Pictures of the Past (22 page)
And he was more than correct. Though at the time he could not have been aware of it, Hitler had actually sent an envoy ahead to stir up Cuban unrest over their own unemployment problems in an effort to ensure they would not want to accept any ship full of refugees vying for their jobs.
So around the ship, while most passengers just wanted to find another way to get back to freedom anywhere in America and they would be brainstorming with those of similar inclination, there were these others who knew there would be no safety until they had established a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
A second speaker took his place at the front of the crowd and extended a handshake and then a strong hug to the first, who willingly relinquished his spot and sat down. This second man was obviously familiar to most of the group and projected an undeniable charisma. His voice was strong and people quieted immediately when he began. “Friends. No, that is not right. ‘Friends’ I would have addressed you only days ago—had we met at dinner. Had we by chance been seated together in the main dining room or struck up conversations on the lounge chairs enjoying the warmth of the midday sun. Had we played the game of finding connections between our home towns, our places of work, our schools, our synagogues; enjoyed the discussions that have been our heritage through the years; understood that our cousins knew each other, that our rabbis were brothers, that we had attended the same lectures, shared professors without even knowing it.”
He stopped and looked up momentarily. Further energized by the multitude of nods, he continued. “But now I will call you ‘brothers and sisters,’ because ‘friends’ is now a word too impersonal. ‘Comrades,’ I might have said to some of you—some of you, yes, some of us who had been drawn to the Socialist principles, who had been trying to come to terms with ideologies and weigh them against theologies, and live in a world where we were deluded into dreaming that we even had a choice of such a freedom of thought. Yes, now, I address you as ‘brothers and sisters,’ because now we are closer than friends; we are family. And we know, and I will shock some of you with this veracity, we must know that if Hitler has his way, we may be the only family we have.
“Should I say to you, ‘Thank you for coming to this room tonight’? I cannot say that, because again, that would be acknowledging a nonexistent freedom of choice, freedom of action. No, my friends, my family, you had no such freedom. Our Lord, Hashem, has directed you here. Do you not see, once again, our Biblical lessons come to life, the testing of our people? This is the price that we pay to be Jews, to have been Chosen, to have received the Covenant. And this group, in particular, this handsome and healthy and strong and hopeful and pathetically naïve gathering of young people is here as part of His design. Hashem creates and destroys at will. On our High Holidays, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we read the words, we recite the prayers. It is His will. ‘Who shall live and who shall die…’ But we take the words of the prayer book, the Bible, the Torah, as allegory, as an antiquated reality or maybe even fantasy. The Plagues, the smiting, the cruel hand of the all powerful Pharaoh, are stories from an age gone by. We have lived in Germany, in an epicenter of advanced thinking and progress and culture. Oh yes, Jews have always had troubles, had to be more careful, even in our modern times. But now we have proven ourselves. We are more than accepted. We are so thoroughly assimilated into the society that it could not function without us. We are recognized as leaders in thought, in business, in medicine, and science. Finally, finally in our modern age, Hashem has watched over his Chosen people.
“Oh, yes, this is what you thought. Why not? We can only believe what we are taught, what our parents taught us. Whose parents here were not good people? Fathers making a living, mothers making a home. And it was their goal to make us feel comfortable and protected, to spoil us even. Yes, of course, a little religion, lighting Shabbas candles, keeping alive the stories of the Passover Hagaddah in the spring when the Goyim had Easter and the tales of the Maccabees in the winter, when they had Christmas. We needed to know we were Jews, to know our heritage. This would ground us and give us our sense that we would have challenges, but that we were special—again, the Chosen people.
