Life was very difficult for Ruth and her family over the summer months. The first disaster was that Ruth lost her job at the haberdashery. She met Frau Merkle, the proprietor, at the door of the shop one morning sticking a notice to the window. No Jews.
Looking a little flustered, Frau Merkle said, “Ah, Frau Friedman. Please come inside for a moment.”
For a moment? Ruth had come to work her normal nine-hour day. She followed Frau Merkle into the shop, and almost as if the act could stave off what the woman was going to say, began to remove her coat and hat. Frau Merkle went to the till behind the counter and took out some money. Turning, she thrust it towards Ruth.
“This is what you are owed, up to last night. I’m not able to employ you anymore. Trade is falling off, and it is clearly because there is a Jew behind the counter.” The woman lifted her chin defiantly. “Understandably, no one wants to be served by a Jew.”
Ruth stared at the proffered money for a moment, before reaching out to take it. The old Ruth longed to tear it in two and fling it back into her employer’s face, but the new, wiser Ruth knew that those few notes were all that stood between her children and hunger. As she took the money, her fingers touched Frau Merkle’s and the other woman, withdrawing her hand, wiped it on her skirt, as if to remove the touch of Jewish flesh.
Without a word Ruth turned on her heel and went to the door, with Frau Merkle’s parting salvo ringing in her ears. “Ungrateful Jewish bitch! I didn’t have to pay you!”
“What are we going to do now, Mother?” Ruth asked when she had told Helga what had happened. “We’ve enough money for a week’s rent and a little food! The miserable cow didn’t even pay me a full week’s wages, let alone a week’s notice!”
“We’ll manage somehow,” replied her mother, imbuing her voice with far more optimism than she actually felt. “We’ll think of something.”
They discussed the situation long into the night and decided that Ruth must approach all the Jewish businesses still operating in the area and try to find work with one of them.
“But there aren’t many,” Ruth said, “and they’re all family businesses, so any jobs go to the family. They’re all fighting for survival.”
“I know,” agreed her mother, “there was an SS soldier outside Liebermann’s yesterday. He was stopping any non-Jews from going in to shop. There were a few of their old customers who tried, but the SS man turned them away and called them ‘Christian pigs!’ When I went in poor Frau Liebermann was in tears.”
Ruth set out next morning and visited every Jewish shop in the area, but they all turned her away, and Ruth couldn’t blame them.
It was Helga who had the idea. “Why don’t you go to the girls’ school,” she suggested. “I know it’s school holidays now, but there might be something.”
Ruth went to the school the very next day, to ask Herr Hoffman, the Jewish head, if there was any work available.
Herr Hoffman recognised her as a parent of two of his pupils, and saw the desperation in her eyes even as she said calmly, “I’d be happy to do anything round the school. I’m not afraid of hard work, Herr Hoffman.”
He smiled at her. “I’m sure you’re not, Frau Friedman,” he replied. He thought for a moment and then said, “We could do with a temporary cleaner. The whole school has to be scrubbed from top to bottom and the classrooms repainted before the children come back in the autumn. But it wouldn’t be permanent, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll do it,” said Ruth. “The cleaning and the painting, too.”
Herr Hoffman looked doubtful. “The painting is quite a big job,” he said.
“I painted our shop last spring,” Ruth told him. “I can do it. Please, Herr Hoffman, I’m a good worker, and I need the work.”
Herr Hoffman saw the determination in her eyes and smiled. “I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job,” he said.
They agreed a wage, much less than she’d been earning at the haberdashery.
“But at least we’ve got some money coming in,” she said to Helga, “and it’s several weeks’ work.”
It was hard work, but Ruth found it very satisfying, seeing the dreary classrooms bright with new paint. At the end of each day she could see the progress of her work, but each day brought her nearer to its completion.
Once again she found herself tramping the streets, further afield this time, looking for Jewish-owned businesses, but so many had been “Aryanised”, their Jewish proprietors simply pushed aside or made to sell out for a pittance, that there was no work to be had there.
She even went back to Frau Liebermann at the little grocery shop, pointing out that she used to run a grocery herself and was familiar with what was needed, but yet again she was disappointed.
“You’re wasting your time,” Frau Liebermann told her. “We shall have to close down soon. Twice our shelves have been raided by gangs of youths and though we called the police, they stood by and did nothing.”
