“We need the book to prove our case.” Catherine said. “Without that book, we can’t prove that Gabi’s deed was valid. Why don’t you think Lenzini shot him?”
Liam shrugged and shook his head. “It’s possible, but I doubt it. Lenzini’s a worm, but I don’t see him having the brass to shoot an innocent man in cold blood.”
“Then who?”
“Lenzini told me that we had kicked a sleeping lion. He meant his client, VinCo.”
FORTY
Bologna, May 1938
Hitler made a state visit to Italy in May 1938. It was a grand show of solidarity: the first time Hitler had come to Italy since the signing of the Axis agreement in 1936. His seven-day visit was a newsreel splash. He, Goebbels, Göring and a large Nazi entourage arrived by train at the brand-new railway station that Mussolini built solely for the occasion. Hitler’s motorcade drove into Rome on the newly paved Via Adolf Hitler.
The papers reported that the two leaders stood on the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia where Hitler said to the screaming crowds below, “As führer and chancellor of the German Reich, I ask Benito Mussolini, Il Duce of this Volk, to which the world owes the great inventor and scholar Galileo Galilei, to accept this Zeiss telescope, complete with the entire equipment for an observatory, as a present and as a symbol of reverence and friendship.”
The photographers followed Hitler as he toured Rome, and on May 5 they traveled with him to Naples, where Mussolini proudly showed off his Italian navy, one of the largest fleets in the world. The next day in Rome, Hitler reviewed Italian troops passing before him, in passo romano, the Italian version of the German goose step. The newspapers were full of photos. There were newsreels in the theaters. Thousands lined the streets to see the German leader.
On May 9, Hitler traveled to Florence. And so did the Bologna State Opera. On short notice we were asked to perform Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra in Florence’s Teatro Comunale for the German and Italian delegations. Prior to the opera, the orchestra was requested to provide an afternoon concert in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria.
The weather could not have been nicer for the afternoon event. Hitler and his delegation sat on a raised platform with Mussolini and his cabinet. We played Rossini overtures, including the fan favorite: the overture to The Barber of Seville. There was so much applause, we encored with Guillaume Tell, which Hitler especially liked. I could have sworn that as he stood clapping, he looked directly at me and recognized me.
That evening, Mussolini and Hitler watched Simon Boccanegra from Il Duce’s box. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the great Duce sleeping through most of the performance. He was known to be a cultural boor. Hitler, on the other hand, an aficionado of German opera, watched the performance intently. After the show, Hitler, Goebbels and Mussolini came down to compliment the singers and the orchestra. Hitler was all smiles. I wondered how much he’d smile if he knew that my father, concertmaster of his beloved Philharmonic, had just snuck out tens of thousands of reichsmarks before Göring could get his racist hands on them.
Once again, Hitler looked directly at me. Then he turned to Maestro Vittorio and said, through his interpreter, “The young lady, the violinist, I have heard her play before. I wonder if she might honor us with a few measures of Massenet’s ‘Meditation’?”
I was shocked. What a memory. He was referring to the Junior concert two years ago at the Winter Olympics. Vittorio beckoned me forward. Apparently, Hitler did not remember my name and would not make the connection to my father. I thought about refusing him, saying that I did not remember the score. But then, he asked, “What is your name, Fraulein?”
There was no way I wanted to solo for Hitler, nor did I want to give him my name, but I was flustered and afraid of being rude. He could have my father thrown into a concentration camp on a whim. “My name is Ada Baumgarten.”
He said, “Please, a taste of the ‘Meditation.’” It sounded more like a command than a request. I bowed and played the piece I knew so well. As I played, Hitler stood there with his eyes closed, conducting the piece with his index fingers. I finished, he bowed ever so slightly and said, “Well done, Fraulein Baumgarten.” He did not shake my hand, but wouldn’t that have been dandy newsreel footage? Hitler and his favorite Jew.
“You played for Hitler?” Natalia said.
“I did.”
“Too bad you didn’t have a bullet in that bow.”
“It was creepy,” I said. “Seeing the two of them laughing it up, taking in the opera, made my skin crawl.”
“It’s a very bad alliance, Ada. Mussolini idolizes Hitler and seeks his approval. He knows that Hitler is building the largest army in the world and starting to gobble up countries. Mussolini wants to be his partner. That’s why he invited Hitler to review Italy’s armed forces: to flex his muscles. You can be assured that he will move Italy closer to Germany in social policies as well. I know for a fact that discussions are taking place right now to limit the number of Jewish professors in the universities. Since the beginning of the year, they are down thirty percent.”
“With Hitler it is a madness, a compulsion, but I didn’t know that Mussolini hated Jews.”
“Ha! The fat cow could care less. He is quoted as saying that the Jews have lived in Italy since the days of the kings of Rome and should be left undisturbed. Everyone knows that his mistress, the socialite Margherita Sarfatti, is an Italian Jew. Many of his supporters are Jewish socialites. But now, after seeing him suck up to Hitler, you can bet your last lira, it’s only a matter of time until anti-Jewish measures are taken to appease der führer and court his support.”
