Perhaps this is enough to help you understand why those of us who lived in England that year looked at our children and were able to answer the question,
“Would you rather your babies be bombed in London or risk being torpedoed on the North Atlantic?”
“Six days to cross the Atlantic! Naval escorts will surround the evacuee ships. Only six days of danger before our kids’ll be safe on a far shore!”
After that first day of the Blitz, the sight of a baby’s tiny coffin made my reply certain. “Perhaps in a ship bound for America our children will have a chance. A crossing of only six days and then…LIFE!”
The morning of the funeral service for Helen Ibsen and little Alfie, Murphy sent a wire to his parents in Pennsylvania, asking Sean and Rosie Murphy for their help.
The L
ORD
is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
P
SALM
27:1
KJV
BERLIN, NAZI GERMANY
DECEMBER 14, 1936
I am afraid. It is raining when I step out of the taxi. Now the terrible red swastika banners of the Third Reich flutter from the windows of my father’s store. I sense I am being followed—observed, as I walk into the building and through the bright holiday decorations of our department store. When I stop at the perfume counter and pretend to sample the scent of Chanel No. 5, a man watches me with cold, dull eyes. I know he is Gestapo. He scribbles notes in a small notebook as I climb the stairs and walk toward Papa’s office. I pretend I do not notice him. I pretend he does not matter. But I feel a heavy dread in the pit of my stomach. I did not expect the danger would come so soon.
Mama and my brothers have gone ahead to Kitzbühel in Austria.
Once we’re home, Papa says he is glad they are safe. We must leave as well. Three hours until the train. Papa opens the window, and I play my violin for the last time for him in our beloved home.
I ask, “Oh, Papa? Can we ever come home again?”
He does not answer. He tells me I must take away only what I can easily carry. He selects from his library a first-edition copy of Goethe’s Faust, the story of the man who sold his soul to the devil.
I think perhaps that Germany and the German church have become like Faust. For the sake of Herr Hitler’s empty promises they have sold their souls to the devil.
3
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND
SUMMER 1940
S
ean and Rosie Murphy made the long journey from Pennsylvania, crossing the Atlantic on board a neutral American ship to take our children home with them to the safety of their dairy farm. Less than a month passed as we waited for my visa, so I could travel with them, but it didn’t come.
My baby was sleeping when I laid her in Rosie Murphy’s arms and kissed her farewell on the deck of the crowded ocean liner that would take them all from England to America.
“You know I’ll care for the children like they’re my own,” my mother-in-law tried to comfort me. “Elisa, darlin’, your Katie will be our little princess until you join us in America.”
I nodded and, unable to speak, embraced her and my baby girl.
The ship’s steward clanged the final warning bell. “All ashore that’s going ashore!”
Murphy hoisted Charles and Louis up in his arms one last time and instructed our boys, “Be good lads, now. Take care of your baby sister. And help Grandma and Grandpa milk the cows too.”
Charles furrowed his brow. “When are you coming?”
Murphy smiled, then mussed the boy’s hair. “Soon.”
Sean Murphy, my husband’s iron-jawed father, plopped his fedora down on Charles’ head. Sean was suddenly in charge. “So, you’re Charles. In America we’ll call you Charlie. You wear my fedora, like William Powell in
The Thin Man.
You like detective movies?”
Both boys nodded in unison.
Sean continued, “Great. And you, Louis—we’ll call you Louie, eh? I’ll have to get a second hat. To tell you boys apart.” He stooped low. “What kind of hat would you like, Louie?”
Louis managed a crooked smile. He rubbed his upper lip where surgery had corrected a cleft palate. “Cowboy.”
“Then a cowboy you shall be.” Sean placed large square hands on the boys’ shoulders. “But you mustn’t switch hats unless you tell your grandma and me, eh?”
Murphy embraced his parents. We said tearful farewells, promising to come to America soon. Murphy took my arm, leading me toward the gangway. Had I ever known such emptiness as that moment?
