Authors: Deborah Radwan
Jacob thought on this. Perhaps it was time to open up and trust this young boy, and share a bit of his story with Rudy. It’s true; he did seem like a different boy.
After a long pause, Jacob replied, “I will tell you something, Rudy, that I never thought I would tell anyone. That makes you special. When I used to see and hear you around the streets with those friends of yours, saw the way you looked at me and called me Jew man, among other things…”
Rudy committed to himself in that moment that those boys were not his friends anymore. Never did he want to be identified with them again. Embarrassed, Rudy began, “Jacob, I’m… I’m so sorry. I was so stupid…”
Jacob put up his hand and stopped him, and leaning in, said quietly, as if telling a secret, “I used to see in you the German soldiers that terrorized my family when I was a boy. I was afraid of you, you and those boys. Can you imagine an old man like me, scared of some kids on bikes?” Jacob’s voice quivered as he waved Rudy away. Embarrassed, he started to cry. Rudy was ashamed that his actions could have frightened this old, harmless man to the point of tears. Rudy wanted to comfort Jacob but didn’t know how.
“Jacob, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it—I was…” Rudy struggled for the word Frederick had used to describe the men that killed his father. “Ignorant! I just wanted to fit in.” But he knew now that those boys were cruel, and he had been too when he was with them, to Jacob, the boy in the park, the store owner, and others. He went over and knelt down on the ground next to Jacob’s chair and put his arm around his back.
“What a silly old man I am, crying over a few mean boys. You must forgive me.”
“It’s okay, Jacob, really. I would never hurt you; you’ve got to believe that. Forgive me, Jacob. I’m so sorry.” Rudy was now close to tears, his voice trembling. He had never asked for forgiveness from anyone.
Jacob looked up, and for the first time, really looked into Rudy’s eyes and saw that they did not contain the hardness of the soldiers of war. They were young and frightened, and he saw sorrow, too. Jacob patted Rudy on the cheek and said, “Yes, I believe you, Rudy, and I trust you too, my young friend. I think you are a good boy.”
And then Jacob allowed himself something that he hadn’t in years: to be hugged and to hug back. He had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be embraced. How long had it been since someone had hugged him and he had returned it?
After a few minutes gathering themselves, Jacob cleared his throat and stood up, but Rudy bravely asked, “What did the German solders do to you and your family? Can you talk about it?”
Jacob walked over to the fence that had mostly fallen over, yet a few yards still remained. He touched it as it hung limply into Frederick’s yard. The fence was almost down. Perhaps it was time to speak of that awful period in his life, expel some demons. He took in a deep breath and turned to look into the face of a boy who was not a German soldier. It was the face of Rudy, a boy he had come to care about a great deal despite himself; and it was Rudy who looked back. Jacob came back to the table, sat down, and said a prayer to
her
for the words and the strength to tell his story.
“I was almost ten the year the Nazi party came into power. It was 1933. Seems like a long time ago to a boy of your age, but not so long ago to me. Sometimes it seems like the images are so far away, and other times when I wake up, it takes me a minute to realize I am not back there. That time was the beginning of much pain and tragedy for my family and for our Jewish community.”
Jacob leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and looked at the ground. After a few seconds of mentally sorting out his narrative, he continued. “My mind is racing forward, but I am getting ahead of myself. First, let me tell you about my earlier years, my family.”
Jacob looked off as if into a far, distant land on the other side of a great ocean that he struggled to see.
“I grew up in Germany. Ask your teacher to show you where that is if you don’t know.” He looked again at Rudy and continued.
“When I was a little boy, times were happy. I had a normal childhood with friends and toys and singing and laughter. We lived in a house in Berlin near the university where my father was a college professor and taught philosophy. He made a good living, and we had a comfortable home with nice things. My mother, oh, Rudy… she was a beautiful woman. She stayed at home with us children; it wasn’t like today where working women are a normal thing. You know, for years I had a shawl of hers that carried the scent of her perfume. After the smell faded, I gave the shawl to Grace, Yoshito’s wife. It looked better on her than wrapped in tissue paper in a drawer. Besides, my mother would have liked Grace to have it rather than me hanging on to it as if it could bring her back.” Jacob paused for a moment before continuing.
