All My Love, Detrick (3 page)

2

When Detrick arrived at home, his father was slumped over the kitchen table with a half-empty bottle of beer at his side. Daily, since losing his job, he guzzled the brew until he fell into a stupor. The entire family knew that Hans stole the money for his beer from the jug in the pantry that held Inga’s meager savings. But when Detrick offered to stop him, his mother insisted that he do nothing.

Helga and Inga stood at the sink chatting quietly as they cut vegetables preparing the evening meal.

The creak of the door closing awakened Hans.

“Look who’s here.” Hans laughed bitterly. “It’s the Jew lover. He makes more money working for the kike than his father ever could… Don’t you, Detrick?” A thin line of spittle sprung from his lips.

“Shut up, Hans. He is supporting us, and besides, he is your son.” Inga glared at her husband.

Detrick laid his books down on the table and, without looking at his father, went to his room to change for work. Sometimes he avoided his father's gaze for fear he might lose control and hit the older man. This, Detrick knew, would devastate his mother.
So he swallowed his anger and turned away. He looked forward to the time spent with Jacob. Side-by-side, they sat at the workbench, and Jacob listened as Detrick shared his dreams - how he hoped to go to the Olympics and prove himself a track star.

“It is not for
me that I want to win,” Detrick told Jacob. “It is for my family, especially my mother. She has had so little joy in her life. I’ve watched helplessly while she is constantly making sacrifices for all of us. And… I guess I would like to give something back to her.”

Over the years Jacob had developed a special affection for the boy equal to that he felt for his biological children. Some days passed as they worked in comfortable silence. On others, they would laugh and tell jokes. Often Detrick came by the shop late in the evening after field practice. When Jacob saw Detrick’s reluctance to go home he purchased some food and stayed with him late into the night.
It was on one of these occasions that Detrick revealed the revulsion he felt for his father.

“I don’t want to hate him. He is my father.
But when I see him drink all of his money away while my mother is working so hard to make ends meet, well, I just find that I resent him. He raised his hand to her last week, but he didn’t hit her. I am afraid that if he does I will go crazy.”

Jacob nodded. He knew how much Detrick endured in order to keep peace, and he hoped the boy would not snap. With Hans out of work and pouring every bit of money he could scrounge up into a
beer bottle, even the bonus Jacob added to Detrick’s pay envelope could not offer much comfort. Detrick would never ask for more, so Jacob planned to propose an idea to help the boy. He knew that Detrick would never accept his offer of money. Instead, it must seem to Detrick as if Jacob actually needed his help. For weeks following the discussion, Jacob considered his plan. The older man sat at the bench thinking about the best way to approach the subject, as he repaired a bicycle chain. When Detrick arrived at work tonight, he would present it.

After Detrick changed his clothes and shelved his
schoolbooks, he went to the kitchen to bid his family farewell for the evening. Not stopping to eat because Jacob always provided dinner at the shop, he prepared to leave the apartment. Often on nights like these, Jacob often brought luscious noodle
Kugels
made from baked noodles, with sour cream and raisins, or apples. Sometimes Jacob arrived with brisket sandwiches on sweet
Challah
bread. Over the years, Detrick grew familiar with Jewish cuisine. Jacob, knowing the hardships the Haswell family faced and the appetite of a growing boy, made sure that whenever the boy came to the shop he had something to eat.

“I’m going to work, Mother.”

“Going to see that Jew again?” Hans guzzled the remainder of his beer. “You know there is a meeting tonight in the center of the city. I’m sure you’ve heard. The man who is speaking is going to save Germany you watch and see. It’s the stinking Jews that have ruined this country for all of us.” After a loud belch, Hans set the empty bottle on the table.

“Stop, Hans…
Enough!” Inga glared at her husband.

“Helga is going. At least she has some sense.
You? No, of course not… You’d rather go and spend your time with that kike.”

“Goodnight, Father.” Detrick felt his face turn hot and he could not look at his father. Over the
years, he’d grown bigger and stronger than Hans and had, no doubt, that he could take him in a fistfight, but he would not. Instead, he kissed his mother, and then patted his sister’s shoulder. Helga looked up at him with eyes the color of the sky on a spring morning and lovely long wavy golden hair the same color as her own.

“I’ll tell you about the rally, Det.”

“Thanks, Helga, but I’m not interested. I’ve heard all I want to hear about Hitler.”

Detrick closed the door behind him. Hopping on the black bicycle, he headed over to the little shop in the Jewish sector of town.

             
On the most unassuming of days, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. This singular event would change history.

It all began innocently enough, as most menacing threats do. Storm troopers
could be seen walking the streets, proud, in their brown uniforms. Occasionally there was an incident against Jews. But the violent acts were so random that few paid them much attention. Most thought the Nazis would be little more than a passing political group, too radical to have any real power. So among the small Jewish population in Germany, only a handful recognized the coming danger and fled. The rest of the population…

3

Karl Abdenstern leaned against a blood-red brick building in the alley, taking deep drags on a short, unfiltered cigarette. Three boys he’d been friends with since childhood accompanied him. Being a Jew in Germany singled Karl out as an enemy of the state, and with each passing day, he felt the hatred pointed firmly in his direction, coming from the eyes of Gentile classmates. The rise in anti-Semitism poisoned the lives of Jews young and old. Those Karl once considered friends now spit fiery hatred at their Jewish classmates. What began as subtle, quiet, and almost discreet discrimination quickly grew into a tree of bloody loathing; the branches continued to spread out bringing more followers under their umbrella. Neighbors he’d known all of his life turned on families they’d shared apartment buildings with for years. And the division between Jew and Gentile grew as wide as a canyon.

