My Mother's Stories

Another sleepless night.

My mind turns to my Mom. She's been gone for 11 years now and sometimes, like tonight, I miss her more than I did when she died or during the years when her mind was gone and she was not there - although her body still was.

Her stories resonate in me now, even more than they did when I was a child.

We left Germany when I was two. My Father had left the year before and gone to England to help build a refugee camp. My Mother had a visa for England that was to work as a housemaid. It was her ticket out!

The story that made me cry tonight - again - was of the train ride from Berlin to the harbor where we were to catch a ship for England. The train was full of women and children and it was late at night, the children for the most part sleeping. The train stopped at some town along the way and Nazi soldiers boarded the train and herded the women off onto the platform "to check their papers". My Mother said she held back, stayed near the train steps in case I woke and cried. The train started to move, to leave and she and some other mothers leapt aboard. Not all of the Mothers made it back onto the train.

I asked her - "What happened to the children whose Mother's didn't get back on board?" She cried. She didn't know. But I knew - I knew they had been "lost", abandoned, alone. I know now - they were probably killed. Back then I just knew how it felt to be lost and it frightened the hell out of me.

All children fear getting lost - but I think I came from a generation of children for whom the reality of that was a terrible fear. I remember clutching my Mother's hand tightly whenever we went anywhere and I remember hanging onto her purse strap feeling it's reassuring squeak of leather as we walked. I still have that purse. It contained our lives - our papers....our safety. If we got seperated, even momentarily in a store or street, I would totally dissolve.

In England, my Mother got a job as a housemaid, but naturally they didn't want a 2 year old hanging about. The authorities told Mom she had to take a job or get sent back to Germany. So Bloomsbury House came into the picture. They handled the children from the Kindertransport and found them homes, and they found the Sims for me.

My Mother told of meeting Mr. Sims at the train station - she not speaking English, he not speaking any German. She handed me over, screaming my 2 year old head off she said. She gave him my suitcase. And off we went, going our seperate ways.

How do you explain this to a two year old? Could Dahlia understand if we told her?
I just knew I was lost. I think I concluded that I wasn't loved enough, or good enough for my Mother to keep me. I certainly knew the Sims weren't my family and didn't love me. Certainly not as much as they loved my foster sister, Miriam. I still have a picture taken of the two of us. Miriam must have been 2 and I, about 3.
I remember thinking when that picture was taken that I was not the favored child.

They weren't unkind - although Mr. Sims had a fearful temper. They were just English. I remember sitting on Tanta's lap (as I called her) and wishing she'd hold me close, but I was waaay out there on her knees. I knew I couldn't get closer. It wasn't done.

I remember being in a dark room, in a crib and hearing a baby cry and cry. It was a familiar scene in my mind. Suddenly I thought "Oh, that's me." and the crying stopped. I think that Miriam and I both cried a lot and no-one came.

Years later, my Mother discovered that if she sang "Brahms Lullaby" in German to me I would dissolve into tears. It was a song she had sung to me as a baby - and I didn't know why it made me cry. I think my tears reassured her that I had missed her and still loved her. She would do it periodically to see if it still worked. I think she must have felt guilty about leaving me and worried that I was unforgiving or loved her less.

Somewhere I still have a little wooden child's wall hanging of Dumbo from the Disney movie. I think that must have hung on the wall in Germany because it hung on the wall in England and I loved it. The story of Dumbo resonated with me a lot - if you remember, Dumbo could not "get" to his Mother because she was imprisoned. He was alone and lonely and the other animals cared for him and gave him emotional support.
I always wished that I had some friends or animals who would love me the way Dumbo was loved.

When Mom got old and had dementia, she revealed to me her guilt at leaving her Mother and sister in Germany. She had kept it hidden from me - although I knew there was some terrible grief there. Letters stopped coming from them and my Mother was frantic to find them or hear from them. I found letters from the Red Cross among her things dated 1942 saying no word could be found of their location.

I think Mom destroyed her letters during those dementia years. She used to read and re-read letters from her sister and letters my Father had sent to her from England. He missed her and there were loving terms in them - but when she died, I could not find them. They were hers and it was her right to destroy them, but I would have loved to have them.

As Mom got older and less and less competent, I realized that one day I would have nothing of her to hold and remember her with. Nothing tangible. I saved some cuttings of her hair one day when I was visiting the convalescent hospital. And that's all I have of her. I saved some of her clothes, but the scent of my Mother is gone from them. When I was little, that scent was so reassuring. She smelled of cooking, baking, starched clothes, powder, love.

My memories go back a long way. I don't remember Germany, but I remember living with the Sims in Whitchurch. I remember my Mother coming to visit - infrequently it seemed. I felt lonely a lot yet, I think they read to me and I found a happy escape in stories. I remember watching the fire in the fireplace and making up fairy stories or princess stories in the fire. I remember having a very active mind for a two year old. I remember my third birthday - which I spent with my Mother.

I remember Miriam's grandmother and aunt who came to visit us in Whitchurch - but there was no question of their being a surrogate family for me. There was also a creepy boarder in the house who watched me with black, unfriendly eyes. I avoided him like the plague. I think his name was Stanley - and many, many years later Miriam told me that her Mother (Tanta) had had an affair with him and her sister, Ruth, who was born after I left their house, was his daughter. But all that went over my head at the time.

So those are some of my memories of England and my Mother. They don't stay buried, but surface to haunt me when I can't sleep.