Uncertainty: Prologue
Uncertainty: Chapter One
Uncertainty: Chapter Two
Uncertainty: Chapter Three
Uncertainty: Chapter Four
Uncertainty: Chapter Five
Uncertainty: Chapter Six
Uncertainty: Chapter Seven
Uncertainty: Chapter Eight
Uncertainty: Chapter Nine

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Uncertainty: Chapter Ten

Menil and I huddled under the blankets for warmth and held each other close. Yet we froze in fear of being discovered like two teenage lovers in the backseat of a Duesenberg automobile. We had heard a loud noise, and instinctively clung to each other in the back of the van, reacting to the present danger with the same heightened awareness as if we were hiding under Ilse Köhler’s kitchen floor. 

An hour earlier, we thought we had found the perfect spot to find some alone time…away from the kinder. But leave it to Berte to pick the same place at the same time as Menil and me. Vey iz mir!¹ We lay very still and quiet on our mattress of worsted wool–eavesdropping on Berte’s confession–until I could’t bear another minute of her unhappiness, and thought I would plotz². It broke my heart hearing Bertie pouring her heart out to Shaina Maidel.

We held our breath as she dragged her feet past the van, and we let out a collective *sigh* the moment we heard the barn doors close behind her.

“Gottenyu!³ I don’t think I could have gone any longer,” I confessed to Menil.

“Me either,” he snickered. “That had to be the most uncomfortable half-hour of my life.” He took back his arm and flexed it back and forth, trying to restore some feeling.

His nervous laughter reminded me of the time he accidentally pinned Dr. Krupp’s hoyzen⁴ legs together while marking a cuff, and the steel scion nearly broke his neck trying to step off the tailor block.

I jabbed him playfully with my elbow. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it! Your tokhter⁵ is struggling, and all you can do is laugh!?”

“Of course she’s struggling. We’re all struggling, Rochel! Because none of this makes any sense!” he stated. “This is all my fault. I should have listened to my shvester⁶ from Pittsburgh in ’35, when she said to me, ‘Menil, it’s not getting any better. You need to get out while you still can!'”

“She begged me to leave, and I wouldn’t have any of it. She could have sponsored all of us in America, and I was an idyot⁷ not to listen to her.”

I tried to reassure him. “Menil, it’s not your fault. We both agreed to stay here as long as we felt safe.” I hugged him tight so he would know.

“I wanted to believe our life in Essen was a blessing, and we were deserving of it after the way we struggled in Lodz. Gott sei dank!⁸, we have a successful business, and a beautiful family, and we can raise our girls to honor HaShem’s⁹ commandments. Even with the meshugenah¹⁰ Nazis in Essen, was our life so terrible?”

“Of course not!” I declared. I ran my fingers through his thick sandy hair and kissed him deeply. When I pulled away, I noticed that his smile and his swagger had returned.

“You see! So I was right!…Back then, there was no good reason to leave all of this behind. And for what?–an uncertain future in America?” he questioned.

However, in 1937, anti-Semitism intensified in Essen. Hitler Youths were constantly marching in the streets; more Jews were being beaten and harassed for being Jewish; and more laws were enacted that discriminated against Jewish merchants, doctors, lawyers and teachers. It became obvious to me and the girls that things were getting worse, yet whenever I often brought it up to Menil, he always thought things would eventually return to normal.

I’d tell him he was living “in denial,” but he always answered back with, “I have no immediate plans of moving from Essen or Egypt.”

The final affront for me was on September 27th that year, when Mussolini and Hitler rode down the center of town in his motorcade. Thousands of cheering people lined the street and saluted “Seig Heil”¹¹ and “Heil, Hitler.”¹² 

I was standing at the cross walk with Berte and noticed a frail woman in a wheelchair who failed to salute the Führer¹³ when he passed. That’s when a marching Brownshirt broke ranks and humiliated the old woman, forcing her to raise her arm. And when she couldn’t, he forced her to support her arm with the other arm. And when all strength failed her and her arms collapsed, he beat her and her attendant to the ground with a rubber truncheon while others looked on indifferently.

Maybe that’s when Menil finally came to his senses. We planned and practiced for the eventual day when our mishpocha could start over in the Nederlands. But we missed our one chance to cross the border together when it mattered, and now we’re in the van inside the barn at the farm, waiting to come up with another solution, because the Nazis are becoming more serious with each passing day, and it scares me.

“Max and Ilse have been telling us that people we used to know around our neighborhood are quickly disappearing. Families are being arrested and deported to concentration camps, and all the Jewish-owned shops are now reopening with Swastika flags flying on the outside. I feel like our life here is over…” 

Depression took hold, and grief overcame me. I buried myself in Menil’s arms. “…after all the hard work we put into it,” I sobbed. 

Menil consoled me, stroking my arms and back with his strong and nimble hands. “It’s all going to work out, Rochel. You’ll see. Bertie’s absolutely right. There’s no going back, and there’s no future staying here any longer,” he said with a hint of resignation. “We need to find another way out of Germany, but I’m not so sure we can do it as a family.”

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¹Woe is me!
²overcome by strong emotion
³Dear God!
⁴pants
⁵daughter
⁶sister
⁷idiot
⁸Thank God!
⁹The Lord
¹⁰crazy
¹¹Hail Victory
¹²Hail, Hitler
¹³Leader