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8
Gisela
JUNE 1939
Sam and I spent much of our time gazing out at the endless expanse of ocean every day and wondering what would become of us. There were no signs of life beyond our ship, not even a bird in the sky, and the emptiness emphasized how abandoned and homeless we felt. We sailed for nearly a week after learning that the St.Louis was headed back to Europe, without any idea where we were going to land. Sam said prayers with his brothers, Vati, and the other men every day at sunrise and sunset, pleading with God for help. The passenger committee asked all of us for donations to help pay for the countless telegrams they were sending around the world from the ship’s radio room, pleading for help. The strain wore everyone down until we were drowning in despair. Captain Schroeder tried to toss us a life ring, addressing us in the social hall on Friday afternoon before Shabbat. “Whatever happens, you will not be returned to Germany,” he promised. It was enough to keep most of us treading water for a few more days. Saturday would mark exactly four weeks to the day since we’d set sail from Hamburg. Four weeks! And now we were nearing Europe once again.
Four more long, stressful days passed. On Wednesday, June14, we were summoned into the social hall at 10a.m. for a meeting. Captain Schroeder watched in silence as Herr Joseph from the passenger committee read the telegram that they had received:
Final arrangements for disembarkation all passengers complete. Governments of Belgium, Holland, France, and England cooperated magnificently with American Joint Distribution Committee to effect this possibility.
Our ship could land at last! We would be welcome in those four countries. Cheers and cries of joy erupted all over the hall. I huddled with my family as we wept and laughed and hugged each other. Sam’s family did the same. Herr Joseph waited for silence, then thanked Captain Schroeder on our behalf for keeping his promise. The St.Louis would be landing in Antwerp, Belgium, on Saturday, June17, and we would be disembarking at last to be dispersed to our new host nations. We celebrated with a huge party in the social hall that night. Everyone rejoiced. I danced in Sam’s arms until the band finally put away their instruments and went to bed. Our prayers had been answered.
My father spent the next few days with Sam and his mother as we tried to decide which of the four countries we would choose. Our mothers had become friends, Sam and I were inseparable, and Vati had offered to help Sam take care of his family while his father remained in Cuba. We decided against Holland because it was too close to Germany. Belgium and France weren’t much more distant, but at least Mutti had a brother in Paris. Eventually we chose Great Britain because it was an isolated island, even though none of us knew a soul there. It felt safer. “Sam and I already speak a little English,” I reasoned. “And if we all improve our skills while we’re waiting, we’ll have an advantage when our US quota numbers are called.”
On Saturday morning, the American Jewish committee representative, Morris Troper, sailed out to us on a tugboat from the Dutch port of Flushing, along with relief workers from the four host countries. Everyone on board strained for a glimpse of the man who had worked so hard to save our lives. Children formed a reception line to greet him. As the St.Louis sailed the remaining miles to Antwerp, Belgium, Mr. Troper and the four relief workers took their places behind a table in the social hall to decide our fates. “We will do our best to keep families together,” they announced.
But Sam and I weren’t a family, not yet. I clung tightly to his hand as we waited in a long line in the social hall with our parents to speak with the representative from England. I happened to glance up, and a chill came over me when I saw the portrait of Hitler glowering down on us from above. I felt like a mouse under the watchful eye of a hawk.
Vati presented our case to the British representative, as did Sam, and we learned that the most important factor in deciding our fate was the quota number on our US immigration applications. Passengers with the lowest numbers received preferential treatment because they would be out of their host country the soonest. Sam’s number was lower than mine by thousands. The final decisions would be announced by five o’clock, after the workers conferred with each other.
Soon after two that afternoon, Sam and I stood on the deck of the St.Louis as it docked at the pier in Antwerp. It was the first time we’d tied up on land since leaving Hamburg on May13. Now it was June17. We were so close to freedom, and yet I feared that something still could go wrong. Hadn’t we all cheered and rejoiced when we’d arrived in Havana? “To be honest,” I told Sam, “I’m still not quite willing to believe that our ordeal is over. And what will we do if you and I end up in different countries?”
He pulled me close and kissed the top of my head. “We’ll find a way to be together, Gisela. I promise.”
We returned to the social hall at five o’clock to learn our fates. The representative from Great Britain read his list of names first, and neither Sam’s family nor mine was on it. I barely had time to recover from my disappointment when they started reading the list for Belgium. Near the end of the list of 214 names was Shapiro. Sam and his family would be staying in Belgium. I held my breath until they reached W and said, “Wolff,” then I could breathe again. We hadn’t gotten our first choice of England, but thank God we would remain together. “And at least we’ll be free from the Nazis in Belgium,” Sam said.
We ate dinner aboard the ship for the very last time, and we were the envy of all the others when we were the first ones allowed off the St.Louis. I couldn’t believe the moment had finally arrived. At seven o’clock that evening, my feet touched land once again. As we were walking down the pier away from the ship, I heard a passenger behind me say, “We’ve sailed ten thousand miles without ever stepping foot on land, and now we’re back in Europe, three hundred miles from where we started.”
As it turned out, we had little time to celebrate our freedom once we disembarked. We were met by an escort of Belgian policemen and taken to a special train that was waiting for us on a nearby siding. An iron barrier blocked it off from the public streets. Our luggage was collected and we were quickly shuttled into the rail coaches. They were third-class coaches with hard, wooden seats, like the ones designated “for Jews only” in Germany. The coach windows were barred and had been nailed shut. We were locked inside and watched over by the police all the way to Brussels. “It’s for your own safety,” we were told. It didn’t feel that way. I sat with my head on Sam’s shoulder, clutching his hand for the two-hour ride.