“So, we lived in Berlin, a bustling city with lots of things to do and places to see. There were many cultural events and parties which my parents enjoyed and attended with their many friends, most of whom were either from the university or the neighborhood. Many of our neighborhood friends owned local businesses nearby, many of them Jewish businesses. As a young child, I knew I was Jewish, but I don’t think I understood that others were not. Everyone got along; there was no derision around us being Jewish.”
Here Jacob paused. His thoughts darted in and out of those secret, dark places that he had kept locked for so many years. It was time to talk about
her
, and he wondered if he had the courage to say her name out loud after all these years.
Rudy looked at him, wondering, but not saying anything, sensing that Jacob was reaching back for something, something difficult for him to grasp. A great sigh burdened down with vast sadness escaped from the depth of his gut. With the faintest of breezes blowing past, he looked Rudy directly in the eyes with the most anguished, yet tender, expression Rudy had ever seen and resumed in a voice that was quiet and reverent, as if he were talking in church.
“I had a sister, my twin, and her name was… Blanca. How very beautiful she was, with a laugh that could melt the meanest and hardest of hearts and eyes that out-twinkled the brightest of stars. Do you know anyone like that?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer.
“We were the best of friends. Yes, even at that age when brothers and sisters quarrel and squabble, and we did too mind you, but in the end, we were inseparable. Maybe it’s because we were twins that we were so close; I don’t know. I only know that I loved her and always wanted to protect her.”
Anguish washed across Jacob’s face, and Rudy wanted to ask what happened to her, but instinctively knew that in these moments of revelation, all his questions would be answered. He also understood the profound trust that Jacob was putting in him, and he knew he would not betray that trust.
Another breeze blew by Jacob’s face, and it was so gentle, so reassuring, he wondered if it was
her
. Gaining his composure, Jacob began again. Having said her name, having its wonderful sound roll off his tongue once again, he knew now that he could not stop.
“You know, I have not said her name since I told Frederick and Yoshito decades ago—thought I could not say her name again without dying. It doesn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would,” he said, and smiled briefly at Rudy with sad eyes.
“I do not remember much those first years after Hitler came into power, as I was still a young boy with other things on my mind, like homework and playing ball with my friends. However, things were happening; subtle at first then becoming more obvious as time went on. Old classmates after a time would no longer play with me, and there were suddenly smirks and comments from some of the kids at school who had always been mean and picked on the weaker kids but now directed their insults at me and my sister. I remember once bloodying the nose of a boy who taunted Blanca. He ran away, but yelled back to me that I would be sorry—that we were nothing but filthy Jews. At first I was merely puzzled, but as time went by and I grew up, I began to understand how things had changed.”
Rudy thought briefly about those boys he used to hang out with and realized there was no difference between them and this bully.
“My parents tried very hard to hide what was happening around us—to keep us innocent for as long as they could—until we were a bit older. How do you explain what was happening to friends and family and us was because we were Jewish? To this day, looking at history and what was happening, I can’t help but wonder why my parents didn’t leave Germany while they still could. I suppose by the time they understood that the horrific rumors were in fact true, it was too late to get out.
“Yet, all the warnings were there. Jewish children were banned from attending school. My father ultimately lost his job. By 1936, the Nazis were boycotting Jewish-owned businesses. I think November 1938 was a turning point. There was the ‘Night of Broken Glass,’ or
Kristallnacht.
