And though I would never wish otherwise, I now have my bossy older sister back. After a month in Bergen-Belsen, I realize I do not belong here. Hela, still the big sister, wants to take care of me and tell me what to do all the time. Even though we are both adults who have been through hell and survived, she still wants to tell me what to wear, what to eat, what to think, what to plan for my future. Like Marek, I look at the vast blue sky and realize I need some freedom. I take the train and go back to Munich and Sabina.
Munich
The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
—Mark Twain (1835–1910)
SEPTEMBER 1945–MARCH 1946
It’s very late when I get off the train in Munich. It is a cold autumn night and the trees, the few that are still standing after the bombing, have lost all their leaves. I am eager to see Sabina, and I walk as quickly as I can to our little room.
We hug and kiss. And she tells me that she has been desperately lonely.
I am so fortunate. I have two brothers, a sister, a nephew, an uncle, and two cousins. She has no one in the world. Leon wrote to her in August to say that he had gotten her letter and that he will come to Munich. She is waiting for him, but it has already been a month.
And then she tells me the latest terrible news.
“Basia, I felt so alone without you, so I went to the DP camp at the Deutsches Museum. Everyone was talking about what had just happened in Kraków. Poles had been throwing stones at returning Jews, robbing and beating them. Then they accused some of the Jewish survivors of killing Christian children and hiding them in the Kupa Synagogue. A Polish mob ran into the synagogue, can you believe it, it was on Shabbos, and they beat the men who were praying there. They burned the Torah. Then they burned the synagogue. The Jews who were hurt were taken to the hospital, where a mob entered and beat the wounded again. Basia, I’ve heard that horrible things like this have been happening all over Poland.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I want to cover my ears. It can’t be true. Not after what we have all been through. Another pogrom, so soon?
We need to be with our people. To feel safe and secure. We spend the autumn and winter going to the Jewish Relief Center at the Deutsches Museum every day. We eat our meals there and visit with all the survivors. So many of them are young and full of such excitement to be alive. We sing and dance and flirt and do everything we can to keep busy. We cannot allow our minds to dwell on the past or our losses for even one second. Instead we are eager to begin building our futures. Now that we are no longer hungry for food, we feel a passion to devour life.
But still, for Sabina, no word from Leon.
* * *
Sabina is so disappointed. She realizes that if Leon really cared about her he would have come by now or at least sent word. I have been seeing a charming man whose passionate pursuit of me is quite flattering at first. But soon I get tired of his aggressive efforts to win me over, not respecting my wishes to hold him at arm’s length. There are even rumors that he has a wife somewhere. I start to question his honesty.
To escape his pressure, I flee Munich and join Hela, Marek, Idek, and Josek back in Bergen-Belsen. But after a few weeks, Hela gets on my nerves again.
I decide it is time to go back to Munich.
The only way to travel between Bergen-Belsen and Munich is a car ride to Frankfurt and then by train to Munich. A few of the DPs at the camp dabble in the black market and they have cars, so whenever one of them is going to Frankfurt, he puts up a notice offering others a ride in exchange for sharing expenses.
When a notice appears I sign up and get a note back telling me what time to meet the next day. My driver is another survivor from Poland, and I am surprised that there are no other riders. Usually there are more people than can fit in one car.
After driving for about two hours, making meaningless chitchat along the way, he discovers that he is having “car trouble” and we can go no farther but must spend the night at a nearby inn. When we go to check in and the woman at the front desk asks if we want one room or two, he immediately answers, “One.”
Can you imagine? Without a glance in my direction and not a moment’s hesitation, “One.” Car trouble, indeed.
What nerve! I look at the woman and immediately and emphatically say, “Two rooms!” And that’s the end of that. We get two rooms. The next morning we drive off to Frankfurt. For the entire drive he speaks to me brusquely and only when necessary, which is quite fine with me. (It seems that whenever I look to a man for help or safety, it is a matter of luck whether he will in fact be my rescuer or another dangerous predator; whether Polish or German, Jewish or gentile. My only conclusion is that some men are like dogs.)
It’s starting to get dark as I rush from the Munich train station to our room. I can’t wait to tell Sabina what has happened. But I am shocked when I walk in. There is Abram Altus sitting with Sabina. I hug her and kiss her and notice that there is now a curtain hanging from the ceiling, separating her bed from mine. Sabina and I had met Abram at the DP camp some time before.
He was always quite attentive and eager to spend time with us, but neither of us was interested in more than casual small talk. Sabina and I had always found him a bit dull. He was far more religious than we and not a lot of fun. He told us that he was soon to immigrate to America and often boasted about his thriving business before the war. Yet he spoke in a rather uneducated way. We had met so many men at the Deutsches Museum who all had wonderful stories about their rich and successful pasts before the war. How could we know if they were telling the truth? But there is Abram sitting on Sabina’s bed. And I understand her deep loneliness and her desperate need for someone to take care of her.
Abram must see that we want to be alone and talk, so he tells us that he is going out for a walk and a smoke. Right away I tell Sabina about the trip from Bergen-Belsen and the shocking gall of the driver pretending to have car trouble and then thinking he could share a room with me.
