Matti Leshem
Tablet, Apr. 28, 2022
“… that moment when he realizes he lost and that he must leave or risk being captured himself is the pivotal moment in his life, and I’ve been struggling to understand it for 25 years. How, at the age of 22, did he walk out, knowing that his mother and sister were doomed? And they were.”
“Where are you going?” the suspicious cop asks. Slovak, he thinks to himself. “ To visit my sainted mother in Brno. She’s complaining again,” he answers. The cop chuckles, “Good man,” and hands him back his identity card. He’s taking the Prague train and traveling under an assumed identity, Arnošt Limbersky. His photograph belies the truth of his heritage. He speaks perfect Czech and perfect German, not some flat, southern dialect but Hochdeutsch. He gives the illusion of someone who is safe.
Back In Prague, Arnošt is a supervisor at the Bata shoe factory in the German language school, created because the Reich wants all Czech workers to learn German. That’s his job and his cover in the resistance and now that he’s forged his own papers, he’s forging for others. He saves a few Jews this way—maybe 10—but not enough. Never enough.
He wasn’t lying to the policeman. He is going to visit his mother in Brno. He arrives on Huteruv Rybnik 4, where he lived since he was 2. The building shares a courtyard with an old synagogue, but the synagogue has been closed for more than a year. His sister Judita opens the door, and he enters quickly. He shouldn’t be here. In the relative anonymity of Prague, he’s safer. Here, everyone knows him. At 18, Judita has her mother’s beauty unsullied by time. Hazel-eyed and tall, she opens the door quickly and lets him in. They embrace and his mother, Paula, comes out of her bedroom in a black dress. At 45, she has the aristocratic bearing of a well-bred, bourgeois Russian lady, which is exactly who she is. They embrace and she cries a little. She talks about missing her husband, who died in 1938 after succumbing to lung cancer and an 80-Turkish-cigarette a day habit. She prepares tea and serves cakes on fine china. Arnošt knows he has little time. His mother and sister have been called for transport to Terezin.
Judita knows her older brother well, having spent a lifetime idolizing him, and she can tell he has something on his mind. Her mother will just keep chattering if she lets her, so she interrupts and says, “So, why are you here?” The impoliteness of that moment stops everyone, but Arnošt draws a quick breath and dives in. “You must leave with me tonight,” he says. “I’ve arranged identity papers for both of you and we can get on the 6 o’clock train back to Prague. Everything is set.”
Matti Leshem is the co-founder of New Mandate Films, a film and television production company created to mine the rich depth of Jewish history and literature.
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