443 Mt. Washington Drive
443 Mt. Washington Drive is a small, green, pretty old craftsman house that sits high up above a narrow, winding street in Los Angeles. The front yard is full of tall old cacti and woody herbs and large rocks. It’s a great house and I wish it were mine.
There were some fires a few years ago, because of the drought, that ripped through the hillier neighborhoods of L.A., one after another. I don’t live in L.A. but I followed the news closely and so did my dad. He asked me if I knew exactly which streets were burning.
“Not really, but I could find out. Why?”
“I’m just wondering about the house where I lived as a kid.”
“Oh, you mean on Tigertail Lane?”
My dad’s parents had had a house designed for them by an architect, an impressive but kind of sterile place on a ridge above Santa Monica, where my dad had grown up.
“No. I mean the house on Mt. Washington Drive. I lived there until I was 5.”
“Really? And that’s the one you're worried about?”
“Yes, I guess so. It was my parent’s first house. They gave it away.”
“They gave it away? What do you mean, they gave it away?”
My dad, although not unwilling, never volunteers much about his past. This was one I’d never heard.
“Well, it was during the war, and we had some relatives in Germany, and my father and his father were able to get some of them out.”
“You mean like pay off Nazi’s?”
“Something like that.”
“Oh, geez.”
“So my father arranged their passage and when they got to Los Angeles they needed somewhere to live. They had a couple of kids—a cousin my age—so my parents gave them their house, and we moved to a different one. Paul Waller, my cousin, moved into my old room. The two families spent Christmas together every year. He visits once in a while, I’m sure you’ve heard me mention him.”
“Sure I have, I just didn’t know he was a war refugee, or about the house.”
Not long after this conversation, I found myself living in a rented house in a small town near Los Angeles with my husband James and our 3 year old son, Jesse. We’d moved there from Brooklyn at the start of the pandemic to be closer to my parents, who live in Santa Barbara. We liked it and decided to stay, pandemic or no, so we started looking around for a house to buy. Coincidentally, we had been looking in the neighborhood of 443 Mt. Washington Drive, and when my dad told me about his childhood home I became curious to see it. We went to check it out but I got the address wrong and after we drove up the hill and parked I went to the house across the street, opposite his, where a woman was working outside in her yard. I introduced myself, told her how her house had been my dad’s house, and so on. She seemed mildly, but not very, interested. I was disappointed. Her house was nice enough but I really loved the pretty green one with all the cactus across the street. “I wish that was his old house,” I said to James. “If it were that house I’d want to buy it because of sentiment …and look at that yard!”
We went home, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what my dad had told me—the house was clearly important to him, and in my mind too it had become a central, bonding character in a story I wanted to know more about. I emailed Paul Waller, who still lived in the area. I asked him about his experiences, his history, and the house on Mt. Washington Drive. We spoke several times over the course of a few months. He sent pictures of the house. It was the green house. “I knew it!” I said to James. (Or I had hoped it, which is as good as knowing if you turn out to be right.)
Paul told me about his early childhood in Germany, and what happened later. He spoke at length and broke down several times. So did I. Later that spring, he and his wife Joan visited my parents in Santa Barbara. James and I drove up to meet them. We stood around in the backyard and talked about the Mt. Washington Drive house, about the Holocaust, and about the war in Ukraine which had just begun. My parents had some space in their house—a converted basement—and had offered to host a refugee family. A young couple from Kiev with a baby and a toddler were living there. A sobering instance of history repeating itself eighty years later.
Paul, when he heard about this, became quiet. His eyes filled with tears. “Max, like his father before him, is an angel,” he said.
Before they left, I took a photo of Paul and my dad, two eighty-eight year old cousins. There was a resemblance, a couple of old Jewish guys with boyish grins …it was easy to imagine them at 5 years old.
Paul’s story:
“I lived in an apartment in the small German village of Klein-Krotzenburg with my mother Ida, my father Albert, and my sister Lore. My maternal grandparents lived just across the river in a larger village. One day, when I was about four, I was down the street from my apartment watching my father do some work outside at a friend's house. He often did manual labor, digging or building for our neighbors. As I watched, some Nazi soldiers came by and took him away. I headed back home by myself, and my mother Ida met me part way. I remember being disappointed because in her hurry she had left the cake she’d been baking in the oven unattended—when we got home, it had burned.
Later, I learned that they’d taken my father to Buchenwald.
