11

Kusitzky

I WATCHED ILSE’S FACE AS WE walked up the path toward the Kusitzky house.

“See, Ilse, isn’t this nice?” I asked, hoping she would share my enthusiasm for the place.

As we walked, I realized I how little I knew about this woman I called my wife. We hadn’t talked much about her background. I knew that she had been born in Bismarkhuette, Silesia, a region which had been controlled first by Germany, then Poland, then Germany again.

Was she well off there? Were they poor? Strange, I thought to myself. How strange that I didn’t know even this simple bit of background information about someone who was my wife! But then, everything about our lives was strange. No part of our lives during this war was even close to normal.

We arrived at the front door and I knocked a few times and waited. Soon, the door opened and Anni stood before us, beaming.

“I’m so glad you are here,” she said. “You must be Ilse!”

The corners of Ilse’s mouth lifted in a tight little half smile. She was obviously tense at the idea of leaving Klaus alone with strangers. I considered saying something to try to reassure her but decided against it. I did not seem to have the knack for soothing Ilse’s upset feelings, and I would probably end up adding fuel to the fire. Silence was definitely the safest course to steer.

Ilse nodded a greeting, saying, “Yes, I am Ilse and this is my son, Klaus.”

Klaus was now bubbling over with excitement. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Klaus!”

Anni giggled. I had to admit to myself that his childish energy was quite refreshing. As frustrating as it had been when we needed him to be quiet at Braun’s apartment, here, in this bucolic setting, Klaus’s enthusiasm seemed welcome and appropriate.

Anni reached down and took Klaus’s hand. “I want you to come inside and to see my house,” she said. “I have a surprise for you inside.”

“A surprise! Yay!” Klaus practically screamed. Ilse and I looked at each other. It was a good thing we were going inside. His joy was gratifying, but none of us wanted the neighbors to hear him.

Ilse and I followed Anni and Klaus into the house. Ilse looked around, interested in the house where her son would be living.

“Come this way, both of you,” Anni beckoned. We walked with her into the kitchen where Klaus was sitting half on, half off a chair at the table. The nature of his surprise was revealed by the cookie sticking out of his mouth.

Anni seated Ilse and me at the table and set three plates laden with food before us. I looked over at Anni. She seemed pleased to be able to feed us, knowing how hungry we were.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in our room, relaxing and getting settled. Ilse didn’t say much to me, but she did talk to Klaus off and on. We went to bed very early, happy to be sleeping in a clean room, far away from the stench and stress of our former landlord.

The next morning I awoke early, before sunrise. I dressed quietly and left a sleeping Ilse to go downstairs. Anni was already up and seemed delighted to see me. She greeted me warmly and presented me with a hot breakfast. Then she sat down next to me and started to indulge in what I discovered was her favorite pastime: talking.

She talked. And talked. And talked.

Anni seemed to have an unquenchable desire to communicate about all kinds of subjects. She talked about the weather, she talked about her town of Lübars. She especially wanted to discuss her own family, in particular her son, Heinz. I had never met anyone before who seemed so starved for a friend to talk to.

Alex and Anni Kusitzky in front of their house.

Anni would even talk about people she didn’t personally know, but knew of. For example, she went on about a former girlfriend of hers who had married twice. This was considered a sin by Anni’s standards. She devoted considerable time to a description of this woman’s morals, her high living with her poor husband’s money, her flirting with strange men, and her readiness to accept favors from casual acquaintances. Anni felt all this was something to be avoided and even condemned.

Throughout the conversation, I would nod my head empathetically. I said “ah” and “my” and “really” when I felt she needed something more than a bob of the head to acknowledge her.

From time to time, she would ask for my opinion about the people she described to me. It all added up to a tremendous urge to talk about a huge variety of people and things. I wondered whether Alex, her husband, spent much time in these types of conversations. I knew he was a man of few words. Maybe he was unable or unwilling to discuss these things and this was why Anni was so pleased to have my full attention.

I was beginning to wonder what had happened to Ilse. I had gotten up very early, but it seemed like Anni and I had been talking for hours. Where were they? Fortunately, Anni eventually ran out of steam, saying she needed to go tend her garden. With as much grace as I could muster, I thanked her for the wonderful conversation and went to check on Ilse.

