My Bridges of Hope (27 page)

The picture postcard I received from Jeno is propped up on my typewriter. As I glance at it, I cannot conceive of ever spanning the distance between us. From my window I can survey the deserted square of the camp and the surrounding bungalows, all vacant. Someone just entered the gate and is approaching across the square. It's Otto, who always hangs around the office, eager for small talk. He is always bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning. I'm not ready to cope with good cheer and small talk this morning. I hope he is not on his way here.

There is a knock on the door, and Otto enters, his face aglow. “Good morning, Elli. I have good news for you.”

“Really?” I ask, annoyed. “What is your good news this morning?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?” Now Otto pokes his smiling face between me and the typewriter, ostentatiously concealing a sheet of paper behind his back. The last thing I need this morning is teasing from a fellow I wish hadn't dropped in.

“Okay, Otto. Pray tell.”

Otto annoyingly waves the paper before my eyes. “Here it is! The emigration list, with the names Elli Friedmann and Laura Friedmann right on top. You are instructed to leave immediately for the transit camp in Munich.”

“What?! Let me see that paper. Otto, let me see the paper!”

Otto ceremoniously spreads the sheet on the desk, and there are our names, right on top of twenty or thirty others who received permits to emigrate to the United States.

“How did you get this?”

“I went to Gauting this morning, to check the list. And there it was!”

“But you are not going to America. Why did you go to Gauting?”

“I went for you. I wanted to be the one to tell you if there was good news.”

“Otto, you're an angel!” I wrap my arms
about his long neck. “Thank you. Thank you.” Otto's happiness matches my own. He takes my hands into his, and we begin to dance the
hora. “Hevenu Shalom aleichem . . .”
We bring you peace.

“Otto, would you mind the office for a few minutes? I must run and tell Mommy. Oh, God, how wonderful!”

Without waiting for Otto's answer I dash off toward our bungalow. Mommy's eyes open wide with surprise when I show her the list. “So it has come to pass . . . finally!” I lock her in my arms. “Mommy. Yes. Yes. Yes. It has come to pass. At last. At long last.” I hold her tight in my arms. “Can you believe it, Mommy? It's come to pass!”

Then I remember. “Oh, Mommy, we have to start packing immediately. On Thursday morning we have to report to the Funk Kaserne, the transit camp in Munich. We have to be packed by then.”

“Okay. I'll start right away.”

I plant a kiss on Mommy's cheek and gallop back to the office.

“Gauting has just called,” Otto announces proudly. “To notify you of the permit and tell
you to be ready for a Thursday morning departure. I did not tell them you already knew,” he adds, justifiably pleased with himself.

In a year and a half the volume of our belongings has increased considerably, but Mommy manages to fit everything into two suitcases. The night before our departure turns into a string of leave-taking from neighbors and even casual acquaintances. Why is it still so painful? We are not leaving close friends behind. And yet . . . every parting is a minor death.

We are lucky. Our stay at the transit camp in Munich lasts only three days. On Sunday morning the transport van begins the journey toward Bremerhaven, the northern German port from which the refugee ships sail for America.

Then we are quartered at the U.S. military compound near Bremerhaven for an indefinite waiting period. Every morning rumors leap from barrack to barrack like wildfire.

“The boat is here! The boat is in the harbor. We are leaving today!”

Later in the day the rumor changes to: “The boat is here, but we're not leaving today.
We are leaving tomorrow morning.”

Somewhat later the rumor is totally revised: “The boat in the harbor is not for us. It is for transport of U.S. military personnel. No one knows when our boat will arrive.” And despair sets in.

Rumor mongers spread hope, doubt, disappointment, and uncertainty as a daily diet. The constant apprehension is debilitating. Will our ship ever sail?

Finally, on Thursday an official announcement is made. We are to set sail on Saturday afternoon. Boarding the ship will commence early Saturday morning.

Excitement ripples through the ranks of the refugees.