During the hot days of the summer, things in Vienna had calmed down a little, and Helga, along with so many other Jews, began to think that perhaps the worst was over. Ruth was nothing like as optimistic. So many things were closed to Jews now, cinemas, swimming pools, theatre and opera house, the parks and gardens, even the benches along the tree-lined boulevards were for Aryan use only.
As the weeks passed, more anti-Jewish directives were announced, all of them designed to oppress the Jews in every aspect of their lives. Oppression and exploitation were the weapons of choice for the everyday anti-Semitic Austrian; the true Nazis had something far more sinister in mind.
Many wealthy Jews, those with enough money to buy their way out as had David and Edith, were fleeing the country, leaving the poorer Jews to their fate. Ruth didn’t blame them. Goodness knows, she thought, if I had the chance to get my family out there would be no stopping me.
She went to the Jewish Community Office, queuing for hours before she was able to see anyone, and although the man she finally met was sympathetic, he pointed out that there were hundreds of others in the same situation or even worse.
“At least you have a roof over your head,” he said. “Lots of families have been turned onto the street with nowhere to go.”
However, he agreed to take her name and the names and ages of her family, wrote down their address and promised to contact her if there was anything else he could do for her.
“There is a fund,” he said, “which we’re building up to help families like yours to emigrate, but it isn’t just a question of money, you know; there are all sorts of documents and certificates required if you are to leave. All this takes time, and we have to work with Herr Eichmann’s Central Office of Jewish Emigration.”
“I thought they wanted us to leave,” Ruth said bitterly. “That’s what Goering said back in March. Vienna, a Jew-free city!”
The young man shrugged. “They do,” he said, “but only if we pay a fortune for going and leave everything else behind.” He gave her a few Reichmarks, and told her that her family’s wish to emigrate had been noted.
It was the very next day that the letter arrived, addressed in Kurt’s handwriting… and it had English stamps. Ruth could hardly believe it. With shaking hands she slit open the envelope and drew out the letter, in which was wrapped a large, white, English five-pound note. Ruth stared at both the letter and the banknote through eyes flooded with tears. Kurt was safe… in England. She dashed the tears aside and began to read.
My darling Ruth,
I am here in London, staying a few days with my friend James Daniel. I had a smooth crossing and am now setting about my business. You can write to me at the above address and even if I have moved somewhere else, the letter will find me.
I think about you and the children every day and hope that things are not too awful. I loved the letters from the girls and the pictures the twins drew for me, and I carry them with me always.
I am hoping to start a new job here in the near future, but there are things that need to be sorted out before I can take up my post. James is being very helpful about it all, he has found me a job as a manservant with a family living in a place called Hampstead. It is in London, but there is a wide, open heath here, with trees and grass and lovely views, so there are times when it will feel like living in the country. Once I am settled I can work on your arrangements. Each of you will need a sponsor, so it may take some time to organise, but I will spend every waking hour trying to find people willing to act as such.
My darling, it is almost a year since I saw you all, but I carry the photo you sent me next to my heart. Give my respects to your mother, kiss the children for me and know that I love you, forever and always.
Kurt
Ruth read the letter over and over. He was safe. He was going to have a job. He was going to get them out.
The money from the Jewish Community Office and the five-pound note would help tide them over for a little while, but Ruth knew she desperately needed to find work. Day after day she trudged the streets, but there were too many others, thrown out of their jobs; doctors and lawyers no longer allowed to practise, teachers banned from schools, professors from the university, all searching for work, no matter how menial.
Ruth was coming home despondently yet again, when a young man came hurrying round a corner and cannoned straight into her, almost knocking her over.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said, putting out a hand to steady her. Ruth looked up to respond to his apology and found herself looking into the cheerful face of Peter, the student she had met in the Heldenplatz on that fateful day in March. She recognised him at once, the cheerful young man who had helped her up onto the statue, the young man who had clapped and cheered and waved his hat at the sight of the Führer, who had said that the Anschluss was a great day for Austria… who was going to be a lawyer and approved of Hitler’s laws.
“Wait a minute, don’t I know you?” Peter demanded. “Yes, I do. Now don’t tell me… Helga Heber. Am I right or am I right? I never forget a face. Remember me? Peter Walder?”
Ruth almost denied remembering him, but knew it would be stupid as he so clearly remembered her, so she managed to conjure up a smile and say, “Yes, I remember. A law student.”
“Not a student anymore,” Peter said proudly. “I’ve graduated. I’m working for my uncle in his law firm. I’m a real lawyer now!”