When I got upstairs, I opened the door, worried about what I might find there. I saw Ilse and Klaus, cuddled together, she sitting on the edge of our bed and he in her lap. She was rocking him, and they were singing together. I paused, just looking at them. It was so very, very sweet. Something they hadn’t been able to do at Braun’s, I reminded myself. It warmed my heart to watch them. It also made me miss my own family. Terribly.

I tried very hard not to dwell on my parents’ fate, but of course, this was impossible. If I made the mistake of thinking too much about what had happened to them, I became virtually incapacitated. I would get so worried and angry that it would soon be difficult to function. So I tried to think about them and their fate as little as I could.

It was impossible to do this all the time. I could usually hold off these thoughts during the day. At night, though, it was a different story. I was plagued with nightmares. I often awoke in a great sweat, having had yet another dream in which my parents were cruelly torn away from me by the Gestapo. Sometimes my dreams would be of them being badly mistreated in some distant location. Eventually I would awake and realize that it was just a dream. The horror of it was that there was no way to know if the dream was true.

It was just too dreadful to comprehend—too disabling. And so I squelched my imagination as best I could.

We stayed at the Kusitzkys’, all of us, for the next three weeks. Then an unexpected development disturbed our arrangement. Alex had learned from coworkers, several of whom lived in the same neighborhood, that policemen were patrolling the Kusitzkys’ street and other nearby areas. They would stop at random, asking questions about escaped prisoners and admonishing the residents to report any suspicious-looking men, especially young men.

Prisoners had escaped from a concentration camp in Sachsenhausen, near Oranienburg. Lübars, located near the S-Bahn line and roads leading toward Oranienburg, was among the areas under surveillance by the police. As if that were not enough, Alex also said that there were rumors that an army deserter was hiding somewhere in the Lübars area.

All of this was too much for Anni. She was usually calm and collected, but the prospect of having the police come to her house to ask questions completely terrified her.

It became clear to me that I had to take the initiative and remove myself from the scene. The risk of discovery for Ilse, Klaus, and me was too great. With me gone, the danger to Ilse and Klaus would be greatly reduced. There were many women with small children who had fled Berlin to escape the ever-increasing bombardments by American and British warplanes. A single woman with a small child, as was the case with Ilse and Klaus, was less likely to arouse suspicion.

I explained all of this to Ilse and the Kusitzkys. Anni and Alex readily agreed, but Ilse became silent, as if I had somehow insulted her.

After a short discussion, it was decided that I would leave in the morning. We went upstairs to our room, with Ilse continuing to say nothing. I closed the door to our room and began to walk over to the bed when Ilse hissed, “How could you do such a thing to me?”

I looked over at her, speechless. “What? What are you talking about?”

“How could you just inform me, in front of the Alex and Anni, what your plans were? Why didn’t you discuss them with me beforehand? Does my opinion count for nothing? Does the fact that we are married count for nothing? Am I to be treated as though I were just an appendage?”

Shocked, I just stood there, like a deer caught in the headlights.

Ilse raged on, “How could you fail to talk to me about this first? Aren’t I more important than Alex and Anni?”

My own temper started to flare. I was doing what was best for all of us! It was not as if I looked forward to leaving a safe, warm house for the streets of Berlin. How could she question my judgment like this? “I was only trying to do what was best for everyone!” I yelled.

She burst into tears, crying in frustration.

I wasn’t going to take this. Handling this type of conflict was something I had no experience in, and my natural defensive mechanisms asserted themselves. “That’s the way it is going to be, Ilse,” I said. Then I climbed into bed, turning away from her to face the wall and closed my eyes.

The next morning I woke up very early, before it was light. I was still indignant about yesterday’s dispute. Ilse was asleep, turned away from me and curled into a fetal position. Klaus slept on his little cot, separate from our bed.

I got dressed and stuffed my toothbrush, soap, razor, and blanket into my attaché case. I’d need all of these in Berlin. It would attract attention to be seen filthy and unshaven, and that could be dangerous. The blanket, of course, was important in case it got cold where I was sleeping—and who knew where that would be?

I walked out of the room. If Ilse heard me, she gave no sign.

I went down the stairs and decided to leave a note for the Kusitzkys. I went over to the little kitchen cabinet where they kept a pad of paper and wrote:

Dear Herr and Frau Kusitzky,

I have come to the decision that I have to leave. I feel it is safest for all of us if I do not stay here for too long a period at one time. I hope to be back in a few weeks. I cannot thank you enough for everything you have done for Ilse, Klaus, and myself.

