In honor of this Jewish holy day, I'm re-running this which some of you read several years ago. Someone asked me to reprint it. So here it is.
A few years ago I moved into a new apartment, which I’ve since left. One Monday morning I was doing some laundry and when I went down to the basement to put a load in the dryer, there was an old lady down there. She was trying to figure out how to use the new dryer and I showed her. She said she’d prefer to use the old one so I switched my clothes to the other dryer so she could use the dryer she was used to. “They keep putting new things in.” We started talking. She said she’d lived in that building for 45 years.
We both sat down on old, rickety chairs in this dark laundry room in the basement, she, because she wanted to wait for her clothes, I, because I wanted to hear her talk.
She was an elegant 83 years old. “I came to America in 1939 from Germany. You’ve heard of Hitler?” she asked, as if she truly thought I might not have heard of him. Then she continued, “I’m Jewish. My father sent me first to America to get a job and learn English and then I would send for them. My sponsor, the sister of my grandmother, lived in Wilmington, Delaware so I went there but after three months, my uncle in New York found a job for me and I moved to New York to work as maid.”
“I saved hundreds of dollars and in 1941 my parents were to go to the consulate in Stuttgart for the papers. But before they got there, Pearl Harbor was bombed, the war broke out and the consulate in Stuttgart closed. They then went to the Swiss border. I was told to send money to Switzerland and I sent all I had saved but they lied. I never saw my money again and my parents were not able to get through.”
“In the small town where we lived, the people were nice to us. There were only twelve Jewish families in the town. The people told my father, ‘Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you here. We’ll watch out for you.’”
“But later as things began to get bad, no one could protect them. They moved to Frankfurt to try to maybe get lost. I never heard from them again. I married my husband and he was three years in the war in Europe. He went to my hometown after the war and went to Frankfurt to find word of them.
“He was told her that her family, her father, mother and 11 year old sister were listed as ‘lost in the east.’ That meant to Poland and the death camps.
“I felt terrible guilt. Maybe I could have done more. Maybe I could have sent more money. But a good friend, my best friend, helped me more than any doctor. She said, ‘Do you think you’re the only one who lost someone? You’re not the only one. We all lost everyone.’ And that helped me to move on. We all have to move on.”
My new friend told me that she went back to Germany in 1990 and met the mayor, the burgermeister, of her small town. He is the son of the burgermeister of the town when she left as a girl. He said that his father had often spoken of her father as a wonderful, smart businessman.
We talked about how our neighborhood used to be largely Jewish but few Jews remain. She does go to synagogue just down the block in a very small building. It’s funny how I have ridden my bike past that little synagogue almost daily for five years and had never noticed it.
She said she hoped we would meet again as she enjoyed talking to someone young.
“My name is Marty”, I said.
“I’m Berta Stern but you can call me Berta.” I gave her my phone number and told her to call me if she needed anything at all. I’ve since moved and haven’t heard from her.
But it made me remember that there are still people alive who were personally devastated by the Nazis. It seems so long ago and far away but it wasn’t.
