Rosa's Child (14 page)

There was another reason for the tears that suddenly overwhelmed Susi. For as she looked at her half-sister in the flesh for the first time, she noticed at once the startling resemblance between Martina and her late twin. It was not just the colour of the eyes and the style of the hair, but many other details too - right down to the square, gold-rimmed glasses. In fact, the likeness was a little eerie, for Lotte - Susi had reverted to using Eunice's original name -had been laid to rest nearly twenty years earlier.

The feeling that she was greeting Lotte made Susi feel rather uncomfortable. She had blocked out all thoughts of her twin in order to survive; suddenly, on seeing Martina, all of those memories came rushing back and she was not at all sure she wanted them. She realizes now that the pain was because she had never properly examined the total loss of Lotte. How bizarre that here, standing before Susi all these years later, should be a Lotte Bechhöfer-Eunice Mann incarnate. Martina's hug was heartfelt and straightforward, but for Susi there was another level of complexity. How could she embrace Martina unreservedly when she had still to embark on the process of mourning the premature loss of her sister?

The intensity of the moment began to fade, and Susi and Martina left for Brigitte's flat, where they would spend some quieter, less dramatic time together. With Brigitte acting as interpreter, they exchanged gifts and yet more photographs, one of which in particular caught Susi's attention. It was a black and white print of Otto holding Martina's hand when she was about eight. 'Somehow I slotted myself in there, into that photograph,' Susi explained later. 'And in my imagination my father is holding my hand. I just kept thinking to myself: my hand should be there too. Why had he never been there for me?'

Susi knew already of the pain Otto had brought Martina, but now she discovered that the photograph showed one of the rare occasions when their hands had been intertwined. As the sisters reminisced, they realized how strange it was that, as a result of the most haphazard of quests, they should find themselves together, two innocent victims of the same man's neglect and selfishness.

Although communication between them was restricted by language difficulties, no words were called for when Martina presented to Susi a gift which could not have been more personal or precious. It was their father Otto's ring, which he had given to Martina when she was just three years of age. While it clearly pained her to part with it, since it was one of the few possessions which evoked the all too short time they had spent together, Martina nevertheless felt great pleasure in passing it on to her new-found sister, who had never once found herself in that same father's arms. It was Martina's way of apologizing on Otto's behalf for his appalling treatment of Susi, Lotte and their mother. Yet, to some extent still protective of her father, Martina remains reluctant to condemn him, and on this the half-sisters continue to agree.

Martha Bechhofer also happened to choose the same token with which to express her love and concern for her long-lost niece. She also gave Susi a ring, one which had belonged to Rosa. Susi now wears both rings with pride, although there are times when she looks down at them and does not know whether to laugh or cry.

There's just so much irony about it all. The laughter is my saying to myself: 'Little did you think when you acquired these rings that one day Susi, the little girl from the orphanage, would be wearing them.' And the crying is about my acknowledging that whilst I have finally succeeded in getting Otto and Rosa together in symbolic fashion on my finger, neither parent was available for me as a child and beyond.

All too soon it was time for Martina and Detlef to leave. Although it had been a day she would never forget, Martina was anxious to return to her administrative job in Leipzig. For over thirty years she had held down a position of some responsibility. But now, she explained, despite her loyalty and long service, the demands of East Germany's fledgling market economy meant that the notion of a secure job was already a quaint one.

A few days later, with the help of Brigitte, she wrote to Susi, as ever finding it much easier to express herself on paper than in person.

My dear Susi

Teddy and I want to tell you that we are very happy to find you. We are glad that we have seen you for the first time. Often we think at the times in München. I wish to thank you for the common hours with you as I could hold your hand and see into your lovely eyes.

We are living now in a new country and we have to assimilate to it. Yes, I am anxious for my beautiful job. I cannot say with words how much I wish to thank you for the wonderful presents. Why have you given so much money for us? Your presence was gift enough.

To you, my dear sister, all my love and God's blessing.

Your loving sister

Martina

When it came to replying, there was only one thought in Susi's mind; only one that seemed to matter. After so many years of being alone, and of being unaware of her own identity, she had at last found her father's family. She knew she could hardly have got closer to Otto Hald than that. It had unearthed all manner of strange feelings, many of them bound up with the past. Yet Susi was in no doubt that every moment had been worthwhile, even those that had at first troubled her. For in experiencing and sharing new emotions she had got to know the sister she had just found.

