by Mona Golabek
The music transported the mind of this precocious teenager into fanciful imaginings. As she played the first bars of a Strauss waltz, she saw herself in a satin ball gown, her hand held high by some count or marquis, being led to the dance floor. The elegant crowd parted as she made her entrance.
From the time she was a little girl, Malka taught Lisa to surrender herself completely to the music by telling her stories and painting fantastic images. For Lisa the music became her whole world: an escape from the dark streets, the rundown flats, shops, and markets that were home to Vienna’s working-class Jews. And now, the most important escape of all, from the Nazis.
As she neared 13 Franzensbrückestrasse, Lisa’s steps were uncharacteristically slow. Her heels barely left the ground; her upright posture sagged. She arrived in her living room and dropped her music on the bench with a gesture that alarmed her mother.
“What is it, Liseleh, what’s wrong?” Malka took her daughter in her arms and stroked her hair. Lisa cried desperately. Malka guessed what must have happened. “Is it Professor Isseles?”
Lisa nodded.
“Don’t worry, I taught you before. I will teach you again.” Lisa tried to smile at her mother’s offer, but they both knew that Lisa had long ago surpassed her mother’s ability.
“Let’s play something now. Let’s begin the day all over again.”
“I can’t play now, Mama. I’m too upset.”
“Oh, Lisa, have you forgotten all I’ve taught you? It’s at times like this that your music is most important.”
Malka went to the cupboard and pulled out the complete preludes by Chopin; after opening the book to the number four in E Minor, she sat at the piano.
“I’ll play the right hand, you play the left,” Malka insisted.
“I can’t.”
“Play what is in your heart.”
Lisa sat beside her, playing the four-four rhythm of the marching, repeating chords. When she’d mastered the left hand, she took over from her mother, blending the plaintive melody of the upper register with the somber chords of the base. The melody reached its final question and found resolution in an exquisite pianissimo.
Outside, an old woman put down her heavy groceries, leaned against the building, and listened.
When she finished the Chopin, Lisa went to her room and lay down, crying as silently as possible into the pillow.
A few minutes later she felt a warm hand on her shoulder, stroking her gently. It was her older sister, Rosie. “Don’t cry, Lisa,” she urged. “Come on. I’ll show you something.”
Lisa finally rolled over and looked up at the smartly dressed twenty-year-old. She was always happy when her older sister made time for her, since Rosie had been spending most of her time these days with her fiancé, Leo.
“Crying won’t help, Lisa. Let me show you something I just learned, come on,” Rosie insisted, taking Lisa by the hand.
Lisa stumbled into the bathroom behind her sister and glimpsed her tearstained face in the mirror. Rosie emptied out the contents of a cloth bag and spread all manner of powder and paints on the bathroom dresser.
“I’ll show you a new way to do your lips—you’ll look just like Marlene Dietrich.”
As they had so many times before, Rosie carefully applied lipstick and eye makeup to Lisa’s face.
“See? A little bit wider than the lip line.”
Her sister should know, Lisa thought. She had been the runner-up in a Miss Vienna contest—two years earlier— when they had still allowed non-Aryan contestants. Without warning, their twelve-year-old sister Sonia burst through the door.
“What are you two doing in here!”
“Look at Lisa, doesn’t she look like a movie star?”
Lisa stared excitedly at her new face in the mirror. She looked five years older! The sound of footsteps approaching stopped them in their tracks.
“Quick! Mama’s coming!”
In a well-rehearsed drill, Lisa scrubbed her face with soap and water and Rosie scrambled to hide the cosmetics, as little Sonia looked on and giggled. Rosie put a protective arm around Lisa, and for a moment the sorrow of Professor Isseles seemed far away. The three sisters joined hands and emerged to greet their mother.
2
LISA!” MALKA yelled from the kitchen. “Look out the window for your father.”
Lisa rose reluctantly from the piano bench and went to the window of their second-story apartment, peering into the cobblestone courtyard.
