Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind (28 page)

With kind regards,
Sincerely,
Alfred Jospe

“The events that unfolded during the past weeks, however, and especially the beginning deportation of the Jews . . . let me fear the worst.” Jospe is referring to
the deportation of the Jews of Stettin, which took place earlier that month. Stettin—now known as Szczecin—is a Baltic seaport; in early 1940, the Germans violently expulsed Stettin’s Jews. They were rounded up, brutally, aggressively, robbed of their possessions, and then sent on to Lublin, Poland, to “clean” the area, to make room for the
Volksdeutschen—
the ethnic Germans—who wanted their homes. The entire community, from children as young as two to octogenarians, were roused from their homes, some forced into a former mortuary under conditions so crowded that many died there on the spot, foreshadowing what would come for the rest of Europe’s Jews.

But unlike what happened later, this deportation was handled so baldly that Jews across the Reich learned of it and panicked. Even the foreign press got wind of it. On February 19, 1940, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported from Paris that fifteen hundred “
men, women, children and even the inmates of the local Jewish home for the aged were piled on a cattle train to be shipped to an unknown destination. . . . Those too old or sick to walk had to be carried to the train by others. . . . Nazi storm troopers visited Jewish homes on two successive nights, told the occupants to prepare to leave, forced them to file inventories of their possessions and then confiscated all valuables after requiring them to sign statements renouncing this property.
The expulsion took place at three o’clock on a bitterly cold morning. Two storm troopers called at every Jewish house to see that the deportees took no silverware or other valuables. They were permitted to take only a small valise each containing necessary articles. Bank accounts were confiscated.” A month later, more news trickled out: the Jews of Stettin were dying, in droves.

Foreign diplomats clamored to know what was happening. Germans grumbled to one another in official documents that the United States would get involved if they weren’t more careful. They were anxious to keep neutral America—and Roosevelt—disinterested.

So Jospe knows this—and he assumes my grandfather does as well. But—how awful—the hundred fifty dollars he proposes for a visa was an inconceivably large amount of money for Karl. Astronomical. Three hundred dollars to rescue the two women wasn’t simply large, it was nearly the entire amount that the National Committee for Resettlement of Foreign Physicians would lend my grandfather later that spring to start his career. It was a fantasy sum.

So when Jospe says the Brazilian visas are too high, but Chile is accessible, he doesn’t know that what he is asking is completely out of reach, and not simply because none of these schemes was fail-safe. These illegal visas—if discovered as false—could simply lose all value on a moment’s notice, leaving the women stranded, and any funds scraped together for them would disappear.

And yet despite this, Jospe’s admonition seems to have spurred Valy’s Uncle Julius, already here in America, and my grandfather into some kind of action:

New York, March 25, 1940

Dear Karl,

Enclosed is a letter from Dr. J. . . . Before I answer the letter, I want to write you a few lines, make my opinion known to you, and ask you to what extent you could be (materially) helpful to me, that is, what sum of money you could scrape up. Of course, it would be considered a loan to me. Forgive me for bothering you with such matters. The possibility that both women could be rescued sounds much too good to be true. It goes without saying that dear Valy would not leave without her mother, and I think that things mustn’t come to naught over the sum of $300. I could round up $50 at most and pledge to pay back $20 a month over the course of six months. The remainder I would repay later, when I’m able.

I would be very happy to be able to write and tell Dr. J. to initiate the necessary steps. I anticipate that the relief committee [Hilfskom.] will take care of the tickets for the ship (Dr. J.’s intervention regarding the tickets will surely be successful). Please write me immediately so that we don’t lose any time, and I would be very grateful to you for a reply in the affirmative. . . .

Warmest regards,
Julius

Reading this, I am horrified. A three-hundred-dollar missed opportunity. In February 1940, Karl was mired in debt and taking on more debt each month. An internal memorandum of the National Refuge Service, written in June 1940 and now held in the files at the University of Minnesota, discussed the case of the Wildman family as a whole: he could not help with the upkeep of his mother, let alone anyone else.

The following information refers to our telephone conversation of 6/17, in connection with Dr. Chayim Wildman [sic]. . . . Mr. Wildman’s mother Sara, 75 years old, arrived in New York 9/10/38. She lived with her brother, Sam Feldschuh, an upholstery salesman. . . . Mr. Sam earns $15 a week and therefore, when he was unable to continue maintaining his sister, she went to live with her daughter Celia F. She sold her remaining jewels for $60 and thus paid for her upkeep for sometime. When this was exhausted she applied to us for help on 2/2/40.

Financial assistance has been given since 4/12 at the rate of $23 a month. I was not aware of the fact that Chayim earned anything at all, or I should have gone into the possibility of his helping his mother to some extent. His sister, Celia, tells me Chayim is not able to contribute anything at all. . . .

There was no money for visas to Chile. There was nearly nothing to eat. He is embarrassed. I find a draft of a letter he wrote to Tonya Morganstern Warner, dated December 14, 1940, months later. “
I regret to have to tell you that I am not getting on so ‘very’ well as you seem to believe. I am probably doing much better than anybody else who has been practicing for 6 weeks, but it is still far from being satisfactory.”
He is not yet in control of this new country—him! The one who mastered everything, the one for whom everything came easily—languages, affidavits, visas, jobs. Here he was failing Valy, not by his own accord, but what did that matter? He couldn’t win. He had nothing to offer her beyond the affidavits he had already issued, the affidavits that would soon wither and expire. And here he was, shamed by outsiders, by his old school friend Paula, by Valy’s Uncle Julius, by this stranger, Rabbi Jospe—all of them underlining for him that he is failing her. It is simply awful. It is unfair. He seems unwilling to let that be the case, and yet neither can he realistically offer much in the way of material support.

