Kindergarten (11 page)

Could you take two or three of these children in September? Even a tentative promise “subject to the approval of the School Committee” will be helpful. Are there other headteachers in your area who might also be willing to help, with boys or girls? Would you be able to offer places to girls at your school? (We hope to keep brothers and sisters together.) I will be happy to supply you with any further details, or answer any questions.

I hope that you will feel able to help.

Yours sincerely,
Hannah Greif

DR. WILHELM VIEHMANN
Berlin-Charlottenburg 4

23rd September 1934

Dear Mr. High,

Thank you very much for your letter from last week. My husband found the week he spent in England when he brought our boys a very happy time. He has told me all about Southwold, and about meeting you and your family.

The start of life in England, and the beginning of term in a new school, have been very great events for our boys, and Kurt and Thomas write very much in their letters about it, and show a happiness they have not known for many months. Their letters talk much of their sport-life, and I am very glad that they are involved in this traditional “fair sport” side of English manner of life.

Kurt is beginning to imitate the English orthography, and he does progress. He is beginning to write the nouns with the small letters in the correct way. He is telling me he is knowing the language “jolly well.” Thomas, I think, is a little homesick. He is gentler in mind than Kurt, and more longing for tenderness. Everyone he knows in the world is in Germany. I hope that he will accustom more and more to your life and will be a good comrade among the other boys. Are you satisfied with their progress in English, and with their behaviour?

I hope my husband tried to tell you how thankful we both are that our boys are in your school during this difficult time and learn all about English life, but he does not speak English well.
My
English is not enough to express to you all the thankfulness we feel towards you and your school. I could not express it in German. You hardly know what a relief it is for us in our situation that our children are taken care of in your community, where they can be children, without the troubles of the adult world. I am so grateful that, with comrades of their own age, they will perhaps forget soon what they were compelled for so many months to endure, with the sorrows of grown-up people, the many conflicts and pains they have suffered in their native country. With a heavy heart we sent them away, but we feel comforted knowing you care for them in our bad times. It is a marvellous experience in our life to find friends in a country where we are only strangers. People are kind. We must remember this.

With many thanks for all your kindness towards us and our children. Kindest regards, also, to Misses High, please. The boys’ grandmother, also, sends her good wishes.

Yours thankfull,
Frau Katherina Viehmann

Please give my love to my boys. I wait for their Sunday letters. I hope their colds are better.

London W.C.I
22nd Oktober 1935

Very respected Mr. High,

I have heard of your school through my friend Kurt Viehmann who has been a pupil at your school since one year, who ask you that I please would be accepted also.

I am 14 years old, a German Jew, as Kurt is. I went in Berlin to the same “Gymnasium” as Kurt, and you may ask there a report about me. I was good student. I have my school reports with me here in England, and can show them to you. My wish is to be a physician.

My parents’ letter will arrive soon. They told me to ask you if I could be allowed in your school. They have told me that if I can find a school to take me, I need not go back to Berlin. Please let me come to your school, Mr. High. I beg to ask that you will accept me. My parents will not be able to afford that I come to England a second time. My fees will be paid monthly, which you will receive directly from my uncle in Paris, in French francs.

I am already one week in London, and my permission to remain in this country is soon expiring. I soon must return to Berlin if I find no school. You would oblige me very much if you let me know your decision soon.

Yours respectfully,
Rudolf Seidemann

P.S. Please deliver my best regard to Kurt. Thank you.

EMERGENCY COMMITTEE FOR THE
CARE OF GERMAN JEWISH CHILDREN
Rachel House, London W. 1

7th February 1936

RE:
Kurt and Thomas Viehmann
.

Dear Anthony High,

I was in Berlin over the New Year, and I’m afraid that the extraordinarily stringent financial restrictions operated by the German authorities are going to lead to some heartbreaking situations. Thousands of German refugees are going to find it virtually impossible to get help, or to leave the country. Life is made unbearable for them, so that they are driven to make arrangements to leave the country, and then it is made so difficult for them that they are unable to carry out their plans.