The ship sailed, and the great White Star Line passenger shed emptied out. We lingered as the crowd of well-wishers dispersed. Small sounds echoed beneath the vast shelter.
The band members put away their instruments. Janitors swept confetti and crushed flowers from the quay. Members of the press—Murphy’s friends and colleagues—hailed him, then phoned in to their respective news sources the latest passenger list containing the names of great and small among the exodus of Americans from England.
“You heard me, Mac,” one of Murphy’s colleagues said. “Yeah, No kiddin’! The entire clan of American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy has just been shipped back home to America.”
“Shipped? It was more like a stampede,” Murphy said. “But who am I to point fingers? I send my kids home to my folks in Pennsylvania while Mister Ambassador Appeaser shivers in his bed at night for fear some stray Nazi bomb is going to land on the American Embassy. So Kennedy sends his kids back home to Hah-vahd. Bet he’ll skedaddle home soon hisself.”
I resisted the urge to comment how much going home to Harvard sounded like “going home to Tara.” The world I had known as a child was quite gone with the wind.
After two years of marriage to John Murphy, I had mastered American, which is quite different than the language spoke in England. “I want to skedaddle. Okay, Murphy. I know your mother will take care of our babies. Little Katie. Every day is something new with a baby. And the boys. Charles and Louis. Growing so fast. I must get my visa soon and follow to America or my heart will break.”
Murphy and I remained on the dock of the White Star Line and watched until the great ocean liner vanished into a fog bank. Had we done the right thing? Sending our baby and Charles and Louis to America with Murphy’s parents? How long would it be before I saw them again?
I said quietly, “Churchill thinks people who evacuate their children to America are cowards.”
“We know better, Elisa. The idea is to get the kids out of range of the Nazi bombers.”
“I was in line for ration books—fewer rations now that the children have gone. A woman behind me asked if I’d rather have my children bombed in England or torpedoed on the Atlantic.”
“Cheerful soul. What did you tell her?”
“I said I’d rather they celebrate Christmas on my husband’s farm in Pennsylvania, where there are no ration cards and we can churn our own butter. But, Murphy, I’m scared.”
“Everyone in England is scared for their kids, Elisa, and with good reason.”
I pressed myself against him and wept against his shoulder. “Oh, Murphy! Why won’t America grant me a visa? Why? First it was refugee quotas and now…”
“Now there’s a war on. You came from Germany, Elisa, and the Nazis hate you and your family. I mean personally. You’re on a list. The kids need to be far across the water and out of harm’s way.”
I whispered through my tears, “I know. I just wish I could be with them.”
“You know the drill. But here’s the deal. My mother’s got six days on the same boat with Rose Kennedy. And Mom is a Murphy, as Irish as the Kennedys. Rosie Murphy, she is. That’s two roses on the same ship. Irish mothers stick together. No accident they’re on the same ship. Mom’ll put Katie in Rose Kennedy’s arms and tell her all about Charles and Louis—and you, Elisa. A talented Jewish concert violinist on the run from Hitler who’s stuck here in the UK because some pencil pusher delayed.” He dabbed my cheeks with his handkerchief. “It’ll be okay, honey. You and I will be together. Mom’ll write every week. And when you get your visa…”
“Then you’ll come too? Come home to Pennsylvania? To your parents’ farm? With me?”
He did not reply, and sorrow passed through me like a sword. His arm remained around my shoulders as we left the empty passenger shelter for the drive back to London.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.
P
SALM
23:4
KJV
TRAIN COMPARTMENT 7A
GERMANY/AUSTRIA BORDER
DECEMBER 15, 1936
The shadow of death is dark tonight. Gestapo and SS everywhere on the train from Berlin to Austria.
Papa is taken off the train for “questioning.” What can I do? Oh, God! Papa is not with me as I cross the German frontier into Austria. Will I ever see my father again? What will Mama say when I come to Kitzbühel, and he is not with me?