“He must have been so angry. He could have left you right there!” Sabina says, at first concerned. But then she smiles and says I should have used Rachel’s ploy.
“Rachel?” I don’t understand what she means.
“Basia, don’t you remember the stories of all the marvelously clever women in the Torah? Remember, in Genesis, when Rachel stole her father’s idols and hid them in a camel cushion? When her father came looking for his idols, she sat on the cushion and said, ‘The time of woman is upon me,’ meaning it was her time of the month when it was forbidden for any man to touch a woman.” Sabina laughs.
Her laugh is such a beautiful sound; she has been sad for so long, she rarely laughs.
“So, tricked by his daughter, Laban no longer had his idols to worship. That idiot of a man tried to trick you, so you could have done the same. You should have said to him: ‘I am unclean; the time of woman is upon me.’” She laughs again.
At first I’m not in a mood to think it is very funny. “What, so in two weeks he comes back? After telling everyone in Bergen-Belsen that I’m his girlfriend?” I say.
Then, instead of feeling outrage, I see the humor.
We both laugh and hug. “Sabina, thank you for the story,” I say, “but you know I could have never said that to a man. He’s lucky he didn’t get a slap. He wanted my money so he didn’t strand me and now I’m back here with you.”
Again we hug. I am close to tears, feeling such relief from such a simple gift: to be with a true friend I know and trust.
Abram comes back smelling of cigarettes. It is late and Sabina closes the curtain. She is with Abram but I know that she is still thinking of Leon. Why has he not written or contacted her? And then, later that very evening, Frau Schwartzkopf runs t
o our door to say that there is a telephone call for Fräulein Markowitz. It’s Leon. He has finally called.
Sabina comes back to the room, her face glowing. Leon is in prison in Frankfurt and he needs her to come get him out. She quickly packs a small overnight bag and is gone, leaving me alone with Abram Altus in our tiny room, a thin green cotton curtain between us. I feel very uncomfortable and cannot imagine spending even another night this way. If Sabina doesn’t come home tomorrow, I will have to find another place to live.
Leon
My beloved spoke thus to me:
“Arise, my darling.
My fair one, come away!
For now the winter is past,
The rains are over and gone,
The blossoms have appeared in the land.”
—Song of Solomon 2:10–12
MARCH–APRIL 1946
Fortunately for me, Sabina comes back the next morning, Leon Reichmann with her.
She tells me that she now understands that her dream of her mother was just that—a dream. If Leon wanted to be with her, he wouldn’t have waited nine months to call her. And when she told him about her new relationship with Abram Altus he encouraged her. She understands that his caring for her is not romantic. Like her, Leon has lost everyone. He is left alone to build his new life without the comfort and support of family. Not only does Abram offer a family to become part of, but they live in Detroit, Michigan, and—once she and Abram marry—his brother will sponsor them to immigrate to America! She tells me she now sees that dreaming of Leon gave her something to live for during those last months of the war; but the life she is meant for is with Abram. So she is at peace and happy to see her old friend.
Leon looks so much better than when I saw him back in Piotrków. He’s still skinny but looking more robust and wearing a beautiful soft black leather jacket and wonderfully tailored pants. Leon says that he was arrested by the Americans because he was trying to make some money, something about selling coins on the black market. Such a strange world. We Jews are almost exterminated by the Nazis while the whole world watches and does nothing. Then we are liberated but not given any help for our future. So many survivors were left on their own when the camp gates were opened. They had to find their way to their hometown or to a DP camp. They had no money and most had no food or shelter. And now that we finally find a way to do some business so that we can take care of ourselves, we are punished.
Leon has set up a thriving business in Frankfurt and Berlin, some of it legal, some not, selling watches, scrap metal, and other goods that he can buy in Poland and sell to the Germans, who can’t cross the border. Now he is planning to do the same in Munich. He was able to get started with some gold and money that he and his mother had buried in their backyard soon after the ghetto was formed. When I met him in Piotrków, he had just dug up the money and was on his way to starting his business.
I feel so comfortable talking to someone from my hometown. I never knew Leon well, just that he was Jacob Brem’s best friend and sometimes came to our house for their card games. But of course I knew of him: his fine family, their successful business, the gentle care he took of his mother after his brother was killed that first horrible week of the war.
But I feel a bit awkward. Leon and Sabina treat each other as friends, but he directs most of his attention to me. That very day he rents a room from Frau Schwartzkopf. Then he asks me to go out to dinner with him that night and brings me flowers when he arrives. I can’t eat very much because I have a terrible toothache and he offers to pay for the cost of the dentist. He wants to buy me leather boots. He even offers me a puppy. A puppy! I thank him and tell him I am having a hard enough time taking care of myself, much less a dog, and that I cannot accept such lavish gifts.
Later that night, Sabina tells me that Leon complained to her that I did not like him because I refused his gifts, but she told him not to give up.
