Alex's Wake

by Martin Goldsmith

  For a month now I have been taking a three-times-a-week book-binding course here in Les Milles, which gives me much pleasure now and may prove useful later. Please save all postage stamps you can get for me, from all countries, used as well as new ones, worthless as well as valuable ones. I had to start collecting all over again, so I need practically everything.

  I think of you often and wish you all the best, especially of course that you’ll be hired by an orchestra soon. That’s it for today. Love, yours, Helmut

  By the way, practically all the letters that arrive here have been examined by Wehrmacht Headquarters.

  As it happened, Günther and Rosemarie (by now George and Rosemary) were hired by an orchestra, though not one anybody would recognize. Since arriving in the New World in June, they’d managed to scrape together a meager living, my mother as a domestic and my father as a worker in a factory that polished and reconditioned old zippers. Between them, they earned twenty-six dollars a week, enough to enable them to rent their own apartment on 103rd Street near Columbus Avenue in New York City. But they continued to practice their instruments in their free time, and toward the end of the summer, they learned about a Chicago-based traveling orchestra that was looking for new recruits. The ensemble’s founder and conductor, a Czech-born musician named Bohumir Kryl, was to hold auditions in New York for a tour of the Midwest and South that was scheduled to last from mid-September until shortly before Christmas.

  George and Rosemary eagerly made appointments to audition for Mr. Kryl in his hotel room. They were both hired, with a combined salary of forty-five dollars a week, and on September 15, 1941, just days before Alex and Helmut wrote their letters from Camp des Milles, my father and mother went out on the road in the Kryl Orchestra’s rattletrap school bus. For the next twelve weeks, they gave concerts in such towns as Springfield, Ohio; Springfield, Illinois; and Springfield, Missouri; Terre Haute and Evansville, Indiana; Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee; Little Rock and Jonesboro, Arkansas; Monroe and Shreveport, Louisiana; and Lubbock, Amarillo, Austin, San Antonio, and Galveston, Texas. They were always on the move and, understandably from their youthful point of view, found next to no time either to write to Alex and Helmut or to write letters and fill out immigration forms on their behalf.

  But Alex’s brother-in-law Max Markreich continued his tireless efforts to alert any authorities he could find to the plight of these two souls caught in the snares of Camp des Milles. In the autumn of 1941, as George and Rosemary were touring with the Kryl Orchestra, Uncle Max wrote to the International Relief Association, Inc. (IRA) and to the Refugee and Immigration Division of Agudath Israel Youth Council in Brooklyn. The answers were disheartening.

  From the IRA came this response: “As much as we would like to help in cases like yours we are unable to do so, firstly because we are still trying to raise sufficient funds to be able to pay for those refugees for whom we have obtained visas, and secondly our committee is pledged to help only active anti-fascist non-Communist refugees who are especially endangered.”

  Then, on November 3, 1941, Uncle Max heard from Agudath Israel. “Dear Mr. Markreich,” the letter began:

  Due to the recent decision of the Department of State in Washington, we regret to advise that all immigration work and any problems pertinent to it have come to a total standstill. Until further notice from the State Department as to the new procedures in the immigration situation we will be unable to render any additional advice and help. With Torah greetings, Harry Sherer, Refugee and Immigration Division.

  As they had feared, Alex and Helmut were forced to endure a third winter in French captivity. On January 1, 1942, Alex observed his sixty-third birthday within the confines of Camp des Milles. On the following day, he penned an angry letter to the son from whom he had heard nothing all autumn, the son in whom he had invested so much hope and trust.

  Dear Günther,

  The day before yesterday I, at last, received your long-awaited letter. Thank you for your good wishes for my 63rd birthday; I send them back to you as 1942 New Year’s wishes. I am very glad that you are doing well, above all that after all your strenuous exertions you were in good health, and I hope that you still are today. I would have written you long ago, that is after the 7th of November when my last letter was mailed, if only I had received a single line from you since the 5th of September. About 4 weeks ago I thought it was ridiculous, as I told Helmut that I probably would not hear from you until my birthday. Unfortunately, however, it turned out I was right.

  Look, dear Günther, you write us at best one page saying that you understand our lot and implore us not to despair. If after 2½ years of internment we would indeed be on the point of despairing, which is in itself quite possible after all this disheartening, bleak time, then your nice words would change nothing. I see nothing but words, nice words, suitable for a magazine that thinks it’s giving its readers encouragement. They are the same words I heard when I came home on furlough, spoken by those who had not heard the whistle of bullets during the First World War. But that you believe you have to give us that kind of lecture really appalled me, so after thinking about it for hours the last two nights I came to the conclusion that you haven’t the slightest inkling of our situation.

  In June, the last month we were in Rivesaltes, after we each had lost about ⅓ of our weight, we were at a point where I thought we would not live to see the winter. Then, just in the nick of time, the affidavit from Uncle Max Markreich arrived and resulted in our transfer to Les Milles. For 4 months I worked from early until late at night as an assistant in or outside the kitchen, mostly in the broiling sun, the oldest among 25 people, until I got an infection in my right hand that lasted 6 weeks. It was not only painful but handicapped me considerably. Since the work is still done outside—and the temperature has been between 10 and 20 degrees F in the mornings—and with the meager pay of 45 fr a week, for which one can’t even buy one loaf of bread, I decided not to go back to work there after my hand healed.

