Among the Reeds

by Tammy Bottner

  They had scant ID. They had no means of legally crossing borders. If they were stopped and questioned they were doomed. They had very little money. But they were young and strong, athletic, and determined. They would travel together and look out for each other, and somehow make their way to a more enlightened country, find a way to start over, seize whatever opportunity life threw their way.

  Because of their illegal status, the young men had to be cautious. Without documentation, they could not risk riding the trains. And so mostly they walked, sticking to back roads where they attracted little notice. Occasionally a farmer gave them a lift, driving them a few miles in a wagon or tractor, dropping them off a little closer to their goal. They slept in fields, taking turns standing guard to make sure they were not discovered by police or by soldiers, the other grabbing a few hours of shut-eye, then switching. Sometimes they were able to sneak into a barn, spending the night curled up in the straw beside the livestock, maybe stealing a few eggs before they made off in the pre-dawn hours to continue their trek west.

  Maybe they were able to buy food at markets while they were still in Poland. They spoke the language, had the right currency. They may have begged farmers’ wives for meals as they passed through, and perhaps they did well, two handsome young men, traveling by foot. When hungry enough, they probably helped themselves to produce from the fields they traversed. But once they crossed into Germany, they would have had to be extremely cautious, avoiding all contact with the locals. It was imperative to travel under the radar.

  It’s possible that they took a southern route, traveling part of the way through Czechoslovakia. It would make sense that they would try to minimize the time they spent walking through Nazi Germany.

  It is hard to imagine walking a thousand miles without shelter or a reliable food source, withstanding rain and wind and mud, mosquitos, spiders, blisters, hunger, thirst, the beating sun, the chilly nights. Traveling on foot without a place to bathe or rest or wash their clothes. Traveling through hostile territory, fearing always an unexpected check point, a demand for documents they didn’t possess. Taking turns staying awake while the other slept on the bare ground, trying to stay alert, on guard always for unexpected danger. Walking through homesickness, anxiety about their families, worry about what they were heading into. But they were young, and on the road, and that combination is pretty intoxicating. So maybe they had some good times too.

  How long did the journey take? No-one really knows. If they walked an average of twenty miles a day the journey would have taken them fifty days. But it’s probable that they really traveled farther than a thousand miles, as they had to skirt urban areas and check points. Even at this brisk pace, if in fact they were able to travel that fast, it’s likely the journey took at least two months, and more likely three months.

  Miraculously, they did eventually make it out of Germany and into the relative safety that was Belgium. They had walked across Poland, part of Czechoslovakia, and through Nazi Germany, and had made it out without being detained, without succumbing to exposure or hunger or disease. They had done it. They had no money, no visas, no passports. They did not speak French or Flemish. But they were out of Poland, and out of Germany, and they were ready for the next leg of their adventure.

  Genek and Hiss had heard that there was a large Jewish population in the northern Belgian city of Antwerp, and so that is where they went. Genek must have cut a sorry figure after the arduous trek from Lvov. But he asked for help getting himself situated, and, as was the way in the Jewish Diaspora, received it. Now that he was in Antwerp it was time to figure out a new life for himself.

  Genek had trained as a bookkeeper in Lvov, but there were no jobs for him in that field in Antwerp. The Jewish community here was involved in two thriving businesses: diamonds and furs. Genek realized he would have to learn a new trade. And so he apprenticed himself to a man he met, a furrier, learning the trade that would be his from then on. He learned how to cut and sew together inexpensive fur scraps, assembling gloves, hats, jackets, vests, and muffs. Eventually he established a little atelier in his apartment, a corner devoted to his trade, where he created his wares. These items he then sold, either to a middle-man or, when possible, directly to the locals of Antwerp.

  So he made ends meet by sewing furs, even sending a little money home to his folks in Galicia when he could. But he must have missed his family, his community. Genek was lonely. He realized pining for his girlfriend back home was not getting him anywhere. She had elected to stay in Lvov. She would not be joining him in Antwerp. It’s clear that he must have been feeling like this, because by 1938 Genek had started thinking about getting himself a wife.