“Karl, why are you fighting at every turn? What are you trying to prove? You
cannot beat them single-handedly. After the fight, they only start again. Try to ignore them.” Yussel shook his head at Karl’s black eye and bruised cheek.

“One day, you’ll see. We Jews will have our own state. Then they won’t be able to treat us this way. Yussel, you should be proud of your heritage and if that means fighting for it…well, so be it. When you let them talk badly about Jews you give them the impression that we are all weak. When we establish Palestine they will have to stand back and see we are a people to be reckoned with.” Karl stood up straight and looked directly into Yussel’s eyes.

“Again with the Zionism, Karl? For now, we live here in Germany and this is our home. And we are Germans first, and then we are Jews. So, let’s make the best of it. You can’t fight all of them. This will blow over, you’ll see.” Moshie wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“Ah, Moshie, you are a fool. They hate us. They always have, but now Hitler gave them the right to beat the hell out of us and get away with it. We'd better retaliate now.” Karl’s eyes had turned dark with anger at the weakness in his friends.

“Who’s going to retaliate? Me? Him?” Moshie pointed to Yussel. “We’re not all fighters like you, Karl.”

“So, be scared.
Run scared. That will do you lots of good. Look at how controlling and strong they’re becoming. They burned the Reichstag building just to show that they are above the law, and then they turn around and deny they ever did it, laying the blame on the communists. Then, even more disturbing, whenever there is trouble they are pointing the finger at us. The more they blame on us Jews the more the German people feel justified in their hatred and persecution of our people. Now the Parliament has given Hitler the powers of a dictator. If we let them go on, they will only grow stronger. These Nazis are dangerous, I tell you.”

“So, go fight the world…I hope it works for you.” Moishe crossed his arms over his chest.

Karl shook his head in disgust at his friend, threw the end of his cigarette on the ground, and turned away. Without looking back, he headed home.

4

Leah Abdenstern and her best friend, Dorothy Silver, prepared dinner for the family as her mother sat beside Michael’s bed.

Their mothers had met early in their pregnancies. Both bearing the same swollen bellies, the women had shared afternoon walks. When the babies arrived a month apart, a ritual began. Every morning the women met at the park pushing their carriages slowly along the pathway on the grassy hills. As the two infant girls grew, a friendship developed in spite of the differences in their personalities. Leah, quiet and studious, loved to read and study classical music, while Dorothy, gregarious, sang American jazz and danced swing, entertaining Leah like a burlesque star. Dorothy’s father worked as a bookkeeper but he also sang in Hebrew, working as the cantor at the synagogue both families attended. There could be no doubt that Dorothy had inherited her beautiful voice from her father, but the style with which they expressed their art could not be more different.

Leah had learned to play piano at five and felt that she grew up advantaged, so she decided to offer free lessons to younger children who could not afford to pay. At fifteen, the kindness she’d been shown all of her life by Jacob came through in the way she treated others. Offering both Jewish and Gentile children an opportunity to share her joyous love of music, Leah spent hours with those less fortunate.

However, Leah’s happiest moments
were spent with Dorothy. Sometimes they giggled over secrets as they lay beneath the weeping willow tree dreaming about the future. Often the girls amused themselves - Leah on piano and Dorothy crooning a bluesy love song - her raspy alto voice a strange contrast to her youthful presence.

They attended the same school and recently had both discovered an interest in the opposite sex. Whispering softly so that Leah’s mother could not overhear, Leah and Dorothy conspired about
Lewis, clearly the most sought-after boy at school.

“I saw Lewis Shapiro today. Would you believe he is in my class? He glanced over at me and I thought I might
faint.
” Leah spoke so quietly that Dorothy almost had to read her lips.

Laughing softly, Dorothy looked over at her friend. Leah, modest in her mode of dress and shy with gentle eyes the color of maple syrup, could have been the prototype for a l
ovely and delicate china doll. While Dorothy, with her early-developing, womanly body and head full of lose auburn ringlet curls evoked feelings in boys and men alike that gave her a power her young mind could not yet grasp.

“Leah, he is so good looking and rich. I hear his family owns a house with a ballroom upstairs. His mother wears a white
ermine coat. Can you imagine?”

“No. I can’t
. A ballroom right in the house! And he is handsome, too.”

“Any Jewish girl would be proud to be seen with him and her parents… Oy, what
nachus
; how everyone would envy them. He sure is quite a catch.” Dorothy laughed louder than she’d expected to.

Leah winked at her friend and smiled as she stirred the
spaetzels
; a blend of flour, eggs, onions and butter that would first be boiled, and then fried. The succulent aroma of chicken roasting and
Challah
baking sent an enticing invitation throughout the modest house.

“You’ll stay for dinner?”

“I’ll have to go home and tell my parents, but then yes, I can come right back.”

During the early part of Leah’s life, her family had enjoyed a comfortable life. Bicycles, the main mode of transportation for a long time until recently when automobiles began to enjoy popula
rity, had served the Abdensterns well. Over the past few years, the family’s finances had been diminishing, but Jacob still managed to provide for a decent life for his family.