Read All but My Life: A Memoir Online
Authors: Gerda Weissmann Klein
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #Women, #History, #Holocaust
All but My Life: A Memoir (26 page)
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON MALA ORBACH AND I ARRIVED IN Cham by jeep after having driven over bomb-damaged roads. The captain was anxious to get back to Volary–it was not safe to drive after dark–so he left us in the center of town at the headquarters of the Military Government. The American sentry told us where we might find other refugees, but when we went to that address nobody seemed to know about the girls we were seeking. However, they had heard that some girls who had been in a Silesian camp were living on the outskirts of town. Our hopes thus spurred, Mala and I decided to look for them. We were given directions and soon found ourselves in a narrow cobbled street. It was almost dark when we knocked at a modern-looking glass-topped door that seemed rather out of place in such a medieval street. We knocked several times before a woman with curlers in her hair stuck her head through an open window.
“What do you want?” she yelled. We explained our mission.
“Those girls left yesterday!” She closed the window.
“Can we stay here overnight?” I called, but she either did not hear or would not answer us.
We did not know where to go. We were tired; it had been a long, eventful, trying day. It was completely dark now and the town was strange. People were suspicious. Skeletons of bombed-out buildings stood like ghosts against the dark sky. Germany was a haunted country–still hostile in defeat.
We stood alone among the ruins. I longed for the hospital, for a bed to sleep in, for people I knew. Where should we go?
A bell rang the half-hour. That was it: there was a church nearby. We found it easily, its steeple outlined in the moonlight, towering over the beaten city. The heavy wooden church
door opened slowly. One light was burning near the altar. We lay down on a bench and used our bundles as pillows.
door opened slowly. One light was burning near the altar. We lay down on a bench and used our bundles as pillows.
I woke up feeling cold. The stained-glass windows were lighting with dawn. What a strange twenty-four hours it had been, my first day of real freedom!
I had created a happy world of make-believe around me during the long years of loneliness, a world of beauty and love. It had helped me to survive, this lovely world that was to be mine when the war was over. Now the war was over … .
The silence in the church made me realize how alone I still was–in a strange town, where I found refuge in a church at whose altar I did not pray.
“Papa, Mama”–I murmured the words, to hear their sound again–“help me! Help me find my way!”
A ray of sun touched the corner of one of the stained-glass windows.
Kurt–he would understand, and not think my dreams foolish. He would understand the world I created. I would go to him.
We hitchhiked from early morning till afternoon. When Mala and I finally arrived in Freising, near Munich, we went-straight to the Military Government building. Just as we started up the broad stone steps, I saw Kurt coming down, hurrying, taking two steps at a time. He embraced us.
“I was just on my way to Cham to get you. The captain told me that he had left you there. Everything is ready. I have a room in Munich for you and Mala and when you are ready to work it will be easier to get a job in Munich than here in Freising.” Kurt’s jeep halted on the outskirts of Munich near the Perlacher Forest just before nightfall. A few scattered villas bordered its edge and there, set in a lovely garden, was the house in which we were to stay.
An elderly woman opened the door and led us to our room. She informed us that her husband was in the hospital, her only son was probably a prisoner of war since he was with the Wehrmacht, and that the upstairs of the house was already
occupied by two women whose home had been destroyed by bombs.
occupied by two women whose home had been destroyed by bombs.
I wanted to talk to Kurt and was glad when Frau Bieber, our landlady, left us alone.
“I must get a job soon,” I said. “Do you think I could start looking tomorrow?’
Kurt suggested that I should rest for a while first, but I remained firm and before he left he had promised to take me to the offices of the Civilian Censorship Division, which was hiring people who had been anti-Nazi.
Next afternoon he took us to the offices of the Civilian Censorship Division, where we applied for jobs and were interviewed by a charming and most understanding WAC captain. She said that we would have to take a two-week training course, after which we could start working. The job would pay well and give me the independence I longed for.
Kurt stayed on in Munich that second day and came to see me after dinner. We went walking in the woods behind the house. He was strangely silent and so was I. Then we started to talk about our parents. For the first time since I had known him, he spoke with bitterness of what had happened to them and of his inability to save them. We sat near a pile of broken branches, and he held one in his hands and systematically began to break it. His knuckles were white with the effort, as if he wanted to break something more.