I saw Kurt and Thomas’s mother, and no one could be more full of gratitude than she is for you and Southwold, and what you are doing for her sons. Her only comfort in her current situation is to know that they, at least, are safe in England

But we don’t know what we can do about the school fees. When they sent their boys to England in 1934, they felt sure that they knew of a safe and permanent way to get money out of Germany to pay the boys’ fees, but they now realise that they were mistaken. Things have tightened up fiercely. They have tried every possible way to transfer money to England, but, of course, they have no relations outside Germany who could help them.

They thought, at one stage, of your finding English people who were going to travel for holidays in Germany, and who would need German currency for their stay. You could have given these tourists their address in Berlin, and a slip with your signature, and they would have given the money for the fees to these people, who would repay you in English money when they returned home. Just before this happened, the boys could have written home to tell their parents that friends were going to visit them from England to give them the latest news from school, informing them of their names, to act as a safeguard. I felt that this was really too dangerous a plan.

Another idea they had considered recently was to support a German child in need—chosen by a British charity in Berlin—and to arrange for an equivalent sum to be transferred via the charity to England to pay for the boys’ school fees: but this would not have been permitted, as I had to point out. Their final idea—and they really are desperately anxious to fulfil their commitment—is to have English children staying as their guests in Berlin for some time, if the children’s parents would agree, in exchange, to pay for the fees of Kurt and Thomas. I understand that when the boys returned home for the Christmas holidays, Kurt brought an English schoolfriend home with him, and they showed him all the sights of Berlin, and he had a very enjoyable time. Is there any possibility of this working?

If not, the Viehmanns will be quite unable to pay the boys’ school fees.

There are going to be many more similar cases, where children do not have relations outside Germany willing to pay for them. What can we do? The clearing systems are totally inadequate for the huge volume of finance which should be passing through for school fees. We have such limited resources, and so many cases on our books, that the Committee have decided that we cannot possibly accept any new cases under any circumstances for the payment of fees through the Exchange Clearing. We, therefore, will be unable to offer any financial assistance for Kurt and Thomas Viehmann, and have told Mr. and Mrs. Viehmann of the failure of their plans.

You might feel that the only possible answer is that the boys must be sent back into Germany, as you can hardly justify their staying on at your school, but I know that you will be fully aware of the effect of this news on Kurt and Thomas. I know what it is like for Jewish children in Berlin schools. I am so very sorry.

Yours sincerely,
Hannah Greif

DR. WILHELM VIEHMANN
Berlin-Charlottenburg 4

15th February 1936

Dear Mr. High,

I have heard the news from “Elternhilf a für die jüdische Jugend” about the news from the “Rachelhouse.” I do not want you to believe that our non-paying is deliberate. It is for us a matter of course and honour to pay the fees as soon as the German regulations will allow this. We do not know what to do. Yesterday I walked to see Mrs. Kirchner, who I know wrote to you about her two children, and said she was aided by the Clearing-House of “Elternhilfe” for paying her fees. I wished to discover how she had succeeded so well. But I was sad when her statements were vague, and found she was only pretending. Mrs. Kirchner is only on the waiting-list, just as I am. I do not blame her for what she said. She had been told that her son Alex’s turn had come (after eighteen months waiting) and then they announced to her that they were doing nothing for boys under fourteen.

I applied again to “Elternhilfe” for news of my position on the waiting-list for the Clearing-House for the money, and hope to hear a clear answer by next week. I hope that then we shall be able to transfer a sum of money to pay the money we owe you soon. It is difficult for us now to travel to England, since we have lost our German citizenship.

We are very gratefull for all you have done for our boys. You have given them back their bright childhood, and made it possible for them to build up their lives. Please trust us, Mr. High. We shall do all we can to pay the money. Please excuse the trouble we are obliged to arise. I ask if you will allow our boys to remain in your school. You understand I would not ask if I would not be obliged to do so. We have caused you so many worries and difficulties.

