Chapter 33
ETHEL
With the help of her translator, Vera, Ethel had secured an appointment in Familiengericht, family court, for six German mothers who were petitioning adoption by proxy for their half-Negro children.
For the hearing, Ethel had dressed in her gray sheath dress with peep-toe heels, and a loose string of pearls dangled from her neck.
It was a look that she hoped conveyed she meant business.
While the mothers stood around in the hallway, waiting to be called into the courtroom, they drank the complimentary coffee and bonded. Through Vera’s quick translation, Ethel was able to follow along.
“I make only thirty marks per month,” said the blonde called Frieda, and Ethel knew that only amounted to about six dollars and fifty cents. “I wanted to keep my child with me, but I cannot let him starve. I want him to have a good life.”
Frieda had long fingers like a piano player, and she clutched her coffee cup with both hands and gulped it down so quickly, Ethel didn’t see how she hadn’t burnt her tongue.
“My friends stopped speaking to me on the street. Behind my back, they called my daughter a freak.” She spoke with her gaze on the floor.
“I ran away to Frankfurt, where I thought I could keep her with me, but after sleeping in the train station for a week, with no job, no food, no water, nothing to clean her with, I knew I could not do it.” Tears sprang to her eyes.
“If I kept him, no German man would marry me. I would live a life in isolation. Alone,” said Heidi. Her nails were bitten down to nubs.
Ethel’s eyes fell upon a woman who called herself Jelka and held an unlit cigarette between her shaking fingers. The other mothers all looked at Jelka too, coaxing her with their silence to tell her story.
“I traveled to the place where I was told that her father was stationed in Auerbach, only to find that he was gone. I can’t wait much longer. My husband said if I don’t get rid of her, he will drown her in the river,” she choked out.
Her tears seemed to set off a chain effect; two other women’s shoulders shook with grief.
Vera spoke softly to the women and then motioned to Ethel that it was time for them to enter the courtroom.
Inside, the mothers sat together on one wooden pew, an unspoken camaraderie between them.
One by one, each went before the judge. Ethel had instructed them to bring the official records that proved their nationality so the children’s passports could be issued and the paperwork for the adoptions could move forward.
It was Jelka’s turn, and she stood before the judge, hunched over.
“What is he saying?” Ethel asked Vera.
“Once she signs the papers and he seals them, she can never again lay claim to her daughter. He is making sure that she understands she is giving up all rights.”
When Jelka was finished, she collapsed in the pew next to Ethel and silently sobbed. “I feel sick. But what other choice do I have?”
Ethel’s heart ached over the costly decisions that these young German mothers had to make.
She put her arm around the young woman and let her quiet tears soak the top of her sheath dress.
Once the proceedings had concluded, the mothers were led into a small assembly room with stuffed leather chairs and a long wooden table that smelled of lemon polish.
There was one window that overlooked the street, and Ethel could see that snowflakes had begun to flurry.
Now the women had to prepare for the most painful part of the day.
The judge, a middle-aged man, deemed that once the paperwork was completed, the mother and child had to be separated swiftly.
The courts believed that it was in the best interest of the children to break their attachment and get on with things, as if it were as easy as cutting the umbilical cord.
Although the mothers had surrendered their children to the orphanage weeks ago, Ethel sat with them as they waited for the children to appear for a final goodbye.
The door opened and a curly-headed four-year-old boy bounded into the room.
He was followed by a ruddy-faced girl who toddled into Jelka’s arms. Ethel watched as some mothers tried to keep a brave face, while the others blubbered until their cheeks were damp and red, which caused the children to start crying too.
The officer in charge stood in the corner, and after several minutes passed, he held up his hand, signaling that it was time to go.
Despite Sister Ursula’s written plea to place the children with local families until it was time to fly to America, the children would be taken on a bus to the Wisenheim, where they would live for the next ten days as their “period of adjustment.”
Ethel lifted her chin, trying to look impassive as Jelka’s child howled, and then all the children started clinging to their mothers like life rafts.
While the young mothers tried comforting them, they now needed succor themselves.
As Ethel rubbed Jelka’s back, Jelka whispered something into her daughter’s little ear.
“She’ll be fine,” Ethel said to Jelka. “I have the perfect home all picked out for her. Don’t worry. She’ll have a charmed life.”
Two months later, Ethel, Sister Ursula, and seven children under the age of five traveled in a passenger van to the Frankfurt Airport.
At the ticket counter, Sister Ursula prayed over all the children and wished Ethel good luck and safe travels to New York.
“You are truly doing God’s work.” She held Ethel’s hand. “May God be with you.”
“And also with you,” Ethel said back.
Ethel lined up six children and paired them off to hold hands.
She had baby Margit, the six-month-old and last addition to her caravan of children, in a baby carrier tied to her chest. Inside her canvas tote bag was their documentation, photographs, and passports, along with extra tissues, cloth diapers, ointments, and snack bags with shortbread biscuits, crackers, and lebkuchen gingerbread cookies.
Once they arrived at Idlewild Airport in New York, the seven children would continue to their new homes with their adoptive parents in New York City, Washington, D.C, Maryland, California, and Arkansas.
Ethel counted and recounted the children every few steps, but as they waited at the gate to board, she couldn’t help feeling like something was off.
When they took their seats on the aircraft, Ethel placed sleeping baby Margit in the bassinet attached to the back of the seat in front of her, then peered over at the children sitting in the row next to her and two rows in front of her seat.
Satisfied, she reached into her purse for her rosary beads and realized that she had left them at home.