“My brother told me later,” he continued, “that after my father had put me on the boat for America he said, ‘I have a feeling I shall not see my boy again.’”
I felt my eyes fill with tears. I understood so well what Kurt must feel, remembering Papa’s and Mama’s reactions when Arthur left. Kurt dropped the branch and took my hand silently. We sat in the dusk in silence. Understanding each other better than if we had spoken a thousand words.
We had started back toward the house without saying a word when several shots echoed through the woods. I stopped, petrified, expecting to hear screams and the ra-ta-ta of more shots, but the forest was silent, no more sound came. My heart beat fast, my temples pounded. I felt tears in my eyes
and I started to tremble. Kurt removed his jacket and put it around my shoulders.
and I started to tremble. Kurt removed his jacket and put it around my shoulders.
“You are dressed much too lightly,” he remarked, pretending not to know why I was trembling.
I felt the strength and protection of his arm around me and smiled at him.
Early the next morning I resolved to go back to the forest to get used to being unafraid. It was difficult and I trembled every time the branches rustled. Then I thought I spotted something red beneath the evergreens. Drops of blood! No, no, they were berries. I forced myself to touch them. They were only berries, but I could not make myself eat them.
After my training period, I began working for the Civilian Censorship Division, reading confiscated Nazi mail. I often visited the German Museum, which now housed a multitude of displaced persons. There, too, were the offices of UNRRA, where daily were posted the names of people who had survived and were looking for their kin. I would scan the lists, hoping to find a familiar name. Day after day I would walk away frustrated. Once I met some people from Sosnowitz and they told me that all of Abek’s family was gone, and that they had heard that Abek had died. I did not believe them then–I did not want to hear such news–but later it was to be confirmed.
I told Kurt about my visits to the Museum.
“You should not go constantly,” he said. “Why do you torture yourself like this?”
I couldn’t seem to tell him why.
One Sunday in mid-August I was lying on the grass behind our house, looking up to the cloudless sky. Long, long ago I had known countless such afternoons as this.
Just then Kurt came, shouting, “The war with Japan is over!”
He pulled a bottle from his pocket. “Anisette,” he said. “We’ll drink to peace.”
Ashamed to admit that I had never in my life tasted alcohol, I ran into the house for some glasses. We drank to peace, and drank to peace again.
“I am dizzy,” I told Kurt, sitting down on the grass.
“So am I,” Kurt said.
Somehow, it seemed screamingly funny. I burst into laughter. And then–I was in his arms. With that kiss, I felt as if I could fly through the air with the sheer power of happiness, settle on the clouds, kiss the stars, dance on the moon, and love the whole world.
Several days later Kurt brought me the long-awaited letter from Turkey. I held it for a moment before opening it, exalted and happy in the knowledge that my uncle was alive, that there was at least one member of my family left. When I finally tore it open, I read of my uncle’s joy at finding me, of his willingness and eagerness to help me do whatever I wanted. The warm bond of my family’s love was about me again. But the information that I had asked for and prayed that he might be able to provide, he couldn’t give me. Instead, he asked me about Papa, Mama, Arthur. Now at last I knew that I would never go home again.
A few weeks passed. Then came September 13, a Thursday. As I was coming home from work I saw Kurt. I was surprised, not having expected to see him till Sunday.
“Gerda,” he said, after the preliminaries were over, “I am going home.”
I managed to say, “I am so glad for you!” and then I felt the tears coming.
“Is this all you have to say to me?” Kurt demanded. “I want you to come to America and be my wife.”
He gently took my face in his hands, he looked into my eyes and said, “Don’t you understand? I love you. I want to marry you.”
I clung to Kurt, speechless with happiness, as words of tenderness poured from his lips.
Later, we discussed practical matters. He had two alternatives. He could stay another year or two in the Occupation Forces and we could be married at once, or he could go home and send for me as soon as the consulates were in operation again. It would be harder on me that way, but I would be
out of Germany sooner. Kurt insisted that the decision was to be mine, but I read his hope in his eyes.
out of Germany sooner. Kurt insisted that the decision was to be mine, but I read his hope in his eyes.
“Go home,” I whispered.
He nodded. “That way it will be better for our future.”
That night in my room I faced my fear of being alone again, my fear of losing Kurt as I had lost everyone else I ever loved. This time there would be a separation–even a long separation–but I knew there would be no loss.
