Only a minimum of correspondence exists for the following two months, because, to my delight, I could now see Gerda most evenings and weekends. Ironically, those visits had to be conducted in a clandestine manner, necessitating that I hide my Jeep from the watchful eyes of roving MP patrols, who at that time were indiscriminately enforcing the nonfraternization rule, as far as associations between GIs and the German population were concerned.
It was during those frequent visits that it became quite obvious to me that I had found a soul mate who shared my background, my likes and dislikes, my love for literature, and my specific Weltanschauung. Finding her most attractive, I became sure that I was falling in love with this remarkable girl and wanted to share my life with her.
At the point in mid-September when my orders for discharge from the service suddenly came through, I drove to Munich to break the news to Gerda. I was awed by the realization that I had returned to Europe with the army to fight the immense evil that had prevailed there. I had come there harboring feelings of bitterness and hatred for those who had caused so much gratuitous carnage. In the course of the scourge that the Nazis had visited on our people and the world, I had suffered much personal loss and anguish; I had not been able to save those dearest to me. Nevertheless, out of the tragedy of those times had come the key to my future. When Gerda and I went for a walk in the nearby woods that evening, it wasn’t difficult to ask the question on which our destiny hinged. When we returned from that stroll in a mood of high elation, my heart was full of love.
As it turned out, we were laboring under the somewhat naive assumption that, as the fiancée of a serviceman, Gerda would soon be able to follow me. Neither of us could have foreseen the interminable obstacles that would block our course before we could be reunited.
This correspondence, which goes well beyond the scope of love letters, covers the time from our first meeting in May 1945, to the seemingly endless period of unexpected separation, to our marriage in Paris in June 1946. It reflects the postwar trauma and harsh realities Gerda had to cope with in the chaos and ambivalence that prevailed in Europe in the aftermath of the war. Throughout, it illuminates one survivor’s struggles along the road back to normality, at a time when no countries were ready to afford those survivors a chance to rebuild even a semblance of their former lives.
Also reflected in these writings are my own encounters with bureaucratic red tape and my readjustment to civilian life after having passed through the crucible of events that had molded me. During the years of searching for the woman who represented my ideal, I had come to believe that perhaps I was pursuing an unattainable goal. Once I got to know Gerda I was stunned by the fact that I had found my dream, and that she surpassed anything I could have imagined. Once her shell of suffering and endurance had come off, what emerged was a very pretty, high-spirited, intelligent young woman of extraordinary sensitivity and compassion. Not the least of her attractions were those limpid green eyes that, together with her dimpled smile, could completely disarm me.
These letters, then, are blueprints of the people we were and all we were to become in the fifty-three years of marriage we have been granted thus far. What emerges from them is the redemptive power of love in the face of tragedy and loss.
I was waking up, my hand brushing over something soft and smooth. What could it be? I opened my eyes and saw a blanket, under it something snowy white. A sheet! No, it was not a dream; I was lying in a bed on a sheet under a blanket. I closed my eyes, then slowly opened them again, only to realize that the vision had not evaporated. I stroked the blanket, touching the sheet with my bony fingers. Sunlight was streaming through a window near my head. It was difficult to grasp. How had I come here?
Images flitted through my mind, fragments of an incomplete puzzle. When I concentrated hard, they began to fall into place. I remembered having been on a truck or some other vehicle, then someone carrying me in his strong arms. We had entered a room with wooden tubs on the floor. It came back to me that I had shed the rags that had hung from my body, then felt the incredible luxury of warm water engulfing me. Oddly, I had noticed that the water was green and sunlight was dancing on its surface. Gentle hands were lathering my body, and I was sitting in a tub for the first time in more than three years. Warm water had cascaded over my head from a pitcher, and someone had dried my hair. Yes, there was this pretty girl in a long peasant skirt gathering up my rags, and I overheard someone else saying that they needed to be burned. It was when she reached for my ski boots that panic had set in. My ski boots? Those boots that Papa insisted I wear on that hot day in June just before I saw him for the last time? Oh, God, no, they can’t take my boots! In the lining of the left one were the photos I had hidden for such a long time. Had they been burned? My memory became more acute, and suddenly I knew, was aware of what had happened.
