The Runaway Family (2 page)

The storm trooper, still in the bedroom, glanced across at the trembling woman surrounded by her four children. “You’ll stay up here if you know what’s good for you,” he said coldly, and turning on his heel, stamped his way back down the stairs.

For a moment there was silence in the bedroom and then Inge began to wail again. “Where’s Papa gone? I want Papa.”

Ruth suppressed the cry that rose in her throat that she wanted him too, and tried to soothe the terrified children.

“Don’t cry,” she said, rocking Peter on her knee and holding Inge to her with the other arm. “Don’t cry, Peter, there’s a good boy. Look, Hansi isn’t crying. Laura, give Hansi a cuddle, he’s being very brave. Come on now, you must be brave, all of you. That’s what Papa would want. We must all be brave!”

She gathered the four children close, rocking them comfortingly, and as they huddled together on her bed, she listened to shattering glass and splintering wood as the mob downstairs ransacked the shop, their voices raised in shouts of glee. Then with the bang of a door and shouts of laughter, the baying mob moved onward down the street. The stillness they left behind was, if anything, more terrifying than their animal howls. What was happening down there? Had the mob moved on somewhere else? Was it safe to come out of the bedroom? Ruth went quietly across the room, and, opening the door, peeped out onto the landing. The apartment was empty; there was no sound from downstairs.

“You’ll stay up here if you know what’s good for you,” the trooper had said, but Ruth could not. She had to go down, to find out what had happened.

“Stay here,” she said to the children and quietly crossed into the girls’ bedroom to look out into the street below. She lifted the corner of the curtain as Laura had done and looked down. Their street was almost empty now, the mob had moved on to the next. She could still hear its animal roar, but more distant, the chanting indistinct. She looked over towards the synagogue. There were still flames behind the windows, but she could see the shadows of people running around inside, trying to douse the fire before it really took hold and burned the place to the ground. The smell of smoke was bitter and acrid as it billowed out from the broken windows, wafting along the street.

Ruth returned to her bedroom door. “Stay here, Laura,” she said. “Look after the little ones. I’ll be back in a minute.” Steeling herself to what she might find below, Ruth crept downstairs. She was still afraid the storm troopers might be there lying in wait for her, but as she peered round the corner into the shop there was no one. Complete chaos greeted her eyes, and for a long moment she stood, aghast at what she saw. In the few minutes the mob had given its attention to Friedmans’ Grocery, they had destroyed everything they could find.

The till had been broken open and lay upended on the counter, with what little money there had been in it, gone. Broken jars and bottles littered the floor, their contents mixed with the shards of glass from the window. Sacks of flour, too heavy to carry, had been ripped open and tipped out, tea and rice, coffee, jam and oil all added to the glutinous mess that covered the floor. Ruth crossed to the cold store and opened the door. Where there should have been cheese and butter, eggs and milk, the shelves were empty. Trays of eggs had been tossed to the floor, a milk churn upended. Two large cheeses, wrapped in their linen cloths, had disappeared. For a moment she stared at the mess in sick dismay. Then she smelled the smoke.

At first she thought it must be coming from the burning synagogue along the street, but then she realised that it was in the shop with her. Looking round wildly she saw that smoke was seeping out from under the door of the storeroom where they kept all the dry goods. Running into the kitchen, Ruth grabbed a bucket from under the sink and quickly filled it with water. Cautiously she edged the storeroom door open, her bucket poised to douse the fire, but with the draught from the outer door drawing them, the flames leapt towards her. Her tossed bucket of water made no impression on the fire and in that moment Ruth knew it was already too late to save the shop and their home. Feeding on oil which had been liberally emptied onto floor and shelves, it was a glorified chip-pan fire and had too firm a hold to be controlled; water would only make matters worse.

With a shriek of terror, Ruth tried to slam the storeroom door shut, but the heat from within was too great and flames had already laid claim to the door. Ruth’s one thought now was to save her children from the fire. As she fled back up the stairs she could hear the crackle of the fire almost at her heels. There was a door at the top of the stairs separating the apartment from the shop below and she slammed this behind her, hoping to keep the fire at bay, but even with this door safely closed the smoke was wreathing its way underneath, wafting along the landing.

