Four Perfect Pebbles

by Lila Perl

  The human toll was the largest to date. Ninety-one Jews were known to have died in the street violence alone, and more than thirty thousand Jewish men were taken away to concentration camps. Since Germany’s Jewish population had declined from 500,000 to 300,000 by late 1938, the prisoners represented one of every ten Jews.

  Many men from the Hanover area were taken to Buchenwald. This camp, near Weimar, to the southeast of Hanover, had been patterned after Dachau. It was run by the SS and was used as a concentration and forced-labor camp for political and racial prisoners. Those arrested were taken by truck to the railroad station, transported by train to Weimar, and then by truck to the camp itself.

  Was Buchenwald where Papa had been taken? Mr. Dannenberg, who had gone into hiding during Kristallnacht and had escaped arrest, had now returned home. He suspected Walter was at Buchenwald. But wherever Walter had been taken, it was important that Ruth go immediately to Gestapo headquarters in Hanover and present the document of September 13, 1938, from the American Consulate in Hamburg, stating that the Blumenthal family had been placed on the quota list for immigration into the United States.

  “This good advice,” Mama said, “I took at once. Although I hated to go near the Gestapo, I did what Mr. Dannenberg suggested.”

  At the office of the Gestapo, Ruth found a waiting room filled with women seeking information about their husbands, sons, and fathers. In contrast with the chaos and brutality of a few days earlier, there was amazing order and even civility at the police headquarters. People were called in one by one, and those, like Ruth, who had valid papers proving their family’s intention to emigrate, were told that their loved ones would be released shortly.

  As the days passed and there was no sign of Walter, Ruth began to go each evening to the Hanover railway station to meet the incoming train from Weimar. Some of those arrested on Kristallnacht returned, but Walter was not among them. And each day the news of what went on at Buchenwald grew worse. It was reported that new arrivals were made to stand at attention for hours. The slightest movement could mean a blow with rifle butt or even a prolonged beating. The men slept in narrow barrack bunks atop one another, and were given little food or water. Some were put to work in a nearby stone quarry. It was shattering for Ruth to think of Walter, always dignified and deeply proud of his ability to protect his family, so helpless and degraded.

  When her spirits were at their lowest, a postcard arrived from Walter. It was dated November 18, and it was indeed from Buchenwald. A printed notice on the card warned the prisoner to use a large, clear handwriting, or the censors would not pass it on for delivery.

  “My loved ones,” Walter had written, “I am, thank God, healthy and hope the same of you. Don’t write to me because there is no incoming mail. . . . Don’t send money. Hope our two darlings are well again. Hugs and kisses to you all. Walter, Papa.”

  He had written nothing about when he would be released. Had the Gestapo officer broken his promise to forward notice of Walter’s status as the holder of an American quota number to the camp? What should Ruth do? That night and the next she went again to the railroad station in vain. On the night of the twenty-first she remained at home.

  Very late that evening the doorbell rang. Fearful of bad news, Ruth went to the door. It was Walter, wearing the same clothes in which he’d been arrested, now dirty and rumpled. He had not been able to bathe or shave during the eleven days he’d spent in the camp. Not that evening or at any future time did he speak of what his life in Buchenwald had been like. The only thing he told Ruth and the children was that before being discharged, he had been required to sign a document stating that he had been “correctly treated.” Also, according to the terms of his release, he and his family were to be out of Germany within three months.

  “Who,” Ruth asked, “would want to stay in Germany after Kristallnacht? It was more than just a warning. It was the beginning of the end.”

  Now, indeed, it was clear that not only would Jews who remained on German soil live as impoverished and despised outcasts, but their very survival from day to day would be in question. Nor did it appear that any other nation was going to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs, least of all in its treatment of Jews.

