When We Were Brave

by Karla M Jay

  With so many assassination attempts against the Führer, Himmler was stretched thin, trying to follow through with Hitler’s genocide plan while protecting his leader. Hunting down a wayward SS officer’s wife had to be at the bottom of Himmler’s list. Or Falk hoped so. He couldn’t live knowing Ilse and his sons were made to live in fear because of him.

  A guard burst through their door and called everyone to attention.

  “Prisoner Schmidt was located.”

  Murmurs spread through the barracks, and the men checked the clock on the wall to see if they won the capture lottery.

  “At fourteen hundred hours, he was discovered ten miles from here.” The guard slowly smiled. “Frozen to death.”

  Just as Falk imagined.

  He needed a different way out of camp and couldn’t spare the time to establish trust with the guards again—that had taken months. He jammed his thumbs into his temples and circled them, enjoying the pain as he pushed harder. He would get out even if he had to fake his death again.

  Izaak Tauber

  Płaszów Concentration Camp, Poland - March 1944

  Izaak inched forward, towing the heavy cart he and three other boys had been assigned to. This had gone on for the last two weeks. The carts were filled with large, flat stones, and pulling them was nearly impossible. He imagined he and the other boys were old horses, so tired they couldn’t tug the cart more than a few feet at a time, their horses’ breaths puffing out in the frosty air.

  Each boy had a rope looped across his chest, stretching behind him and attached to the wooden wagon. One wheel on the cart always tried to go the wrong way in the slushy snow, making the work that much harder.

  Izaak wore two coats over his striped clothes. One to help fight the cold and one to stop the ropes from cutting into his skin. The boys didn’t talk to each other. Ven from the Netherlands and Izaak spoke when they had energy, but the two other boys in their work group spoke different languages. When they all tried to talk to each other, they used sounds and their free hands to mime what they were trying to say.

  The work was so hard. There was no time to talk. Breathing in and out without collapsing was about all he could do.

  And falling down was bad.

  Commandant Goeth was the mean man who ran the camp. It was true he liked to hurt everyone, from people who were extra tired to those just walking. Or working. Just last week, he stood on the porch of the grey house where he lived and used his rifle to shoot at another group of boys pulling sleds. They all died. And Goeth owned two tall dogs named Ralf and Rolf. They were fast, and Goeth liked to watch them chase people and bite their legs. When they couldn’t walk any longer, they were loaded onto a bigger wagon and taken over a hill, crying and holding each other. Those people never came back.

  He and the boys neared the grey house, and Izaak watched his feet. If he couldn’t see Goeth, maybe the commandant wouldn’t see him. The wagon moved faster now. Not only were the boys pulling harder, but also on this side of camp, the long paving stones fit together to make a slightly bumpy street in front of the officers’ nice houses and important buildings.

  Izaak kept his mind off the pain in his back and how hungry he was by trying to read the words on the headstones they walked over. Bogumił, Leszek, Ksawery. They were hard to sound out because they weren’t in his language. When he found out the road was built from gravestones, he’d sobbed all the way back to where his mama worked. She hugged him quickly because hugs weren’t allowed outside the barracks, and her lips trembled as she said, “Think about this. God can now see the names of the people who loved Him.”

  He and the boys walked quicker, and Izaak focused on the pretty Stars of David, or the Tzedakah boxes, carved into the upward-facing stones. Some had a photograph of a person in glass built right inside the marker. He silently apologized for walking on them.

  An older boy said the bad men, who built this terrible camp, pushed over all the stones in the two old cemeteries until all the monuments and grave markers lay face down, or in broken piles. God would be confused as to who was who. Hundreds of adults, including Mama, had the job of digging the dead people out of the dirt and moving them to a bigger grave behind the rows of barracks, so the headstones could be used for streets on the guards’ side of camp. He tried to picture a memorial, an enormous painting with everyone’s picture on it, to remember those in the big grave. Izaak could help draw the people, although his drawing skills hadn’t helped him and Mama so far. It was clear to him they were taken to the wrong camp, and he was too afraid to approach the guards with his drawing of Papa. There was no paper here, but whenever he got a chance, he drew in the snow with a stick, or scratched in the hard ground with a sharp stone. He drew each day to keep his mind off the fact Papa wasn’t here according to the dozens of men he’d questioned. When he asked his mama how soon they would go to another work camp, she looked away and said she didn’t know.

  Izaak and the boys finally reached the end of the street. He could rest for a few minutes while men unloaded the gravestones from the cart. He leaned against the side of the cart and watched all the workers. Everyone had to have a job. Men and women were building more barracks for the people still coming. On top of the empty graves on the hill, workers built the latrines, bath houses, and a building to spray the germs off new arrivals.

  All day long, the women prisoners pulled the squeaky-wheel carts filled with rocks uphill, the ones that sounded like birds. He was always sad when he watched the thirty-five scarecrow ladies roped to one another, staggering side by side dragging the carts. And if watching them wasn’t awful enough, one day, Goeth shot one group, and they fell one at a time, unable to get away. He wet himself and held back tears until he saw Mama that night. She held him close and gave him good ideas to think about, so he could forget what he saw. When the bad pictures came into his head, she told him to sing songs, name all the people he remembered from Amsterdam, or paint something nice in his head. Her suggestions helped a little—sometimes—but not always.

