Shattered Crystals - Mia Amalia Kanner (that summer book TXT) 📗

“I handed the bills to the Gestapo.”

My first priority was to get a visa for Sal. My sister-in-law Fanny stayed with the children so that I could go to Berlin and make a personal appeal for the Palestine visa that was rightfully ours. Two days after the nightmare of Sal’s arrest, I was on the early morning train to the capital. I left before daylight so that I could finish the business in one day and return home in time for Shabbos.

The waiting room of the Zionist office was crowded with agitated women and old men. It took two hours before my name was called. In the inner office I found a balding official, sitting behind a desk littered with papers. I declined his invitation to be seated. I had done nothing but sit for five hours, first on the train and then in the waiting room. Besides, I felt I could make my point better on my feet.

“You promised us a visa. You skipped our turn on the list, and now my husband is in Buchenwald. Where is our visa? Where is it?” I had not intended to shout, but my self-control vanished. I screamed at this stranger who had given our visa away to another family. I poured out all the rage that I had pent up for the past three days.

“Please, please, calm down. We will get it for you, I promise. We did not expect this. You must give us a little time.”

“Time!” I shouted. “There is no time left.”

“I can do nothing today,” the official said. “You have to come back next week. I am very sorry.”

On the train home, I found a seat and hung up my coat. I was just warm enough in my wool suit and felt hat. No one looked at me. The conductor punched my ticket politely. I realized he had no reason to assume such a well-dressed woman was Jewish. I had forgotten what it was like not to feel different.

I became lightheaded, and it dawned on me that I had not eaten since Sal’s arrest. I would have to try to get some food down when I returned home. I had to keep up my strength, there was no one to help me now.

Fanny stayed for a simple Shabbos meal. We lit candles, and for the first time in my life, I recited the Kiddush. There would be no services the next day. The shul was rubble. Yet I felt stronger than I had on any day since the pogrom. On Shabbos, as I prayed at home, I knew God was with me and would help me in what I had to do.

My efforts to secure a visa for Sal absorbed me totally. I hounded foreign consulates in Halle and Leipzig, had frequent phone conferences with my sister, and checked weekly with the Zionist Bureau in Berlin. It seemed to me that I spent all my days riding trains and trolleys and sitting in crowded reception rooms, waiting my turn to plead my case. When life had followed orderly procedures, I would have been ashamed of the way I acted now. As it was now, I faced strange officials, pleaded, cajoled, and lost my temper without a shred of shame.

I followed up the flimsiest rumors that I overheard in consular waiting rooms. When a chic, perfumed woman whispered that the French Consul could be bribed, I rushed to a telephone and begged Hannah to go back to the foreign office. “A woman at the French consulate said there are ways if you are willing to pay,” I said desperately.

Fanny or Rosa usually stayed with the three girls when I was away. Ruth and Eva no longer went to school. A few days after Sal’s arrest, Eva’s teacher had come to the apartment. I expected another self-serving apology for the arrests, the looting and the burning, but she came to urge me to send the children back to school.

“They are good and diligent pupils. They belong in school,” the young teacher said. “Nothing will happen to them, Frau Kanner. I promise you I will look after them.”

I was amazed that this gentile woman had come openly to visit a Jewish home, and I was deeply moved by her concern for my children. She was so certain that she could protect my children that I agreed to let them go back to school. But I felt uneasy every minute they were gone. I watched the clock, anxiously counting the minutes until they returned. How could my teacher prevent other students from abusing my girls? Youngsters mimicked their elders, learned their cruelty.

An even more awful thought came to me. Supposing the Nazis in Halle decided to expel Jewish children as they had done in schools in other cities? True, the teacher had been kind, and Eva was fond of her. But what would the teacher do if a Nazi entered the classroom and asked my daughter to step forward?

I shuddered as I pictured the scene. What could have possessed me to listen to the teacher? After weighing it for three days, I knew for certain that Ruth and Eva would be safer at home.

There were days when neither Fanny nor Rosa was available to be with them when I had a lead to follow. On those days, I left the girls alone, warning them to let no one into the house. When I was growing up, Mama had made me responsible for my sisters. Now I did the same. “Ruth, you are the oldest, so you are in charge,” I said. She took her responsibility for her sisters very seriously. Usually, she managed very well.

But there was the day when I did not arrive home from an all-day trip to Berlin until eight-thirty at night. Ruth burst into tears as soon as she saw me.

“What is it, Ruth? Tell me what happened.”

“Lea’s bed is all dirty. She called, and I didn’t get there fast enough to get her to the bathroom. I washed her, but the bed is a big mess. Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry.”

Relief washed over me. “You washed her? You did that? You are a good girl; you did right. Don’t cry anymore.”

What wonderful children I had. How they loved each other and looked after each other. No mother could be more fortunate than I. Since Sal was taken, I had not had one moment of trouble from any of them.

An official of the Arbeitsfront, the Nazi labor office, appeared at the house one day with Carl Helmut. The previous summer Helmut had agreed to purchase our business for ten thousand marks, less than one third of its value. The transfer was to have occurred as soon as the date of our emigration was set. Now the official said, “Jews are not permitted to own or operate any business in Germany anymore. You are extremely lucky that we have a customer for your store.” He smiled, handed me a printed document and a pen, and said “Sign your name.”

In two or three seconds, as long as it took to sign my name, I transferred our store, all the merchandise and the goodwill that Sal had built over the years, to Carl Helmut, in return for one thousand marks. The Arbeitsfront official ceremoniously handed me a copy of the contract he had forced me to sign. What chutzpah! I wanted to tear up my copy of the “contract” and throw it in the Nazi’s face. But I was so afraid that I could not even protest politely.

Before he opened the store the next morning, Helmut told me he had paid the one thousand marks to the Arbeitsfront, and I believed him. He also told me that the Nazis would turn the money over to me. Halle’s gentiles just did not comprehend the venality of the Nazis. Of course, I never got the money, not a single mark. That was no surprise to me at all.

On my third trip to the Zionist Bureau, the official greeted me with a smile. The document he handed me stated that a permit was on file in Brussels for Salomon D. Kanner to enter Belgium. On the train back to Halle, I was surrounded by Nazis, but it did not matter. My prayers had been answered. Sal would be free.

I ran to the police directly from the Halle railroad station. A Gestapo officer studied my precious paper for only a few seconds. “No, no good. This piece of paper is not an exit visa.”

Flabbergasted at his pronouncement, I said, “I don’t understand. What is it you require?”

“Get a real exit visa and bring that,” he said.

“Oh, thank you for your explanation,” I said.

I do not know how I managed to keep my composure. Nor can I explain why I reached into my wallet and pulled out fifty marks. Without a word, I handed the bills to the Gestapo and left the station house.

My disappointment was enormous. Berlin had assured me that the document would bring Sal’s release. I had been