  Melly

  Amsterdam and Antwerp

  When we got to Amsterdam we were homeless. Gone were the servants and the luxurious home. We had escaped the Nazis, but we no longer had a place to even lay our heads. There was literally nowhere for our family to go. We got off the train and wandered the damp city streets, trying to locate Papa and figure out what to do next.

  To my great dismay, Mama told us children that we would be going to an orphanage. There was nowhere else for us to sleep in Amsterdam. It was temporary, she told us, just until she and Papa could find a place for us to live. Resolutely she marched us into a dreary institution in this foreign city, conversed with the matron and then gave us stern instructions to behave.

  This was the first time our new reality really hit me. I was so angry. So incredibly bitter that Hitler had robbed me of my life, of my home. I was bereft as Mama walked out of that orphanage, leaving Inge and Nathan holding hands at the door, crying. I thought Mama was abandoning us forever. Furiously, I kicked at the doorframe, impotent with rage. Take care of your brother and sister, Melly, were Mama’s last words to me as she left.

  The days passed in a cold and lonely blur but, true to her word, Mama did come back for us within a couple of weeks. Papa had found us a house to rent in the village of Scheveningen, on the Dutch coast. We collected our few meager belongings, stuffed them back into our satchels, and eagerly left that awful orphanage, excited again as we boarded the train for our new home.

  Slowly we began making our life over in Scheveningen. The cottage we lived in was small but cozy. Mama enrolled Inge and me in school. At eleven I found myself in a Dutch classroom, where I only understood a few words that were being said. But I learned the language quickly.

  Papa, who was becoming ever stranger, developed an obsession with swimming. The beach was very close to the house. Every morning he woke up little Nathan before dawn, and the two of them waded into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic just a few hundred yards from our cottage, swimming for about an hour in the choppy seas. I was happy to be excluded from this daily dunking, gratefully snatching a few extra minutes in my warm bed. But little Inge felt left out. I often heard her crying after Papa and Nathan left the cottage, heartbroken that she was not invited to join them.

  Instead of feeling sorry for Inge, I was irked by her pitiful whining. Grow up, I told her, you are such a little baby. No wonder Papa doesn’t take you swimming. Inge would cry even harder when I said that. It was during our time in that cottage that poor Inge tried to hang herself. Like I said, I was cruel to my sister. Good God, thinking about that is terrible.

  Now, Nathan, the family darling, was considered a child prodigy. Papa had started teaching him to read Hebrew while we were still in Chemnitz, lifting the burden of Torah study off my shoulders and transferring it squarely onto my little brother’s. But, unlike my reluctant compliance, Nathan took to learning like a fish to water, memorizing tracts of Torah and making my dour father beam with pride.

  Papa and Nathan could usually be found with their heads together at the kitchen table in our cottage by the sea, reading and discussing Talmud, while we girls tiptoed around them, trying not to disturb. My brother was all of five years old when we arrived, his feet didn’t even touch the floor as he sat at the table, but he was already well on his way to
being prepared for his Bar Mitzvah, or so it seemed to me at any rate. Inge and I helped Mama prepare the meals, wash the clothes, and tidy the cottage while Papa and Nathan studied.

  Papa became convinced that Nathan was a genius, a scholar who needed a great teacher, a rebbe, to further his education. He began making inquiries. Clearly the European continent was rife with prospects, but eventually Papa decided that Nathan’s best chance for study was in London. An added bonus was that Papa had some business contacts there; also it was further from the Nazis.

  And though we were safe and living a pretty normal life in Holland, we were conscious, of course, of the terror that Hitler was promulgating back in Germany. Stories of anti-Jewish legislation and repression percolated across the border. We listened to the radio, we read the papers, we heard the gossip. So while we felt incredibly lucky to be out, we worried about family and friends who were left behind. When Mama lit the Shabbos candles on Friday nights she always said a special prayer for her family still back in Germany.

  Eventually, maybe a year or so after our arrival in Scheveningen, Papa and Nathan departed for London, leaving my mother, me, and Inge behind. They stayed in London for about a year. My brother studied with a rebbe, and learned English too, according to the letters we received from them. Papa tried to make contacts for his glove and sock manufacturing business while Nathan went to school. I missed Nathan, but overall this was a nice quiet time for Mama and us girls, with less drama than when Papa was home.