On November 18th, 1938, S.S. came to our house in the night and broke mirrors, dumped over the china cabinet and made a lot of noise. They were people we knew though—they knew my mother, and knew us kids. They didn’t go into our bedroom because they didn’t want to wake us. Soon after this, my mother found a letter from your great-grandfather Max in my father's dresser. She wrote to him, asking for help.”
(My great-grandfather Max had already helped a lot of Jews to escape at this point, but, afraid his luck might run out, he asked his son Hermann to help this particular family, which he did. Hermann went on to help many families escape. He set up a community park, a co-op store and a school for them. For a while, until she was incapacitated by a brain tumor, my grandmother Vita taught in the school. Later after the war was over and the families had moved away, Hermann gave the park to the city, but would still go there sometimes. He probably looked like a crazy old man, he said, walking around, clipping shrubs and pulling weeds.)
“After about a year, my father was released from Buchenwald. He left for England, arriving a week before the invasion of Poland and the declaration of war between England and Germany. After war had been declared it became much harder to get anyone out. We set out to meet him in England. The passage on the ship to England took a long time, because we had to carefully zigzag past the U-boats, but finally we all were reunited on a ship to the U.S. My grandparents and uncle went to the camps. At first, they were shunted from one camp to another. In these camps, they grew vegetables and made friends. My grandmother, Johanna, wrote many letters from the camps.”
Paul still had the letters and shared them with me. It was clear, reading them, that for a long time people didn’t really understand what was going to happen. For a while they were mostly cheerful, or at least they weren’t despondent or devoid of hope. Johanna seemed consumed with her own day-to-day life; she didn’t understand the big picture, she didn’t know what was coming. She believed they would get out one day. Imagining unimaginable atrocities is contrary to human nature, I think—anyhow it's clear that she expected things to get better, not worse.
It’s a terrible feeling—to realize that you, the person reading about something bad that has already happened, know more than the person who went through that thing, about how it would be for them. It was shocking to me, reading the letters, to realize how ignorant my relatives were of what was really going on. But I suppose if you’re going to suffer and die, it’s best that you know as little as possible about it beforehand.
Excerpt of a letter from Paul’s grandmother, Johanna:
August 16, 1942 - Gurs Camp, Isle L Barrack 16
“My dear, good children! Writing has never been as difficult for me as today, you see that from dear Siegfried's farewell letter. He went away on a transport, destination unknown. My dear ones, you cannot imagine how this upsets us, such a good and self-sacrificing son, the dear God shall protect him. We are delighted that your birthday went well, dear Lore. You and Paul are sweet children, as your only wish is that we come [and join you in America]. If it is God's wish, it will happen and we will see you all. Pray only for Uncle Siegfried. Dear Ida, dear Albert, dear Recha, and dear Adolf, be sure to teach your children a bit of religion, because faith in the Creator is the only remaining support. Greetings and thanks to good little Paul. As always all the best for the New Year, may the Almighty help us. I hope you received our birthday letter, which is meant for all four of you. I am pleased that your leg is well, dear Adolf, just take care that your child has its father for a long time, it is really as round as a ball like Lore was. My rascal, dear Paul-boy, was always leaner. A thousand heartfelt greetings and kisses and a blissful New Year from your loving Mother and Grandma.”
And a postscript to that letter from Max, Paul’s grandfather:
“My dear children and grandchildren! Because mother has already written everything worth knowing, not much is left for me to write. I . . . now . . . like a sheep without a shepherd. Dear Dear Ida, see to it that we can join you soon after all. I am usually not like that, as you know me very well, because the work makes me forget much, which is not the case with dear mother. For the upcoming New Year my heartfelt congratulations and the wish to be with you soon. . . . All of you stay healthy . . . . Your Father and Grandpa. For my little grandchildren extra kisses and greetings from your Grandpa—write very soon.”
The letter from Paul’s uncle Siegfried:
Les Milles, August 5, 1942
“Yesterday a summons arrived here and today even six or still more. One of them was for a man of my age from Karlsruhe, who suffered a fainting spell at the announcement of this news, which is after all understandable, as those who are in possession of a summons do not have to join in on the trip and are therefore to be congratulated for two reasons. I quietly hoped that we would also receive a summons, but unfortunately this has not come to pass to date. I hope that you have done everything within your power, I asked for it long enough. In any event, I sincerely thank you and all those involved for the love and kindness that was extended to me. For the future I wish you the best at all times, may the children grow, blossom, and thrive and always be a source of joy to you. May they always remember their uncle, as he, too, will not forget you as long as he is alive. Stay healthy, keep your head high, no matter how bleak the times may be, and be as always greeted and kissed by your brother, brother-in-law, and uncle Siegfried.”