“Do you see him?”
“No, Mama, not yet.” The wind was blowing fiercely; the streetlights rattled. Winter was on its way. Before long, it would be Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, Lisa’s favorite time of year.
“Is he there yet?”
“No, I said I didn’t see him!”
“Where is he!” Malka began making a lot of noise with the pans in the kitchen. It was her way of letting off steam.
“Don’t break anything, Mama!” Lisa said, laughing. She was answered with another crash. “All right, then, get your sisters and we’ll start without him.”
Lisa knew what was making her father late: It was that “gambling” thing her mother got so angry about. He would stay out playing cards with some of the neighborhood men in the storeroom of Mr. Rothbard’s butcher shop. Lisa didn’t understand a thing about cards, but she knew they must be terrible since they made her mother so upset.
Abraham Jura had always called himself “the best tailor in all Vienna.” Her father was a proud, elegant man who wore starched white shirts with tall collars. His customers had been Jews and gentiles alike and came from all over the city to have their suits custom-made. But now Abraham had few sewing jobs, his longtime customers were turning up with less frequency. Gentiles had been forbidden to use Jewish tailors. A sign on his shop read “Jüdisches Geschäft”: “Jewish Business.”
Sometimes, after she was in bed, there were raised voices coming from her parents’ bedroom. The arguments were about money; that much she could figure out, and it seemed her father was angry at almost everyone these days. Gone were the early evening dinners and the bear hugs when Papa came home from work to greet his family.
She was upset by his wrinkled clothes and frayed cuffs. Fingering the loose buttons, she frowned. “Papa, I’m going to sew your buttons on for you. You must have forgotten how,” she teased him playfully. “Who will come visit a tailor that has a loose button?”
Her father would look at her sadly and say nothing. At those times, when she felt her father changing before her eyes, she would escape to the piano and her fantasies.
Abraham or no Abraham, Malka lit the Shabbat candles. It was Friday sunset and the Sabbath was beginning. She lit two white tapers in the silver holders that had been her own mother’s and turned to her youngest daughter. “Sonia, why don’t you tell us what they mean?”
“One candle is for the Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and rested on the seventh day,” Sonia replied proudly.
“And the second candle, Lisa?”
“We light the second because we observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”
Malka lit four more candles, one for each of her three daughters and one for her mother, Briendla, in Poland. A warm yellow light filled the room. A similar glow was appearing in parlors and dining rooms all across the neighborhood.
Lisa’s mother had a tradition of feeding the poor on the night of the Sabbath, and people would line up in the hallway an hour before sunset. Some came in tattered clothing and unkempt hair, others came with neatly mended patches, temporarily down on their luck. The faces would change, but one remained the same—a tall old man with a straggly white beard, the girls’ favorite, who told them a story every week.
This evening, rather than bringing a plate of hot kosher food, Malka came into the hallway and said sadly, “I am afraid we have nothing to share tonight.”
Lisa was stunned. She watched the hungry people shuffle away and saw the sorrow in her mother’s eyes. The old stor
yteller stayed behind, staring at the mezuzah hanging in the doorway.
After a long painful moment, he turned to Malka: “God will bless you for all of your past generosity.”
The girls joined their mother inside and began the meal without their father. When they finished, they cleared the table and watched her pull the large mahogany rocking chair to the window. Malka rocked slowly back and forth, reciting her prayers, eyes focused on the street below.
Lisa and Sonia awoke to loud noises—not the usual raised voices that often accompanied her father’s late night homecomings, but ominous noises of distant shouting.
Throwing on their robes, they rushed to her parents’ bedroom. It was empty, so they ran to the living room window and saw the sky was red with the flames of burning buildings. Above the shouting came the piercing sound of shattering glass. It exploded in terrifying crescendos from up and down the streets. Storm troopers were running down the block like a band of outlaws—brown-shirted soldiers were throwing rocks and bricks through windows. They swung clubs recklessly in the air. She wondered if they were drunk. Did they let soldiers drink?
