A Ritchie Boy Read online

  He was uncomfortable talking about this raw part of his family history. The truth was that their correspondence with Gramma Jenny ended after 1939. He’d tried to track what might have happened to her during his enlistment, and it led to the same speculative conclusions the family deduced years earlier. His mother took it hard. First there was the guilt about abandoning Gramma, then the grief of her loss. The initial separation, then an absence of communication from Vienna, then not knowing what happened—it all deepened his mother’s anguish. Eli felt it like a thick cloud hanging over them.

  “What we know is that our neighborhood in Vienna’s sixteenth district was bombed in ’39. Destroyed. Correspondence with my grandmother ended then, like it did with everyone we knew who couldn’t get out. We don’t know where the letters we wrote landed, and we received none in return. But it became widely understood that all Jews in the city were removed and sent to camps. So we know she didn’t survive. We just don’t know the exact details. Better that we don’t.”

  Brandeis finished off his champagne and handed the flute to the waiter. He turned to Eli. “Tell me about that move to Columbus. You were fifteen. That must have been difficult. Arriving in a new country and then going to a small town where there were few immigrants. In your letter, you said you attended high school and college there.”

  Eli appreciated Brandeis changing the subject. Now was his chance to share what Brandeis had asked in his letter setting up their visit. “I want to know more about your life,” he’d written.

  Eli explained the reasons for Columbus—to assimilate, to be near a university, to live in a small community. He told him about his friendship with Hershel Goldstein. “Hershel helped me transition to the public high school. He’s who I went to the movies with, and I could ask him anything. It was how I learned about America.”

  “I guess you could say Hershel became your mentor.” Brandeis smiled. “I had a similar friendship with my brother-in-law who is also my business partner. Those relationships are very important. Where is Hershel now?”

  “He lives in Chicago. Married a girl from there he met during college.” Eli looked down at his empty plate. He felt hollow just then. He hadn’t seen Hershel since he left Ohio State in ’43 and joined the Army. While they kept in touch, it wasn’t the same. “Hershel registered for the draft but flunked the physical. He got a 4-F for flat feet so was able to stay in school.”

  The waiter brought dessert menus and tidied the table. Brandeis ordered two pieces of cherry pie.

  “What about you? When were you drafted?”

  Eli described his military experience, from the Mountain Division to Military Intelligence, from Maryland to Manchester to Paris. His role in Alsace analyzing the captured papers on the German V-2 rocket. How his regiment took over Heidelberg. “When the Germans surrendered in April of ’45, many of us went to Wiesbaden to assist the new government being set up. We separated the Nazis from those who weren’t active soldiers, so you didn’t get the same people in power again.”

  Brandeis, who’d listened carefully, now leaned forward, locking eyes with Eli. “I’m amazed, Eli. Look what you and others like you have done for this country. I feel I’m indebted to you, not the opposite.”

  “But I owe you my life, Mr. Brandeis, as do so many others. Aunt Zelda told me you helped many Jews escape Europe.” He didn’t want to add that he also learned about this through his crafty contact with HIAS.

  Brandeis helped himself to a bite of the pie the waiter had set down in front of them. “In the first year or two I promised specific jobs or financial assistance—both possible because of my good fortune and the availability of entry-level jobs at Stern’s. For a few I found living quarters or provided money to buy food and other necessities. When the Jewish agencies got more involved, my sponsorship focused on the financial only—ensuring the new family would not become a public burden.”

  Eli thought Brandeis was downplaying his role. “But your deed saved people’s lives. It saved my life and that of my parents. I wouldn’t be here if not for you!” As other diners turned to look at them, Eli felt himself blush. He realized his last comment had been a loud outburst. But he wanted Brandeis to grasp the magnitude of his help, and Eli’s personal gratitude.

  “We are not dissimilar, Eli. You’ve already given back enormously. You risked your life for all of us.” He leaned back and took in a deep breath. “The need of Jewish families to leave Europe drew the attention of American Jews like me who could afford to help. It was the right thing to do. That’s all.”