“Congratulations,” Ruth said faintly, not knowing what else to say in the face of the young man’s enthusiasm.
“Your son is called Peter, too, isn’t he?” Peter Walder went on, clearly delighted with having remembered this piece of information too. “How is he liking our brave new Austria?”
For a moment Ruth was at a loss for an answer to this, but then she said, “He’s only just turned four, he doesn’t realise what has happened.”
Peter grinned. “Yes, well I suppose four is a bit young. But what does your husband think?”
“My husband is away… on business,” replied Ruth, but this time Peter Walder picked up on her hesitation, and, still holding her arm, scrutinised her more carefully.
“Is he now? Where is he? What does he do?”
Becoming entangled now in her web of lies, Ruth said, “He works for a jeweller… he’s gone abroad… to buy…”
Peter Walder’s expression changed. He seemed to take in, for the first time, the worn state of her clothes, the gauntness of her face, the thinness of her body. He looked her up and down and said, “He’s a Jew, isn’t he?”
When Ruth didn’t answer, he gave her a shake. “Isn’t he?”
Ruth still did not reply and he said, “And so are you! Aren’t I right, Helga Heber?” He peered into her face for confirmation and then said, “So, he’s gone. But why didn’t you go with him? You and little Peter? Austria’s no place for any of you anymore.”
“I have other children,” replied Ruth at last. “We couldn’t all go.”
“So he skipped and left you!” Heavy sarcasm. “What a brave man!”
“It’s not like that,” Ruth asserted angrily. “He was able to go. We need sponsors from abroad. He went to find them.”
“And in the meantime…”
Ruth’s shoulders sagged suddenly. “In the meantime, I’m trying to find work to put food on the table, but as I’m sure you know, no one wants to employ a Jew anymore.”
“Well, Helga…”
“Ruth, my name is Ruth.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “I see. Well, Ruth, what work can you do?”
“I can do anything that will feed my family,” Ruth replied.
“What on earth were you doing in the Heldenplatz that day?” demanded Peter, suddenly changing the subject. “What the hell were you doing at a Hitler rally?”
“I was on my way to work and I was swept there by the crowd,” answered Ruth. “It was go with the crowd or get trampled underfoot.”
“Hmm, yes, it was a seething mass, wasn’t it?” He gave a shout of laughter. “How ironic! How funny! A Jew at the Anschluss rally!” His face clouded for a moment. “Well, not funny for you, I suppose.” He thought for a moment and then said, “And now you need a job. What can you do, I wonder?”
“I told you, I can do anything that will feed my family.” Ruth tried to pull away from the hand that was restraining her, but his grip tightened.
“Come on,” he said, and turning, he set off down the street, pulling Ruth along behind him.
“Where are we going?” she cried, trying to break free. “Let me go!”
“We’re going to find you a job,” he snapped, “so just be quiet. People are staring at you.”
A job? Ruth followed the young man more meekly now, though he still had a firm hold of her wrist and she doubted if she could have broken away if she’d wanted to. He led her through the streets, and stopped eventually in front of an elegant apartment block. Four stories tall, with an arched portico, it was similar, Ruth thought, as he pushed her in through the door, to the one where David Bernstein’s parents had lived. He opened a door on the first floor and led her into a spacious apartment. It was fully furnished with heavy furniture, long silk curtains, plush rugs on the polished floors, ornaments in glass-fronted cases, books on the bookshelves.
“My mother’s coming to live here,” Peter Walder said. “But it needs spring cleaning first. The previous owners – ” he hesitated, “ – have gone.” He took her into the kitchen. “The whole place needs airing,” he said. “Every inch of this needs to be scrubbed.” The faintest aroma of food lingered in the air, a familiar breath of spices that Ruth recognised at once. Now she knew for certain. This had been a Jewish kitchen.
“And the bathroom, of course” – Peter led her further along the passage – “has to be totally refurbished.” Ruth stared into what had been the bathroom, now completely gutted, no bath, lavatory or basin. “They’re fitting the new bath and things tomorrow,” he said, “and then the floor must be scrubbed, the walls washed and the tiles polished.” He took her through the whole apartment, telling her what had to be done in each room. “And when you have cleaned it,” he said, “I will pay you.”
“How much?” whispered Ruth, staring round the huge apartment, recognising how much there was to do.
“Enough, but you’ll have to trust me for that, won’t you?” His face broke into its cheerful grin. “Don’t worry, Ruth, I won’t let little Peter starve. You’ve a week to get this place habitable, and, who knows, if you’re any good, my mother might just keep you on.”