I hoped that Natalia was wrong, but she was right on the mark. That summer, the newspapers started running stories on the negative influence of Jews. They reported on the problems that Germany and Hungary had encountered with Jews and the measures they had taken to curb so-called Jewish financial abuses. On July 15, 1938, the Giornale d’Italia published a report entitled Manifesto della Razza, the Manifesto of Race, supposedly prepared by doctors, anthropologists, zoologists and other scientists to prove that Italians were descendants of the Aryan race—and Jews were not.
In August, Mama wrote to Papa to tell him what was going on. She told him about the newspaper slurs and the manifesto. She told him that Mussolini admires Hitler. She warned him that Italy would soon be another German colony. As far as she was concerned, it was time to leave. She begged him to take her to the United States. Her father and mother were living in New York. Maybe they could be sponsors. She wrote that it was only a matter of time until Storm Troopers were marching through the piazzas of Bologna.
Despite my efforts, I couldn’t calm her down. We arranged for a telephone call with Papa. After telling Mama how wonderful it was to hear her voice, Papa reminded her that both he and I had contracts through the end of the year. We really couldn’t leave before January. We could make plans, but we’d have to stay put through the end of the year.
“Things are moving too fast here in Italy,” Mama said. “Natalia told me that racial laws are under discussion in the Fascist Grand Council. She knows things, Jacob. And Mussolini issued a press release on August 5 stating that restrictions on Jews were going to be enacted.”
“But they haven’t been enacted yet,” he said. “It’s not Germany. There are no anti-Jewish signs in restaurants in Bologna, no banners across roads leading into town, no students kicked out of Italian schools, no businesses refusing to sell to Jews. The Italian people do not hate Jews and in four and half months we can leave.”
“Why does it matter what the Italian people think when their dictator can make it illegal to be a Jew?” Mama said.
“You’re panicking, Friede.”
“Maybe I have a right to. I’ve been in a Gestapo prison!”
“Please try to be patient, and at the end of the year we’ll all move somewhere safe. Conditions in Bologna are so much better than here in Berlin.”
“I think four months is too long,” she said. A
nd she was right. In the next four months, our entire world would turn upside down.
FORTY-ONE
Bologna, September 1938
On September 1, 1938, Italy announced the first of its racial laws. All Jews who had settled or obtained citizenship in Italy since 1919 were subject to expulsion and ordered to leave the country within six months. We were planning on leaving anyway, but the promulgation of that law set a deadline. Natalia had been right: the racial laws that had secretly been under discussion were now a reality. More laws would rapidly unfold over the next several weeks.
On September 2, 1938, all Jewish students, teachers and professors in Italian public schools were ordered to leave by October 16. An exception was made only for native-born Italian Jews who were enrolled in a course of study before the act. Natalia, doing her doctoral studies, was exempt and would not be expelled, but many of her friends would be gone in six weeks.
On September 15, we received a telegram from Papa. More terrible news. Grandpa had passed away in New York on August 15. The letter, which was delayed due to Papa’s forwarding address, had been sent by the director of the Jewish Home for the Aged, where both Grandpa and Grandma were living. Grandpa had been experiencing chest pains and he died peacefully in his sleep. Memorial services were held on August 17 at Temple Chai. Regrettably, the director mentioned, Grandma was not doing well. She was suffering from senility. She was in poor health and seemed disoriented without her husband.
Mama’s world was spinning out of control. The new Italian law required Mama and me to leave by March 1, and Mama refused to go back to Berlin. In order to emigrate to the United States, we had to have a sponsor or close family member there; our plan now depended on Papa getting a position with an American symphony orchestra, and that depended on Uncle Wilhelm. The neighboring countries of Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia were all under Nazi control.
Of course, we weren’t the only ones looking for a new home. In 1938, Europe faced an emigration crisis: over a million European Jews were in the crosshairs of racial laws; over five hundred thousand were trying to emigrate. To address this problem, and at the urging of President Roosevelt, thirty-two countries came together for a conference in mid-July in the town of Evian-les-Bains, France. Hitler did not object at all. He stated that if other nations would be willing to accept “these criminals,” he would put them at their disposal, “even on a luxury ship.” Sadly, if each country had agreed to accept only 17,000 refugees, all those émigrés would have been saved. But after ten days of discussions, the conference ended without any meaningful solution.
We knew that unless Papa could get a position somewhere—the United States, Britain, France—Mama and I would have to return to Berlin in March. But on September 18, our situation brightened. Mussolini proclaimed that Jews who held Italian citizenship (like me and Mama) and possessed unquestionable civic merit in regard to the country could apply for an exemption from the harsh racial orders. The details of his proclamation were not immediately available. What was “civic merit in regard to the country”? Would my artistry and performances in the BSO qualify? And what about Mama? If I were granted an exemption, would that apply to my family as well? Natalia thought I qualified and we made an application.
I wired Papa to come for a visit, that Mama wasn’t doing very well. He needed to make time, no matter how difficult. He replied that he would come on October 10 for a long weekend. That lifted Mama’s spirits a little and she started to make plans for his visit. He was her rock and he could always make her feel good. He could remain positive under the most trying circumstances. He could reassure her. But it was not to be.