'We are sisters,' she proclaimed to Martina, 'and no one can ever take that away from us.'

For the BBC unit filming went smoothly enough, but Sally George knew that in order to complete Susi's story it was essential to find out what had become of Rosa. Unbeknown to Susi, she assigned a small team of researchers to this key question, instructing them to carry on from the point Susi and Bertha had reached. Having already made a film about the broader issue of the Kindertransport, Sally, like Jerry Bechhofer, had her doubts as to whether Rosa ever found her way to England. And yet she knew that speculation alone was not enough.

Now she too was committed to finding out the truth about Rosa.

TEN

Passport to Destruction

'I
don't want to be unkind to Grace,' insisted the Reverend Mann, feigning generosity and hurt in equal measure,

but we do feel that what we have done has been thrown back at us because she has shut us out of her life and grown apart from us over the years. Both my wife and I have had our moments when we thought that it might perhaps have been better to have followed the advice of the German Jewish Aid Committee after all - which was to have separated the twins upon their arrival in London. Whereupon we suddenly swallow our words and say how wrong that would have been. And we rebuke ourselves for even having had the thought at all.

For her part, Susi, having shown a reluctance to confront her adoptive father over the abuse which had dominated her later childhood and teenage years, had decided as an adult that the most satisfactory solution was to distance herself from Edward Mann. In the event, it was only after marrying Alan Stocken that she really felt free to do this, and even then her relationship with her father was not to be redefined as easily as she had hoped.

From the start Susi resolved that if independence had been hard won she would defend it just as vigorously. Nevertheless she decided not to challenge or confront the Reverend, now in retirement, in any way. The approach she adopted was to be the hallmark of their relationship for many years: she simply ignored him. He was to be dealt with at arm's length, and allowed only the most grudging involvement in her or her family's life.

In fact at one time Susi did try another approach to exorcizing the pain of her bizarre relationship with her adoptive father. In October 1988, while she was searching for her real father, she sought the assistance of a therapist. She knew that she still had to confront the destructive influence of her powerful and manipulative adoptive father, who had been such a dominant force during her formative years and beyond.

Aware that her client was rather talented with her pen, the therapist suggested that Susi should try to write about any negative feelings that were troubling her. At first Susi found this difficult, but soon the words were flowing freely, even incoherently, so powerful were the feelings she had dammed up.

19.10.88

I was asked to express how I feel about you E.J. Mann - you were given a gift - a child to love - what you did was destroy - I
FEEL DEEP BITTERNESS, RESENTMENT AND ANGER
- the latter I am scared of. It might erupt and destroy all I have bravely fought to build. And so I bury this emotion knowing that as I do this I am partly immobilized.

How did you
DESTROY
me? You abused me mentally and physically. A
LEECH
sucking my life blood. You chained my whole being. You are a
DIRTY UNCLEAN HYPOCRITE PREACHING TO OTHERS
- abusing me by
ACTS OF CRUELT
Y.

How were these
MANIFESTED
? I will tell you - you bastard. You would creep into my bed at 10 yrs and insert your filthy p into my v. I
WOULD HAVE FEELINGS OF HATE FOR YOU
, but also feelings of insecurity lest i deny you what you wanted under the pseudo-excuse of
THIS ACT MAKING ME YOUR FLESH AND BLOOD
. Y
OU ARE SICK - YOU WOULD MAKE ME HOLD YOUR FILTHY P FOR A THRILL I GUESS
and as I developed you would the life blood from me denying me rightful relationships. W
HY
? I guess you were scared I would talk. I didn't then but I will now. I
WOULD LIKE TO SAY 'MAY YOU ROT IN HELL' BUT NO, I CAN'T LIVE WITH SUCH DESTRUCTION
. Y
OU MUST PAY THE PRICE AS 'GOD' CHOOSES
. F
IRST THOUGH THERE IS DEBRIS TO THROW AWAY
. I
MUST FREE MYSELF FROM YOUR BONDAGE - YOU ARE A SNAKE ENCROACHING
me with your sting.

