Essay, A Hidden Child in Antwerp, Belgium, by Sabina Wagshal-Callwood

A Hidden Child in Antwerp, Belgium By Sabina Wagschal-Callwood I can remember my fourth year living in Antwerp, Belgium with my parents, Yetta and Salomon Wagschal, and my two baby brothers, Sam and Jack. It was a day-to-day struggle in our family. However, underneath it love had ripened. We did not realize that our family would soon be divided by World War II. One night in late 1942 or early 1943, we heard the strong noise of boots hitting the stairway as the Nazis came upstairs to our third floor apartment and unexpectedly took my father away. Very soon after this, my mom became ill with Crohn's Disease; thus, they took her to the hospital. Someone at the hospital betrayed her to the Germans for a reward. She was taken to Mechelen, Belgium by truck, where she was placed with the others on the last transport from Belgium to Auschwitz-Birkenau. A Jewish organization that was helping to place children in orphanages, brought my brothers and me to an orphanage in Antwerp: Joodse Weeshuis Lange Leem Straat 313, Antwerp, Belgium. We were bewildered, without a mother and father, not knowing what to feel or expect. Where were they? What would happen? The day of arrival we were greeted by Madame Rosie Rothschild, Directress of the orphanage, and her two young daughters, Eva and Miriam. Madame Rothschild brought my two brothers and me a sense of refuge and survival. She was kind, caring, and fought to protect the children in her orphanage. However, it was still a frightening experience. The first day at the orphanage, we witnessed the departure of sixty children for deportation to the concentration camps. The only children who remained were me, my two brothers, the two daughters of Madame Rothschild, a girl named Anneke Landau, and a small boy by the name of Josi. We stood there immobilized. Soon, however, a new group of children came to the orphanage (a total of sixty) to replace those who had been taken. We were all under the direction of Madame Rosie Rothschild. Not long after that, the S.S. Gestapo came to the orphanage to pick up the three Wagschal children for deportation. However, Madame Rothschild, in "Hooch Deutsch" (high German) courageously pleaded our case to the Nazis, and we were reprieved. They finally released us, and we three shook from fear. Chills embossed our bodies. Thus began our lonely, frightening stay at our temporary refuge?the experience of living with minimum food, the constant fear when we heard the sirens, the dropping and explosions of bombs, not ever knowing if we would live or die. After this incident, the three of us were separated for the rest of the war. For safety, to keep at least one of us alive, Madame Rothschild arranged for my two brothers to be taken to two individual orphanages outside Antwerp. Sam resided in Wezembeek, Jack in Linkebeek. I remained in the first home with sixty other children. There are many painful memories at my first orphanage; it was the worst. Behind the orphanage was a Jewish school, Tachkemoni, that shared a courtyard with the orphanage. I remember the day when the pro-Nazi Belgians known as the Zwarte (Blacks) threw books out the window of the school and burned them before our eyes. I remember that it was always so cold, and I would stand there in my little undershirt, shaking. I also remember darkness; the lights had to be turned off when the sirens were going, and all you could hear was the sound of bombs dropping. One night during a heavy bombing raid, I became ill with dysentery, and Madame Rothschild and a couple supervisors watched over me with flashlights over the course of hours. That was a miracle. After less than a year, Gestapo commander Holm of Antwerp, Belgium ordered that no Jews were allowed to live in Antwerp, so the Jewish Orphanage there closed for good in November 1943. Madame Rothschild had secured a new place outside of Antwerp, in a village known as Lasne. It had been the private residence of a Jewish merchant. She had to ask permission from the Germans? because we children were registered with them?to take us to Lasne residence, and they gave it. However, that didn't mean we were safe; it was "touch and go." One time in Lasne, the S.S. came to visit, looking for children ages 12 and up. One child was taken away, the only Christian in the orphanage. During the visit, an S.S. came into my room, where six of us were staying, and opened the curtain of a closet. Inside was a girl sitting on a chamber pot, and he gave her a kick to her backside with his boot. While I was at Lasne, I suffered from whooping cough, mumps, and a skin rash that was so bad they had to tie sweaters around my hands with a cord so I wouldn't scratch it. The Nazis were always at Lasne. At one point?to escape?all of us children were moved for several months to a handicapped home. Madame Rothschild and the other supervisors brought all sixty of us there to hide. It was a shock to face the people in handicapped positions; I was 8. It was initially very frightening, but they were the most wonderful people. I felt comfortable soon after. One night I remember that we all gathered in a small village square near the handicapped home for a bonfire; the villagers created a person out of straw and dressed it in a German army uniform?it was the likeness of Hitler! As