When We Were Brave

by Karla M Jay

  Although Graf was twenty years older, and they were raised 4,000 miles apart, they had more in common than Herbert shared with his friends in Tulpehocken.

  “Who’s waiting for you in Stuttgart?” He knew about the pastor’s life in Troy, New York, but not much of the pastor’s German family.

  “I have a married sister and three nieces. About the ages of your children. Her husband is fighting, last she understood, somewhere in Northern Italy.”

  “You have no other family?”

  Graf shrugged. “A brother, but I have heard nothing from him. Could be dead. My father died in France at the end of the Great War. My mother died of a lung infection two years before I immigrated to America.” He held up the cigarette. “Would you like one? These supposedly make for healthy lungs.”

  “No thank you.” Herbert smoked when he and Karl were younger, mainly because other teenagers were trying it. He quit when Jutta let him know she wouldn’t kiss him if he continued.

  “How old was your father when he died?”

  “Forty-five. Too young.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. “I still have his letters. I should say, they’re in my desk back in Troy. My father called the war a great stupidity.”

  “I suppose the initial itch to fight for your country wears off when the shock of what war is really all about hits you in the face. My brother is fighting in the Pacific. I wonder what he will say when it’s over, or when he learns we’ve been sent to Germany.” Karl could be dead for all Herbert knew as his brother was stationed on an aircraft carrier, flying from one battle to the next.

  “My father’s last letter was right after the army reached a ceasefire agreement with the French, just before he died of pneumonia,” Graf said. “He wrote of an image he believed he would never forget. A French and a German soldier were on their knees leaning against each other as if embracing. They’d pierced each other with bayonets and dropped like that to the ground, dying in each other’s arms.”

  “Wow. The big shots moving the pieces around on the war board don’t see that kind of thing, do they?” Darkness closed in and the red tip of Graf’s cigarette glowed in the gloom.

  “I emigrated to avoid this war. Just because I was clergy did not mean I wouldn’t be called to fight when the pool of troops ran dry. Knowing what I know now about the Nazi plan, I never could have aided and abetted the Nazi cause while ministering to the troops. I fear I would do as Falk did. Take notes and try to tell the world, even if it meant I died.”

  “I guess we all would.” He prayed he would never have to find out.

  Izaak Tauber

  Terezín, Czechoslovakia - Early July 1944

  After hours passed and no one opened the prison door, Izaak cried himself to sleep on the dirty floor. He’d made a big mistake, one that might mean he would never see his mother or friends again.

  He woke up hungry, and the sun was now higher on the wall. The day was ending. He missed the last act of the play, and more painful than that, he missed his mama. He didn’t want their talk from the night before to be what was happening now, where he needed to stay strong until they met again. His face quivered and more tears fell. His nose dripped snot, but he didn’t care. He’d never be strong without her.

  Footsteps crunched on the stones outside. Someone fiddled with the door, and he trembled as the rusty hinges screeched as it opened. Would he be dragged out and shot? A mean-faced guard waited there and motioned him outside. He struggled to his feet and wiped his arm across his drippy nose. He stepped out into the fresh air of the evening and took in a long shaky breath. The guard said something he didn’t understand, but four men in ragged grey clothes surrounded him.

  One of the shabby men spoke in Dutch. “You’ll stay in our barracks.”

  Izaak nodded because he couldn’t talk. His mouth was so dry from crying out all his water.

  The men led him to a long stone building. Once inside, he was in a room with wide wooden bunk beds like the terrible quarters in the last two camps.

  He tried to be brave but broke down and cried again. One man from the group of four prisoners knelt in front of him. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.” When he smiled, Izaak noticed the man’s teeth were broken, but his eyes were kind.

  Izaak nodded. He was starving. The half apple he’d eaten was long gone.

  The man with the broken smile led him to the edge of a bed and handed him a tin cup. Inside was cool water. After the first sip, Izaak gulped the rest. Then the man offered a piece of bread. As he ate, he studied the room, hoping against hope his papa was one of the skinny men staring back.

