We feel sad when our fathers discuss the future of the German church as Hitler enacts new racial laws.
The conversation becomes ominous. Other dissenters arrive at our holiday party. Dietrich B. comes with Eben G.
Eben G. is the man whom Loralei loves as much as her own life. I see Loralei blush when she hears Eben in the foyer. I smile at her in sympathy because I understand the heartache of an impossible love. Her eyes shine with tears when Eben speaks. He sees her but looks away quickly as if he does not have time for falling in love.
Loralei whispers, “He hates me. I told him I love him, and now he hates me.”
Mama sees Loralei is about to crumble and suggests we three girls go upstairs to listen to the radio. We say good night but turn off the radio. We sit on the stair landing to hear the men discuss what must be done as the Nazis grow more vicious, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic. We girls sit with our arms around one another and our heads close. I am not so afraid when we are together.
Eben warns that any with Jewish heritage should get out of the Reich while it is still possible. That means my father’s family.
“The children,” Eben says. “You are already helping, Theo. We must continue our work.” Eben tells my father that the danger is very great and that our family is on a list with the Gestapo. What is coming against all Jews in Europe is worse than the Spanish Inquisition. It no longer matters if a Jew has converted to Christianity. The Nazis have declared war on all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Since my father is Jewish, and I am half-Jewish, I feel his words very deeply. Papa says how thankful he is that I am playing in the orchestra in Vienna. He does not believe the Nazis will take over Austria.
Eben thinks Christians and Jews are all in danger in Hitler’s Reich. “Make preparations to leave.”
Lori murmurs, “If it’s as bad as all that, I hope I never bring a child into this world. It would be too much to bear—living with fear that something might happen. I would rather never have a baby.”
I say, “What’s Christmas without children? I want a houseful. Just not here in Hitler’s Reich.”
Loralei, who is American, whispers, “If we can’t be here for Christmas next year, then maybe in Jerusalem. Or maybe next year in New York? Or London. I fancy a Christmas with all of us together in London. Christmas tea at the Savoy. Oxford Street is even prettier than Berlin at Christmas. No Nazi flags. No danger of the Nazis ever landing in Piccadilly.”
Lori is not as optimistic as Loralei. Lori confides that she believes her father (Uncle Karl) will remain in Berlin as pastor of New Church as long as possible. She says he has warned many friends with Jewish heritage that they must leave. Some think the crisis will blow over, but now I am sure it will only get worse.
Dietrich B. tells my father that there must be funds to organize home churches throughout Germany in case war breaks out.
Eben says it is already too late to change the course of events. There will be war against the church and against Jews and against democracy. The German church should have spoken up when Hitler was first elected. He says that the true shepherds who remain in the Reich will be arrested.
Papa agrees with Eben. I shall never forget Papa’s words: “If the Church is silent in the face of Evil, in the end Evil will silence the Church.”
I promise Lori and Loralei that I will be careful when I return to Austria. There are Nazis there too. We pray angels will go with us as we part. Lori remains in Berlin for the sake of Uncle Karl’s church. Loralei will return to Belgium where her father (Uncle Robert) is headmaster of a seminary. I do not know when Papa and Mama will leave Berlin, but I think they will go until things blow over. Mama says Papa is turning over the management of the store to Aryan friends. That must mean something. I return to Vienna and the orchestra after our family ski trip to Kitzbühel.
I am already making plans for all of us to be together again. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is scheduled to perform in England at the Albert Hall in the spring. Perhaps then Lori, Loralei, and our mothers can all meet for tea at the Savoy in London!
2
LONDON, ENGLAND
SUMMER 1940
H
ow could I learn to say good-bye, knowing our parting could be forever? How could I embrace my children one last time and then let them go? How was it possible to say farewell at the quay and turn away as the mooring lines were cast off? How could I place my precious little ones in the care of others for the perilous journey, knowing they might end up adrift in a lifeboat in the North Atlantic, fighting to survive, in the middle of a war?
The question for all Londoners that summer of 1940 was this: “Would you rather your baby be bombed in London or risk being torpedoed on the North Atlantic?”