we watched it burn, we were full of glee and joy. We left that place after a couple months and moved to an orphanage in Auderghem?all sixty kids, Madame Rothschild, and the supervisors. At this point, life became more tranquil. I enjoyed helping in the kitchen peeling potatoes. Also, in early 1945, Madame Rothschild gave several small plots of land to some of the children, myself included. I grew red radishes and poppy seeds. In all of the orphanages during my time as a hidden child, our lives were very regimented. At meal times, I was salivating for the crust cream on top of boiled milk. To this day, I remember the taste of bland, cooked turnips, and I dislike them to the present; I am a gourmand. We wore Dutch klompen (wooden shoes) as footwear. I hate klompen! I remember the sound they made, and they were not very comfortable. We also wore a khaki cape with a yellow star that said "Jude" (Jew) when we went out. When I was with the other children, I tried to make them happy and calm. I got through the experience with one word: hope. I always had hope for a better place. Also, I am so thankful to Madame Rothschild; moving my brothers and me saved our lives. She is my hero, and she always will be. On May 8, 1945, the war ended. It was my ninth birthday, and I couldn't have asked for a better gift. As a celebration of the war ending, we were treated for the first time in my life to see a movie. I shall never forget it: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. I was indeed in fantasy land: beautiful colors and realizing that there is another world that I had not been privy to before. In late summer of 1945, my sweet Mama, survivor of Auschwitz, came to pick me up at the orphanage. She, mom, stood there with her skeleton showing, 75 pounds. Her appearance frightened me because I hadn't seen her for two and a half years. I was nine years old and out of the blue she was in front of me. I was sad to leave the love of Madame Rothschild, my second mother. I stayed in touch with Madame Rothschild through letters, and I later learned that she and her family moved to the United States in 1948, and she had a son, Abraham, who is now Dr. Rothschild. The family migrated to Afula, Israel in 1951, where Madame Rothschild and her husband continued helping children as directors of a children's home for seventy kids. After my mother and I left the orphanage, we went to pick up my brothers, and the four of us took the train to Antwerp to reunite with my father. My father, during his imprisonment, escaped from a French camp. Upon escaping the camp, he walked through fields of mines, hid in bushes, and had been helped by the mayor of a nearby town who was the head of the Maquis?a French resistance movement?of that region. The mayor's residence was my father's refuge until the war ended, when it was time to return to Antwerp. The Wagschal family reunited late summer of 1945. The after war years in Antwerp, Belgium were very difficult, especially being berated as a dirty Jew by some of the Christian population. I had my eye on a blonde fellow who was maybe 12 years old, gorgeous, but he kept calling me a dirty Jew. I went to a carnival?although I couldn't afford anything?just for the environment, and I saw him there. I finally confronted him, telling him that when he called me a dirty Jew, he was insulting his G-d because Jesus was a Jew. After that, we ended up becoming friends. I would see him each year at the carnival, and he stopped his insults. My favorite place was walking to parks. The natural environment, the smells of flowers and trees after a rainfall, the aroma of creation intoxicated my senses. All pain and anxiety left my soul. I felt freedom, so delicious and precious. I walked and walked the streets of Antwerp, smelled fabulous food sold outside: pomfrite (French fries) with mayonnaise, fabulously-prepared fish, little shrimp-already cooked and peeled. I was hungry to have some but could not eat it. I was Kosher and lived by the rules. I fantasized, read many adult books during the night, and counted my days for a renewal of myself: the adult life. My family, including a TA year old new sister, Sara G. Wagschal, immigrated to the U.S.A., arriving June 3,1953, to New York City when I was 17 years old. My experience of Shoah was very painful. Being without parents?a temporary orphan?created anxiety and post-traumatic stress. All my young and adult life I was in pursuit of peace. Peace eluded me since birth?it became an obsession to discover it, sprinkled with love. My personal universe opened up when I married my beloved husband, singer/entertainer Tony St. Thomas (Antonio E. Callwood), 51 years ago, 3 days before my 25th birthday. I had met him in December 1960 when he was performing in New York City in the Sheraton East Hotel, and I was in the audience. His strength, patience, and kindness allowed me the freedom to explore all the unknown needs and desires for understanding my inner self. At present, my personal universe is 99.9% complete?love and peace, the clearing of one's soul is indeed the freedom of self. There's no need to worry what others perceive of you. Even after all that has happened to me, I am happy and very grateful that G-d gave me the gift to be here and to tell the story so that others will never forget that this kind of genocide can never happen again.