Echoes

Amadea felt immensely relieved for the rest of the day, although she was still concerned about her mother and sister. But perhaps her mother was right, and the truth of her origins would never come out. There was no reason for them to. She prayed that night for the relatives who had been deported and possibly even killed, whom she had never known. She remembered then the time her mother had taken her to the synagogue, and Amadea couldn't understand why at the time. She had forgotten about it afterward, but now, thinking back, she realized that she must have somehow been touching some piece of her past. She had never taken Amadea there again.

14

THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS CONTINUED, PREDICTABLY, into the following year. In January 1939, Hitler gave a speech, threatening them, and making clear his enmity toward them. They were no longer welcome citizens in their own country, as Hitler vowed to make things tough for them, and already had. The following month they were told to hand over all gold and silver items. In April they lost their rights as tenants and had to relocate into entirely Jewish houses, and could no longer live side by side with Aryans.

As a result, Jews were trying to emigrate, which was far from easy. In many cases, the countries they wished to emigrate to would not take them. They had to have relatives and sponsors abroad and often didn't. They had to have jobs to go to, and permission from both the Germans and the countries they wanted to go to, and were often denied by either or both countries. And they had to have money to pay for the entire process, and most didn't. Few were able to pull all the necessary elements together, in the time allotted, with success. Many German Jews still insisted and believed that things would calm down again. What was happening was hard to believe. This wasn't reasonable, they were Germans. Nothing bad could happen. But too many had already been deported and sent to work camps, and the reports that filtered back were increasingly alarming. People were dying of abuse, malnutrition, overwork, and illness. Some simply disappeared in silence. Those who saw the handwriting on the wall were already panicked. But leaving Germany was nearly impossible to do.

Throughout the year, the Kindertransport that Amadea had told her mother about was continuing to pick up children and send them to England. It had been organized by the British, and the Quakers had gotten involved with it. They were shipping children out of Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. A few were Christian, but almost all were Jewish. The British had agreed to accept them without passports as long as they were no older than seventeen, so as not to jeopardize jobs for Britons. The Nazis had agreed to let them go, provided they took no valuables with them, and took only a single small valise that they could carry. Watching them leave from railway stations, and the parents who took them there, tore one's heart out. But it was the only assurance their parents had now that they would stay safe, and might escape the fate the Nazis were condemning Jews to. Parents told their children on railway platforms that they would join them in England soon. Parents and children alike hoped that it would be true. Some begged the children to find sponsors and jobs for them once in England, which was an impossible burden to put on children who had no way of helping them, but knew that their parents' lives were at stake if they didn't. Miraculously, a precious few achieved it.

Britons on the other end took them into their homes as foster children, sometimes in groups. They were committed to keep them until things became less dangerous for the Jews again in their home countries, and no one had any idea when that would be. In some cases, even small babies were among what the British referred to on arrival as the “kinders.” In an astounding burst of charity and humanity, one of the Rothschilds took in twenty-eight and set up a house especially for them. Others weren't able to be as generous, but the British outdid themselves in their efforts to house and care for them. And those who were unable to find foster parents were kept in camps and barracks and cared for there.