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  Praise for A Ritchie Boy

  “Linda Kass’s eagerly anticipated second novel, A Ritchie Boy, is an engrossing, deeply moving story of the immigrant journey, a profound and timely reminder of how refugees have woven their strengths, talents, successes, and sacrifices into the fabric of America.”

  —JENNIFER CHIAVERINI, New York Times best-selling author of Resistance Women

  “Told as a series of interconnected stories, Linda Kass’s captivating, based-in-truth novel A Ritchie Boy is about assimilation, hope, and perseverance.”

  —FOREWORD REVIEWS

  “A mesmerizing kaleidoscope of stories about displacement, finding home, and the kindness of strangers. Haunting and heartfelt.”

  —FIONA DAVIS, national best-selling author of The Chelsea Girls

  “I devoured A Ritchie Boy over a single weekend. What a rich, beautiful book Linda Kass has written. I found such poignancy and delight in every facet of these characters’ lives. This is first-rate historical fiction.”

  –ALEX GEORGE, national and international best-selling author of A Good American and The Paris Hours

  “From Vienna during the Anschluss to booming post-war Columbus, Linda Kass has done her homework. Half historical novel, half family saga, A Ritchie Boy will charm readers who loved All the Light We Cannot See.”

  —STEWART O’NAN, author of City of Secrets

  “How did a whole generation of the Jews who were lucky enough to escape Hitler manage to reinvent themselves in America? In A Ritchie Boy, Linda Kass lovingly explores the spirit and the process of one such transformation. A compelling story of empathy, resilience, and the power of the American dream.”

  —NINA BARRETT, Owner of Bookends & Beginnings

  “A Ritchie Boy interweaves characters from Kass’s first novel, Tasa’s Song—providing a rich context of place and perseverance during the darkness surrounding World War II. The everyday human spirit is unmasked by the revelation of profound life experiences in this engaging tale that will appeal to public library customers.”

  —PATRICK LOSINSKI, CEO, Columbus Metropolitan Library

  “Historical fiction is a literary time machine. Thanks to the talent and imagination of Linda Kass, this journey back to the tragic days of World War II is both solemn and joyous—solemn because of the ghastly shadow of Nazism overtaking Europe, and joyous because of the forces of light that rose up to oppose it. These linked stories create a seamless and poignant whole, a deeply felt, richly described, and quietly moving meditation on faith, passion, sacrifice, struggle, and the everlasting power of family love.”

  —JULIA KELLER, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Sorrow Road: A Novel

  “Trust Linda Kass to write delicately and compassionately about the pain and bravery required of refugees. Although her milieu is the Second World War and the host country is the American Midwest, this gem of a book resonates profoundly even today.”

  —HELEN SCHULMAN, Author of Come with Me

  “Linda Kass’s A Ritchie Boy is a splendid gathering of memorable characters and stories about what it takes to leave a home, to travel to a new country, to find a way not only to survive there but to thrive. This story of persistence will warm you with its indomitable belief in family and in love.”

  —LEE MARTIN, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Bright Forever

  “Filled with rich historical detail and strikingly beautiful turns of phrase, this novel-in-stories moved me, inspired me, and transported me to a different time and place the way only the best tales do. Linda Kass is a masterful storyteller with a knack for taking hold of the reader’s heart simply, gently, skillfully in a way that makes it easy to be swept away by her words. I highly recommend A Ritchie Boy.”

  —KRISTIN HARMEL, international best-selling author of The Room on Rue Amélie and The Winemaker’s Wife

  “Linda Kass’s A Ritchie Boy is an American story of World War II Jewish immigrants and a wonderful account of families that came and helped others and the communities in which they lived. Its poignant telling makes me glad that there were some happy endings from such a horrific time in history.”

  —LINDA WHITE, Owner of Sundog Books

  “This collection of intertwined stories shines a light on the immigrant experience and their contributions winning the war. Readers of historical fiction and WWII fans will find much to admire in Linda Kass’s work.”

  —PAMELA KLINGER-HORN, Excelsior Bay Books

  A

  Ritchie

  Boy

  Copyright © 2020 Linda Kass

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2020

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-739-5 (pbk)

  ISBN: 978-1-64742-007-9 (hdcvr)

  E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-740-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020903379

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  “The Interrogation” was first published in the Winter 2019 (Vol. 35, No. 1) issue of The MacGuffin.

  “Camp Ritchie" was first published in the June 2019 issue of Jewish Literary Journal.

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To the memory of my father,

  Ernest Stern,

  a Ritchie Boy

  Contents

  The Letter

  Autumn 2016

  Part One

  Skiing in Tyrol

  March 1938

  Zelda’s Gamble

  April 1938

  The Suitcase

  August 1938

  When the Lights Dimmed

  1938–1939

  Part Two

  Enlistment

  Early 1943

  Camp Ritchie

  Early 1944

  The Interrogation

  January 1945

  Part Three

  Meeting John Brandeis

  November 1946

  Tasa’s Choice

  September 1947

  An Immigrant’s Odyssey

  January 1948

  The Wedding

  June 11, 1948

  Author’s Note

  Reader’s Guide

  Credits

  About the Author

  “We know what we are, but not what we may be.”

