This collection of short stories contain memories from the life of the author as a young man during the Holocaust years in Romania. A group of other short stories relates to his life as a medical student and young physician. The historical background of these is the nightmarish years of the Orwellian, corrupt, dictatorship of the communist regime in Romania. Another story tells the life of a German woman who chooses to share her fate and life with the Jewish family she comes to work for before and during the Holocaust. Friendship, loyalty, decency, and love make hope triumph.

Transylvanian Rhapsody

By George Joseph

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 George Joseph
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-3581-5

Contents

The Typewriter..........................1The Cigarette...........................6The Kreutzer Sonata.....................11Letter to My Father.....................16Emily...................................19The Hospital............................47Departure...............................78

Chapter One

THE TYPEWRITER

Winter 1940, Brasov

It was late December, and the school's winter vacation had started a couple of days ago. A week before, it snowed, but the snow melted and the city looked dark and drab, the trees without leaves, the sky gray. The first snow of the year caught the children still in their classes. During recess, they took advantage of the snow, and snowball fights erupted in many corners of the schoolyard. Then the snow melted, and everybody was disappointed.

The Second World War was going on already for more than a year. Almost all of Europe was under German occupation by now. Europe's capitals were flying the Nazi flag. Brasov, a midsize city in the Carpathian Mountains, a tourist and economic center of Romania with a sizable German Saxon population, became a garrison of the German Army, a result of the newly formed military and political alliance. This fact imbued the local Saxon population with a great sense of importance, lending them a sense of power that was expressed in more than one way. The Nazi flags were flying from many buildings, and many of the locals were wearing the black uniforms of the Nazi Party.

One of the large buildings on the main street was the Nazi Party headquarters. The city had a mixed population of Romanians, Hungarians, Saxons and a mall minority of Jews who lived in the town too,

Their life was restricted in more ways than one. They were forbidden to travel and restricted in their professional and business activities. The school-age children were not allowed to attend public schools.

German businesses were displaying posters announcing that Jews and dogs were not desired on their premises. Jewish businesses were required to carry posters stating that the shop was owned by a KIKE. This was the atmosphere on a Saturday afternoon when a snowstorm hit the city. In a short while, life started to come to a standstill.

The two Jozsef brothers, Andrew and George, were excitedly running every moment they could spare to look out the window of their home and watch the snow fall. As it was getting dark, a streetlamp was the perfect backdrop to ascertain that the storm was continuing in its fury. They were watching as the snow was falling and accumulating on top of a ledge, and they both tried to guess how deep the snow was becoming. They were anticipating that the deep snow would provide plenty of opportunity for play and fun the next day.

The next day was Sunday. Early morning, the two brothers were at the window. The wind had stopped, and the sky was clear. The bushes, the fence, and the stairs leading out to the street in front of their house were hardly visible. They were admiring the branches of a large fir tree in front of one of their windows, the branches bent by the weight of the snow.

For the people of the city, lots of snow was a familiar sight, but for the two brothers, the storm with the heavy snowfall was a novelty. They were both exited and restless and showed little interest in their breakfast food.

Every Sunday during the school year, the brothers met friends and went for hikes and this Sunday would not be different. Their friend Erwin would soon arrive or they would meet somewhere in the city. The frequent rains, and the snowfalls taught them to master the obstacles, and they were prepared to face the weather. The thought of walking in the deep snow made the Sunday morning look very exciting indeed.

Erwin arrived and was smiling very proudly for having made it on time and was describing excitedly how deep the snow was and how the traffic in the city was affected. The meager bus and car traffic was at a standstill. Only the sleighs drawn by horses were to be seen.

Soon the three boys were on their way. Erwin was telling them that walking on Monastery Street he saw a lot of policemen, which was unexpected for a Sunday morning, but he did not know why and did not stop to inquire either. Nobody knew it then that offices of a German Nazi organization was broken into during the night before, and the commotion Erwin witnessed on his way to meet with his friends was a result of this.

When the three friends got to the entrance of the park, they decided to brave the deep snow and walk through the alleys untouched under the fresh white cover. They could hardly see the bushes that lined the alleys but now lay buried under the deep snow. In addition to the bushes, the wider alleys were lined with a row of benches, now hardly visible.