  On November 12, as an immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht, the government levied a fine of one billion marks on its Jewish population for the damage caused by the Jewish presence in the country. The real purpose of this enormous “expiation payment” was to make sure that no Jew profited from an insurance claim for destroyed property and to drain off as much as possible of any remaining Jewish wealth. This money and similar levies were to help Germany rearm itself for the war it was planning to wage for the conquest of Europe.

  The Blumenthal apartment in Hanover was now the scene of urgent preparations for departure. “We were lucky,” Ruth said, “to get a permit to leave for Holland, where Tante Rosi, Walter’s youngest sister, who had married a Dutch citizen, lived. Not everybody could get a permit just to pick up and go to another country.”

  By late December the family’s furniture and other possessions that had been brought from Hoya were ready to be packed into three large containers. These were to go into storage in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, for it was from there that the Blumenthals planned to sail to the United States. Meantime, they would wait in Holland for the still-lacking visa.

  Included in the containers were linens and silver that would one day be part of four-year-old Marion’s wedding trousseau. Handing down such items was a family tradition that went back for generations.

  For the train journey to Holland the Blumenthals would carry only a few suitcases. However, before their packing could be completed, all the goods they were taking out of Germany had to be inspected by the Zollfahndungs Stelle, a special customs agency set up to confiscate jewelry, gold watches, silverware, and other items of value.

  “But,” said Mama, “when they came to the apartment, they went much further than just taking jewelry. Of the twelve blankets we owned, they allowed us to keep only four. Of warm coats, only one for each of us. For jewelry, they allowed me only a watch and my wedding band. Then they wrapped everything they were taking away from us in the blankets, slung them over their shoulders, and left. They didn’t even give us a receipt.”

  In January 1939, carrying only the small departure allowance of ten marks in cash, Ruth and Walter, four-year-old Marion, and six-year-old Albert boarded the train for Holland. Their neighbors the Dannenbergs bade them farewell and promised to see that the three containers of household goods remaining in the apartment in Hanover would be picked up and transported to Rotterdam.

  “Even though it meant leaving behind almost everything we had worked so hard for,” Mama said, “we were relieved and glad to put dangerous Germany behind us. We hoped we would be safe, at least until the time came for us to sail for the United States. Yet in our hearts we sensed that this was going to be the start of an uneasy and worrisome life—and, yes, an uncertain future.”

  Photo Insert

  Hitler, the Nazi party leader, delivering a speech in 1935, one year after he had become both chancellor and president of Germany

  Followers of Hitler offering the Nazi salute at a rally in Berlin, the German capital

  The yellow Star of David with the word “Jude” (German for “Jew”) inscribed in black

  Members of the Hitler Youth in uniform; the swastika armband was worn on the left arm

  Brown-shirted Nazi storm troopers enforcing the 1933 boycott of Jewish-owned businesses; the sign reads: GERMANS! DEFEND YOURSELVES! DON’T BUY FROM JEWS!

  The Blumenthal family’s house and store in Hoya, Germany, in 1930

  Ruth Moses and Walter Blumenthal visiting Hanover during their engagement, August 1931

  In Hoya, 1935: Ruth with Marion, six months old, and Albert, age two and a half

  Albert and Marion, ages five and three, after the family’s move from Hoya to Hanover

  The Central Synagogue of Hano
ver after it was blown up by Nazi demolition teams on Kristallnacht in November 1938

  Walter Blumenthal’s postcard, written to his family from Buchenwald on November 18, 1938, stating that he is well but telling them not to write, inquire after him, or send money

  Discharge certificate from Buchenwald concentration camp; after eleven days of imprisonment, Walter Blumenthal is ordered to report immediately to the Hanover State Police

  Westerbork in the Netherlands, at first a refugee camp and later a transit camp, encircled by a moat dug by Jewish prisoners

  Ruth, Marion, Walter, and Albert in Westerbork in May 1941, one year after their hopes of emigrating to the United States had vanished

  Ruth Blumenthal’s work identification card, issued in Westerbork November 5, 1941; the letter J indicates that the cardholder is Jewish

