Who believes in angels?
Not me,
not Eva,
not really.
But maybe we should,
for we need them
to take us out of Germany.
That is what everyone talks about—
leaving Germany.
Going to America,
Holland, Belgium, Switzerland,
Argentina, Africa—even China!
Father used to say,
Things will get better.
He doesn’t say that anymore.
Last month, the Nazis said
all Jews from Russia
must leave Germany.
This month, the Nazis marched
into Austria,
and now it’s part of Germany.
Father and Mother talk
about what is happening
to Jews in Austria—
Nazis looting their belongings,
putting Jews in jail,
sending some away to Dachau,
a “concentration camp” in the south of Germany.
(I don’t really know what a concentration camp is,
but I do know it’s not a place you’d want to go.)
For fun, the Nazis in Austria force old Jews—
Jews who are grandmothers and grandfathers—
to scrub streets and windows
while crowds of people watch and laugh.
What next?
my parents wonder.
Lying on the couch
in our beautiful living room,
I put a feather pillow over my head
so I don’t hear the answer,
and I think of Eva’s angels.
First, the angel of love—
but I can’t help hearing
what Father is saying.
Today he got a letter
from his brother in Detroit.
Father asked him to help us
come to America,
and his brother said,
“Yes! Come to America!
Come to Detroit and I will help you!
Like I am helping Uncle Max and Aunt Alice.
But leave your wife and children behind.
You can send for them later,
once you have earned money to pay for them.
I can’t help everyone at once, after all.”
“Never!” my father says.
“Never will I leave you, Rose!
Never will I leave the girls behind.
Our home, yes.
Our car, yes.
But not my family.
Not for one day.”
I squeeze the pillow tighter around my ears.
I try to think about the angel of luck,
because I have learned how much luck
it will take for us to leave Germany.
I never knew how hard it was,
how you need permission
from so many people.
Permission from your relatives in America,
who must send a special letter,
called an affidavit,
promising the American officials
that they have enough money
to take care of you
if you can’t take care of yourself.
Permission from American officials,
who must agree to give you an immigrant visa,
a special invitation to live in their country.
Permission from German officials,
who should be happy to give it,
since we know they don’t want us here.
To get so many permissions,
plus tickets for a train or a ship or both,
it seems only an angel of luck
can make it happen—
an angel, plus Father’s constant letter-writing
and planning and worrying.
Tomorrow he will write to another
relative in America,
a relative he hopes won’t tell him
to leave us behind.
I am not even sure
I want us to get so lucky.
I can’t play in the street anymore,
but I can still go to
the Bar Kochba Gymnastics Club—
how my vault is improving!
And I love my home,
with this couch in the living room,
where I can hear, or not hear, my parents;
with its big kitchen and, next to it,
a pantry with a window,
where I have sat so many times,
eating bread with butter,
slice after slice,
looking out at my street,
at the people walking by,
my friends,
and now, too, the German boys
in their proud brown uniforms.
What do I care about
those Hitler Youth boys
when I can still see movies?
The Waterloo Theatre doesn’t care
if you’re Jewish,
so I see every movie they show.
But it is not up to me
whether we get lucky or not,
whether we stay here or leave our home.
So I think about Eva’s third angel,
the angel of happiness.
I hope that she—
is an angel a she or a he?—
will find me,
wherever I end up.