The Runaway Family

by Diney Costeloe

  “Who do I ask for?” Ruth realised in panic that she had never learned the man’s name. “In the morning? Who do I ask for?”

  “Standartenführer Unger. Standartenführer Paul Unger of the SS.”

  That night Ruth hid in a wooden shelter in a park. She had nowhere to go, and as she had been told to present herself at eight o’clock the next morning at the Gestapo headquarters, there was no way she could get back to Vohldorf for the night and be back in time. She knew that her mother would be worried sick when she did not come home, but there was nothing she could do about that. She found the shelter, little more than a summer arbour in a quiet part of a public garden and curled up in the corner trying to keep out of the wintry wind. As always there was a No Jews notice on the iron gates, but then she wasn’t allowed to be out on the streets either, and there was no question of finding a room, so she was at risk whatever she did.

  She had hardly slept at all. Standartenführer Unger had taken everything of value that she had, and there was no guarantee that he would keep his side of the bargain. What a fool she’d been, to have left the deeds in the box when she had come into the city. She should have taken those out and left them safely with her mother. The fear that consumed her now made her feel physically sick. Tears of despair coursed down her face, streaking her cheeks with dark rivulets. He had taken everything and given her nothing. For all his smiles, he was more sinister than the men who had come and arrested Kurt. And what was Kurt going to say when he found out she’d given away the shop? Of course he would understand. Of course he wouldn’t mind if it saved his beloved family, but suppose she’d been tricked by this evil man? They would have lost everything and gained nothing. Oh God, she prayed, let the colonel keep his side of the bargain.

  As dawn broke she slipped out of the park gates. She was stiff with cold, and exhausted, and she needed the lavatory. She had found a public convenience the night before, and she returned there now, hoping it would be open this early. She was in luck, the attendant was just unlocking the metal gates.

  The woman eyed Ruth suspiciously, taking in her crumpled clothes and dishevelled hair. “You’re about early,” she said.

  Ruth managed a smile and replied, “Yes, I have to get to the market.” Once locked into a cubicle she used the lavatory and dragged a comb through her hair. When she came out again, the attendant was nowhere to be seen, so Ruth hastily washed her hands and face and hurried out into the cold morning air. As she turned a corner in search of a café, she caught sight of the attendant returning to the lavatory block, followed by a man in uniform. Ruth didn’t wait to see which uniform it was, she fled down the street, turning into smaller side streets until she was lost, and, she hoped, they were too.

  She emerged into a small square where she found a café serving breakfast to early risers. She needed food, she’d had nothing since the morning before, and she felt hollow inside and a little light-headed. She went into the café, and sitting at a small table at the back ordered herself a plate of bread and cheese and a cup of hot, black liquid which was advertised as coffee. The waitress brought her food, after which no one paid her any attention at all. The bread was fresh, and the cheese tasty. Ruth could have eaten several such plates, but had no money for such extravagance, and forced herself to eat slowly. She sipped the bitter coffee, grateful for its warmth if not for its flavour, and considered what to do.

  She would go to the Jewish Affairs Office at eight o’clock, and ask to see Standartenführer Unger. Then she could only pray that he would indeed have the updated passport and the exit permits. If he didn’t… well, then she’d have to decide what she was going to do.

  At exactly eight o’clock she presented herself at the desk in the reception area, and was told to wait. She waited for five hours. Officials walked past her as she stood in the passage. No one spoke to her, or even acknowledged her existence, and still she waited. The young officer, Schwartz, who had seen her off the premises, came by several times, and at last she plucked up courage to speak to him.

  “Please, sir,” she said. “I was here at eight o’clock as the Herr Standartenführer told me to be. Is he here?”

  “He’s busy,” snapped Schwartz. “You’ll have to wait.”

  Ruth continued to wait, but was becoming increasingly aware that she needed the lavatory again. She tried not to think about it, but as time passed she knew that unless she was to disgrace herself here in the corridor she had to find a toilet. She returned to the front desk and asked. The woman seated at the desk looked outraged.