  Brandeis’s humility was striking, as was the fact that he saw his enormous deeds as a responsibility. Something expected of him and anyone like him. Eli turned this over in his mind.

  “Tell me what you are doing now, Eli.”

  “Finishing college on the GI Bill. I should have my degree by the end of next year.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “Business. And then I want to go to law school.” Eli stared at his hands, clasped on the white cloth in front of him, before he looked up to finish his answer. “Most importantly, I want to give back as you have done, whatever that looks like.”

  Hearing his own words gave Eli a sudden flash of understanding. You become. And you are. John Brandeis’s outward success came from a lifetime of hard work and tough choices. But through it all, he never forgot where he came from.

  No longer an obsession, or a larger-than-life figure for Eli, John Brandeis was now real. As Eli leaned back against the smooth leather banquette, he looked with affection at the man sitting next to him. A prominent businessman and humanitarian. A first-generation American, the son and grandson of immigrants who fled Europe as Eli and his parents had. A responsible and humble man. And the kind of person Eli wanted to emulate.

  TASA’S CHOICE

  September 1947

  TASA WAS BARELY TWO lines into the piece when she heard the front door slam and the excited voice of her mother. Violin in hand, she ran down the steps from her bedroom to find Aunt Norah and Uncle Levi, who she’d not seen for almost a decade. She remembered that hot, humid day at her family’s estate in eastern Poland as though it were yesterday—one that began with Danik’s affectionate taunts in the orchard and ended in a heated debate about Hitler’s growing power and the possibility of war. She was only fifteen then. Now, though safe among relatives in America, she felt herself tense as her father’s denial of an immediate threat and her cousin Albert’s warnings came back to her.

  “Tasa, Tasa! You are a beautiful young woman now.” Tears streamed down Aunt Norah’s face as she alternatively embraced Tasa and held her away to admire. “Halina, how she’s grown and blossomed.”

  Levi hugged Halina then reached for Tasa while Norah clasped Halina, the scene reminding Tasa of her recent introduction to square dancing with her cousin at a local club. All the stepping on toes as everyone exchanged partners.

  “I’ve missed you so.” Halina moved back to survey her sister and brother-in-law. “You must stay at least through the weekend. Salomon will be back soon … we have so much to catch up on.”

  Tasa observed the two sisters as they stood side by side. Norah was smaller, thinner boned, but looked sturdier than her mother. Halina’s black hair was thin and dull, her face already etched with lines, her posture slightly stooped. With her smooth skin, Norah looked more like Halina’s daughter than her eight-years-younger sibling. Norah, with Levi, had immigrated to the United States before fighting broke out, while her mother had lived in the midst of battle, then been deported to a Siberian work camp. Tasa still carried angst from their five-year separation.

  Now, thanks to Papa’s brother, they lived together in a small but comfortable house in Atlantic City. Two months earlier she and her parents had arrived at Ellis Island, warmly greeted by Uncle Walter, Aunt Polona, and her cousins Stella and Caleb. She’d felt like a foreigner around her Americanized relatives. Her uncle had left Poland and settled in New Jersey in ’21. It was where he’d met
Polona, where Tasa’s cousins were born. With a successful parking lot business, Uncle Walter bought and furnished this house for them. He said to consider it a loan and took Papa into his business. Meanwhile, Tasa had stayed close to home, occasionally walking along the famous boardwalk and often playing her violin.

  Halina took the small bag from Levi and shooed him toward the family room couch. “I’ll bring snacks; you must be famished.”

  Still holding her violin, Tasa lowered herself next to Levi and Norah. “Mama said you’d come visit and told me a little about where you live. In O-hi-o.” She tried to pronounce it correctly. “What’s it like there?”

  “Well, we live near a large university filled with many people your age.” Norah looked toward Levi, nodding for him to say more.

  “There are nice opportunities in a city like Columbus.” Levi’s eyes brightened. “I started an office supply business. A number of immigrants also settled there, and we live among a small Jewish community.”

