Exile III: The List

There’s something else that defined my life before I even had any defining qualities: the list.

What was “the list”? It was talked about in my childhood. I never forgot that there was one. Were we on a list of passengers? Yes, and no.

We were on a list to be killed.

My mother was on it. She was two years old at the time. All five of them—mother, father, and three children—had to go.

I don’t know how anyone knew. Whether someone had seen it, or heard about it, or was warned. I asked my mother, who is now 82.

“Do you remember how your family was on a list to be killed? Who said that?”

She said yes.

“Who told us?” I asked.

“I can’t remember. It must have been Oma.”

“Do you remember anything else about it?”

No.

Neither do I.

I don’t know if it was talked about often or just once. It stayed.

A few years ago we took a DNA test.

There was Jewish DNA. My mother was 25% Ashkenazi. One of her parents had a Jewish parent.

No one had said that before.

I think it was on my grandfather’s side. When my mother and her sisters were finally allowed to return to Ratibor, they found their mother’s grave.

Not their father’s.

No gravesite. No trace that he died there. Just the death certificate my grandmother had been given, which my mother kept.

When my grandmother left, she left everything.

Parents. Grandparents. Sisters. Cousins.

She never saw most of them again.

They stayed behind the border. The Iron Curtain closed.

She received a widow’s pension and never remarried. Eventually, her sister’s husband died. She sold the house and bought a modern building with three small apartments, largest on the ground floor, smallest at the top. My grandmother lived at the top. It was just a room with a toilet.

She came to the States to visit me when I was little. She was a seamstress. She made most of my clothes. When she wasn't with us she'd send packages, usually with more dresses, little fancy dirndls, bright German shoes, and chocolate or marzipan.

No one else had clothes like that.

Other kids wore department store clothes.

They may have made fun of me. I don’t remember.

I didn’t have many friends.

Kids who came over for dinner complained about the food. Sauerbraten and goulash.

We were outsiders. I felt it. I spoke German before I spoke English.

Even as a child, I would wander.

There are stories of me getting lost. Of strangers bringing me back. Of people going out to look for me.

It happened more than once.

I was already looking.

Looking for something familiar.