  “You certainly can’t use one in this building,” she said. “The lavatories here are not for Jews. You’ll have to go and find one somewhere else.” She returned to her typewriter and Ruth knew there was no point in asking again. She hurried out into the street, and within three or four hundred metres found a public lavatory.

  Ten minutes later she was back at the front desk of the Jewish Affairs Office. The woman at the desk looked up as she came back in.

  “You Friedman?” she asked.

  “Yes,” replied Ruth, “Yes, I’m Ruth Friedman.”

  “The Herr Standartenführer sent for you, but I told him you’d left.”

  Ruth stared at her in absolute horror. “You told him what?” she whispered.

  “I told him you were here, but you’d left.”

  “Did you tell him why I left?” demanded Ruth angrily. “Did you explain why?”

  The woman sniffed. “As if the Herr Standartenführer would be interested in your incontinence!”

  It took all Ruth’s self-control not to reach over the desk and shake the smug young woman until her teeth rattled. Hardly incontinence, she wanted to shout. I’ve been here more than five hours, in which time you’ve been to the ladies’ room twice. She bit back the words, knowing they would only make matters worse.

  “Please,” she forced herself to speak politely, “please would you be so good as to tell the Herr Standartenführer that I am back now.”

  “Oh, he’s gone now,” said the girl airily. “He said that if you did bother to show up again that you should come back again tomorrow at the same time.”

  Ruth left the building, her emotions running the gamut from rage through humiliation to despair. There was nothing she could do except turn up again the next morning and hope that he would see her and give her the precious passes he had promised. She spent another very cold and uncomfortable night in the open, in a different park this time, trying to get some sort of rest. She thought of her mother and the children. They must be going out of their minds with worry now that she’d spent two nights away. Her mother would think she’d been arrested, and the children would be terrified that she had suddenly disappeared like their father.

  Next morning she drank no coffee and having spruced herself up at the public conveniences that she’d found near the Jewish Affairs Office she presented herself once more at exactly eight o’clock. This time the wait was nearly six hours, standing in the same draughty corridor, ignored by all that used it as they went about their duties. This time she spoke to no one and at last she was summoned to Standartenführer Unger’s office.

  “I hear you left the building yesterday,” he said by way of opening. “That was extremely foolish of you.”

  “I’m sorry, I needed the lavatory and…”

  “I imagine you’d have thought of that before you came.” Standartenführer Unger raised a supercilious eyebrow.

  “Yes, sir,” murmured Ruth “I’m very sorry.”

  “So you should be. It inconvenienced me greatly. Now—” he reached down and slid open the drawer of his desk “—here are your passports and the permits to travel to Vienna. They are valid for one week. Make sure you use them by then… and make sure you don’t come back.” He pushed the passport and the permits across the table and Ruth, unable to believe that they were actually there, snatched them up and stuffed them into the basket. “It’s feckless families like yours that bring our great country down,” he went on. �
��Now get out.”

  Ruth muttered, “Thank you, Herr Standartenführer,” and left the room, before he could change his mind. Once safely outside the fearsome building, Ruth found a quiet street and looked at the papers she had been given, terrified that even now he had tricked her and that they were worthless. She held them up in the fading light and saw that they were made out in the right names and were dated and stamped with an SS stamp.

  This time she had no problems with the bus driver, and seated quietly at the back of the bus drew no attention to herself. The other passengers ignored her, and she was able to stay on the bus until it dropped her in the Vohldorf market square. Keeping her head down and clutching her basket, she hurried along the narrow alley to Kreuzstrasse.

  Helga opened the door, and burst into tears as she gathered her daughter into her arms.

  “It’s all right, Mutti, it’s all right,” she soothed, not even noticing she had reverted to the childhood name, as she tried to console her. “I’ve got everything we need. We leave for Vienna tomorrow.”