Thank you for all your help to Kurt and Thomas, and to us.

Affectionately yours,
Katherina Viehmann

Aliens Department
Home Office, Whitehall

4th April 1936

With reference to your letter of the 26th March, I am directed by the Secretary of State to say that he regrets that he is not prepared to entertain an application for the grant of a certificate of naturalization to Kurt Erich Viehmann during his minority.

I am, sir,
Your obedient Servant,
J. Dickinson

Berlin- Charlottenburg 2
5th April 1938

Dear Mr. High,

Only today we got a letter from Lotte which rather afraid us. It is, we think, a little lonely for her by herself in the holidays. She seems to feel so lonely and homesick, and thinks she has no friends. She misses, also, her little dog. She seems to weep every night, and we worry about our dear daughter. She writes absolutely unhappy in the idea not to get through the examination! Lotte feels so anxious about the Mathematics. We hope that this is only a nervousness of hers. Were you satisfied with the results of her report-book? She tells us that the doctor told her she should swim and lead an active life, and not worry too much about herself.

Lotte tells us that no payment has reached you from my brother in Palestine. Please remember him if by mistake a payment should be late. I wrote to my brother with this sense, and he says it would only be on account of the difficulties in sending, but he is sure he will be able to manage it. If there are any questions of this kind, please, dear Mr. High, do not tell the child about them. Lotte feels very upset.

The 15th April is Lotte’s birthday. Would you kindly buy her a little chocolate? It is almost impossible for us to send it abroad. We want to help Lotte, but we feel so helpless.

Excuse, please, these problems,
Peter and Aline Goetzel

Berlin-Charlottenburg
15th June 1939

Dear Sir,

Mrs. Greif did write to Miss Matthias from England and tell me the acception of me and my big brother as pupils of your school next term at a fee of £55 p.a. which enable us to fulfil our one wish to continue with our learning and our music. My father will send you the Form and Application for Admission. I only wish to thank you for your extreem kindness.

Yours very grateful,
Nickolaus Mittle

The photograph on the other side of Nickolaus Mittler’s first postcard was an aerial view of Berlin Cathedral. Corrie had never known that Berlin had had a cathedral.

A
COLD
wind was blowing down a broad street lined with balconied apartments. Most of the shutters were closed, and all the doors were locked.

He saw a lonely face at a window.

Inside a second-floor apartment, Nickolaus Mittler was slowly, patiently, writing at a table near the window, bent over, intent. Loose papers, postcards, books, and dictionaries were around him. The boy wrote and wrote, card after card, the pen-nib scratching in the silence of the room. Behind him, in the corner of the room, beside the window, her head turned towards it, a woman stood very still, as though listening for a sound outside in the street. In the hall, packed suitcases were lined against the wall. The suitcases were expensive, but the hall was empty of furniture and the walls were bare. A man and an older boy sat on the uncarpeted boards of the floor, beside the telephone. They were all wearing their best clothes.

Behind the four still, rapt figures, open doors led through to other doors, deeper inside, other rooms, other lives, just out of sight, closed doors opening deeper and deeper inside.

D
URING
his early lessons with Lilli after her stroke, he had made use of his school atlas, giving her the names of places—Dresden, Berlin, Southwold, King’s Lynn, London—she had to find and point out to him. On page fourteen both parts of Germany were coloured the same pale orange colour, as though the country were whole and it was the time before the war.

Lilli’s finger poised in the air above the open atlas, moved down—Spandau, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Charlottenburg—and came firmly to rest upon Berlin.

Berlin, like Vienna to the south of it, was so enormous a city that it was not represented, even on the small-scale map of the school atlas, as a dot or a square, but as an irregular solid area of grey to show the extent of the built-up area. Charlottenburg, where the Viehmanns and Nickolaus Mittler lived, where so many of the Berlin letters and postcards came from, was a large western suburb of Berlin, a circle as large as any independent town at the edge of the vast unknown city.