“Kurt!” I called into the night, “Kurt I love you!”
And there, through the night, through the stars, through the sky, through the leaves on the trees, through the magic of life itself, I felt my cry answered. Wherever Kurt was, his thought met mine. I let the joy that rose to my heart take possession of my being. I had reached the summit, as I had dreamed I would in the dark years of slavery, and there, beyond the sphere of human vision, we met and embraced. We would never be alone again.
IT IS WITH TREPIDATION THAT I LOOK BACK AT WHAT I WROTE nearly a half century ago, in the springtime of my life. A welter of emotions assails me and must be sorted out. Now that I have reached autumn, perhaps I can be more objective.
I have been asked countless times, “How and why did you go on during those unspeakable years?” And then, “How do you cope with the memory of hardships in the work camps and the pain of losing your family?” I admit I no longer remember all the answers I have given, but I am sure that they often varied and depended on my mood.
The part of my formative years over which fate cast such a large shadow imposes an enormous burden and is not fully sorted out even now. No manual for survival was ever handed to me, nor were any self-help books available. Yet somehow I made my way, grappling with feelings that would let me reconcile difficult memories with hope for the future, and balancing pain with joy, death with life, loss with gain, tragedy with happiness.
Survival is both an exalted privilege and a painful burden. I shall take a few random incidents that have become important in my life and try to make some sense of them. At the same time, I realize that it is impossible to do justice to fifty years of memory. The acuteness of those recollections often penetrates the calm of my daily life, forcing me to confront painful truths but clarifying much through the very act of evocation. I have learned, for the most part, to deal with those truths, knowing well that a painful memory brought into focus by a current incident still hurts, but also that the pain will recede–as it has–and ultimately fade away.
When, in September 1946, the wheels of the plane bringing Kurt, my husband, and me from Paris and London touched
American soil, he tightened his arms around me and said simply, “You have come home.” It has been home, better than I ever dreamed it would be. I love this country as only one who has been homeless for so long can understand. I love it with a possessive fierceness that excuses its inadequacies, because I deeply want to belong. And I am still fearful of rejection, feeling I have no right to criticize, only an obligation to help correct. I marvel at my three children’s total acceptance of their birthright and rejoice in their good fortune.
American soil, he tightened his arms around me and said simply, “You have come home.” It has been home, better than I ever dreamed it would be. I love this country as only one who has been homeless for so long can understand. I love it with a possessive fierceness that excuses its inadequacies, because I deeply want to belong. And I am still fearful of rejection, feeling I have no right to criticize, only an obligation to help correct. I marvel at my three children’s total acceptance of their birthright and rejoice in their good fortune.
The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 helped me to become a better American. The pain and loss I experienced in Poland, the country of my birth, obliterated the nostalgic thoughts of a childhood home for which I yearn. I have found the answer to that longing in the tradition of my religion and in the land of my ancient ancestors. Israel, by extending the law of return to all Jews, has become the metaphorical sepulcher of my parents as well as my spiritual childhood home.
While my love for Israel represents my love for my parents and our shared past, the United States is my country of choice, my adult home. This country represents the love I harbor for my husband, my children, and my grandchildren. One complements the other; by being mutually supportive, they enrich and heal.
I fell in love with this country from the moment I first stepped upon its soil. It felt so right, so expansive, so free, so hospitable, and I desperately wanted to become part of the American mainstream.
I had envisioned Buffalo, which was to become my American home, as a utopian city beneath an ever-blue, brilliant sky, and had dismissed Paris, London, and New York, my way stations to this utopia. During the drive from the grand, imposing New York Central railroad station in Buffalo, I was confronted with my new city’s small wooden houses, huddled together like refugees, but my disappointment lasted only a few moments. I was ready to love the city and willing to defend it, even to myself. My affection was not misplaced. Buffalo did become a true home. It nurtured me, and later my children played and laughed under rows of elm trees while I immersed myself in a new life.
In time we would move from our first apartment to another part of the city, but I would occasionally drive past the familiar location that held so much of our early memories. I would remember how it had seemed to me on my first night in Buffalo, and a picture would flash through my mind. Long after Kurt had fallen asleep, I roamed through the apartment’s modest rooms, stopping at the refrigerator in the tiny kitchenette that Kurt’s friends had amply stocked. I had always loved fruit, so I took out an apple; but before I could catch the door, it slammed shut with a bang, and terror seized me. How many years had it been since I had lived in a home where I could take whatever I wanted with impunity? It was all mine now: the apple
and
the refrigerator. I opened the door, fully intending to let it slam shut. Instead, I caught it in time, closed it gently, and, grateful, went to bed.
and
the refrigerator. I opened the door, fully intending to let it slam shut. Instead, I caught it in time, closed it gently, and, grateful, went to bed.
