Leon Uris (11 page)
On Sunday everyone, except poor Maximilian, who has to watch the house, gets into the auto and Daddy drives along the Rhine River to Grandma’s house in Bonn. Many of the aunts and uncles and bratty cousins gather every Sunday and Grandma has baked a hundred cookies, or maybe even more.
Soon, when summer comes, there will be a wonderful trip along the coast up north and through the Black Forest or to Brenner’s Park Hotel at the springs at Baden-Baden. What a funny name—Baden-Baden.
Professor Johann Clement is a terribly important man. Everyone at the university doffs his cap and smiles and bows and says, “Good morning, Herr Doctor.” At night there are other professors and their wives and sometimes fifteen or twenty students pack into Daddy’s study. They sing and argue and drink beer all night long. Before Mommy’s stomach started showing she used to like to joke and dance with them.
There are so many wonderful tastes and smells and feelings and sounds for a happy seven-year-old girl.
The best times of all were those nights when there would be no visitors and Daddy didn’t have to work in his study or give a lecture. The whole family would sit before the fireplace. It was wonderful to sit on Daddy’s lap and watch the flames and smell his pipe and hear his soft deep voice as he read a fairy tale.
In those years of 1937 and 1938 many strange things were happening you could not quite understand. People seem frightened of something and spoke in whispers ... especially at a place like the university. But ... these things seem quite unimportant when it comes carnival time.
Professor Johann Clement had very much to think about. With so much utter insanity all about, a man had to keep a clear head. Clement reckoned a scientist could actually chart the course of human events as one would chart the tides and waves of the sea. There were waves of emotion and hate and waves of complete unreason. They’d reach a peak and fall to nothingness. All mankind lived in this sea except for a few who perched on islands so high and dry they remained always out of the reach of the mainstream of life. A university, Johann Clement reasoned, was such an island, such a sanctuary.
Once, during the Middle Ages, there had been a wave of hatred and ignorance as the Crusaders killed off Jews. But the day had passed when Jews were blamed for the Black Death and for poisoning the wells of Christians. During the enlightenment that followed the French Revolution the Christians themselves had torn down the gates of the ghettos. In this new era the Jews and the greatness of Germany had been inseparable. Jews subordinated their own problems to the greater problems of mankind; they assimilated to the larger society. And what great men came from this! Heine and Rothschild and Karl Marx and Mendelssohn and Freud. The list was endless. These men, like Johann Clement himself, were Germans first, last, and always.
Anti-Semitism was synonymous with the history of man, Johann Clement reasoned. It was a part of living—almost a scientific truth. Only the degree and the content varied. Certainly, he felt, he was far better off than the Jews of eastern Europe or those in semibarbaric condition in Africa. The “humiliation oaths” and the Frankfurt massacre belonged to another age.
Germany might be riding a new wave but he was not going to turn around and run. Nor would he stop believing that the German people, with their great cultural heritage, would ultimately dispose of the abnormal elements which had temporarily got control of the country.
Johann Clement watched the blows fall. First there had been wild talk and then printed accusations and insinuations. Then came a boycott of Jewish business and professional people, then the public humiliations: beatings and beard pullings. Then came the night terror of the Brown Shirts. Then came the concentration camps.
Gestapo, SS, SD, KRIPO, RSHA. Soon every family in Germany was under Nazi scrutiny, and the grip of tyranny tightened until the last croak of defiance strangled and died.
Still Professor Johann Clement, like most of the Jews in Germany, continued to believe he was immune to the new menace. His grandfather had established a tradition at the university. It was Johann Clement’s island and his sanctuary. He identified himself completely as a German.
There was one particular Sunday that you would never forget. Everyone had assembled at Grandma’s house in Bonn. Even Uncle Ingo had come all the way from Berlin. All of the children were sent outside to play, and the door to the living room had been locked.
On the way home to Cologne neither Mommy nor Daddy spoke a single word. Grownups act like children sometimes. As soon as you reached home you and your brother Hans were bundled right off to bed. But more and more of these secret talks had been taking place, and if you stood by the door and opened it just a crack you could hear everything. Mommy was terribly upset. Daddy was as calm as ever.
