Alex's Wake (40 page)

Well. Yesterday morning Helmut, who is still my best comrade as he has been from the start, gave me half a day's ration—c. 110 grams—of bread, an orange, and a fountain pen bought with the pay he received for work he performed in the spring in Rivesaltes as a medical assistant. The pen is very simple, no golden penpoint, but it will last a few years. He was very dear and made the day really festive. On January 1st, 1941, we slept on wooden cots without straw in Agde; in 1940, in Sionne, with the temperature 10 below zero F, we slept in a large room on stones and litter; this year we sleep in a room of an old brick factory. Still, it's better than the two previous years!

For today, with love, yours, Father

One week later, on January 8, two days after Rosemary's twenty-fifth birthday, Helmut added his words of reproach to his father's indictment. “Dear Günther,” he wrote,

I don't really know how to go about writing this. That is to say, would it be better to write candidly or should I hold back my thoughts and feelings? But since I assume you're still the same person you used to be, I won't force myself to hold anything back. I am so glad that you two have already hit it off so well in
social and artistic matters as well as in material things. Of course I know that your touring was enormously strenuous and I know, too, that on the material side, even though you are earning good money, it's not enough to put anything aside. But your letter, well, it wasn't an appropriate New Year's and birthday letter for your Father and Brother! You don't write anything about what must have been very satisfying experiences for you—nothing about your work, nothing about the country and people and the many impressions that you formed in the New World. No, you don't seem to realize how a prisoner waits for letters from those close to him! I don't wish to complain, for I know that at this time there are millions of people who would be grateful to have an existence like the one we have here for the duration of the war. In addition, our situation has improved. We are less hungry and more optimistic. But being called martyrs of trampled justice without having done anything to build up a new justice because one is merely a passive victim is little consolation, because we want to live—to live in the full meaning of the word. That kind of “hero-ization” seems terribly ironic to us, just as it would seem a mockery to a soldier who receives a gleaming Knight's Cross for having his legs frozen off.

After a quarter year in which you made us wait in vain for mail, we are very disappointed with your letter. It contained almost nothing except excuses, even though we did not complain to you about anything. In spite of your being so overworked, it is almost unnatural that you found no time to write us. I hope you understand this letter in its proper sense and that perhaps by now you will already have found the time and peace and quiet to let us participate differently in your life. After all, right after your arrival in New York along with Max Markreich you demonstrated that where there is a will there is a way!

I do hope that it is not now too late. It seems that cases that have already been approved in Washington now have to be checked over if the visa has not yet been issued. Even the
consulate here in Marseille doesn't know what they require now. I'm afraid that because of the new regulations immigration for us has in effect been blocked. So for the moment I believe more in a European miracle than an American one. Of course, as always, I hope that we will soon see each other again—for many reasons! But at the moment, I don't believe it will happen.

There isn't much news to report about us. Ever since the war began I have had 8–12 more or less serious sore throats, and so I am going to have a tonsil operation next week. I will be glad to be freed at last from these constant infections. Rosemarie, I thought of you on your birthday and I send you many good wishes. I hope your own personal wishes as well as ours will be fulfilled! All the best! Best regards to both of you.

Yours, Helmut

Write to us, don't keep us waiting!! And don't forget to put interesting stamps on your letters!

By this time, my father and mother were back in New York City, their tour with Bohumir Kryl having ended precipitously a month earlier. On December 7, 1941, as the Kryl bus was approaching Brownsville, Texas, on U.S. Highway 77, federal police ordered it to halt and demanded that the passengers identify themselves. George and Rosemary still had their German passports with them, documents that prominently displayed the sign of the swastika. The two were immediately taken into custody, and the police phoned Washington to determine whether they had just nabbed a couple of German spies posing as musicians. Not until the following morning did the Immigration Office cable Brownsville and clear their names.

That night, Mr. Kryl announced that he had run out of money and the rest of the tour was canceled. Furthermore, he said, the bus was staying with him and the musicians were all responsible for finding their own way home. George and Rosemary, not wanting to spend their modest recent savings on transportation, decided to hitchhike. With their instruments under their arms and their thumbs in the air, thanks to the kindness of strangers they covered the two thousand miles
between south Texas and New York City in time to return to their little apartment on 103rd Street a few days before Christmas.

A few weeks later, they received those searing letters from Les Milles. It is true that their peripatetic existence of the previous months must have made regular correspondence difficult, but his father and brother's accusations of indifference and selfishness must have caused my father to feel the deepest wounds of guilt, sorrow, and remorse. Spurred into action, he, too, was able to procure an affidavit on behalf of Alex and Helmut. He sent that welcome news, along with the sum of twenty-five dollars, to Camp des Milles. On March 21, 1942, Alex wrote a grateful and hopeful letter back.

Dear Günther and dear Rosemarie, thank you for doing as much as you could to get that affidavit. I hope that the documents are now complete and have arrived at the State Department in Washington. The main thing now is that the visas be granted; they say the first visa since December was granted yesterday in Marseille. If the State Department will actually send us the visas or notify the Consul, I would ask to be telegraphically informed so that I can get the necessary ship bookings. It would be a deliverance for us.