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  THE LETTER

  Autumn 2016

  ELI STOFF LOOKED FORWARD to Tuesdays. It was the day his family visited, en masse.

  On this Tuesday in early October, the sun shining brightly into his east-facing living room, he positioned himself on his favorite armchair—the one his late wife had picked out when they decorated their condo (after the house and before the move to this twelve-hundred-square-foot apartment at the Hillside Senior Living Residences). He’d already been downstairs for breakfast, driven to Giant Eagle for Joey’s banana bread, a
nd, without his daughter’s usual reprimand to slow down, made it back to his apartment with an hour to spare.

  He opened Our Souls at Night and pulled out his bookmark. He related to the bittersweet story of a widower and a widow in advanced age coming together for companionship. His sometimes bridge partner, Elsa Katz, had filled that role for him—of course, minus the salacious twist of the novel’s plot. He liked reading fiction because it took him inside a character’s mind. So much of life was about understanding human nature, he realized. He always had a novel or a biography beside him; he kept up with a half dozen magazines. If unengaged in the world around him, what point was there, after all?

  He’d left his door unlocked and waited for the troupe, his hearing still strong enough to make out some distant squeals down the hallway. Today’s tumultuous arrival of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren was typical—with toys pulled out of backpacks, coats strewn, greeting hugs, and excited chatter going on simultaneously. Five-year-old Roxy immediately changed into her ballerina dress and theatrically danced to Strauss’s Tales from the Vienna Woods, a CD Eli always readied for her visit. Her little brother’s eyes darted between his yellow Tonka truck and the slice of banana bread that awaited him. Roxy and Joey’s twin cousins soon awakened from naps, their high-pitched cries adding to the happy mayhem.

  By noon—after the twins had their diapers changed, miniature coats were matched with their little owners, toys were returned to the backpacks, and banana bread crumbs were sucked from the carpet—Eli followed the group past the furnished alcove outside his apartment and down the hall, pushing the double stroller toward the elevator. The ding of its arrival prompted goodbye kisses, the family resembling a flock of birds all pecking at once.

  In the lobby, he bumped into Hannah Spring, Hillside’s fortysomething activity director. “Do you have the Puccini for tonight?” Eli asked her. She assured him the DVD was in hand and that flyers had been distributed for the weekly Opera Night Eli had organized for Hillside music lovers. He’d also arranged a monthly subscription to the Columbus Symphony for a half dozen other residents. Through Hannah, he made sure a minibus was reserved for concert dates.

  Marty Feldman tottered toward Eli from across the lobby. “You have a sub for this afternoon’s game?” Marty asked him. “Doris has a doctor’s appointment.” Marty was also a widower in his nineties, the only other male bridge player among the pool of females Eli had helped assemble. Based on their skill set, it wasn’t clear whether the women were interested in the game or just being in the two men’s company.

  Not about to get sidetracked for long, Eli assured Marty he’d found a fourth and quickly made his way to the mail room. He inserted his key, turned it, and peered into his box to find it crammed full of the usual clutter. Muttering under his breath, he immediately began purging extraneous letters, thankful to the building staff for their strategic placement of trash and recycling bins. He riffled through catalogs and bulk mailings from realtors, marketers, other retirement homes, and travel agents, pausing at a cream-colored envelope that looked like an invitation. He noticed his name handwritten in a neat script, the return address from a Holocaust museum in Farmington, Michigan. He kept this piece of mail, along with two bills, and headed upstairs to his apartment.

  With the phone ringing as he approached, he pulled out his key and clumsily tried to unlock his door. He could make out classical music playing in the Cohens’ next-door apartment—they turned it up because Greta was so hard of hearing—and he strained to identify the composer. Schubert’s sonata for violin and piano? Turning the doorknob and scuffling across to the kitchen, he grabbed the phone, already agitated even before the caller greeted him. He grew weary of all the scams, with hucksters targeting old people, tricking them into divulging their bank account or credit card numbers. He’d almost learned the hard way a month back, answering detailed questions and providing his personal information until his daughter, who happened to be visiting, stopped him. After he hung up the phone, she gave him a lecture as if he were a half-wit.

  “HELLO? WHO IS THIS?” He knew his voice had an edge to it. This would be the fourth crank call already today.

  “Daddy? It’s me. Lucy.”

  He felt himself starting to breathe again, his previously strained and gravelly tone turning soft and affable. “Hi, honey. Missed you this morning.”

