to relax just then. No, did not relax. Was maybe a little … friendlier. We made chitchat. About what kind of place I have in San Francisco. About where she lives, nearby, alone, “for the moment,” as she put it. Then she asked about my life, my life before I found Michal, and after.
I gave her as quick a summary as I could. Born in Belsen. Michal’s excuse for giving me away, so I wouldn’t be a Jew. A quick trip through my nutso grandfather, the hand-off to big-M Mother and Father, all the way up to Michal, her story, her shooing me away. I tried to be a little glib about it. It didn’t matter that Leni’s mood had changed. She still wouldn’t want me breaking down right in front of her.
But she surprised me. When I finished, she looked at me with a kind, almost mournful, face.
I am sorry all that happened to you, she said.
We said nothing for a while. I stared at the chair jammed against the wall, she out the window.
Then she said, Something to drink? Orange juice? Coffee? Tea?
Coffee, thanks.
She made instant coffee. Nescafé. I’d noticed that a lot of Israelis don’t fuss over things like coffee. Seems they like things plain, quick, practical.
Now you, I said when she put the cups on the table. Your story.
My story, she said, shrugging. This will take some time.
I’m not in a rush.
She laughed. All right. But to get to me, we have to start with Michal. Did she tell you about what happened before the Nazis took her? About her marriage to Albrecht Gerstner, about the false pregnancies and such?
Yes, said the patient. The whole story, starting with her family going to Amsterdam.
And did she tell you about how her father-in-law betrayed her?
Yes, that they nearly took her from her husband’s graveside, then later came for her in the house.
And where did she say she went from there?
She refused to say anything about that time. Only that she was sent to a labor camp.
Leni broke into barking laughter, which utterly baffled me.
Well, Leni said, trying to stifle her laughs, labor did have something to do with it.
120.
It is an implausible story, Leni began. But survivor stories are all like that. Most of them. If not for something impossible or ridiculous or shameful—stealing bread, sleeping with guards—or pitiful—hiding in dirt basements, living off grass and weeds in the woods—or lucky—being young, healthy, with a strong constitution—or astoundingly brave—stealing guns from guards, jumping from trains—they would not have survived. So see Michal’s story in that light. Is all of it true? Maybe yes, maybe no. Many survivors do not want to describe in detail what happened to them. The Shoah is a national bond here. But it ended only thirty years ago. Many of the survivors are just into their fifties. They were a generation that did not go in for therapy and talking cures.
So …
I think you already know that Michal was taken from the Gerstners’ house directly to the train station. Her name was Maria then, but that is too strange, so I will call her Michal. She was about to be shoved into a packed car on its way to Theresienstadt, when an old friend came by. A former beau from her years in Gymnasium.
Leni laughed. I should say “another” beau from her Gymnasium days. There were more than a few, as she tells it.
All right. Now. This former beau was by then a Nazi officer, and he was shocked to see her being rough-handled by a low-ranking brute of a soldier. He grabbed her away, saying that he knew Michal, he could swear she was not a Jew, that she was a good Catholic who had lost her papers in a bombing raid. The duty officer did not look convinced—papers lost in bombing raids was a common ruse used by Jews in hiding. So the former beau quickly made up a story that she was pregnant with a child fathered by a senior SS officer—who would take some heads if he discovered his fiancée in Theresienstadt!
The duty officer had enough fear of the senior officer’s rank that he went along, saying, if she was really pregnant with a good Aryan child, then he knew exactly where she should be. There were general orders, he said. Pregnant Aryan women who were not living with husbands or family were to be taken to a special maternity hospital.