Kindertransport
by Silvia E. Hines
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
From: Judith Miller
To: Jenny Greene
Subject: The letter
Thank you for writing, Jenny, and for including your phone number. Attached below is the letter from Ana to Rose, translated into English. I will give you some time to read it, and then I hope we will talk on the phone.
August 10, 1939My Dear Cousin Rose,
I fear the winter we are soon to endure is going to be fierce, another deprivation, especially for the Jews. Remember, Rosie, how we used to build those huge snowmen outside your house, pilfering buttons from your mother’s sewing basket for the eyes? For us now, even for the children, there is no joy. Everything is bad news. Rumor has it the Germans will be invading Poland soon, and that will be tragic for us. Hitler annexed Austria last year, and now he wants Poland. I don’t know if this letter will make it to your hands; we have heard word that the mail is already being censored. Things can only get worse.
We had insufficient food this spring and summer and we fear we will suffer greatly during the coming winter. I can see us huddling together under blankets for lack of coal. Even now, we can’t spare any crumbs to feed the beautiful birds and can give the children only the tiniest crusts to feed the ducks in the pond.
Piotr, of course, hasn’t been involved in any outdoor activities because, as I told you in my last letter, he has been very ill throughout most of the summer. Thank God, he is improving now from his bout with pneumonia, although he still has infections of the larynx and pharynx.
I know. You were right. You are probably wringing your hands right now, asking why we did not accept your offer of sponsorship and get to America when it was still possible. You wrote to me that you had read a bit of Mein Kampf and were following the newspapers, and that we had better get out of there as soon as possible. But we had a life here, and we had been happy. We love the community here: the serious men who devote their lives to studying the Talmud, like our Uncle Samuel; the Hasidim with their curious dances and oppressive rules; the mystics who study Kabbalah all day long. Even the zealous debates on the merits of Zionism versus socialism. We have the theater, newspapers, and a good school for the children.
So when things began to change, around 1935, we thought it would blow over, as things like this had in the past. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Of the many insults we have suffered, the worst was when Piotr was beaten up on the way home from school by a gang of boys who just last year were his friends. Since then, one of us always walks with him to and from school. In short, we are in shock, and I fear we will pay the highest price for our mistake, for staying here.
You asked about the trains and taking the children to England. We did arrange for both children to go, did I not tell you that? Piotr was to watch over Raizel on the trip. Yosef did not want to send either of them, but I convinced him that our children must survive this madness.
I told Yosef that if the children survived and we did not, you and your family would take care of them. So I sewed into the waistband of Raizel’s skirt a cloth pocket, like those money belts you read about, and into it I put a piece of white fabric with your name and address written in indelible ink. I will put this letter in there, too, when I finish writing it, and ask Raizel to give it to her English sponsor to mail. I wanted to insert my gold wedding ring for its value, but Yosef convinced me it would not stay with our daughter for long.
As you have probably guessed by now, Piotr will be unable to go on the train with Raizel because he is still so sick. There is, of course, a boat ride at the end of the train trip. We were advised that he probably would have a relapse of the pneumonia and quite likely would die if we sent him.
I think Yosef was secretly glad for this turn of events. He sat by Piotr’s bedside for hours on the day this was decided, while I did my best to start preparing our baby, only four years old, for leaving us. She will go in less than a week. There are to be caretaking adults along on the trips to look after the littlest children until they are picked up by the families with whom they will be living.
I am enclosing a birthday card Piotr made for you when he was recuperating. I told him everything I remembered about you while he lay sick in bed. He asked many questions about you, especially whether you had any children and whether he could meet them some day. I told him you did not yet have children but I was sure you would soon, since you mentioned a man you met recently at the Workmen’s Circle meeting in New York. How I would like to be at your wedding! In a world that was not insane, we would all just get on a ship to cross the ocean, visit you, and watch you say your marriage vows.
We pray all the time, those of us who still think there is something like a God lurking somewhere, that the world will hear of our pain and do something. It is funny that we are still willing to pray even though we are certain we cannot rely on God himself to do anything for us.
Your loving cousin,
Ana
From: Judith Miller
To: Jenny Greene
Subject: I want to visit!
I’m looking forward to our next phone call this Sunday! And after we talk on the phone, Jenny, if you and your mom agree, I’m going to immediately book a flight to Connecticut for a weekend when you’ll be home from college. Clearly, Zoom or Skype will not do the trick, judging from the hilarious and sad story you told me about the time you set Rose up to Skype with her brother-in-law, and she insisted the man on the computer screen was a television actor who looked just like her late husband’s brother.
You also told me you’re not sure Rose remembers the whole story about Ana and her children or that she’ll understand when we tell her who I am. Jenny, I’m confident that when the four of us are sharing the same space, when we sit at a table in each other’s presence — when we show Rose the letter from Ana I’ve sent you and bring out her own photo of Ana and her brother — I believe that no matter what she says about what she remembers, an important part of her will know what we’re saying. In her heart, I think, Rose will understand that her cousin Ana wanted both her children to survive, and had attempted to make that happen.
Perhaps Rose will even understand and find it interesting that I am here, that I exist, only because of the efforts of a large group of enormously generous people. And though I assume she isn’t inclined toward science or technology, maybe she’ll also find it interesting that you and I have found each other because of the work of two groups of very creative scientists: the developers of DNA matching and the inventors of the Internet.
Finally, by now you know that Ana learned of Rose’s beau through letters they’d exchanged and that she longed to be able to cross the ocean and attend her cousin’s wedding. Well, Jenny, my son David is going to be married next summer here in San Diego. Is it melodramatic for me to suggest it would be an honoring of our ancestors, or the fulfilment of a dream shared by Rose and Ana, if all three of you flew to Southern California to stay at my house and attend my son’s wedding?
Your loving cousin,
Judith
Copyright © 2022 by Silvia E. Hines