  When he finished the bread, an older boy with holes in his pants sat next to him. “I’m Nicklaus.” He nudged Izaak on the shoulder. “Dutch, like you.”

  “If you’re from Amsterdam, have you crossed paths with my papa? Saul Tauber?”

  The boy laughed. “I’m from Aalsmeer. But it’s near Amsterdam.” He crossed his arms as if he suddenly caught a chill in the hot room. “What’s your name?”

  “Izaak.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Eight . . . In July, I’ll be nine.”

  “Well, Izaak. It is July. Now we can call you The Brave Nine-Year-Old Dutch Boy from the hill.”

  He was nine? He imagined by now—this birthday—he would be back at home already with his papa and mama, not alone in some dirty old camp. And these men thought he was brave? He’d done nothing but cry for hours and ruin everything.

  “I think my papa could be here.” His chest tightened as if a rope had wrapped around it. He unfolded the drawing and showed it to the men. When they handed it back, he was sad to see the pencil lines smeared more than the last time he looked. Papa was getting fuzzier and fuzzier.

  The man with the broken smile spoke. “A message will go out with your papa’s name, but not all of the men are back from their jobs.” He shook his head. “None of us in this barracks know him.”

  Nicklaus’s face brightened. He pulled three shiny stones from his pocket. “I have an idea. Let me teach you to juggle.” The older boy deftly circled the pebbles in perfect arcs above his hands before catching and releasing each of them.

  The stones orbited each other over and over, almost hypnotizing Izaak.

  After a few minutes, Nicklaus handed two stones to him. “Start with these.”

  Everyone watched as Izaak flipped one pebble into the air. He caught it before realizing he forgot to toss the second one in the air. After chasing the stones across the wooden floor too many times, he handed them back. “I’ll stick with drawing.”

  When the sun set, his stomach hurt, and he felt like the air had leaked out of his insides. He climbed onto the bunk and stretched out next to Nicklaus. An old man on the bunk above softly sang in another language. Izaak remembered that just this morning he greeted the Red Cross train. It felt like weeks ago. His eyes slowly closed, and he drifted off to sleep.

  Sometime in the night, a hand touched his arm, and he bolted upright. It was dark. A shadow hovered over him. He tried to back away, but the bed was packed with people, and he was stuck out on the edge.

  “No!” he said, but his voice was too full of fear and it came out like a mouse’s squeak.

  The man reached for him again. “It’s okay.” A hand pulled him to a sitting position as he tried to fight him off. Then the man gasped as if choking. “Izaak, is it you?”

  Izaak said he would recognize Papa by his voice, and it was a good thing he did because the boney man, who scooped him up and squeezed him tight, felt nothing like Papa.

  Someone lit a candle, and he came into focus.

  “Papa?” Was he dreaming? Izaak returned the squeeze. They dropped onto the floor wrapped around each other, and Papa rocked him back and forth. This was the happiest day he could ever remember! He couldn’t wait to tell Mama. They had done it! They were all together again. “
I found you!” He traced Papa’s face with his fingers and tried to match up the lines with those he’d drawn.

  His papa was crying, and his face was twisted, making him look even more like a stranger. “Yes. You found me.” He ran his hand through Izaak’s hair, down his arms. “You’ve grown, my son.”

  “I’m nine now.” Half of his birthday wish was granted. His mama and papa were here. Now they just had to get back to the Netherlands.

  The other men in the barracks were awake now and moving around like shadowy ghosts, pouring out of the beds. Someone lit a lantern and more light filled the room. A man began clapping, slowly at first, and then everyone joined in. Soon the applause was thunderous. The smile on Izaak’s face was stuck there, and every time he tried to relax, it popped back in place. There should be balloons and pony rides and celebration cakes!

  Papa took his hand and pulled him from the floor. “We have to go to my barracks. I need to be there for morning roll call.” He paused and looked around at his fellow prisoners. “Thank you for spreading the word that my little man was here.”

