The House by the Lake Page 10

  Erich, meanwhile, was already in England. As he had been managing his father’s leather company in London for some years, his papers were in order and he was allowed to travel in and out of the country at will. And because of her husband’s position it had been simple to obtain an entry visa for Elsie from the British Embassy. But before Henny could leave Germany she would have to pay the Reichsfluchtsteuer6. Officially a flight tax imposed on any persons with over 200,000 reichsmarks in assets who wished to leave the country, it was, in practice, a simple way of fleecing Jews of their wealth. The only way that Henny could pay for this tax was by selling Alfred’s clinic on Achenbachstrasse. The sale of the clinic would not be as easy as Henny had hoped. According to the Nazi laws, she could not sell to a Jew, nor was she likely to be able to sell to a supporter of the party, who would be less than keen to take over the clinic with its Jewish staff and patients.

  At the start of the summer Henny managed to find a buyer, but then the deal collapsed at the last minute when the offer was withdrawn. Elsie and Henny began to panic. They knew that the political situation would worsen in September after the Olympic Games had ended and the world’s media had left Berlin. They agreed that if they couldn’t find a buyer by then, Elsie would leave. She didn’t want to abandon her mother, but they had little choice. For Henny, the situation looked desperate.

  Hosting the Olympic Games was Hitler’s chance not only to showcase his country’s athletic superiority to the rest of the world but also to convince them that news reports that Germany was harshly treating its Jewish citizens and political critics were unfounded. In the days before the opening ceremony, and while the world’s media was in town, the regime backed away from their harshest anti-Jewish measures. Most anti-Jewish signs were removed from shops and lamp posts and newspapers toned down their anti-Semitic rhetoric. Even the ‘Jews prohibited’ sign at Wannsee Strandbad was taken down, on the instruction of the Foreign Ministry. Many expected that this softening of anti-Semitic policies would be quickly reversed once the Games had come to an end. Some, including Henny and Elsie, believed that come September they would have their passports removed.

  As part of the preparations for the Games, an Olympic Village was built in the old Prussian military grounds on Döberitzer Heath7, some ten kilometres north-west of Groß Glienicke. There were 140 houses for the competitors, including the sprinter Jesse Owens. His every meal, shower and practice session would be followed by the international press, thrilled by the idea that an African American athlete might threaten the arrogance of the host nation.

  The Olympics came even closer to Groß Glienicke. Great excitement surrounded the bicycle road race as it was to be the first that would include a mass start. The 100-kilometre route would take the cyclists from the Avus motor-racing circuit in Berlin, through the city’s western suburbs, down the Potsdamer Chaussee, into the village, past the Potsdamer Tor and the entrance to the Alexanders’ property, and then looping back through the Brandenburg countryside to Berlin. A few weeks before the race, the village council were ordered to widen the main road in preparation for the race, and had dutifully cut down the three lime trees that had stood for over a century outside the Drei Linden Gasthof.

  In early July, hoping to soon finalise their travel arrangements, Elsie and her mother sought refuge at the lake house. It was quiet with everyone now gone, forlorn. There was nobody to play tennis with. Nobody to swim with. The cucumbers, tomatoes and potatoes sprawled overgrown and unharvested in the vegetable plot. They ate their meals at the pull-down table in the kitchen. To have eaten at the large red table in the living room or out on the veranda would have been depressing.

  Meanwhile, Henny redoubled her efforts to locate a buyer, but when another deal came and went, their situation became increasingly precarious. Finally, in early August, Henny had an offer. They were a ‘mixed’ couple – the husband was Jewish, the wife was not – and therefore legally permitted to purchase the property, albeit at a heavily discounted price. Henny agreed, and with these funds paid the flight tax. She next obtained her exit stamp from the German immigration authority, and having queued up all day at the British Consulate, managed to secure an entrance visa for England. They were, at last, ready to leave.