“A new bathroom, Mother, simply because Jewish bottoms had sat on the lavatory!” exclaimed Ruth as she told her mother later that evening all about her encounter with Peter Walder. “Can you believe that?”
“Just be grateful for the work,” Helga said, wearily.
“Oh, I am, believe me I am,” replied Ruth. “It’s just that he’s such a strange mixture. One minute revelling in the new Austria, and the next finding work for a Jew… when he clearly doesn’t like us.”
“Don’t question his motives,” advised her mother, “just take the work on offer.”
Ruth spent the next seven days at the Walders’ apartment. She scrubbed floors, polished furniture, cleaned windows, washed curtains, beat rugs, swept and dusted. Many of the ornaments she cleaned were clearly valuable, and she wondered which wealthy Jewish family had lived there and had had to leave all their treasured belongings behind. Clothes still hung in the wardrobes, and when she asked Peter Walder what she was to do with them he said they were to be burned.
When he saw her reaction to this, he said, with a sort of casual generosity, “You can have them if you want them, just get them out of the place.”
The next day Ruth took their two suitcases over to the apartment and filled them with as many of the clothes as she could. She carried them home to Helga, who marvelled at the quality.
“These are beautiful,” she said, feeling the softness of a cashmere jumper, admiring the cut of a dark blue winter coat. “Imagine just leaving all these behind.”
“They had to leave everything behind, Mutti,” Ruth said sadly. “Not just their clothes. Everything.”
They selected a new coat each, a skirt and blouse, some underclothes and a warm jumper.
“It’s a pity there are no children’s things,” Helga sighed as she sorted through the rest of the clothes.
“But we can sell all these,” Ruth pointed out, “and then get some winter clothes for the children with the money.”
By the end of the week, the work on the apartment was finished. The new bathroom was fitted, and the whole place smelled of beeswax and lemon. Peter Walder came to inspect what she had done, and then, keeping his word, paid her. It was little enough, but Ruth pocketed the money gratefully. Another week’s rent and a little over for food. With the money she had made from the sale of the remaining clothes, she knew that she and her family would eat for another couple of weeks.
Frau Walder moved into the apartment and sent for Ruth. She was a grossly fat woman, but her grey hair was expensively coiffed, and her jowls heavily made up. She had a small pug nose, and small eyes that peered out at the world through folds of flesh. They studied Ruth now, assessing her, faintly contemptuous.
“My son tells me that you are a good worker,” she said. “I shall have my maid, of course, and a cook, but I’ll need someone to do the rough work. Be here each day at six-thirty in the morning, and you’ll be told what to do.”
Ruth thanked her and promised to be there at half-past six the next day. With the new Jewish curfew ending at six in the morning, she knew she could just get there in time. There had been no mention of pay.
“But her son paid me,” Ruth said to Helga, “so I have to trust her, too.”
With the small amount of money Frau Walder paid and the occasional pound note in Kurt’s letters, they survived; September slid into October, and the weather grew chilly. The girls had gone back to school, and found it crowded with new pupils; children expelled from the state schools, no longer allowed into mainstream education. The classrooms were crammed with children, the teachers struggling to teach so many and the parents continually worried about them. How long would it be, they wondered, before even the Jewish schools were closed?
Many Jews, forcibly ejected from their homes, had been forced to move into the increasingly overcrowded Jewish areas, Leopoldstadt and Brigittenau, working-class districts on the island between the Danube and the Danube Canal. There was nothing like enough accommodation and still they crowded in, many living several families in an apartment too small for even one. Rumour was rife; rumour fuelling fear, fear fuelling rumour. And always new directives to be complied with; everyone scrambled to comply… obey the rules and you might be safe, but there was no certainty. No certainty about anything. No prospects for a Jewish child.
There was no question of university for any Jew now, nor entry into the professions, and many of the older children left school immediately. The Jewish Community Office organised practical courses, training plumbers, mechanics, electricians, trying to equip young Jews with skills still needed in Vienna, skills that might make them “useful Jews”, offering slight protection, and providing them with a trade should they ever have the chance to emigrate.
More directives were announced; all Jews must disclose their wealth and assets, Jewish firms must register with the authorities, all males over fifteen must apply for an identity card, the addition of Sarah or Israel as middle names for every Jew. All Jewish ration cards and passports must be stamped with the letter J.
