My Family for the War

by Anne C. Voorhoeve

  “Why don’t you have your gas mask with you?” he shouted at me. “If you’re outside, you have to carry it with you. That’s the rule! Make sure you get off the streets, now!”

  Up the street, three small girls were playing hopscotch, holding on to the gas masks that hung around their necks. They had become an integral part of an English child’s wardrobe, like shoes and socks.

  A stupid school drill during the summer holiday—what did it matter?

  On Friday, the first of September, I awoke to the sun shining warmly through my window, and my first thought was the same as it had been on the previous three mornings: “I hope they’ll let me come with them to pick up Bekka on Monday!”

  The radio was on in the kitchen—a very loud, excited voice. I could already hear it at the top of the stairs. The telephone rang too, and I picked up the receiver as I walked past. “Is that you, Franziska?” I heard. “This is Mrs. Lewis. Do you remember me? I’d like to speak to Mrs. Shepard.”

  I continued on into the kitchen. “Amanda, the Refugee Committee is on the telephone.”

  Amanda sat at the breakfast table with Uncle Matthew, who normally should have been at work by then. Amanda stood up and walked past me; one look at her nervous expression and I knew immediately what had happened.

  “Has the war begun?” Uncle Matthew put a finger to his lips so as not to miss any of the report. It appeared that German troops had attacked Poland in the early-morning hours. Poland was one of our allies—that meant war.

  Poland! I thought, dismayed. Ruben!

  The report was still in progress when Amanda reappeared in the doorway, and my heart froze. All color was drained from her face. “It’s time, Frances,” she said.

  “Evacuation?” I heard my own voice like a faint wind.

  She nodded. “We have four hours. You meet at the schoolyard, as planned.”

  She took her seat, and I noticed the hasty glances she exchanged with Uncle Matthew. It was as if he were posing a mute question, to which she gave him a wordless answer— a negative answer. His shoulders sank. I saw it clearly.

  “And Bekka?” I asked.

  Amanda started to answer, but her voice failed, and then I finally understood.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “They let one last train out.” Tears appeared in my foster mother’s eyes. “But now Germany is at war, and that means the end of the kindertransports. Bekka’s not coming, Frances. She’s not coming.”

  I realized that in four hours, our time together would be over.

  “I’ll send your winter things as soon as I know where your school is being evacuated. They’ll send a postcard with your address, in your case they’d of course send the card to your mother, but perhaps it would be better if they sent the address to us, and I could forward it, and then we’ll know where you are too, and if it’s not too far, I can visit you, as long as they haven’t requisitioned the trains for the war effort, although people have to be able to travel in their own country.”

  Until now, I had known my foster mother to be an exceptionally poised person who never spoke an unnecessary word, but now she was talking nonstop, like a radio that couldn’t be turned off. I didn’t tell Amanda that I would be back home that evening. The fewer people who knew about my plan, the better.

  “Here, perhaps you’d like to take this, it’s Matthew’s travel candle. He had that with him in France. Would you like it?” She wrapped a richly ornamented candleholder in a cloth and placed it in the suitcase along with several extra candles, not even waiting for my answer.

  “Oh, that’s lovely, I’d love to take it,” I said anyway. I was surprised to see how calm I suddenly was. Ziska Mangold, the champion of the survival plan. Three days, I thought. I only have to stall for three or four days, and then the letter from Mamu will arrive and I’ll be able to stay!

  All at once Amanda stopped packing and, with a deep sigh, sat on the bed next to my suitcase. “I’m relieved you’re taking this so well, Frances,” she said. “But we’re going to find it much too quiet here without you around.” She laughed abruptly. “Do you remember your first night here? Gary’s nonsense at the table, and how you soldiered on, trying to imitate his every move?”

  “And how I bit you and set you on fire—I remember that much better!”

  I sat down next to her. She looked at me, full of warmth. “I also remember what I thought that first evening. I thought somewhere in Germany, there’s a mother who sent her child alone on this long journey and has entrusted her to strangers because right now she can’t take care of her as she would like. Anyone who can do what your mother has done, Frances, must love her child very, very much.”