Dagobert

Leaving the note on the kitchen table, I picked up my jacket and walked out the door.

Dawn was still breaking and visibility was poor, which is exactly how I wanted it. I wanted to leave the house very early so as to avoid being seen walking away from it.

It was a long walk. It took me about an hour to get to the S-Bahn station, giving me ample time to think about the night before. I eventually came to the conclusion that I had acted childishly. But it was hard. I was only nineteen and I had never even had a girlfriend, much less a wife and son. How was I supposed to act? How was I supposed to know what to do?

I now regretted leaving without making things right with Ilse. But in my ignorance, I wasn’t even sure how to go about it. I still felt that I was in the right, and that got in the way of any impulse I might have had to apologize.

Perhaps my parents had disagreements from time to time, but if so, they never had them in front of me. As it was, I had no idea how to have an argument of this type, much less a relationship. It seemed I would have to learn the hard way.

As I boarded the S-Bahn for Berlin, my mind turned to other, more immediate concerns. The most important of these was trying to come up with a place to stay. I was returning to a city where I had no family and almost no friends. I wished I could return to my parents’ apartment, but of course that had been confiscated by the Nazis long ago. The other places I had stayed were out, for one reason or another.

The only possibility that came to mind were the Lebrecht brothers, my friends and coworkers from the gun factory. I hadn’t seen them since before the Fabrikaktion, and I had no idea whether they were still in Berlin. My hope was that they and their parents still lived in the apartment under the Nazi district headquarters building. Perhaps they could help me out for a night. I knew that the apartment was on Lorenzstrasse, since I had been there before when I worked in the factory.

The only trouble was that it was still morning, still during business hours. Nazis would be going in and out of their district headquarters building constantly. I could not risk going there now. I would have to wait until about 6:00 PM, when everyone went home for the day.

I had to kill some time. I walked the streets of Berlin, going nowhere in particular. My new life as a “U-boat” was simultaneously nerve-racking and boring.

What do homeless Berliners do? I wondered. Were there homeless people here? There must be, I thought to myself. But one never saw them. There was no such thing as a bum lying on the sidewalk; the Berlin police would never have allowed it. Perhaps there were shelters set up for those who were less fortunate? I didn’t know, but I could never go there in any case. They would ask for identification papers and that would be the end of me.

After hours of seemingly endless roaming, 6:00 PM came. At last it was time to make my way toward 3 Lorenzstrasse and the Lebrechts.

When I first caught sight of the building, I was immediately impressed by the workmanship. It was quite grand, made of gray, weathered stone with rows of windows on every floor. Wide stone steps with stone rails led up to the fancy wooden doors. The doors were about ten feet high with ornamental leaded glass. And of course, the obligatory Nazi flag hung from a flagpole attached at an angle to the building. It seemed monstrous. Not a very welcoming sight.

I waited across the street from the building for quite a while as people poured out at the end of the workday. I tried to look natural, tying my shoes, looking around as if I were waiting for a friend. It is amazing how awkward and self-conscious one can feel standing alone with nothing to do.

I waited a few minutes to make sure that no one else came out. Finally the building seemed empty of occupants. Wasting no time, I crossed the street and ran up those grand steps into the building. Nothing had been locked. I found a set of stairs going down into the basement, at the end of which was a door. I was sure this must be the entrance to the Lebrechts’ apartment.

I took a deep breath, knocked on the door, and waited.

“Who is there?” a female voice, presumably Mrs. Lebrecht, called out.

“It’s Dagobert Lewin,” I responded.

“Who?” she asked.

“Dagobert Lewin.”

A moment passed in silence. Then all of a sudden, the door was flung open. Mrs. Lebrecht was there before me and literally yanked me into the apartment, almost slamming the door behind her. As I looked around, there seemed to be no one there but her.

No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than Heinz, Horst, and their father, Leo, appeared. I was thrilled to see Horst and Heinz alive and unharmed.

“Dagobert! My friend! What a surprise to see you!” said Heinz. “How are you?”

“What brings you here?” Horst asked.

“Well,” I began, “I’m all right, but I’ve also been better. As you might guess, I’m illegal now. A U-boat.”

“Yes, yes,” Heinz replied. “A U-boat. Just like us. You hide underground and only surface once in a while.”

“And what have you been doing?” Horst wanted to know. “Where have you been?”