  Recently, although the food here has become wretched, I have recuperated so that I now weigh 120 pounds, still 15–20 pounds less than in the old days. Helmut also has regained a good part of the weight he lost, but unfortunately since we left Germany he has had 10 throat infections, the last one 14 days ago. And sometime this week his tonsils are supposed to be surgically removed in neighboring Aix-en-Provence; then he will presumably be less prone to infection. We wouldn’t have decided to do this if the newly arrived doctor had not recommended it as absolutely imperative. The worst thing is that we haven’t any underwear or coats. When our underwear is being washed, we actually have to go to bed since we don’t have a change of underwear. What was previously called de-lousing is very problematical since the disinfection cars are so old; they probably date back to World War I, so the young breed of vermin isn’t even killed.

  We live from one mail delivery to the next; the mail is distributed at 2:00 PM and if you receive nothing one day then you hope for something the next day. So when I realized you hadn’t sent us any news between September 9th and November 30th, you can understand why I was very sad about that. And your birthday letter could have been written by any stranger since there is no personal information about you in it except for telling me what states you played in! Helmut is just as sad about all this as I am. It is the first very serious disappointment I have experienced in one of my children.

  Well. Yesterday morning Helmut, who is still my best comrade as he has been from the start, gave me half a day’s ration—c. 110 grams—of bread, an orange, and a fountain pen bought with the pay he received for work he performed in the spring in Rivesaltes as a medical assistant. The pen is very simple, no golden penpoint, but it will last a few years. He was very dear and made the day really festive. On January 1st, 1941, we slept on wooden cots without straw in Agde; in 1940, in Sionne, with the temperature 10 below zero F, we slept in a large room on stones and litter; this year we sleep in a room of an old brick factory. Still, it’s bet
ter than the two previous years!

  For today, with love, yours, Father

  One week later, on January 8, two days after Rosemary’s twenty-fifth birthday, Helmut added his words of reproach to his father’s indictment. “Dear Günther,” he wrote,

  I don’t really know how to go about writing this. That is to say, would it be better to write candidly or should I hold back my thoughts and feelings? But since I assume you’re still the same person you used to be, I won’t force myself to hold anything back. I am so glad that you two have already hit it off so well in social and artistic matters as well as in material things. Of course I know that your touring was enormously strenuous and I know, too, that on the material side, even though you are earning good money, it’s not enough to put anything aside. But your letter, well, it wasn’t an appropriate New Year’s and birthday letter for your Father and Brother! You don’t write anything about what must have been very satisfying experiences for you—nothing about your work, nothing about the country and people and the many impressions that you formed in the New World. No, you don’t seem to realize how a prisoner waits for letters from those close to him! I don’t wish to complain, for I know that at this time there are millions of people who would be grateful to have an existence like the one we have here for the duration of the war. In addition, our situation has improved. We are less hungry and more optimistic. But being called martyrs of trampled justice without having done anything to build up a new justice because one is merely a passive victim is little consolation, because we want to live—to live in the full meaning of the word. That kind of “hero-ization” seems terribly ironic to us, just as it would seem a mockery to a soldier who receives a gleaming Knight’s Cross for having his legs frozen off.

  After a quarter year in which you made us wait in vain for mail, we are very disappointed with your letter. It contained almost nothing except excuses, even though we did not complain to you about anything. In spite of your being so overworked, it is almost unnatural that you found no time to write us. I hope you understand this letter in its proper sense and that perhaps by now you will already have found the time and peace and quiet to let us participate differently in your life. After all, right after your arrival in New York along with Max Markreich you demonstrated that where there is a will there is a way!

  I do hope that it is not now too late. It seems that cases that have already been approved in Washington now have to be checked over if the visa has not yet been issued. Even the consulate here in Marseille doesn’t know what they require now. I’m afraid that because of the new regulations immigration for us has in effect been blocked. So for the moment I believe more in a European miracle than an American one. Of course, as always, I hope that we will soon see each other again—for many reasons! But at the moment, I don’t believe it will happen.

  There isn’t much news to report about us. Ever since the war began I have had 8–12 more or less serious sore throats, and so I am going to have a tonsil operation next week. I will be glad to be freed at last from these constant infections. Rosemarie, I thought of you on your birthday and I send you many good wishes. I hope your own personal wishes as well as ours will be fulfilled! All the best! Best regards to both of you.

  Yours, Helmut

  Write to us, don’t keep us waiting!! And don’t forget to put interesting stamps on your letters!

  By this time, my father and mother were back in New York City, their tour with Bohumir Kryl having ended precipitously a month earlier. On December 7, 1941, as the Kryl bus was approaching Brownsville, Texas, on U.S. Highway 77, federal police ordered it to halt and demanded that the passengers identify themselves. George and Rosemary still had their German passports with them, documents that prominently displayed the sign of the swastika. The two were immediately taken into custody, and the police phoned Washington to determine whether they had just nabbed a couple of German spies posing as musicians. Not until the following morning did the Immigration Office cable Brownsville and clear their names.