“Johann, darling, we must think about making a move. This time it is not going to pass us by. It’s getting so I’m afraid to go out into the street with the children.”
“Perhaps it is only your pregnancy that makes you think things are worse.”
“For five years you have been saying it is going to get better. It is not going to get better.”
“As long as we stay at the university ... we are safe.”
“For God’s sake, Johann. Stop living in a fool’s paradise! We have no friends left. The students never come any more. Everyone we know is too terrified to speak to us.”
Johann Clement lit his pipe and sighed. Miriam cuddled at his feet and lay her head on his lap and he stroked her hair. Nearby, Maximilian stretched and groaned before the fire.
“I want so much to be as brave and as understanding as you are,” Miriam said.
“My father and my grandfather taught here. I was born in this house. My life, the only things I’ve ever wanted, the only things I’ve ever loved are in these rooms. My only ambition is that Hans will come to love it so after me. Sometimes I wonder if I have been fair to you and the children ... but something inside of me will not let me run. Just a little longer, Miriam ... it will pass ... it will pass ...”
NOVEMBER 19, 1938
200 synagogues gutted!
200 Jewish apartment houses torn apart!
8000 Jewish shops looted and smashed!
50 Jews murdered!
3000 Jews seriously beaten!
20,000 Jews arrested!
FROM THIS DAY ON NO JEW MAY BELONG TO A CRAFT OR TRADE!
FROM THIS DAY ON NO JEWISH CHILD MAY ENTER A PUBLIC SCHOOL!
FROM THIS DAY ON NO JEWISH CHILD MAY ENTER A PUBLIC PARK OR RECREATION GROUND!
A SPECIAL FINE OF ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS IS HEREBY LEVIED ON ALL THE JEWS OF GERMANY!
FROM THIS DAY ON ALL JEWS MUST WEAR A YELLOW ARM BAND WITH THE STAR OF DAVID!
It was hard to believe that things could get worse. But the tide ran higher and higher, and the waves finally crashed onto Johann Clement’s island when one day little Karen ran into the house, her face covered with blood and the words, “Jew! Jew! Jew!” ringing in her ears.
When a man has roots so deep and faith so strong the destruction of his faith is an awesome catastrophe. Not only had Johann Clement been a fool, but he had endangered the life of his family as well. He searched for some way out, and his path led to the Gestapo in Berlin. When he returned from Berlin, he locked himself in his study for two days and two nights, remaining there hunched over his desk, staring at the document that lay before him. It was a magic paper the Gestapo had presented him with. His signature on the paper would free him and his family from any further harm. It was a life-giving document. He read it over and over again until he knew every word on its pages.
... I, Johann Clement, after the above detailed search and the undeniable facts contained herein, am of the absolute conviction that the facts concerning my birth have been falsified. I am not now or never have been of the Jewish religion. I am an Aryan and ...
Sign it! Sign it! A thousand times he picked up the pen to write his name on the paper. This was no time for noble stands! He had never been a Jew ... Why not sign? ... it made no difference. Why not sign?
The Gestapo made it absolutely clear that Johann Clement had but one alternative. If he did not sign the paper and continue his work in research his family could leave Germany only if he remained as a political hostage.
On the third morning he walked from the study, haggard, and looked into Miriam’s anxious eyes. He went to the fireplace and threw the document into the flames. “I cannot do it,” he whispered. “You must plan to leave Germany with the children immediately.”
A terrible fear overtook him now for every moment that his family remained. Every knock on the door, every ring of the phone, every footstep brought a new terror he had never known.
He made his plans. First, the family would go to live with some colleagues in France. Miriam was nearly due and she could not travel far. After the baby came and her strength had returned they would continue on to England or America.
It was not all hopeless. Once the family was safe he could worry about himself. There were a few secret societies working in Germany which specialized in smuggling out German scientists. He had been tipped off to one working in Berlin—a group of Palestinian Jews who called themselves Mossad Aliyah Bet.
The trunks were all packed, the house closed down. The man and his wife sat that last night in silence, desperately hoping for some sudden miracle to give them a reprieve.
