When We Were Brave

by Karla M Jay

  The Red Cross tour in their town was expected to last five hours, perhaps six. The group would visit the infants’ house, the children’s art gallery, and the Jewish elder’s office after reaching Market Street. Izaak sat on one of the many benches along the way. The man playing the part of a city banker was ready to smoke his cigar and hand out cigarettes at just the right time. The pharmacist was waiting to help an elderly couple into his shop. It was nice to feel important.

  A girl from the store approached Izaak and handed him a large red apple. He hadn’t seen anything like it in such a long time. Just the feel of the produce in his hand was unreal. The ripe fruit inside of a shiny red peel. Nothing smooshy or wrinkly about this one.

  “Go ahead. Eat it,” she said. She pointed to the interior of the market. “There’s so much food in there, they won’t miss a few apples. We’ve all had one.”

  “Thank you.” He bit into the crisp fruit and it made a loud snapping noise, the sound bringing back wonderful memories. He’d eaten many apples and never thought about how special they were. The juice ran down his chin, and he wiped it away with his arm before taking another bite. When half was gone, he slipped the remaining portion inside his shirt, where it sat sticky against his skin, saving it for Mama.

  It wasn’t long before the scout hurried to the top of Market Street and gave the five-minute warning. Izaak walked a few steps away from the fruit market and stood in his place. His heart beat faster. The Red Cross visitors entered the street, and on cue, he walked to the market, pointing out fruits to the same girl who gave him the apple. She began loading everything he pointed to into a sack, and he paid her with gleaming coins, just as the officials passed behind him. The visitors laughed and talked with the officers like old friends. The Germans’ faces were neighborly, so unlike their usual harsh and demanding looks. He lifted his sack of fruit and headed back the same way the visitors entered. His second performance was clearly a success, and the third act was the one he looked forward to most.

  He stopped by their apartment and hid the fruit under their mattress. Mama would be so surprised when she found it. With hours to kill before his last act, he sat on their cushion and thought about what it must be like to be a famous artist like Joseph E. A. Spier. The Germans asked Mr. Spier, a Dutch artist, to paint eighteen different watercolors. They were made into booklets, souvenirs for the Red Cross officials. The paintings showed cheerful scenes from Terezín/Theresienstadt, joyful people going about their everyday activities like in today’s play.

  Izaak memorized Spier’s paintings in the booklets. He hoped someday he could paint like that. Spier also had secret paintings showing the not-so-happy times. Back when the town was dirty, and Rahm wasn’t nice. Those images showed crowded bunkhouses painted with drab colors. Workers pulling the hearse full of dead people. And families gathered in a shadowy room at night to listen to a single accordion player, whose skeletal face looked scary in the light from one flickering candle.

  Izaak’s final part in the play was to help hand out the beautiful booklets. He kept one under their mattress to show Papa when they were together again. He stood up and left the building, trying to think how he might spend the next few hours. Unlike Aden’s house, Izaak’s courtyard at the Dresden Barracks had no playground equipment, but there was a half-inflated ball he and the other boys liked to kick around. He walked to the courtyard to see if anyone was free to play.

  There, he found a tight circle of people praying over a wooden box. It was the only kind of funeral allowed. From here, the family would carry the coffin to the crematorium to be burned. The ashes were then stored in The Columbarium, an underground building at the end of a long brick tunnel. Once, he ran a message to the Jewish worker in charge, Solomon, a pleasant man who spoke Dutch. Inside, there were thousands of boxes filling the shelves, and he must have looked scared because Solomon led him outside. “Remember, here the dead have a name, son. Their families will know where they rest, unlike other . . .”

  He didn’t finish the sentence but started again. “Each box in there has the person’s name, birthdate, place they were born, and the day they died. About as much respect as they will get from the Germans.”