Yes, I had removed the pictures before blacking out. I reached under my snowy pillow in a frantic search for them, then found with immense relief that they were there. Picking up the dirty, threadbare piece of rag, frayed but dry, I opened it slowly, reverently. I had not looked at its contents since that icy day in January when we started the cruel march that had lasted through the bitter winter months and had decimated our numbers. Now it was spring, and my treasure was safe. I clutched the sturdy small cardboard rectangle on which I had mounted them so many years ago. The tiny photos that I had cut out in the shape of hearts: Papa, smiling, sitting on a boat that was cruising the Bosporus. That was taken when he attended my uncle’s wedding in Turkey in the summer of 1937. Then there was Mama in Krynica, the Polish resort to which I had accompanied her in the summer of 1939. I remembered when she had bought the silk for the dress she was wearing in the photo: black patterned, with raspberry-colored flowers. “If the flowers were red, they would be too harsh, too loud,” she had said. “See how beautifully the colors blend?”
She had the milliner put the ribbon in the same raspberry color around her wide-brimmed black straw hat, demonstrating as always what great style she possessed. The ribbon was detachable, and there was a white one as well, and still another one with polka dots and a yellow silk rose she would attach to complement what she was wearing. Each time she wore it, the hat looked distinctly different. Mama! Mama, where are you?
And there was Artur, sporting a tie, all dressed up. Where was he going that day when he posed with his insouciant smile, leaning against the garden fence? And Abek, my special friend: I can’t tell when or where his picture was taken.
My thoughts were interrupted by a commotion, the dreaded sound of marching boots outside. Quickly, automatically, I hid my treasure under my pillow, the old fear overtaking me. From my upper bunk near a huge window I beheld a sight that filled me with awe and immense relief. A column of German soldiers was being marched down the road, their uniforms bedraggled and dirty. They were unarmed, and their faces reflected exhaustion and dejection. It was with a sense of joy and gratitude that I saw them being guarded by Americans who looked like the proverbial knights in shining armor to me, although I noticed that they wore that armor with a rather casual air. Love filled my heart, and clutching the tiny bundle under my pillow, I began to cry softly. Yesterday? Was it only yesterday that we had been given freedom? And then I pictured again the nurse coming down the aisle of the ward, holding a tray of mugs filled with milk. One of them had a crude flower painted on it. Oh, how I wanted that mug, and as if I had willed it, she handed it to me. Taking a sip of that warm, sweet milk unleashed something tremendous within me. It was a hard, bitter knot coming loose and making me break into convulsive sobs as never before. At the same time, I found prayer again. It was a prayer of thanks for the gift of life, for seeing Germany defeated, for the Americans who had liberated us. Sorrow swept over me, sorrow over the fact that not one person I had loved was with me at this hour, sharing this miracle for which we had prayed for six long, bitter years. It was a grieving, not yet fully defined, for the loss of all that had been dear to me.
An Am
erican doctor was approaching my bunk carrying a pad. He looked at me and asked in German about my vital statistics. When it came to my birth date, he broke into a smile and exclaimed, “May 8—why, today is May 8, your birthday! And Germany capitulated today. The war is really over; did you know that?” No, I did not know it. “To me the war was over with my liberation.” “Yes,” he allowed, “that was yesterday, but today it’s official.” He touched my hand and tenderly touched my cheek. “Your birthday,” he spoke softly, compassionately. “You will always remember your birthday.” I lay there, unable to absorb it all. To think that this was my birthday: I was twenty-one years old; the horror had begun when I was barely fifteen.
A little while later the doctor who had shown such kindness returned, handing me something wrapped in paper. “For your birthday,” he said and left abruptly. As I was to learn, it was Dr. Aaron Cahan from Chicago who gave me my first birthday gift after the war. What I found was a piece of chocolate, something I had not tasted in many years. I let a tiny morsel dissolve on my tongue, savoring its exquisite taste—soft, sweet, and soothing—stirring memories of a thousand dreams.