  I looked at her, wide eyed. I hoped I would never forget a single word of what she had just said.

  “And that’s why,” Amanda concluded, “she would certainly want you to be evacuated to the country!”

  I’m not going! I knew it, clearly and without any doubt now. I would not go! I had made this mistake once and lost my family. I wasn’t about to give up my new family. I would stay with the Shepards, because I would rather die with them than survive without them.

  My first thought when we arrived at the school was that well over half the children were late; it was almost one o’clock, and there couldn’t have been more than forty students and their families there. Maybe we would all miss the train!

  But as we lined up in pairs, it occurred to me that the others wouldn’t be coming. Their families were exercising their legal right not to participate in the evacuation. Everyone except the Shepards and me had this right. Hot rage surged within me—anger that I was yet again the exception, someone whose fate was determined by strangers.

  Now that things were getting serious, not even the teachers were coming with us. Only the headmistress, Mrs. Collins, was carrying a suitcase and seemed to be saying good-bye to relatives. All around me there was quiet whispering and sniffling. Only a few were openly crying, among them a giant man in a white turban who was sobbing into his sleeve. Uncle Matthew had put his arm around Amanda, just like the other children’s parents. If I hadn’t already known that we belonged together, it would finally have been clear.

  “It’s time, children!” called Mrs. Collins, and, waving, set herself at the front of the line. “Stay in your places and stay on the sidewalk!”

  The younger children began to cry when they realized their mothers and fathers wouldn’t be going to the station with them. I turned and caught one last encouraging look from my foster parents, and then I didn’t turn around again, but instead focused on what lay ahead. I was holding hands with a strange girl, and carrying a not-so-light suitcase. And the stupid gas mask hanging around my neck was swinging back and forth. All in all, much too heavy for an escape. I would have to leave the suitcase behind at the station.

  “My name is Hazel,” whispered my neighbor, and gave my hand a squeeze.

  “Uh-huh,” I grunted.

  “I’m sick,” Hazel informed me.

  What business was that of mine? If she was sick, then she should have stayed at home! I quickly removed my hand from hers and said, “It’s nothing personal, but getting sick is the last thing I need right now.”

  Hazel looked at me, puzzled, and then she smiled. She was the most beautiful person I had ever seen—delicate, almost fragile, and with skin of a color that reminded me of toffees. “I am a Sikh,” she repeated, and now I understood that she wasn’t sick, but was from India, and belonged to the giant in the turban.

  I decided not to speak another word to Hazel.

  We crossed the street—I was being driven away from home for the second time. But we had left Germany by night and in a darkened train. Here, the doors of many houses opened as we passed. I saw strangers coming to the edge of the road to offer words of encouragement: “Chin up! It’s not so bad! Our boys’ll show the Huns, and you’ll be back with your mums before you know it!”

  In Germany it had been winter. In Germany, I had cried. Here,
the sun was shining, as it had every day of that last week of peace. Birds were singing, the post office van drove past, around me was the steady tramping of feet… and I was filled with a peculiar satisfaction, like a liberation from a long wait.

  Now Hitler’s demonic deeds weren’t affecting only us Jews anymore! The world was finally going to wake up!

  As soon as we left the Underground and entered the train station, a bustling commotion greeted us. A vast, unmanageable swarm of children from every part of North London crowded around their teachers and the women from the WVS—the Women’s Voluntary Service—who were accompanying the evacuees. A cardboard sign bearing my assigned number dangled next to the box containing my gas mask, and Hazel was dangling from my sleeve.

  “You’ll be fine. They have everything under control, as you can see,” I said as I tried to free myself from her grasp. But Hazel made a face that couldn’t have been more fearful if we had been about to be pushed off a cliff into the sea, and she clung to me even more tightly.

  “Listen, Hazel,” I said. “I’ve got to go to the loo, but I’ll be right back!”

  Resolutely I slipped between some adults so as to first lose myself among unfamiliar children. The art of fleeing consists of taking advantage of unexpected situations. But I didn’t get very far.

