The Runaway Family (21 page)

“Ruth, have you still got Kurt’s passport?” Helga’s whisper broke in on her thoughts.

“Yes, of course.” Ruth was surprised at the question. “Why?”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Do with it?”

“Yes. If you’ve got it, Kurt can’t use it to get out of Germany, can he?”

“No, of course not. But I don’t know where he is, do I?” Ruth sounded exasperated. “I can’t send it to him, can I?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” replied Helga, ignoring her daughter’s irritable tone. “If you were Kurt, and you came home to find the family gone, what would you do?”

“I’d go to Munich, to Herbert, but…”

“Hold on a minute, darling, let’s really think this through. Suppose he does come home and then follows the trail, in the end he’s going to draw a blank. You and the children will have vanished. He will work out that you must have come to Vienna to Edith’s. Right?”

“Probably.”

“Almost certainly. Where else would you go?”

“All right,” conceded Ruth and waited for her mother to go on.

“If he knows you have the deed box, then he knows you have his passport. He’ll hope you have left it for him somewhere… or sent it to him somewhere.”

“But where?” Ruth’s voice took on a tone of despair. “Where can I send it that he might think to look?”

“To those friends who took you in after the fire.”

“The Meyers?”

“Yes, the Meyers. Think about it. If he goes home and finds the shop burnt out he will ask around to find out what happened. He will ask the Meyers. If you sent the passport there, addressed to him, they would give it to him when he asked.”

“Leah Meyer asked me not to contact them again,” Ruth said. “She’s afraid the mail will be intercepted.”

“I think you have to risk it.”

“But suppose Kurt’s been there already. It’ll be too late!”

“I know,” soothed Helga, “but surely it’s worth a try. If the Meyers have the passport and he goes to them, they’ll give it to him. If he doesn’t, then we are no worse off than if you have it. If he contacts us here…”

“He won’t,” Ruth interrupted bleakly. “He won’t remember Edith’s address, and he certainly won’t know the phone number…”

“He might. And if he did you’d be able to tell him where to go to collect his passport.” Helga sat up in the darkness. “Come on, Ruth, this isn’t like you! You’ve been so brave and done everything you could for the children. Now you must try and do this for Kurt. Let’s face it, darling, his passport is no good to him in Austria if he’s in Germany.”

“All right, Mother,” agreed Ruth wearily, “I’ll send it tomorrow.”

“Good!” said Helga with satisfaction. “Now then, stop brooding and try and get some sleep, or you’ll be no good to anyone in the morning.”

Ruth gave a shaky laugh. “Yes, Mutti!” she said.

Friday 10th December

We moved out of Uncle David and Aunt Edith’s yesterday. Mutti has found us a home of our own. It is not very big, just three small rooms and a toilet in the passage. Oma, Inge and I sleep in one room, Mutti and the twins in another, and we live in the last. It has a stove, so it’s quite warm, and there is a table and some chairs and a cupboard to keep things in, but we haven’t got many things to keep. There is no room for anything else because the room is so small. I’m glad we have left Aunt Edith’s house. Everyone was very strict and seemed to be cross with us all the time. I’m scared of Uncle David. I think my cousin Naomi is too, but she loves her Opa. Everyone else is frightened of him, but Naomi isn’t. My other cousin, Paul, is nice, but he’s much older than we are. He’s at the gymnasium. He’s very clever and says he is going to be a doctor like his papa when he leaves school.

Our apartment is near a big fairground. Mutti says we might be able to go there one day soon. I hope so, I want to go on the big wheel, but we haven’t got much money for fairgrounds.

Mutti has found a school for me and Inge to go to. It is not very big, but my teacher is nice. She is called Fräulein Lowenstein. Inge is in the baby class, her teacher is called Fräulein Munt. We do arithmetic and write stories, and on Wednesdays we have art. I’m not very good at drawing, but Fräulein Lowenstein says it doesn’t matter as different people are good at different things. I like Fräulein Lowenstein.

Oma looks after the twins as they are too little to go to school, and Mutti has got a job in a shop.

All the shops are decorated for Christmas. We don’t have Christmas, but I do like the decorations.

