Page 2 of The Righteous

The ride into Detroit was a passage from one world to another.

Julia was back in the land of her childhood, eons away from the insanities of war.

They turned the corner onto Stuyvesant Street in the Dexter-Linwood neighborhood, and her heart skipped a beat.

There stood her house, a four-bedroom, brick-and-stone Tudor with sloped roofs and a portico entrance, like so many other houses on her block.

There were no canals, no bridges, no Nazi orders pasted on lampposts.

There was space between the houses, green grass to play on, and sidewalks to ride a bike.

She could even take a walk to Dexter Avenue for an ice cream cone without fear of being searched.

If she turned the corner, she might see one of her friends.

So unlike Amsterdam, where she never knew what lurked around the corner. It could very well be the Gestapo.

America was at war, and it was far away, but there were constant reminders on the radio, in magazines, and in the newspapers.

It wasn’t as though she could forget about the war—it had taken its toll—but the media kept it right in the front of her consciousness, all day and through the night.

Her parents, Ruth and Todd, had so many questions, but Julia begged them to please wait and give her time to adjust. Maybe for a little while.

When she first arrived home, she walked around her house touching things, a couch or a table.

Her mom had done some decorating in her absence, but Julia’s room was just how she’d left it.

Five years had passed not knowing whether they would ever see Julia again, but Ruth had kept Julia’s room spick-and-span.

Julia’s dresses were where she’d hung them, her personal things were where she’d put them.

Her U of M yearbook sat on her bedstand.

It was more than Julia could handle. She lay on her bed, buried her face in her pillow, and cried. Before long, she was fast asleep.

Ruth’s knock on the door brought Julia back to reality.

She had been floating in a kaleidoscope of memories.

First, she was urgently sending coded messages to OSS from the second floor of the Amsterdam safe house.

Then she was running from the crèche, holding a little child in each of her arms. Then there were the gunshots, the rapid rat-a-tat, and the shouts to halt in German.

She was shaking, and Ruth walked in to calm her.

“It’s all right,” Ruth said, rubbing Julia’s back.

“You’re here now. You’re not there anymore. ”

At dinner, Julia asked if any of her friends had inquired about her.

“Oh, all the time,” Ruth said. “Carolann came by with her young daughter the other day. Cutest thing. She was pushing her in a stroller. We’ve had such a nice fall, you know.

” Julia smiled and asked if Carolann still lived in the neighborhood.

“Of course,” Ruth said. “Where else would she live?”

Ruth continued, “I saw Geena the other day. She has two darling children now, and they both look just like their mother. Carbon copy. Same dark, curly hair. Same dimples on their cheeks. Geena and her husband, Roger, bought a house on Ohio Street, near Six Mile Road. He works at the Ford plant.”

Julia’s eyes glazed over. How much of her life had she missed?

Why did she ever leave? But then, she had served her country.

She had saved lives. A lot of lives. She had made a difference, and she had a medal and plaque to prove it.

She told her mom that she couldn’t wait to see them all, and then she thought about Theresa.

Julia and Theresa were the best of friends and classmates at Michigan.

“Have you heard anything about Theresa?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking about her a lot. She comes from Hungary. ”

Ruth nodded. She reached into Julia’s desk drawer and took out a piece of paper with Theresa’s phone number.

“She’s still in Ann Arbor. She told me to give this to you when I got the chance.

” Ruth hung her head a bit. “She’s not in a good way these days.

She hasn’t heard from her folks in a long time, and she’s worried sick. They’re Jewish, you know.”

Julia nodded. “I do know. I’ll call her right away.”

The next weekend, the two best friends met for lunch.

They hugged, they cried, they shook their heads at the insanity of it all.

“What have you heard about your family?” Julia finally said.

“I remember meeting your mom and dad in Ann Arbor each year between 1933 and 1935. They were so nice. Are they okay?”

Theresa’s jaw quivered. “I think so, but I don’t know for sure.

I wish I knew. My brother, my sister, my whole family.

” She paused. “I haven’t talked to them in well over a year.

As far as I know, they have phone service, but it’s only local.

