In Landsberg we were able to breathe again. We were among our own people. No longer persecuted, we could revive our traditions and reassert our values free from fear. Everyone benefited from an experience akin to summer camp for families. My parents weren’t required to work. Papa regained his strength after Dachau. He resumed acting, his great love. Mama recuperated physically, although she still suffered headaches as a result of the beating she received in Birkenau for stealing a potato. The agony of losing her family had not diminished. But through her pain, Mama devoted herself to raising me. My night terrors abated and I stopped sleepwalking.
Mama began reading and listening to music again. Her favorite instrument was the piano and she decided I should learn as well.
“You’ve seen such terrible things”, Mama said. “I want you to see that life can also be beautiful”.
She found a piano teacher for me about five blocks away from the DP camp. A nice, young married German with long hair and three small children, he was classically trained and had no interest in popular music. He spoke to me softly in German. It was significant because at last the language wasn’t accompanied by the threat of violence. The teacher insisted on practice, practice, practice. It was hard work, but I persevered and made good progress. And the tables had turned: the music teacher and his family were hungry, as Germany was in ruins and food was in short supply. He was grateful that we paid for the lessons with cans of peas and carrots that we received from the Americans.
Papa was also determined that our family should embrace culture once more and he introduced me to the theater. He adored Shakespeare. Mama and I basked in pride and reflected glory as we watched him on stage in the roles of Othello and King Lear in Yiddish productions. The journey to the theater in Munich to watch him perform was also memorable as the train from Landsberg was very posh.
Although the DP camp was preparing us for life in Israel, Mama and Papa decided to emigrate to the United States, as the economic conditions in Israel were difficult. But their plans were interrupted by the discovery that I was suffering from tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial disease that scars the lungs and can be fatal if untreated. TB is contagious and the American authorities wouldn’t permit our family to enter the country until I was cured. At the turn of the twentieth century, it was the main cause of premature death in the United States and was still a problem in the postwar United States.
Mama took me to a sanatorium in Bad Wörishofen, a small town renowned for the healing properties of its waters. I went there to breathe the pure mountain air. Today, TB can be cured by a sustained course of antibiotics. In Central Europe in the late 1940s, however, treatment followed the methodology advocated by Hermann Brehmer, a nineteenth-century German physician. Brehmer theorized that the cardiovascular capacity of tuberculosis sufferers could be improved by breathing air at high altitude, where there was less oxygen. The lungs could be repaired by a combination of cleaner, thinner air and the extra effort required to breathe. Bad Wörishofen lay two thousand feet above sea level. At that altitude, there is 10 percent less oxygen in the air. The oxygen depletion wasn’t so extreme that I felt woozy, but it was sufficient to get my heart pumping.
My treatment is brilliantly described in the novel The Magic Mountain by the German Nobel laureate Thomas Mann. Vigorous hikes were prescribed, complemented by extended periods lying down in the fresh air while swaddled, like a newborn, in blankets. The Dominican nuns who ran the sanatorium bound our blankets so tightly that it was virtually impossible to move, and we had to lie on beds outside for three or four hours at a time, no matter the weather. If the temperature dipped, more blankets were applied. Lying there in my cocoon, I pictured the other places where I’d had to lie still and was unable to communicate with anyone.
Once again, I was separated from my parents. I tried to push the thoughts away, but I desperately wanted my mother. However, the trip from Landsberg was quite expensive and I was only able to see her twice in my nine months of treatment.
After being released from bed rest one day, I took a walk that led to my second flirtation with Christianity. I have always loved to wander and explore. Birkenau taught me self-reliance, and consequently, I felt comfortable investigating on my own. As I strolled through the narrow streets of Bad Wörishofen, I was captivated by a Catholic church attached to the nuns’ monastery. The sisters were charming. They served me breakfast, and afterward, one of them fashioned my hair into braids, like Mama used to do. When the nun left me, saying she had to go to chapel, I was intrigued. Although Poland was, and still is, a very Catholic country, I had never entered a church before.
I followed the nun and was enchanted by the interior. Beautiful frescoes decorated the ceiling. The story of the Nativity was conveyed by a display of mechanical dolls, and at the push of a button, along came Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Three Wise Men. I didn’t know who any of these people were, but the nun who wove my braids promised to teach me the story.
She spoke to me in German and taught me the catechism, which is a summary of Christianity in the form of questions and answers. The nun practiced with me every day, until my responses were perfect. She also started to teach me the Latin alphabet. Until then, I had only learned the Hebrew alphabet. I found the High German script hard to grasp, not least because the Gothic handwriting was so flowery and complicated.
I was in the sanatorium for so long that the Jewish education from Landsberg started to wane in my mind. I missed my classmate Clara and I made no friends at the sanatorium. I was also very lonely without my parents, so it wasn’t surprising that I gravitated toward the nun because of her warmth and kindness.
One day Mama paid a visit. She brought a large bottle of carrot juice, which she was told would help to cure my TB. We sat down together, and as I was drinking the carrot juice, I regaled Mama with what was happening in my life.
“The food is delicious”, I said. “And I go to this place where they’ve got somebody called Jesus, and someone called Joseph”.
“What place is this?” Mama asked.
“I don’t know what it’s called, but I’ll take you there, and it’s beautiful”.
We walked to the church and went inside. We came out almost straight away and Mama confronted me.
“What on earth do you think you are doing?” she demanded.
I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I had forgotten the conversation we’d had in Tomaszów Mazowiecki after I bought the crucifix to try to blend in with my Christian classmates.
Mama complained to the sanatorium administration about the apparent attempt to convert me to Christianity. It transpired that I hadn’t been correctly registered as a Jewish child, but from that moment on, I was schooled in Judaism by a rabbi.
Rabbi Asher, who was also a Holocaust survivor, somehow instinctively knew how to reach me. And I was drawn to him. He introduced me to our Torah, the Old Testament, and laid the groundwork for my love of Judaism. I enjoyed listening to the classic tales of biblical heroes Abraham and Sarah, and stories like Noah and the Flood. I especially loved the tale of baby Moses, who grew up to deliver the Jews from slavery. Although I never mentioned it, I always wondered where was our Moses when we needed him. I went to the synagogue and did everything the rabbi told me to reinforce my Jewish identity. I felt guilty about having upset Mama. And the more I learned about Judaism, the more I loved it.