My Bridges of Hope (19 page)

What will happen to Mother and me? Can we join the transport? I contact the Zionist headquarters, and they put me in touch with Mr. Kafka, one of the organizers.

With “deep regret” Mr. Kafka declines to register Mommy. “This transport is to include only young people,” Mr. Kafka explains. “If you wish to join, we'll be happy to put your name on the list.”

“What about my mother?”

“Your mother will have to join a later transport.”

“When will there be a transport for her?”

“Some time later.”

I cannot leave Mommy behind. Together we will wait for a transport that will include her.

Longingly I watch the girls as they make ready for the journey. Sheindi is packing prayer books and small volumes of the Bible to distribute to the fighters. Both Deena and Gitta have received news that they are being adopted by relatives in Tel Aviv. The two young girls have become inseparable during the last few months and now discover that their adoptive families live in the same Tel Aviv neighborhood. They are delirious with joy: Their future togetherness is ensured. Rachel, Zippora, Zivia, Pesi, Edit, Celia, Feigi, Libby, Layu, Chava, Zeesi, and Leah, and many others, have no relatives in Israel or anywhere else in the world. They have had nothing and no one. Now they will have a country to call their own. A land they have never seen awaits them.

The train to Vienna pulls up alongside the platform. A last embrace, a last word of farewell, and the train—its windows filled with frantically waving, cheering girls—moves out of the terminal with ever-increasing speed. Will I ever see them again?

I remain alone on the platform. Why is parting
so painful? Why does my world collapse every time I say good-bye to people I love?

I think about my brother, separated from me not only by thousands of miles of ocean, but by an impenetrable Iron Curtain. I think about Mommy, now alone in Šamorín. What am I going to do now? The Beth Jacob School is finally closed. The last of my pupils, together with my closest friends, are on the train that is disappearing into the distant haze. The teachers' seminary, the English course at the Academy, Mrs. Gellert's dressmaker shop—are all things of the past.

The dormitory, Svoradova 7, is nearly deserted. Eight people instead of seventy occupy three spacious floors. Mrs. Meisels, the cook, was excluded from this transport because of her age. She occupies her previous private room downstairs near the kitchen. Miriam and her mother have moved into Malkele's room near the office on the second floor. Five girls live upstairs, in the two large dormitory rooms. Martha is waiting for the arrival of adoption papers from her uncle in America. “How will you get to America? There is no American embassy in this country to grant you a visa.”

“My uncle will find a way to get me out,” she says with absurd confidence. Emma, who recently received news that her father was alive in a Russian prison camp, has stayed behind to find ways of contacting him. Bozsi is determined to find a way to reach her brother in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany. Lilli returned from a TB sanatorium in the Tatras too late to join the transport. Her cousins in Liberec have invited her to come there and share their plans for the future.

And then there is me.

I, unlike the others, have no clear-cut strategy. I am here by default. And I feel hopelessly trapped.

What will happen to us, Mommy and me? A disturbing conviction grows in my mind: I must engineer our escape before it is too late.

Mommy is now spending every Sabbath, and often a number of weekdays, with me in the Home to avoid exposure to the bitter cold in Šamorín. Our fuel supply has run out.

One particularly bitter night, when I return to the dormitory after escorting a group of Hungarian refugees to their quarters, I notice a narrow streak of light under Mommy's door.
At that moment I make a drastic decision: I must reveal my plan to Mommy.

Mommy is startled to see me. “You're still awake? Why is your nose so red? Were you outdoors? At this hour?”

Until now, whenever she stayed in the Home, I would kiss Mommy good night and then pretend to go to my room. Then I would slip out of the building to run my errands for the
Briha.

It's almost three A.M. Mommy is a poor sleeper, but I never realized she stays awake this late. “And you, Mommy? What are you doing up at this hour?”

“I was thinking about Bubi,” she explains. “In March it will be two years since he left, and there is still no prospect for our departure. No prospect at all. In his last letter he wrote that he contacted several U.S. congressmen, and next he will contact a senator, but he does not sound hopeful. I'm afraid he knows more about the gravity of our situation here than we do. His letter is very gloomy.”

“That's the reason I've come to talk to you, Mommy. We know here, too, that the situation is worsening. The borders are getting
tighter. More and more escape operations have to be devised for refugees from Poland and Hungary, and they are breaking down with increasing frequency. Last week a transport was intercepted, two women were shot and wounded. The entire transport was shipped back to Hungary. You can imagine what fate awaits them there.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Mommy, I have been working with the
Briha”
Mommy's eyes open wide with alarm, and I go on before she can make a response. “I'm telling you all this because I have a plan. I've thought about this for a long time. We cannot wait any longer. We must join the next transport, you and I, to Vienna. And from there we'll make our way to America, somehow. The first priority is to get out of Czechoslovakia before it's too late.

“It has to be kept secret, even from our closest friends. You see, the
Briha
operates only for foreign refugees in transit. Under no circumstances are Czechoslovak citizens to join the transport. If they discover us among the refugees, my own colleagues would hand us over to the authorities, in order to save
the operation. We must masquerade as Hungarians. We must invent Hungarian identities—names, places of birth, and a foolproof story of escape through the Hungarian border. I can invent such identities for both of us. I've heard enough tales working as interpreter for the investigating authorities. We both speak Hungarian like natives and know some Hungarian towns well enough to give a credible description of a birthplace or places of transit.

