The Last Jews in Berlin (13 page)

“To hell with you,” the foreman said. He discharged him on the spot.

Only then did Kurt fully understand the terror of being absolutely cut off from normal life. For a Jew in Germany in these times a “normal” life was spent at forced labor. As long as he was doing something, he blended in, but once he was severed from the routines of wartime Germany, anything could happen—the most likely being deportation.

But then came a stroke of luck.

Shortly after his discharge Kurt was placed in a ten-man work gang assigned to a wholesale leather warehouse, unloading goods that had been shipped in from occupied France. After fourteen days half the group was discharged, and then, eight days later, three others were let go, until only Kurt and another man were left. Kurt was determined to keep the job as long as he could. The pay was 50 percent better than work on the railroad, and the job was indoors. He worked hard and thus caught the eye of his employer, Baron Freiherr Dr. von Neuber zu Neuber.

Neuber was a small gray-haired man with the erect bearing of an army officer and the punctuality to match. One day the baron told Kurt that his three regular male employees would all soon be drafted. The baron asked if Kurt would like to stay on if he could arrange it with the labor office. When the last remaining Jew was dismissed and Kurt stayed on, he could scarcely believe his luck.

In the months that followed, Kurt went out of his way to justify the baron's trust. He worked long hours, offered suggestions for improving the organization of supplies and volunteered for extra assignments. After the order for Jews to wear yellow stars on their clothing went into effect on September 19, 1941, Kurt would arrive at work with his star on his coat, but on the baron's instructions, would cover it with his apron. Many party members would come in to select their leather goods at wholesale prices, and the baron wanted no problems. The work went well; many party members would tip Kurt for his help. The baron's trust in Kurt grew to such a point that he would leave Kurt in charge when he went off to Paris on his buying trips.

The baron took his noble rank seriously. Unlike other titled Germans he knew, who gave mere lip service to the concept of noblesse oblige, he sincerely believed that with the privileges of nobility came obligations. For him Kurt personified the plight of the Jews, and while he could not go against official government policy, he went out of his way to let Kurt know that he' didn't agree with it. “For me all people are human beings,” he said one day. He insisted that Kurt pick out shoes for himself, and for Hella as well. “You have to have shoes,” he said. From time to time he also gave them food.

In addition to selling shoes the baron sold leather to the larger shoe factories. His operation did not appear to Kurt to be especially impressive, but somehow the baron seemed to be well connected at the economics ministry. Whatever the reason for the baron's importance, whatever the reason for his attachment to Kurt Riede, both his attachment and his importance were soon to save Kurt's and Hella's lives.

The deportations of Jews from Berlin to the east had begun on October 19, 1941, one month following the effective date of the order to wear Jewish stars. That winter Kurt's mother and stepfather received their deportation order. In vain Kurt and Hella searched for a place for them to live illegally. After their departure to a work camp in Lublin, Kurt sent them packages, which they acknowledged by postcard. Then he sent a package that wasn't acknowledged. He was devastated.

One by one, or in small groups, the families in the Kaiserstrasse apartment building disappeared. One evening in October 1942 two Gestapo officers fetched Kurt from his apartment to carry the luggage of two elderly Jews who were being deported. When Kurt explained that he was night-blind, the Gestapo officers told him that Hella could go along to guide him.

The luggage—two small suitcases—was not heavy. But the silence was oppressive as the Riedes accompanied the Jews and the Gestapo officers to what had been a synagogue on the Levetzowstrasse. Now it was a collecting point for Jewish deportees. When they arrived, one of the officers handed Kurt a package he'd been carrying since they left the apartment building. “Here, hold this while we're inside,” he said. “When we come out we'll take you back to your home.”

The Riedes were mystified but grateful. They could not ride the public transportation alone, and it was three miles back to their apartment building.

