A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (10 page)

“Are they real?” I asked the woman at the street stand.

“Of course they're real. All flowers in Nice are real,” she replied.

Winter and spring passed unnoticed and summer slid in unannounced. Not counting the weeks I spent in school, my life was quite enjoyable. But I knew a good thing couldn't last forever and something had to happen to disturb my carefree life. My fear turned to reality when, by the end of June, Mother shipped me off to a farm to spend the summer away from the lure of the city streets. Why did she waste her energies trying to deprive me of the things I enjoyed most? Was this what a parent was supposed to do?

“Why can't you leave me alone?” I asked. “You always have to find something, a school, a camp. When I have children, I will never do this to them.” I thought of my father. “I bet you Papa would not send me there.”

“He would,” replied
Mutti
. “You will like this. It's a nice farm, nice people and lots of animals. You liked the camp in Basel, didn't you?”

“Sure, but I like it here now. Do I have to go?”

Mother wiped the dampness from my eyes and gave me a hug. “I make these sacrifices because I love you. It is not cheap to send you to a farm, but I'm not happy to see you walk around by yourself or go to the casino. You'll see. You'll like it. And Bertl and I will come to visit you every Sunday.”

Partially convinced, I gave in.

The owners of the farm, the Barons, a simple and friendly couple, made me feel at home from the moment I arrived. Their weathered skin, wrinkled by too much sun, made it impossible to guess their ages and so, whether judging from their appearance or from their energy, one could easily err by twenty years or more. Every summer they boarded three or four youngsters. From the way they treated us, I think they did this as much out of a desire to expose a few city children to country life as for the extra income.

My mother introduced her gloomy child using my French name. “This is Henri. He is very unhappy because he didn't want to come. I've told him how much children like it here and I know he will like it also.”

The woman walked up to me, crouched down to my height, and placed my hand in hers. She pulled me closer and with a gentle hug drove away my bad mood.

Every day we were kept busy, very busy, but I never felt they were taking advantage of us. Our days started at six with a big country breakfast of farm bread, fresh butter, jam, honey, eggs, and milk. Then off to take care of the goats, chickens, and cows. I milked and fed the animals and soon they recognized me whenever I entered the barn. There was also time for games and an afternoon nap followed by snacks of freshly picked fruit or a piece of candy and a fresh baguette.

“Here, look how I do it,” said one of the children. With one finger, he burrowed a hole in the crunchy bread and filled it with a chunk of chocolate.

“Like this?” I asked.

“Yes. Now push the chocolate inside.”

I did, then took my first bite of the combination. Heaven. I rolled my eyes and rubbed my belly. “This is the best.
Merci
,
merci!
I'll never forget you for this.”

Dinner was a celebration of sorts as we sat around the table and told stories. Some of us reported what had happened that day, but mostly we listened to Monsieur Baron as he recounted the events of his life. He told us how one winter, all alone and without a gun, he chased away a pack of wolves that was attacking the chickens. When he returned to check on his animals, they flocked all around him in gratitude for having saved them. “You should have seen those chickens. If they could have talked, they would have said, “
Merci! Merci, mon ami
.”

I was never quite sure his stories actually had happened, for they were so unbelievable, yet each evening we all looked forward to the great tales of Monsieur Baron.

By the end of the first week I was in love with my life in the country. To be around farm animals or to fetch freshly laid eggs from under the hens was an exciting experience. Even the distinctive odor of cow manure was no longer unpleasant to this nine-year-old city boy.

One morning I walked into the large kitchen carrying a small pail partly filled with milk. “Look! I milked the goat all by myself.”

“
C'est formidable
!” said Madam Baron. “Please, Henri, take it back to Monsieur Baron before it spills.”

I didn't mind having to carry the heavy pail out again, so proud was I of my accomplishment.

My mother never missed the weekend visit, sometimes bringing Bertl with her. While I loved both women, being with my friends or doing some of the daily chores had become far more interesting. My life on the farm suited me just fine, and I was ready to stay forever.

“Come here, you miserable kid!”
Mutti
said. She had a broad smile on her face. “I come all the way here and you would rather be with some cow?”

I ran to her and flung myself into her waiting arms. Being hugged by my mother was always a special treat. She kissed me, straightened my clothes, then, gently shoved me on. “Go, go. Have a good time.” She stayed to share the midday meal, watched me play, then caught the train back to Nice.

Summer was not yet over when my mother came to take me home.

“No one else is leaving. Why can't I stay longer?” I pleaded.

“You didn't want to come in the first place. Now you don't want to leave. I'm sorry,
Hasele.
”

Reluctantly, I packed my suitcase, took leave of my hosts, and said goodbye to my summer pals.

San Remo

A
t the end of July 1939, people spoke of war. However, the threat of hostilities was just that, a threat. Except for us, danger seemed to be wherever we went and my mother, in her infinite wisdom, felt that France was no longer safe for a Jewish woman alone with a child. My father's letters kept urging us to go back to Italy. So, after an emotional goodbye with Bertl and with Mother's many acquaintances — even Monique shed some tears — we crossed Menton and Ventimiglia, retracing our steps of the year before. But this time we did not walk. Mother had some kind of official paper that she presented to the border guard who had come aboard the train, allowing us to continue without a problem.

“What did you show the man?” I asked.

“Must you always know everything? I showed him the permit to allow us back into Italy.”

I was in awe of my mother. How could she always get the right papers?