Looking up at that third-story window of our first home, I also recalled the day which catapulted me into my life’s work. I came to Buffalo in September 1946, and the following incident must have happened in late November.
I loved going to grocery stores and still do. In those days I had the handy explanation that it was a great way to learn English, since I would see pictures on labels of cans that would tell me what was inside—an easy way to learn new words. The truth was different. I needed to convince myself of the abundance of available food and of its never-ending supply. I wanted the assurance of never being hungry again.
On that particular fall day, I must have dawdled in the market longer than I thought, because when I left the store, a snowstorm was gathering. I made it home, windblown, wet, and cold, and unpacked my bag on the kitchen table. Among my purchases was a loaf of bread. A whole loaf of bread, all mine! I took it into the living room and sat near the window, watching the icy gales swirling outside as I began to eat. Somehow it tasted soggy and a bit salty.
What was wrong with me? Here I was, sitting in a warm, secure place with a whole loaf of bread. Why, then, did I feel so sad, so forlorn? Slowly, the answer began to dawn. During the long years of deprivation, I had dreamed of eating my fill in a
warm place, in peace, but I never thought that I would eat my bread alone. Later that evening, I told Kurt that I had been thinking of my friends still in Europe, cold and hungry. I had to do something.
warm place, in peace, but I never thought that I would eat my bread alone. Later that evening, I told Kurt that I had been thinking of my friends still in Europe, cold and hungry. I had to do something.
Out of that need evolved my work with the local Jewish Federation, where I soon found myself putting stamps on envelopes and sealing them. I was immensely proud of having become a volunteer. When Kurt’s aunt cautioned me that volunteer work was really for the wealthy, I agreed wholeheartedly. I considered myself rich now.
It didn’t take long before the director of the office suggested that there were other ways to help. Could I tell some of the Buffalo Jewish community what I had seen and lived through? He waved aside protestations about my halting, faulty English. It did not matter that I was not articulate; he assured me that I would somehow manage to convey my feelings. And so, in the fall of 1946, I tried to tell my story, and I have continued to do so ever since.
Thus, I became involved in the concerns of United Jewish Appeal and Hadassah, and with the creation of the State of Israel my work intensified. It became clear to me that the idea of helping others need not be confined to victims of the Holocaust. The welfare of all children has always been of utmost importance to me: the abused, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the ill. I can identify with them because I know what it is like not to be able to communicate one’s pain and hope. I had learned, above all, that even after cataclysmic events I was able to laugh again. Of course, I had the resilience of youth on my side. My experience has taught me that all of us have a reservoir of untapped strength that comes to the fore at moments of crisis.
Throughout my years in the camps, and against nearly insuperable odds, I knew of no one who committed suicide. I wanted to reach out to young people, make them aware of the preciousness of life, and show them that it was not to be thrown away thoughtlessly, even under conditions of extreme hardship. I always wanted to impress upon them how wrong it is to seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
I feel gratified that, in their letters to me, those youngsters
treat me more as a peer than as someone of their grandparents’ generation. In that way I feel rewarded beyond all expectations.
treat me more as a peer than as someone of their grandparents’ generation. In that way I feel rewarded beyond all expectations.
In Buffalo our circle of friends widened, and I began to find my niche in American life. I learned, however, the great difference between my experiences and those of our new friends. Normal life for me had stopped with the outbreak of war, when I was fifteen; I had a big social gap during my adolescence, while my American contemporaries had grown up in normal fashion. I had resumed my life at twenty-two, married, and settled in a strange country, having only an inkling of its language and customs. My normal development was retarded, and yet I had a lifetime of terrifying experience behind me.
“Wasn’t it traumatic to make the transition to normality?” How often I have been asked that question, and I have come to the conclusion that, yes, perhaps it was. But I didn’t know what the word “trauma” implied, and I would have been ashamed to admit any dissatisfaction, believing it to be selfish and ungrateful to complain about anything here.