Minutes passed. Suddenly a flashlight was shining in their eyes and two S.S. men were in front of them demanding to know what they were doing out after curfew. Kurt explained that the Gestapo officers had instructed them to wait and to mind a package for them. The S.S. officers took the package from Kurt and strode off. The Riedes could scarcely protest. Then out came the Gestapo officers. Kurt told them what had happened. “Damn!” exclaimed the one who had given Kurt the package. He and his partner hurried away.

It took the Riedes almost an hour to walk home. Late that night they went gratefully to bed, only to be aroused by the Gestapo and driven swiftly back to the building on the Levetzowstrasse. There Kurt was brought before a senior Gestapo officer. The man was in a rage.

“Did you know what was in the package?” he demanded.

“No.”

“Didn't you feel something in it?”

“It was heavy and felt hard.”

When the officer had finished questioning Kurt he said, “I must tell you. These men were not Gestapo officers.”

Evidently the two officers had been caught taking a bribe, and the Gestapo was aghast. The elderly couple had tried to buy their freedom with some sort of valuable object, possibly a piece of sculpture.

The Riedes waited through the night in the converted synagogue. At seven in the morning Kurt went to the officer in charge and pointed out that he had to be at work in half an hour. The officer shrugged.

Half an hour later the Riedes and four others were placed in a police van and driven to the former Jewish home for the aged on the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. The fifteen-by-fifteen-foot room to which they were taken had bars on the windows and the door; inside was the elderly Jewish couple from their apartment building. The four of them remained in the room for weeks while the Gestapo investigated the episode. Soon after their arrival other Jews joined them.

Within another few weeks the room that had held four persons initially had become the living quarters of fourteen Jews being gathered for the transports. At the beginning they had all been confined to their room, just like the Jews in other rooms, leaving only to fetch their food and bring it back. Later, when they could scarcely move about, they were permitted out of the rooms to walk in the hallways.

Kurt kept thinking of ways for them to escape. He was sure that if they could get their heads through the bars on the windows, the rest of their bodies would follow. Then, using bed sheets tied together, they could let themselves down to the ground. But Hella discouraged all his ideas. “If we leave, the others will suffer,” she said.

Hella did her best to keep her husband calm and prevent him from slipping into a depression. For three months the investigation dragged on. Twice during their stay, quotas were filled and transports departed.

“Our turn is coming,” Kurt predicted mournfully. “As soon as the investigation is ended, as soon as enough people are collected, we'll be among them.”

Then, one evening in mid-December, the door to their room opened and a clerk entered. “Riede?”

“Yes?” Kurt answered.

“Get dressed and go downstairs. Your wife too.”

Kurt turned to Hella, a stricken look on his face. “It's our turn,” he said. The others in the room wouldn't look at them.

They went downstairs and presented themselves to the officer in charge.

“Go home,” he said.

For a moment the Riedes were too stupefied either to speak or to move. “What?” Kurt managed finally.

“Out! Out of the building. You are free.”

Without another word the Riedes left the building. They did not even speak to each other until they had walked several blocks. They walked quickly until they were back at their apartment. It had been sealed in their absence.

Kurt went to the nearest police station, explained that they had been released and asked that the seals be removed.

“They never release anybody there. You escaped,” an officer said.

“Excuse me. Do you think that if I had fled. I would come back to the police? I'm not that stupid. Call them.”

A telephone call confirmed Kurt's story, and a police officer returned with them to their apartment and removed the seals from the door. The next day Kurt returned to work at the wholesale leather warehouse. The baron never said anything, and Kurt could never prove it, but he was sure it was the baron who had arranged for their freedom. It couldn't have been anyone else.

One month after their release from the Gestapo prison the factory workers and their families were seized in the massive roundup of February 27, 1943. The Riedes were certain that Kurt had been overlooked and that their arrest was only a matter of time. They did not know whether the baron could help them again if they found themselves back in the prison. It was a chance they were unwilling to take. And so they had fled.