“But now the world has come to life from the pages of a biblical history that repeats itself continuously over a five-thousand-year span, a history that we never really took literally. And we think we can make sense from this? That we can deliberate on plans of action, as if there is a plan other than the plan of Hashem. Well, yes. I surprise you now, I suppose. You can tell now, I am sure…because my speech is so confusing, perplexing…that I am the son of a rabbi. But I have been that rebel son from the Hagaddah. I have been the son searching for answers, asking questions, the wise son and the simple son all in one, because I know that the more I find out about the world, the greater my need for understanding. So I will accept some religion, because, again, you are what your parents have molded you to be. But I will take charge of destiny if I can, and if I need to, to gain your confidence, I will say that we must be here for a reason. By here, I mean literally. Not just here on earth, but here in this room, at this time. How many of you came upon this ship with a certain guilt? Now I ask you—I will be done speaking soon. So I ask you about yourselves. Raise your hands to answer. Who among you has had the Nazi terror reach into your lives? Who has had a close friend or relative dismissed from a job or denied schooling, accosted or beaten, perhaps taken for questioning, or, perhaps even disappear?” There was a stir among the audience, whispers between people, and then the slow, almost mournful raising of hands in a rhythmic wave beginning at the front seats and continuing through the rear.
“And I knew it, although I dreaded it. Not a hand among yours is down. And so you came aboard this ship feeling as I did, I am sure. Grateful and yet bewildered at the puzzle of life. Why is it me? Why should I have this opportunity and yet my brother will not, my father will not, the entire neighbor’s family gone in the night, with no explanation, and not by their own design— no, taken. And then when this ship was turned back, yes, with you, my initial reaction was rage—rage with frustration and sadness and fear. And then, within hours, my emotions changed—‘acceptance,’ you may say, but I say ‘relief.’ The answer to the question posed—the ‘Why was I spared so far, why my new wife—and not the others we knew?’ Because…and now you must listen to me as you have not yet listened—you must listen to me without hearing the calls of your loved ones interfering with your comprehension. And this is the answer—so that you would be here in this room at this moment with these people to hear this speech—to be moved to your calling—to meet your destiny. We must take our place with the movements that have already started and we must be leaders. Some of you—already young mothers and fathers—I will give you a single goal—I will not demand that you recognize a calling to fight—I will insist that you accept the Zionist vision and proceed with the greatest speed to reclaim the land of our forefathers. There you will go and you will work to build our own society—and you will keep your children safe and you will have more children to populate the land. If Hitler has plans against the Jews, who knows how many thousands may pay for his insanity before he is stopped. But you cannot stop him, for you have precious cargo and I beseech you, the young parents, to consider not finding passage on another ship, not going on to America, but going on in the opposite direction—go to your new home due east. And wait for us…prepare the land for us. Because this remaining group I will shape into freedom fighters first, and then Zionists.”
Three or four times during his monologue, the speaker paused to acknowledge the young woman by his side. Although his words were visibly energizing the audience, a selected assembly having interrupted now and then with the affirmations of “Yes, yes…say the words,” reminiscent of an Evangelical rally, his waifish wife remained only silent and somber faced. Often, when he did not need to use them to gesture, his hands would be stroking the back of her head or clasping the tips of her fingers, as if his own musculature could give her strength.
When he finished speaking, the audience rose with a swell of applause and gathered around him and his wife. During a ten-minute period in which the speaker was both praised enthusiastically and respectfully challenged by an equally intellectual crowd of his peers, his wife was comforted and coddled by many of the women in attendance, and brought a cup of tea by an especially empathetic friend. Then someone waved a short stack of papers above the huddle and encouraged them all to move to a large round table so they could exchange names and cabin numbers and formulate initiatives for further action.
Only Sarah remained seated, drawn to a final embrace by the leader and his wife who had not moved with the others to the rear of the room. She was unable to ignore the soft, sweetness of the moment, and it awakened in her once more a strong longing for Taylor’s embrace. She watched intently as the man planted a kiss on his wife’s forehead and then raised his head to survey the room, obviously pleased that his efforts had resulted in an enthusiastic participation around the table. And as he continued to survey the room, his eyes were drawn to the beautiful young woman who was yet to leave her seat. He spoke softly into his wife’s ear, and then he grasped her shoulders and gently lifted her to a standing position, encouraging her to join the others. She rose and nodded her head; regaining any lost composure, she walked toward the rest of the group.