  8

  Kurt stood for a moment, dumbfounded, outside the slammed door and then walked slowly back down the stairs to the street below. His mind began racing. Where were Ruth and the children? Where could they have gone now? And what had happened to Herbert? Why had he been arrested? Was it simply because he, too, was a Jew? Or was there something more? Was he even now learning how to survive in Dachau, or some other such camp? Where were Ruth and the children? Where were Ruth and the children?

  Kurt stepped out onto the pavement and for a moment looked up at the building. Which was Herbert’s flat? Third floor. And then he knew exactly which one it was, as the old woman stood there by the window, staring down into the street. When she saw him looking up she gave him a triumphant Heil Hitler and then drew the curtains across, as if to shut him out.

  What a vile woman, Kurt thought furiously! How had she come to be living in Herbert’s apartment? She had referred to Kurt’s family as “the Jewish orphanage”. Clearly they had been made homeless yet again, so where had they gone?

  It was dusk now, and Kurt knew he needed somewhere to stay. He doubted if he would be able to pick up the trail tonight, even if there was one. People were more than reluctant to open their doors to a strange man after dark. He set off down the street at a brisk pace, looking for a small hotel or guesthouse where he might stay for the night. He was loath to spend the money, but although there was no official curfew that he knew about, it would be foolhardy to be out alone after dark. For a while he wandered the streets, looking for somewhere suitable, and finally saw a card in a window. Room to let.

  He knocked on the door and waited. At length it was opened by a young woman in an apron. She peered at him as he stood in the dim light in her hallway. She clearly was not impressed with what she saw.

  “Yes?”

  “Good evening,” Kurt said. “I’m looking for a room, and I saw the card in your window.”

  The woman eyed him suspiciously. “How long for?”

  “One night, maybe two.”

  “Only let by the week,” she replied and began to shut the door.

  “I may stay a week?” asked Kurt hurriedly. “How much would it be?”

  The woman paused and then told him the price. “Week in advance! No meals! Take it or leave it.”

  Kurt took it. He realised that she knew he was a Jew and the price she had asked reflected that, but he had to have somewhere to stay, and he didn’t know how long it was going to take him to track down his family.

  The room she showed him was small and poky, furnished with a single bed, a chest of drawers with a mirror and a washstand on which stood a bowl and a ewer of water. The bathroom was down the landing. However, Kurt was grateful to be off the street. He knew that with the way he looked and no luggage, nowhere more salubrious was going to take him. When he looked in the mirror and saw the hollow-cheeked, stubble-faced, pallid ghost that returned his stare, he was amazed that the woman had agreed to let him have the room at any price. Clearly she, too, was facing hard times and couldn’t be too choosy about her guests.

  Longing to see his family, Kurt had travelled straight to Munich with little thought given to his appearance. He had only the clothes he’d been arrested in, and they were grubby, hanging off his emaciated frame. His hair had begun to grow again, but sprouted in tufts over his head, where the rough strokes of the camp barber’s razor had shaved him unevenly. His reflection told him that he must change his appearance, and fast. Looking like a convict was as dangerous as looking like a Jew, and he looked like both. First thing in the morning he must do something about it.

  As he lay in the narrow bed that night, he considered how to set about finding his family. Where would Ruth have taken them? If it had been him, where would he have gone? His parents were both dead, and Herbert was his only sibling. He had no other family, so there was no lead there. Ruth’s father was dead, but her mother lived in the old family house in Vohldorf. Perhaps Ruth might have taken the children there. Or there was her sister, Edith, who lived in Vienna. Could she have gone there? They’d be safer there, but it was a long way to travel with four small children, and there was the problem of crossing into Austria without passports for the twins. No, he decided, it was more likely that she had gone to her mother’s… if she’d been able to go anywhere. What money had she? If she were destitute where would she go for help? She knew no one else in Munich. To the synagogue, that was the obvious place. But which synagogue? Where were the synagogues here? There was no question of asking. In the morning he would have to wander round and find them for himself.

