Munich, August 14, 1945
Dear Kurt,
I am writing to you again because I don’t know when you’ll be able to free yourself for a visit, and I have such a burning desire to share with you what I am experiencing and feeling.
Do you remember when your friend asked how we celebrated the arrival of the Americans? Can you believe that? What a concept! Celebration?! Of course I know he was wasn’t there—but didn’t he have any idea what it was like, what you found? Do I really have to bare my soul to everyone from the start?
Today was a great and meaningful day, one that might constitute my entry into this new, huge, and unfamiliar world. I am so filled with a jumble of turbulent thoughts and emotions that I simply have to share them with you, though I know how lame my descriptive language is.
What I glimpsed was a world of true freedom, a world that I have always dimly perceived, of which I dreamed—and it was put into words of reality for me. Kurt, never did I more fully understand your home-sickness for America, your yearning for everything American than today. I know it cannot be only a “land of milk and honey”; I realize that even there, pain and disappointment and sorrow must exist. But I have noticed that Americans seem to emanate a type of radiance, perhaps born of the pride that is in their hearts, and nothing inflicted on them can totally eclipse it.
How can I faithfully convey the overwhelming emotion that I experienced as I sat among twenty Germans listening to the words of an American officer? He was trying to clarify the concept of what democracy means in America. Here I sit, alone, the only non-American, the only non-German, caught between two worlds, the one I so desperately wish I could be a part of and the other to which I am relegated.
The voice from the podium was strong, self-assured, full of conqueror’s triumph, underscoring again and again: We Americans and you Germans. Because you did not believe in human freedom you had to settle for unconditional surrender. Tears of joy sprang into my eyes. I found a type of strange understanding I have not been seeking: the joy of those words, yet the pain of being alone to rejoice when hearing them.
Captain Presser is so terribly nice to me, but even she seems to have misunderstood, for she assures me that that message is not meant for me—that I should know that a broad division lies between the civilians here and me. Of course I know that only too well. My body is here, as is my language, but my soul is in America, the country that liberated me and gave me freedom.
Gerda
Once I was living in Munich, Kurt would visit me frequently at the comfortable house that had been found for us nestled at the edge of the Perlacher Forst, inviting woods on the outskirts of Munich. Sometimes our evenings would be spent just talking, a great deal about the past, starting with early childhood. On some occasions we would be joined by some of Kurt’s friends as well as Mala’s and mine. We were becoming very close, especially those of Kurt’s friends who had been present at my liberation. It seemed that the experience had forged a special bond. Most often, however, Kurt and I would leave the others and walk alone in the woods. We would exchange details of our respective workdays, in my case about the letters I had come across or the people I had met in the course of the day. That could set off some lighthearted banter, especially when I would do my impersonations of the characters I had encountered. At other times we would fall silent, holding hands and remembering our families and friends who had been lost. Usually by the time we walked back, it would be under a star-studded sky.
One evening stands out: August 15, 1945. Kurt arrived earlier than usual, exuberant and in a jubilant mood. “The announcement just came through that the war with Japan is over!” he shouted, brandishing a bottle of anisette. Filling me in on the scant details that were available, it was nevertheless clear that the war had truly ended and that he would not have to participate in an invasion of Japan, which had been my main concern.
That marked the first time I tasted “real” alcohol, except for the occasional sip of wine I had been permitted during my girlhood, and the evening remains with me as a heady, delirious blend of joy and relief.
Munich, September 6, 1945
Dear Kurt,
It would not be right to express good wishes for the new year only, because good wishes for friends should not be seasonal but permanent. Anyway, without breaking with tradition, I am sending you all good wishes at Rosh Hashanah, now and always. But today, Kurt, is a difficult day in a different sense. It is my beloved mother’s birthday, the fourth on which I can no longer put my arms around her.
There are many flowers in my room, and soft music fills the air, evoking her gentle, tender image in an almost sacred word: Mother. So many obscure incidents crowd my mind; small, insignificant, everyday childhood memories, taken completely for granted, now becoming legends veiled in the mists of a bygone era. How wonderful it must be to have a mother, to be a mother, to have that unique title that can only belong to one in each family. There can be many children, but they can only call one “Mother.” My thoughts go to the one who gave me life, and I think it is symbolic that she was born today, at a time when we are on the threshold of a new year.
I do feel that in all likelihood the year ahead will be the beginning of the most important chapters of my life. I recall this time last year and think of all those eyes looking up to the heavens, and I see Ilse’s, moist with tears, as she whispered, “This will be the year—this surely must be the year!” For us in the camps and on the march it was a question of who would live and who would die. Although we tend to measure life within a span of years, the events that chart our course have nothing to do with the calendar. And as far as that is concerned, it surely was a most important year. It finally brought peace and security to the world. For that I am deeply grateful. Above all it was a most important year when I think of you. You have escaped the dangers of an enemy intent on destroying you, and, thank God, you came away whole.