  Tasa listened, nodding, recalling her mother telling her they had a four-year-old daughter. “How’s Franny? I’d love to meet her.”

  “She’d probably be happier if she wasn’t home with a sitter, but I know she’d love to meet you too. If you came to stay with us—to visit—you could teach her music.” Norah motioned toward Tasa’s violin. “Play something for us. Play what we heard when we were walking up.”

  The piece was Tasa’s favorite Paganini solo. The “Duetto Amorosa” represented a dialogue between two lovers. Tasa blushed at the thought of performing it for them, although they would have no idea of its meaning. Still, she quickly acquiesced, the music a handy substitute when talking became awkward. She put her violin to her chin and placed her bow against the strings to begin the jaunty and optimistic theme, anticipating the more romantic, more passionate and yearning passage to follow. Tasa’s heart still ached over the loss of Danik. This song unleashed her sorrow every time she played it.

  The front door opened with her father’s resounding “Hej!” His figure quickly filled the living room entryway.

  “Who do we have here?” Salomon scanned the room, beaming.

  Tasa stopped playing, stirred by the excited greetings. She still found it miraculous that they were safe, alive, united in America. That they had family around them: some newer, others from their past. The Rosinskis of New Jersey. Now, the Eisens of Ohio. The Dorfmans—Aunt Sascha, Uncle Jakov, and Tolek, who was now seventeen—so close by in New York City and planning to visit soon.

  Despite this good fortune, Tasa felt oddly adrift. She had marked time during the war, her aspirations on hold while so many things spun out of control: with their estate commandeered first by the Soviets and then the Nazis, with her mother in Siberia. And in the midst of it all, falling in love and becoming intimate with Danik, then his joining the war effort. She waited years for the war to end, and when it did, she was left to face Danik’s death. It took eighteen months in Vienna until they got their affidavits to come to America. After all this time she wasn’t even sure what she sought for her future. She was twenty-four and still waiting to begin her life. She had her parents, her new relatives, her violin and her talent, but all this wasn’t enough to fill the hollowness she felt in this strange new land.

  “WHAT PLANS DO YOU have, Tasa?” Levi scooped a second helping of salad onto his plate. “I mean, in terms of furthering your education.”

  “There aren’t very good options for me.” Tasa picked at her food and began to move it around her plate, a habit she’d acquired at a young age whenever conversation unsettled her. “The two universities that would have made sense for me to attend are far away—more than one hundred and fifty kilometers—” She furrowed her brows for a few seconds, still having trouble with distance conversions. “Maybe a hundred miles from here?”

  “Why don’t you come back to Columbus with us?” Norah leaned forward and spoke loud enough to get everyone’s attention. “We live close to Ohio State. It’s a large public university. You could study anything you want there.”

  “How large is it?” Tasa found her interest piqued by this new possibility.

  “I don’t know. Levi, what? Maybe twenty-five thousand students?”

  “Twenty-five thousand? That’s larger than most cities!” Tasa felt overwhelmed by the thought. “How would I find my way?”

  Levi swallowed the piece of meat he’d been chewing, then dabbed his mouth with the napkin. “I have a thought. A nice boy about your age works for me. He’s finishing business school there right now on the GI Bill. A decorated member of the U.S. Army. I know Eli would be happy to help you get oriented.”

  Flustered and at a loss for words, Tasa looked toward her parents. Halina, catching her stare, interjected, “I don’t understand what you’re saying. For Tasa to come with you to Columbus. To live? To attend school? Then to be chaperoned by some salesclerk in your store who fought in the Army? You aren’t serious, are you?”

  “The young man is from Vienna. Came here at fifteen. Went to school, worked. Then he was drafted like all the rest. A wonderful young man—”

  “And he’s Jewish,” Norah blurted.

  At that, Salomon, feigning a cough, held up his hand. “Let’s slow down for a moment. We need to know more about this … this opportunity for Tasa.”

