I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree (2 page)

•   •   •

The news of Papa's murder spread quickly. Classmates came to my room with small gifts. Spread out on my quilt were sugar cubes wrapped in cellophane, small pieces of chocolate, cookies, and wildflowers from the garden—gifts only children know how to appreciate. Their kindness touched me. Surely the food had been saved over a long time, for delicacies like these were hard to come by. When the dinner bell rang, they all urged me to come with them, but I could not. The idea of not having a father anymore . . . It was all too raw. I wanted,
needed
to be alone. So many memories to confront . . . It would soon be Passover, but Papa would never preside over the feast again, never sing the songs of freedom or offer gratitude for our people having come out of Egypt. Papa, with his beautiful voice, always on key.

My eyes came to rest on the bookshelf. The first week at school, when I was terribly homesick, books had been my
solace. I picked up a thin volume of Rilke's poems. Papa's artistic lettering was on the flyleaf.

Hannelore Wolff, sixteen years old, 1940
.

October 16, 1940

To Hannelore
,

on the occasion of your birthday
.

With love from Mama and Papa

The slender volume fell open to page 77 and a favorite poem called “Before the Summer Rain.” Reciting from memory, I heard myself chanting the lines:

“Suddenly in the park from all the

green
,

one knows not what
,

but something real is gone . . .”

Drawn to the simplicity of the poem, I recited it with intense emotion. The words had a deeply personal meaning. Putting the book back in its place, I next lovingly ran my hands over the volumes of Heinrich Heine and was reminded of the essay contest that had earned me these works. When I was preparing to move to the boarding school, Mama suggested I take only a few of my books to Berlin. “But, Mama,” I had argued, “I need them all.”

I walked over to the window. The chirping birds nestling under the eaves of the roof usually delighted me. Today I did not even turn my head. The thought of Papa and how he might have died tormented me. If only I could be certain they had not tortured him . . .

I cried again as if my heart would break, soon knowing that, indeed, it had.

•   •   •

It always amazed me how three girls living in a tiny attic room stayed friends. But that's how it had been from the start. We teased one another a lot, but there was no viciousness to it. Sometimes I made fun of Kaethe's doll collection, to which she replied, “I am not letting go of my childhood yet. At sixteen I can still pretend.”

Both Kaethe and Irma had come from small towns in Westphalia. Up until Hitler's rise to power they had happily coexisted with children in public school. Now the laws of the Third Reich didn't allow Jewish students to attend public schools. Since there was no Jewish
school in their town, they, too, had come to Berlin to Dr. Frenkel's boarding school.

Irma was often homesick. She missed her young brothers. But still, she loved having fun, entertaining us with exotic dances. Kaethe was practical. “If it weren't for Hitler's laws,” she proclaimed, “I would have been stuck in Lingen for the rest of my life.”

Kaethe was like that. She could turn a bad situation into a good one.

When the girls returned from dinner, I had recovered some control of my emotions. I needed little encouragement from them to talk about my childhood, about the ivy-covered house we had lived in, in Aurich, Ostfriesland—the house with the secret passageways. A faint smile creased my face when I talked about the storks nesting on top of the chimney and how as children we believed the story told us, that storks bring babies. But the best part was the friends I played hopscotch with, and hide-and-seek, and all the other games of childhood. And
how it all changed when Hitler came to power.

The speeches Hitler made were mostly about his hatred for Jews. We told Papa of our fears, how afraid we were. He assured us that all this would blow over very soon. Yet oftentimes I saw him and my uncles having serious discussions.

Soon Wolfgang's and Selly's best friends didn't just stop coming to play, they repeated the slogans Hitler used in his speeches and what their parents, who now wore the uniform of the Brownshirts, the Nazi militamen, told them to say. Carl, who had been Wolfgang's best friend, shouted from across the street, “My father belongs to the SA. He says he can do whatever he wants to Jews and no one will stop him.”

“Can you imagine how we felt when he said that?” I asked them. “Wolfgang tried to reason with him, reminding him that they were best friends, but Carl didn't listen.”

Kaethe had similar stories about her little village: “One day we were friends, the next day they boycotted us. Nazis in brown shirts and black
boots paraded around Father's sawmill, making sure no one entered. A few months from the time they first appeared, we were ordered to leave the village and our sawmill was given to a Nazi.”

I told Kaethe and Irma about the time when a German friend of Papa's came one evening, after dark. He warned Papa to leave Germany as soon as he could. That was all he would say. But Papa still didn't listen.

“I fought for Germany,” he told the man. “I am a decorated war veteran. They wouldn't harm me.”

And yet in 1940 Mama and Papa, along with all the Jews of Aurich and of the entire region called Ostfriesland, were deported. They were no longer allowed to live there. Having to leave most of their possessions behind, they opted to go to Weimar, where Mama's married sister lived and where Grandmother Henriette, her mother, wanted to go. Not that they could have chosen any other place—permission to live in other cities was limited.

Suddenly the undulating sound of sirens interrupted us. “Air raid! To the cellar!” the housemother cried as she ran from floor to floor.

“I am not going,” I said. “Everyone will ask questions. I can't face that, not now. Go without me.”

But Kaethe and Irma would not hear of leaving me. We crawled under the beds as a fireball exploded in the sky.

“It might have been wiser for you to go to the cellar,” I whispered.

“And leave you up here alone?” Irma said.

She had barely finished her words when the thunder of another crash made us recoil. The wait was unbearable. Bomb after bomb exploded all around us. I was certain we would be hit at any moment.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Still, we remained under the beds until another siren officially announced the end of the raid.

