by Kathy Kacer
“You can’t possibly understand how much I’d lost in the camps—how much we all suffered,” he continued, refusing to meet Sara’s eyes. His voice dropped, and Sara strained to hear what he would say next.
“Do you know how the Nazis killed some Jews in the camps? Yes, you know about the gas chambers. But that was only one way that they demonstrated their cruelty. One day they lined the women up in twos, facing one another. My beautiful wife was among them. Then they went down the line, firing one bullet into the head of the first of each pair. One bullet that entered the brain of the first woman and then traveled into and through the brain of the second. One bullet for two women. They could save ammunition that way. Effective, no? Economical! Only the Nazis could think of something so evil.” He spat these last words out as if he couldn’t bear to say them.
Sara did not move. Her hand was at her mouth. She didn’t want to hear more details of how the doctor’s wife had been killed. It was painful to hear Dr. Pearlman describe this horrific scene. And yet she sensed that there was more he had to say—and more that she needed to know.
“They were all gone. My beautiful wife, dead in the camps, and my beautiful Karen, dead in the hospital. And the only one left was you, her baby… my grandchild.” And with this last declaration, Dr. Pearlman finally raised his eyes and stared at Sara.
The room began to spin around her, and Sara reached out for the couch to steady herself. “That’s not possible,” she finally sputtered. “Are you saying that you were her father? That you were…are…my grandfather?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
Her grandfather! This should have been a joyful moment, her discovering that she had a grandfather who was alive. But there was no joy inside of her. Instead, Sara could feel an electrical current spreading from her toes to her stomach and settling there like an angry hot ember.
“Then you’re the one who gave me away! Not my mother. It was you.”
Dr. Pearlman nodded again and whispered, “Yes.”
She was burning up from the inside out—an inferno like the fire that had devastated the orphanage in Hope. She too felt destroyed.
“But how could you do that? How could you abandon me knowing that even my mother had forgiven me for being conceived that way? You said that she loved me. Why couldn’t you do the same?”
Dr. Pearlman’s face crumpled, and she thought he might fall to the ground. And despite the rage that burned inside of her, she reached out to steady him. The doctor clasped her hand and held it tightly.
“Please try to understand,” he begged. “There was no way on earth that I could care for you then. And I was so worried that you would be stained by the circumstances of your birth. Your blue eyes—they announced to everyone who your real father was. I couldn’t bear for you to suffer that scrutiny or judgment. So I did the only thing I could think of to give you a chance at a normal life. I gave you up for adoption.” Sara tried to pull free of his grasp, but he held her even tighter. “I couldn’t save my wife or my daughter. But I hoped, by sending you away, that somehow I could help you. Sometimes you have to abandon someone in order to save them.”
Sara was not satisfied with that. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” she cried. “Why did you turn on me when I came in here?”
The doctor finally released her hand. He closed his eyes before speaking again. “I knew I was doing the right thing to give you up. But it has not been easy for me. I’ve lived with the guilt of not having kept you for all these years. When you walked in here a few days ago and I realized who you were, I simply couldn’t face you. And so I lashed out instead. I’m so very sorry,” he added, opening his eyes to stare at Sara. “For everything.”
It was Sara’s turn to squeeze her eyes shut. She was exhausted. This was all simply too much for her to hear and understand. Her anger, her fear, her anxiety—all were seeping out of her body, leaving her numb. She opened her eyes to stare at Dr. Pearlman. He suddenly seemed old and fragile, and in that moment it was Sara who yearned to reach out to comfort him. She took a step toward the doctor and placed her hand on his shoulder. And then he grabbed her, wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder. His sobs echoed in the room as they stood together, not moving.
Minutes passed, and then Peter cleared his throat behind Sara. She had almost forgotten that he was there. Dr. Pearlman released her and took a step back, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his eyes.
“I want you to know that Simon Frankel loved your mother deeply—they loved each other. He is the man who should have been your father.”
Sara nodded. It was a bit of comfort. “What happened to her? My mother. I mean, I know that she died, but is there a cemetery around here where she’s buried?”
“Yes,” the doctor replied. “She’s buried in the Jewish cemetery close to Gauting—the hospital she was taken to from Föhrenwald. I haven’t been there since her death. I can’t bear to go. You are like your mother in so many ways,” he added. “She was spirited and as determined as you.”
Peter finally moved over to stand next to Sara, taking her arm as if to lead her from the building. But Sara wasn’t sure that Dr. Pearlman had finished. And she was right.
“Your name—Sara,” he said. “It’s a Jewish tradition to name a child after a family member who has died. You are named after my late wife—your grandmother. Karen, I mean your mother, wanted you to have that name.”
Each puzzle piece was finally clicking into place, and Sara was feeling as if she could finally breathe again.
“There’s one final thing,” added Dr. Pearlman. “The Star of David that you wear around your neck. It was your mother’s. It was the one thing she managed to save, even in the concentration camp. To this day, I don’t know how she kept it. I removed it from her neck after she died and placed it around yours. The letters on it—they spell out the Hebrew word tikvah. It means ‘hope.’”