  A transport list of those Westerbork prisoners being shipped to Bergen-Belsen in February 1944; the four members of the Blumenthal family are designated as “stateless,” and Marion’s name appears as the sometimes-used “Leonie”

  Men, women, and children from Westerbork transit camp waiting to board a deportation train bound for one of the concentration camps in Germany or eastern Europe

  CHAPTER 4

  “Escape to Holland”

  On arriving in Rotterdam, the Blumenthals began at once to experience the difficulties of living as exiles. About 20,000 German Jews had already fled to the Netherlands, a country that had long been tolerant of Jews and that had a Jewish population of its own of roughly 118,000.

  Some German refugees who had left Germany in the early thirties had been able to transfer their businesses to Holland and to establish comfortable lives for their families. But no such opportunities existed for those Jews who arrived in the later 1930s, stripped of their possessions and essentially homeless.

  “At first,” Mama said, “we were shifted around from one refugee center to another. All of them were overcrowded and had separate sleeping quarters for men, women, and children. Marion was frightened of sleeping with so many strange children, and she cried all the time.

  “After three months we were given the opportunity to move to another place in Holland, Gouda, where there was a camp for Jewish refugee children, ages eight to fifteen. They had been sent there for safety from other parts of Nazi-dominated Europe.

  “The work,” Ruth recalled, “was very hard, cooking, serving meals, and caring for the children—a hundred twenty-five or so, some of whom were orphans. But at least we could live there as a family during that summer of 1939, and Marion was no longer afraid.”

  While the Blumenthals tried to make the best of their life in Holland, deeply threatening events were taking place elsewhere in Europe. In keeping with his plans to expand Germany’s territory eastward, Hitler had attacked and occupied Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939. When this bold move met with no opposition from other nations, he went ahead with his next conquest, Poland, on September 1, 1939. Two days later Great Britain and France declared war on Germany and the conflict that became known as World War II began.

  How long, people in the Netherlands wondered, would the Nazis respect Dutch neutrality? Especially at risk were the nation’s Jews, who, including refugees from nations other than Germany, now totaled about 140,000. And most immediate was the problem of how to accommodate the jobless Jewish refugees who continued to pour into the country.

  In the fall of 1939, with contributions from Holland’s Committee for Special Jewish Affairs, the Dutch government set up a permanent refugee camp in northeastern Holland to be known as Westerbork. The camp was located on a desolate and windswept moor, bitterly cold in winter and plagued with heat, flies, and sandstorms in summer. But it offered a home of sorts for Holland’s Jewish refugees.

  On October 9, 1939, the first twenty-two families moved in. Each was given a small, self-contained unit in which to live. When the Blumenthals arrived at Westerbork a couple of months later, they, too, were assigned to one of the two hundred or so “little houses.” Actually these units were connected to one another in rows, having the outward appearance of ordinary barracks. But they did have the advantage of being centrally heated.

  “It was not so bad at all,” Ruth said. “We had a small kitchen, with a sink and a hot plate that had one burner. This was just for coffee, tea, snacks, and so forth. All our regular meals we ate in a communal dining hall.

  “We also had a bathroom with a toilet and a sink. There was no tub or shower, so we could take only sponge baths. But there was also a bathhouse in the camp.

  “In the largest room of the four, we had a table and chairs and a bed that folded up against the wall during the day. This was where Walter and I slept. Marion and Albert slept in a smaller room just behind ours, in double-decker bunk beds.”

  Like the rest of the new residents, Ruth and Walter were assigned to work details from 7:00 A.M. to noon and from 2:00 P.M. to 7:00 in the evening. Ruth was given a job in the kitchen, where the food for the communal dining room was prepared. Walter worked in the shoe repair shop. There was even some makeshift schooling for the children. These activities helped pass the days as the family continued to wait for the longed-for visa for America.

  “We worried,” Ruth said, “about all the changes of address we’d had since moving from Hanover, so we left a careful trail behind us. We were ready to pick ourselves up at a moment’s notice, for even before leaving Germany, we had paid our passage to America on the Dutch ship Nieuw Amsterdam.