  I continued attending school in Scheveningen, as did Inge. We were both very good students. Inge won some kind of math prize which made her incredibly proud. Of course, we were only girls, and the message we received was that it didn’t really matter that much whether we succeeded at school. Our mother was vaguely pleased for Inge, but only Nathan was the prodigy, only a son’s learning would be cause for celebration. I filed away this slight, as I had so many others, bringing them out to review in my mind’s eye late at night as I lay on my bed trying to get to sleep.

  Eventually Papa and Nathan returned. I don’t know exactly why; I suppose they couldn’t be estranged from the family forever. When they got back – it must have been 1936 by then – the family moved to Antwerp, Belgium. There was not much work for my father upon his return to Holland, and Antwerp had a larger Jewish community and more business prospects. Papa was still trying to make a go of business ventures in those years, although his behavior was becoming more erratic and bizarre. His obsession with religion continued, escalating as the years went on.

  Once again I had to leave behind the friends I had made, leave Holland, which had become familiar, and enroll in a new school in a new city, a new country. In Antwerp they spoke Flemish, which thankfully was similar enough to Dutch that I was able to get by. I was fourteen by this time, surly and self-absorbed, resentful of another move, resentful of my family. I spent a lot of time in my own head, imagining a bright future away from the chaos that had become my life, fantasizing about a handsome man who would be struck by my beauty and sweep me away. I stayed in school, it was easy enough to get good grades, but my mind was far away.

  Mostly what I recall about those years is that Papa was losing his grip on reality. Increasingly paranoid, he made us keep the curtains drawn in case people were snooping on us. He went on long raves about the Messiah coming, sometimes seeming to think that he was the Messiah. Mama became quiet and drawn, worried not only about her husband’s mental health but about making ends meet and supporting her three growing children.

  One day when I came home from school she told me that she was going to start working. This was a shock. Mama had been such a lady in Chemnitz, supervising her servants and making sure her household ran like clockwork. I couldn’t imagine her working outside the home. But needs must.

  There was a kosher patisserie, Mama told me, called Jalonjinsky’s. Mr. Jalonjinsky, the Jewish owner, baked his goods at his primary location in downtown Antwerp, but he wanted to expand. Mama was going to run a secondary location located at Kleine Beerstraat 1, on the corner with Van Ruusbroecstraat. I knew the corner she meant; it was right in the Jewish quarter of the city. Mama said she needed my help. Someone had to pick up the pastries at the downtown bakery and bring them to “our” patisserie, and that someone was going to be me. You can use your bicycle to transport the baked goods, Mama told me. You’ll have to go early in the morning, before school.

  There was more. Papa was going to go to a hospital that cared for people with mental illness. It was unthinkable for him to be admitted to a goyishe hospital. There were no Jewish mental hospitals in Belgium, she said. The only Jewish asylum was back in Holland, in a town called Apeldoorn, so that was where he would be going for a while. Who knew, God willing, maybe he would get better, and be able to eventually come back home.

  So that is what happened. Papa went to Apeldoornse Bos, a very large and well-respected Jewish mental hospital back in Holland. We went to visit him a couple of times in the ensuing years, and I remember an enormous country estate tucked into expansive woods, with vast well-manicured lawns and beautiful gardens. The hospital looked like a fancy museum from the outside. I am pretty sure the inside was not quite so elegant but, like I said, this was a highly respected institution staffed by the best Jewish psychiatrists in Europe, along with scores of lovely Jewish nurses. Papa always seemed to be well cared-for when we visited. It was so big, it almost seemed like its own little city. In 1938, the capacity of the hospital peaked at 900 patients! With all the staff, there were well over a thousand people there. Tragically, Papa never did get better. He stayed at the hospital until 1943, when the Nazis came in and brutally evacuated the entire place, and loaded everyone onto trucks bound for Auschwitz. Not just the patients, but those lovely nurses too. But once again, I am getting ahead of myself.

