The Runaway Family Read online

  “Whatever’s happened to him, he’s not coming back here,” Kleiber told them. “They’ve filled his bunk!”

  What had happened to Martin Rosen remained a mystery, and that mystery was only revealed to Kurt when he too was called to the commandant’s office a few weeks later. He was working in a detail that was digging foundations for the new huts. It was backbreaking work, and was carried on with little respite, though the winter weather had made the ground rock-hard. They had stopped for the half-hour allowed for their midday meal when Kurt had received the summons. He stood up shakily. His legs felt like jelly, but he managed to walk across to the gate which led from the compound to the administrative block. He was taken to a cell, and told to stand to attention while he waited to be called. He stood, stiff and still for over an hour, wondering why he had been called. Trying to remember anything that he had done… or not done… that might have earned him a stint in the punishment block, but he could think of nothing. Not that that mattered to the SS. There didn’t have to be a reason for them to punish you, they simply did it because they felt like it, because they enjoyed it. These thoughts were no comfort to Kurt as he stood, still to attention, waiting.

  At last the door swung open and at a barked order from an SS corporal he marched out and followed the man along a corridor, through a door into another part of the building, and was finally brought into an office. Here seated behind a large desk sat Oberführer Loritz. He paid no attention to Kurt at all. Simply went on writing something in a large book before him. Kurt waited rigidly to attention, as did his escort, until finally the commandant looked up.

  “Who is this?” he demanded and the corporal snapped out a “Heil Hitler” before replying. “Kurt Friedman, sir. Jew.”

  “Thank you, Corporal, you may leave us.”

  The corporal snapped his heels and saluted again, before leaving the room.

  For a long moment the commandant stared at Kurt, and Kurt, terrified of making eye contact, stared at a spot above the Oberführer’s head.

  “Friedman,” the commandant said at last. “A Jew. Do you know what we want to do with all Jews, Friedman?”

  Kurt hesitated for a moment. Which was the right answer? Yes or no? Which did the commandant want to hear?

  “We want to get rid of the lot of you,” Oberführer Loritz answered his own question. “One way or another we want to get rid of the lot of you. Do you understand, Friedman?”

  “Yes, sir.” Kurt’s voice was hardly more than a croak.

  “Yes, sir,” mimicked the commandant. “I doubt it, Friedman. I doubt it. But you,” he pointed at Kurt with a pudgy finger, “you are lucky. You are going to be given the chance to leave here.”

  Kurt’s head began to spin.

  “To leave here provided you promise to take you family and leave Germany.” Loritz paused a moment and then went on. “Are you prepared to give that undertaking?”

  Kurt gulped for air, enough air to allow him to speak. “Yes, sir.”

  “And where would you go? Do you have relations abroad?”

  Kurt’s mind continued to spin. He had no relations abroad, his family had lived in Kirnheim all his life, had run the grocery in Gerbergasse for most of it. No, he had no relations outside Germany.

  “A cousin in America, sir,” he said, without actually deciding to say it.

  Oberführer Loritz sniffed. “America is full of Jews,” he remarked. “It will be their downfall.” His eyes drilled into Kurt. “And this cousin, will he vouch for you?”

  “I’m sure he will, sir.”

  “And then there is the question of your property here. You own property, I understand.”

  “A shop, sir,” replied Kurt, adding when this elicited no comment, “with an apartment above it.”

  “Your property would be forfeit of course. You will have no need of it and it can be sold to a good honest German family.” His eyes bored into Kurt. ”And the money will, of course, revert to the state.”

  Kurt swallowed. “Of course, sir.” The money might revert to the state, but much more likely to Nero’s bank account.

  How would they live if the money paid for his property didn’t come to him? How would he live if he didn’t get out of this hellhole camp? There was only one way to get out of here, one way to get back to his family and try and get them to safety somewhere, and that was to agree to whatever this man said. If Kurt said anything but ‘Yes, sir’ he would be back in the prisoners’ compound and he might never see his family again.