  At last he closed his eyes, and managed to sleep several hours before the nightmares began to crowd his dreams and he woke, as he did so often now, drenched in a cold sweat and shaking.

  As soon as it was daylight Kurt left the house and went in search of food. He’d eaten nothing since the previous morning and he was very hungry. He found a workman’s café where he ate some breakfast, after which he felt better and went in search of a street market. He had to conserve the money he had found in the bread oven, but new clothes and some toiletries were a must, and he reckoned that street traders would pay less attention to him, and be cheaper than trying to buy from shops, many of which wouldn’t even let him cross the threshold. He found what he was looking for in a small square, flanked by tall medieval houses, where market traders’ stalls of all sorts were set up round a central fountain. He bought himself a change of clothes from a second-hand clothes stall, a razor and some soap and a small case to carry them in, and hurried back to his room. Once he had washed and shaved and changed into his new clothes, he felt infinitely better. Now he could set out to search for his family without looking like a scarecrow. He pulled his new hat down over his ears so that his peculiar haircut was less visible, buttoned his overcoat against the chill of the wind and headed back out onto the street.

  He spent the day looking for synagogues. Once he had found the first one, though the rabbi knew nothing about Ruth, it was easier. Each rabbi he spoke to pointed him in the direction of someone else. Rabbi Rahmer was the fourth that he visited.

  “Yes,” said the rabbi. “Your wife was here. She and the children stayed a night in our meeting room and then went to stay with her mother. Somewhere near Stuttgart, I think she said.”

  “Vohldorf,” said Kurt.

  “Yes, that’s right. Well, she asked us to tell you where she’d gone if you ever came looking for her.” The rabbi gave a sad smile. “I didn’t really think you would.”

  “How long ago was she here?”

  “Four… five weeks?” The rabbi was vague.

  Next morning Kurt took the early train to Stuttgart, and reached Vohldorf by mid-afternoon. It was a cold wet day, but he didn’t mind. The thought of seeing his family, of holding them all in his arms again, buoyed him up, and when he got off the bus in the market square his heart was racing. He had been to his parents-in-law’s house only twice, but he t
hought he remembered where it was, and set out at a brisk pace. With only one wrong turn, he reached it and saw welcoming light flooding from a window into the damp dusk. The gates were shut, to stop the twins from straying, Kurt supposed, as he opened them and then closed them carefully behind him. For a brief moment he stood outside the front door, then he drew a deep breath and rang the bell.

  “What do you want? We’ll have no vagrants here!” The man who had come to the door stared at Kurt belligerently. He was tall and broad, a much larger man than Kurt, and he thrust his head aggressively forward as he spoke.

  Kurt took an involuntary step back. “I’m… I’m looking for my wife…” he began.

  “Well, she’s not here! Be off, before I set the dogs on you.”

  “Frau Heber…” Kurt tried again, though he didn’t like the sound of the dogs he could hear barking inside the house.

  “No one called Heber in this house,” snapped the man. “Get lost.” He turned inside and called, “Lotte… let the dogs out!”

  Kurt beat a hasty retreat.

  “And don’t come back, Jew. We don’t want your sort in this village.”

  Kurt hurried away from the house, the sound of the dogs loud on the evening air. He had always liked dogs, until he went to Dachau. There the guard dogs were terrifying, and Kurt knew he would never look at a dog in the same way again.

  Once he was out of sight he slowed his pace. There were tears in his eyes as he realised he had lost them all again, and this time he had no trail to follow. Helga Heber had lost her home, and he had no idea where she had gone, nor if Ruth and the children were with her.

  “Think!” he admonished himself. “There must be some way I can pick up the trail again. Just take time and think.”

  With leaden feet he walked back into the market square. The dusk had deepened to darkness now, but there were still lights in the shops that edged the square, and Kurt decided to ask in those. He chose the grocer’s, and pushed open the door. A large woman in an enveloping white apron was standing behind the counter, chatting to a customer. They both turned as Kurt came in and looked at him with interest. A stranger. Not someone from the village.