Free Holocaust by Gerald Green Page A

“You make it worse.”
    My mother asked, “Josef, how did this happen to us?”
    “It wasn’t our doing, Berta. We had no control over events.” Then he smiled. “But you must believe me. I’m feeling optimistic. This will open our eyes. I have a feeling we’ll be reunited in Poland. Or somewhere else. England, perhaps.”
    “I made you stay,” my mother whispered.
    “Now, no more of that,” Papa said. He was brisk, businesslike. (And no worse a businessman ever practiced medicine.) “Berta, you should sell the clinic. Find a smaller apartment.”
    She wiped her nose, managed a smile. “And you must not go running out on night calls. Wear your rubbers in the rain. Poland is a very damp place.”
    “I will, if you promise not to sell the piano. Anna must continue her piano lessons, no matter what.”
    Two Berlin policemen approached. People were being herded toward the train. “Move it along. We’re boarding in five minutes.”
    Mama turned to us. “Children. Rudi, Anna, Inga. Say goodbye to Papa.”
    Anna was uncontrollable now. “Papa, Papa … we’ll come to live with you! Uncle Moses can find us a place!”
    “Of course, Anna, my darling. But meanwhile, you must look after Grandpa and Grandma, and we must find Karl. Work at your music, Anna.”
    He hugged me, looked into my eyes. “Rudi. Maybe you should go back to school.”
    “If I can, Papa.”
    “The world doesn’t begin and end with a soccer game, you know. You must prepare yourself for a career.”
    What could I say to him?
Career!
But I played his game. “I’ll try, Papa. Maybe I can be a physical-education teacher—as you once said I should be.”
    “Splendid idea.”
    People surged forward. Among them, I noticed Max Lowy, the printer. He was a Polish Jew also; he was being deported. He seemed undismayed, ready to accept fate’s blows.
    “Hey, Doc!” Lowy shouted. “You too? I thought they were just kicking out guys like me? You know the wife, doc.”
    A tiny dark woman nodded at my father. He tipped his hat, always the gentleman. In fact, on seeing the Lowys, he turned to my mother, who was still crying, and said cheerfully, “You see, Berta? I’m the only physician deported with his own supply of patients.”
    They hugged for the last time. I heard him say, “They cannot defeat us. So long as we love one another.”
    “Josef …”
    “Remember your Latin, my dear,
Amor vincit omnia
. Love conquers all.”
    The crowd shoved him away, and they were separated. At a barrier, a policeman and an SS guard examined my father’s papers. A loudspeaker was bellowing instructions: “Follow the guards to the train. This is the special train for the border only….”
    My mother ran to the iron railings, and we followed her. She was waving to him, calling, “Goodbye, Josef, goodbye. Let us know where you are. We’ll come …”
    I turned my face away to hide my tears. What I really wanted to do was to hit somebody—one of the Berlin policemen, the guards directing people to the trains. What right had they to do this to us? What had we ever done to them? There was a suppressed fury in me. I could have killed them—the grinning party members, all of them in boots and uniforms, braggarts, bullies, liars …
    “Oh, you’re so brave,” Anna taunted. “You’re crying also.” Her eyes were wet, her cheeks soaked.
    “I am not. I don’t cry.”
    She grabbed me, and held me, and we both wept. But I forced myself to stop. “They’ll never do that to me,” I said. “Never.”
    “Won’t they?”
    “No. I won’t go the way Papa and Karl did, and Mr. Lowy, just giving in.”
    I was boasting to buoy my courage. But as I look back at the moment, I realized I had made a vow to myself. They would not humiliate me, force me to do their bidding, the way they had forced so many others. Jews were supposed to agree, be polite, obey, listen, accept. But I had never understood this. I did not look for fights in the street, but I never ran