Let Me Whisper You My Story (4 page)

D
URING THE COLD
winter we wore layers of clothing as there was no heating. Then spring came and the grey of winter left. Trees across the road blossomed. We peeled off extra clothing and opened windows but the change in seasons was all that had changed for us. We were still prisoners only able to shop at certain times with our ration cards, still crammed together in the
Judenhaus
, and without any chance of escape.

At Pesach, Papa talked to us about the meaning of freedom and escape from slavery. ‘But we aren’t free now,’ Miri muttered to Erich who sat beside her.

‘Shh,’ Mama said.

Papa read from our Passover book, the
Haggadah
, but we did not have a proper religious service because there was no matzo or any of the traditional food that was part of Pesach. Uncle Ernst assured us that God would certainly understand.

My ninth birthday was observed the same way as the other children’s birthdays, with hugs and kisses.

At the very end of May 1942, something wonderful
happened. Cologne, a few hundred miles from Leipzig, was bombed by the British. Papa found out in early June, when he overheard two non-Jewish Germans discussing it inside a shop.

He came home smiling and, dropping a small bag of vegetables in the kitchen, danced the
hora
around the room. ‘Come on, children, dance. Dance. Dance for freedom. Dance. That bombing is from our very good friends, the Americans, the English, the Allies, everyone who hates Hitler. Dance for the end of war.’

How could anyone ignore Papa? His face was one big smile. We formed a circle and danced this old Jewish dance from times gone by. Even Erich danced. Agnes forgot her tantrums.

Hope was that bleached light in a pitch black sky as bombs fell on Cologne. ‘Hitler is being hurt on his own territory,’ said Papa joyfully. ‘This war will end.’

We continued to dance outside the apartment in a crocodile line down the stairs. Other residents, as they heard the news, joined in.

Surely the war would end soon, everyone said. But it didn’t.

In December, the winter wind whistled up the stairs of the apartment building and under our front door. Aunty Gitta pushed an old mat against it to keep what little warmth there was inside.

Sometimes news of the outside world filtered through to Papa when he was shopping. He was known to a number of Leipzig non-Jews, and occasionally a shopkeeper might quietly talk to him and add a few almost decent-looking vegetables to our rations.

‘If the Nazis come here, I shall stomp on their boots, Miri,’ I told her later. ‘I hate them. I don’t want to be scared. I want to be brave, like Papa.’

‘You have to be scared of them. You can’t stomp on their boots. They’ll shoot you. Papa is scared too. He just doesn’t want to show you his fear. Now, stop trembling, Rachel. You’ll be ten in April. You are not a baby anymore.’

‘I am still the youngest. Miri, does that make me special?’

While I was talking nonsense about what I would do to the Nazis, I realised with a shock that I wasn’t a baby. Suddenly that didn’t feel so good. Being the youngest in the family had given me the right to extra hugs, extra cheek-squeezing and generally extra kindness. I needed some reassurance that I still had my special role.

Miri smiled at me. ‘All right. You are special, you funny little thing.’

C
LOTHING WAS PASSED
down from one child to another. Because we were on rations, we didn’t seem to grow sideways, but we did get taller. I grew into Agnes’ clothing. She grew into Miri’s clothing. Miri seemed to have stopped growing, but she wore some of Mama’s clothing for a change. I wore Agnes’ horrible dresses with fitted belts and a woollen cardigan and, when it was cold, I wore her awful red coat. It had four buttons on it and a collar and it was ugly, but as I was cold I didn’t worry too much about how I looked. Erich wore his father’s shoes, though they were too big. He’d
outgrown his old ones, and there was no way we could buy him new ones. Dear Uncle Ernst took out his needle and thread and sat patiently mending and altering our clothes, and lining Erich’s shoes with scraps of material so they would fit him.

Miri had a friend called Jakob living in another
Judenhaus
across the road from us. Sometimes I’d see them sitting on the steps of his building. He was tall and thin, about three years older than Miri, and even through the window I could see his face light up when he spoke to my sister. Miri was pretty with her long soft hair and clear skin. I wondered if she knew how pretty she was.

