I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree (3 page)

A chill passed down my spine. In a week's time some party member would live in our house.

Not to be outdone, the other blonde leaned over to tell her companion what was to be a secret. “Horst has a new assignment. We're moving to Poland, near one of those camps. He said we will get a lot of special privileges.”

My attention shifted to the soldiers, who were playing a noisy game of cards. When the game ended, they began to sing the party song,
the refrain repeating itself after every verse. I was familiar with the song. A man named Horst Wessel had written the words:
“When Jewish blood spurts from our knives, things will go twice as well.”

I was afraid to look up for fear of being harassed, but nothing happened. When the singing ended, everyone began to eat. I took out a cheese sandwich and an apple. Early that morning I had gone down to the school kitchen to ask the cook if he had something to give me for the journey.

The train moved past fields and meadows. Marigolds and cornflowers blanketed the countryside. Now and then a peasant guided his herd of cows toward a watering hole. The tranquility of the scene did little to put me at ease. I tried preparing myself for the reunion with Mama, thinking of what I would say to console her. If only Papa had listened to his friend Mr. Wasserman, who had emigrated with his family to Argentina while there was still time.

“Argentina,” Papa had said. “It's at the end of the world.”

If only Papa had listened.

The voice of a vendor selling tea, coffee, and mineral water rang through the corridor. My throat was dry from the stale air in the compartment, and I longed for a glass of mineral water but didn't want to chance being refused. When the young woman with the baby asked for coffee with cream and sugar, the vendor grew angry, telling her that such luxuries were reserved for men fighting at the front.

A bell rang, and two uniformed SS men entered the compartment. “We are looking for Hannelore Wolff,” they said gruffly. I sprang to my feet and showed them my travel permit. I was very frightened, with visions of being arrested and pulled off the train before I reached Weimar. Mama would never know what had happened to me. But after checking my papers, one of them dismissed me with a grunt.

The other passengers paid little attention to
me, and having no one to talk to only heightened my loneliness. After a while I picked up a memory book the class had given me as a going-away present. Each of the girls had written a poem. I felt inspired by the more original ones, but even the simpler sayings made me think about the camaraderie that had existed among us. I struggled to hold back tears; I couldn't let that happen, not here.

The hours dragged by, but finally the conductor announced, “Next station, Weimar.”

The school had sent a telegram letting Mama know when I was arriving. Mama was waiting on the platform, as beautiful as I remembered her. Shiny black hair, a flawless complexion glowing like a freshly ripened peach. But now there was a look, a wary expression that had never been there before. Mama held me in her arms and made a feeble attempt to smile. I sobbed uncontrollably into the folds of her black dress.

After a minute I wiped the tears and said, “I
often think Papa will come back. That maybe they made a mistake.”

“I wish that were so,” Mama replied, “but that is not the reality of it.”

People began to gather around us, staring at our yellow stars. We hurried to get away as quickly as possible. Our departure was accompanied by insults. One man followed us clear across the tracks shouting, “Germany will soon be
judenrein
”—free of Jews.

As we walked along a group of prisoners in gray-and-blue-striped burlap uniforms with numbers stenciled on their backs passed by. I had never,
ever
seen such emaciated faces. I was certain they were from Buchenwald, only an hour away from here.

Buchenwald, where Papa had been murdered.

We were halfway home when, unable to contain myself any longer, I asked Mama how it happened that Papa was arrested. She started from the beginning, telling of Papa's assigned
job with a potato dealer. He had to fill large burlap sacks with potatoes from early morning till night. Since Jews were not allowed to use public transportation and the dealer was far away, he rode his bicycle. The knee injury he had sustained in the Great War made walking difficult.

One day as he rode home the Gestapo stopped him and asked to see his permit. He didn't know that a permit was needed for riding a bicycle.

“Couldn't he have paid a fine?” I asked.

“Don't you see, it was an excuse to arrest him. When he didn't come home, I was frantic. But I couldn't go out to look for him because of the curfew.”

Mama went on to tell me how the next morning she had gone to the place where Papa worked. That was when she found out about his arrest.

“I begged the potato dealer to intercede, to tell the Gestapo that Papa was needed, but he
didn't want to get involved. I went to Gestapo headquarters asking permission to bring Papa a change of clothes and the special bandages he needed for his knee.

“The Gestapo refused to hear me out. ‘He doesn't need anything. We already told you that. Go home.'”

It hurt me so much to remind Mama of these terrible events, but in order to make sense of it, I had to know.

“It is beyond my understanding that the Gestapo has so much power!” I cried out. “They can grab a man off the street, send him to Buchenwald . . . and
kill him
. Is that how they repay a man for fighting their Great War, for being wounded and suffering from the pain all of his life!”

Just then as we were walking along I was reminded of our ivy-covered home in Aurich. How I longed to see it one more time to remind me of the happy hours I had spent there. I visualized the house now, with its
massive front door and the weather vane perched on top of the chimney—a circle with a pierced arrow through the center. When I was little, Grandmother Rosette told me about weather vanes and how they worked as lightning rods. And I wanted to see the lilac tree, imagining it full of blossoms. I had always liked the fragrance of lilacs. Besides, the tree always bloomed around Mama's birthday. It was almost that time again, only now Mama lived in Weimar in crammed quarters. There was no lilac tree, and Papa was not here to sing his songs of love.

