But Josef didn’t come up with a plan, and three weeks later, Lena boarded a ship for New York. It was a rough voyage, and she spent most of it below deck, green and seasick. She vowed never to travel by sea again. Once in New York she passed through immigration, then followed the instructions in her aunt’s letter and took a train bound for Chicago.
Her “aunt” Ursula met her at the station. A thin, wiry brunette with pale blue eyes, Ursula had married Reinhard Steiner, a math professor originally from Regensburg. They’d come to the Midwest five years earlier, when Reinhard was offered a position at the University of Chicago. Now, as they drove by taxi to a spacious, leafy neighborhood called Hyde Park, Lena found Ursula brisk and all business, but not unkind. Clearly, she had been making plans.
“… English lessons…” she was saying. “Typing, too, so you can get a job. We will lend you the money, of course, and you can pay us back bit by bit when you are employed. And Reinhard has connections at the University, so we might be able to place you there after you’re qualified. The weakness in the economy still lingers, so you will be lucky to get any job at all.”
Lena thanked her and gazed out the window. True, she was sixteen, an age at which many German girls left school to work or marry, but she had somehow expected—no, hoped—she would have a year or so left to study for her baccalaureate. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to join the adult world. It was just too soon. Three weeks ago she and Josef were in the Tiergarten stealing kisses. Now, her childhood was over. She blinked back tears.
* * *
The next six months were filled with English tutors, secretarial school, and letters from home. Josef wrote regularly, telling her about his days—he was studying at home, learning how to cook, taking long walks. He missed her terribly, he declared, and would never stop loving her. Her parents wrote cheerful letters too, never mentioning how they were coping with Hitler’s restrictions. Lena knew her mother was trying to make life sound normal so Lena wouldn’t worry. But the more cheerful the letter, the worse Lena knew things were. She read the newspapers. She wrote back, begging them to leave Berlin for Budapest, Paris, or New York. But leaving Germany was never mentioned, at least in the letters that came back.
Starting around the High Holidays, letters from Germany became less frequent. Then, in December a letter came from Josef.
You are lucky you got out when you did. Things here are very bad. My parents have decided to go to Budapest. I don’t know how much you know in America, but in September Hitler passed the Nuremburg Race Laws. These laws strip all German Jews of their citizenship. We are now “subjects” in Hitler’s Reich. The laws also forbid Jews to marry or have relations with Aryans or to hire Aryan women as household help. They also presume to define how much Jewish blood makes one fully Jewish.
So, now everyone is arguing whether someone is a full Jew or part Jew. What does it matter? My father says if we stay we will be killed—they are considering even harsher laws. We will be nothing more than criminals. It is hard to believe.
Friends of my parents in Budapest have arranged for an apartment for us, but apparently it is quite small. We will leave in a few days. I miss you desperately. I have not seen your parents. Perhaps they have already left?
The next day a letter came from her mother. Unlike Josef’s, it was strangely devoid of news. Just the same trivia her mother always wrote. Lena immediately replied asking why they hadn’t left. Had they talked to Josef? Again she begged them to leave Berlin. And then she cried.
She never got a response.