Motherland: Growing Up With the Holocaust

369 Pages·2015·3.239 MB·English

by  Rita Goldberg

5.625 × 8.5 SPINE: 0.6875 FLAPS: 3.5

M
memoir $27.95 U.S.

o
M o t h e r l a n d “I am the child of a woman who survived the
t
pr a i s e F o r h Holocaust not by the skin of her teeth but
e heroically,” writes Rita Goldberg. In a deeply
r moving and dramatic narrative about the twen-
“ Emotionally shattering . . . Goldberg writes
l tieth century that recalls Edmund de Waal’s
eloquently of the ‘volcanic pressures’ that shaped her a
The Hare with Amber Eyes, Goldberg introduces
family’s story and continue to haunt her own.” n
the extraordinary story of her mother, Hilde
R i t a Go l d b e r g
—Kirkus Reviews d
Born in Basel in 1949, Jacobsthal, a close friend of Anne Frank’s
grew up mostly in the United States with two family who was fifteen when the Nazis invaded
“A n exemplary attempt to confront the complex
early years in Germany, where her father was a Holland. After the arrest of her parents in
fate of these families cut brutally from their own
U.S. Army psychiatrist. She taught literature 1943, Hilde fled to Belgium, living out the war
history. Motherland is a double memoir that braids
at Essex and Cambridge Universities in Eng- years in a tumultuous set of circumstances—
[the author’s] parents’ story with her own, and
land for nearly ten years. She went on to teach M o t h e r l a n d among the Resistance and at Bergen-Belsen
at MIT and is now a lecturer in comparative succeeds in articulating a difficult truth.” after its liberation—that The Guardian judged
literature at Harvard University. She and her —The Economist “worthy of a film script.”
husband have two sons and two grandsons As astonishing as Hilde’s story is, Rita
and live near Boston, Massachusetts. herself emerges as the central, fascinat-
ing character in this utterly unique account.
R
Proud of her mother and yet struggling to
forge an identity in the shadow of such he-
i
t roic accomplishments (in a family setting that
a G r o w i nG U p
included close relationships with the iconic

G
Frank family), she offers a profound and un-
w i t h t h e
o flinching look at the often-wrenching family
THE NEW PRESS ld h o l o c a U s t and interpersonal struggles of the children
www.thenewpress.com b and grandchildren whose own lives are haunt-
e
Front cover: large photograph courtesy of r ed by historic tragedy.
g
Monica Kaltenschnee of the Stichting Motherland is the culmination of a lifetime
Annemie en Helmuth Wolff, Amsterdam; of reflection and a decade of research. It is an
small photograph courtesy of the author epic story of survival, adventure, and new life.
R i t a G o l d b e r g
Author photograph by Ellen Hart
THE
Jacket design by Ann Weinstock NEW
PRESS
MotherlandMECHnew2a.indd 1 01/16/2015 3:04 PM
M O T H E R L A N D
GROWING UP WITH THE HOLOCAUST
Rita Goldberg
© 2015 by Rita Goldberg
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form,
without written permission from the publisher.
The photograph of Hilde (front cover and illustration 10)
appears courtesy of Monica Kaltenschnee of the Stichting
Annemie en Helmuth Wolff, Amsterdam.
The Nazi “transport” list (illustration 11)
appears courtesy of René Kok at NIOD.
Requests for permission to reproduce selections
from this book should be mailed to:
Permissions Department, The New Press, 120 Wall Street, 31st floor,
New York, NY 10005.
First published in Great Britain by Halban Publishers Ltd., 2014
This edition published in the United States
by The New Press, New York, 2015
Distributed by Perseus Distribution
ISBN 978-1-62097-073-7 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-62097-074-4 (e-book)
CIP data available
The New Press publishes books that promote and enrich public
discussion and understanding of the issues vital to our democracy and
to a more equitable world. These books are made possible by the
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hand-sell New Press books; librarians; and above all by our authors.
www.thenewpress.com
Book design by Spectra Titles, Norfolk
Printed in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
For the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Hilde and Max:
The Goldberg Harts
Daniel, his wife Ellen and sons Gabriel and Jamie
Benjamin
The Goldberg Brubakers
Heather, her husband Zach and daughter May
Melanie and her husband Robert
Michael
The Goldberg Ross Russells
Rebecca and her husband Riz, daughter Zawadi and son Simoni
Adam
And for all their future descendants

Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Notes on the Text xii
American Prologue: Mother and Daughter 1
Amsterdam: July 1943, Dawn 16
1. Berlin 18
2. Berlin and Amsterdam 24
3. My Mother Comes of Age 38
4. Invasion, Amsterdam 1940 54
5. In the Ardennes, 1943 99
6. Bergen-Belsen, April 1945 147
7. Displaced Persons, Bergen-Belsen 184
8. Love Letters: Amsterdam, Basel 223
9. War Again, Israel 1948 249
10. An American in Germany, 1971 270
Epilogue 299
Notes 321

