The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond The Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival (5 page)

The new girls practiced their English. “Shall I fetch you tea?” Helen asked.

“Two lumps!” answered the other, Mela, with a diction that Lisa would have died for. She had tried to prepare herself by studying an English primer she’d bought in the temple bazaar, but two weeks had not been enough time. She hated that she was going to arrive in England, open her mouth, and sound like a refugee.

“Would you like some tea?” Lisa uttered to herself over and over, silently imitating the pleasant tones of the other girls.

The train was starting up again; the guards had slammed the doors. As the children prepared for another departure, there was a loud rapping against one of the windows. An older boy climbed up and lowered it to see what was happening. As the train lurched forward, a wicker laundry basket was thrust into the boy’s arms.

“Somebody’s brought us hot muffins!”

“Maybe it’s chocolate!”

“I bet it’s cheese.”

“What if it’s a bomb?” one girl chimed in.

Everyone froze. The boy put the basket in the aisle and moved away from it.

“I dare you to open it,” a boy bullied his seatmate. “Not me, stupid, you open it.”

“Maybe we should throw it back.”

Lisa had an odd feeling she could not explain, a certainty about something. She walked up the aisle and stood over the basket, thinking, If I’m afraid of this, I’ll be afraid of everything new. I won’t let myself be afraid, I won’t. She opened the lid.

Before her lay a beautiful baby, wrapped in a clean blanket and sound asleep. A little angel. She picked it up gently and cradled it. The older girls rushed to Lisa’s side while the boys stood back. The car erupted in debate.

“What should we do with it?”

“Does it have a tag?”

“Do you think it’s hungry?”

The baby started to cry, and someone panicked. “If they hear it, we’ll all be thrown off.” Lisa immediately began to hum a Brahm’s lullaby—the first melody that she could think of.

But the infant continued to cry. Its wails got louder, and the children became more nervous. Lisa sang desperately to quiet the child, but to no avail.

From up the aisle a sixteen-year-old girl came and held out her arms. “I have a little brother at home. Let me try.”

The girl took the child expertly and nestled her nose into its flesh. It smiled for a second. The entire car breathed a sigh of relief.

When the infant’s crying stopped, she eased him back into the basket and joined Lisa in scouring the car for juice, milk, and blankets. They took turns rocking and feeding the new baby. At that moment, it seemed to Lisa that everyone in the car shared a common purpose.

Lisa felt a growing sense of determination. If I can keep strong, she thought, I can make it. I’ll make it for Mama and I’ll make it for Papa. And soon we will all be together again.

A long, shrill whistle sounded and the train stopped again. The children hid the juice and the blankets and pushed the basket under Lisa’s seat. Someone saw a sign out the window.

“It’s in Dutch! The sign is in Dutch! We must be at the border!” A hush fell over them.

A stony-faced SS officer made his way down the aisle for a final inspection, pushing aside suitcases to make way for his shiny black boots. He checked names and numbers off a list on his clipboard.

When the guard stopped at Lisa’s row, everyone held their breath. Several children began nervous conversations to cover the awkward silence that had fallen over the railroad car. The guard opened the lid of the basket and saw the sleeping baby. He stared at it for what seemed an interminable moment, then looked at his list.

“Isn’t he sweet?” Lisa asked, interrupting him. And she smiled brilliantly, praying it would distract him. She put every ounce of charm she had into that smile. He turned and looked at her for a long moment, and finally, without uttering a word, moved on, making his way briskly down the aisle. He opened the heavy doors at the end of the car and disappeared into the next carriage.

As the Kindertransport crossed the border into Holland, the lights inside the car came on for the first time, and cheers erupted. Lisa opened the basket and stared at the helpless bundle. “No one can hurt you now,” she whispered.

It was a bright, moonlit night. Through the window she saw the windmills turning slowly—like in the picture books Papa had shown her. The Chopin Nocturne in E Minor, calming and elegant, ran through her mind. The wooden arms of the windmills moved with the rhythm of the music.

