I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree (4 page)

“They might have let you stay a few more months, a year. A lot can happen in a year. Don't be fooled, Hannelore. There are worse things than labor camps and hunger. For now we are going to the East, or so they tell us. We may well end up in a labor camp first, but there are concentration camps in the East too.”

“I know,” I said. “I have heard how bad concentration camps in Poland are. All the
more reason for me to be with you and the boys. We'll face it together.”

Early the next morning I knocked on Wolfgang and Selly's door. They had never been neat, but what I saw now was utter chaos. Everything was strewn around—games, clothes, books, skates.

“I am surprised you found room to sleep,” I said. “You can take only one suitcase and a knapsack. There is enough here to fill two trunks.”

“What difference does anything make?” Wolfgang replied with an air of resignation.

So young, and already full of despair
, I thought. How does one get ready for deportation? My own attempt to pack didn't get far either. Mama believed I was having a hard time leaving my possessions behind.

“You know me better than that,” I told her. “It's not the things I have to leave behind, it's . . . the idea. First they kill Papa, then they throw us out of our home, ordering
us to leave behind everything that rightfully belongs to us. If only Papa were here!”

“Even he couldn't help us now. He would be as powerless as we are. Sixty million Germans against five hundred thousand Jews. Think, Hannelore, think.”

Mama was right, of course: We
were
powerless. I began at once to pack, counting out seven pairs of underwear, four blouses, shoes, sweaters, and so on, until the suitcase was filled. I put the slim volume of the Rilke poems between a nightgown and a blouse, and then squeezed the suitcase shut.

All too soon May 8th arrived. With knapsacks strapped to our backs and suitcases packed to the limit, we set out.

Grandmother Henriette stood in the doorway waving, a handkerchief pressed to her eyes. Mama let a groan escape her lips that sounded like,
May God help us
.

It was Mama's forty-third birthday. In times past we would have serenaded her, brought her flowers from the meadow, perhaps recited a poem. But on this day, May 8, 1942, the day of our deportation, there was no birthday celebration.

On our way we encountered a flurry of
people going to market. A boy delivering newspapers raced through the streets on his bicycle. The Mueller's Bakery truck darted in and out of streets and alleyways, the driver calling, “Fresh rolls, fresh rolls!”

Not one person extended a greeting or a farewell wish.

The assembly place for the deportees was Weimar's stock pen. Armed SA men guarded the entrance. Had the Nazis chosen this place to further humiliate us, to equate Jews with animals?

The sour smell of fear mixed with cow dung and straw was overpowering. More and more people arrived carrying suitcases. Old and young, they lined up to have their papers examined. I had never been in a stock pen before. Along the wall were individual stalls designed to hold animals, and to the side stood a large scale. Beyond that were the railroad tracks.

I saw a sign that read
MEN AND BOYS TO THE LEFT, WOMEN AND GIRLS TO THE RIGHT
.

Wolfgang and Selly moved to the left without looking back, while I pressed closer to Mama. Nazis shouted at everyone who entered. I worried about my brothers. They were too young to have to fend for themselves in this hostile atmosphere.

More and more people arrived. I recognized acquaintances but was too scared to even nod to them. Older women, barely able to lift their suitcases, were told to carry them or leave them behind. I wanted to help but was not allowed to do so. Slowly, the line began to move. All suitcases had to be opened, and SA women rummaged through them to look for valuables. Mama was told to remove her gold wedding band. She had never taken the ring off before. Then it was my turn. The same woman who had ordered Mama to take off her band rummaged around my suitcase and removed a Tyrolean sweater, one of my favorites. She also took the antique silver bracelet I was wearing. It had been a present from my great-uncle Nathan
Schoenthal and was the only piece of jewelry I owned. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

More lines, more orders, more confusion followed. A strip search was ordered. The SA woman in charge was threatening. “Take your clothes off, damned Jewess! Make it fast, I don't have all day. There are too many of you as it is.”

