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16
Gisela
MARCH 1943
I never felt fully settled in my new home or with my new nursing position after moving from Antwerp. My life had changed so many times since closing the door on our apartment in Berlin four years ago, with so many hopes and disappointments along the way, that this change didn’t seem permanent, either. Not only was I separated from everyone I loved, I lived with the constant fear of being betrayed and arrested. The roundup of Jews continued, and as much as I longed to see Sam and my parents, I didn’t want the generous people who were helping me to be discovered and arrested, too. I didn’t visit Ruthie in the orphanage for the same reason. I would never forgive myself if I caused her to be arrested. Instead, I focused on my work at Hospital Sint-Augustinus and avoided making friends with the other nurses at work and in the rooming house where I lived.
The war continued to rage, but I didn’t know many details of the battles and victories. No one trusted the Nazi-run newspapers to tell the truth. By listening to the conversations in the hospital lounge, I’d learned that the seemingly unstoppable Nazis had suffered a setback last fall when General Rommel was defeated in Egypt. And in February of this year, the Nazis were defeated by the Soviets in Stalingrad. By now, the war had spread across the entire globe, and I guessed from the amount of activity in the skies overhead and the ever-familiar sound of air-raid sirens that it was far from over.
Sam had promised to contact me through Sister Veronica, but he hadn’t. And I had promised to visit my sister. In March, my longing to see someone I loved became so overwhelming that I set off from my boardinghouse on a Sunday afternoon to visit Ruthie, taking the trolley most of the way and walking the rest. The village of Mortsel, where the orphanage was located, looked as bedraggled and beaten down as the rest of Belgium, but at least the streets were peaceful on that chilly spring day. I was excited to see Ruthie and also a little nervous, hoping she would understand why I hadn’t visited sooner, hoping she would forgive me. I was not prepared to be turned away on the orphanage’s doorstep.
“Sorry, but you need official authorization in order to visit any of our orphans.”
I stood my ground, and after explaining myself several times to various underlings who had come out to the front entrance to send me away, I insisted that Sister Marie, the orphanage’s director, be told my name. After another long wait, I was finally taken inside and left to wait in the dark, narrow hallway outside her office like a penitent waiting to confess. I heard the sound of children at play in the distance. At last, Sister Marie invited me inside. She took a seat behind her desk and offered me a chair, but I was too upset to sit down. I told her why I’d come.
“I understand the reason for your request, Miss Maes,” she replied. “But I’m afraid we cannot grant it.”
A sudden dread filled me. “Why not? Where’s Ruthie? Has something happened to her?”
“Not at all. Ruth Anne has had a difficult time adapting here, but in the last several weeks, she has finally settled in. I cannot allow your visit to disrupt her again.”
“But I promised my sister that I would visit her! Sister Veronica arranged for me to work at Hospital Sint-Augustinus so I would be nearby and—”
“Sister Veronica runs the nursing school, not this orphanage. I’m sorry.”
I battled to contain my outrage but it boiled over. “Is it any wonder my sister finds it hard to adjust? Ruthie and I are like hunted animals, living in constant fear, separated from our home and our family, hiding among strangers who we have to rely on for help! All we have left is each other! I need to let her know that I’m still here! That I love her!”
“You must calm down, Miss Maes,” she said sternly. “I won’t be shouted at.” She waited a few moments until my breathing slowed before continuing. “Ruth Anne is supposed to be an orphan, remember? How will she explain who you are to the other children? Informants who betray Jews in hiding receive a bounty from the Nazis. If you’re seen with her and someone contacts the authorities, we will all suffer the consequences. Your sister isn’t the only Jewish child we’re sheltering, you know.”
I couldn’t reply. I was so frustrated that I considered standing firm and refusing to leave until I saw her. Or if that failed, bursting into tears and appealing to her sense of compassion. But Sister Marie didn’t have a sweet, kind face like Sister Veronica. In fact, she reminded me of the rottweiler our neighbors in Berlin once owned. I didn’t know how she would react if I became stubborn. Or if she would make Ruthie suffer for my tantrum.