Meantime, Agnes was driving everyone crazy. She threw herself dramatically on the couch at least twice a day, crying. She had no friends. She had nothing to do.

Aunty Gitta told everyone calmly that it was just a passing stage, that Agnes was getting older and was moody, and tantrums were fine and we should be grateful because it stopped her grumbling the rest of the time.

I didn’t have tantrums. I’d learned from watching Agnes that it made you tired and nobody liked you. When life became difficult I crept into the wardrobe. It was a good thing that Miri had dabbed some scent in there. The smell had been trapped and seemed to find its way into every item of clothing.

Papa and Uncle Ernst complained. ‘Here I am, a grown man, smelling of daisies,’ Papa said, though his eyes twinkled.

‘And I of roses,’ said Uncle Ernst.

It was difficult to sit in the wardrobe, but I continued to use it. I would pull the door closed, push all the shoes to one side and sit in the dark corner with my eyes closed. Often I just slept there. My dreams were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, yet nothing really fitted together. A duck, a tree, people in the street, a school teacher, two candles, twenty birds flying together, my doll with her other eye missing.

One day Mama came home very excited. She was balancing a bulge underneath her coat. As she opened her coat, I saw a swollen brown paper bag concealed there. Mama happily put the bag on the table and then emptied her full pockets.

‘Look what I have,’ she said. There was a big length of sausage and two loaves of bread. She took carefully packed eggs out of her pockets. Eggs? I could hardly remember what they looked like.

‘How?’ asked Miri. ‘Some of these aren’t even on the ration card. And they look almost fresh.’

While we all tugged at the bread which was so delicious I nearly fainted from delight, Mama told us the story.

‘I was going from shop to shop, trying to get food. Suddenly this German woman bumped into me. It was Mrs Liebermann. You don’t remember her, but I do. Papa treated her husband. He treated all their children, too. He was their family doctor.

‘Mrs Liebermann signalled to me with a turn of her head and I followed her into the alleyway at the side of the shop. She had a brown bag there, near a bin, filled with food. She pointed to it and said quickly, “Once a
week I can do this. My husband remembers your husband.”

‘I took the bag and came home between alleyways and side streets and hid the eggs in my pockets, so I didn’t stand out. Next week she will be there again.’ Between crumbs that sat between her teeth, Mama said, ‘Her husband is an important policeman in Leipzig. That is why the food is so fresh. Oh, what a blessing.’

So that day we ate, though not too well. We stored food for other hungry days, including bread for the Sabbath. Papa insisted on taking some bread and sausage to the families next door.

Aunty Gitta said, ‘Our family comes first. What we give away we take from the mouths of our children.’

There was an uneasy silence. Papa stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘If we don’t share this, then we become less human. I will tell our neighbours not to speak of our good luck. We cannot share this with everyone in the building.’

As he wrapped up a small parcel for the people next door, Miri said quietly, ‘You know, Papa, that food is
treif.
There’s probably pork in the sausage. We shouldn’t really be eating it.’

‘It’s all right, Miri,’ Papa said. ‘God understands that these are hard times. Don’t even think about it. Jewish law is flexible under our circumstances.’

So we ate, but before we had the sausage Papa made a point of asking God to forgive this awful sin, because our Jewish religion forbids us from eating pork. That night, the hole in our stomachs temporarily filled, we all slept well.

Agnes and I continued to have our fights, though. One day she sat grizzling on the couch. Her skinny face was all bones and frowns. ‘I miss school,’ she said mournfully to anyone who would listen. ‘I miss my friends. My life is terrible.’

‘Stop that, Agnes,’ I shouted. ‘What about me? I don’t complain.’

‘I bet you complain in your silly wardrobe.’

‘It’s not silly and I don’t bother anyone in there. And you should stop knocking on the door when I want to be alone there.’

Agnes continued to whine until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I threw myself on top of her and began to punch her. If she was going to keep whining then she should have something to whine about.

Miri was hunched over the dining table, writing. She put down her journal and pulled me off Agnes. My fists were still flying in the air. ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Both of you.’

Agnes dragged herself up from the couch where she’d been holding a faded cushion in front of her face to protect herself. She folded her arms and scrunched up her face. ‘You’re mean,’ she said, her eyes narrowed with anger. Then she looked at Miri. ‘And you stink.’

