Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport Page #10

...but I was determined to do it.

The second year was better.

Then it grew on me.

We were so busy, I didn't have

time to think of myself, anyhow.

After about two years

of not hearing from our parents...

... life sort of stretched on endlessly,

but suddenly...

...we heard that our parents

had reached Spain.

Every night since I left

my parents, I had prayed:

"Please, God,

don't let it take longer than five years."

And five years almost to the day...

... we got the telegram.

The telegram said:

"Arriving Friday, 4:45."

That was all.

Unfortunately, 4:45 was the train...

...that my school friends

were coming back on, as well.

I knew that since the whole village...

...also knew they were coming,

they would all be at the station...

...and my school friends would see me...

...and my brother and sister,

meeting our parents...

...for the first time in five years.

It was a tremendous ordeal.

We went down to the station to wait.

And I couldn't cope with it.

So I went back home...

...and I said:
"I'm going home.

I'm going to put the kettle on.

"They'll need a cup of tea."

How English can you get?

I waited and waited and waited.

They took ages.

Suddenly, there's my brother and sister...

...with this middle-aged, elderly couple...

...with suitcases and bags,

coming up the path.

I remember rushing down to meet them.

I knew they were my parents...

... but they weren't the

same parents I'd left.

They were much older

and they were worn out.

And we obviously weren't the same

children that they'd sent off.

Suddenly I realized I couldn't

say anything except their names.

"Mommy and Daddy" or "Mutti and Papa."

Then we just stood there...

...looking at each other.

It was such...

...a traumatic moment.

It was sad for Inge because she

couldn't speak German anymore.

My brother spoke it with difficulty.

I was the only one

who could communicate with them.

But the barriers completely went...

... and we became a family again.

The cease-fire began

yesterday, to be sounded...

... along all the fronts.

The German's war is therefore at an end.

I remember VE Day very clearly.

It was just wonderful.

We all danced in Piccadilly Circus...

... and for me, I just thought, well, this is it:

I'm going to see my parents next week.

I went straight back

and wrote to both of them.

I wrote separate letters

because I had separate addresses...

...through the Red Cross

messages in Theresienstadt.

The letters were returned to me

about three or four months later.

Took a long time.

All it said on the back was:

"Deported to Auschwitz...

"...October, '44."

And war was finished in May '45.

That's how I found out.

As soon as war finished...

... Hella and I went to

the Red Cross Community...

... and asked them to search.

Eventually we got a letter from them...

... saying that my mother

had been killed in Minsk...

... in Russia, where she was deported.

It's very hard to come to terms with

when you've always had that hope.

Of course, we've had...

...no grave, really...

...no parting, no end, no funeral.

It's that sort of...

...vague feeling in the air of hope...

...and that hope suddenly fading.

I remember nursing in

the children's ward...

... and I was always joking

with them and laughing.

And I was called to the telephone...

... and there was a telegram for me.

I asked her if she would read it.

So she read over the telephone:

"Your parents were gravely ill.

There was no hope.

"Wait for further news."

I probably didn't quite take it in...

...so I went back to the ward and started...

...carried on making beds, until

one of the little boys said to me:

"Why aren't you laughing this time?"

That's when I burst into tears and ran out.

I remember going out into the garden

and just lying on the lawn.

I didn't want to be with anybody.

It was such a shock.

And suddenly the future,

which we always painted...

...wasn't there. There was no future.

There was just an emptiness.

At the time I was liberated, a

month later, I would have been 20...

... and I weighed 58 pounds...

...and that's after

eight concentration camps.

Many times I've thought about it:

What would have happened if my father...

... wouldn't have pulled me out?

I would have never

mentioned it to my father.

You know, "Why did you do that?"

I think I would have done him very wrong.

And I can fully understand,

being a mother...

...what it would mean if this is

what I would have had to go through...

...with my child, God forbid.

My main concern was always:

Let me be strong and

let me try to make it.

I made it that far.

I want to make it to the end.

Regardless of what the end was.

Survival is an accident.

You cannot ask a soldier

who comes out of battle:

"Why were your comrades,

left and right, killed...

"...and you survived?" You have no

explanation for that. It's an accident.

At the moment of liberation...

... we were very happy,

but on the other hand really very sad...

... because I realized...

...that I was one of the

last who had survived.

All the others who had gone with

me to Auschwitz or had been taken...

...to Auschwitz would never return.

In July 1945, I went back to Germany...

... to work for the American government.

One of the reasons

was to look for my parents.

The most sensible place to go to,

would be to go back to Kippenheim.

But I didn't go back

until August, 1947.

I think on some level...

...I knew my parents didn't survive...

...but as long as I didn't

go back to Kippenheim...

...I could still say that maybe

they were back in Kippenheim...

...which doesn't really make

a lot of sense, but...

...I think it was just

my survival mechanism.

I just wasn't ready yet to accept the

fact that I no longer had parents...

... that I hadn't had parents for a long time.

Although the vast majority

of Kindertransport children...

... lost their mothers and fathers

in the Holocaust...

... remarkably a few parents survived...

... to be reunited with their children.

My parents managed to get out

of Austria by going to Italy.

And from Italy they got into France.

They were hidden by some

extremely wonderful people there.

After the war ended...

...I was told that my

parents were alive...

...and that some day I would probably

have to go back and live with them.

I think I was horrified by that idea.

Uncle Percy persuaded my parents...

... to wait until I'd finished the

English School Certificate at age 16.

And also, they needed time

to re-establish themselves.

Eventually, in 1947,

they were ready for me.

I didn't want to go,

but the Cohens took me to Paris...

... where I was to meet my parents.

I remember standing outside the hotel.

And I saw, in the distance,

my parents approach.

I couldn't look at them directly.

So I looked at them

their reflection in a shop window...

...as they walked towards me. I felt...

...a very, very strong emotion.

It was a sense of elation...

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote