Among the Reeds

by Tammy Bottner

  At the beginning of Nazi occupation, Belgium had been ordered to select ten percent of its work force to aid the Nazi war machine. But as the war dragged on, the Germans conscripted as many able-bodied men and women as possible, usually transporting them back into Germany to serve. Sometimes, however, factories that were producing goods for the German army in occupied countries needed staffing too. And it was to such a factory within Belgium that Genek was sent in late 1943.

  It is not known which factory he was sent to, or the exact date, but he would later tell Bobby of the three months he had spent working as a forced laborer for the Nazis. He was a skilled furrier; most likely the Germans took advantage of this skill and had him working in a garment factory, probably helping to sew uniforms for German soldiers. It is possible he worked at Hugo Boss, a clothing company that made Nazi war uniforms, that would later become a fashion giant. The only reason he was not killed or sent to Malines and then to Auschwitz was that somehow he avoided being recognized as a Jew. He probably passed as a Christian Pole.

  And so Melly was left alone, children in hiding, husband gone. She had no idea what had happened to Genek, whether he was still alive, whether he had been deported, detained, or arrested. Fear and despair were her constant companions. But she stuck by the promise she and Genek had made. Every day at four o’clock she made her way to the street corner they had designated as a rendezvous site. Every time she went there she was terrified of being arrested. She walked up and down the street a couple of times, trying her best to avoid notice. She was convinced it was a fool’s errand. But she did it nonetheless. Every day when Genek failed to appear she carefully chose a new path back to one of her lodgings, trying to look casual as she glanced behind her, hoping she was not being followed.

  Genek, meanwhile, spent three months as a virtual slave. The workers were given little food and very little rest. Their hours were long, from before dawn until well after dark, seven days a week. They lived in abysmal conditions in cold, damp, rodent-infested cramped rooms. Their Nazi slave masters forced them to stand at attention for hours for roll-call, beat them with riding crops if they didn’t move quickly enough when ordered to do something, and demanded unquestioning obedience. They were given work quotas and were threatened with beatings, or worse, if they didn’t meet them.

  Genek kept his mouth shut and his eyes open. He knew his worst-case scenario was attracting too much notice. If the Nazis realized he was Jewish they would surely kill him. He sat at his sewing machine and churned out the garments as he was told to do. He watched the guards. He noticed the way they carried themselves, the arrogant posture, the way they tucked their riding crops under their arms, goose-stepping in and out of the factory, shouting Heil Hitler! He made note of times when the guards stepped away to share a cigarette and to make disparaging remarks about the prisoners. He said very little. He didn’t care about the conditions, the hunger, the cold. He studied the environment and bided his time, waiting for a chance to make a move.

  One day the guard in charge put his crop down and headed off whistling toward the latrine. Genek knew this guard would usually stop and have a cigarette with his friend after he had used the toilet. He figured he had maybe a five-minute window. He wasted no time. In a flash he was up, grabbed the riding crop the guard had put down, tucked it into his armpit as the Germans did, threw back his shoulders, and goose-stepped toward the factory door. Nobody noticed him. The laborers kept their heads down. In their peripheral vision they would have seen the typical Nazi guard stance and posture, not a prisoner trying to escape. Genek kept going until he reached the door, opened it, stepped out, and closed the door behind him. Once outside he sprinted for the woods, and never looked back.

  Luckily he was still dressed in civilian clothes. They were filthy and infested with lice, but at least he wasn’t wearing prison garb. He had a chance of avoiding capture. Keeping to the woods and the back roads, Genek made his way back to Brussels. He hoped Melly would come to their meeting place at the designated time. He had no idea if she was still living in the same apartment. If she had moved and she didn’t come to their rendezvous spot he did not know how he would ever find her. He prayed she hadn’t been arrested too.

  Melly

  Visiting Bobby

  Can you believe it? One day Genek turned up at the meeting place. I almost died of shock. I had been going there every afternoon, more to give structure to my day than because I thought there was any chance I would see my husband again. But after three months, one day there he was, leaning against a wall, hat pulled down low on his forehead, pretending to read a newspaper. I recognized him immediately. We locked eyes. Without a word I turned around and he followed me back to our apartment.

