When the World Was Ours

by Liz Kessler

  As Max grabbed a cloth and gave his boots one last shine, his father came to sit at the table. ‘What time are they picking you up?’ he asked.

  ‘At eight, Father,’ Max replied, barely managing to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  He was going on his first Hitler Youth weekend. A whole weekend with his friends: two days of races, games, making fires, camping out in the woods, toasting bread on an open bonfire. But mostly it would be two days where they got to act like soldiers. Marching in their ranks, their feet stamping in perfect time, their ‘Heil Hitler!’ salutes synchronized to a T. These were the things that made Max’s heart sing. The feeling of being a small cog in a large, perfect machine was like nothing he had ever felt before and he couldn’t get enough of it.

  The weekend was even better than Max could have dreamed. Whenever it was time to line up, Max was at the front. When they came to pick teams, Max was elected captain of his. When they had to carry logs across a river, Max picked the heaviest log and waded across the deepest part. When the other boys made jokes about Jews, Max laughed the hardest, and when they thrust their hands in the air and shouted, ‘Heil Hitler!’ Max shouted the loudest.

  So it was an easy decision for the leaders that, when medals were given out at the end of the weekend, Max was declared ‘Best Boy in Camp’.

  His teammates carried him high on their shoulders, calling out his name as they gave him three cheers.

  Max felt that he owned the whole forest, the city, the world.

  For a brief second, he remembered feeling something similar once before. Looking down at a city as if he were king of all he could see.

  Then it came to him: Vienna. The Riesenrad. That day at the top of the Ferris wheel with Leo and Elsa.

  The memory gave him a strange sensation in his chest. Not a good sensation. Not a comfortable one. One that seemed at odds with the boy he was now. And he couldn’t afford to let anything stop him from being the boy he was now. He had far too much to lose. So, before the memory could take hold, he shook it away and dragged his thoughts back to the present moment. It was safer there.

  LEO

  ‘It’s here! Mama, it’s here!’

  I ran up the stairs and into Mama’s bedroom. Sitting on the side of her bed, I shook her as gently as my excitement would let me. ‘Mama, wake up!’ I insisted.

  Mama opened her eyes. ‘Whatever is the matter, Leo? Has something happened?’ she asked as she yawned and rubbed her eyes.

  I thrust the letter in front of her. ‘Look at the postmark, Mama. It’s from England!’

  The word worked like smelling salts. Mama was upright in a second. ‘Give it to me. Let me see.’

  I passed her the envelope and she studied it as if it were a precious object.

  To us, it was.

  Then she pursed her lips and placed the letter carefully on the bed. ‘Coffee first,’ she said.

  ‘But, Mama!’

  ‘Coffee first,’ she insisted. ‘There is no need to run headlong into this. I want to be awake first. I will need all the energy I can summon if I am to deal with the disappointment of a refusal.’

  Mama was right, and she had reminded me of the most likely outcome. It had happened to almost everyone we knew. Every Jewish family I knew had only one aim nowadays: get out of Austria any way possible.

  A friend of Mama’s who had managed to hide enough money to pay for an advert in a British newspaper had even advertised herself as a domestic servant. She showed us the advert last week.

  ‘Austrian woman, highly qualified teacher, seeks work as domestic maid in an English home. Please help. Desperate.’

  She had so far had no replies. No takers. Just another Jew that no one wanted.

  So yes, Mama was right. It was best to put off the moment where our last hope – our only hope – was gone.

  We managed to hold it off for half an hour while Mama drank her coffee and I washed in the bathroom sink. We never used the shower any more. Our hot water had long been cut off and a quick wash in the sink was more bearable than standing under a stream of cold water.

  Then we sat together at the kitchen table, the letter between us.

  Mama nodded, as though making a deal with herself. ‘Open it,’ she said, handing the letter to me.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I can’t bear to read the words myself. I will know from your face what they say.’

