I know all about the Anton Gerhardt trial and the subsequent rumors and information that came to light about his son. I have seen hateful things written about the both of them and just printing his name alongside your own would no doubt encourage plenty of hate mail. Though I hope that in time you will write more about Dr. Willem Gerhardt, that perhaps you might find and interview some of the people he saved. My memories of Dr. Gerhardt are muddy, though I remember distinctly that he was the first adult who was not afraid to show me kindness after I was taken from my home. Sometimes it takes years to appreciate the good traits, since the bad ones are unfortunately the ones that often define us. It is because of him that you, Elsi, and I are alive. I have never stopped being grateful. Many people suffered as a result of this war. Loss is not confined to one race or one ideal.
“He has taken everything with him,” Elsi said to me one day in Oldenburg, during one of the rare times she spoke of Dr. Gerhardt. I can’t remember what else was said then, but these words have somehow stayed with me, and only much later did I think I understood what she meant: that perhaps she never really knew him at all. That perhaps many secrets have gone with him to the grave.
I hope your mother can forgive me for being so bold, but I believe that she had loved him deeply.
I was returned to my real family. My father had died in battle, on the side of the Germans in a war he saw no need for, and his body was never recovered from the field. We had little money, and my birth mother and I tried to run a poultry farm, but it failed, and we relied on the support of my brothers before I eventually found work in a factory an hour’s walk from home.
Sadly, the years apart had impacted our relationship. My brothers and I were never as close as we should have been, though this did not mean I didn’t love them (and we have remained in contact over the years), but I perhaps became someone else. My mother, Catarina, and I fought often. She had different ideas about raising me than I was used to. She had planned for me to marry a boy from the village whom I didn’t love. When I told her that I loved someone else, a Jewish boy I had met at work, after the war had ended, she forbade me to see him. My mother was an anti-Semite unfortunately. Of course, by then, I’d had enough of people telling me what to do. I ran away with Josef.
It was Josef who had suggested we go first to Germany. He thought that Berlin, in particular, in its period of growth after the war, would offer more work and opportunities for new careers. The second reason he chose Germany was to find you. I had told him so much about you. Truth be told, I was not comfortable with the idea of Germany at first. I still had a grudge against the place and some of the people there. I admit also that I was nervous about seeing Elsi again. I wondered, perhaps naively, if she might not want to see me, whether I would be a reminder of memories she wanted buried: memories that might somehow interfere with a new life that she had since created for herself. And we had both been through enough!
I was, by that stage, and despite our differences, feeling a measure of loyalty for Catarina and guilty that I had left her again. I can, today, with hindsight, appreciate the suffering she, too, endured because of the war. And the loss of her husband, my father, was felt greatly by us all.
From Berlin, Josef and I took a train to Oldenburg and located the house that you and I and your mother had shared, but by that time you and Elsi weren’t living there, and the new occupants knew nothing about her or of any children who had lived there. The transfer of ownership had been done through a lawyer who resided in another city.
I wished so much that I had found her. I had expected her to answer the door, and walking away that day I grieved terribly, almost as much as when we had last parted. It was the first time that Josef had ever seen me cry. The house alone reminded me again of how much Elsi had taught me. How much I had healed.
Josef and I were too young and poor and inexperienced to attempt to trace you both any further. As well, I was a young woman then, impatient and with no more time to waste on the past. Josef and I then returned to Berlin.
We did not stay long in Germany. Josef had survived the war by hiding with friends, but he had lost most of his family, and speaking to other Jews who had returned to Germany, and hearing of their experiences, the country quickly lost its appeal. It did not take long to find people who would help us emigrate to America. And there, in a new country, the horrors and losses now in our wake, we began an exciting chapter in our lives.
The rest of my life has been fairly even, with a few more of life’s bumps along the way that few people can avoid. But there have been so many happy times since we arrived here that would require many more letters to all be told.
Josef and I own and run several successful medical practices, which, if you respond, I can describe in more detail. We have been blessed with many angels—two wonderful children and three delightful grandchildren.
I can tell you that when my second daughter was grown, and curious of my past, she took a trip to the place where I had first met both Dr. Gerhardt and Elsi, to find that a beautiful hotel now stands in its place. I had told her about Elsi, and she was keen to reach out to her. She also wrote to the Tracing Agency to search for information on your mother. My record was eventually found, but there was no mention of Elsi Winthur or Elsi Gerhardt. I believe that Gilda Janz, the woman who returned me to Catarina, had been true to a promise she made me to protect Elsi’s identity. She had removed any trace of her name and any address that Elsi might have forwarded.
Your mother had seemingly vanished, and I can’t blame her for that. Even now I have moments where I can clearly remember the fear of being found when we lived in Oldenburg. How in those first years there, with war still going on, we would turn out the lights when we saw a stranger’s vehicle parked in our street, and sit near a window to spy on the occupants. These feelings of fear at being found—and your life as you know it suddenly broken—might be pushed to the side, and mostly out of sight, but they never really go completely.
I am pleased to learn that Elsi, like me, found her own place on this amazing planet.
I have never forgotten her sincerity and selflessness, and how she raised me with love and faith and self-belief. I don’t believe I would be the person I am today without her.
You also mention in your article that Elsi has been ill with ovarian cancer. As a doctor, this is a field I am very familiar with. I would very much like to talk to you and Elsi, if you both wish it. I think the time for buried memories has long passed, with too many good ones to replace them. Please find my telephone number at the bottom.
I hope you receive my letter favorably.
Yours sincerely,
Matilda Lederberg
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gemma Liviero holds an advanced diploma of arts in professional writing, and she has worked as a copywriter, a corporate writer, and a magazine feature writer and editor. Liviero is the author of two gothic fantasies, Lilah and Marek, and the historical novel Pastel Orphans. She now lives in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband and two children.
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