“Hurry,” she cried as she flew into the bedroom where the children waited. “Hurry! Hurry! There’s a fire, we must get out now. Laura, you carry Hans, I’ll take Peter. Inge, stop crying, darling, and hold tight to my skirt.”

Laura reached out for Hans, gathering him into her arms and holding him against her body. “Come on, Hansi, put your arms round my neck,” she said, trying to ease the dead weight of his body as he snuggled against her. Obediently he reached up and she felt his arms snake round her neck, the hair on the top of his head soft under the curve of her chin. She turned for the door, following her mother who had Peter on her hip and was holding Inge’s hand firmly in her own. Ruth strode along the landing to the door at the top of the stairs. The smoke was thicker now, forcing its way under the door in thick black coils, making them cough. Even before she eased the door open, Ruth knew that they were too late. The fire had taken hold of the stairs, crackling merrily as it ate up the tinder-dry wood of the ancient staircase.

“Back! Go back!” Ruth cried as she flung the door closed again and pushed them back along the landing. For a moment she stood in the bedroom, the bedroom she had shared with Kurt for almost fifteen years, the room where all the children had been conceived and born, and which now seemed likely to be their grave. Putting Peter back onto the bed she ran into the front room and looked down into the street again. A few people had ventured outside to stare in horror at the trail of destruction the mob had left behind, the mob that even now howled its rage on other Jewish homes, other Jewish businesses. Leah Meyer was standing outside her husband’s baker’s shop, trying to take in the damage that had been inflicted on it so suddenly and so swiftly. Other shadows appeared by the synagogue, from which smoke was still pouring in a thick dark cloud, though the combined efforts of the neighbours seemed to have doused the flames, their flickering light no longer dancing in the windows.

Nobody had noticed that Friedmans’ Grocery was also on fire. Ruth threw up the window and began calling for help. At first no one seemed to hear her frantic cries, but at last Leah Meyer looked up and seeing Ruth at the window raised her hand in salute.

“Help!” Ruth screamed. “Help us! We’re trapped. The stairs are on fire! Help! Oh, help us, please!”

Frau Meyer seemed to be turning away again, but Ruth screamed at her, calling her by name. “Leah! Leah! Get help! My children will be burned alive!”

At last the words seemed to register in the old lady’s brain and she ran towards the synagogue and went inside. Within moments people came rushing out. One woman ran to the shop door, but was driven back by the flames that now completely engulfed the ground floor.

“Jump!” she shouted. “You must jump! We can’t get in to rescue you.”

“I can’t!” shrieked Ruth in panic. “The children can’t jump from this high.”

“Get a sheet and lower them down,” the woman shouted. “Quickly, tie them to a sheet and let them down. We’ll catch them.”

Ruth nodded and, dashing back to her bedroom, hustled the children into the girls’ room. “Look after the twins,” she instructed the girls as she grabbed the sheet from Laura’s bed. Tearing at it, she tried to rip it in half, but the quality was too good, the hems too strong to be torn. With a bellow of frustration, she ran into her bedroom and grabbed the manicure set off her dressing table. The nail scissors were small, but they cut enough to start the tear.

Smoke was pouring along the landing now, and, choking, Ruth slammed the bedroom door closed. She concentrated on ripping the sheet into two strips to tie together for a makeshift rope. Dragging the bedstead to the window, she made one end fast to the metal frame and dropped the other out of the window. It was too short. There were still at least six feet to drop to the ground. Grasping the quilt from the bed, she tossed it out of the window. Willing hands below grabbed it and held it taut, to make a makeshift landing place.

“You first, Laura,” Ruth said. “Remember, grip the rope with your feet as well as your hands so you don’t go too fast.” She gave her daughter a hug. “Come on, darling, be brave, I need you down there to catch the twins.”

The smoke was pouring under the door now and the other children began to cough, their eyes streaming as it coiled round them, hiding them from their mother. Laura sat on the windowsill, and with a terrified glance at her mother, slid down the rope, the taut linen ripping at her hands, so that she screamed with pain and fear as she reached the end and landed in a crumpled heap in the middle of the quilt. The moment the rope was free, Ruth hauled it up and knotted it tightly round Peter’s waist, then even as he screamed and clung to her in terror she edged him off the sill and lowered him down to the waiting arms reaching up from below.