  Oberführer Loritz pulled a paper from under the book in which he had been writing, and pushed it across to Kurt. “You will sign this to say you and your family will be out of the country in three weeks, that your property will revert to the state, and that you will never return to Germany again.” He looked up at Kurt. “Do you have title deeds to this shop?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They must be lodged with the Emigration Office in Munich. Within the three weeks.” The commandant held out a pen. “Sign!”

  Kurt grasped the proffered pen and signed. He had no chance to read the document he had signed. He had no idea whether he had agreed to any other conditions not stipulated by the commandant, but he knew it was his only chance of freedom, so he took it… and signed.

  “One more thing, Friedman,” snapped the Oberführer. “I want to hear no slander about how this camp is run. Prisoners here work hard, but they are well fed, and rewarded for their work.” He paused and his eyes held Kurt’s. “Is that understood, Friedman?”

  “Yes, sir, quite understood.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Oberführer Loritz’s voice was ice-cold. “If you are found to be spreading malicious lies about the camp and its staff, you will be arrested and returned here immediately. Immediately! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Kurt, ready to agree to anything. “Yes, sir, I understand.”

  Things moved very quickly after that. He was taken back to the Jourhaus, the building where they had all been registered on the first day, and was given his own clothes back. He changed into them, but they no longer fitted him, hanging off him like a big brother’s cast-offs.

  “You look like a scarecrow,” scoffed the SS soldier who oversaw his departure. He picked up Kurt’s wallet and peered into it before handing it back to him. It was exceedingly light. Kurt doubted if he even had the bus fare home, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was to slip out through those fearsome gates and run for his life.

  The gates clanged shut, but Kurt didn’t dare run; he walked away from the camp without a backward glance. He knew if he looked back one of the guards would shout at him, drag him back inside, and close those awful gates behind him. He had been allowed to leave, but even as he hurried away, he dreaded hearing his name called. It would be a game to them.

  “Halt, Friedman! Where do you think you’re going?” And if he didn’t stop he would be shot in the back. Shot while trying to escape. He’d seen it happen.

  Fear crawled over him as he continued to walk away. Surely this hope of release would be withdrawn; surely this was yet another cruel punishment. Let him think he was free and then, as he actually, actually began to believe it, bring him back, back into the nightmare that was Dachau.

  Despite his determination to keep walking, Kurt’s panic overtook him and he began to run. Running was easy. Running was what he’d been doing for the past four months, running in the camp had kept him alive, but even as his feet pounded on the road that led to the town of Dachau, he expected the guard dogs to be unleashed, to hear them give tongue, to feel their teeth tear into him. When, daring at last to glance over his shoulder, he realised he was no longer within sight of the camp, and there was no pursuit, he allowed his pace to ease a little, caught his breath and then settled down to a steady jog.

  When he got off the bus in Kirnheim, Kurt walked from the bus station, along the familiar streets of his childhood, and turned into Gerbergasse. It was late Monday afternoon, a time when peop
le would normally still be out and about their business, but the street, though not quite deserted, seemed to Kurt abnormally quiet. Then he realised what the difference was. There were no children to be seen. No children playing in the street; no sound of little girls chanting as the skipping rope slapped the pavement, no excited shouts from boys playing football or scuffling in the dust. There was not a child in sight.

  He walked on, past the synagogue, which, he noticed, had new doors, not the ornately carved ones he had always loved and admired, but plain, untreated timber on utilitarian black hinges. His step hastened as he passed familiar shops, some with boarded-up windows, to the corner where his own shop was… had been. He stared in horror at what he saw. It, too, was boarded up, but not just the window, the door as well, a haphazard criss-cross of planks nailed into a blackened doorframe. Dark swathes of soot streaked the walls, and the blackened frames of the upstairs windows gaped to the open air. For a long, disbelieving moment, Kurt stood quite still, staring at the ruin of his home. Terror clutched his heart, a physical pain. Ruth! Where’s Ruth? The children? Were they there when the fire broke out? Are they safe? Did this happen the night of his arrest, or later on? Where are they now?