A few weeks later while studying in my room another letter arrived:

Weimar, April 12th, 1942

Dearest Hannelore,

It has been four weeks since Papa's ashes were brought to me, and now there are new developments. The Gestapo has notified me that I am to be deported to the East—whatever that means. Your brothers are still in Cologne, but they, too, got the same notice. We are to present ourselves at the animal hall in Weimar on May 8th and are allowed to bring only one suitcase and
a knapsack. All else is to be left behind. I am at a loss of what to take, not knowing how long we'll be gone. How I wish Papa were here! I miss him so. Do what you can to save yourself, my dearest child. When all this is over, we will be together again. Remember that no matter how far away I am from you, I will always be near
.

Your loving

Mama

I thought about all the bad things I had heard about deportation. It meant being in labor camps, where life was difficult, where there was never enough food, and where beatings took place. How could Mama stand up to that? And what about Wolfgang and Selly? They were so young.

Only a few nights ago I dreamt about Papa sitting at the head of the table on Passover night. He sang all the familiar songs of freedom. In the dream I smelled the chicken soup, the stewed carrots and prunes. At the end of the feast it
seemed as if Papa was trying to tell me something, but I could not hear him. . . .

Rain came down in torrents, but I paid little attention to it. I grabbed my coat and ran aimlessly into the street, trying to sort out Mama's news. There was no letup in the rain as I walked farther and farther away from the school. Raindrops gathered at the tip of my nose; my hair clung to my face in wet strings. Finally the sole of one shoe came loose, and I stumbled over a branch that had fallen in my path. I turned around and went back. Not bothering to change into dry clothes when I reached my room, I sat down to write a letter.

To Gestapo Headquarters in Weimar
,

I hereby apply for permission to travel from Berlin to Weimar. My mother, Karoline Wolff, and my brothers, Wolfgang and Selly Wolff, are being deported on May 8th, from Weimar. I wish to accompany them
.

Hannelore Wolff

“Who are you writing to?” Kaethe asked.

“You already know the answer,” I said sourly. “You've been looking over my shoulder the whole time. I know what you're going to say, that I should think about this carefully. Well, I
have
thought about it. I must go with my mother to wherever that may be. I have to protect her and my brothers. Anyway, sooner or later they will put us
all
on transports, deport all of us.”

Kaethe was visibly alarmed. “Hannelore, read your mother's letter again. She asked you to save yourself! You don't seem to know what saving yourself means. It means staying right here. Don't think for a minute that the Nazis will let Hannelore Wolff stay with her mother and brothers because she volunteered to come along on this transport. Families get separated when deported. Haven't you heard?”

Kaethe raised her voice for emphasis. “You don't seem to realize what you are letting yourself in for.”

I wanted to hug Kaethe; I knew she meant well, but she brushed me away. She was too upset.

“Tell her, Irma,” Kaethe said in a raspy voice. “Maybe she'll listen to you.”

“Kaethe is right, “ Irma agreed. “We can't let you do this. Give me that letter.”

She sprang from her bed trying to wrestle the letter out of my hand. I ran from the room crying. Irma's voice trailed after me. “By the time the Nazis get around to us, the war may be over.”

•   •   •

After that the waiting for the daily mail delivery began. May 8th was not far away, and still the Gestapo had not answered my letter. To relieve the tension, I often walked in the school's garden. On one of my walks I saw Kaethe coming toward me waving a letter. I tore at the envelope, opening it swiftly. It was from the Gestapo and gave me permission to use the train from Berlin to Weimar for the purpose of being
deported. The letter went on with formalities of how to obtain a ticket for a Jewish person.

I looked up at Kaethe. “Oh my God, what have I done?”

My travel permit was issued for May 2nd, in two days. It was time for me to begin sorting out my possessions.

“Keep my books till I get back. I will take only the Rilke poems,” I said. “Do you think my saddle shoes will fit one of you? You have always admired them. . . . And here, take my gym clothes. I won't need them.”

That night, sitting on our beds, we talked about the future. Irma composed an ad we would place in the
Berliner Rundschau
, a widely read paper.

“We'll use last names only, saying, ‘Reunion for Gruenstein, Wolff, and Helfen taking place at Wangenheimstrasse 36. Berlin, Grünewald. Bring amusing stories.'”

I held her hand tightly. “Our Irma, funny to the end.”

“Funny, only because there is nothing else we can do. How else to cope with an insane world?”

Would we see one another again? The question nagged at us, yet we dared not say it aloud.

I left Berlin two days later at eight o'clock in the morning.

Dressed in a white blouse, blue corduroy skirt, and matching jacket, I boarded the train. I could have been any young girl going home for spring vacation had it not been for the yellow Star of David sewn to my jacket. People stared but said nothing. Ticket in hand, I soon found the right compartment. As I took my seat the couple next to me moved away. Across from me sat two soldiers and a boy in a Hitler Youth uniform. More people entered the compartment, and before long the whistle blew as the train began to move, slowly winding its way through the maze of tracks at Hauptbahnhof, Berlin's busiest railroad station.

So began my trip home. I knew that this trip was different from any I had ever taken. Left behind was school, my friends—my whole life. Ahead, a future over which I had no control.

Sitting quietly, I listened to the conversations around me. A young mother with a baby confided to the woman accompanying her that her husband had joined the party—and wasn't it marvelous that they were given one of the apartments Jews had to vacate? “It's completely furnished,” she added.