Ruth had been determined they should move out of Edith’s house as soon as possible, and she’d set about finding them somewhere to live the very next day. It took several more days, but eventually she had managed to find a three-roomed flat in a tall tenement, in the Leopoldstadt district. A twisting lane led off the street and halfway down there was an old brick archway leading into a courtyard, around three sides of which stood crumbling apartment blocks. From the courtyard, flights of outside steps led up to the flats above. Ruth and her family had moved into one on the first floor.

Edith was horrified that they should live in such an area. “It’s all low Jews and working class,” she cried, “not for families like ours.”

“It is for a family like mine,” Ruth retorted, “one that has no money and nowhere else to stay.”

Edith looked slightly abashed, but she didn’t suggest that they stay longer with her, and it was David who paid a month’s rent in advance to secure them the apartment. Ruth was sure that this was more from the wish to get them out of his home than from true generosity, but she didn’t care. They had a roof over their heads. Many of their neighbours were Jewish and as they settled in there was the faintest comforting echo of Gerbergasse in the community around them. They were living very much hand-to-mouth, but they were in a place of their own. Helga was there to look after the children, so Ruth set out in search of a job.

For several days she trod the streets looking for work, and because the shops were busy just before Christmas, she managed to get a job in a small haberdashery. The pay was poor and the hours were long, but Ruth, running her own shop for most of her married life, wasn’t afraid of hard work, and it meant she could provide food for the table, and save enough for each week’s rent. She enjoyed working in the little shop; it was interesting as always she enjoyed meeting the customers and helping them to find what they needed. Frau Merkle, the proprietor, soon realised that Ruth was an excellent sales assistant, and that the customers liked her. So, after the Christmas season was over, she decided to keep her on and offered her a full-time job. The rise in pay made all the difference, and before long the children each had a new set of warm clothes. Ruth treated herself to a new coat and skirt, even though it meant the repayment of a loan from Edith had to be delayed.

The girls had settled well into a small Jewish school not far from the flat, and Helga took on the care of the twins and the running of the household. Everything gradually returned to a sort of normality. All they needed now was for Kurt to join them and life would be tolerable.

Kurt got off the train in Munich. When Franz Beider had dropped him outside Dost, Kurt followed his advice and made straight for the railway station. He would get on the first train that came along, he decided, wherever it was going. It was going to Munich, so that was where he went.

When he arrived, Kurt left the station quickly, moving out onto the street amid the crowd of disembarking passengers, and headed back to the house where he had rented the room before. Walking quietly up to the front door, he knocked. No one came to the door, but there was a slight movement at the window beside him. He turned to see who was there, but the curtains were still and there was no sign of anybody. Yet Kurt was sure that he hadn’t imagined it; there had definitely been someone peeping from the window to see who was outside.

And now they know, Kurt thought ruefully, they aren’t going to open the door. He would have to find somewhere else to stay. He could, he supposed, go back to the station, but it was the kind of place the Gestapo made regular sweeps, picking up undesirables… like him.

He found a small café and bought himself a plate of stew. He had long since given up worrying about the dietary rules he had followed all his life. There was no question of kosher food in Dachau. You ate whatever you could get hold of, and were grateful.

Feeling better for the hot food, Kurt considered what he should do next. Get out of Munich, he decided. Time was running out, he had only another four days in which to produce the deeds to his home at the Jewish Emigration Office, and to get his family out of the country… or he would be back in Dachau. He broke out into a cold sweat at the thought of the camp. Whatever happened, he was not going back there.

If I can’t find Ruth and the children in the next couple of days, then I have to disappear myself, he thought. I’ve nowhere to hide, so I’ll have to keep moving. Try and keep one step ahead of the SS who will be looking for me.

He had no doubt that if he did not turn up with the documents as arranged, Oberführer Loritz would have his hounds out on the trail to bring him back. Defying an SS officer was an extremely dangerous thing to do, and although Kurt had no alternative unless he found Ruth and the title deeds, there would be no explaining that to Oberführer Loritz… and he would take delight in exacting his revenge.