  “Where do you belong, dear?” One of the WVS women stopped me.

  “Camden Elementary School,” I replied, hoping that this school actually existed.

  “That must be platform five. I’ll take you there!” She cut a path through the crowd for us, gave Hazel a sympathetic look, and stretched her hand out to her. “Don’t be frightened, darling, I’ll put you right onto the train!”

  When Hazel saw her uniform, she immediately let go of my coat and trustingly took the woman’s hand. They walked in front of me, I in the rear. I wouldn’t have a better opportunity. Leaving Hazel alone on the platform wouldn’t have bothered my conscience, but I hadn’t intended for her to be put on the wrong train! I wavered for three valuable seconds. Just as I finally decided to put my own welfare first, I heard the plaintive cry, “But I’m from Finchley!”

  There wasn’t enough room to make a dash for it. I collided with three or four people, then two WVS women came from the front, and that was that. “Frances Shepard, have you lost your mind?” snarled Mrs. Collins as I was handed over to her.

  “We wanted to use the loo!” I claimed, trying to release my arm from her talon-like fingers that were digging into my flesh. “Just ask Hazel!”

  Half a dozen children said they also needed the bathroom, and there was no question of fleeing now. Sitting on the toilet, I saw Mrs. Collins’s shoes through the crack in the door. The right foot tapped impatiently. “Well, what’s taking so long? I thought it was an emergency!” she sneered.

  After a minute I gave up and left the stall with my head hanging.

  My schoolmates swarmed, screaming and shoving, into the train. I heaved my suitcase onto the luggage rack, kept my coat on, and took the seat next to the aisle. Hazel had become wary and sat in the compartment farthest from mine.

  Finally the doors were closed, and the whistle sounded. I heard the loud hissing of the locomotive as we slowly started moving.

  NOW! I sprang out of my seat. Within a fraction of a second I was at the exit, turned the handle with all my strength, threw all my weight against the door, and felt it fly open. The ground below my feet was moving, white steam flew in my face, a black hole opened up between the platform and the train. For one moment it took my breath away, then I closed my eyes and jumped…

  . . . and I was out! I felt a powerful blow and flew through the air, not knowing where, floated as if weightless in the dark space between two seconds that stretched out much longer. In a flash I thought I was dead, crushed between the train and the platform, but I was lying on my stomach, feeling no pain, only a strange, heavy weight on my back that was squeezing the air out of me.

  Mrs. Collins climbed off of me, flipped me onto my back and gave me three or four slaps in rapid succession. I was lying in the narrow, dirty space outside the compartment and between two cars, while outside, the landscape rushed by and someone struggled to close the door as the train gathered speed.

  They certainly hadn’t imagined that I would try again. I heard Mrs. Collins scream as I tore away from her and threw myself against the door again.

  This time there were three of them: Mrs. Collins, the other teacher, and a WVS woman. They dragged me down the aisle, a shrieking, flailing bundle of arms and legs, and Mrs. Collins screeched—not at me, but at the pale, horrified faces crowding the compartment door: “Take a good look, children. This is what it’s like when you come from Germany, and don’t know any better!”

  Chapter 12

  Tail’s End

  I lost all sense of time. Were we in the train for two, four, five hours? My own clock seemed to be running backward—I saw Amanda and Uncle Matthew as we said good-bye in front of the school, the pattern of the sunlight on my bedspread when I had woken up that morning; I saw myself writing my first letter to Bekka, over and over. My foster parents are inviting you to come live with us in London.

  I had no doubt the train was going in circles. It was clear that we could only arrive back in London, and this time I wouldn’t spend one minute sitting on the bench. I would walk straight past the tables with the ladies from the committee—I beg your pardon, but my foster parents are waiting, and I’m going home now!

  Even when we stopped at a tiny platform in the middle of nowhere and got off, I refused to believe I had been evacuated. And so, on Friday evening, the first of September 1939, we arrived as unexpected guests in Tail’s End. A series of volunteer aid workers swarmed out immediately with Mrs. Collins to find additional places for us to spend the night. Three hours later I was standing at the front door of the only Jewish family in the village.

