Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II (11 page)

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All the lights were on in the apartment when he arrived. He heard his daughter weeping in her room. When he stood in the door, she looked at him with red eyes.

“Mother’s not here. I don’t know where she is … I called you at the office but you weren’t there.”

He looked at his watch. It was after ten at night.

“Where could she be?” he asked, refusing to share his daughter’s dread.

“She went out this morning to buy food and didn’t come back.”

“Maybe she went to visit somebody?”

“She’s never been out so late … I’m afraid something happened to her.”

He pleaded with her to go to sleep. “When you wake up in the morning, Mother will certainly be here,” he said, trying to calm her.

“Look for her, Father,” pleaded Helga. “Look for her before it’s too late.”

Karl climbed on his motorcycle and went looking for his wife. His first stop was her parents’ house. They were asleep when he arrived. His mother-in-law opened the door and grimaced when she saw him. She and her husband hadn’t exchanged a word with him ever since the attacks on the Jews had begun.

“Is Mira here?” he asked.

“No. What happened?” the mother asked, frightened.

“She left home and hasn’t come back.”

“What does that mean?” Her voice was accusing.

“I don’t know.”

“Find out from your friends, Karl,” she said. “I’m sure those bastards took her.”

Her husband came out of his room and stood aside. He heard the exchange.

“Bring her back home!” he called out angrily. “Bring her back before something awful happens to her!”

Karl visited a few friends. Mira wasn’t there either. He went to the hospitals, checked the police stations, but nothing turned up. He returned home helplessly, and suddenly, his thoughts took him to the SS. No, he said to himself, his comrades in the organization couldn’t have done that. Nevertheless, he phoned his commander. Schreider was still in his office.

“My wife has disappeared,” he said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“How should I know?” Schreider played innocent.

Karl walked around the apartment on pins and needles. His wife’s mysterious disappearance put him unbearably on edge, and the more he thought about it, the more he understood that something or someone had deliberately caused her disappearance. He returned to SS headquarters, asked the help of his friend Kurt Baumer, talked with the commanders of the interrogation division, with those in charge of prisoners, with every senior official he came upon. All of them denied any connection to his wife, but Karl didn’t believe them.

When he arrived home, Helga was still awake, weeping bitterly.

“Did you find Mother?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he replied.

He felt that the chances of finding Mira were getting slimmer with every passing hour. He had no idea what he could do to bring her back home.

Karl Rink didn’t get any sleep all night between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of August 1939. He thought of his wife who had disappeared and tried to breathe some hope in his heart that she’d soon come back. But even if she did, who could guarantee her safety and the safety of Helga if Karl wasn’t at their side day and night? How could he ensure that the anti-Semites wouldn’t attack them? How could he know that those attacks wouldn’t end in disaster?

In the morning, he put on his civilian clothes, left the house, and rode his motorcycle to the edge of the city. On the second floor of a faded apartment building was the office of a charity organization called “Help for Jewish Youth,” whose task was to get young Jews out of Germany and take them safely to the Land of Israel. There, he had heard, they were sent to agricultural settlements called kibbutzim, where all their needs were met. The SS knew about the organization but ignored its activity, since its purpose coincided with the Nazi goal of getting rid of the Jews as fast as possible.

The director of the organization, a social worker named Raha Frayer, was talking on the phone with some contributors when Karl Rink entered her office. She glanced up and gestured to him to wait. In his civilian clothes, he looked like any worried parent who wanted to send his children out of Germany to a safe place. Raha Frayer finished her phone call and turned to Karl.

“I’m an SS man,” he said, surprising her. She looked at him fearfully and sensed that something bad was about to happen. A sudden visit of SS men couldn’t be a happy event.

But Karl smiled at her reassuringly.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’m here because of my daughter.”
He told her everything. “I want to get Helga out of Germany before it’s too late.”