The decisive answer was delivered to us around afternoon teatime on September 7, 1940, in the opening salvo of the London Blitz.
Murphy was at the TENS news office on Fleet Street and I was at the BBC, preparing for the evening concert. A roar louder than thunder filled the air as 348 German bombers, escorted by 617 fighters, crossed the English Channel in a matter of minutes.
My mother, Anna Lindheim, was in London that day, caring for our three children—Katie, a year old, and Charles and Louis, our eight-year-old adopted twins, while I rehearsed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Murphy and I had shared our small flat in a Georgian town house near Regent’s Park with my cousin Lori Kalner, her eighteen-month-old son, Alfie, and Lori’s mother, Helen Ibsen. Our happy little home was very crowded.
When the air raid sounded that afternoon, my mother was pushing Katie’s pram through Regent’s Park. Charles and Louis skipped stones across the boating lake. While I sheltered in the basement of the BBC, Mama hurried with the children into the deep underground of the Baker Street tube station.
Even in the depths of the BBC bomb shelter, we heard the distant concussions. In that terrible moment we realized every horror England had hoped to prevent had finally come to pass. We raised our eyes to the concrete ceiling and prayed for the safety of our loved ones. My heart raced through every minute as I wondered about Murphy, my mother, and our children. In my fear, I remembered the painting in St. Paul’s Cathedral of the angel guiding two small children across a bridge. Could the Lord keep my little ones safe beneath a sky raining fire and brimstone?
O God, protect them! Put Your angels around the ones I love!
Before one hour passed, the Luftwaffe emptied its deadly cargo, shattering forever the lives of citizens in the great city I had come to call my home.
A phone call after the all-clear alerted me that Mama and my little ones were alive and well and headed back home. We musicians picked ourselves up and resumed preparation for the evening concert as news of the devastation to the surrounding city trickled in. Fires raged in the East End. The rumors were horrific, but reality was worse.
Should tonight’s concert broadcast go on the air in the face of such widespread tragedy?
The head of the BBC consulted with the British War Office. It was concluded for the sake of British morale, in spite of devastation and danger, the night’s BBC performance must be aired without fail.
Churchill proclaimed, “It will send a message back to the Nazis that their bombs cannot and will not interrupt our lives or break the will of our island home.”
I was in the practice room of the BBC when Mama rang me a second time. My mother’s voice, almost always full of good cheer, was barely recognizable.
“Oh, Elisa!” she cried. “The house! The house is gone! Lori’s little boy has been killed in the bombing! And her dear mother. Your aunt Helen. Yes, Helen dead too!”
I held the receiver for a long moment without speaking. Only the night before we had laughed and joked at the dining table. Could it really be true that their joy was silenced forever?
Other members of the BBC Orchestra surged around me, aware by my expression that personal tragedy had struck my family in the Luftwaffe’s first great assault on London.
“Mama! Can this be?”
“Lori’s darling baby boy. And Helen too. Gone! I can’t bear it. I cannot bear it!”
My knees grew weak. My first thought was how lucky we were that Mama had been out for a stroll with my three children. The next thought slammed into my senses like a hammer blow. “Mama! Where is Lori?”
“St. John’s Church is gone too. A stick of five bombs meant to strike the canal across the road. Instead, the bombs fell on the houses along Prince Albert Road…one after another. Starting with our house and ending with the church.”
“Mama! Where is Lori? Where?” My panic drew a circle of friends close around me.
“Lori came back home and…she would not leave. Refused to leave the house until they found the bodies. She fought to get inside, in spite of the flames. They had to hold her back. And then they found them—Helen and Alfie. Oh Elisa! The poor girl. Poor dear girl! Her mother and baby boy…how will she ever forget such a sight? Lori was up the hill in the village, shopping for a few dinner things. She came home and…everything gone. She asked to be taken to the shelter where Loralei works. St. Marks, North Audley. I’m going there now.”
Loralei Bittick, our Texas-born cousin, worked in a refugee center near the American Embassy.