“Well,” I began, but then I looked around and decided that it would probably be a good idea if we got more comfortable. I wanted them to feel relaxed when they heard my plea. Jenny Lebrecht must have read the look on my face, because she lost no time in suggesting that we all sit down. I gladly obliged.

“On the day of the factory action, after I was warned not to go to the gun factory, I made my way to the Jewish hospital to tell Ilse what had happened. She went and got Klaus while I tried to find a place for us to hide.”

“Klaus? Ilse?” Jenny asked.

Apparently the Lebrecht boys hadn’t told their parents about my marriage, so I proceeded to fill them in on my new life as a husband and father.

“And where are they now?” Jenny inquired.

“I’ll get to that in a moment,” I responded. I cleared my throat and then continued. I told them all about living with Braun, about the dirt and the stench and how he urinated all over the floor.

“How disgusting!” Jenny exclaimed.

“Yes, yes, it was,” I responded. Then I told them about how the neighbors had complained, how the police had come and we’d barely been able to keep Klaus quiet. Lastly, I told them about the Kusitzkys and how nice they were, but how afraid I was of staying in one place for too long.

“So that is why I am now back here in Berlin,” I said.

“And Ilse and Klaus?” Leo asked. “Where are they?”

“They are still in Lübars at the Kusitzkys’,” I replied. “Ilse wasn’t ready to leave Klaus yet.”

“Uh-huh,” Leo said. Then he got to the question that most concerned me. “So where are you staying in Berlin, Dagobert?”

I paused and looked around. A lot rode on the next minute or two and I was very nervous. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, that is something of a problem. You see, I don’t have anywhere to stay. I really have nowhere to go. I was hoping that you might allow me to stay with you until I could find another place.”

Leo and Jenny both frowned as they looked at each other. They turned and looked at their sons, both of whom had nervous looks on their faces as well. All four of them kept glancing at each other. The trouble was, no one would look at me.

“I was hoping that you might be able to give me some suggestions as to what to do. I really do not know where else to turn,” I almost begged.

Still no one spoke. Then I heard Leo sigh. He had stopped looking at his wife and sons and had fixed his attention on a blank spot on the wall. Finally, he turned to me with sad eyes.

“Dagobert,” he began, “I wish we could help you, but we can’t. It is just too dangerous. We can’t risk having someone other than Jenny go in and out of this apartment. Her Nazi employers think she lives here alone. They do not know and cannot know that Heinz, Horst, and I are here as well. It would look far too strange to have a young man traipsing in and out of here.”

His words struck me like a blow from a club, instantly throwing me into a state of deep despair.

Leo continued, “Since you are already here, I suppose it will be all right for you to stay with us tonight. But unfortunately, we must ask you to leave early tomorrow morning, before the Nazi offices fill with workers. And we must ask you not to return. I know it seems cold of us, and I feel awful about it. But there just is not enough food for all of us here. We are already all living off black market rations and the little Jenny can salvage from the Nazi offices.”

“But I could get money to pay you,” I interrupted, pleading. “I could get money and ration cards so that there would be more food for everyone.”

Leo and the rest of his family looked dejected. “No, Dagobert,” he said, “that will not work. As I said, the greatest problem would be for you to be seen walking in and out of here. It is too great a risk. It would look too suspicious to have a young man visiting an older woman who is supposed to have no family. We cannot have it.”

My face fell as disappointment and fear sunk in. I had nowhere to go! What was I going to do?

Jenny put her hand on my shoulder, “Dagobert, I am so sorry. We all are. We would love to be able to help you, but it just isn’t realistic. Forget about the problem of you being seen. Forget about the food issue. Just the fact that our tiny apartment is right below the Nazi offices makes it very, very dangerous for us. The boys and my husband must be totally silent day and night. No one can ever hear them! No one can ever suspect that they are here. Any noise could create suspicion that might mean the end of all of us.”

Leo interjected, “I am so sorry that we cannot be the generous people we were before the war. We deeply regret not being able to help you. If there was any way that we could help, we surely would.” He paused, and then continued, “Besides, Dagobert, you are a very clever young man. Our sons have told us of your creative escapades with them. You are a survivor. You will find a solution.”

His last note of confidence did little to boost my outlook. It was hard to feel optimistic when I had no idea what I should do next. I had only one night of security. Come tomorrow morning, I would be homeless and alone. And while Leo’s comments about my cleverness were flattering, I could not help but remember that the SS transports were full of clever people who nevertheless were headed east toward an unknown fate.