While the Reverend Mann never saw this expression of his foster daughter's pent-up rage, her coldness towards him was unmistakable. And even though his complaints about being excluded revealed a certain disingenuousness, since the reasons for her contempt were obvious; they were not groundless. The truth was that, unhappy unless exercising complete control, he was furious.

In one particularly forceful letter in an acrimonious correspondence that spanned several years he warned Susi that, unless she abandoned her frosty stance and started to be a proper daughter to him once more, he would have to curtail her visits. He also made it clear that he was not willing to be fobbed off with either Alan or Frederick as surrogates for her. His ultimatum was that unless he and his wife could see Susi alone, whether at the Manns' home or hers, there would be a dramatic change in the pattern of visiting.

To Susi it seemed somewhat rich that the Reverend should continue to dictate the terms of their relationship in this way. Indeed he might have done better to count himself fortunate that his long years of abuse had not been drawn to the attention of either his bishop or the law. Yet if he had already come to this realization, as was probable, it had not prevented him from repeatedly seeking to vent his wrath at the rejection he felt. Maybe he deserved to be punished for the failures of the past, he conceded, but was he obliged to witness the suffering of Irene Mann too?

I would like to express my sheer disgust at the fact of there being no [Christmas] gift for mother either this year or last. Yes, I can understand your attitude to
me.
As far as I am concerned you have probably done the right thing. But mother? What has she done? The woman who has saved your life, and thereby given you every single thing you have - why should she suffer? By all means jump on me, do your damnedest if you want to, but leave my wife alone.

Then, shortly after New Year 1988, it was Irene Mann's turn to write. It was true that she had been quietly suffering while her husband blustered, but now she had decided to break her silence. Forgetting that she had chosen to look the other way while her foster daughter was the subject of repeated abuse at the hands of her husband, she too had decided to give Susi a piece of her mind:

Christmas Day and Boxing Day were, as usual, very sad. We had 109 cards sent to us wishing us a happy Christmas. But none of those people know what we know - i.e. that you are all 3 at home together for something like 9 days, and you can't be bothered to come to see us for 48 hours. Why is it that other people do anything in the way of travelling to be with their family at the Christmas holiday time? Whatever sins have we committed more than other people to deserve such treatment? . . .I'm sorry to have to write like this, but does nothing move you? Next Christmas I shall be nearly 82 and Daddy will be 78. What are you waiting for? Our deaths with a will to be read?

In spite of everything, we wish you a happy New Year and send our love.

Mummy and Daddy

Soon afterwards, an already strained relationship deteriorated still further when the Manns learned that their surviving daughter, whose identity and heritage they had done their best to erase, had embarked on a search for her true parentage. On one of her rare visits, Susi summoned up the courage to put them in the picture.

'Oh, by the way,' she said, struggling to master her nervousness and sound nonchalant. ' I've got my birth certificate.'

'Oh, have you?' her father replied.

'Yes, would you like to see it some time?'

'Yes, I would,' the Reverend said. 'I feel as though someone has given me a cold shower,' he muttered as he stooped to pick up his newspaper.

And then, as so often in their soured relationship, the subject was promptly dropped, never to be mentioned again. The dramatic story of Susi's search was not to be shared, even with the people who had played such a crucial role in her survival. The Manns would, in fact, learn of the existence of the Bechhofers in New York, of the late Otto Hald and of his daughter Martina in Leipzig, and of much else besides, but not until several years later, when Sally George's television programme, then still in the making, was broadcast.

At first research for the film seemed not to be making much progress. The BBC team was struggling to gather new facts. Then Susi received a letter from the British Red Cross. It could not have more unhelpful: 'The fate of your mother was unknown. She could have died in an air raid, or anything.'

Fortunately the International Tracing Service at Arolsen had managed to do rather better. As a result of a further, more thorough, inspection of material in their possession, they were able to report that Rosa Bechhöfer had registered with the Labour Office in Munich on 18 January 1936, and that she had been employed as an unskilled worker in the Luitpold chemical-pharmaceutical factory in that city from 17 February 1943 until 3 March the same year. What, wondered Susi, had happened to her during those missing seven years, and, more importantly, after that?

