Summer 2010
Englewood Cemetery
Englewood, New Jersey
The sun is warm on my face this morning, but the grass is blissful, damp and cool. It tickles my toes through low summer sandals as I take my favorite path to Mother’s grave, wandering through rows of stately oak trees and past markers worn smooth from decades of rain and snow.
This cemetery is beautiful in summer, abloom with life along an expanse of land that’s dedicated to remembering the dead. Each gravestone marks a family’s love but tells little of its loss and struggle. God knows how many secrets have gone to these graves. I’m lucky my mother shared hers before she left this earth.
I had her with me three more years, and for that I am grateful.
My mother died on a brisk October morning. We’d spoken the night before and planned a day in the kitchen making meatballs and spaetzle. When there was no answer at the door, I thought she was in the garden and used my key. There was only stillness in the house, a queer emptiness that made me realize what had happened before I entered her bedroom.
Her eyes were closed and her face was peaceful. A soft smile graced her lips. I think my father must have come for her in her dreams.
I kneel at her grave, taking a moment to touch Adele’s gold locket at my neck before tracing the engraved letters on my mother’s headstone.
ALLINA STRAUSS
JULY 14, 1920–OCTOBER 7, 2009
BELOVED MOTHER AND WIFE
It’s a simple marker for a woman who lived an extraordinary life. My cheeks are wet as I place the bouquet of sunflowers at the stone’s base.
I made peace with my mother late in life, and it changed me in ways I’m still learning to understand. Secrets kept us apart for decades. Truth brought us back together in the space of a day. And the easy affection between us the last few years of her life was a gift I’d craved all of mine. We spent hours dancing to Mimi Thoma and Rudi Schuricke, and weekends in the kitchen with her aunt Claudia’s favorite recipes. And she taught me German, slowly, patiently, so I could read my grandfather’s words and the love letters my father sent almost seventy years ago.
At my gentle urging, we even attended Shabbat services now and again, to pray the way my grandmother and great-grandmother did. We were greeted with open arms each time, and my mother let me hold her hand and wipe her tears while she cried. She found friends there, too, ones who understood her journey better than I could. I’m so grateful for that. She blossomed like sunflowers do in springtime.
My mother was a Hochland Home nurse. She served at the heart of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program even as she defied it, and managed to save dozens of children from medical experiments and extermination. Thousands of children were birthed in similar homes across Europe—all raised to believe they were members of a master race and then abandoned once the war was over.
For decades, the truth was veiled in secrecy. But there are whispers today from some of those children who are now my age and brave enough to tell their own stories. Tales of ostracization and shame, of depression, and the long, hard struggle to reconcile with the past.
Today, George and I will go to my mother’s house and continue sifting through her things. We’ll choose the items we want to keep and those we’ll give away. I’ll press my face to her clothes and remember. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch one last lemony whiff of Jean Naté.
The girls are flying down next week to help us ready her house to sell. But first we’ll be making some serious strudel. Strauss women are excellent bakers and I’ve finally mastered Mama’s recipe.
When they ask about their grandparents, I’ll retell every story. We’ll shed tears over my mother’s bravery and persistence, and how much she and Karl loved each other. The girls always marvel at the people their grandparents saved and the sacrifices made so I could have a chance at a decent life.
I’ve told my children everything—harsh and sweet, magnificent and painful, ugly and beautiful—because I’m done with secrets and the shadows they cast. Secrets can’t exist in the light of truth, and while the truth can be painful to hear, its lasting gift is peace. I know this is true, because my mother taught it to me.
I place the smooth white stone I took from her garden onto her marker. Then I make the sign of the cross, kissing my fingertips at the end to send a prayer heavenward.
And walk home smiling.