“Is there anything else?” she asked. She stood and gave me a look that clearly said I needed to leave, as she had work to do.
I thought of one more thing. “If I write my sister a note, will you give it to her? I want her to know I tried to keep my promise to visit her. Otherwise, she’ll think I’ve abandoned her like everyone else has. The only thing that keeps me from giving in to despair some days is knowing I still have a sister. I still have a reason to keep living.”
Sister Marie hesitated for so long that I thought she was going to refuse. But she finally opened her desk drawer and removed a pen and piece of stationery. She waited—impatiently, I thought—while I wrote the note. I folded it into a square when I finished and printed Ruthie’s name on it. I wondered if she would ever get it.
“Change the name to Ruth Anne, please,” Sister Marie said. “That’s her name now. Ruth Anne Mertens.”
“May I write to her again? Will you at least see that she gets my letters if I mail them to her? And maybe she can write back to me?”
“Try to understand, none of our other orphans receive mail. If they had relatives to exchange letters with, why would they be in our orphanage?”
* * *
The sadness I felt after my futile visit lingered for days. I felt cut off from everyone I loved. When I could no longer bear the silence, I wrote a letter to Sister Veronica. She surely must have heard the news that the Jews in Belgium were being transported to work camps in the east. She must be distressed by it, too. I asked her if there was any way she could check on my parents for me. Were they still in Antwerp? Had they gone into hiding? If they had been transported, could she find out where they’d been taken? I gave her my parents’ address near the train station and added the name of the Gentile landlord who’d purchased the apartment building. He had been very kind to us. He might have answers. I also added a postscript, asking if she’d had any news from Sam. Weeks passed, and I was still waiting for her reply.
I was working in the women’s ward in the hospital on a sunny afternoon in early April with an hour remaining on my shift when air-raid sirens began to sound. There wasn’t much we could do when that happened except to brace ourselves and hope that the large red cross on the building’s roof would prevent enemy airplanes from targeting us. Even so, I felt a shiver of panic each time the alarm sounded. I removed the blood pressure cuff from my patient’s arm and waited, listening.
Then, above the wailing sirens, came the droning roar of aircraft. It grew louder, closer. I crossed to the window and looked out, and what I saw made my heart stop. Airplanes filled the sky like an enormous flock of birds, too many to count. I’d never seen so many before. And so close! They didn’t look like the Luftwaffe planes that I’d seen landing and taking off regularly at a local airstrip. The Nazis were using a former car factory in Mortsel to repair their planes.
The sudden rattle of antiaircraft fire from the ground confirmed that these were Allied planes. Then the first bombs began to fall, followed by thundering explosions that made the windows rattle. Not one or two bombs, but an endless chain of powerful explosions. The blasts boomed and rumbled and thundered on and on as if the entire world might explode. My pulse accelerated. Bombs had never fallen this close before. Plumes of black smoke billowed in the distance above Mortsel. Where Ruthie was.
“Oh, God, please! No!”
The hospital lights flickered and dimmed, then blinked off. Panicked patients called, “Nurse! Nurse!” as sirens continued to scream outside and bombs exploded and roared. My instincts told me to run, but there was no place to go. Why were the Americans bombing us?
I moved away from the window as the deafening explosions continued, my heart racing, my stomach heaving. The ward matron hurried from her station to assure the patients that all would be well, but she began herding any ambulatory patients who wanted to flee to safety down to the basement, just in case. They would have to use the stairs. The elevator was inoperable without electricity. The more seriously ill patients, like most of the ones I tended in this ward, had to stay where they were. The elderly woman whose vital signs I had just taken called me to her bedside. She had tears in her eyes as she asked me to pray with her. I held her hand while we recited the Lord’s Prayer together. “Forgive us our debts... Deliver us from evil...”