* * *
The next day Leon gives me a beautiful amber-colored hat with a green feather. He says the amber matches my eyes. We go walking along the river. He takes me to the dentist after the walk. He tells me that he is not interested in Sabina, and anyway, on the train from Frankfurt to Munich, she had told him about Abram.
I ask him why he came to Munich and he says, “Because you are here.”
And then Leon asks me to marry him.
It all happens so fast. I tell Leon that I will think about it, and he feels rejected because I cannot answer immediately.
But after two days I say, “Yes.”
When I accept Leon’s proposal, I am not in love with him. I barely know him. I wonder, after what has happened to my world and my innocence, if I can ever really fall in love again. But I know Leon’s roots. He comes from a good family. I can trust him. He is a known quantity. And he is strong. I am so weary of having to make all my decisions. I am so tired of standing on my own two feet. I feel secure with Leon and I know that he will take care of me and that good character is the true basis for love. I know my future won’t be easy, but it will be safe.
APRIL 9, 1946
My brother Josek offers to pay for the wedding. So three weeks later, here I stand under the chuppa, the bridal canopy, at Bergen-Belsen with this dark, thin man whom I both know like a landsman and know not at all, surrounded by the little family we have left; no one for him, and my two brothers, my sister, and my nephew for me.
Soon after, Sabina and Abram marry, and within two months she is pregnant.
Having lost all of her own family, Sabina is glad to be gaining a new family. She is especially thrilled to be adding her own blood, a child of her own, and an end to all that sad loneliness.
Marriage
In thy face I see
The map of honour, truth and loyalty.
—William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 2
APRIL 1946–FEBRUARY 1947
From the start, Leon is successful in his import-export business, though a little black market is surely a part of it. We are squeezed into his room at Frau Schwartzkopf’s, but we live a comfortable middle-class life. I spend my days shopping for food to be prepared by the maid we have hired to do the cooking, and stopping by the seamstress for fittings; in the evenings we go to the opera or out to nightclubs with his business partners and their wives.
One evening, at dinnertime Leon comes to get me. “We will celebrate tonight. Get your hat,” he says. And we go to a very elegant restaurant.
Over dinner he tells me that the Americans have just discovered a Nazi officer living in the upper flat of a large two-family house at 166 Agnes Bernauer Strasse. They have arrested the Nazi and offered the apartment and all the furnishings to Leon.
The next day we move into this magnificent palace. For the first time in a long while I feel safe and protected and pampered. Still, it is hard for me to breathe freely. The air feels so heavy. I cannot forget that the Germans methodically, cruelly exterminated six million of my people throughout Europe. I can still hear those words from the national anthem, “Deutschland über alles,” Germany, above all. So my delight in our beautiful new home is tempered by my discomfort over still living in Germany.
I tell Leon I can feel a band across my chest at the thought of staying here, but I also know we can’t go back to Poland.
He nods and looks at me. Softly he says, “Basia, I just heard some terrible news from Poland. In Kielce, over forty Jews were killed because a Polish boy who ran away from his parents for two days claimed he had been kidnapped by Jews who wanted to kill him for his blood. You are right, Basia, we can never go back.”
I feel sick and empty. Leon is right, we can never go back to Poland, and we certainly cannot stay in Germany. But where can we go? Will anywhere ever feel like home?
By now Hela has learned that Jacob survived the war and is alive in Israel, and she and Marek have left to join him. My friend Rozia also survived and has immigrated to Eretz Yisrael, where she was reunited with Sala. But all of them, as much as they would welcome
us back into their lives, warn us of the many hardships of life in Israel. Conditions are austere because of all the shortages and the difficulty in earning a living. And of course there is the unpredictable, sporadic violence with the British and sometimes the Arabs.
Leon and I had been ardent Zionists, although at opposite poles politically—he on the right, I on the left. Before the war we would never have considered marrying. Now those differences seem less important.
Despite all those years when we each dreamed of living in Israel, now we both come to the heartbreaking decision that this is not to be. Leon and I know we cannot return to a life of fear and suffering and struggle. America, most survivors’ first choice, requires a sponsor, someone with the means to ensure our financial support, and we have no one. Leon’s cousin Meyer Reichmann, a prosperous attorney living with his wife, Luba, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has offered to sponsor us there. I begin taking Spanish lessons.
The first night we spend in our new home, Leon and I finally talk about how we escaped extermination. It is such a painful subject that neither of us has wanted to talk very much about the past. Leon tells me that in October of 1941, at the same time that Josek and Idek were sent to the labor camp in Bugaj, he was sent to the labor camp at the Hortensja Glass Factory with his cousin Henry Marton. They were in the same workplace as my cousin Elkanah Libeskind, Mendel and Sprintza’s son, and my neighbors, the rabbi’s sons Tulek and Lulek.
“We were slaves. It was hell on earth,” he says. “We endured backbreaking labor shoveling coal from the railroad cars and breathing in the fire of the ovens that made the molten glass. And we were the lucky ones!”
Looking back, Leon says, it saved their lives because they became “essential workers.” They escaped the liquidation of October 14, 1943, when all of the rest of their families were shipped off to their deaths in Treblinka.
Claiming My Place Page 18