  Tail’s End. Two dozen houses of rough brick on either side of the one street, an Anglican church, a tiny school. There was a marketplace with a village well and a pub, the Hound and Horn. There was also a post office, a baker, a butcher, and a general store. After walking around for five minutes, you’d seen it all.

  “You’ll sleep here,” Mrs. Stone had said, opening the door to a tube-like room containing two cots and a changing table. The room was so narrow that even the gaunt Mrs. Stone brushed against the wall as she walked alongside the cots and the thin mattress leaning there. “When you close the door at night, you can lay the mattress crossways in front of it. You’ll be sleeping with Rachel and Luke, our two youngest. Show me what you’ve brought with you.”

  She reached for my suitcase, and I was so taken aback that I immediately handed it over. With a critical look, she laid it on the changing table and started unpacking it, carelessly mixing up my clothing, and felt the travel candle. Finally, she found what she had apparently been looking for: the metal box with my collected letters, photographs, and purse. With a satisfied look she shook the coins into her hand, and I saw my meager savings disappear into her apron.

  “They pay me six shillings eight pence a week for your room and board,” she said. “You know, of course, that that doesn’t come close to covering the cost.”

  I nodded, ashamed. I had no idea how much six shillings and eight pence would buy, but I did know that the Shepards hadn’t been paid at all.

  “Ooh, that’s nice,” Mrs. Stone said. She reached for the travel candle and took hold of… thin air.

  “It was lent to me! It belongs to my foster parents in London,” I cried, held the candlestick behind my back, and stared appalled into her resentful face.

  “Just so it’s perfectly clear from the start,” she snapped at me. “We are not your foster parents, we are your hosts, and you will behave accordingly, understood?”

  “Of course,” I murmured.

  “You can put your suitcase under the bed. And now come with me.”

  I closed my suitcase and hurried to follow her. I had seen child
ren in the kitchen as I had arrived, and now I was expecting to be introduced to them, but Mrs. Stone led me directly into the washroom. “Here,” she said, pressing an iron into my hand, adding nastily, “What is it?” when she saw my embarrassed expression. “I suppose you didn’t have to work with your posh London family?”

  I swallowed. “It’s Shabbat! We’re not allowed to iron,” I answered feebly.

  “I don’t believe I need a child to tell me how to practice my own religion,” Mrs. Stone retorted, and slammed the door behind her.

  I am not going to cry! I ordered myself. Not because of a couple of days. Not because of a beast like Mrs. Stone! Thief! Breaker of Shabbat! She doesn’t deserve to be cried over!

  Soothing contempt spread through me. The two hours that passed before Mrs. Stone let me out of the washroom went by in a flash. I only wavered in my resolve for a very brief moment—when she discovered two burn holes in the bedclothes and gave me a resounding slap.

  “How stupid can you be? You have no trouble opening your mouth for insolent backtalk, but to admit that you don’t know how to iron, well, that’s too much to manage!” she screamed at me. With my head bowed, I sat at the dinner table between her children, whose looks might just as well have burned holes into me.

  “Can we trade her in? I don’t like her.” The boy next to me must have been about eight years old. “Shut your mouth, Herbert,” his father answered.

  Mr. Stone possessed a not-unfriendly face that for a split second even curled into a smile when he gave me his hand. But one look from Mrs. Stone had put him in his place, and all evening he only spoke that one sentence: “Shut your mouth, Herbert.”

  At least now I knew the names of three of the children. The four-year-old must have been Rachel, the baby was Luke—my two roommates. Herbert’s older sister was ten or eleven and didn’t think to introduce herself; I found out the next day that her name was Pearl.

  But to be honest, the Stone children didn’t interest me in the slightest. I was so hungry I could hardly think about anything other than the soup that was simmering on the stove. The smell steaming from the pot made me so weak I had to hold on to my bowl with both hands.