“You came at the very last minute,” she told him. “The day after tomorrow, a group of children is taking a train to Switzerland. From there they go to Italy, and from Italy they’ll sail to Palestine, where the children will be sent to kibbutzim. If your daughter can be ready by the time the train leaves, I promise you we’ll make sure she gets to Palestine.”

She went to the next room and brought back a young man in simple clothes.

“This is Karl Rink,” she said, introducing Helga’s father to him. “And this is Yossi Millman, of Kibbutz Dafna, the leader of the group going to Palestine.”

Karl asked if they knew which kibbutz his daughter would be sent to.

“Not yet,” answered the leader. “That will be decided only after we get there.”

Karl hurried home. Helga was sitting at the window and looking out despondently, waiting for her mother to come back.

“Unfortunately, you can’t stay in Berlin anymore,” said her father. “You’ve got to leave here.”

“And Mother?”

“When she comes back home, I’ll try to persuade her to go, too.”

“I want to wait here for her to come back.”

“That could take time, Helga. Time isn’t on our side.”

“You can find Mother. You’ve got connections.”

“I tried and it’s not so simple.”

She couldn’t keep the tears out of her eyes anymore.

“I can’t go without Mother. I’ve never been alone. Find her and we’ll all go away from here together.”

He hugged her. “I want us all to be together, too,” he said. “But
that can’t be right now. If you don’t leave here, things I don’t want to happen are liable to happen to you.”

She sobbed into his chest.

“I don’t know what to decide,” she murmured.

“Trust me, Helga.”

“Where do you want to send me?” She forced the words out of her mouth.

“To Palestine. The war won’t reach there.”

“I don’t know anybody there.”

He gave her a detailed account of his meeting with Raha Frayer and described in rosy colors what was in store for her in Palestine. “You’ll be much better off there than in Germany,” he said.

“And what will happen to you?”

“I’ll stay here. I’ll look for Mother and I’ll try to take care of myself. There are two more days until the trip. You should start packing.”

She hesitated.

“There is no choice, Helga. You have to go. I promise you that the minute I find your mother, I’ll send her to Palestine, too.”

“I want you to come, too.”

“I’ve got obligations, Helga. I’ve got to stay here, at least for a while.”

She wiped her tears.

“I’ll miss you both very much,” she said.

Early in the morning, Karl Rink rode his motorcycle through the still deserted streets of Berlin. Helga rode on the backseat, holding a small suitcase in one hand and grasping her father’s body with the other. This time, too, Karl wore civilian clothes so as not to attract attention at the railroad station, which was packed with uniformed
men. The father and daughter hurried to the platform where the train to Zurich was waiting. The group of Jewish children was already onboard one of the cars. Their parents stood on the platform, looking sadly at their loved ones through the windows and wiping away tears.

Karl accompanied Helga to her seat in the car and hugged her, barely keeping himself from crying.

“See you soon,” he mumbled, without believing it himself. He kissed his daughter, pulled some money out of his pocket, and gave it to her.

“Don’t forget Mother,” she demanded.

The engine tooted.

“Have a good trip,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”

“Write to me a lot, Father.”

Karl Rink left the car, froze on the platform, and watched anxiously as the train pulled away with his only daughter. He felt as if one of his limbs had been cut off. His wife had disappeared and his daughter had gone to another country. Deep in his heart he feared that he would never see either of them again.

On August 31, 1939, all the obstacles were cleared away at long last and the contract between Jacob Solowitzky and the French railroad company was signed at a joyous ceremony. In the offices of the train company, bottles of champagne were opened and joyful speeches were delivered. Jacob Solowitzky ignored news of Germany’s intentions to go to war and prepared to return home.

He stayed in Paris one more day to buy gifts. At a famous couturier on the Champs-Élysées, he bought an elegant dress for his
wife. For Michael he bought a fleet of toy cars and racetracks. And he remembered to buy small gifts for each of the servants.

He returned to the hotel and asked for a phone line home to tell his family when he would arrive.

