Exodus - Leon Uris [38]
“That’s all right. You don’t have to stay with me any more. Maximilian will take care of me.”
“Good night, Karen.”
“Aage?”
“Yes?”
“Do the Danish people hate the Jews too?”
My dear Dr. and Mrs. Clement,
Has it already been six weeks since Karen came to us? What an exceptional child she is. Her teacher tells us she is doing extremely well in school. It is amazing how quickly she is picking up Danish. I suppose that is because she is with children her own age. She has already gathered a large number of girl friends.
The dentist advised us to have one tooth pulled to make room for another. It was a small matter. We want to start her on some sort of music lessons soon and will write more about that.
Every night in her prayers ...
And there was a letter from Karen in big block print:
DEAR MOMMY, DADDY, HANS, MAXIMILIAN, AND MY NEW BABY BROTHER: I MISS YOU MORE THAN I CAN TELL YOU....
Wintertime is a time for ice skating on the frozen banks of the Limfjorden and for building snow castles and for sledding and for sitting before a blazing fire and having Aage rub your icy feet.
But winter passed and the Limfjorden flowed again and the countryside burst into wild bloom. And summertime came and they all went away to the beach at Blokhus on the North Sea and she and Meta and Aage took a sailboat a hundred miles out.
Life was full and rich with the Hansens. She had a flock of “best” girl friends, and she loved to shop with Meta at the smelly fish market or stand beside her in the kitchen learning to bake. And Meta was so good in so many things like sewing or with studies, and she was a wonderful comfort at Karen’s bedside if there was a sudden fever or sore throat.
Aage always had a smile and open arms and seemed nearly as wise and gentle as her own daddy. Aage could be mighty stern, too, when the occasion demanded.
One day, Aage told Meta to come into the office when Karen was at her dancing lesson. He was pale and excited.
“I have just heard from the Red Cross,” he said to his wife. “They have all disappeared. Completely, no trace. The entire family. I cannot get any information from Germany. I’ve tried everything....”
“What do you think, Aage?”
“What is there to think? They’ve all been put into a concentration camp ... or worse.”
“Oh, dear God.”
They could not bring themselves to tell Karen that her entire family had disappeared. Karen was suspicious when the letters stopped coming from Germany, but she was too frightened to ask questions. She loved the Hansens and trusted them implicitly. Instinct told her that if they did not mention her family there was a reason for it.
Then, too, a strange thing was happening. Karen missed her family a great deal, but somehow the images of her mother and father seemed to grow dimmer and dimmer. When a child of eight has been removed from her parents for such a long time, it gets harder and harder to remember. Karen felt bad sometimes that she could not remember more vividly.
At the end of a year she could hardly remember when she was not Karen Hansen and a Dane.
CHRISTMAS 1939
There was a war in Europe and a year had passed since Karen arrived at the Hansen house. Her bell-like voice carried a sweet hymn as Meta played the piano. After the hymns Karen went to the closet in her room where she had hidden the Christmas present she had made at school. She handed them the package proudly. It bore a label printed in her hand that read: TO MOMMY AND DADDY FROM YOUR DAUGHTER, KAREN.
APRIL 8, 1940
The night was filled with treachery. A misty dawn brought the chilling sound of marching boots to the frontiers of Denmark. Dawn brought barge after barge of gray-helmeted soldiers creeping through fog-filled inlets and canals. The German Army moved in silently with robot-like efficiency and dispersed over the length and breadth of Denmark.
April 9, 1940!
Karen and her classmates rushed to the window and looked up at a sky black with thundering airplanes, which one by one descended on the Aalborg airdrome.
April 9, 1940!
People rushed into the streets in confusion.