Sara gasped. Her hands flew to her neck and to the necklace. It was the ultimate irony that Hope, the town in which she had been raised, the place that had always meant so little to her, was the final message her mother had left her. Peter placed his arm around her shoulder and squeezed it slightly. The gesture gave her great comfort, and she turned to smile at him. As Peter finally led her toward the door to leave, Sara stopped one last time and turned to Dr. Pearlman.
“What happened to him? The man who raped her?”
“He was arrested for war crimes shortly after the war ended. I’m told he tried to escape and was shot and killed.” The doctor paused and added, “It was too easy an ending for him. He deserved much worse.”
Sara nodded and followed Peter out the door.
Twenty-One
PETER’S ARM RESTED across Sara’s shoulder and stayed there for the entire walk back to the inn, as if he wanted to steady her, reassure her, show her that he cared. Sara didn’t say a word to him, and she didn’t need to; he understood and respected her silence. But in her head there raged a loud conversation. Everything she had come to understand about her beginnings had suddenly been turned upside down, now even more than before. She was struggling to make sense of what Dr. Pearlman—her grandfather—had just told her. And the buzz inside her head all boiled down to one question that echoed like a broken record: What now? What now? What now? That morning, she'd been clear about her need to get out of Germany and return to Canada. Now she wasn’t so sure what she should do.
When Peter and Sara walked into the inn, they found Frau Klein seated in a chair in the living room. At first, Sara feared that something might have happened to her. Why else would she be here and not bustling around the inn as she usually did? Why was she not preparing something for her and Peter to eat?
Sara rushed to her side and bent to look into her face. But Frau Klein was not ill or upset. In her lap was a small wiggling mass wrapped in a wool blanket. And when Sara looked closer, she realized that the bundle contained a tiny puppy.
“Oh, how wonderful,”
Sara exclaimed, dropping to her knees next to Frau Klein. “Wherever did it come from?” For a moment, her own startling situation was put on hold.
Frau Klein said something to Peter, who translated. “One of her neighbors has a dog that had puppies a few weeks ago. They worried it might be too soon for Frau Klein to have a new dog. But as soon as they saw this one, they knew that it needed a home right here.”
Sara leaned forward toward the little pup while Peter continued talking to Frau Klein. It was a miniature John Wayne—a black-and-white, short-haired mongrel with the biggest and most trusting eyes that Sara had ever seen.
Peter suddenly laughed. “Frau Klein has named this one Roy Rogers. She can’t seem to get away from her love of American westerns.”
Sara bent her face toward the puppy. “Hello, Roy Rogers. You’ve got big shoes to fill, my little friend.” The dog extended his face toward Sara and licked her cheek. Sara buried her face in his fur.
Just then there was a knock at the door. Peter went to answer it while Sara remained with Frau Klein, cooing over the puppy and stroking his soft fur. Frau Klein continued to smile and talk in German to the little dog. A moment later, Peter returned with an envelope in his hands. He had a frown on his face as he extended it to Sara. “It’s for you,” he said. “Who else do you know here?”
Sara shook her head. “I can’t imagine who it’s from.” She took the envelope and turned it over in her hands. The return address on the back read International Tracing Service, Bad Arolsen. Dread rose up inside of her. She didn’t want anything to do with that terrible place.
“Are you going to open it or just stare at it?” Peter had asked a similar question at the center, when she found her mother’s file. She tore open the brown envelope. A letter fell out, and Sara picked it up.
“It’s from Frau Kaufmann,” she said. “The woman in the records room.”
She looked up at Peter, whose face was urging her to read it. With a quick breath, she began to read aloud.
Dear Sara,
I’ve been sick with worry ever since you ran from my office. I was terribly sorry to have been the one who gave you the information about how you were conceived. It’s not what I had wanted to do. But more important, it’s not what your mother would have wanted for you. You asked when you were here what kind of person she was. And I believe that I owe you that information. Your mother was one of the kindest and most generous women I ever met. One day I watched her help another woman in the concentration camp carry food to a work site. It was against the regulations to help another prisoner, but your mother didn’t care about the risk to herself. One of the guards noticed, came over and struck your mother in the back with his rifle butt. She could have been killed. But she just got up off the ground and continued to help. And that was just one incident. There are many more examples of the way in which she reached out to help others.
Sara paused and looked up. “I just wish that I could have known her.”
“She seems like a remarkable person,” Peter replied.
Sara nodded and continued to read.
You ran out of the office before I could give you something. I think you need to have this—a reminder of the wonderful woman that was your mother.
“What’s inside?” Peter asked.
Sara shook the envelope, and a picture floated out and dropped to the floor. When Sara picked it up, she realized it was the photo of her mother that she had found in the file in the records room. Sara stared down at the face that looked so much like her own.
“Is that everything?” Peter asked.
“No, there’s a bit more.”