Memories flooded through my mind. I could almost see Papa's shell collection displayed in the entry hall and the portraits of Grandmother Rosette and Grandfather Wolff dressed in the fashion of the day hanging side by side. I was only two years old when Grandfather Wolff died, but I fondly remembered Grandmother Rosette. I visited her every summer in Marienhafe. Two years ago when Jews were not allowed to live in
Marienhafe anymore, my grandmother moved to an old-age home. That home had been evacuated to a camp called Theresienstadt. We never heard from her again.

Finally Mama and I arrived at our destination. It was a long walk, especially for me since I was carrying my suitcase. The house we stopped at was a square, unattractive building. It was dark inside and very quiet. Mama and I walked through the long hall, arriving at the last door, and there, grabbing the door handle when they heard a key turning, were my brothers Wolfgang and Selly.

It was wonderful to see them again. They had arrived from Cologne only a few days ago and were no longer the little boys I remembered. They had not even had their bar mitzvahs yet when we parted. I could not believe these tall, lanky young men were my brothers. Selly's hair was still blond, while Wolfgang resembled Mama. He had her jet-black hair. Our childhood flashed before me: the games
we had played, the tricks we had performed with worms and other insects to frighten our friends. It might as well have been a lifetime ago, the way everything had changed.

Hannelore's brothers, Wolfgang
(left)
and Selly
(right).

“What about your bar mitzvahs?” I asked them. “You never answered my letters. It must have been hard for you without us there on such an important day. Papa tried to get a travel permit each time, but you know what happened. The authorities refused him.”

“It was the same for all the boys,” Wolfgang replied. “What should have been a special occasion turned into a sad day.”

I knew that Mama was happy to see us together, and when Selly remarked that I looked like a “real girl” now, even Mama smiled. We talked about our experiences in air-raid shelters, friends who had already been deported, and what our teachers had been like. Then it was time for me to go upstairs to pay my respects to Grandmother Henriette, who lived on the floor above.

The curtains had not been drawn, allowing the late-afternoon light to illuminate the room. Grandmother Henriette sat in a high-back armchair, her feet resting on a footstool. She
wore the same hairdo as always, with a net over it, but now her hair was completely gray.

I curtsied, as was expected of me, and planted a kiss on my grandmother's hand, barely touching the skin. “You've grown,” she said. “Just like your brothers.”

“Can you imagine, Grandmother,” I replied, “Selly told me I look like a real girl now!”

That brought a faint smile to the old woman's face. Grandmother said she remembered the wild games I had played with the boys, climbing trees as well as they did.

“That's all behind you now,” she said. “Your papa is gone, and you are going to be deported. Writing to the Gestapo to ask permission to go with your mama was a brave thing to do, Hannelore.”

The mention of Papa again brought tears to my face. Grandmother Henriette, who had always been strict and formal with her grandchildren, now opened both arms to comfort me.

It was getting dark. I rose to close the curtains and light a lamp. That's when I noticed the deep lines on my grandmother's face and saw how much she had aged. She would be alone after our deportation.

“Will they let you stay here after we leave?” I asked innocently.

“Probably not, child. I have no illusions about my future. My turn to be deported will come soon enough. I've wondered why they are letting me stay for now. Why not let me go with you?”

“The Gestapo is unpredictable,” I replied. “Wolfgang and Selly got deportation notices, I did not. I can't figure it out.”

I could see my grandmother was getting tired of this conversation, and anyway, I wanted to be with Mama and the boys.

Mama was sitting in her room when I came down. The massive ebony furniture was gone, left behind in Aurich, but the room was spotless. Mama was a wonderful housekeeper. The drapes
were hand-embroidered by Mama herself. She had brought them along, and they looked freshly laundered.

“I have something to show you,” Mama whispered, taking a small, sharp-edged box from the sideboard drawer. “This box . . .” For a moment she could not speak. “Papa's ashes. They came with the letter from Buchenwald.”

I held on to the box with both hands, wanting to say something but having trouble shaping the words. Tears rolled freely down my face when I blurted out, “Papa, I will never forget you as long as I am alive, and I will never forgive the Germans who did this to you! I promise, one day, when the Nazis are gone, we will return and give you a proper Jewish burial.
Papa, I don't know what to do without you!
But Mama needs me, and I have to be strong. I ask God why he let this happen to you—”

“Hannelore, what kind of talk is that?” Mama exclaimed. “We do not question God's will. It has been a long, exhausting day.
That's the only excuse I have for you!”

“I am sorry, Mama. I didn't mean it that way. Please . . . forgive me.”

I turned toward my brothers, who had now joined us in Mama's room, and wondered out loud why the Gestapo had bothered to send Papa's ashes to us. They didn't do that when Frau Guttman was killed in Ravensbrück, that awful concentration camp for women. Her ashes were not returned.

No one could understand how the Gestapo worked and how they operated. Power had gone to their heads, and they did whatever they wanted to do.

I shared the room with Mama that night. We looked through photographs and mementos well past midnight.

“Do you remember this one?” Mama said, glancing at a photo of Selly at the age of four, posing for a beauty contest. “How handsome he was with his blond locks. He looks like a girl here.”

There were more pictures of the boys on their first day of school, and one of me as well . . . pictures of Papa in his army uniform from the Great War and a last picture of him having to sell potatoes. Mama buried her face into a pillow as she looked at it. When I tried to console her, she simply said, “Let me be. I cry to relieve my pain.”

During the night, when neither of us could sleep, Mama told me how grateful she was to have me by her side in the difficult times that lay ahead. But perhaps, she said, it would have been wiser for me to stay in Berlin.