  Today, while he waited for the headstones to be unloaded, he tried to decide what picture to draw in his head since that was the distraction that worked best. The wagon was soon empty, and he and the other boys headed back to the tumbled-down cemetery to load more stones. As they passed through the different sections of camp, Izaak designed a nicer version of them in his mind. In the living quarters for men, he imagined small tables with board games and big glasses of water, fresh, not like the gloppy brown liquid scooped from two ponds in camp.

  In the women’s lodgings, he imagined brightly-colored curtains for the windows and flowerpots near the doors. For a moment, the picture in his head fuzzed out. He became dizzy and almost fell. This happened every day now, but he was afraid to tell Mama. She might not think he was still her strong little man, and he loved when she called him that.

  They dragged the empty cart past the beautiful building called the Jewish Pre-Burial Hall. The top of the white building had three domes and looked like a small palace. Izaak used the eraser in his head to remove all the horses and pigs the guards let roam inside, including getting rid of the animals’ piles of dung all over the pretty carpet and floors.

  Near the railway station, skinny men shoveled snow from the tracks, working fast. A train sat ready to go, belching smoke, the rumble of the engine coming up through the ground, vibrating Izaak’s legs. He and the boys slowed, watching the people climb the steps to enter the same awful cars he once rode.

  “Where do you think they’re going?” Ven asked and swiped at his nose, leaving a line of snot on his coat sleeve. He wore round spectacles that magnified his eyes like a bug.

  The shorter boy in their work group, who spoke Polish, made chugging train sounds and showed his hands moving like a train and then quickly stopping. He pointed to his chest and then shook his head rapidly from side to side, which Izaak understood to mean, “I don’t want to go.”r />
  Izaak wanted to leave. A train going anywhere was better than staying here. He squinted at the huge crowd of people on the platform waiting to board, happy for them, but disappointed it wasn’t him and Mama leaving. Then, like magic, he spotted his friends Zev and Aharon, and their mama. If they received permission to leave, that meant he and Mama might be next. He wanted to yell out to them to say he would see them soon, but, at that moment, Commandant Goeth approached the train. The commandant must have a secret kitchen all to himself because his belly was big and round.

  As soon as Goeth reached the loading area, the soldiers got pushy with their rifles and poked the families to climb aboard faster. One soldier carried a whip and cracked it at the back of their legs, but it was lucky that Izaak’s friends were already aboard.

  “When the trains go in that direction,” Ven said, “I heard they’re heading to a place called Auschwitz.”

  The name sounded like a tight sneeze—Auschwitz! “Is it better than this place?”

  “I don’t know but when people are chosen to leave, that’s where most of them go.”

  If he stayed strong just a little while longer, surely he and Mama could get on the right train, maybe a train going there.

  Herbert Müller

  Ellis Island Internment Camp - March 1944

  After a month, Herbert learned why so many men stayed outside and walked around the small property despite the cold. The frigid air was far better than the stale odor of six hundred nervous men, the overflowing toilets, and harsh cleaning chemicals. Besides, the rats, and roaches the size of mice, scuttled everywhere.

  Inside, he and Otto often visited the “Library,” a room with a dozen folding chairs and a table with boxes of books donated by the YMCA and International Red Cross. However, even there, some creature on the run to a darker corner crossed his foot. The majority of the books were printed in German, the volunteer groups assuming the internees were better versed in that language. While Otto read effortlessly, Herbert brushed up on his childhood language. He’d reread one of the titles, Of Mice and Men, twice now, empathizing with the main characters’ dreams of owning their own land and settling down when tragedy strikes.

  On Sundays, a chapel attached to the hospital offered alternating religious services in English and then in German. Herbert and his father attended the German service held by Pastor Theodore. The German hymns took him back to his childhood in Stuttgart. He and Karl were often impatient church-goers unless there was a hands-on project, like recreating Noah’s Ark and the animals from sticks and clay.

  Today, Herbert was fifty cents richer after finishing another five-hour shift, sweeping the halls and cleaning the toilets. His hip ached and his back spasmed, all for the ridiculous pay of ten cents an hour. The janitorial job served one purpose and one purpose only and that was to fill the frustrating hours as days dragged by with no date for their appeals.

  He returned to the Immigration Hall and found Otto napping. Otto looked like a child curled on his side, his arms crossed and hands tucked in his armpits. His father’s energy diminished each day they remained in custody, and it worried him. Otto blamed himself for their captivity. He lamented that he and Anni should have become American citizens. No matter how often Herbert reassured him they would be returning home together, Otto’s face sagged and his eyes often glazed over.

