Pictures of the Past
Copyright © 2011 Deby Eisenberg
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0615483127
ISBN-13: 9780615483122
eBook ISBN: 978-0-615-53317-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011906726
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, audio, print, electronic, or other, without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction and is not to be viewed as an historical record. Although there will be references to actual historical characters, events and locales, all scenes, descriptions and actions reflect a combination of the author’s research and imagination and should not be interpreted as documented fact. Any resemblance to other persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Studio House Literary
For Michael, my husband
From the beginning, his truly energizing passion and support for the story never wavered. He provided me with the opportunities to visit so many fascinating venues in America and abroad, which eventually found a home in the novel.
Provenance
n. the place of origin or
earliest known history of
something; a record of
ownership of a work of
art or an antiqueOxford Dictionary of English,
Second Edition, Revised.
Oxford University Press,
2010
Contents
Gerta Rosen: Chicago: September 2004
Jason Stone: Chicago: September 2004
Sylvie Woodmere Hunt: Chicago: September 2004
Taylor Woodmere: Kenilworth: June 1937
Rachel Gold: Chicago: June 1968
Rachel: New York: October 1968
Rachel: New York: January 1972
The Woodmere Estate: Kenilworth: July 1937
Taylor: Atlantic Crossing: August 1937
Emily Kendall: Newport: August 1937
Sarah Berger: Germany: 1938–1939
Rachel: New York: February 1975
Rachel: Kenilworth: February 1975
The Woodmere Estate: Kenilworth: February 1975
Taylor: Kenilworth: August 1940
Taylor: Atlantic Crossing, 1956
The Woodmere Estate: Kenilworth, 2005
S
lamming her hands on the rotating tires of her wheelchair, she abruptly stopped its slow progression. “It can’t be.” Her words were soft and almost unintelligible at first. “Oh, my God.” She spoke louder now and the small group with her, previously drawn in many directions, began to form a circle around her. “It just can’t be.” Louder still and more disturbed, her accent became thicker with each repetition, as she searched out her eldest daughter. “Darlene, now…please…I need you. Come. I need you to read me the plaque.”
Darlene left the small Degas she was studying and came to her mother. “What a beautiful painting—I can see it’s by Henri Lebasque. I believe he is French.” She reached for reading glasses. “Yes, ‘Henri Lebasque, French 1865-1937’; it is
‘Jeune Fille à la Plage,
Girl at the Beach.’”
“No, not that. I know that.” Her delivery was uncharacteristically irritated. “Now you tell me this—how did it get here?” Leaning forward in her seat, she was perceptibly impatient for the answer. “Tell me now who donated it. Read me that.”
Darlene focused on a second small sign accompanying the work of art. “It reads, ‘Donated by Taylor Woodmere, Woodmere Family Foundation, Kenilworth, Illinois.’”
The elderly woman resettled in her chair, straightening her posture to elevate her small stature. Her normally sweet, complacent countenance took on a stone-faced frown. “Who is this Taylor Woodmere? What kind of a name?” The questions, though directed toward her daughter, now successfully sliced the hushed cadence of the entire gallery; the other visitors stopped and stared at their group.
“Now you must listen to me,” she continued in the crackling higher pitch that years add to voice modulations. “This one thing I know. This painting hung in the Berlin house of my dear neighbor, Sarah Berger.” The agitation in her voice was escalating as she continued. The adults moved closer to her side as if afraid she might slide from her chair in a faint, or worse yet, attempt to bound from it.
“Mother, please. What is it?” Darlene asked anxiously.
And then her mother, in a rare, accusatory tone and with a fervor she had not exhibited in years, cried out, “Liar, liar—this is enough, enough. They cannot take my family, my friends, and now my memories!”
Gerta Rosen had asked for one special treat for her eighty-second birthday. She wanted, yet again, to visit the Art Institute of Chicago and her beloved Impressionist rooms. With her elderly and brittle body so evident, few would guess what this strong woman had endured. But her family knew. And they believed that what small pleasure they could give her would never compare to the gift of life she had given their generations by tenaciously surviving the Holocaust. Although there had been years, maybe even decades, of silence after Gerta began her life in America, eventually she recognized the need to share her past with her family. And in due course, she participated in the video biography projects crucial to Holocaust documentation.