New York, April 19, 1940

Dear Karl,

Forgive me for not answering your kind letter until now. I couldn’t get around to it sooner. Thanks very much for your aim and intention to help my sister and Valy. But I can’t ask it of you, because you’re in the phase of establishing your livelihood, so that material obligations on your part are impossible. Besides, I doubt that the [option ] proposed by Dr. Jospe will become definite/official.

Warm regards,

Julius

I want to know more about what Julius and my grandfather did, about what they tried to do. And more about what Jospe could realistically offer. But I have no one to ask but the letters. Alfred Jospe lived in Washington, D.C., until his death in 1994—he was the national director of B’nai Brith Hillel. I know that I cannot be searching for Valy’s contemporaries, I know I will not find them, but it feels so desperate and awful to know he was
right here
and that I missed him. Jospe saw Valy in Troppau and knew her choices, knew why she had gone to Berlin and knew about her mother, her quota number, her inability to get to a third country.

Perhaps my grandfather’s own misery made him silent; how helpless he must have felt, how incompetent. And so, instead of writing her, he trucks along, trying to make his life on these shores make sense. And she is angry.

Berlin, 04-13-1940

My dear, dear boy

The many unanswered letters I have written to you meanwhile have become a legion! . . . All I can do is to hope that my letters will reach you one day and you will write to me. . . .

I am no longer in the seminar for kindergarten teachers. The children’s group was discontinued, and I became superfluous and left. Three afternoons a week I now teach health and nutrition issues and was thus “retained for the institute” through this ingenious idea of the leader of the seminar, a woman who feels very well toward me. That’s what they say in the home, and they seem happy with it. So am I, very much. In this manner I am able to make some money without taking on work in the afternoons. During the mornings I go to the hospital where I do not learn a whole lot, but still something.

I lead my life the way I’ve been doing for the past 2 years: In a spirit of waiting, without much joy or hope. But, my darling, don’t feel sad for me; I want you to know that I have people around me—women,—you know that only women are left here?!, who still have something to say, who like me, who help me and who want to make life pleasant for me. But I do not succeed very often, and they never will be able to replace you, my boy! You are and remain far, far away, out of my reach, you exist only in my memories, wonderful, beautiful “sunny past.” . . . You are no longer even a letter, such as tiny, modest piece of the present. Why don’t you write?? . . .

Now I have again finished a letter to you. Will this one also be lost or read perfunctorily and then forgotten, and, in any case, remain without answer? I am so very tired and sad. Even in the most positive of circumstances it will be such a long time before I hear anything from you. Please write me lots about you! It will not be long now that you will have gone through your hospital residency year. What will you do then?

Farewell, my darling, many, many thousand kisses and WRITE IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!

Your Valy

And then, a postscript:

04-14-1940

Darling: Mrs. Jurmann, Paula’s sister, told me today that Paula has written and reported about you. She says that you don’t know where I am and that you did not have any news from me and that you are “upset with me.” I am so happy—as ridiculous as this may sound. I am so happy that this worrisome silence of yours has a natural explanation. Naturally, our letters do get lost! They always used to get lost when it was particularly important that they would reach their destination on time. And, of course, it is also natural that you after sending an exploratory letter into the world—exhausted from this effort and very pleased with yourself—were “waiting” a bit. Well, my one and only, beloved boy: I am still alive, currently residing at Berlin, Rombergstrasse 2. That’s where I am awaiting your letters. Maybe it is better if you send your letters to Wangenheimstrasse 36, Berlin Grunewald. It is possible that we won’t stay at Rombergstrasse very long, and somehow I always get mail in Grunewald.

And now, in closing, the upshot of my letters from yesterday and today: I am waiting, waiting, waiting for letters from you.

Your Valy

Is it true that he hasn’t heard from her? It’s possible some letters were lost—among those I found, there are enormous gaps in time. But it is also possible that she has seized on this, chosen to believe he hasn’t heard from her, rather than think he has forgotten, or turned away, or has become inured to their plight. I wonder: Was he was too sad to write her? Too chagrined that for three hundred dollars, he would be of no help? Julius doesn’t feel sorry for him, though. He writes again, angry now:

N.Y., 05-06-1940

I just received a card from dear Valy from 04-19. She writes: “. . . The last letter I have from Karl is dated August 27, and I got it in mid October. Since then I have written a lot, but never got a reply.” At the end she wishes you would write. Could it be that your cards and letters, in particular, did get lost for the past 7 months!? Please, pull yourself together and set aside at least once every few weeks 5 minutes to write a couple of lines to poor Valy. She also writes that it will be her turn only in about a year (and her mother in a few years’ time); she is working at the children’s ward at the local hospital and also teaches hygiene at a seminar. Her address: c/o Mrs. Levy, Berlin, N.O., Romberg Str. 2

Otherwise, everything unfortunately unchanged.