LOOKING AROUND :Passport to freedom

By Barbara Sofer
Apr. 10, 2003

Curious brown booklets are arranged next to some of the haggadot on the Jerusalem Seder table of my neighbors Bruria and Dr. Shmuel Adler. Each is a personalized facsimile of an old German Reich passport. In keeping with the Pessah theme, "Germany" has been replaced with "Egypt." Each passport bears the names of one of the Adlers' grandchildren.
"Transit visas granted for Ansbach, Mir, Kedan, Vilna, Kobe, Shanghai, Aktuibinski, Gorki, Karaganda, Kok Uzed, Odessa, Vienna, Brooklyn, New Jersey and Basel" reads the interior page.
The original passport belonged to the childrens' great-grandfather Leo Adler, whose journey and reunion with his beloved wife Bella have become inseparable from this Jewish family's Exodus experience.
Sixty years ago, Bella Hamburg and Leo Adler met in Lithuania. They came from different circles of the large, dynamic Orthodox world. Bella had studied languages and history at the University of Kovno and taught in a high school. Leo was a pious yeshiva student and a German refugee. So unpredictable was their match that after returning to the yeshiva, Leo wrote his new bride: "I don't know what other people will think and say about our marriage. Don't be fooled by other people regarding as crazy that in which you and I have dedicated our whole lives. I suspect that we will face many painful experiences."
Little did he suspect how correct he was. Through the creative thinking of the late Zerach Vahrhaftig, and the righteousness of Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk and the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, passports to Japan became available to yeshiva students. In December 1940, Leo left on the Trans-Siberian railway, with the Mir Yeshiva. Bella expected to join him soon. On Leo's notepad, she scribbled the address of her post box in Kovno and, as an afterthought, the address of her cousin Soroh Berman in America - 200 Windsor Road in someplace called Hartford, Connecticut. As Leo journeyed to Japan and later China, Bella's last words rang in his ears: Get me out of here as soon as you can.
THE JAPANESE exit closed. Bella went to Moscow to try to arrange an exit visa. There she gave birth to their son Marek. The Soviets jailed her and the baby because she was married to a German citizen. They were moved from one prison camp to another, traveling 2,000 kilometers in a cattle car to the steppes of Karaganda in Kazakhstan. There, Jews were forced to do slave labor growing straw and making bricks. Bella washed Marek's diapers in the snow. She caught typhoid dysentery; Marek had diphtheria. Bella refused to relinquish her son to a state institution.
Two years later, Bella convinced the communist political supervisor to allow her to open a school for the 99 children of the prison camp. There was no blackboard or paper. She taught the children to read and write using a nail on a thin piece of wood.
"This is a butterfly," she said, pressing the nail into the slate to draw wings. The children had never seen one. Bella worried that if she died, Marek would never remember he was a Jew. She crafted a tiny kippa from rags. Over and over she repeated: Shema Yisrael, Hear O Israel, until he had memorized the words.
Even after the Nazi defeat, Bella and Marek remained in the Soviet slave camp. As Pessah 1946 approached, Bella decided to hold a Seder in her classroom. The observant Jews wanted to prepare matza. They insisted that the articulate Bella speak to the camp commander on their behalf. "You, too, really believe in this?" The Soviet officer asked, not believing that the erudite camp teacher could follow the teachings of religion. Amazingly, he allowed the use of the camp kitchen for two short hours. Bella was given the honor of making the first matza.
On the day of the Seder, she covered the classroom windows with blankets. "Wine" was made by coloring water with beets stolen from the field. Bitter herbs weren't necessary, they decided. They had their share of bitterness. On hearing the story of the Exodus, Marek, five, pointed to the barbed wire that kept them prisoners. "Here we are just like the slaves in Egypt. A freed Finnish prisoner was grateful for her daughter learning to read. She offered to take a single letter from Bella to mail from Finland. To whom should Bella write? Who was alive? Bella remembered the address of her cousin Soroh.
200 Windsor Street. Hartford, Connecticut. She didn't know that Soroh had moved. The Connecticut postman didn't find any Bermans on Windsor Street. Just as he turned to leave, a neighbor came out of the building next door and asked him who he was looking for. What a coincidence, she said, when she heard the name. "I'd planned to visit the Bermans this afternoon. I'd be happy to deliver the letter." A year had gone by since Hitler was defeated. Soroh Berman had despaired of finding any of her relatives.
With shaking hands, Soroh tore the letter open. Dear Sorohle, it began. Tears swam in her eyes. Her heart pounded. It was hard to read. Bella was alive! And she had a son. Did she know where Leo was?
In Shanghai, Leo Adler's friends had thought he was mad to go on hunting for his beloved Bella and the baby. How could they be alive? "Then I'm mad," he'd told them. "I know they're alive." He had written to Bella's cousin, whose name was still in his notebook.
On May 17, 1947, a cable from America reache Leo in Shanghai. Getting to America, and making arrangements for Bella took another six months. Finally, On January 14, 1948, Bella and Marek arrived on Pan Am Flight 115 to La Guardia Airport in New York. Seven years had passed since she and Leo had waved goodbye at the train station in Kovno. Waiting in the long line at customs and passport control, Bella spotted her husband. She lifted up Marek. "There's your Daddy."
A New York City policeman took pity on them and let Marek go forward. The pale little boy ran into the arms of the father he had never seen but already loved.
Shmuel Adler and his brother David were born after their parents' reunion. Leo Adler eventually became the rabbi of Basel, Switzerland. Bella Adler was renowned for her hospitality and candor.
Every one of their great-grandchildren lives in Israel . To make sure that they remember their family exodus, each great-grandchild gets a passport. In the family tradition, Grandpa Shmuel tells them they have only 12 hours to leave the Kingdom of Egypt. Which toys will they take? Transit visas granted for Ansbach, Mir, Kedan, Vilna, Kobe, Shanghai, Aktuibinski, Gorki, Karaganda, Kok Uzed, Odessa, Vienna, Brooklyn, New Jersey and Basel, says the document. One more stop has been added - the final stop - Jerusalem. This year in Jerusalem.