As the Riedes told the Wirkuses their story Beppo and Kadi were thankful destiny had chosen them to provide a way station for the Jewish couple. And yet the story only underscored what a dangerous service that was. Alone in their bedroom, they lay awake into the early morning hours wondering what to do. Had they not done enough already? On the other hand, how could they turn the Riedes out?

In the end it was the Riedes who resolved the dilemma. As much as they might have liked to remain, they did not want to expose the Wirkuses to further danger. Besides, they reasoned, if the Gestapo hadn't come for them, it was proof that they were still under the baron's protection.

Prior to their departure on February 27 the Riedes had arranged an all-clear signal with their old landlady. If it was safe for them to come back to their apartment she would place a white rag on her balcony. A week after the Riedes arrived in Wittenau, Beppo went to the Kaiserstrasse to check for the signal. There was nothing hanging from the balcony. He went again several days later. This time there was a white rag. He went to the landlady's apartment. She confirmed that the Gestapo had not appeared. When the rag was still in place after another several days, Kurt and Hella concluded that it was safe for them to return to their apartment.

When the time came to say goodbye, the two couples could scarcely speak. Hella hugged the baby, and seeing this, Kadi burst into tears. The two women embraced. Kurt and Beppo looked at each other awkwardly.

“There's an S.S. man I know,” Kurt began. “I think he can be bribed.…”

“Don't throw your money away,” Beppo said.

They walked through the garden to the gate. Beppo addressed both Riedes. “If there's danger and you have nowhere else to go, come back to Wittenau.”

11

T
HE
J
EWS
who went underground in Germany in the 1940s to escape the Nazis called themselves “U-boats,” a self-mocking reference to the country's efficient and effective fleet of submarines. But the comparison was as apt as it was sardonic, because to remain underground required much the same degree of wile, stealth and courage as that employed by the crews of the submarines. Some of the Jews who had gone underground were able to remain sequestered until the end of the war. But the majority, like the submarines, had constantly to surface and prowl about. They worried about whether the Gestapo and the S.S. were on their trail or whether neighbors had reported their presence. The Germans who sheltered them became nervous as well. Either or both circumstances required them to find new hiding places every few days or weeks; only infrequently were the majority of Jewish “U-boats” able to remain in their safe harbors for months. Then there was the matter of money for food; it was up to the Jews to find it somehow. They had to secure the ration cards that would enable them to buy food, or develop black market contacts.

Every Jew not permanently hidden had to leave his residence each day as though going to work, and return home each night. During the day he had no alternative but to walk the streets, ever on the alert for Wehrmacht patrols and S.S. plainclothesmen demanding to know why he wasn't in uniform, or for former friends, neighbors, and business and professional associates who might wittingly or unwittingly give him away. He had to constantly remind himself to stay away from old haunts and neighborhoods, lest he unconsciously drift toward them. Prowling the streets of Berlin in this manner for twelve hours each weekday took its toll not just on the body but on clothes and shoes, which had to be repaired or replaced, a process requiring as much stealth, at times, as the daily purchase of food. Even personal hygiene was as necessary as it was desirable, for an unwashed pedestrian would surely attract attention. But soap too was rationed, and even after it was acquired it was difficult for those Jews constantly on the move to use it. If they washed themselves or their clothing in public rest rooms they increased their visibility.

Like the submariners, many Jewish “U-boats” were efficient and effective. They went underground only after elaborate planning, the hoarding of resources, the identification of safe houses and the acquisition of false papers. But Willy Glaser, the middle-aged enthusiast of the arts, had failed to make such preparations. Where more efficient Jews had slipped carefully under the surface of life in Berlin, Willy's descent into hiding had been a sudden plunge down a flight of tenement stairs. He hadn't thought about resources because he had none to hoard. False papers were luxuries for others than the likes of him; even if he had had the money for bribes, he wouldn't have known how to go about acquiring the papers. As to a safe house, he'd had no promises, only hopes.