The new year then stands swathed in veils of unforeseeable events. What will it bring? For you the certainty of a return home, of going back to a normal life, no matter what will have changed. Surely the war must have changed you, too. May you find all you hope for, and may the hand of God protect you and shield you from evil and give you peace and contentment, which I believe to be the cornerstones of happiness.
For me, too, it should be a decisive year, a new beginning. What does it hold for me? I wonder. Life—and, I pray, some kind of return “home.” Most important, the inferno of the war is over. I am grateful that I can share my thoughts with you, as you keep assuring me that I always should. I do so gladly, with gratitude to have you as my friend.
Gerda
September 13, 1945. I had just returned from work at about six o’clock when I spotted a Jeep in front of the house. It could not be Kurt, I thought. He never comes before eight in the evening except on a Saturday. But then I saw him jump from the vehicle and stride toward me. “Can we go for a walk?” he asked, and I happily agreed. We sauntered through the woods, and for a time there was a strange silence between us. I sensed that I must contain my curiosity. Finally Kurt broke the spell and in a very low voice said, “I won’t be able to come on Sunday.”
We had planned to attend a piano recital, and I had been eagerly looking forward to it. I asked if he was going to be on duty that day. The reply was unexpected and stunning. “No, I’m going away.” Tears began to sting my eyes, but I managed to ask how long his absence would last.
“I’m going home,” he said quietly.
Had the earth opened beneath me, I would not have been more startled. The forest around me seemed to sway. I stammered something meaningless about being glad for him, but my throat tightened and my heart beat wildly. I wanted to thank him for all he had done, telling him how much our friendship had meant to me, but instead chose to remain silent, realizing that my voice would betray me.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” His voice was hoarse. This was cruel. Why must he prolong my torture? After what seemed like an int
erminable pause, he picked up the conversation: “I want you to come to America!” That was the final blow, but I managed a tentative “What should I do there?”
“Be my wife!”
I could only stare, dumbfounded. Had I heard right? Taking my face in his hands, and looking straight into my eyes, he said simply, “Don’t you understand? I love you. I want to marry you.”
The words penetrated my mind, and a radiance filled my being, waves of happiness, calm, and peace. I heard a bird flutter in the branches of a nearby tree. From far off a horn sounded, while I clutched my precious happiness as though it were a dream about to fade on the border of wakefulness.
I heard Kurt whisper, “I love you. And by some miracle, you love me too. I went into the war to fight, expecting only ugliness and pain, but I found love. I discovered feelings within me that I didn’t know existed. I had dreams of an ideal, impossible to attain. I thought it must always remain only a fantasy, yet I found that you surpass all my dreams.”
Suddenly I was in Kurt’s arms, drinking in his words, oblivious to my surroundings, feeling tossed about like a small vessel on a tempestuous sea, making port at last.
A question rose to the forefront: Is he proposing because he feels sorry for me? Shyly I gave voice to those doubts, but he assured me that although he did feel a responsibility toward me initially because of my suffering, it didn’t take long for him to realize that he was in love with me. At the same time he wanted to be sure that I could be happy in his kind of life and with all he could offer. He went on, “But when my orders came through to go home, I knew that I didn’t want a life without you.”
We both had been reluctant to tell each other how we truly felt during all those weeks. But now the floodgates opened, and the dam holding my joy was about to burst. I could no longer contain my happiness.
It seemed that both of us were like ribbons tossed into the wind, floating through the years, through places unrelated, through incidents significant to each, through this all-consuming, cruel war that had just ended. Was it predestined that we must meet, love each other, and merge our lives?
Kurt broke my musings by offering to sign up for another tour of duty in the occupation forces, allowing us to get married sooner. Another option for him would be to proceed to the United States and send for me as soon as the consulates were in operation. He pointed out that going home now meant finding the right city to settle in and getting a job, all of which would finally allow me to leave Germany sooner. If, on the other hand, he stayed it would have to be for two years.
To let him go, take leave of him, now that I had him for my own? How could I do that? What would my life be like without him, even for a day? I could read in his eyes how much he wanted to go home. I whispered faintly, “Go home,” and was unable to say more. Kurt tried to console me by convincing me how much better it would be for our future if he could go to the United States and settle all the uncertainties that loomed ahead.
Before he left that night I had to ask Kurt the question that had been burning on my lips for hours. Standing at the garden gate in the luminous night, I managed to inquire, “When?”
He knew that was coming and was loath to tell me. “Day after tomorrow, “he said with a pained look. In forty-eight hours he would be gone!
Unable to fall asleep, I sat at the open window, staring into the velvety night. The moon appeared to beam knowingly as if it had heard my unspoken words of happiness. I could see the twinkling of stars, myriads of them, stretching into infinity. It was a magic night, full of promise, and rich in the possession of love returned.
Before long, though, cold fear crept into my heart, the familiar dread of again losing someone I loved, just as I had lost everyone I had loved in my family. It was a fear of being alone again, of my beloved departing forever.
“Kurt,” I called into the night, “Kurt, I love you.”
And somehow I felt my cry answered. I knew he must also be awake, that his thoughts were meeting mine, and that there, beyond the sphere of human vision, we met, embraced, and would never be alone again.