  That night, Mr. Kryl announced that he had run out of money and the rest of the tour was canceled. Furthermore, he said, the bus was staying with him and the musicians were all responsible for finding their own way home. George and Rosemary, not wanting to spend their modest recent savings on transportation, decided to hitchhike. With their instruments under their arms and their thumbs in the air, thanks to the kindness of strangers they covered the two thousand miles between south Texas and New York City in time to return to their little apartment on 103rd Street a few days before Christmas.

  A few weeks later, they received those searing letters from Les Milles. It is true that their peripatetic existence of the previous months must have made regular correspondence difficult, but his father and brother’s accusations of indifference and selfishness must have caused my father to feel the deepest wounds of guilt, sorrow, and remorse. Spurred into action, he, too, was able to procure an affidavit on behalf of Alex and Helmut. He sent that welcome news, along with the sum of twenty-five dollars, to Camp des Milles. On March 21, 1942, Alex wrote a grateful and hopeful letter back.

  Dear Günther and dear Rosemarie, thank you for doing as much as you could to get that affidavit. I hope that the documents are now complete and have arrived at the State Department in Washington. The main thing now is that the visas be granted; they say the first visa since December was granted yesterday in Marseille. If the State Department will actually send us the visas or notify the Consul, I would ask to be telegraphically informed so that I can get the necessary ship bookings. It would be a deliverance for us.

  We two are well although we have had to suffer through a severe winter, without coats, without being able to change or wash our underwear which is in rags. Helmut had several episodes of sore throat again and was supposed to go to a hospital in Aix-en-Provence in the middle of January to have his tonsils removed. After 4 days of observation in the hospital, he was sent back and the operation was postponed to a warmer season. Otherwise our lives follow their accustomed path; in addition to the constant worry about our loved ones, we now have to concentrate on keeping ourselves healthy. Besides its poor quality the food here is absolutely insufficient in quantity, so that if you couldn’t get some extra food you’d go downhill fast. For months, both at noon and in the evening, there was only soup, white beets or red beets or Jerusalem artichokes or sweet potatoes, and each variety was served by itself for a very long time. In the final analysis, if we had not been able to occasionally get some additional food thanks to our meager earnings we would not have survived this period of internment which by now has lasted more than 30 months—unfortunately many others did not.

  Today, except for the early morning hours, we are having a hot Sunday. I am writing this letter outdoors. On the whole the climate here is good, whereas in Rivesaltes in the Pyrenees there were storms; the Mistral virtually saps your strength. I will bless the day that brings us freedom again. At my age, every month spent under the current conditions shortens one’s life, and it is time that the portals to freedom be opened for us, so that we’re not all used up before it finally comes to pass. Therefore, do everything you can to get us out.

  For today then, with love and in the hope that we’ll be seeing each other again soon, Yours, Father.

  Helmut added some lines of his own to his father’s letter:

  The emigration problem looked dismal until a few days ago: not a single person under the German quota has received a visa since the middle of December. Now in the last few days the reports that have come from over there, much like yours, sound more favorable. And today they said that as of yesterday visas for the German quota were again being issued in Marseille. I hope that in the meantime our second affidavit has reached Washington and has been approved. If so, then it no longer seems completely impossible for us to be able to get to America. Perhaps you’re right, and a miracle will happen when one least expects it. That would be wonderful! If only we knew that Mother is safe and if only we could be c
ertain that one day, in the not-too-distant future, we would be reunited with her. Because Eva is working, she and Eva seem to be somewhat protected from deportation; whereas she thinks that unfortunately the danger to your mother, dear Rosemarie, is greater.

  The most unpleasant aspect of our present existence is the fact that primitive things like eating, washing, etc., turn into problems that must be solved repeatedly and that therefore take much more time than one would wish. And yet I try to make as much use of the time of my “imprisonment” which would otherwise be lost. So I am taking part in various courses, language courses (Spanish among others), an electro course. In addition I work in the camp’s primitive book bindery and attend various lectures—one about the development of European Intellectual History “From Homer to Goethe,” one about U.S. History, etc. I am very sad that you have not received the letter we sent in early November; in it were detailed reports about the cultural events in the camp such as concerts, lectures, performances, etc. At the moment I’m reading Shakespeare plays. After having read Othello and Macbeth I am now reading King Lear, and with growing admiration Tolstoy’s War & Peace.

  Warmly, yours, Helmut

  In the early spring of 1942, my parents were employed for the first time in the United States as legitimate professional musicians when they were hired by the Southern Symphony Orchestra of Columbia, South Carolina. The engagement was for several weeks in May and June, when the orchestra gave outdoor concerts in a festival setting. They wrote excitedly of their plans to Alex and Helmut, but when they took the train from New York to Columbia, they did not get off in Washington to knock on the doors of congressional offices on Capitol Hill, where fateful decisions about visas were being made every day. Instead, when they arrived in Columbia, they sent the captives fifty dollars. In the middle of May, they received a letter from Helmut that hinted at all the bureaucratic obstacles he and his father faced as they worked at their release.