Where Do They Come From?

 How funny and strange to see people who seem to have walked out of a different century. Today, I stopped for a woman at a crosswalk in a small shopping area, pushing a cart filled with groceries. She was older--but how old could she be compared to me? Not that old. The woman wore a scarf on her head knotted under her chin and what appeared to be an apron over pants and a thick woolen sweater. All in black, not your typical Saturday afternoon outfit for a female in a Maryland suburb of Washington D.C. She crossed the street slowly, as if there was nothing special about taking a Giant shopping cart out of the parking lot. Other people occasionally take carts off the property, but her posture and movement were different. She was crouched over a bit and pushed the heavy load. Somehow, she brought to my mind a woman working her way home in a small European village. 

Her husband or male companion followed. He struck out his hands to halt traffic. I already had stopped my car. This action reminded me of manual traffic control in a tiny town without lights or signs. He, too, seemed out of our world. I thought--Tevye or Zorba. He wore a black fisherman's cap, baggy trousers, and a heavy woolen sweater. His shoes were clunky, and he walked slowly with slightly bent knees. 

When I see people like these--minding their own business, not bothering a soul--I think where did they come from? Maybe somewhere in the former Soviet Union where time has stood still. This couple was Caucasian, so I ruled out Asia and Africa.

I used to live in a area of North Bethesda that has a relatively high population of Sephardic Jews. The reason is the sephardic synagogue. Nearly everyday, a group of elderly men and women congregated nearby. They strolled, shopped, and perched on benches to converse. I say elderly, but I am what is considered elderly. These individuals dressed in a fashion that I associated with my grandmothers. The women wore scarves on their heads, skirts, and proper shoes, for example plain pumps with a small heel or tied oxfords. The men, weatherworn and wrinkled, wore caps, slacks, and zipper jackets. 

Their slow pace seemed to hearken back to fifty or more years ago. They did not speak English. I could not catch what language they spoke. Old world emanated from them. But where is the old world? We are one world now. Had they lived in a village in Turkey, Portugal, Georgia near the Black Sea? I am mystified. No one I know strolls, shops, strolls, and sits on benches.

Healthy--lucky--American adults in their seventies and eighties walk for exercise quickly--swinging their arms in an effort to increase heart rate and wearing athletic outfits. If we talk, we converse as we move, somewhat breathlessly I might add. Benches? No time for that. When we shop, we usually load groceries into a car, carry our food back to our nearby residences in reusable bags, or pull a brightly colored Whole Foods shopping cart, purchased for $29.99.

The self-sufficient friendly "aliens" I notice are, in fact, models for how we should live, especially those of us "of a certain age." We should slow down and stroll everywhere for our health but also for the environment. Strolling decreases the chances for tripping over curbs, bumps, holes, and uneven pavement. The benches are around us for a purpose. Why are we not using them? Where are we hurrying to? 

I confess, I am trying to stuff in as much living as is possible before disaster strikes, as in illness. But are we not living in a fairly disastrous world? I think, if only I do this, that, and the next activity. There is no stopping time. I am what I am. I am acting as I think is best. But, I keep going. The elderly folks who seem so old-fashioned, certainly my age, probably view me as the alien. Why is she in a rush, they might ask? Slow down, say hello, and smell the roses. I do smell flowers and notice nature, but I keep moving rapidly.

 

   

© 2021 Karen Levi

EMMY

 Her name was Emmy. I know little about her. She was my great aunt, the older sister of my grandfather Karl. I never met him either, since he died in Shanghai--a stateless refugee--before my parents had met. He might have told me about his older sister. 

No one to blame for the silence, I suppose. My mother left Germany when she was 11 years old. Her scant memories of this woman were the remaining tidbits of a living, breathing person. Thankfully, I possessed the prescience to ask my mother about Emmy during my mother's last years. My grandmother Kaethe--who lived until I was in my early 20's--never mentioned her sister-in-law who nagged her to dress more stylish. Omi Kaethe suffered severe depression and enumerable losses. Possibly, Emmy represented one more tragedy my grandmother could not bear. 

Emmy sent her teenage son, Hans, to Shanghai before World War II broke out; my mother knew Hans in Shanghai. I met him in San Francisco as a young child, but he died early on, in the late 1950's. Hans and Elfie, his wife, had a son Robert. His wife, who I knew throughout my childhood, remarried. Their son, Robert, appeared at my wedding in 1976. That was the last anyone in the family saw him. 

I am sure Emmy had friends in Berlin. She and her mother, my grandmother Klara, owned a fancy dress shop. Emmy and Klara exemplified the independent, entrepreneural, and fashionable women of the 1920's and early 1930's, a new demographic in post World War I Germany. I picture Emmy tall, handsome, and dressed in the 1920's style of cloche hats and knee length dresses with dropped waists. I love the style and emulated the mode in the 1980's when Laura Ashley clothes were the rage. I continue to wear cloche hats . 

Emmy had relationships with men, as evidenced by her last name Brodnitz. Who was he? Emmy bore a son, Hans, with someone, but who? Hans was known as Hans Mayer. Emmy must have been a dutiful daughter, since she did not leave her elderly mother alone after the war began.  She knew to send her son away though. I discovered evidence that she traveled around Germany, perhaps to evade the Nazis. Her end is terrible, sent to Estonia on a train and shot behind a depot. The Nazis tried desperately to destroy each and every Jew. However, they failed. I am here to remember.

My sister and I arranged to have a Stolperstein placed in front of her last residence in Charlottenburg--Wilmersdorf. a fashionable neighborhood in Berlin. A few people attended the ceremony today. Gunther Demning, the artist responsible for the Stolpersteine project, personally placed her stone in the cobblestone sidewalk. We say the Kaddish and her name. One of millions.

Emmy's mother Klara as a young woman. I do not have a picture of Emmy.

Stolperstein for Emmy Brodnitz (nee Wolffheim) 11/9/2021

© 2021 Karen Levi