I peeled off layer after layer of clothing with the greatest speed and stood naked, for the first time in my life, among strangers. I felt violated.

“Tell me where you hid your valuables. It will save time,” the SA woman snapped.

When I told her politely that I had already handed over my bracelet, as I was told to do, she began a body search, examining every crevice. I had never been so disgraced.

By the time all the body searches and other formalities we had to go through were over, it was afternoon. I was very hungry and cold. But I soon forgot my own discomfort when I heard a piercing cry coming from the men's side of the hall. I was concerned for my brothers. Had
they said or done something they shouldn't have?

Walking quickly as far as I dared to, I soon saw what was happening. An SA man was standing over a deportee and beating him relentlessly, dragging him around the straw-covered stall. I didn't want to look, but the wailing was so pitiful that the man was impossible to ignore.

“Hear, O Israel,” the man cried. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

It was that old familiar prayer, chanted on Shabbat and at holiday services . . . and sometimes before dying.

The SA man continued to swing his club long after the man had fallen silent. Even from a distance I could tell he had been beaten to death. One of the orderlies was called.

“Out of my sight with this dog. Take him away.”

“God, what have we done that you have forsaken us?” I uttered under my breath.

We had spent the entire day at the stock pen, and now it was evening. A voice over the loudspeaker told us to board the train through the back doors. Floodlights glared overhead as we were rushed onto the platform, ordered to move faster,
faster
. When I saw Wolfgang and Selly in the crowd, I walked toward them so we could board the train together.

Mama found a seat on a bench; we sat on our suitcases. The last of the deportees had long been pushed inside, yet still the train didn't move. Lights flickered on and off. I felt people and the walls closing in around me. Hours later,
when windows and doors had been sealed and bars laid across them, the train jerked forward and back. One final shudder, and we were off into the unknown. Except for the sound of the turning wheels, there was total silence.

Wolfgang and Selly sat together, knees drawn up, looking frightened. To calm myself, I closed my eyes, as though I were pulling shades down on the world.

When streaks of morning light filtered into the compartment, I stood up and rubbed my cramped legs. Mama was way over on the other side of the compartment, and since I would have to step and crawl over people to get to her, I simply waved.

After people started waking and we were able to move closer to one another, my brothers and I took a Thermos of tea and sandwiches from our knapsacks and had breakfast with Mama. Food lifted our spirits. We'd had nothing to eat since we had left the house in Weimar.

“Where do you think we are?” Wolfgang asked between bites.

Since I didn't know, I asked a young man sitting next to us. He was about my age and hadn't said a word to anyone.

“We are in Poland,” he answered.

I offered him some tea, but he declined, saying he was too upset to eat or drink. His name was Erich Neuman. There had been an incident at the Weimar railroad station. His father had been beaten. Erich didn't know the outcome; he had been ordered onto the train.

As the day unfolded we went past fields where farmers worked and wildflowers bloomed. Every now and then a farmer in a horse-drawn cart drove by and stared at the passing train, at the faces pressed against its windows.

Late in the afternoon the steam engine began hissing and brakes were applied. Within minutes the train came to a full stop. After the iron bars had been lifted, we were ordered to get out.

“Alles raus”
was the phrase used, meaning “every
thing
out,” suggesting we were merchandise, not human beings. Staying close to Mama and my brothers was my main concern. It was easy to get separated. Mama struggled with the heavy suitcase, finding it difficult to keep up with the flow of people rushing past her. Perhaps one of her migraine headaches was coming on.

We had to pay attention to what was going on around us. Orders of “Go here . . . stand there” contradicted themselves until men in civilian clothes wearing white armbands stepped forward to address us, the newcomers.

“You have arrived in Lublin, Poland,” one of the men said in accented German. “Do not be frightened of us. We are Jews appointed by the SS to keep order and to help get you settled. They call us
Judenrat
. We will now walk to the ghetto where you will be housed. Tomorrow you will be assigned work.”

