Read Online Crossing the Borders of Time by Leslie Maitland - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Leslie Maitland
Tags: Non-Fiction, WWII
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tourists was replaced by dread in leaving her birthplace for the unknown.
The official form—the Inventory of Jewish Wealth, in accordance with the Reich law of April 27, 1938 — on which Sigmar reported no longer having any assets: “nichts”
“ Wir wandern aus. Wir wandern aus ,” her father had warned them so many times without her ever believing he meant it. The verb he had used means to emigrate , but also—too aptly, she feared—to wander, to roam, to travel like nomads.
Across the room, her beloved Käthe Kruse doll drooped on a shelf, its painted blue eyes accusingly staring. Her only doll had been the patient in so many of her first medical efforts that, with its soft stuffed body scarred by long lines of stitches and stained in the cause of science by myriad greasy ointments, Hanna had already decided to leave her behind. They were traveling by train, but a van would carry their pared-down household possessions, including Sigmar’s cherished grand piano. To accommodate the smaller space they would have in their Mulhouse apartment, they were taking furniture only from the living room, dining room, and master bedroom. For the children, their beds. Art, silverware, crystal, and china found space in the truck. Clothes and books were carefully chosen. Still, they were uncommonly lucky to be able to leave with that much.
Once the truck pulled away, Sigmar approached the wide oak doorway with a little screwdriver. There were tears in the eyes of this man so ill accustomed to showing emotion as he reached up to unfasten the five-inch long carved wooden mezuzah that he had hung on the entryway of the house, creating space that was sacred, on the day that he and Alice moved in as newlyweds. Never adept with his hands, Sigmar took off his glasses and angrily wiped at his eyes as he tried to fit the slim head of the screwdriver into the slots of the two stubborn screws that held the mezuzah to the doorframe, welcoming those who entered the house. Once it came down, he saw the tight, yellowed scroll of parchment rolled up inside it with the familiar prayer inked by hand in minute Hebrew letters, admonishing faithful adherence to God’s commandments—among them the holy duty to teach His words to new generations.
Sigmar took that mezuzah wherever they moved in the years that followed, an artifact of a world destroyed, but he would never rehang it, as he never regained a home of his own. No, he never regarded his small New York City apartment as worthy of consecration by such an imposing ritual object; instead he nailed to his American doorway a small, unobtrusive version made of indeterminate metal. But twenty years after the day he ruefully carried it wrapped in his handkerchief over Germany’s border, Sigmar presented the Freiburg mezuzah to my mother and father, who attached it to the first house that they bought, the house my mother resolved never to leave, despite my father’s persistent entreaties and his efforts to lure her to bigger and better.
That sorrowful day she left Freiburg was always in mind. Norbert had been called home from Switzerland in order to move to Mulhouse with the rest of the family. Carrying valises, they walked in silence to the corner and turned left at the Minerva onto the Rosastrasse where a sign announced that the Gebrüder Glatt—New Aryan Ownership!—had taken over the firm from the Günzburger brothers. Sigmar vowed that someday they would come home to Freiburg to win it back. Still, as he passed the company’s gates on the way to the station nearby, his mouth was set in a fixed, bitter line, and averting his eyes, he denied himself a last look at all that he had worked to accomplish.
Good wishes and comforting words filled their tense parting moments, as a small group assembled to see the family off. There was Fräulein Ellenbogen, who still occupied her small attic room in the house, not yet having found someplace to move, with so many Jewish homeowners already gone.
The official form—the Inventory of Jewish Wealth, in accordance with the Reich law of April 27, 1938 — on which Sigmar reported no longer having any assets: “nichts”
“ Wir wandern aus. Wir wandern aus ,” her father had warned them so many times without her ever believing he meant it. The verb he had used means to emigrate , but also—too aptly, she feared—to wander, to roam, to travel like nomads.
Across the room, her beloved Käthe Kruse doll drooped on a shelf, its painted blue eyes accusingly staring. Her only doll had been the patient in so many of her first medical efforts that, with its soft stuffed body scarred by long lines of stitches and stained in the cause of science by myriad greasy ointments, Hanna had already decided to leave her behind. They were traveling by train, but a van would carry their pared-down household possessions, including Sigmar’s cherished grand piano. To accommodate the smaller space they would have in their Mulhouse apartment, they were taking furniture only from the living room, dining room, and master bedroom. For the children, their beds. Art, silverware, crystal, and china found space in the truck. Clothes and books were carefully chosen. Still, they were uncommonly lucky to be able to leave with that much.
Once the truck pulled away, Sigmar approached the wide oak doorway with a little screwdriver. There were tears in the eyes of this man so ill accustomed to showing emotion as he reached up to unfasten the five-inch long carved wooden mezuzah that he had hung on the entryway of the house, creating space that was sacred, on the day that he and Alice moved in as newlyweds. Never adept with his hands, Sigmar took off his glasses and angrily wiped at his eyes as he tried to fit the slim head of the screwdriver into the slots of the two stubborn screws that held the mezuzah to the doorframe, welcoming those who entered the house. Once it came down, he saw the tight, yellowed scroll of parchment rolled up inside it with the familiar prayer inked by hand in minute Hebrew letters, admonishing faithful adherence to God’s commandments—among them the holy duty to teach His words to new generations.
Sigmar took that mezuzah wherever they moved in the years that followed, an artifact of a world destroyed, but he would never rehang it, as he never regained a home of his own. No, he never regarded his small New York City apartment as worthy of consecration by such an imposing ritual object; instead he nailed to his American doorway a small, unobtrusive version made of indeterminate metal. But twenty years after the day he ruefully carried it wrapped in his handkerchief over Germany’s border, Sigmar presented the Freiburg mezuzah to my mother and father, who attached it to the first house that they bought, the house my mother resolved never to leave, despite my father’s persistent entreaties and his efforts to lure her to bigger and better.
That sorrowful day she left Freiburg was always in mind. Norbert had been called home from Switzerland in order to move to Mulhouse with the rest of the family. Carrying valises, they walked in silence to the corner and turned left at the Minerva onto the Rosastrasse where a sign announced that the Gebrüder Glatt—New Aryan Ownership!—had taken over the firm from the Günzburger brothers. Sigmar vowed that someday they would come home to Freiburg to win it back. Still, as he passed the company’s gates on the way to the station nearby, his mouth was set in a fixed, bitter line, and averting his eyes, he denied himself a last look at all that he had worked to accomplish.
Good wishes and comforting words filled their tense parting moments, as a small group assembled to see the family off. There was Fräulein Ellenbogen, who still occupied her small attic room in the house, not yet having found someplace to move, with so many Jewish homeowners already gone.
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