Life’s a Scream

The post-war government had assigned our house to the Totenhoefer family. They warmly put aside the worries that must have surfaced with our arrival and took great care of us. I was immediately given a cup of hot chocolate, which I thought was the most amazing drink I had ever had, my grubby clothes were removed and I was plonked into a hot bath and after that into a massive feather bed. Mama also had a bath and then crawled into bed with me. I fell asleep thinking of all the wonderful things that would happen now that we were ‘home’.

All the way from Poland Matka had told me that Papa would be waiting for us at home. In her mind I think she had nurtured an image of my father opening the front door, sweeping us into his arms and heralding an end to our troubles. But Papa wasn’t here. Mascha sat around for days, overwhelmed by exhaustion and disappointment.

The Totenhoefers were wonderful. Here they were, probably about to be dispossessed, but they showed understanding above and beyond the call of self-interest. Mrs Totenhoefer watched my mother for days, not wanting to intrude. Then she asked to have a heart to heart with her. Whatever she said worked. Once more my mother started bustling around, taking an interest in things and making plans.

Matka was at first reluctant to go to Papa’s relatives. The rift between my father and his family, which started when, widowed, he married his second wife, my Jewish mother, widened considerably when my father made known his views about the Nazis. He had even disowned one of his sons by his previous marriage on learning that he had joined the SS and he never forgave him. When she finally plucked up the courage to visit her brother-in-law’s house, her reception was anything but cordial. They told her they had not heard from my father and implied they hoped they never would. They were living on a very short fuse, worried about what was going to happen to them for they had been influential Party members. Every day the Allied forces’ Nazi hunters were widening their net, taking into consideration new categories of guilt. Each knock on the door worked like a laxative: they couldn’t waste valuable worrying time with my mother. Mascha cursed herself. She should have known she would get no help from that quarter.

We realised we would have to find Papa through a different route. Every day Matka left me with the Totenhoefers and set out on the rounds of friends and Red Cross offices in search of information on my father’s whereabouts. She still had the utmost faith that he was out there, waiting for her to find him. Each evening she’d return exhausted and dispirited but the next day she’d pump herself up and set off again. Eventually some government department in Schoeneberg said that they had a record of my father leaving Terezina concentration camp but since then he had disappeared. They promised to look into where he might have gone. Twice a day my mother would go to the office, stand in line, only to be told there was no news.

One morning Mama woke up, shook me awake and kept repeating the word ‘Haneli’. I didn’t understand until she explained that Haneli was the Polish wife of my father’s best friend, Utz Droemer. Utz and my father had been at Heidelberg University together and Utz had helped my father get to England following a fencing duel where Papa thought he had accidentally killed a fellow student. They’d later been in the cavalry together on the Somme. Matka was furious with herself for not thinking of Haneli earlier.

The Totenhoefers found a map and looked up where the Droemers had lived before the war. They decided that old Herr Boettcher, who had opened the door to us and who was Frau Totenhoefer’s father, should go to a friend’s house and ask for the loan of his car. This was something that needed major discussion. Cars were still a luxury that very few could afford. Boettcher was willing to presume on this friendship to help us out, despite the fact that finding my father could make his family homeless.

Early the next day Herr Boettcher came home with the car. Mama was so happy she kissed him on both cheeks. I got dressed quickly, excited at the prospect of an adventure. I had never been in a car before – trucks I was familiar with and even an occasional jeep – but never an honest-to-goodness car.

The journey to Steinstuecken took hours. I wasn’t used to travelling in a closed car with springs and several times we had to stop so that I could be sick. Herr Boettcher took it all philosophically. Matka was getting a little impatient by the fourth stop. The roads were in a terrible state but everywhere gangs of people were beavering away trying to clear the rubble. There were many road blocks and we had to cross from the West to the East sector and back to the American sector where Steinstuecken was a US enclave inside the Russian zone. Most of the time we were waved through the checkpoints quickly but once or twice we were hauled out of the car and subjected to interrogation. Years of experience had taught Mascha how to deal with petty officials and we were never in danger of a serious delay. A more difficult problem turned out to be the signposting, which was practically non-existent, and most of the time we had to rely on finding someone who could give coherent directions. Finally Herr Boettcher pulled into a checkpoint and had a long conversation with a bored sergeant who really did know the district. He drew a map and before long we turned into the road where Haneli and Utz had lived.

Matka had told me all about Haneli’s lovely house and what great fun she was. As Herr Boettcher brought the car to a halt and surveyed what was left of the road ahead I heard my mother sob. The entire area had been bombed and, two years after the war, little had been done to reclaim it. It looked as if nobody could possibly live amid the jumble of bricks and timber.

After a few minutes’ silence Mama told me to stay where I was and opened the car door. She had come too far and waited too long just to give up and leave. She reasoned that if my father had decided to go to Haneli he would have assumed we would follow. If, subsequently, he had moved on he would have left a note to let us know.

Herr Boettcher got out of the car and looked around. He called Matka’s attention to a building on the far side of the road. The top had caved in but the bottom seemed reasonably intact. And, more important, a pathway had been cleared through the rubble to the side of the building. Matka was off like a shot. I didn’t know what to do. I stuck by Herr Boettcher and watched anxiously as Mama disappeared. Herr Boettcher surveyed the area and, satisfied that there was no one around who might pinch our wheels, took my hand and we too followed the path.

Matka was standing by a little fence looking down into what had been the entrance to the building’s cellar. Boettcher leaned as far over as he could, then decided to investigate. Cautiously he negotiated the stairs, looked up at us and banged on one of the planks covering the door. A pause. Then a woman’s voice called out cautiously, ‘Who is it?’

‘Haneli?’ my mother called out. ‘It’s me, Katja!’ She pulled futilely at the planks across the door. A sound behind her made her turn towards a shutter on a casement window, which was slowly being opened. Matka pulled at it eagerly to reveal the worried face of a woman.