Lublin—if I remembered my geography correctly—was in eastern Poland. I was relieved we were going to a ghetto, not a labor camp.

It started to rain, which made walking with a heavy suitcase more difficult. In spite of the rain and fog we found the address given us. It was Novotnastrasse 10, a run-down apartment building surrounded by debris and overgrown weeds. But, oh, what a relief it would be to have a place to stretch out, to wash and sleep!

Another family already occupied the room assigned us. They were not happy to see us. The woman protested. Mama showed her the paper that had the address and apartment number on it. She made the woman understand it was not our doing that we were here. My mother, by now totally exhausted, abandoned her usual pleasant demeanor and reminded the woman that the situation called for sacrifice by all involved.

And so we settled down as best we could within the crammed, dark room. Washing or using the one bathroom for the entire floor was out of the question for the next hour. Too many people had already lined up.

We had a restless night. Uncertainty, as well as being unaccustomed to sleeping in a crowded room with strangers, kept us awake.

As soon as it was daylight, we set out for the offices of the
Judenrat
to apply for ration cards and to be assigned a job, for without work there would be no food. The line was already long when we arrived. People filled out forms for job placement and said what they were most suited for. I said I had been in training to become a kindergarten teacher before coming here.

“Well, this is your lucky day,” the Jewish policeman said. “An SS officer came in yesterday
looking for a nursemaid for his two young daughters. Working for him means you'll be safe from deportation.”

I wanted to ask what he meant by being safe from deportation, but the policeman waved me on.

Close contact with an SS family didn't seem like such a good idea to me; it frightened me. But I was not given a chance to refuse.

Mama was assigned a job in a lamp factory. It would become available in a few days, she was told, as soon as the present holder of the job was transported out. Again there was this talk about deportation and transportation out of the ghetto. Did it mean this was a temporary place?

After our ration cards were stamped, we looked for Wolfgang and Selly, who were on the men's side. When there was no sign of them, Mama began to worry.

“The boys are smarter than you think,” I assured her. “If they have been taken to work,
they will find their way home all by themselves.” But inwardly I was just as worried about my brothers as was Mama.

Mama and I decided to explore the ghetto. There would be time enough to go back to the dreary room later. Besides, we needed to acquaint ourselves with the place in order to learn how to survive.

Walking up and down cobblestone streets and alleyways, we encountered many people from Germany and Poland. Some were still nicely dressed, looking well fed, while others, dressed in rags, appeared hungry and defeated. The ghetto seemed to be a paradox between hope and hopelessness. We passed children carrying books, singing Hebrew songs. The moment I saw them and heard them sing, I felt the ghetto's spirit and realized that in spite of poverty and despair there was a life force here too.

The winding streets led us to an especially narrow alleyway. There was barely enough
room for pedestrians to move, yet an SS man on a horse rode through the center, intimidating people in his way. The stripes on his uniform and the medals pinned to his jacket indicated a high-ranking officer. Mama pulled me into a doorway until he passed. Only when he was some distance away did we allow ourselves to breathe.

We walked for hours, and still there was so much more to see, including a bakery where people received bread if they had the required ration cards and the ghetto marks to pay for it. Although it wasn't funny, I couldn't help but smile at the fact that the ghetto money looked like the play money my brothers and I used in a board game we'd owned. The bread looked wonderful and I would have loved a piece of freshly baked bread, but we didn't dare spend any of our ration cards or the funny money, not knowing how long it had to last.

Then all at once the sun went down. Only moments before, it had been light outside.
Mama and I returned to our room feeling cold and hungry, waiting for Wolfgang and Selly to return. Mama listened to every sound coming from the corridor, hoping they would appear any moment. But it wasn't until late that night that my brothers returned, covered with dust and grime. They had been working in a quarry loading rocks onto trucks.