Letter from my Father (7 page)

I was so disappointed with this change of plans that I sobbed for days and days. I had been so close to fulfilling my father Szulem's desire that
she build her life in Israel.

By June 1949, after most of the DPs in Stuttgart had managed to get their precious visa to the New World or had made Aliya, my school Bet Bialik closed its doors. There were not enough Jewish children of school age left in Stuttgart to sustain a Jewish school. At this point, my father made an important and brave decision. At the beginning of the new school year, I was enrolled in the first year of a prestigious German girls' high school, Morike Oberschule.

I was the only Jewish student among 1000 other girls. It was like falling on to another planet.

The principal of the school was a fair man who promised that I would be made to feel welcome. It was thought advisable for me to be known by a German name, so again I had to suffer a change in identity to fit in with a world of strangers. At school I was no longer Ester but Hedwig (based on Hadasa) Einleger and in the French class I was called Hedwigée. Ester sounded too Jewish. I soon learned to behave
like one of them
and made friends with some of my German classmates, though I never invited them home and nor did they invite me to theirs. I was Jewish and they were German, two widely separated worlds. I could talk to them about school things but nurtured a strong instinct that anything to do with my family, my Jewishness, my love of Zion, my story, had to remain hidden.

Being different – and so different – did not feel comfortable at all. My classmates were friendly most of the time except for two occasions when the chasm between us was starkly revealed. One day when I arrived in class I saw some girls huddled together whispering. When the ever-apologetic teacher arrived, one of these girls announced that it was
Hitler's birthday and we should celebrate.
Celebrate the monster, the evil man?
The teacher blushed and said that this was not the time to talk about such things, before continuing hastily with the lesson. Her timidity enraged me. My heart beat faster and I could not wait to go home, to safety.

The other incident occurred when I brought some Israeli stamps to swap and one of my classmates made a slighting comment about Israel. She was insulting my country! Something in me snapped, I answered back, she hit me and we got into a fight. We wrestled on the floor, beating each other with our fists and pulling each other's hair. I am rather small and she was a big girl, at least a head taller than me, so I obviously came off worse. My father was most upset and went to see the principal, who behaved like a real
Mensch
(a decent human being). He called an assembly of the whole school and formally apologised to me. Such an incident would never be repeated, he assured us. The matter was soon forgotten at school – but not by me.

The excellent teaching and wide range of subjects at Morike Oberschule opened a new world of learning for me into which I plunged with curiosity and real enjoyment. I felt that I was no longer a child. I was able to read and think and express myself in new, more adult ways. It felt as if my brain were actually expanding. I was now given the great works of German literature and improved my German to the point where I wrote my innermost thoughts in my diary in my new language. I learned about the Nibelungen saga, the story and myths of the Aryans, their great victories and disasters told in the
Nibelungenlied,
which we studied in great detail. It was rich with gods and heroes. We read the plays of Lessing, especially
Nathan der Weise
(Nathan the Wise), whose character was based on the great German Jew, Moses Mendelssohn. Best of all I loved reading the dramatic works of Friedrich Schiller, which we studied in depth including the tragedy of
Maria Stuart.
I felt so much for this noble, passionate, heroic
woman, exploited by cunning Elizabeth I. My favourite poem became Schiller's
Der Ring des Polykrates
, showing that we humans are not destined to enjoy unfettered happiness in our lives. I also learned sewing and embroidery, two skills vital for an accomplished German girl. But, of course, I was not a German girl and never would be.

My whole year at Morike Oberschule was intensely lonely. I would have liked to have had a friend with whom I could talk and discuss feelings and secrets. And I did have secrets. I was growing into a woman and was discovering sexual feelings. At night before going to sleep, I fantasised about a tall, dark young man called Henry with whom I imagined myself in love. This was certainly not a topic to talk about with Mother, who appeared to have no time at all for sex.

After school I would play hopscotch for a while with the younger children in the street and then go back upstairs to read and read. I read the vivid stories of Karl May, which my German friends were also reading. They described the adventures of the great Red Indian hero Winnetou and his fight to defend his land and people against the white cowboys of the Old West. I loved him and despised the oppressors who invaded his noble traditional world. One day when my parents came home they found me in floods of tears. I had been sobbing for hours over Winnetou's death. They told me that I was too impressionable. I had too much
empathy
. This apparently was not desirable.

Around me, there was a strange feeling of nervousness. Something worrying was going on. My parents listened to the radio with greater urgency. A war was being fought in Korea and there was increased tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. The papers were full of the possibility of a third World War. The Jews still in Stuttgart feared that Germany might rise again. We had to get out of Europe – immediately.

Father applied for visas to Canada and Australia and was prepared to go to either country. One afternoon, while both parents were out, the application for the Australian visa arrived. I knew what it was from the envelope. I opened it and found the application form. I was so pleased that I decided I could help my parents by filling it in. I was unsure of various birthdates and other details, so when I read it over I crossed out what I had first written and changed it, or put things in brackets. It looked rather messy but I was sure the migration officials would understand my notes and corrections. Australia was supposed to be a friendly country. Then I went to bed, leaving a note for my parents:
Application arrived. Have completed it
.

My parents returned home, found the childish (in their eyes) scribbling on the form and exploded. Father woke me and beat me on my legs and body and arms and kept on doing it for what seemed hours even though it probably lasted only minutes. This was not the father I knew. His eyes were bulging, his voice was hoarse and he kept on shouting. He roared that now, because of my
stupidity
they would have to ask for a new visa application, our departure would be delayed, and all our lives would be put in danger. On and on and on he raged. I was stunned by his reaction. It was a terrible night.

