June 2006
Englewood, New Jersey
“He was responsible for the death of my aunt Claudia and dozens of our neighbors,” Mama murmurs. Her eyes are bright with tears.
My mother has shared the details of her suffering for nearly an hour in a halting voice that made me weep. At times, she spoke in little more than a whisper. At others, she couldn’t look me in the eye. As I listened, and as my horror grew, it took all my strength to keep from interrupting—to just let her get the words out and hold her trembling hand.
Why was Badensburg targeted? I’m afraid to press my mother with this question. The space between us is still too heavy with grief. And my heart aches, both for the girl who lost everything at the hands of monsters, and the woman who has borne that pain alone for nearly seventy years. She’s kept these secrets, her deepest pain, from me my entire life. How lonely she must have been.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry.” She closes her eyes when I cup her cheek, then leans into my palm. “Do you need to rest? Should we stop now?”
She shakes her head immediately. “No. No, I want to continue. I only need a minute.”
This openness, her willingness to talk about her history, is something I’ve longed for all my life. It terrifies me now.
Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, I ease us back against the sofa cushions and run my fingers through her hair. She relaxes with a sigh, lays her head against mine.
My mother has never let me hold her like this. In all my life, I can’t remember a single time when she allowed me to offer comfort. There have been so many walls between us. Perhaps I’ve never really known her at all.
The realization breaks me all over again.
“You were brave,” I whisper, letting the tears fall. “Braver than anyone I know.”
She snorts, a small, welcome sign of feistiness. “I was too stubborn to let Gud win. The man is long dead and buried by now.”
And burning in hell, if there’s any justice. Rage hits, and I hold her tighter, every muscle in my body taut, readying for a fight against an invisible opponent. But anger won’t help. I concentrate on breathing instead, and on her hair, which smells of lavender shampoo.
Taking my hand, she threads our fingers together. “Once I tell you everything, you’ll understand. You’ll know why I could never speak about the past.”
“But I do understand. You were brutalized. You lost your family—”
“No, Katchen. There’s more to it than that. Much more.” She takes a deep breath. “When we came to America, I knew if I worked hard, if I was patient, we could make a life here. But I had to let go of Germany first. There was no other way to survive.” She pins me with the intensity of her gaze. “And it wasn’t easy being German in this country after the war.”
Kraut. Filthy Nazi. Murderer. How often had I run home crying after being called those names? Too many. Children are cruel, but they learn from their parents. Plenty of adults hurled the same slurs at us in the market. My mother’s thick German accent had drawn out every bigot in Englewood, like pastry crumbs lure cockroaches out of the dark.
“I remember.”
“I wanted you to grow up with every opportunity. That meant speaking and living, even thinking like an American. I forced us to turn our backs on Germany. There was nothing, nothing, good left in that country.”
There’s more to be said, much more. It’s in her eyes, her hesitation and careful wording.
Heaving another sigh, she points our joined hands at the box, lying in wait on the coffee table. “I’m sure you have many questions.”
Everything she’s shared, and every item in that box, raises questions. Why did she keep our Jewish heritage from me? What happened to Albert? Who the hell is my father?
I want to ask them all. But the pain in her eyes, the trembling compression of lips, reminds me to slow down. My mother has kept these secrets for more than sixty years. She needs to tell her truth her way, and in her own time.
“Just tell me what happened next, Mama. Where did Gud take you?”
Mother grabs the box, takes out a postcard, and hands it to me. On the front is a photo of a building that looks like a school or a hospital. The back reads Die Mutter-häuser des Lebensborn.
“Gud took me to Hochland Home in Steinhöring, not far from Munich. It was a Lebensborn home. One of the Reich’s most heinous secrets.”
My stomach clenches at the thought of what that could mean, but I’m too afraid to ask. So once again, I wait.
“It was a baby factory.”