  He left his father’s side and walked out the building through a side tunnel, his footsteps echoing off the tiled walls. He arrived in the fenced-in area and breathed deeply. A cold, salty breeze reached him from the sloshing waves hitting against the sides of the island. The New York skyline was lit in the midday light. Lady Liberty’s shadow bridged the churning harbor waters, reaching Ellis Island a half mile away, and reminded Herbert of the liberties ripped away from him. Some mornings, he fought to stay immersed in daydreams of home. The patchwork quilt on his and Jutta’s bed. The warm alcove near the stove, his favorite spot to sit and talk with her while she cooked.

  The painful emptiness he carried without his wife and children went beyond what he experienced after his mother died, and he loved her beyond measure. When he closed his eyes, he saw his family. When he opened his eyes, reality mocked him. It was hard to be deprived of time together, and each day without them, left a void that had a weight of its own.

  After he sent a flurry of letters to government officials, friends, and family, the Coast Guard commander restricted his letter writing. Now, he was only allowed two posts a week, both heavily censored according to what Jutta wrote in her single letter back to him. Words were either inked or snipped out. Who did the government hire to clip away his writing with tiny scissors? Or would it be razor blades? Seemed like a whole lot of wasted effort to edit his report on the mundane happenings on the island.

  What unsettled him most was how worthless he felt, stuck in the internment camp while Jutta and the children tried to manage at home. A blizzard had dropped three feet of snow, and as Alfred tried to maneuver the tractor with the plow attached, he sheared off the downspout on one side of the house. Herbert applauded Alfred’s effort since the boy had never driven the plow. But now water would pour off the eaves, and they’d have to navigate a flooded stretch of lawn, which would freeze into a hazardous skating rink just to get to the vegetable cellar.

  Pastor Theodore walked up beside him at the wire.

  “We enjoyed your sermon,” Herbert said.

  The pastor was a good orator and a better conversationalist. They’d met several times outside of church and now Herbert was always glad to spend time with him. Having a friend softened the ache of missing his family.

  “I’m pleased.” He looked around the open area. “Your father is not here?”

  “I left him napping. Who can sleep well with the snoring and farting at night?”

  The pastor chuckled and stroked his short beard. “When you talk from a pulpit you get used to the snoring part. Thank the heavens I don’t get much of the latter.” He had one eye that squinted when he talked. “If you want quiet, try the lavatories at three a.m. It’s where I do my best thinking.” Theodore turned and leaned back against the fence. “Any word from your family?”

  Herbert smiled. “Yes. They’re sending a rescue blimp with a long rope. Want to catch a lift?”

  Theodore laughed and patted his large midsection. “They’ll need a winch.”

  He had no family in America and was arrested after communicating with a friend in Germany who sent a package to him. His postman called the FBI.

  “All kidding aside. My family has been granted permission to visit in a few weeks. I cannot tell you how far away that date seems.”

  Jutta wrote she had news but wanted to share it in person. She had written to many government bureaucrats, protesting Herbert’s unfair arrest and asking for the officials’ intervention. She would not have put their answers in writing. But it hardly mattered. Herbert lost all trust in the government being on his side.

  “Wonderful news!” The pastor clasped his hands together. “I can’t wait to meet them.”

  He and Otto were cautiously thrilled at the news, but aware the government could change its mind at any time.

  “And you?” Herbert asked. “Any word on a new hearing?”

  The man shook his head. “Same old excuses. There are a few thousand ahead of me. They are still investigating. Why don’t I spend more time praying and less time talking.”

  Herbert chuckled. “I hear the same spiel, except for the praying part. No one’s suggesting that.”

  Out on the water, two men in a small dingy were hauling in a full fishing net. The boat bobbed wildly, but the men rode it as if they were born to it.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask.” Herbert rubbed his hands together, hoping for warmth. “What happened in the library yesterday? Some guy tried to kill himself?”

  “Overwhelmed, they said. I got there late, but he threa
tened to kill anyone who tried to stop him from opening an artery.”

  “Knife?”

  “Fountain pen”—Theodore shook his head—“He’s in the infirmary, heavily sedated.”

  “What set him off?” Herbert wanted to punch holes in walls, and he’d only been on the island a month.

  “The government froze his assets. Apparently, a neighbor offered to buy his house, so his wife and four children could have rent money for an apartment. They moved out and found a scrubby little place on the bad side of Akron.” He narrowed an eye. “The not-so-good neighbor then changed his mind and only offered a tenth of the price he promised for their home. Of course, there was no one to complain to. His wife had a nervous breakdown in the middle of city council chambers, where she took her complaint. After that, their children were whisked off to an orphanage. Until she recovers.”

  Herbert shook his head. “That’s horrific.” How did anyone recuperate from losses like that? His moods of nostalgia and melancholy came and went, a rollercoaster of emotions that surfaced in the unlikeliest of places.

  He’d butter a piece of bread and study the slice as if he could discern where the grain was ground. Could it be from their mill? A slice of apple pie reminded him of the way his family made apple-picking season an adventure for themselves and the Haitian pickers they hired. South-of-the-border music. Tables loaded with food. The youngest dark-skinned children, playing on blankets in the shade with Alfred and Frieda years ago. The Haitian pickers often ran the risk of being deported if they broke the law. Wouldn’t the workers be surprised to know their fellow employers were now under arrest and sitting in an internment camp?