  He didn’t want to think about the dead on such a memorable day. He left the courtyard, and walked through blocks of back alleys, past the old building where the sick and elderly now lived. An old musician, who often performed for them, walked slowly down the street, his cane tap-tapping the cobblestones. He seemed to be enjoying the warm band of sun brightening the narrow space way between the buildings.

  On the outskirts of the city was his favorite spot, the gardens along the moat. He descended the stone steps, leaving the higher walls of the town behind. In the spring, the cherry trees bloomed all at once, as if one day they decided to dress up in pink skirts. The smell was so sweet it made him dizzy under their graceful limbs.

  He walked through the orchard, remembering times he and Aden picked cherries, secretly eating them when the guards looked away. Later this summer, they would pick peaches, pears, and crunchy apples. He licked his lips—the taste of apple still clearly there.

  Today, workers bent over long rows of lettuce and peas, filling baskets to be loaded onto a wagon. Two horses ate tall grass as they waited to pull the wagon back up the slope to town.

  Izaak climbed to the upper edge of the moat. From here, he could see forever, so forever must be able to see him right back. He waved his arms at no one, imagining what he looked like at the top of this tall hill. Way below, he barely made out houses beside two lines of trees shading a road. Farther on was the Lower Fortress. He was too far away for anyone to see him, and he’d never seen anyone there. Just as he started to look away, he spotted tiny dots walking through the archway, leading from the fortress. Other dots carrying itty-bitty guns, walked alongside he assumed were prisoners.

  His heart thumped in his ears. What if Papa was one of the prisoners? He would be so surprised to see his son. If he could just get a little closer, he could tell if one of them was him. Of course, he shouldn’t go beyond the moat, but just this one time would be fine, and he was ready with an answer if anyone asked why he was down there. He slid over the side of the mounded hill and walked downward, tracing a path the workers took when they gathered hay for the horses. After twenty minutes of winding down the hillside and through fields of brush, he reached the road leading to the Lower Fortress. Now his clothes were dirty and not so new-looking, but he could clean them up before his third part in the play. He crouched in a dry ditch and watched the men working in the field, picking up big rocks.

  Up close, the men were grimy and skinny like the men in Płaszów. They dug in the field and then staggered to load rocks into a big wagon. They didn’t talk, but the silence was broken by the heavy thunks of rocks landing on each other.

  Izaak shielded his eyes, squinting at the men, looking for Papa.

  Suddenly, he was yanked to his feet from behind and dropped hard onto the dirt road.

  He struggled to stand, rubbing a sore elbow, as an SS guard spun him around and yelled words Izaak didn’t understand. Other men with guns soon surrounded him. The world swam in a blurry panic of yelling, mixed with his overwhelming fear—he was going to be killed. Mama would never know what happened to him. He wouldn’t finish his part in the play. A man slapped him hard across the face, and as pain radiated through his head, he burst into tears. He held his arms over his head.

  “I’ve come for hay to feed the horses,” he said. He pointed to the large fortress. It seemed so far away now. Through his tears it blurred, looking pretend and toy-sized.

  A big man dragged him to another soldier. Izaak’s toes barely touched the ground as his legs cycled along the road.

  “What are you doing here?” the guard asked in Dutch. This man had a droopy mustache and a deep scar across his forehead.

  “I came for hay,” Izaak said again, as he gulped the s
pit stuck in his throat.

  The men discussed it over his head before the guard spoke again.

  “You are lying. The workers come with a cart to collect the hay.” He smiled a rotten smile. “Is your cart in your pocket?”

  “No.”

  The men laughed.

  Lying was a very bad thing, but he’d learned it was allowed if you were about to be killed.

  The guards talked together.

  Izaak decided to just tell the truth. “I’m on break from our special play in town. It’s for the Red Cross. I’m looking for my papa and when I saw the men down h—” His voice quit on him, but his mouth still moved.

  The guards studied him. They kept looking at the town on the hill, and Izaak wished he was still up there, looking down. The guard with the scar took him by the arm and led him along a road under the line of trees and toward the opening to the Lower Fortress. He tried to pull away, but the man was very strong.