  “And, at last, in January 1940—after a wait of fifteen months—we received our American visa in the camp at Westerbork. Immediately we booked space for March 1940, the first available sailing out of Rotterdam. Two more months in Holland, and we would be on our way!”

  While Ruth and Walter made plans for the family’s departure for Europe, Marion and Albert fell into the rhythm of life in their new surroundings. Marion, just turned five, adjusted easily to Westerbork. She made friends with the children of the other German refugee families in the “little houses.” Among the adults, old friends and distant relatives found one another in the camp, and there was frequent visiting back and forth.

  “It all seemed quite normal to me,” Marion recalled, “for I had little else to compare it to. I could remember nothing of our life in Germany, so I did not miss the material things we had enjoyed there. Besides, no one else in Westerbork had much of value either.”

  Marion remembered her favorite games and pastimes: jump rope, hopscotch, marbles. “One of our hobbies was to collect foil wrappings. My friends and I traded them. The colorful ones were the most valuable. We smoothed them out with our nails and kept them between the pages of a notebook.

  “There was another game that I made up to pass the time when I was alone. I would take a small mirror or a piece of glass and go for a walk through the rutted lanes of the camp. The mirror would pick up the reflection of the sun, throwing a little square of light on the ground. I would pretend that this dancing patch of light was my own little puppy on a leash.”

  In those early months at Westerbork, with only about seven hundred refugees in the camp, the food was plain but plentiful. Pea soup, potatoes, and cabbage dishes were the mainstay. Eggs, meat, and dried fruit were also still available. Marion was especially fond of melted cheese on bread. But what she longed for most were sweets.

  “I remember how greedy I was for anything sweet, so much so that I would even eat saccharin tablets. And how I always wanted the bigger share of everything, even though I knew I was supposed to give half to Albert. Papa was very strict about these things and always stressed good manners and politeness. Once when I was given a special treat by one of our neighbors, Papa sensed correctly that I had not said ‘thank you.’ He made me return at once and say the proper words to express my appreciation.”

  Spring was now approaching, and the refugees were pleasantly surprised to find yellow- and purple-flowered lupines and carpets of purple heather blooming on the barren heath, almost in thei
r doorways. But Ruth and Walter were not cheered by this sight. There had been bad news concerning their March booking on the Nieuw Amsterdam. Because of the huge demand for passage out of Europe, their sailing had been postponed to June 1940.

  Meantime, there were growing worries about Germany’s plans for further conquest. It soon became clear that Hitler was not going to stop with the occupation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. On April 10, 1940, his armies invaded Denmark and Norway.

  Which country would be next? The refugees, who had thought themselves safe in the nations that lay to the west of Germany, did not have long to wait for the answer.

  On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. On May 14, the Luftwaffe bombed Rotterdam, Holland’s second-largest city and one of the world’s biggest seaports. This act of destruction brought about a rapid surrender. Within days the Dutch royal family fled to England and the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands began.

  In the badly damaged city of Rotterdam the warehouse in which the Blumenthals’ possessions had been stored was reduced to smoking debris. “But,” Ruth said, “that was the least of it. We could see now that our escape to Holland had not been an escape at all. Instead we had been caught in a trap.”

  Ruth was right. There would be no more ocean liners taking refugees to America from the crippled port of Rotterdam. The family would remain in Westerbork, uncertain of its fate under the Nazi regime that had now taken over in the Netherlands.

  At first the changes in Westerbork were not as alarming as feared. Additional housing was erected in the form of long wooden barracks, each designed to shelter about three hundred men, women, and children. The barracks had tiers of bunk beds and separate latrines for men and women. Later, as the camp became more crowded, up to six hundred people were forced to occupy a single barrack. But the Blumenthals, like other early residents, remained in their own family unit among the “little houses” in the older part of the camp.