The three boys were making slow progress in their attempt to cross on the opposite side of the park, as they were sinking in the deep snow to their hips at every step. Their faces were red, and they were giggling and throwing snowballs at each other. At one moment, Erwin threw up his arms, screamed, and threw himself on a bench, pretending that he wanted to sit down and rest. As he sank down on the seat, the snow covered him from both his sides like armrests of a comfortable easy chair. He was fidgeting in his seat when he noticed something under the bench. The seats of the park benches did not permit for a lot of snow to accumulate under them. Erwin could not make out what he noticed, so he pointed to the object of his discovery, and Andrew bent over and lowered himself on his knees and reached under the bench. He extracted a heavy object wrapped in a newspaper. The boys quickly ripped open the newspaper covering the object, and what they found was a shiny typewriter.

They were guessing that their find was a valuable and probably expensive machine, and did not know what to do with it. To take it home was out of the question, so they decided to take it to the police station. A short time later, the three boys marched in proudly to the station and handed over the typewriter to the officer on duty. Their story, names, and addresses were taken down, and they were let go.

The next day, the local newspaper headline informed readers of the break-in at the Nazi Party headquarters, mentioning the adventure of the three boys in the park who found one of the stolen items, and how they brought it to the police station. The three boys and their names in the paper identified them as being Jews.

Before I can continue to tell the story, I will have to say a couple of words about the father of the two brothers. As mentioned before, Brasov was not a large city. The commercial and business life was concentrated on the main street. Mark Jozsef was a merchant owner of a sizable store there. The family was well known. Being Jewish of course marked his store for discrimination. The old inhabitants of the city, the businessmen and the city elders, knew each other or had heard about each other at least. Before the Nazi overtake of the city administration, the relationship between the citizens was fairly civil. The changes occurred in the past two years, and people who knew each other in the past stopped even greeting each other on the streets.

Mark Jozsef, the father of the two boys, was a very proud man, serious, disciplined in his work, and blessed with a sarcastic sense of humor he used many times. Now, this is important to pay attention to in order to be able to fathom the humor of the events that were to unfold in the not so distant future.

But let's get back to the shiny typewriter. As mentioned, the typewriter found by the children was stolen during the break-in at the Nazi headquarters. The police returned the machine to the offices of the Party the next day.

The following day at lunch time, the bell at the entrance of the Jozsef home rang. When the door opened, the family was surprised to see the secretary of the Nazi Party with his wife standing in the doorway. In the light of the prevailing atmosphere in the city, Mark Jozsef had to make a quick decision. He knew exactly who was standing in the doorway. He decided to let him stand in the doorway and did not invite him to step in. The secretary was holding a small package in his hand and finally uttered a couple of words, saying that he brought a gift to the boys to thank them for their honesty. Mark said that they were not willing to accept any gift from him. The secretary asked again what he could do to show his gratitude, as the equipment the boys returned was very valuable.

"If you insist, go and make a contribution to the Jewish Welfare Organization in the name of the children."

The secretary turned on his heels and left. We never heard again from him, and we never heard if he followed up with the suggestion.

Chapter Two

THE CIGARETTE

Brasov, Romania, September 1940

school classes were to start on Monday. Rumors were flying around. Already the local newspaper had fired the Jewish writers. The physicians and lawyers were permitted to see only Jewish clients and patients. The next question: What would happen with the schools? The answer came early Monday, the first day in class. This was Jury's second year in high school. The pupils were eleven and twelve years old.

Seated in their benches, the children were fidgeting, but the classroom was quiet. An older upper-class student was monitoring the behavior of the younger ones. Some of the students this first day of school were dressed in green shirts, the uniform of the Nazi Party.

The door opened, and the school secretary came in holding under his arm the class catalogue where the names and marks of the students were recorded. He opened the book and started to read. Foldes, Graunfels, Joseph, Steinberger. When he finished reading, he closed the catalogue and addressed the four standing children. "Take your things and go home. You Jews will not be permitted to continue your studies here anymore." In deadly silence, the four picked up their papers, books, and bags and walked out with their heads down. Jury was the first name of Joseph, one of the expelled children, whose story this is about.

As mentioned, some of the classmates came dressed this first day of school in Nazi uniforms. Bunched together, they were singing and shouting anti-Jewish slogans and insults, gesticulating in a menacing way. Another group of classmates—and this is what Jury will never forget—placed themselves around the Jewish students with the clear message that they intended to protect them from harm, if harm was to come their way. Jury was glad that he remembered some of the names: Cristescu, Patache, Stanculescu, Grosu, Ciustea, Oprea, Voicu, and maybe others. Many years later, they would meet again, but that is not part of this story.

Jury went home. His parents looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and remained silent. They did not know what to say.

This forced vacation felt good at the beginning, but soon Jury started to envy his classmates who were able to continue with their schooling, and who continued to wear the school uniform he envied as it gave the wearer a special standing of honor in the small town.