Fortunately, the new application arrived fairly soon and was completed correctly by the adults. A few weeks later, the visas for Australia arrived. Hurray! Better still, some friends from Stuttgart were already in Sydney and offered to organise the necessary papers in our new country. My initiative with the application was forgiven and forgotten.

V

New Land, New Language, New Name

Few in our circle knew anything about Australia. All that we could say for certain was that it was a country at the bottom of the world, certainly Down Under. I understood gravity and the rotation of the Earth, but still wondered how Australians kept their feet on the ground and did not fall off. This seemed silly, so I kept it to myself. But Australia was so far away from everything familiar. It was a little frightening.

In preparation for our venture to a new land and new language, a tutor was engaged to improve my English. I learned it quite well, but spoke with a heavy Polish-German accent. My parents also tried to master this foreign language. Mother quickly picked it up but Father was hopeless. He just could not understand that the pronunciation in English differed so markedly from the way it looked. A word like
therefore
did not sound anything like its written form. He thought English was a crazy language.

Using money they got from reparations from the German government, my parents bought things that were rumoured to be scarce in Australia. Quantities of soft down for filling pillows and doonas were found and Mother organised for a huge doona cover to be filled with chicken down to supply our needs for years to come. We bought bags of buttons. Father found a set of Rosenthal china with a pretty flower design and a set of sterling silver cutlery. These were for use in our future home but also to sell if times were bad.

We set out on our great journey on Monday 5th of March, 1951. As we said goodbye to people we knew and to Gebelsbergstrasse, I was quite distressed. Though I had not always been happy at school, I hated leaving it. I had learned so much there. I knew I would miss beautiful Stuttgart which had been restored and rebuilt around us.

We travelled by train to the Italian port of Genoa, then by a Greek ship, the
Cyrenia
, via Port Said through the Suez Canal and on through the Indian Ocean to Colombo. Encouraged by my father, I kept a diary recording my observations of, and feelings about the many new experiences of our journey. I noted the splendid snow-covered Alps; Naples lit up at night; and the colourful clothes and exotic wares of the Arab men and women of the ports along the Suez Canal. My father had a seemingly endless fund of information about the culture of every place at which we stopped. In April 1951 we arrived in Australia, at Fremantle.

My diary was in German, as were all the books I had brought along. I could not remember when I had stopped thinking in Polish. It just happened. I devoured the books one after another. One was Stefan Zweig's historical novel,
Maria Stuart
. Though tragic, her story was romantic and I longed for romance for myself.

Mother suffered from stomach problems for most of the trip and seemed to be more seasick than any of the other passengers. Every day she vomited and rarely went up for meals. So Father and I dined alone. The food served was unfamiliar and we left much of what was offered. I lost my puppy fat and enjoyed my new slenderness. After we left Colombo we also became seasick as the ship ploughed through rough seas, up and down, up and down again. My stomach sank each time. It was sometimes so hot that we slept out on deck.

The ship carried people from many different backgrounds. Each group kept to themselves and gossiped maliciously
about the others. There were Jewish and non-Jewish people from Hungary, Italy and Greece as well as Poland. The adult Polish Jews did not want anything to do with those from Hungary and the Hungarian Jews felt the same about those like my parents. We younger people did not care as much. We gathered in the evenings on the top deck to sing along with the Greek officers, who off duty played the guitar and sang sad songs. Music was played through loudspeakers all over the ship, all day long. And what music! There were tangos such as
Qui Saz, Qui Saz, Qui Saz
and
La Compersita,
making my whole body yearn to join in and dance and dance.

I made a couple of friends, also Polish, including a boy my age. I would change from one of my few outfits to another several times a day. I certainly wanted to be noticed as a young woman. After all, I was thirteen.

I fell in love with a young Greek officer, handsome in his cap and white starched uniform with gold lapels. He had deep black eyes and when he looked at me or said a few words, I literally tingled with excitement and pleasure. I thought he knew how I felt.

A formal dance was announced at the invitation of the equally handsome older captain. The dining hall was decorated and music arranged for the occasion. I spent hours thinking about what to wear and could hardly wait to dance. But Father cruelly intervened. He had noticed how often I changed my dress or stood in front of the mirror arranging my plaits, as well as how I mooned about the young officer. Finally Father said:
Enough
. I was still a child and my behaviour was shameful. I was not to go to the dance. I cried and pleaded. Nothing worked. I was a child and that was that. I sat outside the hall during the dancing, listening to the exciting music of the tango, feeling bitter and humiliated. But I didn't give up. Secretly I made a promise to myself to return to the ship when I was eighteen. Then I would dance all night with my officer.

After Fremantle, the gateway to our new country, we sailed on to Melbourne to be met by the family who had sponsored us, through the Australian Jewish Welfare Society. We then took the train to our final destination, Sydney. I had grown in height during the four weeks at sea and thought of myself as a grown-up. Now I was curious and excited about the challenge of starting a new life in this faraway land. In my diary, I wrote:

In three days we shall be stepping on Australian soil for the first time. Will this country bring us happiness? Will we be able to live here in peace and earn a living through honest work? Only the future will answer these questions.

Our friends from Stuttgart met us in Sydney and we stayed with them for the first few weeks. They had a flat in Botany Street, close to Bondi Junction. I was reassured that this busy shopping centre attracted many other Jewish migrants and was walking distance from a synagogue. This was where I met the first
Australian
girls and boys of my age, living in the next block. They were the children of migrants who had arrived two or three years earlier.

Within a month, Father found a two-bedroom apartment which could be made into a comfortable home. It had an eatin kitchen and a medium-sized balcony. It was on the second floor of a block of flats built of bricks in a suburb called Ocean Heights, with extensive views of Bondi Beach. We could walk there and from the balcony look down on the red roofs of Bondi's bungalows, their windows at night aglow with lights.