I always got chocolate for birthdays during my childhood. It invariably consisted of Katzenzungen, literally, “cats’ tongues.” My parents knew only too well how much I loved chocolate and my cats. At one time I was the proud owner of eight, all black, and only I could distinguish among them. Schnautzi had given birth to seven black kittens on a snowy, cold afternoon and had carried them in her mouth, one by one, into the kitchen near the warm stove. I named them Frutzi, Schmutzi, Stutzi, Kuba, Mruczek, Tygrys, Ziobak, my terms of endearment, which ascribed to them certain character traits in a combination of German and Polish. How strange that I could again remember all their names now, whereas I could recall only six of them as I stood in line, waiting to be shot, at one point during the death march. While I was frantically searching my memory for the missing names, our guard’s mood changed arbitrarily and we were spared. No, I did not want to think about that now—only about the happy birthdays of my childhood, with all their attendant feelings of well-being, about the gifts from Papa, Mama, Artur, and Omama (my maternal grandmother). Linked with it also were memories of Niania, my nanny. It was always on my birthday that Niania would solemnly intone: Gottes Finger zeigt den Weg (God’s finger points the way). Then she would point her finger at me, “Because you were born, we came together.” I knew the tale by heart because she repeated it so often—and invariably on my birthday.
Niania to me only, because I was the only one permitted to address her in the familiar du form. To everyone else—and that included my parents, brother, and grandmother—she was Frau Bremza. Her first name was Sofie, in honor of Emperor Franz Josef’s mother, as she would proudly point out. She considered Sofie to be the “real” empress, dismissing the emperor’s beautiful wife, Elisabeth, as “a bit of fluff.” Niania revered the imperial family, even though her only child, a son, had been killed during World War I in the service of the emperor, who was dead too by then—as was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In April 1924 another great tragedy befell Niania. Her house burned to the ground, along with most of her belongings. Blessedly, she and her granddaughter, Irma, were saved. Irma’s mother, Anna, worked as a cook in a small nearby town. Clad in her late husband’s postman’s coat, the only garment that survived the fire, Frau Bremza had come to see my grandmother, whom she knew slightly. On hearing her story, Omama immediately came up with a suggestion. “My daughter, Helene, is expecting a baby soon. She is in delicate health and we could really use some help. Perhaps you and Irma could come and live with us for a few weeks? It would be a big favor.” For the hundredth time Niania would shake her head. “God works in strange ways.” So Niania and Irma, then approximately seven years old, came “for a few weeks” and stayed for thirteen years.
When I was very young, Niania would tell me that my parents found me in a Maiblume, those demure, bell-like lilies of the valley that always burst into full bloom around my birthday. I was skeptical and pointed out how small those flowers were. “You were little, too,” Niania would say in a tone that did not invite any further questions.
As the hours wore on and the defeated columns of German troops kept passing by my window, I let my thoughts take me back to my childhood, my birthdays serving as counterpoints to the shuffling feet below. Memories crowded my mind, fragments that brought certain events into sharper focus. As if in a viewfinder, an image presented itself: a chocolate torte reposing on the kitchen table, as only Mama could bake it. She had a special knack for coming up with the most wondrous confections: homemade marzipan, which she would sculpt into various forms—animals, flowers, and many more. And her Vanillenkipfel, those delicious vanilla crescents, and Pariser Stangen, lemon-glazed nut bars, were the most delectable creations imaginable. Now it escaped me for which birthday she had adorned that special torte with symbols of good luck: a tiny horseshoe, a jolly little pink pig, and a four-leaf clover. Artur immediately interpreted the pig as representing my table manners, and I tossed my new red ball right into his face.
The four-leaf clover now took on a different meaning. It reminded me that ilse, Suse, Liesl, and I had called ourselves that—ein vierblättriges Kleeblatt. But the others were not as lucky as I. ilse died in my arms only a week ago, making me promise that I would go on for one more week. Ilse, oh, ilse—just one more week! If you could have held out that much longer! You made it plain that you were a Pechvogel, an unlucky bird, and, yes, you were. And Suse, it couldn’t have been yesterday that you died! Suse—yesterday? No, it was a hundred years ago. We had made a bet on the train that took us to the first camp three years earlier, a bet for a quart of strawberries and whipped cream. I said we would be liberated, and you said we would not. How could it have been only yesterday? Why am I here while you are not?
