When I travel I have learned to expect the unexpected. You never know who you will meet or what will occur. The best is to be flexible. But occasionally you meet someone who makes an impression.
The first time this happened was on a cruise over 25 years ago. At lunch time, on a cruise, you get to sit with many different people. You never know who you will meet or what you will talk about. On the second day of this Caribbean cruise, we ate lunch with an older man, who when he reached across the table, I saw numbers tattooed on his arm, numbers obviously from Nazi days.
I said nothing. I remember as a child, in the early 1960s, I saw numbers on the arm of my parent’s friend. I asked the question, “Why do you have numbers?” The room grew silent, and I was taken from the room and told never to ask that question again. It wasn’t until I was much older I understood that in the early 60s people did not talk about the numbers.
But this was the early 1990s and I was no longer a child. Since we were seated next to each other, I waited. When most of the people left, I asked. I had the most interesting conversation. The man next to me was a retired priest. He was on board to hold services. He had been in the camps as a young man because he and his parents resisted the Nazis and were part of the intelligentsia and were ardent Catholics. He and I had several conversations over the week-long cruise. We spoke about his experiences and the death of my grandfather’s family in the Shoah. Although I have forgotten his name, I have never forgotten him.
But when we went on a cruise this past March, I did not think I would meet another survivor. So many years have passed, and among those survivors who are still alive, few still travel. At lunch one day, I found my husband speaking to a much older couple. The man was obviously elderly and perhaps recovering from an illness. But he spoke strongly with a distinct British accent and he had a much different life experience.
His story touched my heart. He and his brother were sent away from his home in Germany on a Kindertransport to England when he was 14. He was one of the lucky ones. His parents survived as well! “We had a wonderful life in Germany,” he told us. “We were more German than Jewish.”
But of course that did not help. His parents were quite wealthy and aware enough to start the search for visas and relief early on.
When he turned 18, he enlisted in the US army and was sent to the United States. His service helped him become an American citizen, because until then he was a man without a state. While in the USA, just before he left for Germany, he became a US citizen. His commanding officer advised him to change his name from Adolf and the very Jewish last name to something less Jewish sounding.
“If they capture you in Germany with that name, they will not keep you as a prisoner, they will kill you,” his commander told him. Since he was getting citizenship he should change his name now. So while he traveled to court he kept thinking of a good name. He decided on Ralph for his first name. For his privacy I will not relate his last name. He did go to Germany and was a translator for the Army during the closing days of the war and afterwards.
I have read about the Kindertransports and heard speakers discuss these train rides to freedom,, but I never actually met someone and had an informal conversation with someone who survived through this path.
Although I have read many books about the Shoah and spoken to many survivors, these two men will remain in my memory. My conversations with them linger in my heart.
zicharonot 