In fact, Rosa had continued to work in one of the few fields of employment still available to her: domestic service for Munich's better-off German Jewish families - those, that is, who had so far managed to avoid being rounded up. Her two areas of expertise, cooking and sewing, served her well, yet could not prevent the need to change households with unsettling haste, as whole families were carried off. Between 1937 and 1941 she worked for seven employers, as well as doing one month's domestic work at a Jewish old people's home.

During those years, as she scuttled from one household to the next, Rosa found herself working at different times for the Walter, Böhm, Perutz and Bacher families. Unlike the majority of her previous employers, who had been allowed to emigrate if they so wished, these middle-class Jews were engaged in fighting mostly losing battles to gain the right to leave Germany for the United States. In the second half of the 1930s the doors of the Nazi regime were beginning to close, and the outbreak of war had sealed off completely all but the most perilous exit routes. In this respect Rosa was in the same position as her employers, for she had been unable to obtain the necessary permission. Hardly surprising, then, that while preparing meals or darning clothes she would often pause to wonder when she would hear an ominous knock on her door. Rumours were going round the city that it might even come in the dead of night.

As Susi learned of her mother's desperate trail from one family to another, she became very distressed. 'I have an image of someone with a shabby coat on, walking in the wind, with it pressed up to her face, and as she is going around the city from one job to the next, she has an image of we twins fixed firmly in her mind.'

For all the pain that examining the research material caused her, Susi was glad to be associated with the documentary. At last someone was listening to her - a radical departure, she felt, from the past. Naturally she was in no position to compete with the research facilities available to the BBC. Attempting to discover one's own identity, she had long since realized, was a costly business. At the same time she felt confident that if anyone was going to uncover the truth about Rosa, it would be Sally George's team.

Filming was scheduled to begin with a gentle introduction to Germany. Susi was keen to visit Bechhofen, the Bavarian village that was her mother's family's ancestral home.

Here I found a beautiful cemetery wrapped in an aura of antiquity and charm. The light became perfect as I looked for the Bechhöfers' gravestones - and eventually I spotted my grandparents' headstones. There was a magic and serenity as the sun set on the wild flowers. Then I visited the old grey family house... My imagination caught a glimpse of a young girl sitting on a bench outside...

By contrast, Sally George was pondering darker issues. The question of Susi's sexual abuse was dynamite; even now she could see the headlines in the tabloids: 'Child of Holocaust Abused by Vicar Father' and the like. What worried her was that the shock value of these revelations - which, as serious as they were, touched on only part of Susi's life - would dominate the rest of her story. Indeed, she feared, some people might even be drawn to the film purely out of prurient sexual interest. Sally shared with Susi the conviction that the central theme was the search for identity. However, her objectivity led her to conclude that just as crucial as the dynamic which had eventually triggered Susi's quest was why she had taken so long to embark on it. Behind the whole story lurked the power wielded by a domineering and charismatic man over his daughter. Perhaps more than anything else it was this control that inhibited Susi, as both teenager and adult, from finding out about herself. The Reverend had left her in no doubt at all that if she transferred her affections or tried to pursue her own life in any other way she would forfeit the love and protection without which she felt helpless.

By now Susi herself had realized how she had allowed herself to remain in thrall to her foster father long after she left home and married. She had acknowledged, too, that for all those years she had colluded with him in sustaining an identity which he had shaped and which, if it was blown apart, threatened to deprive him of everything.

For Susi one dramatic effect of discussing the sexual question with Sally was that, although she agreed it should not figure in the film, she now ached to confront her abuser. Old wounds had been reopened, and she at last found the courage to confront her father, if only in writing. She was confident that the Reverend would not dare to deny the accusations, for despite his manifest failures, had he not always remained an honest and God-fearing man? The truth would surely prevail.

'Dear Mr Mann,' Susi wrote, setting a formal tone from the start. How very much more satisfactory to be writing to her father directly, she thought, rather than filling a piece of paper with her feelings about him, only to present it to her therapist, as she had done in the past. She then gave notice to her father that she intended to list his misdemeanours very explicitly. There would be no more games, no more shadow boxing, no more guarded references now. What did the Reverend Mann have to say to these three major charges?