  Turning his back on the burnt-out blackened shell of his home, he rushed into the Meyers’ bakery on the other side of the street. Leah Meyer was behind the counter as he crashed through the door. She looked up, fear leaping in her eyes, to see who had burst in so violently. The fear turned to astonishment and then pleasure as despite his scarecrow appearance, hollow cheeks and shaved head, she recognised him.

  “Herr Friedman!” she cried. “You’re back! God be praised! You’re home.” She hurried round from behind the counter to clasp his hand and pump it up and down.

  “Where’s my family?” demanded Kurt. “Are they safe? What happened?”

  “Yes, yes,” she assured him. “Don’t worry! They’re safe. They escaped the fire. Your wife took them to your brother. They are living with him.”

  Kurt sank onto the chair beside the counter, suddenly exhausted. “Thank God!” he murmured. “Thank God for that.” He gave Frau Meyer a weak smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. What happened? What happened to the shop? How did it catch fire?”

  At that moment Leo Meyer came into the shop from the bakery behind. When he saw Kurt sitting by the counter he rushed over to him, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ve come back, Kurt. Thank God you’re safe.” He turned to his wife.

  “Put up the shutters, Leah. Let’s close up.” He turned back to Kurt. “We don’t stay open after dark anymore, it isn’t safe. It’s bad enough in the daytime. You’ll stay with us for the night, eh? Before you go to Munich to find them?”

  He helped his wife put sturdy wooden shutters in place across the window. “Protects the glass from stray bricks,” he explained as he slid the metal bar into its socket and snapped the padlock closed. “Wouldn’t stop anyone determined to break in, but it slows them down.”

  Once the shop was secured, the Meyers led the way up the stairs, to the apartment above.

  “I expect you’re hungry,” Frau Meyer said, and without waiting for Kurt to admit it, went into the kitchen to prepare some food. She had taken in his emaciated face and the way his clothes hung off his body.

  “Tell me what happened,” Kurt said to her husband as he sat down. Leo took out a cigarette case and passed it over to Kurt, before taking a cigarette himself and lighting both.

  “It was the night of the riot, the night you were arrested,” he said. “You saw the mob, the frenzy they were in.” Leo shuddered at the recollection of that night. “We were lucky that night, we only had our windows broken. We locked ourselves into the bakery, or they would probably have arrested me too.” Leo inhaled deeply on his cigarette, letting the smoke fill his lungs. “Well, when the SS took you away, the mob set fire to your shop. They’d already tried to burn the synagogue, and they got the taste for fire. They weren’t people anymore, not people, just one huge howling beast. Your shop was there, it belonged to a Jew and so they set it on fire.”

  “But Ruth? The children? You said they were all right. They weren’t hurt? They got out in time?”

  “Thanks to the courage of your wife,” Leo replied, “they all got out. But it was close. She managed to lower them down from the upstairs window. She had to jump herself. She sprained her ankle, but amazingly that was all.” Leo drew hard on his cigarette. “She is a brave woman, your Ruth.”

  Over the meal that Leah had prepared, the Meyers told Kurt how Ruth had found the deed box; how she’d been attacked by the Hitler Youth; how she’d refused to burden the Meyers any longer.

  “She was determined to take them to your brother,” said Leah. “She wouldn’t stay with us any longer. She did write though, just once to say they’d arrived.”

  “It’s where I told her to go if necessary,” Kurt said, “but I didn’t really think she’d have to.” He looked across the table at his neighbours, a couple he had known for years, but with whom he had never been close. “Thank you,” he said simply. “Thank you for all you did.”

  Leah raised her hands. “Who would not?”

  “She was right to go,” Leo told him. “No one’s safe round here. Oh, we try and get on with our daily lives, but it is more and more difficult. Our shops are continual targets for the Hitler Youth and as soon as we make repairs they come by again. Several of the local children have been beaten up by these gangs, and there’s no redress, no justice. Parents are keeping them indoors now. Since the new laws, we have no status.”