  I could almost hear Papa’s voice. You’re the man of the house now. It made me bold. ‘Okay,’ I said, as I slid my finger along the edge and pulled the envelope open.

  ELSA

  Mutti and Vati have been whispering again. Like they did just before we left Vienna. They think Otto and I don’t know about it. They think we are asleep in our beds, but we’re not. We’re crouched at the top of the stairs, straining our ears to catch an occasional word or phrase and trying to piece them together.

  ‘Just as bad…’

  ‘Never have left…’

  ‘Won’t come to that…’

  ‘Desert our own children…’

  ‘Transport…’

  ‘No, never. Don’t ask me that…’

  Our imaginations are working overtime and finally Otto and I decide that the truth can’t be as bad as the images we are conjuring in our minds. So we go to confront our parents, together.

  ‘Hey, kids, you should be in bed,’ Vati says, jumping up from the table as we step into the kitchen, both in nightgowns, both silent as we haven’t worked out quite what it is that we want to say.

  The truth is, we don’t want to say it at all. We just know that whatever ‘it’ is, we can’t keep pretending it isn’t there.

  ‘It’s way past your bedtime,’ Mutti says. ‘What are you doing down here?’

  ‘We can’t sleep,’ Otto says.

  Mutti smiles across at us. ‘Want me to read you a bedtime story like I used to?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. ‘No thanks, Mutti.’

  ‘Hot chocolate?’ Vati asks.

  ‘We want some answers,’ Otto says firmly.

  Before either of our parents can respond, I find myself blurting out my fears, hot tears springing into my eyes as I do. ‘Are you leaving us?’ I ask.

  Mutti stares at me. Vati opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

  ‘You are!’ Otto bursts out. ‘You’re leaving us! You’re abandoning us!’

  Mutti gets up from the table and reaches an arm out towards me and another to Otto. I run to her and let her comfort me with one of her warm hugs. I breathe her in and hold my breath. If I can keep my breath in until she replies then she will tell me no, they will never leave us. Otto stands firm, waiting for answers.

  ‘Of course we aren’t abandoning you,’ Vati says. I let my breath out with relief. But there’s something about his voice that doesn’t assure me quite as much as I’d hoped.

  ‘We’ve heard you talking,’ Otto says. ‘We think you are planning something.’

  ‘Something you don’t want us to know about,’ I add, leaning away from Mutti so I can watch her face.

  Mutti glances across at Vati and I see them exchange something: a quick nod of agreement.

  ‘You’re right, we have been talking about something,’ Vati says. His voice is so serious and for a moment I want to take it back. I want to go back upstairs, get into bed, pretend I never heard the whispers. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know.

  ‘Come. Both of you. Sit with us at the table. I’ll make you that hot chocolate and then we will talk. It’s time we told you about our plans.’

  Even the heat from my hot chocolate can’t stop my hands from shaking as we wait for them to tell us what’s going on.

  LEO

  I stared at the letter. I couldn’t speak.

  Mama reached out to take me in her arms. ‘Leo, darling, it’s all right. We’ll be okay. We will find a way.’

  I shook my head. Holding out the letter, I found my voice. ‘They said yes, Mama,’ I said. ‘The Stewarts said
yes!’

  ‘What?’ Mama took the letter from me. She read aloud. ‘ “We will do what you ask. Of course we help you. Your kindness and generous day we always remember. Please tell exactly what you need and we do it immediately. Our best regard, Aileen and Eric Stewart.” ’

  Mama stared at me. Finally, I let my face break into a smile. ‘They are going to help us,’ I said in a whisper. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  Mama smiled back at me – but I could see there was something bothering her. I didn’t need to ask what it was. I felt the same way.

  ‘Papa will find us,’ I told her. ‘He will join us as soon as he can.’

  Mama nodded, tight-lipped, but didn’t say anything. I thought of the coded note Papa had sent to me. I had to be the strong one. ‘And Omama will give us her blessing,’ I added. ‘She will never leave here, she has told us so many times. But Mama, we have to go.’ I put an arm around Mama’s shoulders. ‘Papa wants us to go; he needs us to go.’