Even though it was late, dozens of neighbors ran out onto the street. Lisa saw Mr. Mendelsohn, the druggist, racing out of his building, and watched in horror as two SS men picked him off the ground, flinging him into the plate-glass window of the pharmacy. She heard his agonized screams, jerked Sonia away from the window, and pulled her little sister back into the bedroom they shared. “Get under the bed and stay there.” Sonia looked up imploringly. “Get under the bed!” Lisa yelled, and ran into the hallway to search for her mother.
“Lisa!” She heard the cry on the stairwell and ran down to find her mother holding her father’s head in her lap. His face was covered with blood; his clothes were torn.
“It’s only a small cut, Lisa, don’t worry,” her father said when he saw her terrified expression.
“Are you all right? Where is Sonia? Where is Rosie?”
“I sent Sonja to hide under the bed, Rosie said she was going to Leo’s, remember? Let me help you with Papa.”
She took one elbow and her mother took the other, and they walked him slowly upstairs. As she looked back out the front door, she saw dozens of people being shoved down the road and beaten by soldiers.
Malka and Abraham had a beautiful bed, carved from cherrywood polished to a glow. Malka prized the bed above all other possessions. The children were never allowed to sit on the delicate white satin sheets, which had belonged to Malka’s grandmother. Now, as they helped Abraham onto the bed, Malka ignored the blood that stained the sheets and cleaned his cuts with a warm towel.
Lisa gently picked the shards of glass out of the folds of his clothing as her father chanted the Shema, the ancient prayer of the Jewish people.
“Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.”: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” When he had finally calmed down, he began to speak.
“I was leaving Rothbard’s when I saw them. I knew something was wrong—they weren’t marching anywhere—they were a mob. They took turns smashing the windows, the biggest ones first, like it was fun for them— they enjoyed the noise. Then they wrote nasty words in paint.”
“What kinds of words, Papa?”
“Shh,” Malka said. “We don’t need to know.”
“She’ll see them soon enough. They said Juden! Juden Schwein! Kill the Jews. Then one of them threw a bottle with gasoline inside a building.” Lisa was riveted by her father’s terrifying words.
Malka finished wiping Abraham’s face. “Shh, now. Let’s get you some soup.” But Abraham continued.
“I saw them drag people out of their homes. They took their things and burned them. Children that came into the streets were thrown on the ground. It was good you stayed inside.”
“Don’t tell us any more, Abraham.”
“You need to know what I saw! When I was running past the synagogue, they were taking out the ark and throwing the scrolls and the Torah in the street and setting them on fire . . . they were burning the Torah in the street!”
He paused to take a breath. “And there were no sirens. They wanted everything to burn.”
“I’ll turn on the radio, Papa, maybe there is news. Maybe the chancellor is saying something.” Lisa ran into the living room and twisted the large knob of the wireless; a stream of German patriotic music emerged. Abraham came into the room, walking gingerly in bare feet, trying to avoid loose pieces of glass, and switched off the radio.
More screams came from the window. They ran over and saw flames shooting out of the house on the corner and the neighbors were forming a bucket brigade. Men were running into the streets with pails.
“Malka, I need my shoes!”
She said nothing but walked into the bedroom and brought her husband his heavy boots. He laced them up in seconds and ran down the stairs to help.
The frightened family stared out the window. They watched the bonfires grow larger as more and more books and possessions were added to the fires.
Suddenly, several storm troopers grabbed the men from the bucket brigade and dragged them into the street. Lisa watched in horror as her father was forced to strip naked, get down on his knees, and scrub the dirty pavement. The storm troopers yelled, “Schwein, Juden Schwein!” and kicked them when they didn’t move fast enough.
Malka could no longer bear the shame. She took her two girls by the hand and led them to the bedroom, where they waited in silence for the terrible night to end.