And then he looked straight at Sarah and began to approach her. Sarah, however, turned to look around, unaware at first that she had been targeted, that no others were left seated behind her. And when she realized that he was walking toward her, she self-consciously began to gather her belongings, hoping to inconspicuously join the others or slip from the room.
“Wait, wait,” he said. “Don’t be in such a hurry to go just now. Stay, please, to talk with me. Do not worry. Nothing is demanded of you. I come only to introduce myself.” He held out a hand disproportionately large for his frame, and gave her a firm and powerful handshake. “My name is Joseph Levin. I apologize that I spoke so strongly that I am scaring you away. This is not my intent.” She looked up at him, and before she could respond, he continued, “How do you do?”
“Well,” she stammered. “Thank you. I am well,” she continued, and then she realized that this last phrase from him—the words of this simple question—were the only words that he had spoken all evening that were in English, not German. And likewise, her response came out automatically in English.
But now he was transitioning back to German. “Please, miss, let’s talk for a moment,” and he motioned for her to sit down once more, to share the small table setting with him. “Aha,” he continued. “I knew it. Well, actually my wife, Hannah, first had the idea, but then I thought, as always, she just may be right—you speak English. You see, I know only a few phrases. I can maybe say ‘how are you’ in four languages, but often the answers will elude me. I have no great linguistic skills. Please, I have introduced myself and now I ask for your name, if you would not mind.”
“Sarah. I am Sarah Berger.”
“From?”
“From Berlin.”
“Aha,” he said again. “I thought so. Cosmopolitan. And you’ve traveled. You are fluent in English, I am presuming, by the natural ease of your response.”
“Well, yes. I have had years of instruction.”
“And what other languages?’
“Well, French. And I guess Swiss and some Polish, as well.”
“Sarah,” he paused. “I may call you Sarah, may I not?” he posed rhetorically, waiting for no answer. “We are informal here. Sarah, you saw my wife by my side, did you not?”
“Yes, yes, I did,” she said, wondering if he was displeased that she had intruded on their private moment. “You are right. I was watching you both. I will apologize for my poor manners. She seemed so quiet, so sad. You had such tenderness for her, although you had such force for your audience.”
“Ah, you are a student of human behavior, as well. What you say is true. She is very sad. But not because this ship has reversed course. She did not even want to leave at Hamburg and I physically had to lead her aboard.”
Sarah could envision the scene, perhaps not so different from her own. “It is the guilt. I know it myself. The pain of abandoning loved ones.”
“Yes, you are right. Separating from her parents—as well as mine—not knowing if we will see them again— not knowing if they will be safe.”
Hearing this admission reawakened her own despair and brought tears to Sarah’s eyes, but she held back the sobs that often surfaced during her lonely nights.
“But with Hannah, there is more,” Joseph continued. “You see, a month before we secured passage on this ship, we accompanied Hannah’s younger sister, Miriam, to the train station, where she began her journey relocating to the French countryside. There was a group— maybe thirty children—and the promise that more will be able to go—to hide out—to become Christian children until the madness ends. In the weeks before she left, she had to be instructed in the most basic of Christian tenets, and we had to impress upon her the need to deny her heritage—explain to her the importance of keeping the secret. For a nine-year-old, this is not an easy assignment. You heard me say it earlier—I am a rabbi’s son—and yet I had to tell Miriam to deny her Judaism. And so now she is Mary.”
Finally, Joseph looked up at Sarah for a moment, but did not pause for her to comment. “My in-laws could not bear to take her to the train—and so it was Hannah who had to make sure that Miriam took her seat—Hannah who had to wave as the train left the station, her sister racked with convulsive cries through the window.” Now Joseph closed his eyes and rubbed his hands on his temples. He swallowed deeply in an effort to control his own emotions. “You have to understand that because of the age difference, because Hannah’s parents have become paralyzed by the Nazi rampages, Miriam was more like our own daughter than a sister or sister-in-law. And so Hannah is so incredibly distraught that she cannot even eat. You see how thin she is.”