The flames were crackling outside the bedroom door now, and it was buckling under the increasing heat. Frantically Ruth knotted the rope round Hans’s waist and slipped him over the sill, lowering him to the safety of the ground below. All this was done to the accompanying screams of Inge, who lay on the floor, drumming her heels in fear and rage. As Ruth hauled the rope up again, the door finally gave way and the fire exploded into the room, the flames spreading and feeding on the furnishings. With one backward glance, Ruth gathered up the bellowing Inge in her arms and dragged her to the window. There was no time to tie her safely into the rope of sheets, so with a warning cry to those gathered below, she tipped the little girl out of the window onto the quilt that was spread ready to catch her. Even as the child landed and was gathered into waiting arms, Ruth felt the heat on her back as her clothes began to smoke and smoulder. With another warning cry, she jumped.

Laura watched in horror as her mother fell from the bedroom window, arms flailing as she tried to grasp the linen rope to slow her fall. Her fall was broken by Rabbi Rosner as he reached up his arms to try and catch her. They collapsed together in a heap on the ground, their arms and legs entwined as if in some passionate embrace, the wind knocked out of the old man as Ruth landed heavily on his chest.

Forgetting the pain in her hands, Laura rushed over to her mother, crying out as she saw her lying on the ground. “Mutti! Are you all right? Mutti!”

Her mother lay still, and Laura thought she was dead until she heard a faint moan and saw her legs twitch. Ruth, winded by her fall, couldn’t answer for a moment, and in truth she didn’t know the answer. Every inch of her felt bruised, she could still feel the heat on her back, and her ankle felt as if it had been pierced by a red-hot needle. Underneath her Rabbi Rosner groaned, and Ruth tried to disentangle herself so that he could get up. Frau Rosner hurried up, and, pulling Laura out of the way, knelt beside her husband. The twins, being looked after by Frau Meyer, began to whimper and Inge, who had never ceased wailing, increased the volume of her crying to maximum. The savage roar of the mob surged back through the darkness as it circled round to continue its way along a parallel street.

There was an anguished cry. “They’re coming back. They’re coming back!”

The few people gathered in the street melted away into the darkness, scurrying for the illusory safety of their homes as they heard the monstrous crowd baying for its prey.

“We must get away from here,” Frau Rosner urged. “Come on, Samuel! You must get up.” She pulled at Ruth’s arm to try and move her out of the way so that the rabbi could get to his feet. “They’re coming back!” she cried, terrified by the sound of the shouting. “We must get off the street! Samuel!”

Ruth dragged herself clear and Laura and Inge rushed to her side. “Mutti!” Laura clutched at her hand: “Are you all right?”

This time Ruth did manage to answer. “Yes, darlings, I’m all right. Just a bit bruised. I think I may have sprained my ankle.”

“They’re coming back!” Leah Meyer shouted, her voice cracking with fear. “We must get off the street.” She took the twins firmly by the hand and dragged them back towards her own home, above her husband’s shop.

“We must call the fire brigade,” cried Ruth as she looked up and saw the flames devouring the curtains at the window of the bedroom, reaching out to lick at the overhanging wooden eaves.

“They won’t come!” snapped Frau Rosner as she pushed her still-wheezing husband ahead of her. But she was wrong. Within a few minutes a fire engine was racing down the street and the powerful hoses were trained on what was left of the Friedmans’ home. Ruth had not had to call them, they had come at the summons of another neighbour whose home backed onto the Friedmans’; a neighbour who was not Jewish and so didn’t deserve to have his house burned down.

The Friedman family were taken in and given refuge by the Meyers. Although their shop had been damaged and daubed with paint, the brick through the first-floor window was the only damage to their living quarters above. With infinite care, Frau Meyer, who had no children of her own, bathed Laura’s rope burns in cold water and bandaged her hands with clean strips of linen. She warmed some milk for the younger children, and then took the twins into the tiny spare bedroom and placed them top to toe under the quilt on its single bed, crooning to them softly as they fell into exhausted sleep.

Ruth sat in an armchair, her injured foot up on a footstool. It was so swollen that when they had taken off her shoe she could hardly see her toes. Leah had put on a cold compress.