‘I do not. I smell like a lady.’

Agnes unscrunched her face and retreated to an armchair, where she sat with her legs curled up under her. She pulled at loose threads in the cushion. ‘The smell in the toilets makes me sick. I was first in the queue and an old lady pushed in front of me, saying my body was stronger than hers and I could wait. I am always hungry, and don’t tell me there’s enough food.’

Agnes was right about that. Even with the weekly food parcels from the kind German lady, we all felt little insects were crawling around inside us gnawing at us to remind us there wasn’t enough food to go around.

Mama had said that there were ration cards for all Germans but when shopkeepers saw the yellow star, most of them would quickly bring out the old food they had stored at the back of their shop.

‘We are getting the vegetables that are twisted with age—turnips, carrots, and if we’re very lucky, half-rotten potatoes,’ Miri said to Erich. ‘We get the stale bread that’s left over after the Germans have taken their quota.’

Erich looked away from her, his face blank.

‘I wish you’d talk to me, Erich,’ Miri said. ‘You’re my cousin. We used to talk a lot.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Erich, his voice soft and mournful. ‘I don’t know what to talk about anymore. I think about escape all the time, trying to work out ways for us to get away from here. It all seems hopeless. In the other Jewish house across the road, trucks pulled up yesterday and soldiers came and took people away. We can’t travel and with no way in or out of Leipzig, let alone Germany, what can we do?’

Erich took out one of his books. He opened it awkwardly, without even looking for a page number, and started to read.

Miri put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Oh, you should speak to me, Erich. Don’t you think I feel the same?’

S
OMETIMES WE HEARD
gunfire. Mama kept the curtains closed most of the time. ‘There’s nothing outside you need to see,’ she explained.

One time I peeked out of the curtain and saw soldiers marching down the street. They lifted their boots high in the air without bending their knees. It seemed impossible that they never marched out of step. Their faces were so stern. Did they have families that they loved too?

I tried to practise their high steps, but Mama stopped me. ‘No goose-stepping around the house. And keep that curtain closed.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I just want something to do. I get so tired and dizzy. I’m so thin, I might fall through a drain.’ I tried to sound dramatic and swayed, but Mama just looked at me and shook her head.

‘Study your reading and writing. Play cards with Agnes.’

Mama didn’t like Agnes or me looking out the window, but what were we supposed to do? Sometimes we went for walks with Mama down the street, when there seemed to be no soldiers around. There were a lot of Jews on the street because two buildings in the street were
Judenhäuser
. German families, without stars on their clothing, passed us. Not all of them were rude but they were careful to look away from us.

Sometimes neighbours from the other apartments came to visit us. One neighbour upstairs complained that we children were noisy. Everyone in the building was nervous. The arguing about queue hopping outside the toilets was awful. Not everyone made it in time. The stench was unbearable.

Aunty Gitta found a sweet-smelling herb growing wild near the back fence. She crushed some and divided it between two handkerchiefs and tied them to the toilet chains. It helped a little.

I liked going out of the building. I liked the air on my face. I liked whistling at birds I saw in the trees. I just wished Mama wouldn’t grip my hand so hard. I could walk by myself, and if I saw people coming towards us, I could quickly run to her.

Once, when Mama was out getting food from Mrs Liebermann, I heard screaming outside. I pulled the curtain aside and saw the Fleischmann family from the apartment building across the road being pushed into a truck. Where were they being taken? Would they come back? Mrs Fleischmann was frightened. Her mouth was wide open. Mr Fleischmann had a big red mark on the side of his face.

Then I saw Esther, their daughter. She was only five. She didn’t come over to play but I had talked to her outside the building a few times.

Uncle Ernst heard the noises and came and looked out the window. He breathed heavily, then quickly closed the curtain. ‘Don’t look at such things,’ he said.

I saw him dig his square nails into the dining-room table, scratching lines up and down the wood as the screaming continued. Aunty Gitta came into the room and put her arm around him. Erich was curled up in a corner of the room, absently plucking strings on his violin. Agnes lay on the couch, her hands over her ears.