Her love for the Art Institute itself, the powerfully positive feelings that each visit to the site evoked in her, was a result of the aesthetic roots of her childhood. When she was a young girl in pre-World War II Berlin, Gerta’s parents were major supporters of the arts. Her neighborhood had been home to some of the most educated, wealthiest families in the city. In her earliest memories, she is kneeling on the vanity chair in her parents’ bedroom, watching them dress for a night at the opera or the Berlin Philharmonic. Sorting through items in a beautifully carved jewelry box, she would try on earrings and bracelets, and then she was proud to help choose which intricately designed piece her mother would wear. As her mother raised her hair from the nape of her neck, Gerta loved the way her father would secure the necklace clasp and then place a tender kiss on her shoulder, and she longed for the day when she would be old enough to join them for a concert in the evenings. But often on afternoons when the weather was most inviting, they would all stroll the boulevards of the bustling city of Berlin and would visit the art museums and private salons together. At all of the galleries she would run past the large, somber Renaissance works, and she would coax her parents toward the multihued, vibrant paintings from the turn of the century, the French Impressionist works, and she had memorized the names of her favorites artists. When she would point to the canvases by Max Lieberman, who had led the movement of German Impressionism and had been president of the Prussian Academy of Arts, her father would laugh and remind her that Max, himself, had been a family friend, had often sat in the same dining room chair next to him that she would now occupy.
The Rosens and their friends were assimilated Jews, a vital part of the German cultural nation—or so they thought as they were lulled into their false sense of security.
And so on this day, as Gerta had requested, the women of the family planned a beautiful afternoon for their beloved matriarch, including the granddaughters and the five great-grandchildren. First, Gerta enjoyed her favorite light lunch of salad and soup in the courtyard restaurant. Then, while the young mothers followed their children as they ran up the Grand Staircase to the Impressionist rooms, her three daughters, accompanied by some baby strollers, escorted her on the elevator.
Naturally, her family immediately went to the main Pritzker Gallery, where Gerta loved viewing the master-work, Georges Seurat’s
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,
surrounded by van Goghs and Renoirs and Monets. Only at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, did she feel there was a collection that rivaled that of Chicago’s Art Institute.
But today she asked to be wheeled to a side room, which she now realized she had neglected all these years. And then she spotted
Jeune Fille à la Plage.
“Mother, please calm down. Please tell us what’s upsetting you so. We want to understand.” Darlene’s words were calming, were accompanied by an interested, rather than patronizing tone. She knew from attending seminars and group sessions for children of Holocaust survivors, that when victims wanted to talk, they must not be silenced.
Gerta fought to regain her composure. Even the youngest ones settled down, as if they sensed the importance of the moment. The two babies continued quietly sucking bottles.
“My children, this beautiful work of art hung in the Berger home during my last year in Berlin.” Then she turned to her oldest again. “Darlene, you know from my telling you, maybe 1937 to 1938. Until shortly after Kristallnacht. The Nazis were taking everything precious, objects and souls.” She was speaking slowly now and her eyes were no longer focusing on those present. “I was often at the Berger house. The daughter, Sarah, was maybe three years older than me. She was my…how do you say…idol, role model. Her father was an important businessman and she was a beautiful, intelligent girl.” Now her eyes seemed to return to the present. Her softer tones had invited the group to circle closer to her chair and she reached out to one of the teenage girls, who bent to the level of her grandmother’s chair as an adult would to a small child, and Gerta continued as if she were speaking only to her. “Eventually, I found that Sarah had left from Hamburg on the ship, the famous ship, the
St. Louis,
which was turned back when it reached the Americas.”
Now she raised her gaze and the young girl stood and Gerta focused on her own three daughters. “You know my story—I have told you many times. Our family went into hiding and then we were ‘relocated.’ Only my protective older brother and I made it through the camps.” There was a longer pause now, as the loss of her parents became fresh again. “Yes, so many gone. It never leaves me. And I never did know what happened to Sarah. Sarah could easily have been slaughtered by the Nazi filth.”
Once again she made a gesture that signaled the group to re-shift and allowed more of the children to be at her side, each wanting to comfort her in some way, touching her hand or her arm or stroking her hair, as they imitated their mothers.
“But they did not destroy great works of art—these they valued above life, especially Jewish life.” She stopped to catch her breath.
Understanding where her mother was leading, Darlene took her cue. “We know how many masterpieces were stolen by the Nazis, hidden, and then sold.”
Gerta nodded and regained her forceful voice. “This painting is a theft from my Jewish heritage. If I could not help my friends then, I will seek justice now.”
“Mother, I understand. We’ll continue our plans for today, but I will return tomorrow and relate your story to the museum director, and I promise you—this I will do for you—I will make sure they find the provenance of this painting.”
Within the next four months, this accusation of impropriety would set into motion a series of events that would bring controversy and scandal to the revered Woodmere name.