  Mama slumped against me. ‘I know, Leo, my love. It’s just…’ Her sentence trailed away.

  ‘It’s hard,’ I finished for her. ‘I know. It’s really hard. But Papa would be even more unhappy if he thought we had stayed here when we had a chance to leave. It’s an awful choice, but this is the best of the two horrible options.’

  Mama leaned away from me. Looking into my eyes, she put her palm against my face and stroked my cheek with her thumb. ‘When did you grow into such a sensible young man?’ she asked.

  When I had to, I thought.

  I didn’t say that, though. Instead, I kissed her cheek and whispered, ‘I love you, Mama.’

  ‘I love you more, my darling boy,’ she said. Then she took a breath and seemed to gather herself into action. ‘Come on, then. Let’s take the letter to the authorities and see what hoops they make us jump through this time.’

  We wrapped up in our biggest coats and thickest gloves and hats and began the trail of embassies and offices and administrative buildings that we had become used to visiting. We armed ourselves for another day of standing out in the cold, and for the usual rejections, laughter and scorn.

  But they didn’t come.

  The day ended with something we never thought we would receive: a visa.

  ELSA

  I rub my eyes and stare at my parents. I must have heard them wrong. I must have. Half of me wants to ask them to repeat what they’ve just told us. The other half is terrified of hearing the words again.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Otto says before I have decided which way to go. ‘You’re sending us away? This has to be some kind of a joke, right?’

  Vati turns towards my brother. ‘Do we look like we are joking, Otto?’ he asks, his voice husky and dark.

  ‘But – but things aren’t really so bad, are they?’ I ask.

  ‘How bad do you want them to get, Elsa?’ Vati replies. ‘It’s not enough that neither you nor Otto is allowed to join the youth groups with all the other children? Not enough that I have no work, that you are not allowed to walk in the park, ride your bicycles, go swimming! Not enough that our friends are disappearing on a daily basis?’

  Mutti puts her hand on his arm. ‘Darling, go gently on the children. They don’t need to think about all of this.’

  ‘But, Stella, that’s just it. They do need to think about all this. We have to face what is happening.’

  ‘We are facing it,’ Mutti replies calmly. ‘I am with you on this decision. But still, we don’t need to ram it down their throats.’

  Vati lets out a breath. ‘Very well,’ he says. ‘But the decision is made. We just have to sit tight and wait till we are given our date. But it will be soon.’

  ‘Soon? Like, weeks away?’ Otto asks.

  ‘Days, more likely,’ Vati confesses.

  ‘Days?’ I croak.

  Mutti is crying openly now. ‘My babies. Believe me, if we thought we had any other options, we would take them.’

  ‘But why can’t you come with us?’ Otto asks. My big brother, the one who always tries so hard to be tough and strong and capable, sounds as scared as me.

  ‘They won’t let us,’ Vati replies. ‘We are not allowed out of the country. But you children have a chance. And your mother and I will not sit here and let the chance go by without reaching out to grab it.’

  Mutti kneels in front of Otto and me. She takes our hands. ‘You are the most important things in our lives,’ she says. ‘There is nothing that I care about as much as you.’

  ‘Then why are you sending us away?’ I ask. My throat hurts and I can barely get the words out.

  ‘Because we want you to live,’ Vati says simply.

  ‘We’re living now,’ I argue weakly. ‘Can’t we just carry on as we are?’ I think about the last time we went through this, leaving my two best friends. In Prague I have only one true friend. I can’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to Greta.

  ‘It will only be for a short while,’ Mutti says. ‘Just till all of this passes over. You’ll be back in no time.’

  ‘Can I tell Greta?’ I ask.

  ‘No!’ Vati is firm. ‘We can’t let anyone know that you are going. We all carry on as normal until I get word of the date you will leave. When that comes, we will all travel to the train station after nightfall. We have papers for you already. It is all organized. You will go to Holland and then get a boat to England. You will be looked after every step of the way. There are good people out there who will make sure you are safe.’

