When the lunch bell rang at Lincoln
Elementary School, eleven-year-old Sondra had no idea that during the next hour
her life was going to change forever. She waved good-bye to her classmates as
she climbed aboard her father’s mud splattered pick-up truck that was standing
in front of the school waiting for her.
“Hi, Daddy,” she leaned over and gave her
father a kiss. His clean-shaven face was smooth and he was dressed in a blue
suit that matched his eyes. That was the way he dressed every weekday when he
worked in the Men’s Department at Apple’s Department Store. It was quite a
contrast to the father Sondra saw in the morning when she woke up and in the
evening before supper. Then he would be dressed in old, ragged work clothes
with a woolen cap on his head and high rubber boots on his feet. Sometimes
Sondra kept him company in the barn while he milked the dozen dairy cows by
hand. Once in a while, when it wasn’t too cold, she still helped him. It was
one of their special times together.
Julius Afelbaum drove his truck five
blocks out of town and then rode over a narrow bridge and around potholes for a
tenth of a mile till they arrived home. Home was a two-story farmhouse set on
seventy acres of rich, Kansas pastureland. Waiting at the back porch was Helga.
A small woman, with short, black hair and dark eyes, it was clear that Sondra
got her looks from her mother. Helga’s face lit up at the sight of her daughter
and husband and she had a kiss for both of them. Sondra returned the kiss with
a smile and the dimple on her left cheek deepened.
“What’s for dinner?” Sondra asked as she
entered the sunny kitchen. With red gingham wallpaper, lacey white curtains,
and a bright white, old-fashioned gas stove it was a most cheerful room. In the
summers the family ate their meals in the dark dining room full of ornate
furniture and china knickknacks that had been brought over from Germany. It was wasteful, though, in the winter to
heat that room just for mealtimes.
As Sondra sat down to the pot roast her
mother had made she felt sorry for all her other classmates, who were sitting
down to a cold peanut butter or lunchmeat sandwich with only their mothers for
company. It was her father with his funny stories from work who made their
meals lively. She and her mother were an appreciative audience, and usually one
of her father’s stories would remind her mother of an amusing anecdote from
college. There was usually a lot of laughter at the table.
This meal, though, Sondra had something
on her mind. An assignment for science, making a family tree to study the
similarities between the children, parents, and grandparents, had reminded her
that she had no idea what her maternal grandparents looked like. Dipping her
bread into her gravy, she took a deep breath.
“How come we don’t have any pictures of
Mommy’s family?”
There was a silence and Sondra heard her
mother, suddenly pale, set her fork down.
“I…, I don’t feel well. I think I will lie
down.”
Sondra watched as her mother made her way
from the table. Sondra suddenly felt uncomfortable, and angry that she felt
that way.
“What happened?” she asked her father with
an edge to her voice.
Julius Afelbaum wiped his hands and mouth
methodically and set the linen napkin next to his plate. He rubbed his hand
across his eyes and moved his chair closer to his daughter.
“Do you remember last fall when Cousin
Oscar told you how his parents were killed by Hitler?”
“Yes,” Sondra nodded her head slowly,
feeling fearful.
“The same thing happened to Mommy’s
parents.” Julius reached out and took his
daughter’s hand.
“I don’t understand,” the little girl
said. “Mommy always tells me such nice stories
about her parents.”
“It was nice, ‘til Hitler came to power.”
“Why didn’t her parents leave like Oma
and Opa?”
“My parents had great-uncle Simon here to
help them. Mommy’s family had
nowhere to go. Listen,
Sondra,” Julius closed his daughter’s smooth, little hands inside his two
callused ones. “The Nazis made my life hard. I had to leave home and start over
again here in America. But that is nothing like what happened to Mommy. They
murdered her parents and her little sister. Mommy had to work in a work camp
and was a slave. I know very little about it because Mommy does not want to
talk about it. It hurts her too much. Any questions you have you can ask me,
but not Mommy. Do you understand?”
Sondra nodded her head slowly. “The Nazis
burned the pictures, right.” It was a
statement, not a question
and the tears that had been threatening to overflow ever since her mother left
the table broke into heartrending sobs. Her Daddy put his arms around her and
patted her back, but he did not say everything would be all right as he usually
did. He let her cry herself out and
then, once she had dried her face, suggested they have dessert.
“How can you think of dessert?” Sondra
accused her father with resentful eyes.
He shocked her by laughing quietly.
“Sweetheart,” he said, stroking her dark hair. “I know this is hard for you,
but I’ve had twenty years to come to terms with everything the Nazis did to us.
The best revenge I can take is to live a normal life and show them that they
didn’t kill all of us.”
In the end, Sondra ate the bowl of
applesauce her father brought her. The two of them cleaned up the kitchen
together and Sondra was just a little late going back to school. If anyone in
the sixth grade class noticed that she had been crying, they did not mention
it.
She was surprised when she returned home
that afternoon to find her mother sitting at the kitchen table with her history
textbooks spread out in front of her as if nothing unusual had happened that
noon. Helga chatted pleasantly with her daughter while Sondra ate an apple. If
she had not known better, Sondra would have thought she had imagined the whole
thing.
“I think I’ll ride my bike over to
Howie’s,” Sondra announced.
Helga nodded her approval. “If you’re
going to be late, ride over to the store and Daddy can put your bike in the
back of the truck and bring you home.”
She kissed her daughter good-bye and watched from the window as Sondra
took her green Schwinn out of the barn and pedaled out of sight.