There’s only one thing to do, Kurt thought as he drained the last of his coffee, I must try and get out of the country myself. I’ll never find them while I’m on the run in Germany.

The waitress was beginning to eye him suspiciously, and not wishing to draw further attention to himself, Kurt got to his feet, paid his bill with some of his fast dwindling cash and went out into the street. It was bitterly cold and he drew his thin overcoat around him, but the biting wind drilled through its fabric as if it wasn’t there. He set off at a brisk pace, not because he was in any hurry, but simply to try and keep warm. Also important, he thought, to look purposeful, as if I’ve got somewhere to go, something pressing to do.

As he strode along the street he continued to consider his options. Ruth and Helga must have taken the children to Edith, he thought. That’s the obvious place for them all to go. Franz said that Helga Heber was with them now. Surely they would head for the only safe place where they had family. Vienna.

He knew Ruth had her passport, with the girls on it. Had she managed to get the twins put on as well? She also had his passport, or he assumed she did, as it, too, had been hidden in the deed box. But much good did that do him. He tried once again to put himself in Ruth’s shoes. He knew she had left nothing with the Meyers when she’d left Gerbergasse, but then she had thought she was going to safety with Herbert in Munich. If she’d had to leave the country she’d know he couldn’t follow unless he had his passport.

If only I could get in touch with her somehow, he thought, and cursed himself that he did not know the address or telephone number of his sister-in-law, and had no way of discovering it. Even if David Bernstein’s number was listed in the Vienna telephone book, where was Kurt going to find one? He knew David was a surgeon, but he had no idea in which hospital he worked. Kurt didn’t know the names of any hospitals in Vienna. There was no way at the present time that Kurt could get in touch with Ruth or her sister.

She must have my passport, Kurt decided. What would she do with it? What would I do with it if it were me? I’d try and get it to her; try and think of somewhere where she might think to look for it. “There’s only one place,” he said aloud, “and that’s the Meyers’. So I must go back to Kirnheim.”

Once that decision was made Kurt felt better. He now had a purpose, but before he could put it into action, he had another problem to solve… where to sleep the night. It was far too cold… and far too dangerous… to spend the night out on the streets. He had to find somewhere to stay and quickly. It was already beginning to get dark and he could feel the first spatter of rain on the wind.

Who would help a Jew? Other Jews… maybe. Almost certainly no one else. Kurt remembered the rabbi who had helped Ruth and the children, and had passed on the message to him when he traced them there. Rabbi Rahmer.

He let the family sleep in the meeting room behind the synagogue, Kurt thought, perhaps he’ll let me do the same.

Grasping his small suitcase firmly, he set off in the direction of the synagogue. He had only a vague recollection of exactly where it was and the rain was turning to sleet before he finally presented himself at the door of the rabbi’s house. Frau Rahmer opened the door, and confronted by a strange man in a soaking wet overcoat with water streaming off his hat, began to close the door again.

“Frau Rahmer?” Kurt placed an involuntary hand on the door to stop it closing. “Is the rabbi at home?”

Frau Rahmer did not open the door again, but neither did she continue to close it. She regarded the stranger through the gap and said, “Who wants him?”

“My name is Kurt Friedman, you were kind enough to give my wife and children shelter some weeks ago.”

Frau Rahmer peered at Kurt more closely, opening the door a little more to do so. It was against her nature to turn away anyone who was in need of help, but in these increasingly difficult and dangerous times one had to be unusually careful. Still she didn’t want him to be seen standing on her doorstep either; reported in the wrong quarter, that too could be dangerous.

“You’d better come in,” she said, pulling the door wider to let him enter, and closing it swiftly behind him. “Wait there. I’ll call my husband.”

Kurt waited, dripping on the hall mat, as she moved away and called down a passageway behind her, “Manny, there’s someone to see you.”

A door opened and the rabbi whom Kurt had met the previous week emerged. Rabbi Rahmer took one look at him and said, “You’d better come into my study.” Turning to his wife he said, “I think our friend would welcome a hot drink, Ruth.”

Frau Rahmer nodded and disappeared through another door. The rabbi led Kurt into his study.