The next day, when I arrived home, I found the house filled with flowers. My landlady told me that Kurt had brought them earlier. Champagne was being chilled in a bucket. The landlady had brought out her best china for the occasion. Several of our friends were present, and they proposed a round of toasts, although I remember none of them. The only reality was Kurt’s arm around my shoulder and the clock on the buffet ticking away our final hours together.
We left the others behind and walked away from the house, seeking to be alone. So much to say, so little time left to say it. The conversation centered around the States, Kurt’s family, and the kind of life he envisioned for us. I listened earnestly, but soon my own thoughts began to spin.
Feeling the protectiveness of Kurt’s arm around me, I drew my own pictures of our future life together. It still seemed like an unattainable dream: being together and never having to part, his name becoming mine. We would watch the autumn leaves fall, the wind and snow would be at the windows, and we would laugh, have fun, be secure together, much as it had been long ago when I had enjoyed watching storms outside through the windows of my childhood home, safely ensconced amid my family.
In time to come we would be at a party, and I would hear someone say, “That’s Kurt’s wife.” His wife—I shall be his wife!
Kurt posed a question: How many children did I think we should have? I was stunned and overjoyed at the realization that he wanted children, my children. How could I tell him that had been my most ardent wish? Long ago, in the Landeshut camp,* we had spun fantasies about what we would look for in a husband, once the war was over. Much to the amusement of my companions, I told them I would merely ask myself, Do I want him as the father of my children?
I could only marvel at that thought now. There was an incredible joy in knowing that I would soon be married and have children—his children. My happiness was so complete that for a moment I didn’t even mind the inevitable separation.
For me children had always been a distant but important dream, the pinnacle of fulfillment. I had always loved babies, even when I was perhaps no older than eight or nine myself. I would quite naturally prefer to play with and care for my younger cousins rather than follow other pursuits. In the slave labor factories I constantly dreamed of some day having children, the ultimate horror being the sterilization programs that we knew were being carried out in other camps. I would rejoice every month that confirmed that I was still capable of bearing children, while others complained at still having their periods. The camps taught us to improvise, and we would furtively collect dusty textile waste from under the looms, wrap it in whatever scraps of paper we could find, and carefully wash and hoard those treasures for use as sanitary napkins.
Now barely able to believe that he loved me too and wanted to marry me, I could hardly grasp that I might have children with the man who had become my universe. Of course I had known all along that he was fond of me and enjoyed my company, although neither of us had dared to show overtly our true feelings for each other. Although I was still somewhat in awe of him, I found that we truly connected whenever we spoke of our childhood. Then there were the times I felt that we were worlds apart. His was an environment of power and privilege, whereas I was restricted in many ways, coming under the countless regulations that applied to civilians, such as the evening curfew. Frequently, while we were conversing in German, some GI would ask him a question in English, and that always made me painfully aware of my failure to understand what was being said. The gap seemed nearly unbridgeable. He was a citizen of a distant land, where he had a family and friends, enjoyed freedom, while I had no one and belonged nowhere. He was wearing his immaculate uniform while I had only a few hand-me-down items of clothing.
When I looked at the exquisite creatures that stared out at me from the pages of the issues of Life magazine he would bring regularly during those visits, I agonized how I could possibly measure up to
those American girls with whom he spoke English, flirted, danced, and apparently carried on a lively correspondence. I felt sure that he must always remember me as he had found me at liberation, weighing sixty-eight pounds, with gray cropped hair, in rags, and not having bathed in three years. How could he then have fallen in love with me? I felt grateful to be on the periphery of his life and could hardly comprehend that he wanted to elevate me to its center.
We walked on, talking, spinning dreams, each climaxed by the miracle of our reunion, that magic day when we would be together again. It must have been long past curfew for me, but we didn’t care. I inquired about the time, and Kurt dismissed it by claiming his watch wasn’t working.
On the path that led back to the house, we sat down briefly at the edge of the woods. That’s when I found the courage to ask how long it would be until I would see him again, and words of reassurance came back: “Short or long,” he said tenderly, “my thoughts will always be with you. All my waking hours and my dreams will be about you.”
Kurt urged me to think of him whenever I was lonely and to visualize him doing the same. Hesitating for a moment, he said haltingly that perhaps it would be better if he stayed on after all. Everything within me cried out to plead with him to stay, but I found myself persuading him to take the opposite course of action.
Back at the house, we sat on a couch, amid the heavy fragrance of roses in the living room and the scent of candles wafting from the wrought-iron candlesticks. I dreaded these last moments so much that I wanted them to be over. I wished that he would go quickly, knowing it was inevitable anyway. At the same time I was afraid, terribly fearful. I wanted to cry out that I had noticed the second hand moving on his watch, but remained silent.
The night wore on, and Kurt got up several times, once getting as far as the door, but then turning back again. Sitting up from time to time, I dozed in his arms. Now and then I would look up to him, he would kiss me, and I would fall asleep again for a few seconds.
The Hours After Page 9