I asked my mother, “Call Murphy for me, Mama. Ask him please to come to the church straightaway. I’ll meet you there with the children.”
I hung up. My hands were trembling. I knew I could not play the violin.
Fearing I might pass out, I handed my instrument to Henri Golden, the Jewish concertmaster, who had escaped from a half-dozen countries one step ahead of the Nazi army. Henri took stock. Still and wide-eyed, he pieced together what had just happened.
“Your children, Elisa?”
“Unharmed.”
“Thanks be to God. Your home?”
I quietly replied, “Gone.”
“Brick and mortar can be replaced.”
“Henri, I won’t be performing tonight. Our home…gone! A house is nothing. But my cousin Lori Kalner’s little boy and my aunt—they were in the house.”
His dark Sephardic eyes flashed. “Bombed.” Not a question but a fact. “So very sorry. So very, very…”
I nodded and leaned back against the wall. Hands over my face, I tried to draw breath. I felt the room spin around me.
Little Alfie dead. Aunt Helen too. What if Mama had been there with Katie and Charles and Louis? What if Mama hadn’t taken them for a walk in the park at the moment she did? She and Katie and Charles and Louis would be dead. The loss would be unbearable, as it must be now for my sweet cousin.
On that first day when the skies were darkened with enemy aircraft, 1,364 civilians died; 1,666 Londoners were seriously injured.
Those hours were a foretaste of what lay ahead for us. Staggering numbers of dead and wounded are mere statistics. It is only when the numbers of dead are reduced to an ordinary person like you or me that the mind can comprehend the meaning of loss. How could we believe on that first evening that in the months following over 48,000 Londoners would die in the havoc raining down upon us? The reality is even more incomprehensible when I write the names of other target cities in Britain: Coventry, Newcastle, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Plymouth, Liverpool, Blackpool…
Too many to record each heartache and loss. Yet as I close my eyes, I see the smiles and hear the laughter of two precious souls who were part of my own family. When I consider the meaning of the Blitz, I remember the smoke-blackened face of Lori Kalner, who had to be prevented from running into the flames in a futile attempt to save her little boy and her mother.
In the evening I met my mother at St. Mark’s. She was praying in a side chapel. My children slept on a pew behind her.
Mama rose slowly and embraced me. “Loralei is in her office with Lori. You three girls. Always so close. I am praying you will find some word of comfort for poor Lori. After so much heartache, losing her father in Germany. Now this. Now this. I have no comfort to offer. I am broken. Broken.”
I found Lori in Loralei’s office. Both petite and nearly the same age, they had often pretended to be sisters when they were young. Years of persecution in Nazi Germany had strengthened our family ties.
Lori’s shoulders hunched forward. With her fair hair, clothing, and skin covered with soot, she seemed very small and fragile, like a once-loved doll left in the rain. A cup of tea and toast were untouched at Lori’s right hand. Loralei sat with her arm around her. Lori glanced up when I entered. Bright blue eyes were wide with bewilderment. Lips parted as if to ask,
How could this happen?
“Lori,” I whispered.
Lori shook her head. Her voice cracked as she tried to speak. “They’re gone, Elisa. I only went to the market and…they’re gone. I wish—I wish they would have come with me. The baby was napping. Oh, Elisa! I wish I would have stayed with him!”
Loralei, eyes brimming, pursed her lips and looked away.
“I know, Lori. I know, darling. I am so sorry.” I sank down beside my cousins, and we three shed tears together.
What had happened in Spain, Poland, Holland, Belgium, and France had followed the flood of refugees here to the island fortress of Great Britain. Where was our hope? What hope for us now?
Lori wiped her eyes. “Oh, Elisa. You must get your babies to America if you can. Get them to America!”
We had no place to sleep, so Loralei gave us her house key and sent us to her flat. She offered to share her clothes with us. We just had time enough to bathe before the air raid siren sounded again. We hurried away to the Camden Town tube station as a fresh storm of incendiary bombs began to fall on London. I do believe Lori would have welcomed her own death that night. And, for all of us, this was only the beginning of sorrows.