Howie lived across town, past the university,
in the newer section of Lincoln. Their fathers were brothers and the two
cousins were born a month apart. Sondra’s earliest memories were of Uncle
Herbert dropping off Aunt Irene at the farmhouse so she and Howie could play
together while their mothers visited. In Sondra’s eyes, it was a tragedy that
they went to different grammar schools, but it was probably one of the best
things for Sondra. Quite a daydreamer, she tended to look to Howie for
direction when they were together. Being in different schools had made her more
independent.
Aunt Irene answered the door. As far as
Sondra was concerned, her aunt was one of the prettiest women she had ever
seen. Slim and stylish with her honey-blonde hair twisted into a French knot,
she was quite a contrast to Helga. Sondra’s mother cared little about clothing
other than that it was clean and comfortable. Still Irene and Helga were the
best of friends, talking to each other daily.
“How
are you, Sondra?” Irene asked.
“Okay,” Sondra answered hoping that her
aunt had not noticed her swollen eyes. She wondered when the family had all
switched languages. German had been Sondra's mother tongue, but now she spoke
English with everyone but her Oma.
Irene ushered her into the modern,
electric kitchen where Howie and Lisa were. Lisa was dressed in her Blue Bird’s
uniform, complete with the girls’ club beanie. She and Howie were just
finishing bowls of ice cream. Irene left the children and returned to her
ironing in the basement. Indeed, she had noticed Sondra’s swollen eyes. She had
called Helga that afternoon, not long after the kids had gone back to school.
In a strained voice her sister-in-law had said she had a headache and didn’t
feel like talking. Helga called back an hour later and was her normal, cheerful
self. Still, Irene did not need to be a psychologist to know that there was a
connection between Sondra’s swollen eyes and Irene’s headache.
With an impatient motion Irene ran the
iron back and forth across Herbert’s handkerchiefs. As much as she loved her
sister-in-law, Irene strongly felt that she did not belong in a small town with
only a handful of Jews and no other Holocaust survivors. Irene had been
fourteen when her family left Germany, but that had been in 1936 before things
had gotten really bad. They had moved to Omaha, where her father had an aunt.
Irene had learned English and made friends quickly. She had none of the
horrible memories that haunted Helga. Nor did the rest of the family, all of
whom had gotten out in time.
As much as she would miss her, Irene
thought Julius should sell his cows, quit working for Uncle Simon, and take his
family to live in Kansas City where Helga would find friends with similar
backgrounds. But Uncle Simon would never approve and Julius would never go
against his wishes. Thank goodness Herbert had stopped working at the store as
soon as he finished high school. Raising cattle was hard work and Herbert but
in many ten- and twelve-hour days, but at least he was his own boss.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen Sondra had
refused Howie’s offer of ice cream. She bided her time, waiting for Lisa to
leave for her Blue Bird meeting. The eight-year-old finished her last drop of
ice cream and ran out.
“What’s wrong?” Howie asked. He was a big
boy for his eleven years, broad-shouldered and tall.
Without preamble Sondra explained what she
has learned at lunch.
“Wow,” Howie exclaimed. “I didn’t know
that!”
“Nobody talks about it. My mother doesn’t
like to talk about it.”
“Oscar doesn’t like to talk about it
either.”
“I know,” Sondra answered sadly. “But I
want to know what happened to Mommy’s parents!”
Howie leaned back in his chair so that only
two legs remained on the floor. He rested his blonde head against the wall and
studied his cousin.
“You know,” he tried to be comforting, “a
lot of kids our age don’t have any grandparents. At least, you have Oma. Try
not to think about it.”
“Try not to think about it!” Sondra
exclaimed. “You wouldn’t be saying that if it was your grandparents.”
“Don’t get in a tiff,” Howie sat straight
his chair. “There no point worrying about something you can’t change. Do you
want to look at my new rock star magazine?”
“No,” Sondra answered shortly. Last year
she and Howie had spent hours sitting together reading comic books. Now he was
just interested in sports and rock star magazines. She could not understand
what everyone saw in the Beatles. “I’m going to the library.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“If you want.”
Howie followed her out of the house
and jumped on his on his new ten-speed.
As they pedaled side by side, they made a handsome pair. He, with his
Nordic good looks, was quite a contrast to his dark little cousin. Once inside
the library, Howie picked up a Sports Illustrated and Sondra made her
way to the card catalogue. It was the first time she had used it. Normally she
would browse through the fiction section and grab books whose titles interested
her. This time she looked up two subjects, Nazi and Holocaust. After wandering
through the shelves she came to the librarian’s desk with two books. One was an
elementary World War II history and the other The Diary Of Anne Frank.
The
librarian pointed to the second book. “You might find this a little difficult,
Sondra.”
“I want to try,” the girl insisted.
“Okay,” the woman said as she stamped the
books.
The two cousins parted on the library
steps and Sondra rode home to delve into her books. She made no mention of them
to her mother, but when she did have questions she turned to her father, her
Oma, or sometimes even to Cousin Oscar. Soon the librarian realized what
subject Sondra was interested in and guided her to find books that were on her
level.
Summer came with its ninety-degree-plus
weather and the pool opened. Howie gave Sondra no peace every morning until she
agreed to meet him at The Crystal Plunge. She never suspected that he had
received directions from his parents to keep her out of her room and in the
sunshine. Although she was uncomfortable to be seen in a bathing suit with her
budding new shape, it was fun frolicking in the water. And Howie was more like
the old Howie, talking far less about rock groups and far more about fishing,
baseball, and cookouts. Sondra continued her reading, but she learned that she
could still enjoy life, even if Nazis had murdered her grandparents. By the
time she entered seventh grade at the junior high school, she had developed a
maturity that impressed her teachers.
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