“No one must be aware of our plan. The people I work with must not realize we are there as refugees. They must think I brought you along to help out. God knows the
Briha
needs extra help. If they discover us among the refugees just before the transport is ready to leave, I don't suppose they would betray us. At that point, rather than jeopardize the transport, they would let us slip through. God forbid that we should be discovered.”

Mommy is very thoughtful. “God forbid,” she echoes. After a long pause, she says in a whisper, “My daughter, I'm afraid your plan is too daring. Too risky.”

“I'm afraid we have no choice.”

“We must think about it. We must think this out very carefully. I wish we could discuss it with someone.”

“Mommy, there's no time to think. And there is no one we can trust to discuss it with. The next transport may be the last.”

“When is the next transport?”

“I don't know. It may leave in a few days. It may also leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? When? What time?”

“The screening is being done during the night. Slovak military police interrogate every refugee, one by one, then hand him or her a pass. With these passes the refugees are loaded on trucks. As the trucks fill, they take off for the border. If a transport leaves tomorrow, I will be notified early in the evening. Then we will sneak into the old Jewish school building where the screening takes place. This is my normal routine. I escort refugees from their hideouts to the screening places.”

“Tomorrow? That's impossible.”

“Mommy, there's no time. I am afraid this is our last chance. If we miss this opportunity, we may never get out.”

Bratislava, January-March 1949

Today frightening news reaches the
Briha
headquarters. Emil's face is grim as he begins his report: “I regret to inform you of a critical development.”

“What's happened?” several volunteers ask at once.

“After crossing the Austrian border and reaching the Russian zone, border policemen came upon the convoy of vehicles and sprayed them with bullets before asking questions. Two refugees were killed, and several were wounded.”

“Weren't the police paid to look the other way?”

“No one knows how it happened. There might have been a slipup, an unexpected change of guards at the last minute. The authorities claim it was a . . .” Emil falls silent.

“Please go on,” we all urge him. “We want to know all the details.”

“I believe it was a deliberate 'misunderstanding,' in line with the latest Slovak attitudes.”

“What became of the refugees?”

“They were returned to Poland. Most were children who had been hidden in a Christian orphanage during the war. They were being transported under the auspices of the Youth Aliyah to Israel.”

“Were any of the children hurt ... or killed?”

“I don't know. We don't know the identities of the casualties, or of the injured. The border police did not allow any of our men even to approach them. The situation is changing rapidly. Our hands are virtually tied.”

“What about the next transport?” someone ventures.

“It is uncertain when, and how. We will be in touch with you all. We'll let you know.” Emil sounds ominous. I shudder at the thought of being caught. If the border police do not shoot me, Emil and the others will.

Mommy returns to Šamorín to settle our affairs. She manages to sell both houses, Aunt Serena's and ours, for ridiculously low prices.
However, it's fortunate that she succeeds in selling them at all. Private property transaction, or ownership, is a thing of the past. Everything has been nationalized. A local resident who secretly believes the Communist regime will eventually fall and he will end up a prosperous property owner has talked Mommy into the illicit sale. We need every penny we can raise. Our future is uncertain. Even if we make it to Vienna, we don't know how long we will have to linger there before proceeding to the United States.

Now that we have the cash, we have to devise a means of smuggling it out of the country. Dollars are your best bet, we are told.

“I've heard that Donny D., Bubi's former schoolmate, sells dollars on the black market. I'll go to see him,” I tell Mommy.

The next morning I arrive at Donny's house carrying the large bundle of Czechoslovak bank notes, one hundred and ninety thousand crowns, in a briefcase.

“This amounts to fifty-seven dollars,” Donny declares after extensive counting and calculation. “One five- and one ten-dollar bill, two twenty-dollar bills, and two single bills. Six bills altogether.”

“That's all? How is that possible? All this money is worth only fifty-seven dollars?” I am in shock. “The price of two houses?”

“Look,” Donny explains, “the crown has a very low value. Converted to black-market dollars it does not amount to much. If you were to purchase the dollars in smaller denominations, I can give them to you at a much higher rate of exchange.”

“How much higher?”

“Let's see. If you accept small denominations, let's say one-dollar bills, I can give you sixty-six dollars.”

Sixty-six, instead of fifty-seven, sounds like a good deal. And Donny assures me that the smaller denominations have the very same value in America as the larger bank notes. As a matter of fact, it is better to have smaller notes in America. They are easier to spend. Most places refuse to accept large notes.

I am happy with my purchase. Now I am the proud possessor of sixty-six dollars. A fortune. My very first American money. There is only one thought that gives me pause: Why are small notes that much cheaper? There has to be a good reason.

Almost two months pass, and no transport. The wait gives Mommy and me ample time to prepare, and take every precaution against a slipup. Every shred of evidence of Slovak identity has to be destroyed. All my notebooks, letters, poems, and books written in Slovak have to be eliminated. Every label and stamp identifying the manufacturer has to be removed.

With a fine-tooth comb I sift through every item in our possession, and ink out signs of the most indirect association with local people. With trembling fingers I tear up every letter and note, some of profoundly sentimental value. With incisive pain I obliterate messages of affection from friends, pupils, and family members on the backs of photographs and on the title pages of books.

A deliberate violation of the self. Annihilation of identity. Canceling out the past.

This self-immolation by destroying personal papers is eerily reminiscent of the bonfire in which the Nazis burned our books, documents, pictures—paper of all kind—just before our deportation to Auschwitz. That
bonfire was meant to destroy our past and our future. By burning every bit of paper, the Nazis attempted to destroy our soul. They meant to eliminate every trace of our having lived.