  “For the first time in my life, I’m glad we weren’t blessed with children,” Leah said. “All my married life I prayed for children, begged God to give me just one child, but now I see the wisdom of His refusal. We won’t have to watch as our children are bullied, humiliated, injured, maybe even killed.”

  The silence that followed the bitterness of these words lengthened as all three of them contemplated the dark void of the future.

  “You’ll stay with us tonight,” Leo said at last. It wasn’t a question and Kurt felt another wave of gratitude for this couple’s generosity.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I will. Then in the morning I’ll go to Munich.”

  “Did you see the others, the others who were arrested the same night?” asked Leah tentatively. “Martin Rosen came home, just for a few days, and then he took his whole family and left. He didn’t say much.”

  Kurt wasn’t surprised, Martin would certainly have been warned as he had. “Yes, Martin was there,” he said. “He got out before me. So, he’s gone?”

  Leo nodded. “Yes, he’s gone.”

  “But he had to leave everything behind,” said Leah. “All the tools in his workshop, all the furniture in his house. The Gestapo watched him pack up. They wouldn’t let him take anything that the family couldn’t carry between them as they walked out of the door.”

  “One day they were there, the next they were gone.” Leo shook his head in disbelief. “There’s another family living in there now. Not Jews of course, but some official who works on the railway.” He looked across at Kurt. “Reckon someone would have moved into your place if it hadn’t been so badly damaged. No one can afford to repair it.” Leo passed Kurt another cigarette, and Kurt drew on it gratefully. He had no intention of telling the Meyers, or anyone else, that he had agreed that the state should take over his property.

  “I shall go and have a look at it tomorrow before I go,” he said. “Just in case there is anything else I can salvage.” His mind flicked to the money he had hidden in the unused bread oven beside the stove in the living room. Was there any possibility it would still be there?

  “Were Rudy Stein, or Manfred Schmied with you?” Leah was asking. “Do you know anything about them?”

  Kurt forced his mind back to her question. “We were all together in one hut,” he said, “Rudy… died. He found the camp regime difficult and… and he wasn’t strong enough.
I think Mannie is still there.” He drew deeply on his cigarette. “He may be released. I was let out because I agreed to collect my family and leave the country. I’ve got three weeks to prove to the authorities that we are emigrating… somewhere, otherwise I shall be sent back to Dachau, and the children will be put in an orphanage.” His face was bleak as he explained, “And God knows what will happen to Ruth.” He shook his head in despair. “I told them I had a cousin in America.”

  “And have you?”

  Kurt shook his head. “No, but unless I could convince them I had somewhere to go, they wouldn’t have let me out. This way at least we have a chance.”

  Kurt spent the night in the bedroom his children had shared weeks earlier, and as he lay on the hard little bed he thought about them all. Ruth, his Ruth, so brave, so resourceful, saving the children from the fire. Finding the box, taking them all to Munich. Thank God they had got there safely. At least Herbert was there to look after them all until he, Kurt, could get there. Kurt thought of his children. Laura, only ten, but far older than her years, made to grow up too fast by what her life had become in the last few years. Inge, beautiful, spoilt, only six, but used to getting her own way. She seemed almost unaware of the animosity that surrounded them all. And then the twins, just three, prattling happily together as they played, so wrapped up in each other that they only seemed to be complete when both were there. His beloved family. Somehow he had to get them away, out of this benighted country, his family’s home for generations, which no longer accepted them as citizens, regarded them as subhuman.

  He thought of his father, Amos, wounded fighting in the trenches for the Kaiser and the Fatherland. It hadn’t mattered then that he was a Jew, when the army was haemorrhaging men and every soldier was needed at the front. He’d been good enough to be a German then. And when he came home, limping from the shrapnel still lodged in his leg, Amos had slipped back into life as a shopkeeper, and brought his sons up to be both good Jews and good Germans.