But where was Liesl? Her leg had been hit by a bullet from a strafing American fighter plane, an injury she had dismissed as inconsequential. I knew she was hurting because I had seen the wound, but when I took that first American to see her, she only smiled as if she were unaware of what was happening. She must have been running a high fever, her eyes were so strange. Thank God, she is here in this hospital, getting the same good care that is restoring me. I must ask about her right away, I resolved. In the camp we had perfected a game of make-believe. Her bunk had been next to mine, and I remembered how after one night shift I had awakened to hear the rain beating down hard on the roof panels over our bunks. I noticed that Liesl was up too and impulsively blurted out, “I will get up soon and go to the garden. I know the grass will be wet, and I will pick up the apples the storm has blown down.” Without missing a beat she would come back, “Nothing tastes better than a real cold, tart apple. But we’ll have to hurry; remember, we have an appointment later for that new dress. . . .” We would go on and on like that.
Liesl was one of the most beautiful girls I ever met. Oh, I can’t wait to see her, I thought. I made the nurse promise to find out about her. A few days later I learned to my utter dismay that Liesl had succumbed to her wounds on the very day I turned twenty-one, just a day after we were rescued.
I let my recollections drift back to other birthdays. The most memorable one was my fifteenth, in 1939. That May was unusually warm, so my party was held in our little gazebo in the garden. It was green-latticed, with a roof over it, through which the lilacs that grew in profusion had forced their branches, infusing its interior with their fragrance. I thought the purple ones exuded a more intense fragrance than the white ones. My girlfriends were crowded around the small table. Mama had baked a marble cake in a fluted pan, heavy on the chocolate side, and made her divine vanilla ice cream. I wore my new short-sleeved navy blue dress, with an enormous white pleated organdy collar, stiff like a clown’s ruff. And my own first real silk stockings, along with another first: navy blue shoes with heels. My friend Thea had the same shoes, but hers pinched, she remarked, while handing me the most wonderful p
resent: a rather large brooch, made of wood, in the shape of a heart. In its center a small cottage window, flanked by shutters, brightened by dainty white flowers. The overall effect was of a little chalet-type house, and when you opened the shutters, there was a portrait inside of our movie idol, Shirleika (Shirley Temple). I instantly pinned it to the center of my large, white, pleated collar. Papa and Mama presented me with a small rectangular watch, its face bearing roman numerals. It goes without saying that I would check the time every few minutes.
I remember that Artur’s gift was a bottle of eau de cologne that I used only for special occasions. Up to that time, I had furtively sprayed myself with my mother’s Tosca or 4711, but this was my very own Chat Noir “so that you can smell like your cats,” Artur teased. This was accompanied by a big hug and the bell-like timbre of his mischievous laughter, which was reflected in his warm brown eyes and his smiling lips.
Attl—as I called Artur, while I was Gertl to him—Attl, where are you now? You must be thinking of me, because you know it’s my birthday and, of all things, my twenty-first. Can you believe that? And you are twenty-five. We are all grown up, both of us! When will I see you? Soon, soon, I hope; after all, the war is over. Oh, my beloved brother, will I see you soon again?
I let memory overtake me, fixing on my fifteenth birthday. It was the last one before the war, before everything fell apart, was irretrievably gone. I drifted back into the golden sunlight of my untroubled childhood, when I had felt cosseted, secure, loved, and protected. But it began to fade, and I knew I must go on.
I was sixteen in 1940, and a memory came to me in a flash, that of running into the garden with Artur’s letter from Russian-occupied Lvov in my hand. His letters were sparse and infrequent, and this one, addressed to me, came on that very day, as if by magic. It contained a photo, Artur looking very serious and much older, almost like a stranger. He wrote, “I know that you are as brave as you promised to be,” and that’s when I threw myself onto the young new grass and wept. I cried with a mixture of happiness and sorrow, happy to see Artur’s letter, yet sad, so sad. Something was awakening in me, a feeling I couldn’t define, but they were tears for the loss of my happy childhood and all it had held.
The Hours After Page 2