  “You’ll be taken back tomorrow. After the Red Cross leaves.”

  “But I need to be there this afternoon. I have another part. Please let me go back.”

  “We can’t.” The guard stopped and scowled at Izaak. He leaned close and Izaak smelled cigarettes and onions. “You see . . . what we do down here is quite different than what happens up there. And the Red Cross doesn’t need to learn that from a nosy child.”

  The SS guard prodded him over a stone bridge that crossed another moat. They entered a brick tunnel which opened onto a narrow courtyard, with long brick buildings on each side. Tall grass grew on top of the dirt piled on the roof of the one-story buildings. The guard pulled him to an open door along the building.

  Izaak dug in his heels. It looked like a dark prison inside. “No,” was all he could say before the guard pushed him into the empty room, where he slid across the rough cement floor.

  “This is what you wanted, right? When the men come back from work, you’ll go with them to their barracks. Search all you want for that papa of yours.” The guard closed the wooden door and the click of the lock echoed in the cell.

  The room smelled bad, and the stains on the floor in the corner were probably where other people gave up trying to hold their pee.

  Izaak stood and leaned against the door. Maybe the guard was just teaching him a lesson and soon the door would fly open. The man would laugh and say, “Go on, now. Get back up to Theresienstadt, you little rascal.”

  He waited and waited. The sunbeam through the tiny window in the door moved across the floor and then started to climb the far wall.

  And still the door didn’t open.

  Herbert Müller

  Crossing the Atlantic - July 1944

  Herbert set down the pen on the large wooden desk, studying his signature on the oath of secrecy. And prayed he made the right decision for his family even though he knew they had no choice but to leave for Germany immediately. His stomach twisted in a knot when his complaint about Frieda being attacked was shrugged off. The answer? “We are overcrowded and undermanned.”

  He’d learned two things about their repatriation. First, his family would be exchanged for “real American citizens” trapped in Europe. Second, anyone who volunteered for deportation to Germany had the legal right to return to the United States at some future date after the war. Those who did not agree had no such privilege. In spite of all that transpired, he most certainly wanted to return.

  He rounded up his family. The first step was receiving typhoid shots and smallpox inoculations. Next, they were escorted to the small room where they’d all slept the night before. Each family member was allowed to pack only one suitcase. With no idea how long they would remain in Germany, they added blankets, sweaters, and overcoats—items Jutta thought to bring from their home.

  The repatriation process required that Herbert have a precise destination such as an address for the family in Germany. He gave the last known address of his married cousin, Elke Dressler, in Wiesbaden. He sent off a hastily written letter announcing their imminent arrival at some unknown date in the near future. The letter was sure to be a shock. Americans showing up in Germany when everyone else was trying to get out.

  With suitcases ready, they changed into their street clothes for the voyage. Thankfully, they wouldn’t arrive looking like criminals in their military prison uniforms. Some good news was Pastor Graf would be on their Liberty ship, the MS Gripsholm. He was returning to Stuttgart.

  “Looks like we’re in this together,” the pastor said.

  When they boarded a ferry to take them to the ship, the day offered a brilliant blue sky with seagulls circling overhead, their harsh cries matching Herbert’s frayed nerves. The events of the last few days, coupled with the dread of the unknown future, were taking their toll. But he knew his role. He’d stay positive while leading his family safely to Wiesbaden. A plea ran through his head. God, let that city still be standing. On board the Swedish luxury ship, the MS Gripsholm, they were shown to their cabins where they stowed their cases. He and Jutta would finally be together, the children in the next cabin adjoining theirs, and Otto’s separate was room in the same hallway. His father’s health improved with the decision to leave. Confinement agreed with none of them, and even though they couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t be sleeping in the barn with cows in a few weeks, the feeling of no longer being trapped encouraged them.

