The Woman Who Heard Color (25 page)

She went to Berlin and stayed with Helene and Jakob. They knew it was her wish to return to America to be with her children, but it soon became evident that, as she had waited for her husband’s health to improve, the ease with which she had once left Germany had all but disappeared. There was now talk of quotas, enormous emigration taxes to be paid, and the amount of money that could be sent out of the country was limited. And yet, at the same time, one was required to show sufficient income to prove there would be no burden to the country of immigration, that jobs would not be taken from the true citizens. The entire world was still recovering from the Great Depression, and it seemed no one wanted these Germans who were looking for a new life.

Hanna went to the American Consulate in Berlin and stood in line with others who were attempting to leave the country. She realized that her children were living in America on visitors’ visas and feared if she mentioned them, they might be forced to return. She knew she would be asked if she had relatives in America who would sponsor her, and she feared that if she used her sister’s name, somehow the American immigration authorities would become aware of her children not having returned, and oh, she didn’t know what to do. She was very much afraid. She had prided herself on being an independent woman. She had traveled to America twice without Moses, but now Hanna felt as if she could accomplish nothing on her own. She wished to have her husband to advise her, to hold her in his arms and comfort her.

She was given information on the requirements for emigration. The list was long and included a request for multiple copies of multiple forms, including tax documents, bank account affidavits, statements of sponsorship and support, certificates of good conduct, and proof of physical examination. She had none of these and was told to come back with the proper forms.

She stayed several more weeks with Helene and Jakob, attempting to get the papers sent from Munich, but the accountants and bankers with whom Moses had worked were either gone or would not respond to her inquiries. She could not spend her days waiting in Berlin. Helene and Jakob continued to offer their home and hospitality, though it was quite evident that business was not going well. They had but one servant in the house, and the meals were not the lavish offerings Hanna remembered from the pre-Hitler days. They, too, were feeling the financial burden of attempting to run a Jewish business in Nazi Germany.

“I can’t sit here waiting,” she told Helene one morning after breakfast. “I must return to Munich.”

“Where will you go?” she asked, knowing they had sold their home, the home where she’d grown up.

“Leni,” Hanna said. “Leni will help me.”

As she was preparing to return, she knew she must make one more visit before leaving Berlin.

Hanna went to call on Botho von Gamp.

He was very proud of the fact that he now owned two large works by Kandinsky.

“You know our Führer would not approve,” she said as she stood before Kandinsky’s
Composition
, touched by the colors of a familiar melody as well as the memories evoked by this painting. Hanna wanted desperately to reclaim it. And again she felt that ache of betrayal on Moses’ part, and the once-joyful sounds seemed oddly muted and dulled.

“He sees little value in the modern,” Botho agreed.

They did not speak of it, but they both knew the Führer was stripping the state museums of anything he considered modern. While he touted himself as a lover and supporter of the arts, he abhorred the “modern,” which he’d said was more suited for junkyards.

“Hitler is mounting an exhibition of German art,” Botho went on. The Haus der Deutschen Kunst was near completion, and Hanna had heard that the Reich Chamber was still in the process of collecting pieces for the opening.

Hitler’s original intention was to fill the halls of the new art temple with cultural treasures, the traditional state-owned paintings by artists such as Dürer, Holbein, and Grünewald. But then, abruptly, he’d shifted and declared that the Haus der Deutschen Kunst would be filled with new German art, though it was very confusing to those attempting to gather the art, as no one understood what he meant by “new German art.”

“Quite the lover of art, our Führer,” Hanna replied, barely attempting to hide her sarcasm, though she knew it was becoming increasingly more dangerous to say anything against Hitler, even as a joke, unless well aware of the company one was keeping. Even children who were educated in state schools were known to report their parents for anti-Hitler remarks.

“Yes, it will be interesting to see what graces the walls of his new temple,” Botho said with what Hanna detected as a wince.

“I would like to purchase the Kandinsky,” she came back abruptly.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice laced with sincerity, and Hanna thought for a moment that he was going to say—so sorry I stole your painting. But instead he said, “For the loss of your husband.” The way he said it, he might as well have said,
I know Moses left you with little more than the hat you are wearing. How can you possibly purchase this Kandinsky from me?

“It has become an important piece in my collection,” he continued. “I wouldn’t consider selling it.”

He offered Hanna coffee and they sat and visited about nothing really, perhaps both of them afraid to speak their minds, maybe even fearing they had already said more than caution might have advised. Hanna wondered if he knew how desperately she wanted to leave Germany, if he was aware that her children were no longer here.

Hanna returned to Munich alone. Completely alone. Without her children, her husband, her painting. She stayed with Leni. She missed the life they had in Munich, and the days when they lived and breathed for the art, for the artists whose vibrant colors brought her such joy, and even the dark, brooding colors of the artists who expressed the sadness left from the Great War. There was nothing but emptiness now. Some days, Hanna wished she had died along with Moses.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

With great frustration Hanna looked for work and soon discovered that for a woman her age with limited skills, there was nothing.

She applied for a position as a seamstress’s assistant, but when she was asked her name, the position was suddenly filled.

Then she answered an ad for a millinery shop that called for a Christian lady.

“I have experience working with customers,” Hanna told the owner.

“Where have you worked?”

“At an art gallery here in Munich.”

“Selling art is hardly the same as selling women’s hats and gloves,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”

Of course, he didn’t.

She visited Ernst Hausmann, the new owner of the Fleischmann Gallery, now the Hausmann Gallery. He was a small, thin man with a soft lavender voice. Hanna had met him once after he’d expressed his initial interest in buying the business. Josef, and then a man from their bank, had handled the actual sale of the gallery.