  I couldn’t believe he had been arrested and imprisoned and had escaped. These things just didn’t happen in that time and place. People who disappeared did not come back. But Genek was a survivor, that’s for sure. He was skinny and dirty but he was alive. I was very, very grateful. Look, our marriage wasn't great, but I had already lost so much. His return gave me hope again. It made me think we might come out of this ordeal alive. We might get our children back some day.

  The news was mixed as we entered 1944. There was talk of an Allied invasion into Europe. We hoped and prayed that would happen soon. Everybody expected a massive land battle would have to happen to push the Nazis out of France and Belgium. In the meantime, Allied war planes were becoming more and more common, and disturbing, dropping bombs on what I guess they thought were Nazi strongholds and railways throughout Belgium, but plenty of times these bombs landed on innocent civilians. We lay in bed and listened to the booms of bombs and felt the shocks reverberate up and down our spines.

  There were some instances of resistance that raised our spirits. In mid-January “Groupe G,” one of the most successful Resistance cells, managed to cut electricity throughout the country. Without power, the Nazi war factories ground to halt. Of course, they resumed after a couple of days, but you see, this kind of rebellion gave our low morale a tremendous boost. Another act of resistance was the publication of fake copies of the Nazi-controlled newspaper Le Soir. The pirated paper put out strictly verboten anti-German stories. I can only imagine the wrath of the Nazi bastards when they saw those! And of course the Resistance blew up bridges and buildings and carried out assassinations. It was a time when change was starting to come to our dark continent, but slowly, and in fits and starts, two steps forward and one step back.

  And of course we still couldn’t trust anybody. Jacques le Gros was still on the prowl, eager to denounce his fellow Jews to the Gestapo. Everyone knew spies were everywhere. We didn’t chat with our neighbors; we didn’t socialize at all. You never knew who someone was working for. Maybe they were with the Resistance, but just as easily they could be informants for the Nazis. So we kept to ourselves, made no friends, and did our erratic dance from place to place, hoping to avoid detection.

  Eventually I couldn’t take the isolation and the loneliness anymore. I ached to see Bobby. I told Genek we had to contact the CDJ. We had to find out where Bobby was. We had to visit him.

  Genek contacted the agency that had placed Bobby. I don’t know how he did it, but eventually, maybe because the tide of the war was turning in our favor by then, he managed to find out where Bobby was hidden. In a convent in Banneux, about an hour outside the city. My heart was bursting with longing. I had to see my child.

  Genek and I took the train out to the village. We so rarely went out together. Genek, especially since his arrest, stayed hidden indoors for weeks at a time. But he was adamant that he was coming to see Bobby with me. Genek missed our son as much as I did. And so we took the risk. We couldn’t stop ourselves.

  There was some commotion when we arrived at the convent. The Mother Superior was not pleased to see us. We were jeopardizing the children, we were putting the sisters in danger, blah blah. I didn’t care. I had to see Bobby. We convinced her we had not been followed, that it was safe. Eventuall
y the Mother Superior realized we were not going to be dissuaded. She told us to wait in a little alcove while one of the nuns went to fetch Bobby. I thought my heart would pound out of my chest. It was all I could do not to scream at her to hurry up.

  A few minutes later a nun appeared leading a little waif by the hand. It was Bobby. He looked so pale, so thin, so scared. He didn’t run to me, he didn’t say a word. He was a ghost of a child. I choked back a sob, knelt and pulled him into my arms. His little body remained stiff. He didn’t recognize me. His beautiful curls were shorn off. When I asked the nun why, she shrugged. Lice.

  Bobby, Bobby, it’s Mama, it’s Mama, I said over and over again, tears pouring down my face despite my efforts not to scare him. Genek was trembling, pulling Bobby into an embrace, muttering endearments in Yiddish over and over. Bobby was silent. He looked shell-shocked.