An American news journalist named John Murphy, a young handsome man who has no fear, saves me from being arrested as well. Mr. Murphy crosses his arms and stares at the Nazi officials. He will not leave as the SS officers search my luggage. My clothes are dumped on the floor and trampled. The Nazis search the violin case I am carrying back to Vienna—the most precious Guarnerius violin belonging to Rudy Dorbransky—but miraculously they do not damage the instrument. Finally they find this diary.
I am a fool for writing down any names in this book before being safely out of Nazi Germany. Eben Golah and my uncles’ names are written within. Yes, I am certain I have put everyone in peril by writing down their names and the things discussed at our holiday party. I can hardly breathe as the man opens this diary and frowns and reads aloud this Bible verse, then throws the book hard against the wall. See, the red roses on the cover are scuffed by the force of his rage. John Murphy’s presence as an American reporter intimidates those who threaten me. Mr. Murphy tells them he is going to interview Hitler. They believe him. Mr. Murphy’s fierce, mocking questions directed toward the Gestapo agent, Herr Müller, prevent the officers from taking me off the train. And perhaps there is also something more. I think it is as if the Gestapo agent is blinded by the power of the verse on this page from the
Heilege Schrift
, the
Holy Writ
. He hates God’s Word and hurls it away as if the words are fire to burn him.
I passed through the valley of death. I know now I must never return to Hitler’s Reich. What Eben said is true. What will come upon Jews now is worse than the Inquisition.
John Murphy is my angel in compartment 7A, watching over me tonight. But what shall we do about Papa? I pray Mr. Murphy can use his American connections to help us. I leave the train in Kitzbühel. He travels on. I have given him my address at the Musikverein in Vienna.
4
LONDON, ENGLAND
SUMMER 1940
A
week had passed since Rosie and Sean Murphy sailed. No word came of their safe arrival, and a sense of dread knotted my stomach.
My ill-fitting, out-of-date clothing was picked from the charity barrel at St. Mark’s, North Audley. Murphy and I slept each night on cots in Loralei’s church office while more permanent quarters were being arranged.
Before each night’s air raid sent us scurrying for cover in the crypt, I dreamed I watched U-boats just beneath the surface of the Atlantic stalking the liner carrying my loved ones.
That same week Loralei and I said good-bye to Mama and Lori.
Lori, pale and drawn, stood between Mama and Loralei on the Number 2 boarding platform of Paddington Station.
Loralei embraced Lori. “You must rest, Lori.”
Lori nodded. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up.” Her eyes scanned the crowds of soldiers and fellow passengers as though she was looking for someone. For her mother, I wondered? For her baby boy? Did she hope she was dreaming? that she would turn and see them emerge from the midst of the crowd? Did she still hope the nightmare of her loss would come to an end?
Mama touched my cheek. “You must go on performing. Do what God has called you to do, Elisa, and when you can, come to Wales.”
“Pray for us, Mama.”
Mama hugged me tightly. “Maybe Christmas? Surely by Christmas all will be well and we’ll be happy again.”
“Oh, Mama! I pray we’ll all be in America for Christmas with Murphy’s family.”
It was a hopeful thought, but not likely. Instead of welcoming refugees, the U.S. seemed to be slamming the gates to those in need even tighter.
Loralei and I remained in the train shed for a long time after the locomotive chuffed away with Lori and Mama aboard. The smoke cleared, and still we stared down the empty rails in a mix of relief and longing for those who could escape the hell of London.
We cousins walked to the bus stop. Loralei promised she would do what she could to help me get my American visa and join my children. Kissing me on the cheek, she returned to her job at St. Mark’s, and I headed back to meet Murphy at the BBC.
It began to rain as I hurried toward the studio. I had forgotten my umbrella so covered my head with a scrap of the London
Times
that reported the sinking of several merchant vessels bound with supplies from America. I worried about Katie and Charles and Louis. Had their ship made it safely to America?
Murphy was waiting for me beneath the portico of All Souls Church, Langham. He hailed me as I splashed through puddles on the sidewalks.
“Elisa!” He smiled as I jogged up the steps and fell into his arms. “They made it off to Wales, then,” he said.