We two are well although we have had to suffer through a severe winter, without coats, without being able to change or wash our underwear which is in rags. Helmut had several episodes of sore throat again and was supposed to go to a hospital in Aix-en-Provence in the middle of January to have his tonsils removed. After 4 days of observation in the hospital, he was sent back and the operation was postponed to a warmer season. Otherwise our lives follow their accustomed path; in addition to the constant worry about our loved ones, we now have to concentrate on keeping ourselves healthy. Besides its poor quality the food here is absolutely insufficient in quantity, so that if you couldn't get some extra food you'd go downhill fast. For months, both at noon
and
in the evening, there was only soup, white beets or red beets or Jerusalem artichokes or sweet potatoes, and each
variety was served by itself for a very long time. In the final analysis, if we had not been able to occasionally get some additional food thanks to our meager earnings we would not have survived this period of internment which by now has lasted more than 30 months—unfortunately many others did not.

Today, except for the early morning hours, we are having a hot Sunday. I am writing this letter outdoors. On the whole the climate here is good, whereas in Rivesaltes in the Pyrenees there were storms; the Mistral virtually saps your strength. I will bless the day that brings us freedom again. At my age, every month spent under the current conditions shortens one's life, and it is time that the portals to freedom be opened for us, so that we're not all used up before it finally comes to pass. Therefore, do everything you can to get us out.

For today then, with love and in the hope that we'll be seeing each other again soon, Yours, Father.

Helmut added some lines of his own to his father's letter:

The emigration problem looked dismal until a few days ago: not a single person under the German quota has received a visa since the middle of December. Now in the last few days the reports that have come from over there, much like yours, sound more favorable. And today they said that as of yesterday visas for the German quota were again being issued in Marseille. I hope that in the meantime our second affidavit has reached Washington and has been approved. If so, then it no longer seems completely impossible for us to be able to get to America. Perhaps you're right, and a miracle will happen when one least expects it. That would be wonderful! If only we knew that Mother is safe and if only we could be certain that one day, in the not-too-distant future, we would be reunited with her. Because Eva is working, she and Eva seem to be somewhat protected from deportation; whereas she thinks that unfortunately the danger to your mother, dear Rosemarie, is greater.

The most unpleasant aspect of our present existence is the fact that primitive things like eating, washing, etc., turn into problems that must be solved repeatedly and that therefore take much more time than one would wish. And yet I try to make as much use of the time of my “imprisonment” which would otherwise be lost. So I am taking part in various courses, language courses (Spanish among others), an electro course. In addition I work in the camp's primitive book bindery and attend various lectures—one about the development of European Intellectual History “From Homer to Goethe,” one about U.S. History, etc. I am very sad that you have not received the letter we sent in early November; in it were detailed reports about the cultural events in the camp such as concerts, lectures, performances, etc. At the moment I'm reading Shakespeare plays. After having read Othello and Macbeth I am now reading King Lear, and with growing admiration Tolstoy's War & Peace.

Warmly, yours, Helmut

In the early spring of 1942, my parents were employed for the first time in the United States as legitimate professional musicians when they were hired by the Southern Symphony Orchestra of Columbia, South Carolina. The engagement was for several weeks in May and June, when the orchestra gave outdoor concerts in a festival setting. They wrote excitedly of their plans to Alex and Helmut, but when they took the train from New York to Columbia, they did not get off in Washington to knock on the doors of congressional offices on Capitol Hill, where fateful decisions about visas were being made every day. Instead, when they arrived in Columbia, they sent the captives fifty dollars. In the middle of May, they received a letter from Helmut that hinted at all the bureaucratic obstacles he and his father faced as they worked at their release.

Dear Günther, dear Rosemarie, many thanks for your kind and interesting letter. I'm sure you want to know right away what our current emigration prospects are, and so I will begin with
that. The authorizations received from Washington, even for those under the German quota, are slowly increasing in number. Thus one day we might also be among them. In any case, we are obtaining the necessary documents so that in case of a “Convocation” we don't lose any time. We have already received the police certificates of good conduct from Martigny-les-Bains and Montauban, but we are still waiting for the extract from the police records for which we have already paid the Vichy fees. ‘Wait!' continues to be our slogan.

When we received your letter I was lying in the infirmary, silent as a fish. A very capable young specialist from here removed my tonsils on April 24th. For a couple of days I was not allowed to speak or eat anything except ice. But in the meantime I've recovered quite well, which I owe in large part to the Quakers, who saw to it that I had canned milk and sugar. I am glad that it's finally been done!

I can understand why you are happy to have made such a good start with the Southern Symphony Orchestra, but I am also very curious to hear about your other activities. The things you write about Negroes in the southern states is very interesting. I can well understand that it would seem strange. Here in southern France one also sees quite a few Negroes who seem to enjoy equal rights socially. Besides the many altogether smart-looking black soldiers, one sees various colored people with fine facial features and hands who often seem to be involved in a variety of intellectual professions. As for my personal attitude toward Negroes and other colored people, I have always tried to see primarily the human being in every homo sapiens. I must admit that it has always been especially unpleasant for me when, as a ‘captive,' I had to obey a black guard. But perhaps that is also a natural reminder of an ever-present national consciousness.

However things stand, we have to be thankful at least to be here, where to be sure we're not safe and where we are concentrated in camps, but without being subjected to anti-Semitism
or persecution. What a lot we'll have to tell one another once we're all sitting around the same table again!! How much longer? Sometimes I think it will all be over sooner than we generally suppose, at least in Europe. But I can't understand why you spent two days in Philadelphia at the invitation of a former colleague, whereas you didn't even take two hours to see the beautiful city of Washington! We hear again and again that something can actually be accomplished there through the personal intervention of relatives. Possibly those involved had ways and means you don't have. But the chance that you could have interested someone in our case was surely not so remote that a stay of more than two hours would not have been worthwhile. You have to admit this is true and you must understand that we were very disappointed!