  Together, Elsie and her mother closed up the cottage. First, they made an inventory of all that remained in the house, the furniture and the crockery, the paintings and kitchen appliances. Next, they pulled the boat out of the lake and took the tennis net down, storing them, along with the garden furniture, in the pump house. Having draped sheets over the furniture, and locked the windows and doors, Henny and Elsie then returned to Berlin, where they handed the house key and the inventory to the family lawyer, Dr Goldstrom. Take care of the lake house, they told him.

  In late August 1936, Elsie took a train to Amsterdam, her fingers laden with gold rings and with more jewellery sewn into her mink coat. She carried her black Erika typewriter in one hand and an eiderdown in the other8. There, at the ticket barrier in the main Amsterdam station, she was met by Erich. When he saw what she was carrying he asked, ‘Do you always travel with your eiderdown?’ To which Elsie replied, ‘I’m not travelling, I’ve come, I’m not going back!’ This surprised Erich, who was still eager to return to Germany and to his business, and was relatively unmoved by the possible dangers he might face. But his wife had made the decision9, he would not be going back. Ruefully, he told Elsie that he hadn’t even said goodbye to his friends. A few days later Elsie and Erich took a ferry from the Hook of Holland to Folkestone, and then a train on to London.

  Shortly afterwards, Henny arrived. She had made her own way by train and ferry, through Germany, France and the Netherlands, to London, where she was greeted by her family. Bella, who had been in the country for a few years, was living with Harold and Peter in a small flat in West Kensington. Henny and Alfred found temporary accommodation in central London while Elsie moved into a flat that Erich had found in south London. This left the boys, Hanns and Paul, who had found rooms in a boarding house in the centre of town.

  The Alexander clan had reassembled in England. They were now refugees10.

  PART II

  THE LAKE HOUSE

  August 2013

  It’s dark when my wife and I pull into Groß Glienicke. We have been driving for more than fifteen hours, having left England early that morning. We are more than ready for the journey to end. Our car is loaded with suitcases, camera equipment and laptops – enough supplies to last us for the five weeks we will be staying.

  It takes us less than two minutes to cruise from one end of the village to the other, down dimly lit streets, peering into the gloom for our hotel, the Hofgarten. We turn round and drive back along the main road, passing a kebab shop, a cafe, a small supermarket and a handful of houses.

  Eventually we find the Hofgarten. Like the rest of Groß Glienicke it’s completely dark, with no signs of life. I spot a telephone number taped to the door, and call it – but nobody responds. Desperate for a bed and a hot shower, I try Sonja, a local resident who’s agreed to help me with my research. Thankfully she picks up and offers to call the owner. A few minutes later they drive up in separate cars. Having handed over our passports, I ask about the room, does it have Wi-Fi, what time is breakfast? When it becomes apparent that the hotelier doesn’t speak a word of English, I try my few German phrases, and when these fail, Sonja helpfully steps in.

  Once we’re checked in, Sonja shoulders her bag and turns to leave, reminding me that she’s set up my first meeting for eight o’clock the next morning. I thank her for all her help and say goodnight. I am feeling embarrassed, not to say a little humiliated.

  The next day I sleep through my alarm. Pulling on my clothes, I grab my notebook and run outside. I turn left onto the main street, the Potsdamer Chaussee, and see Sonja and an elderly-looking man waiting a hundred metres up the road. I am half an hour late. Running up to them, and now out of breath, I hurry out an apology, which Sonja translates, before I am intr
oduced. ‘This is Burkhard Radtke,’ she says. ‘He is the village’s unofficial historian.’

  Looking unimpressed, Burkhard shakes my extended hand, turns and then walks off. Realising that I am to follow, I chase after him. For the next two hours, my guide takes me on a detailed tour of the village. He indicates the main historical points of interest along with the major geographical landmarks, Sonja translating as he speaks. I try and take notes, but he is throwing so much information at me that it is hard to keep up. Yet I am fascinated by what he is telling me.

  Over the next few days Sonja and Burkhard introduce me to a few residents, who then direct me to still more. Each time phone calls are made, I am vouched for, my mission is explained, meeting times are agreed and thanks are given. It is a laborious process. Most people agree to meet, but not everyone – some are too busy, others are too shy. Interviews take place in the Greek restaurant, the doner kebab shop, the Exner cafe, or in the hotel courtyard, which the locals all refer to as the Drei Linden – for decades it has served as the village pub.