“Sorry, sir,” said the operator. “All lines to Warsaw are disconnected. Please try again later.”

He tried to send a telegram, but couldn’t do that either.

He didn’t understand what was happening. Never in all his travels had he been unable to call home. He felt uneasy. Something wasn’t right but he didn’t know what.

He went down to the hotel restaurant and ate a light meal. When he went back to his room, he tried again to call home. The lines were still disconnected.

Stolowitzky asked the operator to keep trying. For hours he waited in vain for a line. At last he fell asleep and woke up in the morning to a tap on his door. A waiter put breakfast next to his bed. He sat up, muttered thanks, and put the tray on his lap. As he was drinking his coffee, he turned on the radio. The news delivered by the announcer froze his blood:

September 1, 1939, a gray and rainy day, would be recorded as one of the worst days in human history. In the morning, like swarms of hungry locusts, two thousand German fighter planes covered the skies of Poland, as 1.8 million German soldiers and twenty-six hundred tanks invaded the state from three sides. Rumors about big military operations Germany was preparing had been in the air for some time. Poland feared the expected events and called up the reserves, but other than that, made no real preparations to greet the invaders.

The Polish army, much smaller than the force of the attacker, fought bravely and inflicted losses on the Germans. Tens of thousands of invaders were killed, almost three hundred planes were brought down, and about 240 tanks were destroyed. It was a hard blow for the German army, but not hard enough to make it retreat. In fact, the Poles had no chance from the very first shot. The Germans conquered one village after another, one town after another, and killed civilians mercilessly.

The German army invasion of Poland stunned the whole world. Even though the Germans were still far from the capital city of Warsaw, the thunder of cannons was already echoing in the city day and night. Agitated people gathered in the streets. The central railroad station teemed with scared families who had snatched up all their valuables, left their homes, and tried in vain to board a train to take them out of the country. Trucks and private cars filled with refugees flooded the roads leading out of Warsaw.

Lydia Stolowitzky walked around her house confused and helpless. Her husband’s absence only increased her despair. For the last two days she hadn’t heard a word from him, and that wasn’t like him. When he traveled, he always made sure to send her telegrams or call every day and report on where he was and tell her exactly when he would be coming home. This time he hadn’t. She had no idea where he was in Paris or what his phone number was. She tried to call her parents in Krakow, but the lines were disconnected.

Dejected and desperate, Lydia understood that she couldn’t stay in Warsaw for long, that she had to flee to safety. But she couldn’t imagine how. Only now did she realize that she had never had to make a truly fateful decision. In her pampered life with Jacob Stolowitzky, the only decisions she had made were what to serve for dinner or which artist to invite for a private appearance in her
home. Now she herself would have to decide her fate and the fate of her son, and that burden was already unbearable.

The news of the invasion of Poland couldn’t have come at a worse time for Jacob Stolowitzky. Just when he had to be home, to support his wife and son and find a way to get the family to safety, he was far away from them, helpless, unable to save them.

At first he thought of hurrying to Warsaw before the Germans got there and moving his family to a safe place. He had enough money to guarantee that that would be done in the best way. He called his travel agent, hoping to find a way to get home, but was met with rejection. All trains and buses to Warsaw were canceled until further notice. Again Stolowitzky wanted to call home, but couldn’t. Surprisingly, the operator asked him: “Haven’t you heard of the war, sir?”

Not knowing what to do, he took a cab to the Polish embassy, where pandemonium reigned. Officials ran around panicky in the corridors, pleading with the operators to get them an urgent line and paid no attention whatsoever to him. He made his way to the ambassador’s office. They were old friends and whenever the millionaire from Warsaw was in Paris, they had dinner together at an expensive restaurant.

“Help me get back home,” Stolowitzky asked the ambassador, even before he said hello.

The ambassador gave him a wan smile and said: “Forget it. There’s no chance you’ll get there. The Germans are advancing rapidly. They’ll soon be in Warsaw.”