After a two-hour train ride from Nice, we arrived at the small rail-road station of San Remo. A few people stepped off the train to walk on the narrow platform, made narrower by the enormous bundles of colorful carnations stacked on every available space.

An elderly couple, recommended by a mutual acquaintance in Nice, rented us a furnished room in their third-floor apartment with a balcony overlooking the main street.

Guerino Grimaldi, our new landlord, was born to Italian parents but raised in France. Our room was adequate. The furniture was old and in poor condition, but the balcony added a pleasant dimension.

Signor Grimaldi poked his beret-covered head through the door minutes after our arrival. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

I formed an immediate bond with him. Short of stature, not much taller than I, Guerino was a quiet man in contrast to the woman he had married forty years earlier. His voice was calm and soft, hers raspy and loud. I often watched him stand in silence, patiently listening to his wife's bickering and letting her vent her frustrations. He never contradicted her. Instead, he would remove his stained beret, hold it with one hand, and roll it over the fingers of the other, then with a tug of both hands pull it back over his bald head and respond with a gentle, “Ah ha.”

Guerino took care of all the household chores. He did the shopping, cleaning, and cooking.

Because of her negative outlook on life, his wife was incapable of restraining her constant nagging and complaining. “The radio doesn't play the same music as they did years ago,” she would say. “That was so nice. Even the butcher doesn't sell the same meat.” A complaint she repeated often in my presence. “You never have time for me,” was an obvious reference to the time her husband was devoting to me.

Then, having finished one of her tirades, she would storm out of the room.

“She can't help herself,” her husband said. “Her mother was like that and she has been this way all her life.”

Guerino did spend much time with me. I was the child he never had. He taught me checkers, then chess, at which I became pretty proficient. Guerino also owned a large, magnificent telescope. He had it in his bedroom, mounted on a tripod sitting by the open balcony door. Each time I passed his bedroom, I stopped to admire that instrument and yearned that he would someday allow me to look through it. One day, having gathered enough courage, I finally asked him.

“Come in,” he said. “Isn't it beautiful? It is my most precious possession. Here, step up and look through it.”

I was so excited, I could hardly speak. With his help, I stepped on the footstool and placed my eye on the scope. He helped me adjust the focus. “Look through and tell me when it gets really sharp.”

I spied on people walking in the distance and watched a man eat peanuts in front of the railroad station, several blocks away.

“Signor Guerino, look here!” I exclaimed. “I can see every peanut the man is eating. He's standing so far away.”

I stood back as he placed his eye where mine had been and adjusted the focus a bit.

“Oh, yes. Isn't this some instrument?” he asked.

Mother walked by the open door. “Signor Grimaldi, I want to thank you for all the time you're spending with my son.”

“Don't even mention it. He's such a pleasure, so well brought up.”

Mother beamed, “Why not speak French with Signor Grimaldi?”

Guerino was pleased with the suggestion and at the prospect of practicing his mother tongue. “
Très bien. Nous parlerons français
,” he said.

“No, Mamma.
Non voglio
. None of the boys I know in the park speak French!” I didn't want to be different. Speaking a foreign language became a dead issue.

Across the street from us I befriended the lady who worked at the corner news stand. She noticed that I liked reading the comic magazine and one day suggested I take some home.

“Bring them back in new condition,” she said.

Mother stopped by one morning to thank the lady.

“Oh, it is a pleasure. Your son is such a delight,” the woman said.

Soon after arriving in San Remo, we received a letter from Papa. Germany had annexed Austria, occupied Czechoslovakia, and was threatening the rest of eastern Europe, while my father's two brothers had joined him in Poland. His unmarried brother Norman had been ordered to leave Italy, where he had lived for many years, while Oswald, married and residing in London, elected to be with his brothers rather than follow his wife to Canada.

“
Takke meshuge!
” Mother commented in Yiddish about the three brothers' insanity. “Everyone is running away and they go to Poland.” Although she was talking to me, I did not understand what was going on.

The Lifschütz family in Poland, May 1939. The author's grandmother (in black dress) is seated in the front row; Aunt Sallie is the third from the left in the rear.

At that same time, in June 1939, a young American woman, Sally Ratner, was visiting Poland for a family reunion, when she met my uncle Norman. They fell in love and were married. Papa wrote us that Norman's new wife would be coming to visit us on her way back to the United States.

Aunt Sally, a petite and pretty redhead, arrived in August. Uncle Norman had stayed behind in Poland until his new wife could obtain the necessary visa for him to join her in America.

I was very excited to speak with someone who, only two days before, had been with my father and his whole family. The image of Papa, the dapper, elegant man, commingled in my head with the sorrowful picture of him standing on the platform in Milan the day of our departure for France.

Mother and Sally conversed in Yiddish, their only common language, while I used German, careful to be understood.

“Tell me about my papa, please,” I said.

“He is fine and he misses you very much.”

“How does he look? Did he tell you when he is coming here?”

“He looks wonderful,” Sally replied. “He talked about ‘my
Erichl
’ all the time.

“Did he say when he was coming?” I repeated.

“Only that he would be with you soon.”

“And how is my
Opapa
?”

“He means his grandfather,” my mother clarified.

“They are all fine and everyone sends you their love.”

“Did Mischa say anything about our American visa?” Mother asked.

“He hopes it will come through soon.”

“I think America is not too anxious to let in more Jews,”
Mutti
remarked.

“Oh, no. That is not true,” Sally said. “I cannot believe my country will not come to the aid of people in need. America is the most generous country in the world. We have always been open to people in trouble.”