Mommy and I, however, receive the announcement with alarm. Jewish law, called
halakhah,
prohibits travel on the Sabbath. In the case of an ocean voyage, one is permitted to spend the Sabbath aboard a ship that has sailed before the commencement of the Sabbath. But boarding a ship on the Sabbath is forbidden.

What should we do? Our strict observance of Jewish law dictates that we wait for the
next sailing. Will the authorities allow us to stay here until the next refugee boat? When will that be? Perhaps we will be stranded here until after Passover. How can we properly observe the dietary laws of Passover in this camp without cooking facilities?

Mommy and I spend the night agonizing over the terrible dilemma. Before dawn, an idea fills me with ecstasy. “Mommy, I've found a solution! According to
halakhah,
we are permitted to sail on the Sabbath provided we board the ship the day before. I am going to volunteer for work on the ship as interpreter, or anything else, and request permission for the two of us to board on Friday.”

“It sounds like a wonderful idea,” Mommy responds thoughtfully. “But . . . will they go along?”

“I'm sure. I'll explain our problem, and I'm sure they'll cooperate.”

I am lucky to find Mr. Nemec, the IRO representative, in his office early in the morning. He listens to my offer with interest. “It's up to the Americans. I'll put you in touch with Captain McGregor. He's in charge of assignments.”

After a few brief words Mr. Nemec replaces the receiver: “He wants to see you at once. Do you know how to get to Captain McGregor's staff room?” Then, instead of giving me directions, he rises from his desk. “You know what?” he says cheerfully. “I'll take you over there. Come.” Mr. Nemec leads me to an army jeep behind the barrack and holds the door open on the passenger's side.

I remember a ride in another jeep, to the Haganah camp in the Moravian hills. How long ago was that? My God, how very long ago.

Captain McGregor is pleased with my offer. “Your English is great!” the tall man in a trim uniform exclaims with enthusiasm. “Fine. Great. You'll be my interpreter. God only knows I need an interpreter. Even for my own crew I need an interpreter! So it's settled. You come see me tomorrow morning, bright and early, and I'll give you your assignment.”

“But . . . there's something else. You see, my mother and I, we would like to board the ship today. Perhaps you can give me my assignment today.”

“Today? But why?”

“You see, my mother and I, we are Jewish,
and it's forbidden for us to sail on the Sabbath . . . that is, to board the ship on the Sabbath. As long as we board the ship before the commencement of the Sabbath, like on Friday, it's okay. I know it's hard to understand.”

“I understand. No problem. The crew is boarding today. You and your mother can board together with the crew. That's fine with me. Bring your things to my office, and I'll take you aboard. Then we can start working together right away. It's a fine idea!”

“Thank you, Captain. You're an angel.”

“Don't let my crew hear that!” Captain McGregor explodes. The furrows on his dark-complexioned face multiply as his melodious chuckle swells into a boisterous belly laugh. “An angel? Not bad. Not bad!”

Captain McGregor's laughter surprises me. At first glance I thought he had a rather ascetic appearance, but now I notice how his eyes sparkle. I'm glad. The journey across the ocean is to take eight days. I prefer to spend it in the company of a man with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

Mommy is overjoyed. “Wonderful!” She
embraces me, rubbing her cheek against mine. “So you did it, my daughter. You did it, again.”

Mommy's praise unexpectedly brings tears to my eyes. Does she really believe I have become a competent adult?

Still laughing with relief, Mommy picks up the larger suitcase. “I'm ready. Let's go to America! Show me the way to this captain's office.”

With a suitcase in one hand and a small package of food in the other, I lead the way across the open square. Captain McGregor meets us near the flagpole. He shakes hands with Mommy and hands our luggage to a U.S. Marine. Then he directs us to board one of the U.S. Navy trucks lined up on the far end of the spacious quadrangle.

“Those trucks will take you to the ship. Johnnie here will show you to your quarters. I'll see you aboard the
General Stewart.”
Captain McGregor gives us a smart salute, and we head toward the military vehicles.