  It was 1937 when Papa left Antwerp for the hospital, and Mama started running the patisserie on Kleine Beerstraat. There was a tiny apartment above the bakery, and Mama and we children moved in there. I hated it. Inge and I had to share a bed, and we fought a lot. There was no privacy. I was a moody teenager who craved personal space. It was not an easy time for me, nor for my family who had to live with my dark moods.

  Every morning before school I cycled to Jalonjinsky’s, picking up trays of warm croissants, sticky buns, cinnamon sticks, and whatever delectables had been baked that morning. If the weather was fine I actually enjoyed this early morning errand. I would help myself to a pastry, load the trays onto the back of my bike, and then cycle over to “our” patisserie where Mama was waiting to open up for the day. The scent of freshly baked sweets wafted through the air as I biked the Antwerp streets. I loved the feeling of being young, free, and on the move, the wind blowing through my hair. On cold rainy days, I did not have such a nice time, but I had to do the pick-up just the same. After school I came back to help Mama wait on customers and to clean up before we closed for the evening.

  Soon the job of running the bakery by herself got to be too much for Mama. She suggested that I drop out of school – I was sixteen by then – and start working with her full-time in the shop. She couldn’t afford to hire anyone else, and so I was the obvious solution. Inge was helping too, of course, but she was too young to drop out of school. I was terribly resentful. Why did I always have to be the one who worked? Why couldn't I have a normal adolescence, go to school, flirt with boys? I didn’t really care about my studies that much, but I didn’t want to be cooped up behind a counter waiting on customers all day. I wanted to have fun. With Papa out of the house I felt freer to voice these objections. Mama and I started to argue in earnest.

  Well, I eventually did as Mama asked, but I managed to eke out a little something for myself too. Soon after I began working full-time in the patisserie, I found out that a room was available to let in the apartment building across the street. The manager, a customer of ours, said I could stay there for a ridiculously cheap rent. Mama, exhausted I think by my moodiness, agreed to let me move in the
re. It gave her and the younger kids a little more elbow room in the cramped apartment above the patisserie. We didn’t think about the manager’s motives.

  At first I loved having my own place, even if it was a mere shoebox of an apartment. After my long days of cycling to pick up pastries, then waiting on customers, sweeping, wiping, and organizing, I loved having a quiet private retreat to go home to. It was a luxury to stretch out my long legs in my own bed without my little sister there to annoy me. I always did like my privacy. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.

  Like most young girls, I continued to idly fantasize about romance. I had grown tall and shapely, and I couldn’t help but notice the glances men gave me on the street as I cycled by. It was all so new, scary, but also intoxicating to realize I was desirable. Would a handsome prince arrive at my doorstep one day to sweep me off my feet? I was incredibly naive and inexperienced. In pre-war Europe, Jewish girls from a traditional family were practically cloistered; we did not get the chance to date or even have friendships with boys. But it was fun to daydream.

  And dreamland was my only happy place. By 1938, further bad news was coming out of Germany. In November we heard about Kristallnacht, a night of violence against Jews that resulted in burned synagogues, including the beautiful old shul I had loved in Chemnitz. Jewish businesses had had their store windows smashed, their wares looted, and Jewish men and women had been beaten and killed by thugs in the streets throughout the country. Thousands of Jewish men were arrested, most sent to concentration camps. How was this possible? What was happening to our friends and relatives? I retreated further into my private world, my body going through the motions in the patisserie, but my mind a million miles away.

  So yes, I had some girlish dreams about men, but the only people beside my family that I interacted with were the customers who came into the patisserie. Our customers were all Jewish, this being a kosher bakery after all, and most were immigrants. A majority of the Jews in Belgium at that time were refugees who had left their homes in Eastern Europe, fleeing persecution. The Jewish community in Antwerp had mushroomed as war loomed. Of course, many of our customers were female, and most of the men who came in had a female companion on their arm. Also, they almost all spoke Yiddish, which reeked of ignorant shtetl life to my ears. I always responded in German – I could understand Yiddish but couldn’t speak it, and frankly had no desire to. There were some men who came in alone; maybe they were single – sometimes a man would try to flirt with me. To me, though, these were strangers with backward accents, and I ignored them. I was in that twilight period between girlhood and womanhood, intrigued by the idea of men more than by the actual ones I met.