Page 96 of Hell to Pay
“You can’t stay,” Dr. Becker said. “We must all go now.” He set his cup aside, stood, and settled his rucksack over his shoulders and his old brown coat over his arm. Who was there to care now that the outline of the star was visible? How strange that what had been meant as a badge of shame, ordered to mark him out for mistreatment, might now be his ticket to a better life!
Andrea and I stood, too, but Gerhardt didn’t budge. Gerhardt, who never asked for anything, said, “But I don’t want to go! Please, Papa.”
“There will be other boys to play with there,” Dr. Becker said. “Now come.” He fixed Gerhardt with a stare, and the boy rose reluctantly and hoisted the rucksack onto his back, his chin quivering and the tears beginning to well in his eyes. He looked down, trying to hide them.
Matti said, “I told you we should hide under the bed.” His voice, too, was small and sad.
Gerhardt didn’t say anything, for he was crying. Silently, as a child shouldn’t have to cry. Hopelessly.
There was nothing to say, so Dr. Becker turned and headed for the stairs, but Matti shouted, “Wait!”
“We can’t wait,” Dr. Becker said. “You be a good boy and help your mother. Soon there will be a place to kick your ball with your friends again, and your school will be open, too.”
He said all that to Matti’s back, for the boy had rushed over to the shelf and was rummaging there. He ran back on his skinny legs, his blond cowlick sticking up, and pressed something into Gerhardt’s hand. “It’s your favorite,” he said shyly.
Gerhardt looked, then closed his hand over it. It was a tin soldier on a horse. He sniffed hard and said, “Thanks,” in his broken little-boy voice, and I knew he’d go to sleep tonight clutching that soldier still, for that was the kind of boy Gerhardt was.
Oh, what a hard goodbye.
I’d love to say that we got to Nuremberg and were immediately driven gaily off to Munich, but of course it didn’t happen that way. First there was a muddle about why we were back in Nuremberg and what we’d been promised. I had to elbow my way to the front of the queue and speak in my most determined tones to the soldier on guard—it was the huge one again, and he of course knew nothing of the matter, as he’d been relieved yesterday before we’d reached the front of the queue. Eventually, after Dr. Becker showed his note and I explained and then explained some more, we were told to “Wait over there,” and did, both Dr. Becker and I quivering with nerves as the minutes and then the hours ticked by, sure that the Americans would simply forget and leave us here all day. How hard to believe by now that anything good would come to us! Especially, of course, for Dr. Becker.
When the day had grown uncomfortably warm again and we’d all but despaired, a truck pulled up near where we sat on a rubble pile. It had green canvas over the back and soldiers sitting on benches along each side, and two of them helped us aboard most good-naturedly, a big one picking Gerhardt right up off his feet and saying, “Come on up here, kiddo, and sit by me. I’ve got a boy at home about your age.”
The soldiers squashed up to make room for us, but Dr. Becker made sure that Andrea and I sat at the ends of the benches—he too had heard the stories about the animalnature of the foreigners. Eventually, though, I was able to translate the soldier’s words for Gerhardt. Gerhardt asked, “Does his boy have to be very quiet too?”
I translated again, and the soldier—he had the same stripes on his sleeves as Joe had sported, so he must be a sergeant—looked puzzled. I said, “They’re Jews, you see, and have been in hiding.”
The soldier didn’t seem to know what to say to that, but opened his rucksack.He said, “You’re probably hungry, then. Most Germans seem hungry, and I bet the Jews are worse off,” and began to open a can with an opener attached to the chain that had been around his neck, where his identity discs hung. The can wasn’t anything like the contents of Joe’s meal box; it was just a can—heavy, surely—painted a drab green. We watched, practically holding our breath, to see what would be revealed when the lid was off.
“Chopped ham, egg, and potato,” the soldier said, handing the can to Gerhardt along with a flat wooden spoon. “Not quite Mom’s home cooking, but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Eat up.”
Within seconds, other soldiers added their contributions, until we held a can apiece. Oh, how we ate! The truck rumbled down the road, and the wheels seemed to vibrate straight up through our benches, every bump threatening to send us flying, the noise making conversation impossible and the dust coating our hair and skin, and I cared not a bit. I sat amid the noise and dust, finished my can of eggs and potatoes along with the biscuits somebody else had offered, and unwrapped a square of dense candy with the taste and consistency of the thicker type of chocolate icing. What decadence! I ate that chocolate one tiny nibble at a time, making it last for at least half an hour, drank water from a canteen, and felt fortunate beyond belief.
Our reception was so kind, in fact, that when we reached aterribly destroyed Munich—worse than Nuremberg, if that were possible—and nobody seemed to know what to do with us, we were doubly disappointed, and eventually, nearly despairing. More queueing, more explaining, more shakes of the head, and Dr. Becker holding out his precious note beseechingly as we were sent from one office to another, nobody appearing to know or care where we would get help or even if help was available. Andrea and Gerhardt got quiet and obedient again, Dr. Becker looked nearly in tears, and I could have wept myself.
At last, I stepped to a desk in the fourth office and asked, making my voice as much like my father’s as possible—quiet, but absolutely firm—“Who’s in charge here?”
“Colonel Hastings,” the sergeant said. “If you mean of the whole outfit.” (See how useful those stripes were? I knew what he was!)
“Well, Sergeant,” I said, as crisply as I could, “please take us to the colonel now. We have a note for him from his counterpart in Nuremberg.”
“I’ll get the captain for you,” the sergeant said.
“No,” I said. “We don’t need to see the captain. We need to see the colonel, and right now. We’ve been walking and standing about since five o’clock this morning, and the children are hungry and thirsty and exhausted. They’ve been hiding from the Nazis for months, ever since being summoned for transport to the extermination camps. Their father here is a renowned doctor who wishes only safety for his family and freedom to practice his profession. Instead, he’s been starved and beaten and persecuted. Don’t you think they deserve some security now? You must, for your country has been kind enough to open these special places for them. Displaced Persons camps, isn’t that right?” My father always said, ask a question that forces them to agree with you.
“Right,” the sergeant said. “But?—”
“I realize everybody is very busy,” I said. “I also realize that the Germans were your enemy. ThatIwas your enemy. But the Jews? Are they your enemy? Are you happy with what’s happened to them?”
“Of course not.” The sergeant was a bit flushed now. “None of us are. It’s terrible.”
“I’m very relieved to hear that,” I said. “Then please—help me find a place for these people to go. Please, for humanity’s sake, help me do that.”
He stared at me. “Lady,” he finally said, “you are one heck of a debater.”
“Thank you,” I said demurely. “I get it from my father.”
He grinned. “I bet you do.” And then he went and got the colonel.