Mommy and I cross the square, past the flagpole flying the American flag. It is so simple. You walk to the trucks that will take you
to the ship going to America. You simply walk away from Germany. From Europe. From this cursed continent and its blood-soaked earth. Its mass graves.

There is no good-bye. There is only hello. To the ocean and its timeless, infinite majesty, which separates you from the anguished past. To the distant horizon.

To America, and the hope of a better future.

On April 7, 1951, on a sunny Sabbath morning, our boat, the
General Stewart,
docked in New York Harbor. My brother Bubi was waiting on the pier, his radiant face rising above the crowd. In our long, tearful embrace, four years of anguish melted. I knew I had arrived to a safe haven.

My uncle Abish and his wife, Aunt Lilli, were also there to greet us. The five of us walked out of the harbor, heading for their apartment in the vicinity. It was an hour's walk on the homely, sun-splashed streets of New York's Lower East Side—my first encounter with America.

In the years that followed, America was kind to me. During the first year I became both a teacher and a student. By passing exams for a Hebrew teacher's diploma I qualified for teaching, and by passing a high school
equivalency test I qualified for entering college. In time I moved from first grade to teaching higher grades, then high school, and eventually I became a college professor, learning all along from my students of all ages.

Teaching by day and attending college in the evening, it took ten years to complete my studies for a B.A. degree. By then I was married and the mother of two children. My little boy graduated from kindergarten, my little girl from diapers, and I from college all on the same day.

While my children grew I continued teaching and studying, in time earning a master's degree and then a Ph.D. I also kept writing. In addition to the theses, I wrote articles, poetry, and the beginning of my first memoir. My children claim that the only lullaby they ever heard was the clicking sound of my typewriter, and whenever they reached for a snack into the refrigerator, all they fished out of the fruit bin were stacks of paper. (I had the habit of storing my manuscripts in the refrigerator for safekeeping against fire.) I am sure both claims are slightly exaggerated, and yet on reflection I can't help but believe that
my thirst for learning and urge to record all I have learned and remembered must have been taxing on my family.

My mother was our next-door neighbor and derived great joy from the company of her grandchildren, including the growing family of my brother Bubi, who came on frequent visits from his suburban Long Beach, where he served as principal of a Hebrew day school. My mother and I
did
attend his graduation and later his rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University.

On a brilliant day in July 1977, twenty-six years after we reached New York Harbor, Mommy and I landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv as new immigrants in Israel. By then my mother was in her eighties, my son was married, and my daughter was a freshman in college. I was facing a new marriage, and motherhood to my future husband's teenage son and daughter.

During the twenty-two years that passed since that day, I continued conducting classes at my college, commuting between my new home in Israel and my old home in New York. This afforded me an opportunity to
interrelate with my students and share in the lives of my children in America and my stepchildren in Israel, who in the interim have achieved successes as professionals and as dedicated parents. Participating in the lives of my grandchildren—their interests, talents, achievements, friendships, and aspirations—is a new, exciting chapter of my life. My brother and his wife recently sold their home in Long Beach, New York, where they lived for forty years, and moved to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, to live near their children and their growing families.

The decade Mommy spent in Israel were the happiest years of her life. Many years ago my husband and I had the privilege of fulfilling my mother's last request and bringing the remains of her parents from Europe to be buried in Israel. A dam was being built on the Danube near the abandoned Jewish cemetery in Czechoslovakia, and my grandparents' graves would have been submerged under the river.

Ten years ago, at the age of ninety-three, my mother died and found eternal rest in Jerusalem next to her beloved parents. The
triple tomb has become a family shrine that, unlike every other trace of our past destroyed by the Holocaust, will remain a monument to our roots.

God blessed our long search with a home in Israel, where my family now has a permanent landmark for future generations.

Our Family After the Holocaust: Chronicle of Events

J
UNE
1945 We return to Šamorín after liberation.

J
ULY
1945 We receive news of my father's death.