  Mutti tries to smile at us both. ‘And then, when everyone is sick and tired of Hitler and it is safe to come back home, we will collect you,’ she says. I know she is trying her hardest to convince us that everything will be fine. And because I can’t bear to see her trying so hard to hide her sadness, I give in.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘We’ll do it.’

  Otto half-shrugs, half-nods. ‘We understand,’ he says.

  But I know he’s lying just like I am. We all are. How could any of us understand that our lives are really in so much danger that Otto and I have to travel to another country, one where our parents aren’t even allowed to follow?

  I’ll do it. I’ll go. But I refuse to understand – because that would mean accepting the reality of what our lives have become. And I’m not prepared to do that.

  LEO

  I couldn’t stop staring at the document in my hand. ‘Is it real?’ I asked Mama. ‘We can truly leave Austria?’ I didn’t want to let myself hope. Just that day, we’d been spat at twice while we waited in the street to be seen. And on the way home I’d been tripped up by a boy walking the other way, just to make his friends laugh. And they did.

  People laughed at us every day now. They called us names whenever they saw us. They delighted in letting us know our place in Nazi-run society.

  Not that we needed reminding.

  Our place was at the bottom of the heap. Nothing came below the Jews.

  ‘It’s real,’ Mama insisted as she took a chair into her bedroom. ‘Here, help me reach the cases.’

  I followed her into her room and held the chair while she climbed up to reach the shelf at the top of her wardrobe. She pulled down two cases. We were allowed one each. One case each to fit our whole lives into. That was it.

  By the end of the week, our home would officially belong to the Nazi regime, along with everything in it. All we would own would be whatever we could fit into two cases and our passports with the big red ‘J’ for Jew stamped on them, in case anyone mistook us for something other than the dregs of society.

  I took my case to my bedroom and began to pack. Soon it was almost filled with clothes, books, a few toys and some odds and ends.

  I opened the drawer by my bed and took out the photograph from my ninth birthday.

  Sitting on the side of my bed, I squinted at the photo. It was hard to believe it was only three years ago. It felt like a lifetime. The carefree smiles on our faces – I couldn’t imagine smiling so freely like that ever again.
<
br />   The last happy day of my childhood and the day we had met Mr and Mrs Stewart. A tickle and a chase and a trip over a lady’s foot. And to make up for it, an extra ride on the Ferris wheel and a piece of Sachertorte. That was what we had given them.

  And in return they were offering us a whole new life.

  ELSA

  ‘Children, hurry. We haven’t got long,’ Mutti whispers.

  Vati is already at the door, looking down the street. I pull my rucksack on to my shoulders and pick up the other bag I’m allowed to take. As well as some practical things, I managed to fit in two of my favourite dresses and one pair of shiny shoes. I couldn’t bear to leave without them.

  I wonder briefly if there’s anything else I should have brought. I cannot possibly answer the question as I have no idea how long I will be gone, so I push it away and follow my family out of the house.

  In the black of the night, Vati softly closes our door behind us and the four of us scurry like field mice down the street.

  All the way to the station, I dream up scenarios that help take the pain away.

  The whole of the last three years has been a dream. I will wake up in a moment and find myself back in Vienna. We never even moved away from there.

  Leo and Max will turn up around the next corner, telling me they are coming too. The three of us will go together to the same house in England.

  Greta will be waiting at the station.

  All the ‘No Jews’ signs around the city will disappear. Nobody really hates us. It was all just a bad, bad, awful nightmare. Someone is waiting at the station to tell us that it is not real, any of it.

  None of these things happen.

  Vati walks ahead, checking around every corner before we get there, looking all around constantly, signalling for us to follow him. We follow behind him, slightly slower than usual as Otto’s limp is playing up a little. That happens when he is stressed or tired. So we pick our way carefully and stealthily through the streets.