3
THERE WERE curfews now. Jews were not allowed on the streets at night or in movie theaters, concert halls, or most public places.
Nazi cruelties had continued. Soldiers kept up their attacks on stores and homes, and beatings in the street became a common sight. Storm troopers broke into homes and arrested many of the men. It was whispered that they were being taken away to prison camps.
Abraham’s tailor shop on the first floor was now closed by government order. A poster covered the cracked glass of the storefront window. Someone had tried to scratch out the letters, but it could still be read: “Judenblut, Schweinblut!”
Twelve-year-old Sonia could not understand why all of this was happening. She still went to school, but the Jewish children had been separated from the gentiles. She was not allowed to talk to any of her friends who weren’t Jewish. The day her best friend stopped speaking to her Sonia came home crying.
“Why, Mama, why?” she sobbed.
Malka tried to find an answer, but she had trouble understanding it herself.
“Do you remember the Purim story about Queen Esther and Haman?” she asked, holding Sonia.
The girl nodded.
“Haman was the evil adviser to King Ahasuerus very long ago and wanted to kill all the Jews. But the king fell in love with Esther, who was a Jew herself and very beautiful, so he married her and made her the queen. Esther then used her royal power to save all the Jews.”
“I remember,” Sonia said.
“So now,” Malka continued, “there is an evil man who is just like Haman; his name is Adolf Hitler. He is as evil as Haman, but he can’t hurt us if we are brave and act wisely. We must have faith. The Jews are a people chosen by God. If we keep believing in God, He will protect us.”
Malka kissed her younger daughter, then got up and went to the piano. “Come, Liseleh, let’s work on the ‘Clair de Lune.’ ” Lisa pulled a worn folio of sheet music from the pile and put Debussy’s masterpiece on top of the piano.
“Close your eyes for a moment before you begin. Where do you see yourself?”
“On a desert island. Across the ocean,” Lisa answered without hesitation.
“Can I go, too?” Sonia chimed in, shutting her eyes tightly.
“Of course you can,” her mother answered lovingly. Lisa opened her eyes brightly and placed her fingers on the keys. The music shimmered softly like the moonlight bouncing off the waters of a distant ocean. Looking up from the keyboard, sh
e saw her mother close her eyes and smile. Malka’s head began to sway as she was transported on the waves of her daughter’s silvery tones.
Malka had begged her husband not to go out, but he’d refused. “If you are caught, what will we do?” Malka had pleaded. “Mr. Stern next door didn’t come back last night!”
“I can’t stay inside all the time, I’ll go mad!” He had gathered his coat and left hurriedly, afraid to look his wife in the eye. He had gone out into the streets, pitch black since the smashing of the streetlights.
It was late when he returned.
Lisa strained to hear snatches of their conversation. “We must do something immediately. The chance may not come again.”
Lisa crept out of bed and stood in the hallway. She heard the words Holland and England.
“They are not letting Jews out of Vienna,” her father continued. “But they are allowing some trains to take Jewish children. Hundreds have already gone. Parents are fighting—they’re begging for a spot on the trains. It’s what everyone is talking about.”
“Children are going away without their parents?” Her mother’s voice was weak and frightened. “Where are they going?”
“England. Trains are being organized to take them to England. I think we have to consider this.”
“Listen to what you’re saying. Send the children without us! Without their family!”
“My cousins Dora and Sid live in London. This could be our only chance.”
“Things will surely get better, Abraham. Things can’t be so bad. We must have faith.”
“Malka, there is chaos at the Kultusgemeinde. I hear such terrible stories, I cannot bear to tell them to you. Please trust me. We must do it!”
“How could we do it even if we wanted?”
“Let me finish. Mr. Rothbard said that his wife refuses under any condition to send their son on the train, he thinks the whole family can get out another way. We don’t have such a way. We can’t stay together right now. He will give the son’s place to us.”
