seen when they arrived. There was no kosher butcher of course, but she soon found a grocer’s where she could buy bread and cheese, some eggs, potatoes, flour and butter. She had left the children outside the shop in charge of Laura.

  She found herself in a shop very like her own, though it was clearly not Jewish, with a flitch of bacon hanging up behind the counter. Ruth averted her eyes, and gave her attention to the shopkeeper, a large, comfortable-looking woman with grey hair scraped back into a bun. Her eyes, a faded blue, peered at her customer from a wealth of wrinkles, and she smiled.

  “Good morning,” she said, “isn’t it a beautiful one?”

  “Good morning,” Ruth replied, returning the smile. “It is indeed.”

  “What I can I get you?”

  Ruth went through her list, and the woman placed the packages on the counter. As Ruth counted the money from her purse, the woman said casually, “I haven’t seen you round here before. Have you just moved in to the area?”

  “No.” Ruth was immediately on her guard. “No, we are just visiting family. Only here for a few days, I’m afraid. Thank you.” She picked up her purchases and put them into the shopping bag she’d found in Herbert’s kitchen. “I think I’ll take the children to the gardens on our way home.”

  The woman glanced out of the window to where the children were waiting patiently on the pavement. “They’ll enjoy that,” she said. “Lovely looking children, especially the little girl… such pretty blond hair.”

  “Indeed. Thank you.” Ruth forced a smile and left the shop. As she did so she made way for another customer to enter, and saw with some dismay that it was Frau Schultz. The woman glared at her, pushed roughly past her into the shop, and said to the shopkeeper, “Well, Frau Schneider, I see you met the Jewish orphanage.”

  The door swung closed on her malice, and Ruth hurried the children away, urging them along the road, back towards the apartment.

  “Mutti, you said we could play in the gardens on our way home,” Inge said, looking longingly across the road at the open iron gates that gave onto the park.

  “Not just now,” Ruth replied. “We have to go home and eat some lunch first, and the twins need their nap afterwards. Then perhaps we’ll go.”

  “That’s not fair,” Inge wailed. “You said we could go.” She dragged her feet as her mother hurried her along the pavement. “You promised, Mutti, I want to play on the swings.”

  “I didn’t promise,” snapped Ruth. “I said we might go, and we still might, but not if you make a fuss now. Come along, it’s time for lunch.”

  The little group trailed back up the stairs to Herbert’s flat. Once inside, Ruth locked the door and put the bolt across. She didn’t want Frau Schultz to think she could walk in whenever she chose. Laura returned to her station by the window. She too was disappointed that they weren’t going to spend some time in the gardens. She had been looking forward to the freedom of playing in the sunshine. She didn’t know why her mother had changed her mind, but she knew that moaning like Inge wouldn’t make her change it back again, so she sat down with the boys and played pat-a-cake with them while her mother put some food on the table.Ruth had been dismayed as she heard Frau Schultz’s comment. Their anonymity had been lost; they were now marked as Jews in this area as well. Her instinct had been to get the children back to the safety of Herbert’s flat as soon as possible, but now as she gave them their lunch she looked at their pale faces and anger stirred again. Why shouldn’t her children play in the gardens, run among the trees, slide down the slide? Why should she hide them in this dreary apartment on a glorious summer’s day, when other children were outside with sun on their faces?

  “When the boys have had a nap, we’ll go to the park,” she said as she cleared the plates away. “You should rest, too, Inge. Lie on the bed for half an hour, and then we’ll go out.”

  *

  Frau Schultz and Frau Schneider watched through the shop window as Ruth gathered up her children and led them back along the street.

  “What did you mean… Jewish orphanage?” asked Frau Schneider as the little family disappeared from view.

  “Turned up on Herr Friedman’s doorstep yesterday afternoon, didn’t they!” replied Frau Schultz. “Demanding to come in. Said she was his sister-in-law. Said she had nowhere else to go.”

  Frau Schneider’s eyes were wide. “Did you let them in?”

  “Had to, didn’t I? She rang him at his office, and he said they could stay. Had to, didn’t want a rabble like that standing on his doorstep, did he?”