That night, Nazis terrorized Jews in Germany and Austria by ransacking and destroying businesses, breaking storefronts, sponsoring anti-Jewish riots, burning synagogues, and breaking into homes—ultimately arresting thirty thousand Jews and killing others. I don’t know how we escaped being terrorized that night. Perhaps it was because my father was an ‘educated’ Jew. Who knows how their minds worked? My father was much like Frederick’s and Yoshito’s; he was not a coward but knew it was safer to keep a low profile and not speak out. Outraged friends of ours who had spoken publicly about the injustice disappeared at night. We know now that they were taken to Dachau, one of the concentration camps. Many were beaten to death. At the time, we just knew that people were disappearing during that night and other nights that followed. We lived in terror for years. In 1939, we were all forced to wear arm bands displaying the Star of David. We became easy targets if seen on the streets by an SS; they would find any reason to beat or kill us. We only survived because of the generosity of some of our Christian friends, but it was dangerous for anyone to help us. The Kleins would sneak us baked bread in laundry; the Reinholms, next door, would wrap fruit and vegetables in a burlap bag and bury it in a hole under our shared fence at night. Then we would dig a hole on our side while it was still dark and pull out the bag. We would have starved if not for these friends. It was a very dangerous business, and they took a huge risk helping us. Rudy, I have not forgotten them one day of my life, and I pray for them every time I drop to my knees.
“Then, one night it happened to us. It was 1940. There was a pounding on the door at two in the morning. That’s the way they did it, you know; anything that would make you more frightened, break down your defenses. What came next felt like the beginning of the end. It is the time when all the color went out of my life and the world turned into shades of gray.”
Jacob paused, not knowing if he could go on. Yet there was a voice in his head—
her
voice—guiding him, encouraging him to tell it all, to finally spit the bile and venom out of his mouth that he might begin to heal.
Rudy looked at Jacob with sad eyes, feeling the pain with him. He reached out and took Jacob’s hand, yet didn’t say a word.
Appearing unaware of Rudy’s hand on his, Jacob continued, almost as fearful as if reliving it in that moment, back in that house and not sitting with Rudy under the leafy green shade of a tree in his garden.
“My father rushed out of bed to the door, and by then we were hearing yelling. They were shouting at my father to round up his family. When my father didn’t move fast enough, they pushed him aside to the ground and went through the house to each of our rooms to gather us together. They had their guns out, and when we were together, we were told we had ten minutes to change into warm traveling clothes and that we could bring one suitcase each of clothing. One of the soldiers was staring at my sister, looking her up and down in a disgusting manner. He was making rude comments to one of the others about my sister’s beauty and how unfortunate that she was a Jew. Blanca and I were by then a little older than you, nearly seventeen, and she was beautiful, too beautiful. Shortly after we had each gone to our rooms to pack, the one soldier entered my sister’s room and closed the door. Suddenly, I heard Blanca screaming and the Nazi soldier laughing. Then I heard a hard slap, and for a moment there was silence. Then Blanca continued her screaming. I tried to get into the room, but the other soldiers prevented me, and one of them finally hit me with the handle of his gun.”
For a moment, Rudy saw the kid in the park being punched and hitting the ground while he stood and watched. Jacob’s voice brought him back to in the moment.
“As I teetered back and began to lose consciousness, I heard my sister’s fading screaming turn to crying. I heard my mother wailing, as if she were at the end of the tunnel. I felt my father at my side, and then I blacked out for a short time.
“When I awakened, everyone was in the front hallway, including myself. My sister was dressed and in a coat, her face swollen and beginning to color from being struck and from crying. My mother had her arm around her helping her navigate, as she appeared to be in a daze. Someone had put boots on my feet, and my father was lifting me up, pulling my arm around his neck so that he could help me walk until I regained full consciousness. They were not going to wait, you see. I either moved or would be shot. I wanted to go to my sister, but I was still a bit dizzy, just trying to put one foot in front of the other, moving as if I had had too much to drink. As my mother tried to put my arms through my coat as my father held me up, we were herded into a truck where others that we knew and some that we didn’t were seated. All had frightened looks on their face; no one was speaking. They reached out and helped us up onto the truck. No one asked questions about me or Blanca. They could piece it together. You see, everyone knew she had been raped. That ugly, vile-mouthed monster had violated my beautiful, innocent, darling sister.” And with this Jacob put his head down into his arms and sobbed like he had not sobbed since being liberated.