Ruth had to take her passport and all their ration cards to be stamped with a large red J, and again she, like hundreds of others, had to queue for hours, simply to comply with this new directive.
As the autumn went on there were more arrests and skirmishes. Jews began to disappear again, and the fear that had eased a little during the quieter, summer months returned again, escalating to panic in many quarters. Although most of the borders had been closed and few countries were still prepared to take refugee Jews, the desperate wish, the desperate need, to leave the country drove hundreds to queue for hours outside the foreign embassies and consulates in the vain hope of getting visas or permits to enter their countries. Even though Ruth knew that Kurt was doing everything he could to bring the family to England, she queued outside the French and Belgian consulates, the American and Swiss. At each her name was taken, her family noted and absolutely no hope was given of a visa to travel. She knew the wait had been in vain, but she still felt that she had to do it.
“Supposing there was even the slightest chance, Mother,” she said to Helga. “Supposing just one place said yes, they had a place for us.”
“We’re too many,” Helga said. “You shouldn’t even mention me.”
“I’m not likely to leave you behind, Mutti,” Ruth chided her gently.
“Well, you may have to,” replied her mother. “It is you and the children who need to get away most. They have their lives before them, mine is almost over.”
“Mutti, don’t say such things,” cried Ruth.
“Even if things were following their natural course I’ve only a few years left,” said Helga. “The children are the future. I thought that maybe the worst was over, that things were settling down a bit, but they’ve been getting bad again these last weeks. I know Kurt is doing his best, but you’re right to explore every avenue.”
Helga was right, too, things were getting worse. Several times recently there had been fights on a Friday night, when the brave souls who ventured out to go to the synagogue were attacked by young Nazis lying in wait for them on the way home. Old men were beaten up by bands of thugs, who attacked them with impunity, while others cowered in their homes, their doors locked and their windows closed to the cries for help and the shouts of glee from the streets outside. Jews were being arrested, disappearing off the streets, simply not coming home one evening. Several of the men who shared their courtyard had just vanished, leaving their distraught wives trying to discover what had happened to them and where they had been taken; trying to provide for the families left behind.
Once again fear stalked the streets. If it were a Jew who was attacked, the police made no move to intervene, they simply stood aside and watched the violence taking place, walking away from the battered body left in the gutter. More and more Ruth kept the children at home, only allowing them out to go to school with Helga. Not that Helga, she knew, could do much to protect them if they were set upon by one of the bands of young Nazi thugs that had taken to roaming the streets.
Monday 31st October 1938
We had another letter from Papa, yesterday. He is working as a servant in London. He says the house is very large and the people who live there entertain a lot, so he’s always busy. He has to clean the silver. He says it’s the forks that are the most difficult because the silver cleaner gets between the prongs. I can’t picture Papa cleaning silver. I can’t picture Papa at all anymore. It’s funny because I know what he looks like, only I can’t see his face in my mind. I talked to the twins about him yesterday when the letter came, but they weren’t interested to hear about him. I don’t think they remember him at all.
Oma is very tired today. She keeps falling asleep when she’s supposed to be looking after the boys. I know she can’t help it because she’s very old, nearly seventy I think, but the boys are so naughty, she needs to stay awake.
Mutti says Papa is trying to find people who will help us go to London to live with him. It would be an adventure to go, but only if we all went. How would we manage, we don’t speak English?
I have a new friend at school. She is called Sonja Rosen. Her papa is a dentist. He is only allowed to look at Jews’ teeth now, but he hasn’t got anywhere for his surgery. They have had to move out of their nice house and now they live across the courtyard from us. We always walk to school together. Her mother takes me and Inge too, so Oma doesn’t have to. Mutti doesn’t like her taking the boys out.
Ruth got to know the Rosen family quite well, and it was a relief when Anna Rosen offered to see Laura and Inge to school each day. Daniel Rosen was no longer allowed to practise as a dentist except on Jewish patients, but, when forced to leave their home, he had also been forced to leave most of his equipment in the room he had used as his surgery. He still looked at people’s teeth if they had toothache, but there was little he could do to help them, and most of the time he worked as a street cleaner. Anna couldn’t find any work at all.
Ruth knew that she was one of the few lucky ones, with a regular job to go to. Frau Walder did not need her all day, just to do the rough work first thing in the morning, but Ruth had soon slipped into a routine, and although the work was heavy, she never complained; it put food on her table.
Every night she prayed that Kurt would write and say he had found sponsors for them, every morning she woke to face another day of uncertainty and fear.