The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman Read Free Book Online

safety of America, gave her a strange sense of comfort. That evening, she wrote to him in German, not even telling her parents or her sister. She told him how she found his name, that she needed to take a chance, to tell someone—anyone—outside of Europe what was happening in Austria. She told him of the yellow stars that her mother had been forced to sew on their coats. She told him of the curfew, and the loss of her father’s business. She told him how the streets were now lined with signs that said JEWS FORBIDDEN, how windows were smashed with hate, and how the beards of those who maintained the Talmudic code were shorn by young Nazis searching for fun. Lastly, for no other apparent reason other than that the day was approaching, she told him her birthday was May 20.
    She had not really expected Mr. Abrams to write back. But then, weeks later, she did receive a reply. He wrote that he would sponsor her and her sister to come to New York. He gave her directions on whom she should speak to in Vienna, who would give her money, and who would secure their visas and transportation out of this wretched country that had forsaken them. He told her she was a lucky girl: they shared the same birthday and he would help her.
    He told her there wasn’t enough time for a lengthy correspondence. She should do what he instructed her immediately, and not diverge from the plan. There could be no discussion, he could not arrange for her parents’ transport.
    When she told her parents of the letter she had written and Mr. Abrams’s reply, they were not angry as she had feared, but proud that she had shown such initiative and foresight.
    “What could two old people do in a new country anyway,” her father said to his daughters as the three of them sipped their favorite drink—hot chocolate. It was his nature always to make light of things when the family was pressed into a difficult situation. “When this Nazi horror is all over, you will call for us, and your mother and I will come.”
    She and her sister then traveled by train to Danzig, where the steamer was to depart from. But when they boarded the ship an SS officer looked at their passports with the word Jude stamped on it and blocked their path.
    “You can get on.” He pointed to Amalia. He then pointed to her younger sister, Zora. “You will stay.”
    Amalia cried to the soldier that she would not leave her sister. It was not fair; they both had their papers, their tickets, and passports all in order.
    “I decide who boards this ship. Now you can get on alone, or you can both get off together.”
    Amalia turned to disembark with her sister. She would never leave her. To abandon your own sibling simply to save yourself was an act of treason she was not willing to commit.
    “Go . . . Go . . .” her sister insisted, but she refused. And then her sister did the unthinkable . . . she ran off alone. She ran down the plank and into the crowd. Her black coat and hat blended in with what seemed like a thousand others. It was like finding a single raindrop in a downpour. Amalia stood there screaming her sister’s name, searching for her frantically. But it was of no use. Her sister had vanished.
    The steamship’s horn had signaled its impending departure, and Amalia found herself on the gangplank alone. She didn’t look at the officer as he examined her papers for the second time. She was sure by his lack of interest in her that he didn’t even remember that she had been the victim of his willful and incomprehensible cruelty less than an hour before. She walked into the belly of the ship, carrying her battered black suitcase. She looked back one more time—hoping against hope that Zora had somehow sneaked on board—and then stood by the railing as the anchor was lifted and the boat pulled away. Zora was nowhere to be seen in the faces waving at the dock. She had vanished into the fog.
    I tell you Amalia’s story because she is now dead. Dead fifteen years next October. Mr.