  AFTER IT WAS DECIDED that Lucy would come by at three after bridge, Eli situated himself at the table where Joey had devoured his banana bread just an hour earlier. Using a paper knife, he quickly opened the two bills—phone and electric—and put them aside. He treated the letter from the Holocaust museum with greater care, careful to slice the envelope while keeping it intact. As he unfolded the paper, his eyes were drawn to the salutation at the top: “Dear Ritchie Boy.” His breath caught at the sight of those words, gone from his vocabulary since the war. He began to read about the planning of a reunion to be held the next summer at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The occasion was the seventy-fifth anniversary of Camp Ritchie’s opening in June of 1942.

  It was in 1944 that Eli arrived there.

  He folded the invitation, his old heart beating hard as a swell of memories and a flood of emotions came over him. Thinking back, at first, was like having a dream that happened to someone else. He thought how easily a man’s life could slip away, so much put aside and forgotten. It seemed that in middle age, he’d had more balance. He’d remembered the past without dwelling on it, lived in the present—focusing on his family, his business obligations, his connections with his community and temple friends—and still dreamt of the future. Now, at ninety-three, he engaged fully in his present moments; there was not much future to ponder but Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens. It kept him steady and pleasant, and Eli was a practical and logical man. When his wife died last spring, he’d adjusted because that’s what he’d learned to always do. He took great pleasure in his daughters and sons-in-law, their children and grandchildren. He had much and was grateful for all of it.

  But now, memory beckoned him with its gentle invitation. The letter drew him backward. To Camp Ritchie, of course. But more, to how his fate had changed when he became a “Ritchie Boy.” Camp Ritchie was the bridge between his lost Viennese childhood and his payment to America for his freedom. His thoughts rolled like passing clouds to his boyhood and formative friendships, to Toby and Hershel and his Army buddies.

  He’d spent so little time considering that distant past, warmly enveloped inside the wonderful life he’d built for himself in America, in Ohio, with his wife and their daughters. He suddenly recalled their weekly visits to see his in-laws who’d moved to Columbus, to see his own parents—all four gone for decades. That spurred him to more recent days, to his wife’s decline that prompted their move to Hillside—her short-term memory fading bit by bit, a few falls that left her more fragile and tentative. Eli settled into caring for her as he had managed all the responsibilities that had come before. He’d embraced the singular importance of the task, a renewed purpose to his life in the midst of his lengthy “third act.” Then, left alone after nearly sixty-eight years of marriage, he quickly realized he needed to “reinvent” himself, as he told a close friend after Tasa’s funeral.

  His whole being swelled and felt hollow at once as he considered the course of his life. He pondered how, over time, his past became so blurred and distant—that particular history now gone from the physical world, only remaining in boxes of photos and letters and within his own memory. He’d kept the old albums and a few mementos in the credenza adjacent to his porch-like office space overlooking the hill from which the retirement facility took its name. He rose from his chair and, in just a couple of strides, crossed the living room to retrieve them.

  He wanted to remember. It was time. The letter, somehow, made that urgent.

  LUCY SAT ON THE COUCH as Eli carried a flat and tattered cardboard box and set it down on the table in front of her. He removed the lid and pu
lled out an oversized leather album: a silver ship embossed at the center; a gold eagle design, its wings spread, across the top. The book was extremely old in style, worn at the edges. Inside, triangle-shaped corners held each photo, but several were missing, leaving many pictures at a slant; others were loose and would have slid out if the album were tilted. The somewhat smudged photographs, monochrome and tiny, were as creased as his hands grasping them now.

  “That’s my father’s store in Vienna.” He pointed to the photo of a European storefront showcasing his father’s name in bold, black letters atop a white banner—BARTHOLOMEW stoff—with much smaller German wording beneath. Collared shirts and trench coats filled the display windows. A hollow ache tugged at his heart as he locked his eyes on the image.

  “Was it destroyed during the war?” Lucy’s face bore a solemn expression as she took in each image. Eli knew she was trying to fit what seemed like pieces of a puzzle into a time and place.

  So this was when you were in the ski troops in Colorado?

  Was this when you were training at Camp Ritchie?

  What’s this coastline?

  It had been years since he’d looked through this scrapbook. Now it transported him to another lifetime. As a toddler on a sled. With his Viennese classmates. In uniform at Camp Hale. His mother as a young woman. His Gramma Jenny. Uncle Arthur. On furlough in Nice with his Army buddies. With them, he was always holding a cigarette, though he’d quit more than fifty years ago.

  “That’s Max Schultz, one of the GIs I trained with at Camp Ritchie.” Lucy bent forward to get a closer look, her auburn hair falling across her face, but Eli had already moved to the next photo, pointing. “That’s my favorite of Henry White—he was with us in Maryland too. We were all assigned to the same military intelligence unit in France. See that impish look on his face?”

  Henry was as tall as Eli, in the same Army khakis, his cap pushed back on his head. Eli gingerly turned each album sheet, thick and brittle with age. There stood Henry and Eli and Max, the three with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders. Next to it, the men were joined by two slender women with wavy dark hair, wearing V-cut dresses.