Paul’s grandparents and uncle were exterminated at Auschwitz, 1942.
In Los Angeles, Paul and his sister Lore were getting used to their new home at 443 Mt. Washington Drive. They began attending the local kindergarten, and were learning to speak English. Their father Albert got a job working at a factory in the city, but ever afterward seemed to be, as described by Paul, utterly broken. He died of Gaucher's disease at forty-nine. Ida died many years later, at the age of ninety-one.
Letter from my grandfather Hermann to Paul on his mother’s death:
"Dear Paul, Lore—and all the others to whom Ida was dear,
With the sad passing of dear lda I ponder on my having been put in a position which enabled me, without fully understanding what was at stake, to bring some of my late mother's relatives out of danger and into freedom.
One day I received a letter from my father (I'Il refer to him as Papsie) enclosing a letter from an Ida Waller requesting his help in getting her family out of NAZI Germany. I had not previously heard of these people, whom I learned were my late mother's relatives. Papsie said that he had already made out so many affidavits guaranteeing that his many relatives would not require public assistance that it would be wiser if my brother and I were to take care of bringing our mother's relatives out of Germany. My brother declined, perhaps because he had no memories of his mother who died when he was only two years old, I agreed and Papsie said he would carry my brothers share of any expenses.
Our government did not make it easy for foreigners to enter the United States. In addition to the requirement of an affidavit, which had to be executed by a relative, there was a quota on the number of immigrants permitted to enter the United States from each country, and papers had to be processed by an American consul in Germany. Not all of the American consuls r/sere friendly to Jews. When one received a quota number which was too large to permit entrance into the United States in the near future, some nations, sometimes England, would accept a person with a US quota number to enter provided some person or organization guaranteed, or deposited cash to guarantee, that the immigrant would not become a public burden before his quota number was called. The situation would frequently change, sometimes it was possible to find a temporary haven in China or Cuba or in Central or South America, when England was not accepting more fugitives. I was pretty confused, I (and most other Americans) did not realize how dangerous the situation was or how rapidly it could change. I received cablegrams which I didn't fully understand, got frequently helpful, but sometimes not completely correct, advice from various sources including a department of the Union Bank. I finally succeeded in getting my cousin, Albert Waller and his wife, Ida Waller and their two children, Paul and Lore, into England and thence via New York into Los Angeles.
Vita and I installed them in the house at 443 Mt. Washington Drive which was previously our home, given to us by Vita's parents. Albert had two sisters: Paula, who was married to David Ringer and—, who was married to Wilhelm Straus. The Straus family included three young children. With my help David Ringer was able to get into England and tried to get Paula in too, as did I. However we were unsuccessful and David had to come to the U.S. without her. He felt that Albert could have gotten Paula into England if he had really tried. When he came to New York, Papsie helped him get started working, on a farm I believe. He also discouraged him, at my request, from coming to California. David blamed me for this, correctly, as I did not want to be involved in the quarrel between Albert and David. I have not corresponded with him for many years. This is probably because I feel guilty for not having tried harder to save Paula. I had seen an attorney to help me with this but dropped the working with him when my psychoanalyst distrusted the man. With the help of a Mr. Waller, probably a relative of Albert and his sisters who had managed to get out in time, I was able to get the needed papers and also steamship tickets for the Straus family to get to Cuba, but, before they were able to come, World War II started, all exit from Germany was ended and they became victims of the holocaust. (Albert had three sisters. Paula, Hedwig and Clara. One of the latter two was shot as she was trying to protect her sister from the same fate.)
Ida had a brother, Adolf Rosenthal with a wife, Recha, and was anxious to get them out of Nazi Germany. Since my affidavit was not acceptable because the couple were not related to me, Vita and I deeded the house at 443 Mt. Washington Drive to lda so she could be considered capable of supporting her brother and his wife. This worked and the Rosenthal couple were able to come to Los Angeles."
Recently, James, Jesse and I went to Paul and Joan’s house in Sherman Oaks for lunch. Joan taught Jesse how to make fresh squeezed orange juice, and showed him their koi pond and their two cats. I sat next to Paul on the couch and he talked about being a little boy, Jesse’s age, in Germany. He talked about the day the Nazis took his father away. He teared up as he spoke about his uncle Siegfried and his farewell letter.
After a while, we left and began the drive home.
My dad Max (left) and cousin Paul (right)
Thank you for sharing this story, Anna. As the Talmud saying goes, to save a life is to save a world.
Cried my way through this one.