  I am invited into people’s homes and served endless rounds of Kaffee und Kuchen, or coffee and cake. I show old photographs of the lake house and ask my hosts to share their memories, whatever they might know about the village, the house, the families who lived there.

  Strangely, I am asked the same question at almost every meeting – sometimes repeatedly. Have I made a claim for the house? I am not sure what they mean – I explain that the land is owned by the local government, that it is to be redeveloped. But they ask again – hasn’t my family ever tried to get the house back, or, at the very least, received compensation for its seizure?

  After a week or so, I decide to visit the the Berlin State Archive, located in a former ammunitions factory in the city’s northern suburbs. Having filled out an application form, and explained the purpose of my research, I ask for any files that are associated with Alfred or Henny Alexander. Only a few minutes later I am sitting at a desk and looking at a tatty orange file with the label ‘Alexander: 222/JRSO/ 51’.

  According to the documents, Henny Alexander filed a petition against the West German government in 1952, claiming compensation for the loss of their house in Groß Glienicke. A hearing was held, eight years later, on 12 December 1960, in Courtroom 149, on Karlsbader Strasse in West Berlin. My great-grandmother was represented by a Berlin lawyer. Three weeks later, on 3 January 1961, the court released its findings: the Alexanders would be paid the sum total of 90.34 marks in compensation of their lost property, about £300 pounds in today’s money.

  I email my father to tell him the news. He writes back to say that he thinks there was another claim made on behalf of the family by the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) – an organisation that seeks justice for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. He has some paperwork somewhere, he says.

  Attached to his email is an Alexander family tree. Strangely, it is missing the death dates for five of my grandfather Erich’s relatives: Alfred Werthan and his wife Else, along with Emil Lesser, his wife Rosa, and their son Franz. I quiz my father, but he has no idea why the information is missing – his parents, Elsie and Erich, never spoke of them, he replies.

  I email other family members, but no one seems to know what happened to Erich’s relatives, and I cannot find any trace of them in Berlin. They must have fled, we speculate – to South America or Israel – or perhaps they died before the war, and the records went missing. But the days pass, and I can find nothing. As a last resort, I visit the Yad Vashem website, which hosts an online database of Holocaust victims. Of the more than six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, the names of over 4.3 million people have been entered. I type in the names of Alfred and Else Werthan and, to my great surprise, a report appears.

  According to the website, on 27 February 1943, SS officers from the Leibstandarte (Hitler’s elite bodyguard unit) raided various Berlin factories and, armed with whips and truncheons, rounded up thousands of Jewish workers. Among those arrested were Erich’s Uncle Alfred and Aunt Else, both of whom were profoundly deaf. Alfred and Else were then loaded onto a truck and deposited in one of the city’s assembly camps. Two weeks later, on 12 March, they were woken early and forced to walk three kilometres through the streets of Berlin – via Jagowstrasse, Perleberger Strasse and Quitzowstrasse – to Putlitzstrasse station. They were then put on transports 31 and 36 (they were the thirty-first and thirty-sixth to leave Berlin for the ghettos and killing sites in Eastern Europe). When the transports arrived in Auschwitz, Alfred and Else were offloaded from the trains, and then killed in one of the camp’s gas chambers.

  I put the next three names into the database. In July 1942, Erich’s Uncle Emil and Aunt Rosa were deported to Theresienstadt, where they too died. Their son, Franz Lesser, Erich’s first cousin, was deported on 5 September 1942 to Riga in Latvia. Upon arrival, he was taken to nearby woods and shot.

  Growing up, we had been told that our close family had been ‘lucky’, that we had managed to escape Germany in time. And yet my grandfather’s two aunts, two uncles and first cousin had been killed in the Holocaust.

  My grandparents knew, but chose not to speak about it. I cannot believe that I was only finding out about these crimes seventy years after they took place. We were not so lucky after all.