Days passed, and the parents organized a form of a school, an informal effort to continue the education of the expelled Jewish children. The unemployed Jewish lawyers, university professors, newspaper editors, and language teachers were to become the teachers in this new makeshift school. It was organized more or less following the model of the public school system.

The quality of the teaching staff because of its background was above what one would expect to find in a high school. The school was not officially recognized—exams and diplomas had no value in the eyes of the authorities—but the children had something to do and somewhere to go.

This is where our story really begins. Jury's new class was small, maybe a dozen boys and girls.

The authorities required that every child must have a medical examination. One day, broken up in two or three groups, Jury's class had its turn. The physician they had to go to for their examination and X-ray was Dr. Fleischer. He had his medical office in the large apartment where he was living. The apartment was on one of the main streets of the town. Not far from his building, a large Nazi flag was fluttering in the wind, marking the building where the German Nazi Party had its headquarters.

The children rang the bell and were let in the office, but not before having glanced at the large bookcases lining the walls, the large dining room table, the paintings on the walls, and the heavy curtains on the windows. They were all led in to the doctor's office. On the way in, they were stepping on a deep red carpet. Dr. Fleischer used to work for a mining company and used to have a busy practice, but now he was forbidden to see anybody but Jewish patients. He quickly examined the children and let them go. Two of his own children were students in the makeshift school, and he knew most of the children by name.

The group started to walk slowly back to the school, now having a free afternoon with nothing special or important to do. Wanting to show off, the boys bought cigarettes and started to smoke. This made them feel grown-up and important. Jury was thinking that the girls must be impressed seeing them puff on their cigarettes, boasting that they could inhale without coughing, and blowing circles with the exhaled smoke. They walked past a small lot where German military vehicles were parked, and later passed a wrought iron fence belonging to the Hungarian middle school where Jury flipped his cigarette butt which landed between two flower pots on the windowsill of a basement apartment.

The children stopped at a corner, questioning what to do next, and suddenly misery struck. A man with a red face full of perspiration, with ruffled hair, a dirty shirt, and jacket was screaming at them with a shrill voice from his toothless mouth.

"Which one of you, you foul-smelling kikes threw that cigarette butt on my window?" Jury did not think twice. He knew it was his cigarette butt. He took off and started to run.

Two human beings started a race—one of them an eleven-year-old boy who hoped he could outrun the man whose face he remembered with fear. The pursuer, the janitor of the Hungarian school, saw in front of him not a child but a hated "kike." This ability to instantly recognize the identity of the hated victim or the feared and hated enemy was working both ways, for the running boy and the man behind him. The man running behind him time and time again screamed in his hoarse voice, full of rage and hatred, "Get him! Get the foul-smelling kike!"

At the corner of an intersection, the footrace suddenly ended. Some of the people on the street, hearing the screams of the running man—"Get the kike! Get the kike!"—pounced to the battle cry and started to kick and beat the boy, caught in their midst. The pursuer arrived soon after and joined in the beating and continued with his screams.

A policeman from the nearby Police station noticed the upheaval and heard the screaming of the crowd. He walked over and took both the man and Jury to the police station.

At the police station, the chief, a heavyset man, was seated at his desk smoking. The pursuer, gasping for breath and in broken Romanian, told his story to the chief. The chief cut the pursuer's story off with a shrug, showed him the door and told him to leave the room.

Jury did not know if this development was good news or bad news for him. He was concerned not with his safety but with his father's reaction to all this. He asked the chief to do whatever he wanted with him but not tell his father. The shame he thought he would bring on the head of the family was overwhelming. Jury could not imagine what was going on in the chief's mind, what his plans were.

The chief got up from his desk and ordered Jury into a room next to his office. The room had bare walls, no windows, and a slanted cement floor with a drain in the middle. The chief approached Jury and suddenly started to slap his face and pummel him. Jury could not stop it. The police chief's face was in front of him, a face without any expression, the mouth tightly closed, no words as the chief's arms were swinging. Jury was feeling no pain by now; he was sobbing. He was getting kicked, slapped, pushed around and cursed. He found himself wondering how was it possible to move your arms as fast as the police chief was moving his, while he was pummeling him. Jury almost admired the policeman for his skill. All the blows were directed at his face. His head was bobbing right and left each time a slap hit him. When it was over, the policeman said,

"Go wash your face at the tap." He left the room, leaving the door open to the office motioning for Jury to stand against the wall facing the desk where he was sitting.

The room was quiet now. The police chief was writing something. Jury was leaning against the wall and looking expectantly at the chief, wondering what would happen next.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Transylvanian Rhapsodyby George Joseph Copyright © 2012 by George Joseph. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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