It’s almost a relief for Lilli to look away from the window into the stern face of one of the German soldiers, who are checking for name tags and luggage identification. The tags mean that the children have valid travel visas, or passports. Any child without a tag will be removed from the train.
Lilli gropes nervously for her visa. It is there, pinned to her coat. Then she is asked to point out her luggage. The officer lifts up her backpack and suitcase, and seems to be weighing them. He hefts the backpack questioningly. “What have you got in there?” he asks with a grin, “the family silver?”
Alarmed, Lilli gulps. “Books. Some English books to read.”
The soldier’s grin widens into a toothy smile as he presses the pack to feel its contents and then sets it down beside Lilli. “Ha. Well, good luck to you then, Helga Frankfurter.” And he is gone.
Helga! She is now Helga. Lilli must never forget this. She will be Helga forever. And who will Helga be? What will become of her?
Lilli is still pondering this awful question when she feels a jolt and realizes that the train is leaving the station. Soon they will be clattering through the countryside on their way to the border with Holland, where they will at last be beyond the clutches of German authority.
The seats in the train are arranged to face each other, so that some of the children are riding forward, and some backward. From her cramped position beside the window, Lilli looks directly across into the eyes of a bespectacled boy who, unlike many of the others, is well-dressed for the journey. He is so proper and neat that she can’t help smiling at him and, to her surprise, he smiles back and thrusts out his hand.
“Stefan Korzak,” he announces with formal courtesy. Lilli imagines that if he was on his feet he would click his heels.
“Li . . . Helga Frankfurter,” she replies, stumbling a bit. “Where are you from?”
Lilli learns that Stefan is from a Jewish family in Austria. The country has been under Nazi rule since March 1938, so his parents have arranged for him to live with the family of his uncle, a businessman in England.
“What about you?” he asks Lilli.
Lilli hunches her shoulders. “I don’t know where I will live. But I do have an uncle in America. Perhaps I can go to live with him some day.”
Stefan leans forward, his eyeglasses glinting in the staggered light of the rumbling train. “Don’t plan on it. They don’t let Jews in that easily.”
Lilli feels for Herman Frankfurter’s address, which is sewn into the pocket of her blouse, and shudders. She doesn’t want to talk to Stefan Korzak anymore. He is surely one of the very lucky members of the Kindertransport, clean, and well-dressed.
Babies, in the arms of children Lilli’s age, cry incessantly. Every now and then the smell of vomit wafts through the car. Some of the young travelers have motion sickness; others are frightened. Gerda has packed a lunch for Lilli of bread and cheese and fruit. But her stomach is turning and she wants nothing to eat. She leans back against the hard wooden seat and shuts her eyes. But images leap before her . . . her goodbyes to Helga and Elspeth, the barking orders and rough handling of the Nazi guards at the railroad station, her last glimpse of Mutti with the menacing Captain Koeppler at her side . . .
Lilli is awakened by the sharp, jerky movements of the slowing train, and by the sound of cheering coming from within the railroad car. Stefan Korzak is leaning toward her with a gleaming smile. “We have come to the Dutch border,” he announces. “We are free, Helga Frankfurter. Free!”
Lilli rubs her eyes. She is being crushed by her seatmates, who have swarmed to the windows, seeking their first view of Holland, a free country (even though the Fuhrer has already made plans to swallow it up, along with Belgium and even France).
Stefan, who has a better view of the Dutch railroad station from his window, informs Lilli that “the Nazi guards are leaving the train. And the Dutch train conductors are coming aboard. Goodbye to Hitler!”
There is more cheering, not only for the unarmed, blue-garbed trainmen entering the cars, but also for the many Dutch women and children who have come to see the Kindertransport pass through on its way to the seaport. Train windows have been opened and the kindly visitors are passing sandwiches and chocolate bars, even cups of hot cocoa, to the clamoring hands within. Lilli finds herself gulping back tears of surprise as a chocolate bar wrapped in gold paper is thrust into her hands
Too quickly, however, the train sounds its whistle, warning of its imminent departure for the ferry slips on the North Sea. “Goodbye!” the visitors cry out as they slowly disperse. “Good luck to you for a safe landing in England.”
It’s late in the day when the weary and sea-sickened Kindertransport travelers arrive in the English port of Harwich. They are taken to the assignment center, where they will meet their hosts. The children, so happy and refreshed during their brief stop in Holland, are now limp, and many of the little ones have fallen fast asleep. Even Stefan Korzak looks a bit roughed up despite his fine clothing. He suffered a sick stomach several times during the crossing, and Lilli couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. But when his uncle and other family members come to claim him—and he and “Helga” exchange formal farewells—Lilli becomes envious again.
She has been sitting on a bench in the assignment center for what feels like a very long time. Little by little her younger companions have been offered homes, their luggage collected as they have gone off to live with their new families. But Lilli, who appears older than her twelve years, is repeatedly passed over. What if nobody wants me? she worries. I’ve come so far. Mutti said I would be safe here, but where will I live?
Her thoughts are interrupted by one of the refugee officers overseeing the welfare of the diminishing number of Kindertransport arrrivals. “Not to worry, dear,” says the pleasant-voiced woman. “I promise you’ll have a bed tonight and a warm meal.”
“But where?” Lilli asks anxiously. An Army transport has arrived to take several of the oldest refugee boys and girls to an orphanage. Lilli is not sure what a British orphanage is like, but it does not sound like the “good home in England” that Grossmutter Bayer had described. “I want to live some place where I can go to school and . . . and skate and do sports, and go to the cinema . . .”
“Of course, of course, all in good time,” the officer assures her in a friendly manner. “But meanwhile, dear, we must assure that your basic needs are taken care of. Please collect your things and come with me.”
With a sinking heart, Lilli slings her backpack over her shoulders, picks up her suitcase, and haltingly approaches the waiting transport.
The daylight hours of an English summer seem to go on and on. It is still bright out as Lilli bounces along on a country road in a battered farm truck, seated between her new family, a Mr. and Mrs. Rathbone, instead of in the Army transport that was to have taken her to the orphanage.
She was about to climb into the transport with the other older children who had not been claimed when she felt a tap on her shoulder. “There are some people here asking about you,” said the refugee officer. “Come and speak to them.”
Mrs. Rathbone, whose first name is Agnes, is tall and thin-lipped, with black hair that is scraped back from her face and gathered into a tight knot. She did most of the talking, while her stout, gray-bearded husband, Wilfred, stared silently at Lilli through small, watery eyes.
“You’re a tall one. Have you already finished school?”
“Nein,” Lilli hastened to reply, adding in English that she wanted to go to