With antisemitism seeping slowly into our society, my sister Evelyn Grapek, now 97, recently talked about her childhood memories in Berlin, Germany, during the early years that Hitler rose to power.
In 1937, she explained to me, she and my parents were still able to escape the increasing disdain for the Jews in Germany, but only with plenty of planning.
They arrived in New York in 1937. I was born a year later and, for much of my life, had little knowledge of what she and my parents went through to start a new life in America. Her story is worth sharing. In italics is what Evelyn told me.
“Prior to 1935, when the Nuremberg laws, dictated by Hitler, became the law of the land, we had a wonderful life. Daddy made a good living as the proprietor of a men’s clothing store. Mommy had a maid; I had a nanny.
“Although our parents were somewhat aware of the changes in government, they were not terribly concerned that they would be affected. You could say our parents had their heads in the sand, like many of their friends and relatives. They really didn’t understand what was happening, that antisemitism was creeping up slowly.
“As Hitler became more powerful, Jewish children were forced out of their neighborhood schools, grown-ups were deprived of their civil rights, even such extreme laws as not being allowed to just sit on a park bench, enter a restaurant or simply enjoy a concert were strictly enforced.
“Daddy became alarmed. His fear reached greater heights when the laws forbade his Christian sales staff to continue being employed by a Jew. My mother’s Christian maid was forced to leave, as was my baby nurse.”
More reality set in, she told me, when one day teenage Nazi thugs, who were free to roam the streets, came into our father’s store shouting “Heil Hitler” and helped themselves to armloads of shirts and trousers. Evelyn, who was 7 years old at the time, explained how that incident remains deep in her psyche as she relives the panic when she and our mother heard the commotion from their upstairs apartment.
Over the years, I had heard bits and pieces of my family’s issues -– but never learned the full story of what they went through to leave Nazi Germany and resettle in the United States. Talking about their past lives was a taboo topic. Don’t ask, don’t tell was the unwritten rule in my home. It was too painful to talk about. While they survived, they still struggled with guilt for those family members who were burned to death in Nazi concentration camps.
However, after we witnessed the televised attacks of a Jewish synagogue and the growing number of local antisemitic attacks, Evelyn was willing to talk about the family’s horrific experiences: “You need to know. It can happen here … I’ll tell you what I remember …
“Daddy wanted to leave, even though his siblings and friends said he was overreacting: ‘Things will change; Hitler is a passing phase.’ He struggled with his decision until I was forced to leave my neighborhood friends and attend a school for Jewish children only. As antisemitism affected more and more of our everyday life, Daddy’s fears increased. One day, walking home from school, I was stopped by a small group of boys and girls shouting, ‘Yid bitch,’ or something like that. That was Daddy’s final straw, so to speak. Our father understood what so many of his friends and family did not. Antisemitism was taking over our lives.
“That decision to leave was the easy part; how to leave was the conundrum. Visas to leave the country were becoming scarce. Monies earned by Jews were confiscated. Mom and Dad seemed nervous all the time. Talk was always in a whisper. I never understood, but I inherited their fears.”
Our discussion continued with me trying to understand how our dad not only had the courage to leave but the know-how to carry out a plan to leave a good life behind forever: “It was about having enough money. It was our ticket to freedom …
“A year before we left Germany, I remember traveling monthly with Mommy to visit someone in Holland. What I learned decades later was that we had been transporting monies to a bank account there for safekeeping. Mommy carried money in her bra; I had money stuffed in my toy dolls. The shoemaker made a false bottom in our shoes to carry more cash. I remember we stayed in a house, which I later learned, was the home of the couple who helped Jews smuggle their monies out of Germany. The couple — who I called Tanta and Uncle — would make me toast topped with chocolate sprinkles and warm cocoa for breakfast., a special Dutch treat.
“While things were escalating in Germany in 1937, we were still able to obtain a three-month vacation visa to Marienbad, a summer resort in Czechoslovakia. (I didn’t know that Daddy’s game plan was to remain there for the summer and then go to Prague, where we could more easily obtain a visa out of Europe.)
“I remember my parents being terribly nervous when the train stopped at the border before entering Czechoslovakia. [Seeing big] men with guns attached to their hips and wearing knee-high black leather boots that clacked as they walked was so scary. I remember Daddy’s hands shaking as they asked for our passports (which had the word ‘Juden’ stamped on them) fearful that they would discover the money he had hidden in the lining of his jacket and sewn into the lining of my mother’s heavy woolen skirt. I later learned that Jews were not allowed to take money out of Germany. To find any hidden money meant an automatic arrest and return to Germany. Mommy and Daddy told me to be absolutely quiet, to look down at my feet, not at the men. Mommy squeezed my hand so tightly I thought I would scream.
“After the summer, we relocated to Prague, where we remained illegally for a year while my parents went from embassy to embassy, trying to get a visa out of Europe. My parents and other adults waiting for a visa lived in a rundown hotel. I was placed in a big house nearby with other children whose parents were also waiting for a visa. There we were given some semblance of an education. But being separated from my parents — and not being told why — was confusing and lonely. I felt abandoned, a feeling that comes painfully back to me even today.
“When Daddy finally obtained our visas to come to the United States, we took a train to Amsterdam. It was still safe to travel there from Prague. I remember my excitement when we boarded a big ship called The Statendam and traveled to New York City. It was an exciting trip for children. We were told we were going to a wonderful city where the streets were paved with gold! That ship, we learned later, was bombed by the Germans on its return to Holland.
“We were the lucky ones. But again, if we didn’t have the money for the long haul, we would just be three more of the 6 millions Jews who were murdered, and just three more names etched into the walls of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.”
“And I wouldn’t have a big sister,” I said as I wrapped my arms around Evelyn to give her a great big hug.
Bea Lewis is a journalist and author in Boynton Beach. A video of their full discussion is available on YouTube.com.