Your mother had many ambitions that she was unable to fulfill. When we were recovering together in Föhrenwald, she learned how to sew. It was part of a vocational program that was offered there. Your mother was very good at it—a natural—and she created some wonderful dresses and skirts. She dreamed that one day she would become someone famous in the world of clothing and fashion. Sadly, she was never able to fulfill that dream.
Sara looked up once more, eyes shining. “She wanted to be a designer,” she said, breathless. “I can’t believe what I’m reading.”
“I guess there’s more of your mother in you than you thought,” Peter said.
Sara looked down at the photo of her mother and then picked up Frau Kaufmann’s letter to read the last segment.
There is so much tragedy that befell your mother—tragedy that you also have to bear. But take the little that you know of this remarkable woman’s life and be inspired by it. It was a gift to have known her.
I wish you well as you go forward in your life.
Warm regards,
Hedda Kaufmann
Little Roy Rogers yapped and licked at the tears that were falling down Sara’s cheeks. She held the letter from Frau Kaufmann in one hand and the photograph of her mother in the other, shifting her gaze back and forth between the two. After what felt like minutes, Peter cleared his throat and spoke.
“What now?” he asked.
Sara looked up, tears still streaming, and said, “I think there’s one more place I have to go to.”
Twenty-Two
SARA AND PETER stood facing the wroughtiron gate that was the entrance to the Jewish cemetery in Gauting. A large Star of David adorned the top of the gate. Sara’s conversation with Peter about coming here had been brief. In fact, there had barely been any conversation at all. He understood immediately her need to visit this place and had quickly gone about getting information about the train schedule and directions. It had not been hard to find. The train from Wolfratshausen had taken just over an hour. Then they had hitched a ride with a quiet couple who knew exactly where the cemetery was. And here they were, standing silently in front of the gate.
Sara gazed up at the large Star of David and quietly fingered the smaller one around her neck. After reading the letter from Frau Kaufmann, she already knew that she was connected to her mother in a deep and personal way. And yet there was something more she yearned for. She couldn’t quite explain what it was. But in her heart, she believed that standing in front of her mother’s grave would give her the resolution she was looking for.
Peter turned to Sara, waiting for her cue. When she nodded slightly, he approached the gate and pulled on it. “It’s locked,” he said, turning back to stare at Sara.
She tried not to show her dismay as she looked around. There was no one in sight—no visitors, no groundskeeper, no one. Why were these things always so complicated, Sara wondered, glancing up at the long stone wall that extended on both sides of the gate. Her mind drifted back to the orphanage in Hope. She had a sudden image of Joe standing next to her, prodding her to finish a project or get on with her chores. He would have smiled that great warm smile, and he would have said, Now Sara, you know that nothin’ in life worth fightin’ for comes easy. He had always been so wise. If need be, Sara would scale the wall—whatever she had to do to get inside. Peter stepped in before she had a chance to start climbing.
“I know you can’t wait to get in. But let’s just walk around first and see if there’s another way.”
Sara could barely contain her impatience. But she knew Peter was being reasonable. She followed him to the end of the brick wall, and as they rounded the bend, they realized that the brick wall and gate were merely at the front of the cemetery. It appeared to be enclosed on the other three sides with a high hedge of bushes.
“Much better,” said Peter. “We just need to find a gap and we’ll crawl through.”
They’d walked about halfway around the exterior before they found the opening they were searching for. The bushes here were thinner and spaced farther apart. Peter held the branches of one of them back while Sara slipped in between and into the interior of the cemetery. Then she turned and did the same for him. Finally, they were inside.
Small white gravestones dotted the green field of the cemetery. The writing on all of them was in German, sometimes in Hebrew, but she could read t
he names: Solomon, Goldman, Feinberg…Sara walked between the gravestones, pausing every now and then to stare at a particular one. The dates indicated that most of the people buried here had died in the year or two following the end of the Second World War. It was not hard to understand how they, like her mother, had somehow survived the concentration camps only to succumb in the years after. There was a huge monument in the center of the park. It too had a large Star of David carved on top. The number 6,000,000 had been engraved in the center of the stone—the number of Jews who had perished in the Holocaust. Sara shuddered, and Peter moved over to wrap his arm around her shoulder. His lips brushed the top of her head, and she smiled up at him, taking strength from his embrace.
Dr. Pearlman had given them instructions for where to find Sara’s mother’s grave, and they followed them along a twisting path, turning this way and that, down a small hill, then turning once again to the right and then to the left.
“I’m amazed at how well kept this place is,” Sara remarked. Up until then, neither of them had spoken a word. The graves were pristine, and the grass in between was thick and lush. The stone path was in perfect condition.
“I don’t even know who takes care of it,” Peter replied. “I imagine the Jewish families of this area contribute money to maintain it. Perhaps the government also helps. But I’m also surprised by its condition. I know that there are Jewish cemeteries all over Europe where the graves have been vandalized, and the stones knocked over and destroyed.”
Sara felt a deep sense of gratitude that this cemetery was so well cared for. She didn’t know how she would have reacted if her mother’s grave had been damaged.
