We filed an action against the perpetrators, we were still as naïve as that in those days, but by the time the case came to court it was 1933 and they were in power. I was advised to withdraw the accusation, but my husband wouldn’t have wanted that. The result was that he was given a fine. He was. Posthumously. For damage to property. Because a brownshirt truck got a dent in its mudguard.
I paid the bill for the repairs. With interest.
You’re right: it would have been easier if it had really been an accident.
That’s all five years ago now, but since the court case I’ve never told anyone about it in such detail. The memory hurts, but I realise: it’s also good to share it with someone.
I trust you because I don’t know you. No, that sounds wrong. I meant: although I don’t know you.
I’ve since been to Berlin. Nothing about my situation has changed, except that I’m now on some waiting lists. I haven’t been to the Swiss Embassy. Everyone tells me there’s no point.
A shame Goliath doesn’t really exist.
With warm regards
Yours
Rosa Pollack
Zurich, 2 July 1937
Dear Frau Pollack,
I would dearly love to say something consoling to you, but I don’t know how. It’s so terrible, what people do to each other.
Arthur Meijer
Zurich, 3 July 1937
Dear Frau Pollack
Don’t think ill of me for sending you such a stupid letter yesterday. I found no words, and still needed to say something to you straight away.
In the letters that my nephew Ruben writes from Halberstadt, there has been much talk of bullying, of a thousand perfidious little pinpricks, but he’s never said anything about spontaneous violence. From his reports I had the sense that lots of terrible things are happening in Germany, but that for each fresh outrage a law or a bill had first to be passed. Until now I couldn’t have imagined anything like what has happened to you. (That may be naiveté, or simply just cowardice.)
(It was probably cowardice. I’m not a brave person.)
Of course it’s impossible for you to be exposed to such things for even a day longer.
I have thought all night, and would like to make you a suggestion, which I ask you not to interpret as charity. It would help me too. Really.
I do have a receptionist at my surgery, but my Fräulein Salvisberg is an elderly lady, who finds the work too much, and could use some relief. (At least one can put it that way without insulting the dear soul too much.)
Irma told me that you have worked as a geriatric nurse, and a step from there to the waiting room of a general practitioner is not a very great one. If it would be convenient — empty words. After everything I know about your situation, it will be more than convenient. So, to rephrase — If you will permit me, I will contact the immigration authorities here to see about the prospects of a work permit. It shouldn’t actually be all that difficult.
To this end it would be useful if you could assemble your personal details on a piece of paper for me, age, place of birth and all those things. The authorities are doubtless going to want all those things.
With warmest greetings
Your Arthur Meijer
PS: I wonder whether Irma hasn’t known the truth for ages, and only goes on talking about an accident because she thinks she owes you that. I would not put such consideration beyond her.
PERSONAL DETAILS
Name: Pollack, née Bernstein
First name: Rosa Recha (my father was a big fan of Lessing.)
Date of birth: 30 September 1900 (I would seem to have been conceived during the night of the turn of the century.)
Place of birth: Melsungen, District of Melsungen, Hessen (perhaps you have seen a picture of the beautiful half-timbered houses there? My father had a little weaving mill there.)
Professional training: primary school teacher (but I never practised the profession, because I met my husband while I was doing the course and married him straight after my exams. Pointlessly wasted fees.)
Current occupation: unemployed
Religion: (three guesses.)
(So, is that enough parenthetical observations for your liking?)
Kassel, 10.7.37
Dear Goliath!
The personal details that I enclose sound remarkably silly. Your letter has left me light-headed with hope.
Of course I can imagine nothing better than to help in your surgery. Or in any other way. Do you need a cook? My children say I bake the best cakes in the world. Oh, it would be so lovely if this really worked! The situation here gets more dreadful by the day.
The impression that you will have gained from your nephew’s letters is not incorrect. Most of the things being done to us are entirely legal. It is only the laws themselves that are criminal. As if highway robbers were to wear collars and ties and keep strictly to shop opening hours.
An example: they don’t simply take people’s houses away. They just pass a bill according to which each house-owner is obliged to become a member of a house-owner’s association. Sounds harmless enough, doesn’t it? But the association doesn’t accept Jews, so the houses sadly, sadly, have to be sold. At a price determined by the purchaser.
And that is happening everywhere.
I myself have worked in an old people’s home run by the B’nai B’rith. The association was compulsorily dissolved and its assets confiscated. So far so orderly. First you invent a clause, and then you enforce it.
Before they pulled all the bedclothes out of the cupboards and took them away, I had to produce an exact list of them, sheet for sheet, pillow case for pillow case. They even waited until the dirty laundry had been washed, ironed and sorted again. To make sure that nothing was missing. Only then did they come and take it all away. They paid me my wages for that one day. Minus social insurance contributions, as prescribed by the regulations. All according to the book.
When the old people had long since been thrown out of their rooms, a Party member sat in our director’s office for weeks going through the accounts. B’nai B’rith members who were behind with their contributions were sent a reminder and had to pay the difference. Your view of things is quite correct: we are an orderly country, where stealing is only ever done against receipt.
I will be so happy when I no longer have to live here.
By the way: I naturally assumed that you and your family are Swiss. If that is the case — what is your nephew doing in this accursed Germany?
A work permit for Switzerland would be wonderful. If it works out, I will only ever call you Goliath for as long as you live.
With warmest, warmest greetings
Your
Rosa Pollack
‘How do you imagine this?’
Herr Bisang pulled a face as if he had toothache. He had set his pocket watch down on the desk in front of him and now straightened the chain, aligning it so that it was precisely parallel with the dark brown cardboard portfolio containing Arthur’s application.
‘Really, Dr Meijer, how do you imagine this?’
The official had the pursed lips of a man who has an unpleasant taste in his mouth, but whom propriety forbids to spit.
‘Stomach problems,’ Arthur thought automatically.
‘Just as this Zionist Congress is being held in Zurich. With delegates from all over the world. I have talked to my colleagues in Basel, who have experience of such things. They all say we should brace ourselves. You have no idea how much work we have to do already.’ With a reproachfully exhausted gesture he pointed to a shelf full of lever-arch files. ‘Entry permits. Special authorisations. Applications, applications, applications.’