  Tasa was indignant. Clearly, her aunt and uncle had a motive in coming to visit. And it seemed that her parents had to be in on the plan. Pushing her chair away from the table, she stood, pasting a wooden smile on her face. “I must be excused, please.” She walked to the living room, picked up her violin, and headed upstairs. She needed time to think. Alone.

  She paced across the small space of her bedroom. The situation felt strangely like a distant time in her past—half her lifetime ago—when her parents sent her to the next largest town, Brody, to continue her education. Arrangements were made for her to live with a family friend, Greta Rothstein, and attend a private academy that educated Catholics and Jews. Despite this necessary rite of passage, she’d left in tears, afraid to separate from her parents and grandfather. The only consolation had been joining her beloved older cousin, Danik.

  A tapping at her door made her jump. She turned to see her mother’s head peeking in. “Tasa, please come downstairs. You’re being rude.”

  “Mama, it seems all of you have made plans for me without consulting me first. I am not a child.”

  “Of course you aren’t. This has happened very fast. I just learned of Norah’s visit last week and of her … her intentions.”

  “You knew about all this, and your apprehension was just an act?”

  Halina sat on the bed and motioned Tasa to sit next to her. “I only know that Columbus offers you more than what you have in Atlantic City. We are thinking of your best interests. Look, here you have no good choices. Not for school. Not for meeting young people your age.”

  “But Mama, it’s as though all of you are marrying me off!”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. This young man has much in common with you. He has friends. He can help you acclimate to a college life. Levi and Norah live within a Jewish community where there are other immigrants from Eastern Europe.” She paused, and her eyes softened. “And you could babysit for your cousin, Franny.”

  Tasa remained silent. There was something enticing about leaving home for a new place where she could be somewhat on her own. Where she could attend a university. While it also scared her, she knew that meeting young people as she’d begun to do in Vienna could shake the melancholy that often gripped her.

  “Let me think about this, Mama.”

  TWO DAYS LATER, THEY packed Levi’s purple Buick Century with two small bags containing clothes Tasa thought could last her into the cooler fall weather. The heat and humidity on this early September morning brought to mind her final trip with Danik from Podkamien to Brody just a month before Germany attacked Poland. That trip was peaceful, the road empty, the lushness of the land unfurling before her, with its end
less, dense fields of sugar beets, their rosettes of leaves spreading upward. Eight years separated two distinct worlds. In one, a horse-drawn carriage transported Tasa for the short journey from her Polish village to the next larger town. In the other, a modern automobile would carry her more than five hundred miles from New Jersey to Ohio.

  Tasa viewed this trip only as a trial, which made the departure easier. She would explore what Columbus had to offer her and give it a month or two. It was as if she had a mental list of expectations this new “home” had to fulfill to make it worth yet another separation from her parents. This time, though, the choice to stay or leave was her own.

  After parting hugs, Levi keyed the ignition and they were off. He drove down Albany Avenue and entered U.S. Route 40, the highway that could get someone from east to west coasts. Just two blocks from Atlantic City’s boardwalk, the view of the vast ocean that connected to her past would soon disappear. Tasa took in the images racing past her window as Levi accelerated to keep pace with the traffic.

  She didn’t say much for the first two hours of the ride, occasionally asking Levi what city they were driving through, although his answers didn’t mean much to her. While they crossed the Delaware River on a ferry, she munched on carrots and pieces of Swiss cheese her mother had packed for the trip. She saw the first of five state markers at the other side—“Welcome to Delaware”—and began getting curious about her destination.

  “When did you get to Columbus, Aunt Norah? And why Columbus?”

  Norah said their decision to leave Poland came soon after that final family gathering. “That was the last time I saw my papa, your grandfather. Or Danik.” Norah’s eyes filled. She rolled down the car window before continuing. She and Levi had escaped through Romania and the Black Sea. They felt New York was too crowded. “I’d heard the same about Los Angeles. Columbus appealed to us because of its size and the accessibility to a public university.” Tasa learned that Norah had attended Ohio State before Franny was born. “They have a wonderful fine arts program,” she added.