to emigrate to United States.
Child: Flory (Florylein)
CHAPTER ONE 1938
I was born in Berlin in 1933, the year Hitler came to power and a chaotic year in the lives of my parents, Julius and Meta Westheimer. The political situation was already uncomfortable for Jews and would become increasingly so over the next few years, as their rights were steadily and relentlessly stripped away. Although I have few memories prior to fleeing the city when I was five years old, I can recall having a strong feeling, even as young child, that something was very wrong in my world. Undoubtedly this came from listening in on anxious conversations between my parents and other relatives and sensing the rising tension in our house.
My father was an orphan. My mother had three sisters, Frieda, Margot, and Hella, all of whom were married. Their mother, Johanna Baruch Boas, was the oldest of several children. Her daughters called her Mutti, a German endearment for mother. To most of her grandchildren she was known as Omi, an endearment for grandmother. I always called her Mimi. She and everyone else in the family called me Trixi.
Mimi and her husband, who died in 1932, had owned a small Publishing House. Under their vigilant tutelage, their four daughters all became self-sufficient. After my grandfather died, Mimi’s brother, Richard Baruch, took over the role of family patriarch.
Uncle Richard and his wife did not have any children of their own. He was the wealthy owner of a department store in Berlin. My earliest memories are of gathering with the family on Jewish holidays and special occasions at their beautiful, spacious apartment. I remember that Uncle Richard would splatter me with wet kisses as soon as we arrived. Mimi would be my savior, swooping in to rescue me. That was probably the first of the many reasons I came to love her so dearly.
Petite, quick-witted, energetic, and at times authoritarian, my grandmother reigned supreme at family celebrations. She was the hub of the family and held great influence over her daughters, especially my mother, according to what I later learned from relatives.
Knowing what we have come to know, it is difficult to understand why the members of my family chose to remain in Berlin until the hostility toward them became absolutely unbearable and their options had disappeared. But as contributing citizens in a country where their ancestors had served prominently in the military, they considered Berlin their rightful home. My father had a good job as a salesman, and my mother was a successful fashion designer. Like Mimi, Uncle Richard, and some of their friends, they underestimated Hitler, believing that his popularity would be relatively short-lived.
My mother’s youngest and oldest sisters, Hella and Frieda, saw the handwriting on the wall and left Germany before we did. Hella and her husband, Walter Tausk, emigrated to New York in 1936 with their daughter, Flory. The following year Frieda and her husband, Walter Hurwitz, an attorney who, as a Jew, had already been banned from practicing law, emigrated to Belgium with their son, Dieter, whom we all came to call by his French name, Henri.
For my father and mother, her sister Margot, and Margot’s husband, Werner Lewy, the urgency of leaving Germany finally became clear on November 9, 1938, the night of terror that came to be known as Kristallnacht. It is also my first really vivid memory from childhood.
I woke up to the sounds of people shouting and glass shattering down in the street. I could see flames at my bedroom window and thought that the drapes were on fire. When I cried out, frightened and confused, my father rushed into my room and picked me up. With my mother beside him, he carried me down the stairs to the street. There was trash and broken glass everywhere. People were running and shouting. I felt cold and frightened, and tried to keep warm by clinging to my father’s chest.
I remember my father looking terrified as he told my mother that the Nazis were burning the synagogues. The flames I had seen out my window were from our synagogue, a block away. I didn’t comprehend the significance of synagogues being destroyed, but I could sense my parents’ panic, and it frightened me. Seeing the fear on their faces made me realize that something terrible was happening.
The family gathered together several times over the next few weeks. I did not know what they were talking about, but I could sense the urgency of their meetings. Four months later, in March, 1939, seven of us set off for Brussels—Aunt Margot, Uncle Werner, and their son, Bernt; my parents, Mimi and I. We were accompanied by two strangers whom my father and uncle had hired as guides. Mimi later told me they were dishonest men who had charged a lot of money and done little to assist our escape. In the frantic days after they had been hired, the adults in my family were fearful that the men would keep the money and report my father and uncle to the authorities. On our long trek to the Belgian border, there was fear that the men would abandon us in the woods.
We left the city in absolute secrecy. I’m not sure that Mimi, who at sixty-five was leaving her whole life behind, even took the risk of telling her exact plans to her brothers and sisters. Because we had to hike so far through the woods, we packed almost nothing. We wore as many of our clothes as we could put on.
We must have started out in a car or on a tram, but I have no recollection of that. In my mind it is as if I were transported from the blinding fire at my window to the blinding darkness of the forest. The journey probably lasted two days, but in my memory it is one long terrifying night.
Sometimes we walked, sometimes we crawled. My biggest fear was being caught by guard dogs. Even while riding on my father’s shoulders, a spot as safe and secure as any I could imagine, I was deathly afraid that one of the dogs would catch me. I didn’t understand who these strange men were or why the adults were relying on them. Sensing my parents’ distrust, I too felt afraid of them.
Having to remain silent, not being permitted to speak—that was the hardest thing for me. But my parents had prepared me well. I believed that if I spoke, a dog would find me and attack me. As much as a young child understands what it means to be killed, I understood that if we were caught, something terrible would happen. If I dared to speak we would be caught. For hours and hours and hours, I didn’t say a word.
CHAPTER TWO 1939
After the terror of our escape from Berlin, living in Belgium was a huge relief. The families of three of the Boas sisters—the Lewys, the Westheimers, and the Hurwitzes—were temporarily reunited. I remember it as a happy time and, compared with the recent situation in Berlin, it undoubtedly was.
Being a young child, I wasn’t aware of the hardships we faced. My family arrived in Brussels with few possessions. Nobody spoke French well or Flemish at all. We were there on interim visas and there was no possibility for legal employment. But everyone remained hopeful. America was our ultimate destination, and in the meantime we had each other.
The Hurwitzes (Frieda, Walter, and Henri) had come to Brussels two years earlier and lived in Uccle, an affluent district on the edge of the city. We Westheimers and the Lewys settled in cramped but separate quarters in a modest three-story apartment building on Chaussée de Wavre in the center of the city. They lived in an attic apartment and we lived right below them.
My grandmother alternated, living with all three families in turn. Mimi was a matriarchal figure in those days, and her strong-willed ways added to the tension in each household. Even at so young an age, I could tell that she disapproved of my father and he did not like her. They hardly spoke to each other, and he was often in a bad mood when she was around. But for me, Mimi was a loving presence, not only my babysitter but a trusted confidante during the long days when my parents were out of the apartment struggling to earn a living.
During those early days in Brussels, I spent much of my time playing with my cousins. Bernt Lewy was a year older than I was, and Henri Hurwitz a year younger. The only girl in the middle of two boys, I remember myself as a little flirt, an assessment that the adults who survived would later confirm.
I also had an active imagination, owing mostly to my mother, who had it in mind that I someday would be a movie star. She was a beautiful woman; gentle, soft-spoken, and creative. In Berlin she had been a fashion designer and had arranged for me to be a photographer’s model. In Brussels, I remember her sewing constantly. She made clothes for all of us