  “You wouldn’t know they were Jews,” Frau Schneider remarked. “The little girl, anyway, lovely fair hair and blue eyes.”

  “Yes, that’s what’s so awful,” agreed Frau Schultz. “You could be fooled into thinking they were true Germans!”

  “But you work for Herr Friedman,” pointed out her friend, “and he’s a Jew.”

  “Not anymore I don’t,” snapped Frau Schultz. “Went in this morning to see if I could be of help, and found that woman cleaning my kitchen. Told me it was dirty! Dirty! That’s the word I’d use for them. Dirty Jews. I told her, I said if that’s what she thought she could tell Herr Friedman that I wasn’t working there anymore and I’d collect my money on Saturday.”

  “But I suppose Herr Friedman isn’t a proper Jew,” Frau Schneider said thoughtfully. “I mean, he doesn’t go to the synagogue on Saturdays or anything. If you hadn’t said, I wouldn’t have known he was a Jew either.”

  “A Jew is a Jew is a Jew,” said Frau Schultz judiciously. “I’ll be more choosy who I work for in the future, I can tell you.”

  “You might not be able to find another job that easy,” pointed out her friend.

  Frau Schultz knew that there was a lot of truth in that, and it was not comforting. “That’s what I mean,” she snarled. “Them Jews are keeping good honest Germans out of work. Taking all the jobs.”

  “Will they be staying with him long?” wondered Frau Schneider, ignoring this tirade. “There can’t be much room for them all in that apartment.”

  “More room than we’ve got,” Frau Schultz snapped. “I live in one room and share a bathroom. You have only two rooms above your shop for you and Herr Schneider. What does a single man need with all the space he has?”

  “Well, he hasn’t much space now,” Frau Schneider laughed. “Poor man can’t know what’s hit him with those four kids descending on him! Now,” sh
e smiled, “what can I get you today?”

  Frau Schultz made her purchases and then walked back to the tiny room she rented above the tobacconist shop in the next street. As she passed the gardens she glanced in, but there was no sign of the Jewish children playing there. She smiled grimly. That woman must have read the notice that had been placed there only last week. Jüden Verboten! No Jews Allowed! More and more, Jews were being made to understand their place. Herr Hitler was right, they were at the root of all Germany’s problems. Get rid of the Jews and there would be plenty of jobs, plenty of houses, plenty of money for ordinary Germans like herself. The German people could reclaim their own country and make it strong again. Widows, like herself, wouldn’t have to struggle to make a living.

  When she had first gone to work for Herr Friedman, Eva Schultz had not known that he was a Jew. He was a man who kept himself to himself; a quiet man who went nowhere but his office and hardly knew his neighbours. She was well pleased with the work, it was in no way arduous. She went in three days a week, to clean, to do the laundry and to prepare Herr Friedman’s evening meals. One meal she would leave in the oven for that night, and another, cold, on a plate in his refrigerator for the next day. Frau Schultz envied him that refrigerator. Fancy a man on his own having such a luxury. However, he paid well, and left money for her to do the shopping. That was a bonus. It was easy enough to buy some extra slices of meat, a few more eggs, another small piece of cheese, charging it up to him. He had little idea of the price of food and simply left her some money for the housekeeping each week. She was careful to leave him the change each week, amounts that varied slightly, so that he didn’t ask any awkward questions. Then she had discovered that he was Jewish. Snooping among his papers one day, she read a letter he’d received from his brother about the family going to Vienna for a bar mitzvah. Bar mitzvah! Herr Friedman was a Jew! She was working for a Jew. After that she stole from him more regularly and without compunction. She didn’t like the idea of working for a Jew, but it was worth putting in the minimal amount of time she gave to cleaning his apartment, to enable her to help herself to the extras to which she felt she was entitled. The arrival of his sister-in-law with her hordes had now put paid to that. It was clear that woman had already realised what she was up to, and no doubt she would tell Herr Friedman when he got home this evening… and her job really would be gone. Another example of Jews taking the bread from the mouths of a good, honest German.