But that night—the day before departure—Miriam Clement began having her labor pains. She was not permitted into a hospital so she gave birth in her own bedroom. Another son was born. It had been a difficult and complicated delivery and she needed several weeks to convalesce.
Panic seized Johann Clement! He had visions of his family being trapped and never able to escape the approaching holocaust.
He frantically rushed to Berlin to Number 10 Meinekestrasse, the building which housed the Mossad Aliyah Bet. The place was a bedlam of people trying desperately to get out of Germany.
At two o’clock in the morning he was led into an office where a very young and very exhausted man met him. The man was named Ari Ben Canaan and he was a Palestinian in charge of the escape of the German Jews.
Ben Canaan looked at him through bloodshot eyes. He sighed. “We will arrange your escape, Dr. Clement. Go home, you will be contacted. I have to get a passport, a visa ... I have to pay the right people off. It will take a few days.”
“It is not for me. I cannot go, nor can my wife. I have three children. You must get them out.”
“I must get them out,” Ben Canaan mimicked. “Doctor, you are an important man. I may be able to help you. I cannot help your children.”
“You must! You must!” he shrieked.
Ari Ben Canaan slammed his fist on his desk and jumped up. “Did you see that mob out there! They all want to get out of Germany!” He leaned over the desk an inch from Johann Clement. “For five years we have pleaded, we have begged you to leave Germany. Now even if you can get out the British won’t let you into Palestine. ‘We are Germans ... we are Germans ... they won’t hurt us,’ you said. What in God’s name can I do!”
Ari swallowed and slumped down into his chair. His eyes closed a moment, his face masked in weariness. He picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk and thumbed through them. “I have obtained visas for four hundred children to leave Germany. Some families in Denmark have agreed to take them. We have a train organized. I will put one of your children on.”
“I ... I ... have three children ...”
“And I have ten thousand children. I have no visas. I have nothing to fight the British Navy with. I suggest you send your oldest who will be better able to take care of itself. The train leaves tomorrow night from Berlin from the Potsdam Station.”
Karen clung drowsily to her favorite rag doll. Daddy knelt before her. In her half sleep she could smell that wonderful smell of his pipe.
“It is going to be a wonderful trip, Karen. Just like going to Baden-Baden.”
“But I don’t want to, Daddy.”
“Well, now ... look at all these nice boys and girls going along with you.”
“But I don’t want them. I want you and Mommy and Hans and Maximilian. And I want to see my new baby brother.”
“See here, Karen Clement. My girl doesn’t cry.”
“I won’t ... I promise I won’t ... Daddy ... Daddy ... will I see you soon?”
“We’ll ... all try very hard ...”
A woman stepped behind Johann Clement and tapped him on the shoulder. “I am sorry,” she said. “It is time for departure.”
“I’ll take her on.”
“No ... I am sorry. No parents on the train.”
He nodded and hugged Karen quickly and stood back biting his pipe so hard his teeth hurt. Karen took the woman’s hand, then stopped and turned around. She handed her father her rag doll. “Daddy ... you take my dolly. She’ll look after you.”
Scores of anguished parents pressed close to the sides of the train, and the departing children pressed against the windows, shouting, blowing kisses, waving, straining desperately for a last glimpse.
He looked but could not see her.
The steel train grumbled into motion. The parents ran alongside, screaming final farewells.
Johann Clement stood motionless on the fringe of the crowd. As the last car passed he looked up and saw Karen standing calmly on the rear platform. She put her hand to her lips and blew him a kiss as though she knew she would never see him again.
He watched her tiny figure grow smaller and smaller and smaller. And then she was gone. He looked at the little rag doll in his hand. “Good by, my life,” he whispered.
A
AGE AND
M
ETA
H
ANSEN
had a lovely home in the suburbs of Aalborg; it was just right for a little girl, for they had no children of their own. The Hansens were quite a bit older than the Clements; Aage was graying and Meta was nowhere as beautiful as Miriam but none the less Karen felt warm and protected from the moment they carried her drowsy little body into their car.
