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Everything changed that dark Friday morning when a policeman banged us awake and ordered us out of Germany. We panicked, protested, dressed, and packed in ten minutes. Then he took us down the stairs, out the front door, down the stoop, up the street, and to the nearby police station, which just yesterday had protected Jews in the neighborhood. On this fateful October 28, 1938, we surrendered our only passport and joined shaken friends and acquaintances, some wearing prayer shawls and phylacteries. Around 9:30am, as a small crowd jeered, we were driven away in open trucks. They stopped at a city jail. There Pappi was taken from us. We remained locked up the entire day, some thirty mothers and children listening to occasional screams from somewhere on the other side of the door. Around dusk guards returned to drive us from the prison. They stopped at Altonas Hauptbahnhof, one of metropolitan Hamburgs main railway stationsand yesterdays gateway to the beach.
The three of usMutti, and her two little boys , aged six and ten stood stock still hand in hand and grasping a suitcase, overcome by panic and frightened at the sight of the long, black, belching train. Other Polish Jews had also been dumped at the station and were now looking for each other. Where was he? There. No, thats not him. Look for two suitcases. Pappi! Max! Pappi! We and a thousand others screamed and screamed into the hall. When at least we found him, we had to board a guarded train and walk single file from car to car in order to look for seats and luggage space. Suddenly our family stopped the line for an instant; a second cousin stood in front of his seat, wine cup in hand, sanctifying the Shabbes for all of us.
In the next coach car we found seats next to windows facing the platform. Push them down, down. Here take the oranges. a stranger shouted from outside the compartment. Hamburgs German Jews, free to come and go, had arrived with food and love. Our arms intertwined within a small space allowed us by the partially open windows. Hurry. You are leaving, call the stranger.
The train rushed past stations after station. Once, when it stopped, some of us somehow managed to get off the train long enough to give a platform official our postcards. At another station, on the long-deserted platform outside our windows, we saw a man walking, while on the other track another train arrived. It looked like ours. Where are you from? someone shouted. Essen came the reply. Then it left. Suddenly Mutti stretched her hand through the partially lowered windows, waving a stamped envelope. The figure on the platform approached. She recognized him as one of those persons from the past, a reliable, polite employee of the German railway system. He came up to her. As he took the letter she pointed: Please put it in the mailbox. My parents have to know where we are going. He smiled and said, Of course. She replied: Oh, thank you, thank you. As our train started to pull out of the station, he raised the envelope for her to see, tore it into shreds, and scattered it across the platform.
By dawn the ride was over. The sign on the station read Neu Benschen. Its the border, the border. Waiting soldiers lined us up on the open platform. We stood in the cold air. At the far end someone began shouting names. We heard Korman and felt Pappi leaving us. Another separation? Who called? Why? The solider. An officer. Flared trousers in highly polished boots.
When Pappi returned holding his identity papers, I just knew that he could not tell me what do next. After the last name range out, a soldiers command made us turn right; by his command we started to walk. In his hands he held our hands even as we now held each other. But no matter what the next command. I knew we were supposed to be somewhere else: home in bed; planning activities for the morning; finding the Shabbes cake Mutti had baked and hidden on the upper shelf of her bedroom closet.
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