  We spent the afternoon there. Eventually Bobby gave us a small smile, his eyes brightened, and he let us hug him without the strange stiffness he had exhibited at first. He didn’t talk much. I think he might have forgotten some of his Yiddish. I don’t know how much he understood but we couldn’t stop talking and stroking him. How do you explain to a four-year-old that you had to abandon him for a year? And that you would be leaving again.

  One thing I remember. He had learned how to tie his own shoes. He was very proud. The child tugged at my hand, made me sit down beside him while he carefully worked the laces in his little boots. His huge blue eyes looked up when he was done, a spark of my Bobby’s personality glinting in that thin little face. Well done, Bobby, we told him, what a big boy you are. The child smiled for the first time.

  The hours flew by. A nun came in and told us it was time for us to leave. The children would be going to their dinner soon, and it was best that we not disrupt the boy any more than we already had. She stood there waiting to take my child away again. I turned my back on her, pulled Bobby close and rocked him, whispering promises and telling him I loved him over and over.

  But eventually I had to let him go. He looked at me with heartbreak on his wan face, but allowed the nun to lead him away. I pressed a chocolate bar into his hand and watched my little boy walk out the door. He shuffled along like a little old man. He had already had a lifetime’s worth of suffering.

  Genek gave the nuns some coins, begged them to buy some extra sugar for Bobby. We tried to sweeten his bleak existence the only way we could. Of course the child didn’t want sugar; he wanted love, he wanted us.

  Genek and I wept. I thought my heart would really break. We talked about taking Bobby back with us, of course we did. But the Germans were still patrolling the streets looking for Jews. If they discovered us, if they arrested us, they would send Bobby to his death. We had to keep him safe.

  Leaving him again was torture, but saving his life was worth any sacrifice.

  The Tide Turns

  Brussels, 1944

  The long-anticipated Allied invasion finally occurred on June 6, 1944, as American, Canadian, and British troops stormed the beaches of Normandy in northern France. They had arrived to liberate the European continent from the grip of the brutal four-year Nazi rule. D-Day, as it was called, was a massive operation. Five thousand ships, eleven thousand airplanes, and a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers launched the massive battle that would finally turn the tide of the war. The invasion was incredibly bloody. The Allies lost four thousand men on the beaches in Normandy, mowed down by German artillery and air fire. Many more were injured.

  Yet they prevailed. The Allied troops advanced into France, pushing back the Germans, making their way toward Paris and toward Belgium. Despite fierce fighting, and some back-and-forth parries, the Allies managed to push the German army further and further eastward, swiftly liberating areas of France and then Belgium. On September 1, 1944, the first Allied troops crossed the Belgian frontier, and just three days later British troops arrived to liberate Brussels.

  Throngs lined the streets of Brussels to welcome the Allied victors as British troops rolled into the city. Women held up babies, girls leapt into British soldiers’ arms to thank them with a kiss, and thousands of ecstatic onlookers cheered and waved as their liberators drove their tanks through city streets. Long-hidden Belgian flags were unfurled and waved for the first time in four years. Ecstatic people tore down Nazi flags and ripped down German signs all over the city. Hitler was burned in effigy. Impromptu dancing broke out everywhere. The city was electric with joy, crowds of people shouting and crying and waving as they realized the hateful occupation was finally over.

  Desperate Nazis, realizing their time was up, spent their final hours of occupation destroying people and evidence. They executed prisoners even as the British troops made their way into the city. Retreating Nazi soldiers set fire to the Palace of Justice in the center of Brussels, hoping to destroy documents that could be used against them by the Allies. But as the stately building burned, hundreds of Belgians organized themselves into a human chain, rescuing documents by passing them from one person to the next.

  Suddenly the Nazis and their collaborators were on the run. Belgian troops, led by the intrepid Resistance, hunted for German collaborators and arrested the fleeing Nazi soldiers. In a matter of hours the hateful enemy who had dominated every aspect of life for years became prisoners of war.