  9

  MEISEL

  1937

  FOR EIGHT MONTHS the lake house stood empty. Autumn, winter and spring came and went. The fireplace remained unlit. Storms rolled across the lake, slamming against the cottage’s thin frame.

  The asparagus plants in the garden grew tall and ragged, gone to seed. Reeds coiled up around the pillars of the lakeshore jetty. Orange, red and brown leaves piled up in the corners of the veranda, twisted and curled after the summer’s heat. The grass to the front of the house was a wild meadow, uncut for an entire season. As to the house’s interior, it remained dry and untouched by the elements, secured by shutters and doors bound tight against the wind, and a roof that held its own against the winter rains.

  In September 1936, the Berlin Labour Court had ruled that Germans who married Jews, or other non-Aryans, could be dismissed from their jobs. The next month, a decree was passed forbidding Jewish teachers from tutoring Aryan children. In November the Nazis blacklisted some two thousand works written by Jewish authors. A few weeks later, the last Jewish department store in Germany was seized by the government and sold to a non-Jewish owner. In January 1937, all Jewish-owned employment agencies in Germany were forcibly closed and the Reich aviation minister, Hermann Göring, ordered Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), to speed up the emigration of any Jews still living in Germany.

  As so often happens in times of crisis, one person’s misfortune provided an opportunity to another. When Hitler came to power in January 1933 there were around 100,000 Jewish businesses owned and registered in Germany; within five years more than two-thirds of these businesses had been transferred to non-Jews. The Nazi Party called this process ‘aryanisation’, and it not only affected Jewish-owned companies, but also Jewish-owned bank accounts, intellectual property, land and buildings. Typically the transactions were grossly unfair, with a property sold well below market value, given that the Jewish seller was under pressure to leave the country. Aryanisation was a policy that was officially sanctioned by the Nazi Party, who considered the transfer of assets a matter of honour, reparations for the economic chaos that the Jews had allegedly inflicted on the German people.

  So it was that, on 10 February 1937, Wilhelm Meisel, composer and music publisher, walked into a lawyer’s office at Kurfürstendamm 24, hoping to make a good deal. Five foot eight and of medium build1, Meisel was not an imposing figure. His round pudgy face, blond hair, sparkling blue eyes and jovial demeanour generally put people at ease. He was greeted by Dr Goldstrom, representing his clients, Alfred and Henny Alexander, who was authorised to agree a lease on their behalf.

  Having discussed the terms of the agreement, Meisel and Gold
strom sat at a table and signed the lease. The contract stated that Will Meisel and his wife would pay the Alexanders 2,000 reichsmarks a year, half of which the Alexanders would keep as profit, with the other half to be paid to Robert and Ilse von Schultz, the landlords. All funds would flow through Dr Goldstrom’s office. The sub-lease was for three years2, but thereafter would continue, if both parties agreed, until 30 March 1942, the date which marked the end of the Alexanders’ original lease with the Wollank family.

  August Wilhelm Meisel was born on 17 September 18973, in Neukölln, a south-east suburb of Berlin. A few years earlier, his parents, Emil and Olga Meisel, had left Marienwerder, a farming district located ninety kilometres north-east of Berlin, wishing to take advantage of the opportunities that Germany’s capital city afforded.

  Upon arrival, his parents had been surprised to discover that nobody in Neukölln taught ballroom dancing. Both superb dancers, Emil and Olga saw their chance, and established the Meisel School of Dance. From an early age, Will was conditioned to perform – appearing in his first show at the age of five. Surrounded by tutus and ballet shoes, tiaras and rhinestone-bedazzled gowns, braces and armbands, he grew up amid the prancing steps and personal dramas of divas and danseuses. Starting with classical ballet, he quickly mastered the tango, waltz, foxtrot and tap, spending the majority of his waking hours in the mirrored studios of his parents’ dance school. As a teenager, he regularly competed in his father’s dance competitions. He also learned to play a variety of instruments. At the piano, Will’s father would stand next to him, and if he hit the wrong key, would slap him in the face. Will later recalled that ‘this motivated me’, and that his father had told him: ‘Music will feed you in your life.’