Acknowledgments
I HAVE BARELY started, and already I feel like an Oscar nominee
fearful of leaving people out. First thanks must go to my mother’s
rescuers: Zus and Joop Scholte, in Amsterdam, and Robert
Dupuis and family in the Ardennes of Belgium. Without them my
mother would probably not have survived, and there would be
no marriage, no children and no story. They should have been
inscribed among the Righteous of All Nations at Yad Vashem in
Jerusalem, but for some reason that never happened, possibly
because of my mother’s habit (so like my own) of jettisoning the
past like a booster rocket on her voyage through life. I hope that
this book will make some amends, especially to Kiki Scholte, the
youngest daughter of the Dutch family, who has been a friend all
these years.
I mention Yad Vashem, but other museums also appear quite
a bit in this book, not only because people working there have
kindly helped me with research, but also because museums make
concrete what so many survivors’ children have internalized.
Iwould like to say, though, that my mother’s life with the rescuers,
vii
viii Motherland
and with other survivors during and after the war, was not
museum-like at all: she drew emotional nourishment from their
warmth, joy and sense of fun. Some of the postwar pictures
included here give an inkling of their vitality, as well as of their
heroism.
My closest friend, Ilene Neuman, should be thanked too,
though she died of breast cancer long ago. Ilene knew my story
from the inside. She was a year older and came from my
hometown, Teaneck, New Jersey, though I didn’t know her in high
school. From the moment we met during my first weekend in
college, we were nearly inseparable. Her father had survived the
camps, and we had in common our recognition of the existential
absurdity of our position. When things got tough, our mantra was
always: “Well, at least it’s not Auschwitz!” followed by explosive
laughter (Ilene, like my mother, was an excellent laugher). When
she was dying in Palo Alto, California, I called as much as I could,
and visited a week before her death. At that point in 1995, the
year she died at forty-seven, her cancer had metastasized to her
brain and bones. She had constant pain and nosebleeds, though
her intellect was intact right until the end. Her family, under the
stress of her illness, was in disarray. “It’s still better than
Auschwitz!” she said. In a horrible way it was better, and she
knew it. Auschwitz didn’t even let her experience her own
suffering fully. I miss her to this day and wish that she were here
to celebrate this memoir with me.
Among the living, family and friends come first in the order
of gratitude. My parents, Max and Hilde, are still living together
in Teaneck and eager to see this apparently endless project appear
in print. My sister Dot recorded long interviews with our mother
in 1983, and the typescript of these became the basis for my own
interviews much later on. Dot and my middle sister, Susie, have
offered unwavering love and support from the beginning, when
they read the first version of the memoir.
Oliver, Benjamin, Daniel and his wife Ellen and their two little
Acknowledgments ix
boys, Gabriel and Jamie, are the delight of my life and have made
me a happy writer even when the work has been sad. They (at
least the adults) and other members of the extended family –
nieces Heather Brubaker and Rebecca Ross Russell, and Becky’s
father, David Ross Russell – read the manuscript at various points.
The entire clan, including cousins in Switzerland, Israel and the
Philippines, has been a source of loving strength, and I recognize
my good fortune in having them.
Special thanks go to two people whose intellectual support
has been essential. My husband, Oliver Hart, has been everything
writers usually mention at the very end of the acknowledgments.
We have been married forty years, and he has been patient, loving,
hilarious and generally adorable. He has also been a challenging
reader and fastidious editor even when he had to grit his teeth to
plow through yet another version of a chapter. Our son Benjamin
Hart, who is a professional in these matters, has edited several
versions of the manuscript down to the one now in print. His love
of language and his grasp of structure and logic are amazing, and
his comments have been astute and characteristically witty.
Healso gave me the title of my book.
Warm thanks as well to Myra McLarey and Steve Prati, who
have been insightful readers, commentators, cheerleaders and
beloved friends. I’m grateful for the help, interest and unflagging
kindness of many people in Lexington and Cambridge,
Massachusetts and abroad, only a few of whom I’ll name here:
Steven Cooper; my close friend, Pat McFarland, who died before
she could see the published book, and her husband Philip
McFarland; John Gledson; Ruthy and Elhanan Helpman; Linda
Jorgenson; Eva Simmons; Esther Silberstein; Ali Butchko;
colleagues at the Department of Comparative Literature at
Harvard; and the now-defunct Porch Table writers’ group in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, the brainchild of Elena Castedo and
of which Myra, above, Gregory Maguire (to whom thanks as well)
and I were members.