  He and Papa tiptoed hand in hand to a building five rows over. Papa’s bed was made of boards like everyone else’s, but a bed never felt so wonderful. Wrapped in Papa’s arms, he asked, “Have you been here the whole time?”

  Papa let out a sigh. “I helped build the Atlantic Wall with the other men from our neighborhood, but then they figured out I was Jewish.” He ran his hand over Izaak’s short hair again and pulled him closer, if that were even possible. “I was in another camp, but not for long, then I came here.”

  “Mama and I were in two camps before here, both very bad,” Izaak said. “Terezín up the hill has been the best, and just this morning we showed off the town to important visitors from Denmark.”

  Papa didn’t laugh as he Izaak expected. Moments passed. Papa’s body shook and something wet dropped onto Izaak’s face. He’d made Papa sad.

  “Don’t cry. Mama will be so surprised when she sees you again.”

  Papa gasped for the second time this night. “Izaak. Are you saying your mama is . . .” His voice cracked, and he quickly cleared his throat. “Your mama is fine?”

  “She is. We were in a play just this morning and she sews curtains and we live in a room in a house with an old lady who farts all night, but soon we will get our own place.” He didn’t know how that would work out since there were still so many people and only a limited number of houses. “At least, I think we will. And she is a nurse again working with babies.”

  Papa’s body sagged. He let out a long breath. “This is a miracle, Izaak. An absolute God-blessed miracle.”

  “I’ve been repeating your nice thoughts, Papa. At least three times a day.” He took a breath. “A man’s true wealth . . .”

  Papa joined in, saying, “is the good he does in this world.” He smiled. “You remembered. I’m proud of you.”

  He liked hearing Papa’s deep voice say the words again. He wasn’t sure he’d done much good for anyone since Papa went away, but he had tried.

  Papa began a quiet prayer Izaak remembered from synagogue, a prayer of thanks. With his papa’s voice rumbling near his ear, he fell asleep.

  The next morning, he was assigned to underwear duty. Not his favorite, but he got over feeling embarrassed about touching women’s undergarments, so it wasn’t about that. Heaps of clean clothes dumped from thousands of suitcases somehow made it to the Lower Fortress without their owners, and it made him sad. He knew the families who packed the cases were forced from their homes like him and Mama. And he suspected many were dead.

  But he and Mama and Papa were still here. He needed to keep good thoughts running through his head. One at a time.

  He kept glancing at Papa, trying to get used to his older, thinner face. Papa insisted Izaak share the stories of his and Mama’s journey to Terezín. He wanted to know everything. It was hard to talk about terrible Płaszów, the headstone road, and cruel Commandant Goeth. But they talked about nice things, too. He and Papa stood outside their shelter each night, looking at the lights from the town above and talking to Mama.

  A moon hung over the Upper Fortress this night. Izaak snuggled against his papa. “Papa?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “I’m worried Mama thinks the Red Cross workers took me away. Or that I got hurt and can’t get back to our barracks.”

  “The Red Cross workers are good people. If they ever took you, it would be to help you out, so never fear them.” Papa kissed the top of Izaak’s head. “We’ll get a message to her as soon as possible and let her know you’re here with me.”

  The next morning, he stood by as Papa approached Nicklaus, the juggling boy who helped carry wood to the Upper Fortress every day. He asked the boy to pass along a secret message to Mama about his and Izaak’s whereabouts, with his added hope they would soon reunite.

  After two days, Nicklaus motioned for Papa to come nearer. He reported Mama was so happy he was safe and that he and Izaak were together. She had nearly gone crazy with worry ever since Izaak disappeared. The Upper Fortress was still treating her well, and now a movie was being filmed about the town on the hill.

  Izaak was jealous he wouldn’t be in a real movie, and he couldn’t stop the tears when he thought of being away from Mama but realized Papa needed him, too. Papa said he’d forgotten how to laugh until he saw him again.

