The Promise of Provence (Love in Provence Book 1) (8 page)

My darling Katica,

I only want you to know enough, not every detail. I can tell you facts, not feelings, otherwise these pages would dissolve from my tears.

I know you understand that terrible things happen in life.

I know, like everyone else, you have learned of the horrors of the war years. I believe it is important when I am gone that you and Andrea know our family’s story so you can pass it on to future generations. I want, most of all, to leave you with the assurance that everyone can find ways to move past whatever their hurts are and rebuild their lives.

You were the proof to your father and me . . .

As I often told you, my childhood was a happy time in a safe and loving place. We spoke Yiddish and Hungarian at home, and I spoke Czech at school. Ours was a big town for those days, with a population of about 30,000. The Jewish community made up approximately half of that, and everyone was friendly, tolerant, and respectful of each other. I never once had a sense of being different because of my religion.

My family was not as religious as some. It was more a way of life. We celebrated Shabbat and the holidays like everyone else, but my father did not go to the synagogue to pray every day as some men did.

My father was a lawyer. He had been born and educated in Budapest. He met my mother when she was visiting relatives in Budapest, and he moved to our town to court her and marry her. My mother, like most other women, worked in the home and used her talents, sewing and cooking, to help others. She often was asked to embroider wedding dresses or alter clothes, and she did so happily. She taught me her skills and I loved to sit stitching beside her.

We had a modest lifestyle, but others thought us “comfortable” because we had our own home with a small garden where we grew vegetables and fruit. We had electricity sometimes but mostly used oil lamps. We were fortunate to have our own pump so we didn’t have to line up to carry water from the communal well. We had an icebox, a woodstove, and an outhouse. At night we used a chamber pot.

When we weren’t at school, the children played outside and could go anywhere in the town. We all knew and looked after each other. We were never afraid of anything, and even though life was not easy, everyone laughed and did their chores with a good attitude. It was our life. Everyone helped everyone.

And now a brief history reminder:

In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.

In 1935, he enacted the Nuremberg Laws in Germany that did not affect other countries but made Jews everywhere nervous and unsure of the future as word slowly spread.

October, 1938, more than 12,000 German Jews expelled to Poland.

November, 1938, Fascist Hungary took over our region. Fear and uncertainty spread through our Jewish community and we began to be treated with disrespect.

November 10, 1938, Kristallnacht in Germany and part of Austria. Life changed dramatically for Jews in Eastern Europe.

Remember that news did not spread quickly, and often we did not believe the bad stories because it did not make sense and was so against the life we knew.

From 1938, when I was thirteen, life quickly changed. It was unbelievable.

At first we thought having the Hungarians take over our part of the country again would be a good thing, like it was the last time they were in power. We soon realized the Fascist Hungarians were a different breed and completely under Hitler’s spell. Jews were not allowed to travel. They were not allowed to own their own business or go to school. Gentiles were not allowed to sell us food.

My father could only offer his services to Jews, and no one had any money to pay once they lost their business. Non-Jews, people who had been friendly before, began to insult us. The other children were taught bad things about us in school. Lies. We had to stay within our neighborhoods or be beaten for going elsewhere to try and find food. My father and my brother, who was five years older than me, were conscripted into a “special” army unit. There were only Jews in this unit and, unarmed, they were sent ahead of regular troops to clear minefields. Of course we did not know this and always thought they would return. They didn’t.

Everyone was afraid and confused and did not understand what or why this was happening. Our rabbis told us to pray and God would make things right. My mother’s parents moved in with us, as they lost their home to non-Jews. There were no explanations for these actions. If the Hungarians wanted something, they took it. Jews had no status now. No recourse.

We were thankful for our little garden, as food was so scarce, but we also shared what we could, so really no one had much of anything. My grandfather, on this side of the family, had a plumbing business but had to sell it, by law. Jozsef’s father was an employee and our family’s good friend, so it was sold to him and we were able to keep getting a little money from him until the authorities started snooping. That family kept trying to help however they could, smuggling food to us and to others.

Secretly, slowly, we buried plumbing pieces and jewelry in the dirt cellar under our house. Then we filled it with rocks, wood, and more dirt. We didn’t know why but it seemed like we had to try to plan for the future.

Fear was our constant companion.

During the winter of 1943, Jews were told they must go to the municipal office to register for new identification papers. We did not realize this was how the Nazis were confirming their lists of Jews.

March, 1944: Drummers went through town and police put up posters stating all Jews over the age of six must wear a yellow patch on our clothes that was a Star of David, with the word “Juden” in the middle, and move to a ghetto area. I remember how humiliated everyone felt and even many Gentiles fought against that and put on yellow patches and scarves. Some were shot right in front of everyone for this. If a Jew was caught without the star or if it was creased or pinned on, they were beaten and sometimes shot, depending on the whim of the soldier.

There was no justice. We were treated worse than animals. The rabbis kept telling us to pray and God would be with us. But where was He?

The soldiers went around the entire town with guns and dogs and forced all Jews into the ghetto area, which was two long streets. Any Jew who lived somewhere else had to leave their home and move in here.

They forced us to take down the fences between our houses and build one big fence around the ghetto near the edge of town. There was mass confusion. On the way, the soldiers stopped people and went through their bags, taking jewelry and money and anything else they wanted. They pushed and shoved people, even children, and often used whips.

Our house was on one of those streets, so we didn’t have to move, but now we had twenty people living in it. The rooms were small and we had to take turns lying down. The garden was jammed with people as well.