They arrived at the Hook of Holland, the port on the North Sea. The train stopped, and an excited flock of round-cheeked Dutch women fluttered on board, carrying baskets filled with fat slices of fresh-baked bread and butter and big doughy cookies. One lady balanced a tray of steaming mugs of cocoa. The children forgot their manners and charged forward—shouting, “Me! Me!” as they devoured the treats. The Dutch women smiled at these faces smeared with chocolate.

There was discussion among the women about the baby boy. A serious-looking man with a red armband came up and introduced himself. He was from the Dutch Red Cross.

A group of girls gathered around the baby and watched as he directed a Dutch woman to pick up the infant from its basket. She held it snugly to her chest.

“We will find him a good home here,” said the man. “How will his parents know where to find him?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know.”

Lisa picked up the wicker hamper and handed it to him. “Please take the basket,” she begged. “Maybe someday someone will recognize it. Please keep the basket with him.”

The man smiled sadly. “Yes, of course,” he said, and took both the baby and basket with him.

The children emerged shyly from the train compartments and were led through the small station and across the large busy road to the seaport. When they realized there were no Nazi guards to keep them in line, some of the boys began to skip and play and trip the younger children around them.

Lisa ignored the scuffling of the silly boys and looked up at the loud cawing of a seagull above her head. The smell of the sea air, crisp and cool, raised her spirits.

Michael came rushing back from the head of the line toward her. “I saw the boat, it’s a real corker! Hurry up!” he screamed excitedly.

“What do you mean, a corker?” she asked.

“That’s what Dr. Watson says about everything, what a corker! A corker is, well, something like that!” said Michael, pointing to the giant black cargo ship. “How does that stay afloat? It’s made of metal!”

A bearded old seaman in a stiff green peacoat smiled and waved them along the dock toward the ramp. “Hurry along and up. Next stop is England.” He sang out, “You’ll cross the sea tonight, ye will, ye’ll cross the sea tonight! You’ll cross by moon and stars, ye will, by star and moonlight’s bright.”

Halfway up the ramp, Lisa stopped and looked back at the serene Dutch town with its orderly rows of thatched roofs. It didn’t look the least bit like Vienna. Where will we end up? she asked herself. Will there be an opera house? Will there be a tower like St. Stephen’s? No time for such thoughts, she told herself, and headed aboard.

She was assigned the top bunk above a whiny fifteen-year-old from Cologne who proudly announced that she was seasick and proved it by vomiting into her pillow.

Lisa lay awake for what seemed like hours, and looked out of the tiny porthole next to her bunk. The moon had disappeared and it was impossible to tell anymore where the water ended and the sky began. Eventually, the steady rising and falling of the sea caught up with her and she succumbed to a troubled sleep.

She dreamed of her home on Franzenbrückestrasse. Everything was just as she had left it: the paintings, the lace, the porcelain figurines. Her mother had kept her promise—nothing was changed. The family was just sitting down to dinner. Mama was serving her brisket, Papa was at the head of the table, ready to carve. Sonia was there, noisy and impatient, and so was Rosie, stately and beautiful. One chair was empty. “Where is Lisa?” her father asked. From deep inside her sleep, Lisa tried to respond.

“Here I am,” she cried, but no one heard her; waves of green water drowned out her voice.

By morning they reached the other side of the English Channel. It was gray and cloudy as the single-file line of children walked down the gangplank. They clutched their little suitcases so tightly, one would have thought they carried their hearts inside.

A wiry man with a dark blue coat and a walrus mustache hurried them along. “There’s a train to catch, let’s look lively. Hurry along, luvs.”

The single-file line wound through the center of the tiny English village—looping around the quaint central square and into the train station. It was dawn and no one was up but the milkman. He stared at the eerie sight of more than two hundred children winding through his town. Lisa thought they must have looked like a lost school field trip.

She turned to stare at the vast sea that separated her from her family and all she had ever known.

5

T
HE TRAIN
rumbled through the English countryside past cows and hayfields, hedgerows and country lanes. The weary children collapsed onto one another, heads upon shoulders, their tiny, loose legs dangling with the swaying of the train.

Soon the winter pastures gave way to suburbs, and the suburbs gave way to stone buildings, and the journey reached its destination—Liverpool station, London.