  His papa worked in the rebuilding department. Sometimes he built barbed-wire fences. But other times he did strange jobs like pile up broken cars and parts of buildings on roads to make it impossible to drive on them. He and his team dug out other roads and filled them with gravel. The job was to stop the Russians. Whoever they were, the Russians were sure not welcome here. This week, he was working with hundreds of other men, digging deep ditches, so army tanks would get stuck nose-down in them. Last night, he made Izaak laugh so hard by hanging over the side of their bunk, pretending to be a stuck tank. “Get my face out of this mud!” he mumbled into his hand. Izaak pulled on his legs, but his papa pretended to be too heavy to move. He was glad Papa was still funny because that made up for everything else that wasn’t.

  The food was terrible, and everyone smelled dirty. They drank thin coffee for breakfast and ate a small piece of bread. Lunch was a watery soup with no chunks of anything in it. At night, it was more soup. Once a week, they put their clothes in a huge washer and then hung them to dry. Everyone walked around in their dingy underwear, their bodies all pointy with no soft places.

  The long factory room Izaak worked in had windows that opened, so the heat didn’t cook them on these hot summer days like in the barracks. An attached area at the end of the warehouse held the luggage sent to Terezín from all over. Izaak and Malachi, a boy from Prague, used to sneak into the room and play hide and seek in all the bags and trunks, especially since some were big enough to climb into. It was exciting until the guards yelled at them one day, accusing them of stealing clothes.

  Izaak carried the sorted stack of women’s slips to the folding and packing table. There, men folded the clothes and packed them into bags, so they looked brand new. He carefully slid his pile next to a long row of folded clothes. “Where are these packages sent?”

  A man with a crooked nose looked up from rolling leather belts into coils. “To the enemy,” he said in a growly voice. “We Jews are useless. But our apparel is fine enough to clothe Germans.” He tossed a belt into a bag.

  Izaak couldn’t figure out what was going on. This whole mess was one big war, but Germany was fighting everyone else in the world. They were going to be in a lot of trouble, taking people they didn’t like and putting them in camps and killing them. But everyone would be scattered and have to find their way back home. He broke his marble bag once and his prized toys rolled in all directions down the street. Some fell into the sewer drains. Others were lost in the leaves and garbage along the curbs. He hadn’t re
covered half of them. That’s what he imagined would happen when family members went looking for each other.

  He was lucky. He knew where his family was.

  Some men from their barracks made the move to the Upper Fortress, and Papa was trying to get transferred, too. The moment his mama and papa saw each other again after so long, they should have fireworks to go with it. Papa could pick her up and swing her around like he used to do every day when he came home from work. Mama would giggle and Izaak would pretend to hide because he knew Tickle Time was about to happen, and his papa was an expert tickler.

  Back to the pile of clothes. Izaak now searched for women’s hosiery. Because they were impossible to stack, he learned to roll them up instead.

  He tried to prove he was the best worker in the group, the most helpful, if asked. Because if Papa got transferred to the Upper Fortress, he needed to go, too. Only yesterday, two brothers, fifteen and sixteen, were separated. One, who broke his arm, was sent on the train going west and the other sent to a different camp to work in the mica mines. They begged to stay together, but the SS officers beat them with clubs until they followed orders.

  Izaak didn’t want to, but he’d take a beating if anyone tried to separate him from Papa. He wasn’t going to be without him again.

  Herbert Müller

  Aboard the MS Gripsholm - August 1944

  The Swedish-built MS Gripsholm flew the yellow and blue flag of its country. The hull was painted white and lit with bright lights to broadcast its protected status, hopefully lowering the risk of taking a torpedo as they crossed the Atlantic.

  It surprised Herbert how quickly his family settled into a routine. With the unknown ahead of them, their ability to adapt to their new surroundings was nice to see. They’d been at sea nearly three weeks, received their second dose of immunizations, and established a normal schedule. After breakfast, they’d walk the deck for an hour, weather permitting, and then settle into one of the community areas to play chess, marbles, dominoes, or the most popular game, Chinese Checkers.