So they can’t call me, and we don’t get any mail from people in enemy nations. ”

“Are they still in Budapest?”

“God, I hope so, but I don’t even know that for sure.”

“I’m sorry. There are a lot of Jews in Hungary, aren’t there?”

Theresa nodded. “About eight hundred fifty thousand—one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe. I don’t have to tell you these are dangerous times for Jewish families in Europe, although I still believe that Jews remain safe in Hungary.

That’s what they told me the last time we spoke.

I haven’t read anything to the contrary, but here in America, we don’t get any news about Hungary. ”

“I’m sorry, I know you’re worried. That’s understandable.”

“My father had a mild heart attack four years ago, but he seems to have recovered. The rest of my family—my brother, my sister, even my mother—were all healthy the last time we talked. And my Uncle Morris, my Aunt Pearl, my cousins, it’s a pretty close family.

Every day, I pray that they’re all safe, but when I read what’s going on in the rest of Europe, it tears my heart out. ”

“I just returned from the Netherlands,” Julia said with tightened lips and a sad shake of her head. “Pray it doesn’t ever come to that in Hungary.”

“For a long time, we didn’t get any news about what was happening to Jews in Europe,” Theresa said.

“I think it was suppressed. Then I read a story about Holland in the New York Post . I read that beginning last summer, the Nazis arrested all of the Jews and took them out of Amsterdam in trains, but the article didn’t say where they were taken or what happened. That’s as far as the story went.”

“Well, the story is true, you can believe it. I was an eyewitness. The SS went through the city, collected as many Jews as they could find, stored them in the community theater building, and then shipped them out in boxcars. We were told it was to Westerbork, a camp in northern Holland, but Westerbork turned out to be just a transit camp on the way to somewhere else. I don’t know where they ended up afterward.

The rumors of prison camps are pretty awful.

Anyway, that was about the time we left.

Pray that scenario never happens in Hungary. ”

“God forbid,” Theresa said. “The last I heard, while we still had long-distance phone service, the Hungarian government wasn’t doing anything to physically restrain or mistreat our people.

There were no mass arrests, no deportations, no murders.

Even though Hungary is militarily aligned with Germany, they don’t copy the Nazi racial laws.

I’m not going to say that there are no prejudices.

When I talked to my dad, he said that Hungary enacted some laws that restricted Jews in certain professions.

For example, he said that only twenty percent of a certain workforce was allowed to be Jewish, and Jews can’t enroll in certain schools.

Jews are unwelcome in certain neighborhoods, that sort of thing, but nothing like the pogroms Jews faced in Poland and other places.

The Budapest Jewish community is strong.

What worries me the most is what’s happening in the countries around Hungary.

Germany has taken over so many countries.

” She counted them off on her fingers. “Austria, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia. So, how long can we keep the Nazis from occupying Hungary as well? Germany hasn’t sent any troops into Hungary, as far as I know. ”

“They’re on the same side,” Julia said. “They’re allies. Why would Hitler invade an ally?”

Theresa shrugged. “You tell me. Why does Hitler do anything? Yes, they are allies on the battlefield, just like they were twenty years ago. Hungary is a member of the Axis powers, but we’re not made of the same cloth as Germany.

Miklós Horthy, Hungary’s regent, has thus far refused to impose Nazi oppression on Jews.

He has never ordered innocent Jews to be put onto trains or sent off to camps, if you can imagine such a thing.

” She shrugged. “As far as I know. At least that’s the way it was a couple years ago. ”

“I don’t have to imagine, Theresa,” Julia said.

“I saw it all taking place in Holland during the last several months. It was the most inhuman thing I’ve ever seen.

Children, toddlers, even little babies, led by armed soldiers and put into those boxcars to be sent off to a camp.

Can you even conceive of someone so heartless as to sentence an innocent baby to a prison camp where it will probably die? ” Her voice froze.

Julia tried to take a minute to compose herself. She took a few deep breaths. Her jaw quivered. Visions flashed in her mind, and for a moment, she was staring down the street in occupied Amsterdam. When will these visions go away? she thought. When will I get over the shakes?