Lisa and the two hundred exhausted children were met by a small battalion of well-wishers—nuns, rabbis, Quakers, clergy of every denomination, and Red Cross workers with clipboards. The new arrivals were lined up in the reception hall, sorted, and checked against the meticulously organized lists that had been prepared by the Jewish Refugee Agency at the Bloomsbury House. With a “Welcome to England, children, we’re delighted to have you,” the Red Cross workers moved down the line. Lisa waited anxiously and looked up at the huge windows of the cavernous structure as they extended to the ceiling to meet a massive glass dome, which filtered bright morning light onto people below. Finally, Lisa showed her papers and number and was relieved to see her name on the list.

A little girl next to her, five years old and teary eyed, hung on to Lisa’s skirt. “Is my mommy going to be here? I want to see my mommy!” The girl began to cry inconsolably, and a volunteer came over, knelt down, and held her hand while they waited.

When the lists were completely checked and each child accounted for, barricades were opened and a stream of excited people holding photos flooded in. Some had signs— “Kaplan.” “Samuel,” “Friedler.” They headed for the lines of waiting faces and yelled out names. “Ruthie Goldstein!” “Martin Muller!”

Lisa caught sight of Michael down the line and waved. He waved back, and then she watched as a man and woman in floor-length fur coats came up and hugged him, swallowing him up in their furry effusiveness.

The wait seemed interminable. Lisa held the handle of her suitcase and watched patiently as half the children departed in a flurry of handshakes and kisses. After what seemed like hours, she broke ranks and went up to a Red Cross worker who was handing out cookies. “Jura, Lisa Jura,” she began, but that was as far as she got. She wanted to say, “My cousins are coming to get me,” but suddenly couldn’t remember the English words she had memorized so carefully.

“Be patient, dear, these things take time. Better get back in line so they can find you.”

“Muss ich zurück?”
Lisa asked, panicking. “Do we have to go back?” She suddenly imagined having to get on the train and go back if no one met her.

The Red Cross worker looked at her terrified face. “Of course not!
Zurück nicht,”
the lady said in heavily anglicized German. “Don’t worry, even if there’s no one to meet you, we will take you to a very nice place. Let’s get back in line . . . there’s a good girl.” She was leading Lisa back in line when a small man in a worn brown overcoat, holding a photo, came up and spoke to her in Yiddish.

“Lisa Jura? I’m your father’s cousin, Sid Danziger.”

Lisa expected that he would hug her, but he hung back, bowed his head slightly, and handed her some English treats. He asked about her family and consoled her as she spoke rapidly about the awful state of things in Vienna.

Then he cleared his throat and continued. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” He spoke so quietly, she could hardly hear him above the din.

“I’m afraid we’ve had to move outside London. My wife just had a baby, so we’re leaving the city, and well, we’re moving to a one-room flat, you see. There just isn’t enough room. We won’t be able to take you; we’re very sorry.” The man’s face was flushed with embarrassment.

Lisa didn’t know what to say. These were her relatives, her cousins, the only people that knew her in all of England.

When Sid saw the utter terror on her face, he stammered, “Please don’t worry, I personally spoke to the people at Bloomsbury to make sure a good spot is found for you . . . and the main thing is that you are here in England.”

Lisa couldn’t hear all his words. Panic set in again. “But what about Sonia?” Her voice was frantic. She had fanta-sized that she could convince them to take her little sister as well.

“We’ll do our best to ask our friends. We’re not wealthy people, I’m sorry.”

Lisa steeled herself against the disappointment. Mama would have wanted her to be polite. “Thank you for coming to sign for me,” she managed.

“It’s the least I could do,” Sid replied sadly, and turned and walked away.

Lisa didn’t speak during the ride from Liverpool station to the Bloomsbury House. She was wedged in the huge coach with the rest of the unclaimed children; there were dozens and dozens of them. She stared out the window at the bustle of London streets. What a hurried city! Horns honked, black taxis weaved in between double-decker buses—what a contrast to the placid pace of Vienna.

The Bloomsbury House that her father had spoken so much about was a massive stone building in London’s West End. Getting off the bus, she saw Englishmen in pin-striped suits and shiny bowler hats walk by, looking just like the pictures she had seen in her schoolbooks.