“What does that tree stand for?”
“It has nothing to do with Jesus; it comes from ancient pagan times.”
“Then why do we do it?”
“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
I had the golden glass ornament in my hand, ready to put it on the top. “Mum, does God accept a pagan tree?”
“I guess not.”
I let my glass ornament fall, and I took all the other ones down and began trampling them to pieces. I was shaking all over.
Silently, Mother swept up the broken glass and put the fir tree back on the balcony.
That night, under my bed cover, disappointment and anger invaded my heart. Adults just lie. The stork and the baby, the fairy tale about the Christchild, the tree that is not really for Jesus but is pagan, and they say it’s just a nice story like the Grimms’ fairy tales! They make religion into a tale. My anger grew.
Mother explained herself. “Yes, we have been cheating you. People who do not study the Bible don’t think that it is bad to make a pagan feast, and they do not know that Christmas started with the Roman sun feast. You made the right choice; always go according to your conscience. Together we will work to get all the fairy tales and lies out of our worship.”
I was appeased, but something was broken in my heart. My parents had been lying to me for seven years, and the priest still did! From that day on, I was even more suspicious because I realized grown-ups can tell tales, grown-ups can cheat, grown-ups can mislead.
It was impossible to reach Bergenbach; it was buried in snow. We would go in the spring. Dad played with me and Zita; he threw snowballs in the air, and Zita chased them. At the end of that wonderful vacation, Dad said: “Tomorrow, Mum will go with you to school. Your classmates are right. You, we, are not Catholics anymore. Your mum has found the truth: the Bible is the truth, and we all will hold to it as closely as possible.”
Music, laughter, and games had returned to our home. Dad was happy again, pampering me whenever possible; he was as jovial as ever. His return to painting and the violin indicated the extent of his healing. He had even stopped smoking. Because I had put some chocolate cigarettes in his tobacco box to tease him, he had proclaimed to Mum, “I’ve always condemned priests who smoke, so I have to stop, too. And Simone needs to have a father who sticks to what he says!” Dad never smoked again, and his terrible morning cough went away.
With much enthusiasm, he brought the new cotton print fabric for my room, the one he had promised long ago and had forgotten for months. Humming along with the sound of the sewing machine, Mother cheerfully made my curtains and bed cover. Our young downstairs neighbor John would soon wallpaper my room while we were away in Bergenbach. Dad gave me some lessons about cold and warm colors, and then had me choose the color for my room. I decided not to have blue because I did not want to freeze in my room.
At school, no one wanted to hear my Bible quotations anymore, and my teacher’s reaction was a sample of how people would view my family. I was no longer her favorite. Whenever possible, Mademoiselle ignored me, and she seldom gave me an opportunity to answer questions in class. But the peaceful, happy atmosphere at home outweighed the cold one in my class. I realized that the same thing had happened in the past. My teacher often talked about the first Christians in the time of the Romans. Whenever we children had done a fine work, she would relate the story of Fabiola, Nadine, Ben Hur, and the famous “Quo Vadis.”
At home among Dad’s art collection, we had a reproduction of an Italian painting picturing the first Christians in the Roman arena, ready to be eaten by lions or to die by fire rather than give up their belief. From my very first school year, it had been my aim to be like them. But I couldn’t understand one thing: Why didn’t anyone want to hear more about the Bible? It got even worse. As soon as my parents took me out of catechism, the class started hating me. The same children to whom I had given my bread, cookies, and chocolate now turned against me. Why do they do that? I asked myself. What had changed?
When the priest held catechism classes, I attended special civics lessons given to me by the school director. One day after catechism, the children were waiting for me outside in a half circle. Both sets of stone stairs were blocked. I was trapped. As soon as they saw me, they chanted in unison: “Heathen, you are a heathen, heathen!”
Then someone else shouted, “You don’t go to church anymore!”
Another one screamed, “You don’t attend catechism!”
Still another yelled, “You’ve become a Communist!”
I stood all alone on top of the steps and shouted, “I am a Christian!” This made them mad.
“Then tell us why you do not attend catechism!”
I had read in the Bible that God does not live in man-made houses. So I pointed to the church and said, “God cannot be in there because it’s full of idols, which have eyes but cannot see and ears but cannot hear, and God forbade us to have such idols in the second commandment and . . . ” I stopped short and all the children were silenced when suddenly, we heard somebody clapping hands. Across the street, in an expensive villa, a finely dressed lady got the children’s attention.
“Let her go. Don’t you see she has a devil’s face coming out of hell? Escape, she is dangerous!”
Immediately one ran away in fear, screaming, “Run! Run!” Soon the others followed, even Blanche, Madeleine, and Andrée. I was left alone. I turned around and saw Mademoiselle standing in the hall—stiff, cold, and silent.
When I got to the corner of the street, another smaller group of children confronted me. Some of the boys jumped at me, circling around me like bees swarming around candy and calling me “dirty Jew, dirty Jew.”
Why do they call me a Jew, and why dirty? I wasn’t either one! Passersby finally chased the children away.
Mother’s Bible reading in one of the Gospels was about persecution, hatred, and insults. I felt confident in my beliefs that came from the Bible. But I wanted to know, “Why dirty Jew?” Our butcher was Jewish, and he was very clean. Mother liked him because he was honest and kind. I felt terrible about the accusation without understanding why.
Sitting on my father’s lap, and listening to my mother reading the Bible to me, I learned the meaning of this expression. At the table one day they explained, “As you learn more about history, you’ll find out that so-called Christians wouldn’t let the Jews have jobs as craftsmen or similar work. They were kept in special sections of town, being accused of killing God.”
“I knew that. The priest told us about it.”
“But God never came to earth to be killed by men. How could the Almighty, the Source of Life, be murdered? He does not punish by evil. He doesn’t make a distinction between races, colors, rich or poor, because Jehovah is not unjust. He is love. Those who do not follow this teaching are under the power of evil and can do and say bad things, thinking they are right.”
Little by little, the children tired of chasing me on the street. I had told them that Jesus, the son of God, was a Jew, and being called a Jew is an honorable statement. I was proud of it; all of the apostles and Bible writers had been Jews and I wanted to follow them.
SPRING 1938
Spring had spread flowers over the land just like the blue and pink and yellow dots on my new wallpaper. Mum and I went up to Bergenbach while John wallpapered my room. Dad would come up on weekends. When Uncle Alfred arrived, another verbal table war about French and German ideologies again spoiled the family’s noon gathering.
Another argument, this