Herr Hausmann graciously offered her tea, getting up to prepare it himself.

She gazed about the room. A client stood with Moses, and she could hear her husband’s low, even voice, though she could not make out his words. The walls were covered with color, and then Moses along with the colors evaporated before her eyes and ears. Now Josef moved in a quick flash about the gallery, his voice rising and falling with excitement.

She was hallucinating, of course. She understood this much. Did this, the realization that it wasn’t real, mean she was not going crazy? She felt a tightness in her throat, and then she felt as if she was about to stand up and scream. Holding her hand to her heart, she took a deep breath, attempting to pull herself together. Again she studied the room, and now she saw that it looked and sounded nothing like it had when it was the Fleischmann Gallery. Could she spend her days here again with memories of how it was then, how much everything had changed?

“How may I help you, Frau Fleischmann?” Herr Hausmann asked as he placed a tray with tea, milk, and sugar on the table, and then sat.

“I’m looking for work.”

“I was under the impression that you had left the country.” He poured her a cup.

Would he be less inclined to offer her work if he knew how desperately she was attempting to leave? Hanna shook her head, but felt any words she might utter were stuck in her throat. She gulped a drink of hot tea, feeling it burn as she swallowed.

“No,” she replied. “I’m still here in Munich.”

“I’m looking for someone . . . well, to help with various menial tasks around the gallery,” he said, waving toward the tray, his words almost apologetic. “I’m afraid this is all I have to offer right now.”

 

 

O
nce more, Hanna found herself back in the gallery, again as little more than a charwoman—sweeping floors, washing windows, preparing tea. Yet she was grateful to have this, as it gave her some income and placed her back where she felt comfortable—with the art.

The paintings in the gallery were mostly traditional. A few new artists were represented, but there was nothing one would consider “modern.” Hanna was not fond of these “new” German artists, as there was no creativity or personal style. Everything was done in such a way as not to offend Hitler, which meant it was often pretty, and while it was meant to reflect reality, it represented in no way what was real in Nazi Germany.

Eventually, having saved much of her salary, Hanna was able to rent a room of her own. She now had little left, not even her piano or the music to comfort her in the absence of those she loved. The art was gone, save for the drawing of her that had been done long ago at the Academy. She had found it stored away in a box while cleaning out the home that Moses and she and his two wives before her had shared for so many years. The image of this innocent country girl brought a smile and sweet memories.
Was that really me?
Hanna wondered.

As the days and weeks dragged on, she was informed of additional tax forms that had not been filed. Papers arrived from the bank, and she realized her lack of financial resources would be the greatest roadblock in her attempt to go to her children.

Her job at the gallery created a rift with Helene and Jakob, who could not understand how she would consider becoming part of this Aryanization of Germany.

How can you work,
Helene wrote,
in a business that rightfully should still belong to the family?

It wasn’t difficult to see that businesses owned by Jews were being forcibly sold to non-Jews at ridiculously low prices, that the owners had no other choice. Helene said they would take care of her, though Hanna knew she did not understand how much she needed her independence, and Hanna realized the Kaufmanns’ own resources must be dwindling.

You’re nothing more than a servant,
Helene said,
a maid, cleaning up after the Aryans.

She wrote as if Hanna were a Jew who had betrayed her people. Did Helene not recall that Hanna had started out as a maid in her father’s home?

Ernst Hausmann was an agreeable man and Hanna was grateful for the work. Her employer soon realized she had considerable knowledge of art and had been very much involved in her husband’s business. Within a short time she was taking a more active part in running the gallery, arranging displays and meeting with clients when he was not available.

One morning he approached Hanna and said, “A representative of the Chamber of Art will be visiting the gallery this afternoon, Frau Fleischmann, and I would like you to attend to him as I will be off on other business.”

“What is the reason for this visit?” she asked.

“I’m sure you will be informed when he arrives.”

Hanna was aware that the Chamber of Art, a division of the Reich Chamber of Culture, was still attempting to find additional work for the grand opening of the Haus der Deutschen Kunst, which would take place in just weeks. Pieces that were considered Aryan were pulled from the various government museums to be part of the exhibition. Dealers and gallery owners were being enlisted to make the Chamber aware of any new and talented artists who were celebrating the German people. They were all to be included in this event, which Hanna took to mean pieces might be “donated” from private galleries. It was presented as a contest, the coveted reward being the display in Hitler’s temple of art.

On the other hand, modern pieces continued to be removed from state-supported museums, not for display in the German House of Art, but because Hitler did not want what was now being called
entartete kunst
—degenerate art—shown in Germany.

Hanna wondered if perhaps this representative was coming because the prior gallery, the Fleischmann Gallery, had been particularly known for its forward thinking and for showing the modern.

But a “modern” piece was not to be found in the new Hausmann Gallery.

A small number of paintings in the gallery were actually quite nice. Hanna was very fond of two Franz von Stucks that had been brought in by a Jewish collector who wished to sell them in his efforts to do what Hanna was also attempting to do—leave Germany. Word was that the officials in Berlin were known to make an unofficial deal to put a name at the top of the list. With quotas filled in many countries, the visas were often going to the highest bidder.

At precisely 4:00 P.M., the designated time, a well-dressed gentleman, accompanied by two young men in uniform, entered the gallery.

“I am Herr Brandt from the Chamber of Art,” he said stiffly. “I am to meet with Herr Ernst Hausmann.”

“I’m afraid Herr Hausmann is not available,” Hanna explained.

“Why was I not informed of this?”

“I would be more than happy to help you,” she said.

“And who are you?”