  They returned to the immense deck and sat on benches, watching the ship fill with hundreds of deportees and just as many crates of Red Cross supplies.

  “We aren’t the only ones who were convinced to leave,” Jutta said.

  “I’m looking forward to meeting my cousins.” Frieda’s pigtails lifted in the breeze blowing across deck.

  “Yeah. With our amazing German skills”—Alfred patted his sister on the back—“you and I’ll be able to greet them and name a few foods.”

  “We should have listened to you, Grandpa,” Frieda said. “Maybe we can practice with you on the way there.”

  “Good plan.” Otto reached for her hand and held it. “Think, of what you want, to learn to say.”

  “I know,” Alfred said. Then in a whiny falsetto voice he continued. “Take us in, please. We are convicts on the run from America.” Jutta laughed and Herbert couldn’t help but smile.

  The ship’s engines rumbled to life. The vibration under Herbert’s feet signaled there was no turning back. “We’re off,” he said, pushing as much excitement as he could into his tone. The ocean liner slid away from the concrete pier and performed a slow rotation until its bow pointed them toward Europe. A pod of dolphins raced alongside, drilling light grayish-blue tunnels through the black water.

  His family fell silent. Frieda leaned into Jutta’s embrace as the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty were absorbed by the horizon. And just like that, they were at sea.

  Memories spun through Herbert’s head like playing cards flipping in the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Church picnics, community dances, a German community that loved Beethoven and Bach unapologetically. Wonderful evenings around the radio, with Jutta knitting or baking while wide-eyed children listened to the Lone Ranger and Gangbusters. He pictured Alfred’s face in his favorite comic books, Aquaman and the Green Arrow. Frieda and her stamp collection. Her pen pals from Kansas and Nevada. Her musical ability.

  Through it all, there were hard times, as well. Times that molded them, united them as a family. But none of it, neither the long work days in the mill and orchard alongside his father nor the time he almost lost Jutta to summer pneumonia, and not even the death of his mother, prepared him for this moment. The country he loved, and believed loved him back, was trading his family like livestock.

  He cleared his throat. “Fact Time, family. Here’s mine. Time passes by so quickly. I know this seems like the worst that could possibly happen. But together we will make it. Someday, perhaps sooner than we think, New Yo
rk City will be growing before our eyes instead of shrinking. You wait. Uncle Sam will regain his sanity.”

  “I never want to see New York City again,” Frieda stated.

  Jutta brushed away a strand of hair caught against her eyelashes.

  “My turn. It’s easy to be angry right now.” She’d caught a cold and developed a cough that gave her voice a froggy tone. “We’ve seen our neighbors’ and the government’s mistakes. But the world slowly spins no matter how angry we might be. Let’s think of this as a journey and see where it takes us.”

  Her insights always sounded prayerful to Herbert. He felt as if he should add an Amen.

  “My Anni . . . I wish was with us,” Otto said. “We talked about, returning to Chermany one day . . . just not this way.”

  They waited for Alfred to share his thoughts. He remained sullen.

  “Son?” Herbert said. “You get to have your say.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “You know the deal. All facts are accepted.” He patted Alfred’s leg. “Spit it out.”

  “We’re going to be forgotten.” Alfred’s mouth twisted into a bitter line. “Maybe that’s not a fact but we’re already unwanted. Who’s going to give a hoot about us coming back?”

  Herbert felt an invisible fist holding and squeezing his heart. These same unvoiced fears swirled through his head each hour. He ruffled Alfred’s hair and one more time forced cheerfulness into his voice. “I promise you, I will make sure we come home together.”

  Just after sundown, Herbert met Pastor Graf on deck. They leaned on the steel railing. The relaxing shush and slosh of the waves vibrated the side of the ship. A pink and orange horizon lay nearly lost in a low-lying bank of clouds while brilliant clusters of starlight formed directly overhead.

  Graf lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.