Everything was in a state of confusion when we arrived in Brussels that night. Names were read off and families scrambled to find their luggage before being shuttled off to spend Saturday night in various hotels around Brussels. We were told we’d be moved once again in the morning. I needed to remain close to my family, so I barely had a chance to say goodbye to Sam before he and his family were whisked off to a different hotel. I was terrified that we would remain separated when morning came and I would never see him again. As it turned out, we were all reunited in the morning and were met by officials from the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, welcoming us to our new home in Belgium.
My family and Sam’s would settle in Antwerp, where there was a large Jewish community comprised mostly of refugees like us. We would live in a Jewish neighborhood near the city’s elegant train station. “Our stay in Belgium is only temporary, my dear ones,” Vati assured us. “But for now, let’s settle in and wait patiently until we’re allowed to immigrate to the United States.” America felt real to me now that I had glimpsed it from a distance, even if my opinion of that country had been tainted by their cruel rejection of us.
The Joint Committee paid for our support, providing enough money for us to rent a small apartment. Sam’s family moved into the same building, right across the hall from us. We owned nothing except the contents of the suitcases we’d brought with us on the St.Louis, and we spent the remainder of June trying to set up housekeeping again. Little by little, throughout the month of July, we began to reclaim the lives we’d lost when the Nazis came to power. Sam and I explored Antwerp together, drinking coffee in the cafés in the Grote Markt or strolling through the city’s lovely parks or even going to the cinema to help us learn Flemish. It was a new experience for us to be able to roam freely without fear of being accosted and beaten by Hitler Youth. There were no restrictions against Jewish people, no hateful propaganda posters or signs that said No dogs or Jews. And yet I felt as though I was moving forward on thin ice, testing each step, afraid to put on skates and glide effortlessly, unable to believe we were truly free.
Throughout the pleasant summer months, Sam’s father wrote countless letters to his wife as they debated whether or not he should leave Cuba to join his family in Belgium. Mr. Shapiro told us that while we’d been waiting on board the ship in Havana Harbor, the Nazi Party in Cuba had flooded the island with propaganda against Jews, arousing public opinion against allowing us to land. And after the United States and Canada refused us entry, the Nazis had bragged to the world that they had been right about us—nobody wanted dirty Jews in his country. In the end, the question of moving to Belgium was settled for Sam’s father when he was denied entrance because of the deluge of immigrants already flooding the small country. Sam would continue to be responsible for his mother and brothers. He found a part-time job delivering furniture for a Jewish-owned store to help support them and applied to study at a school in Antwerp in the fall.
In August, Sam and I were returning home from the English classes we attended together in the synagogue when my parents and Sam’s mother asked us to sit down in our tiny kitchen for a conversation. “My dear children,” Vati began, “Mutti and I and Mrs. Shapiro have been talking, and we all agree that it isn’t wise for you two to spend all of your free time together the way you’ve been doing and as you did on the ship.”
A cold dread filled my heart. I was holding Sam’s hand and I gripped it tighter beneath the table. “We know you love each other,” Vati continued. “And we believe your love is genuine. But you’re much too young for such an intense relationship and certainly for marriage. Now that we’re all free again, we want to urge you to make some new friends and spend time with other young people your age. Gisela, you need to finish your education—and didn’t you once think of becoming a nurse? Sam, you will be enrolling in the university when that becomes possible, so you both have many years of study ahead. You’re so young, and you’ll have the rest of your lives to be together and be responsible for each other. Why not enjoy these last few years of your youth instead of suffocating each other?”
Neither of us replied right away. The kitchen faucet dripped like a ticking clock. I couldn’t look at Sam. My insides squeezed as if gripped by a fist, as I fought a surge of panic. It was the same panic I’d felt after we were sent to different hotels on our first night in Belgium. The anxiety returned whenever we were apart for too long, and the fear would arise inside me that I would never see Sam again. Suffocating? It was the opposite. I couldn’t breathe when we were apart. And now our parents wanted us to spend less time together? Did Sam share their opinion? Did he think we were suffocating each other? I swallowed my tears as I waited for him to reply.
“May I ask you a question, Mr. Wolff?” Sam said at last. “How did you meet Gisela’s mother? Was it arranged by a matchmaker?”
“No, we met at a wedding. Her cousin was marrying my best friend. I saw Elise across the room and thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.” He looked at Mutti and she seemed to glow as he reached to take her hand. As a child, I’d seen their deep love for each other, and I had watched it grow even stronger under all the pressure we’d endured.
“And how long was it,” Sam asked, “before you knew that you wanted her beside you for the rest of your life?”
Vati nodded and held up his hand. “I understand what you’re saying, Sam—and it was, in fact, only a matter of months. But I was seven years older than you are right now, and my wife was four years older than Gisela is. We both had completed our educations. All we’re saying is that for the next few years you need to have interests in life aside from each other.”
“Are you going to forbid us to be together?”
“Not at all. But will you at least consider what we’re asking? Spend time with other friends. You don’t need to see each other every day. Especially once Gisela starts classes in the fall.”
Sam and I loved our parents. We knew we had a duty to obey them. As hard as it would be to spend time apart, we reluctantly agreed. Vati helped Sam find a study partner at the synagogue, a young man his age named Aaron Goldberg, and they began learning Gemara with the rabbi. It was through Aaron that Sam was introduced to the Zionist organization in Antwerp. They attended meetings together, and afterwards I would sit outside with them on the steps of our apartment and listen to their long discussions on warm summer nights. I watched Sam’s growing interest in the movement to resettle in the ancient land of Israel.