  On September 3–4, 1944, the remaining prisoners at Dossin Barracks at Malines found themselves suddenly free. Overnight their guards had evaporated. Some five hundred Jews who had been destined for the next transport to Auschwitz were saved. As Allied soldiers entered the camp they discovered records showing the exact number of men, women, boys, and girls who had been deported on previous transports. The dates of each train that had left had been carefully recorded by the Germans, along with how many of each age group were in that transport. In all, 25,267 innocent people had been sent from Malines to Auschwitz on twenty-eight transport trains over two years. Of them, 2,459 were children. Only a handful of the adults survived; none of the children did. Melly’s Uncle Herman, Aunt Sally, and little Cousin Joachim, as well as many of Inge’s friends from Lustra, were amongst those deported from Malines to Auschwitz, never to return.

  Still, the war was not quite over. The Germans held on throughout the fall and winter, recapturing areas of Belgium and engaging Allied soldiers in battles. Finally, however, in February 1945, the entire country of Belgium was free.

  Liberation

  Spring 1945

  As soon as the Germans were finally pushed out of the country Genek went to collect his son from Banneux. Many of the rail lines had been destroyed in the fighting to liberate Belgium so Genek had to walk much of the way. He would have still heard the occasional drone of fighter planes as he tramped the seventy miles eastward toward the convent that had housed Bobby for the past two years. Everywhere were signs of destruction: bomb craters, burned houses, abandoned trucks. The years of war were written on the Belgian countryside.

  Still, it was spring. The sun shone warmly and leaves unfurled their bright green foliage on the trees. Flowers bloomed in the fields. Birds sang from the bushes. Genek must have been reminded of the long trek he had made almost a decade earlier when he had made his way from Lvov to Belgium. As he walked he must have thought about his loved ones back in Galicia. He had not heard from them in years. Letters he had sent had received no answers. Could any of them be alive? The Nazis could not have killed everyone. There were too many people to kill, surely? They must be somewhere. Perhaps they had been sent to a ghetto, deported even. Maybe, maybe he would find them again. He would search, he would ask everyone he met, he would go to the displaced person camps, look up the lists the Red Cross was putting together.

  Eventually the village came into view. Genek quickened his pace. He was going to get Bobby. He was going to bring his precious son home. The Nazi mumzers had taken a lot from him, but his most darling jewel of a son was safe. He and Melly had missed years of their son’s childhood; they would never get that back. But if
the child survived the war that was all that mattered.

  Genek entered the convent and met with the Mother Superior. She remembered him from the time he and Melly had come to visit Bobby. She greeted him warmly, obviously surprised and pleased that he was still alive. Yes, she told him, your son is still here and he is well. We will fetch him for you.

  And so once again Genek waited in the alcove while a nun went to collect little Bobby. As he came into view Genek noticed he had grown. His baby face had changed. He was painfully thin. As he knelt before him he saw some white hairs growing on Bobby’s temples. How could a five-year-old child have white hair? Genek enveloped Bobby in his arms.

  As before, at first Bobby’s body remained stiff and unyielding as Genek hugged him and spoke to him in Yiddish. He didn’t answer. Then the child brought his face close to his father’s neck and inhaled a few times. Suddenly Bobby smiled. So much time had gone by that he barely remembered his father’s face. But his scent. That triggered a cascade of memories. Bobby knew this man, and knew the man loved him. He clung to Genek and Genek clung to him, tears running down both their faces.

  Genek wasted no time on niceties at the convent. He wanted to bring Bobby home. Lifting the child onto his shoulders, he quickly departed and started the long walk back through the Belgian countryside, heading toward Brussels. Bobby weighed so little, he barely slowed Genek’s stride as he retraced his steps. As he walked he spoke to Bobby in Yiddish, telling him how much he had missed him, how happy he was to be bringing him back, how excited Mama would be to see him. Mein tachschit, Bobby, he told the child, you are my jewel.

  Bobby listened to the man’s voice, understanding little. He had barely spoken for the past two years. He had rarely been outside. Now he was moving, carried on the strong shoulders of this man, Papa, while an avalanche of sensations bombarded his sensory-deprived brain. The sun was very bright. And warm. There were trees and flowers and houses, sounds and smells. There was a breeze blowing on his face. Overwhelmed, Bobby dozed as Genek walked.