In retrospect, I think that coming to America was like stepping out of a dark, oppressive room in which I had been locked up for a long, long time. Once I was free and exposed to light again, the most ordinary objects, the simplest things acquired an aura of extraordinary beauty, desirability, and value. I reveled in the joy of discovery, and my gratitude was boundless.
I have almost total recall of certain moments from my early years, at home and in the camps, but that, too, can be a sword–albeit double-edged–with which to slay contemporary dragons. Such a duel is all the fiercer if the adversaries share the same body.
For many years, for example, I could not articulate the word “furnace.” I would substitute the euphemism “heating unit” when speaking to a repairman who came to the house to fix it. I found that it was less of a jolt to think about the word than to articulate it. I learned, though, that fear would recede more quickly if I immersed myself in routine chores. Cooking soup and folding cool linen can be great healers. For me, plunging
into community work has yielded the greatest satisfaction, while warding off dark memories.
into community work has yielded the greatest satisfaction, while warding off dark memories.
There are, however, pains that will not go away, adding their burden over extended periods of time. They are more infrequent, but when they recur, they often cut far deeper. Though I know their roots, I am still unable to deal with them; I am resigned to accepting the small, indelible scars they leave each time.
Recently, in preparation for our son’s visit to Arizona, where we now live, and knowing how much he likes fruit, I stocked up on it. On the last morning of his visit, when it turned out that the abundant supply had dwindled to nothing, he couldn’t refrain from teasing me gently about my lack of foresight. After he left for the airport, I found the bag of fruit I had stashed in a far corner of the refrigerator. I stood there, engulfed by a choking feeling of guilt, and bereft of the radiant warmth I had enjoyed during his visit. Instead, I experienced a stabbing memory of a hot day, more than a half century ago.
I was with my parents, living in the basement of our home, in Bielitz. The war had already gone on for two years, and we had just received word that my Aunt Pepi and her children were in Auschwitz. How this news reached us I no longer remember. My cousin Rose, at seventeen, was my contemporary, and her younger brother, Josef, must have been about ten years old. My mother decided to send a package to them and set out to make one of her special recipes, rum balls. Although they were ersatz, she brought all her skills to the task, improvising and using up carefully hoarded oats and other ingredients to make them as tasty as possible. Mama allowed me to try some of the confection, which was delicious to my ravenous teenage appetite. The rest, well over forty of them, were set out to dry.
When Mama left the room, I swiped one more, gulping it down quickly before the package was sent off, along with a few other goodies. As it turned out, the parcel came back a week or two later, bearing the legend UNDELIVERABLE. So much for German efficiency.
Intercepting their look of consternation and dismay, I saw my
parents’ eyes meet. To me, they made light of the matter, commenting on how fortunate Aunt Pepi and the children were to be able to leave that camp, quite likely to a safer place in the interior of Poland, where my aunt must have joined my uncle. Somehow, none of it rang true.
parents’ eyes meet. To me, they made light of the matter, commenting on how fortunate Aunt Pepi and the children were to be able to leave that camp, quite likely to a safer place in the interior of Poland, where my aunt must have joined my uncle. Somehow, none of it rang true.
I remember leaving the basement and standing upstairs in the stifling heat of the afternoon; I felt a vague sense of oppression, a pervasive loneliness that had nothing to do with Aunt Pepi. I was racked with guilt, although I realized even then that my having taken that extra rum ball couldn’t possibly have mattered to my aunt and cousins, even if the package had reached them. All I knew was that it mattered to me then and still does now. There is nothing I can do about it but bear the pain. It occurs every time I forget to give something to someone I love, even though I know that, fortunately, they can obtain it easily.
Those moments of pain are richly compensated for by others of immense joy. The most welcome were those when I held my newborn children and, later, my grandchildren in my arms: Alysa, Andrew, and Lindsay, our daughter Vivian’s children; Julie, Melissa, and Jessica, those of our daughter Leslie; and Jennifer and Alexa, our son Jim’s daughters.
I am awed by the marvel of creation, the mysterious spark in these new lives, which continue the chain of generations stretching back to time immemorial, imbuing it with the divine. To close the gap of what was left uncompleted, to create an existence that was meant to be denied represents a triumph over evil. I realize with wonder and gratitude that in my body reposed some part of shared ancestry with those deprived of life and that I was given the privilege of being a link between generations.
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