My great-grandma died on my birthday and I want to dedicate this chapter to her.
This is also how my great-grandparents met.
This is when Hadassah and Alfred are speaking German to each other.
And German is going to be used when they are speaking in front of a person who can't understand it.
Sorry for my absence.
Alfred was in a nice family restaurant in New York City. If he was going to die in the War, then he wanted to have one last home cooked meal. It wasn't the same as his mother's God bless her soul.
Alfred might have talked big about being a war hero but to be honest, he was terrified. When, no, if he died, and he wasn't, then there would be no one to grieve for him. No one to send him letters to remind him that he was missed.
He was about to leave when he saw a pretty brunette come in and then tried to talk to the waiter in a mix of broken English and German.
The waiter was about to tell her to leave but, with a pretty girl needing a hero, Alfred decided he was going to fill the role.
"She's saying that she would like some coffee and some soup."
The waiter and the girl looked stunned.
"You can understand German?" He asked.
"Ja. I have a friend who was a German immigrant and I taught him English while he taught me German."
The girl looked so shocked that he was being kind to her.
"Do you want to sit with me?" he asked her.
"Yes, please."
Alfred pulled a chair out for her and she sat down.
"What is your name?"
"My name is Alfred. What is your name?
"Hadassah T'aviv."
"That doesn't sound like a German name."
"I'm a Jew." She froze and looked like she was about to bolt.
Then it clicked for Alfred. She escaped Germany because she was a Jew. Jew were not being treated well, at least, those were the rumors that flew out of Europe.
"I promise that nothing is going to happen to you. Whatever is going on in Europe, it is not going to happen in America. You are safe."
Alfred took her hands in his. She still looked nervous but she didn't look like she was going to run.
The waiter delivered coffee for the both of them and set down two bowls of soup instead on one.
"I didn't order any."
"You're not going to have any good food while your over there fighting. Soldiers eat free today."
"Thank you. Hadassah, are you feeling well?"
"You are a soldier?"
"Yes. I'm being shipped out tomorrow."
She sipped the coffee.
"Are you afraid?"
"Yes. But there are other people who are more afraid than I am so I am going to be brave for them."
"That is very noble of you. Who are you leaving behind?"
"No one. My mother died and my father left. I have no siblings and I do not have a girl to miss me."
"You must be feel sad."
"No. This just means that no one will cry when they hear that I have died."
"I'd feel saddened by your death."
"Thank you. Oh, don't worry about paying. I'll get that." Alfred smiled at her.
Before the war, before Jews were singled out, Hadassah would get smiles from different men. But none that made her heart ache and feel light all at the same time.
"Will you write to me, while I am over there?"
He honestly expected her to say no. He expected her to leave. He was preparing himself for rejection.
"Ja. I...write." She said in heavily accented but broken English.
"I'll write you in German until you are comfortable enough in English."
"Do you want me to write first or are you going to write me?"
"If you give the address of where you are staying, I can to get you your first letter by the end of the month.
"I don't have a place to stay yet."
"If you want, you could stay at my apartment until the war is over and I'll help you find a place of your own."
"I would like that."
XXXXXX
Rose Miller was an expert on many thing. Love just happened to be her specialty. As she walked down the street, she was a very handsome young man. And a soldier!
If he didn't have that girl on his arm, she would have snatched him up and wrapped him up in a blanket and feed him a cookie just do he would not leave for war. After all, that is how she lost her husband in the Great War. She didn't want this young woman to go through the same pain she had.
January 1944
Alfred could not stay awake another minute. However, it was the first chance in a long time he had to write Hadassah. The last letter he received was from over three months ago.
"You're using your time to sleep to write home to a girl? You Americans are strange." One of the British officers that Alfred had to share a room with. Oh, and a Canadian was there somewhere...there he was. Writing his girl back home too.
"While you Brits could take a car and drive 15 minutes to a couple hours to get home to your girl, Matthew and I have to write a letter, have it go through screenings, wait for a plane or boat crazy enough to go across the pacific, and by the time our faithful women receive our letters of love, we could have been captured by the enemy or killed in action. So why don't you shut your condescending trap and go to sleep while there is some sort of peace in this hell hole."
The British officer's eyebrows widen in shock.
"And you wonder why people in other countries don't like Americans."
"Does it look like I care you maple syrup loving, moose riding, polar bear?"
"You don't give a single shit, do you."
"I give one and it's not being waisted on this."
"She must be a special woman."
"She is Matthew. She is."
June 6, 1944
Hadassah mailed her letter to Alfred that morning.
She woke up at four I'm the morning and felt sick. It was something to do with Alfred, she knew it. Something was happening and Alfred was in the middle of it.
After she mailed her letter, she went to work but she prayed for his safety more than she had throughout the entire war.
XXXXXXX
Alfred thought many times he should have died. He thought many times he did die. But something or someone was keeping him alive. His brothers fell. The British and Canadians fell, but he stood.
He knew beforehand that when they actually stormed the beaches of Normandy that there was a high chance of death. He just didn't want to believe it until now.
Bullets rained down from the sky.
The sea was red with blood.
Some soldiers used the bodies of dead soldiers to form a makeshift wall to stop the bullets and reload their own weapons.
Alfred was one of the last men standing once the nightmare was over.
October 1945
Hadassah's last letter from Alfred was when he told her he survived and helped liberate France. He then explained how he was then being sent over to the Philippians and then transferred to a base stationed at Midway. Needless to say, that was over six months ago.
The Second World War was over as of September 2.
It was now October.
Hadassah sat in Alfred's apartment. After a day working alongside of doctors and stitching up people, she really wanted to read the letters that Alfred had sent home to her. As she read them, she noticed a significant difference in how he spoke in them. The first few were full of naive enthusiasm and gradually became short and to the point. After a while, Hadassah saw how the way that he signed the letters became different.
They were signed dein Freund, your friend. And the more resent ones became für immer deins, and Ihr Soldat.
There was a knock on the door and when she answered, it was an older version of the young smiling boy she met just a few years ago. He was still smiling but his eyes were sad.
"You're alive!" She hugged him.
"You're speaking English." He held her like they were the only two in the world.
"I have not gotten any letters since you were at Normandy. I thought that you died."
"I thought that I would die."
They just stood in the silence and let the unsaid words between them fill their minds.
'I thought that you would die over there.'
'I thought that you would forget me.'
"Over the years, I have fallen for you and your letters.'
'I have fallen in love with you.'
Many unspoken words were said that night.