The Jews had no stores now, as we were all locked up and no one else was allowed to sell us anything. Some good people still tried to smuggle things to us. Jozsef and his brother would leave bread and fruit from their trees in a secret place for us. We all had to be very careful.

The situation was dehumanizing. Five families were moved into one apartment. Food was running out for most of the people that had to move, and we children were looking for food in garbage piles. Wood for cooking and heating was also running low. Water was in short supply.

Everything happened so quickly. I cannot describe to you some of the unthinkable things we were forced to do.

There are some things that can never be forgiven.

Our people kept saying, “Don’t give up hope.”

How could we find hope?

In spite of all this, mother would always hug me and say, “Hope survives.”

Just before we were herded into the ghetto, Jozsef’s parents came to my mother with a plan. They had a sister who was a nun in a convent a few hours away and they were trying to protect some Jews. When a nun died, they did not report or record it with the authorities as they did before. Someone could forge papers for me and they would smuggle me clothes and take me to the convent.

I did not want to leave what was left of my family and my friends. When we were forced into the ghetto, my mother and grandparents insisted it had to be now.

I argued to stay but they would not hear of it.

I was eighteen.

We hugged good-bye but we believed we would all be together again. The Nazis were telling us we would be moved into the brickyard by the railroad tracks and taken on trains to be relocated. Perhaps a better life waited for us. Perhaps there was a reason for all of this. Everyone was collecting the few valuables they had left and preparing for the trip. It was almost a relief. But most of us were still very afraid. We just didn’t know of what.

So the plan was set. Some of us kids had figured out a way to sneak in and out of the ghetto at night through the sewers. It was horrible, but we were desperate. It was impossible to escape but we could forage for food scraps and bits of wood.

That night Andrew was waiting at an appointed spot with clothes for me without the Star. I put them on. He told me not to look at anyone and walk quickly. When a soldier stopped us, Andrew said we had gone to throw stones into the ghetto and taunt the Jews. It was an unspeakable moment. The guard laughed and told us to hurry home.

A wagon was set up behind their house with a secret compartment. After I climbed in, it was covered with dirt topped with horse and donkey manure. Jozsef and Andrew would pretend to deliver this to the convent for their gardens. The moisture from it seeped through the cracks of my hiding place. I had to hide there all night. We could not go out on the road until dawn. It was difficult to be quiet and not choke. They were stopped by soldiers on the road but the smell was so bad, they waved us on. I thought I would die in that cart, because dust came in from the bottom and terrible seepage came from the top. What saved me was a small cloth sack my mother had made, filled with herbs, which I held to my nose. With every jostle of the cart, every clop of the donkey’s hooves, pain shot through my heart.

We went into a barn behind the convent, where the nuns rushed me into a stall to put on a habit. I never got to say thank you or good-bye to the brothers.

Until May, 1945 I lived as a nun. It was hard to be around anything religious because I felt God had forsaken the Jews. The words of prayer meant nothing to me, and I sang them merely phonetically. Religion became a mockery for me.

The nuns were able to take in two other Jewish girls and we knew each other from town. It was a comfort to have each other, but we shared the sorrow and fear of being separated from our families. There were also fifteen much younger Jewish boys and girls hidden in the cellars behind the catacombs.

We had to pretend in every way to be part of the chapter. We were always afraid. That feeling never left. The nuns were kind and did their best and sacrificed tremendously. Soldiers often came to take food. They took everything we grew except for what they allotted us and what we could hide. They kept track of what we were growing, so we had to be very sneaky and we were.

Sometimes we had to sew their uniforms. They would walk closely around us and leer at us during prayers to make sure we really were singing and not faking.

They said that Hitler was getting rid of every single Jew. They were all being killed. How could that be true? We felt sick to look at them or hear them, but we didn’t believe it.

I worried about my family all the time. I cried at night not knowing how they were or where they were. Once they even took the Mother Superior out to the courtyard and threatened to shoot her if she did not admit she was hiding Jews. She denied it over and over, and eventually they left after hitting her in the head with the rifle butt.

In May, 1945—I don’t remember the date, as days meant nothing to us—Russian soldiers appeared and told us the war was over. We did not believe them, until people from the nearby village came the next day to say it was true.

No one knew what to do. I was desperate to leave and go back to my family, but we were still afraid to do anything.

Then Jozsef and Andrew arrived to collect me a few days later. I cannot say anything more about that. It was overwhelming saying hello to them and good-bye to the nuns. I still did not realize they had all saved my life. I had no idea what I had missed.

We returned to town in a cart pulled by a very skinny donkey that had somehow not been eaten. We rode mostly in silence, as no one was able to talk about the horror that had occurred during the months since I left. There seemed to be no Jews in town now. I saw none I knew or anyone who even looked remotely Jewish. Strangers were living in all of our houses. When we went to my home, the people thought they were seeing a ghost when I stood in front of them. Jozsef told them to get out and they did. We waited while they moved their things but most of what they were using was ours.

I kept walking through the house and out into the little garden over and over. Everything was a mess. Where was my family? When would I see them?

In the weeks that followed, people would leave things at my door that they had taken from our house. They thought we would never return. Most things were lost forever. My mother’s best Gentile friend, Mrs. Sandor, brought me the Persian rug my father had given me for my room on my seventh birthday. Before the ghetto, when things were getting bad, my mother had given her the carpet and a box of linens to keep for us. You know they have been my most prized possessions, and I hope will be yours.