Before October 10, Germany invalidated all Jewish passports. They were required to be surrendered to Reich offices and would be reissued only after a J had been stamped on them. The bureaucratic delays made travel in October impossible for him. Once again, Mama felt adrift and I did the best I could to comfort her.
On November 9, during rehearsal, I received a note from Natalia. “I need to talk to you and your mother. Very important. I will see you tonight.”
When she arrived, she was frantic. “Can you contact your father in Berlin? Does he have a telephone?” she asked.
“I think so. We had one at the house, but he moved. I think he has the same number. And I have a number for Uncle Wilhelm. I can get hold of one of them. What’s going on?”
“All hell’s going to break loose in Germany tomorrow. You need to warn your papa.”
“What are you talking about? He’s safe.”
“No Jew is safe. My people have intercepted a directive from Reinhard Heydrich to all of his district commanders in the SA. There are going to be riots throughout Germany, all directed against Jewish businesses, synagogues and individuals. And that’s going to happen tomorrow.”
“Heydrich told them all to riot?”
“Not exactly. In his directive, he ordered his commanders not to endanger ‘foreign Jews’ or ‘non-Jewish Germans’ or their property, but he told them not to interfere when the rioters go after German Jews. When the rioters sack the synagogues, he ordered the SA to remove the archives and written records and deliver them to SA headquarters. It’s all in his directive. You need to get word to your father. Tell him to stay in his house. Do not go on the streets.”
“Why is this happening? And when are the riots supposed to occur?”
“Tomorrow, Ada! The Nazis are manufacturing a reason to ravage Jewish businesses and places of worship because of a shooting in Paris.”
“In Paris?”
“Recently, Hitler ordered all Polish Jews to leave Germany. Since Poland has strict immigration quotas, they had nowhere to go. Right now, they’re being kept in a camp. A Polish Jew who lives in Paris found out that his parents were being held in a camp. He went to the German embassy to try to get them out. He got into a heated argument with the German diplomat and shot him. That’s the spark. It’s the excuse the SA needs for the riots—a Jew killed a German diplomat. The retaliations in Germany will be insane.”
“We could go to the call center to make the call, but what can I say? If I tell him to stay inside the house, he’ll ask why. I can hardly say that we know about Heydrich’s secret directive. The Gestapo monitors long-distance calls. I can’t warn him about a riot that hasn’t yet occurred. Anything I say would connect my father or Uncle Wilhelm with the underground.”
Natalia agreed. “You’re right. We can’t even send a telegram with that information. We’ll just have to hope nothing bad happens to your father.”
That night the riots began, and they continued throughout the next day. They called it Kristallnacht—the Night of the Broken Glass. Natalia had all the information correct. The rioters broke windows on thousands of Jewish stores and looted the property. They destroyed 267 synagogues, many of them burned to the ground. Jewish cemeteries were desecrated. Thirty thousand Jewish men were yanked off the streets by the SS and the Gestapo and taken to concentration camps.
Bologna newspapers reported the riots but said they were provoked by Jewish murderers. I needed to be sure my father was unharmed. I called his number for two hours, but there was no answer at his apartment. Then I tried calling Uncle Wilhelm. Finally, I got through to Zitla Furtwängler. I asked her if she had seen Papa. She told me that all rehearsals and performances were canceled. “I haven’t been out of the house for two days,” she said. “It’s so dangerous on the streets. Wilhelm is at the Philharmonie. You might try him there.”
After going through a few staff members, I heard the familiar voice, “Ada, my dear, how are you?”
“Worried, Uncle Wilhelm. Is my father with you?”
“Be glad you are not in Berlin, my child. This is dreadful. Shameful. Someone has opened the gates of hell.”
“My father, Uncle Wilhelm. Is he there with you at the Philharmonie?”
“No. Rehearsals and performances have been canceled for at least two weeks. I haven’t seen Jacob since Wednesday.”
“I’m so worried about him. He doesn’t answer his phone.”
“He lives in an apartment in the Jewish section now, just off Oranienburger Strasse. Unfortunately, that’s where the riots are. They have sacked the New Synagogue. But if I don’t hear from him, I’ll go over there when things calm down a little and check up on him. I’ll tell him to wire you.”
“Thanks so much, Uncle Wilhelm.”
“I hear wonderful things about you, Ada. Your father is busting his buttons.”
“Thanks. Things are going well for me, but Italy is changing.”
“So I hear. I’ll look after your father. Don’t worry. Tell your mother hello.”
“Will do.”
Two days later, we received a telegram from Uncle Wilhelm: “Stopped by the apartment. Jacob not at home. Neighbors say they haven’t seen him. Will try to find out.”
“I think I should go back to Berlin and find Papa,” I said to Natalia and Mama.
Natalia shook her head. “Bad idea, Ada. What can you do that Furtwängler isn’t already doing?”
“I don’t know, but he’s a very busy man. I could run messages for him, I could go places when he doesn’t have the time.”
“Germany canceled all Jewish passports,” Mama said. “How will you get in and how will you get out?”
“I have an Italian passport. The border guards won’t stop an Italian citizen.”
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