Pictures of the Past Read online

  Copyright © 2011 Deby Eisenberg

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0615483127

  ISBN-13: 9780615483122

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-615-53317-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011906726

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, audio, print, electronic, or other, without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction and is not to be viewed as an historical record. Although there will be references to actual historical characters, events and locales, all scenes, descriptions and actions reflect a combination of the author’s research and imagination and should not be interpreted as documented fact. Any resemblance to other persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Studio House Literary

  For Michael, my husband

  From the beginning, his truly energizing passion and support for the story never wavered. He provided me with the opportunities to visit so many fascinating venues in America and abroad, which eventually found a home in the novel.

  Provenance

  n. the place of origin or

  earliest known history of

  something; a record of

  ownership of a work of

  art or an antique

  Oxford Dictionary of English,

  Second Edition, Revised.

  Oxford University Press,

  2010

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Gerta Rosen: Chicago: September 2004

  Jason Stone: Chicago: September 2004

  Sylvie Woodmere Hunt: Chicago: September 2004

  Taylor Woodmere: Kenilworth: June 1937

  Rachel Gold: Chicago: June 1968

  Rachel: New York: October 1968

  Taylor: Paris: July 1937

  Rachel: New York: January 1972

  The Woodmere Estate: Kenilworth: July 1937

  Taylor: Berlin: July 1937

  Taylor: Atlantic Crossing: August 1937

  Taylor: New York: August 1937

  Taylor: Chicago: August 1937

  Emily Kendall: Newport: August 1937

  Taylor: Newport: October 1937

  Taylor: Kenilworth, 1938

  Sarah Berger: Germany: 1938–1939

  Rachel: New York: February 1975

  Rachel: Kenilworth: February 1975

  The Woodmere Estate: Kenilworth: February 1975

  Rachel: New York, 1975

  Sarah: Germany, 1939

  Rachel: New York, 1976

  Sarah: Hamburg, 1939

  Rachel: New York, 1976

  Rachel: Chicago, 1976

  Sarah: The St. Louis, 1939

  Taylor: Kenilworth: August 1940

  Taylor: Newport, 1942

  Taylor: Kenilworth, 1945

  Sarah: Europe, 1939–1946

  Taylor: Atlantic Crossing, 1956

  Rachel: Newport, 1977

  Jason: New York, 1979

  Taylor: Kenilworth, 1987

  Taylor: Kenilworth, 2004

  Taylor: Kenilworth, 2005

  Jason: Chicago, 2005

  Sarah: Haifa, 2005

  Emily: Kenilworth, 2005

  The Woodmere Estate: Kenilworth, 2005

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements and Historical Notes

  Book Review Discussion Guide

  About the Author

  Gerta Rosen

  Chicago

  September 2004

  Slamming her hands on the rotating tires of her wheelchair, she abruptly stopped its slow progression. “It can’t be.” Her words were soft and almost unintelligible at first. “Oh, my God.” She spoke louder now and the small group with her, previously drawn in many directions, began to form a circle around her. “It just can’t be.” Louder still and more disturbed, her accent became thicker with each repetition, as she searched out her eldest daughter. “Darlene, now…please…I need you. Come. I need you to read me the plaque.”

  Darlene left the small Degas she was studying and came to her mother. “What a beautiful painting—I can see it’s by Henri Lebasque. I believe he is French.” She reached for reading glasses. “Yes, ‘Henri Lebasque, French 1865-1937’; it is ‘Jeune Fille à la Plage, Girl at the Beach.’”

  “No, not that. I know that.” Her delivery was uncharacteristically irritated. “Now you tell me this—how did it get here?” Leaning forward in her seat, she was perceptibly impatient for the answer. “Tell me now who donated it. Read me that.”

  Darlene focused on a second small sign accompanying the work of art. “It reads, ‘Donated by Taylor Woodmere, Woodmere Family Foundation, Kenilworth, Illinois.’”

  The elderly woman resettled in her chair, straightening her posture to elevate her small stature. Her normally sweet, complacent countenance took on a stone-faced frown. “Who is this Taylor Woodmere? What kind of a name?” The questions, though directed toward her daughter, now successfully sliced the hushed cadence of the entire gallery; the other visitors stopped and stared at their group.

  “Now you must listen to me,” she continued in the crackling higher pitch that years add to voice modulations. “This one thing I know. This painting hung in the Berlin house of my dear neighbor, Sarah Berger.” The agitation in her voice was escalating as she continued. The adults moved closer to her side as if afraid she might slide from her chair in a faint, or worse yet, attempt to bound from it.

  “Mother, please. What is it?” Darlene asked anxiously.

  And then her mother, in a rare, accusatory tone and with a fervor she had not exhibited in years, cried out, “Liar, liar—this is enough, enough. They cannot take my family, my friends, and now my memories!”

  Gerta Rosen had asked for one special treat for her eighty-second birthday. She wanted, yet again, to visit the Art Institute of Chicago and her beloved Impressionist rooms. With her elderly and brittle body so evident, few would guess what this strong woman had endured. But her family knew. And they believed that what small pleasure they could give her would never compare to the gift of life she had given their generations by tenaciously surviving the Holocaust. Although there had been years, maybe even decades, of silence after Gerta began her life in America, eventually she recognized the need to share her past with her family. And in due course, she participated in the video biography projects crucial to Holocaust documentation.

  Her love for the Art Institute itself, the powerfully positive feelings that each visit to the site evoked in her, was a result of the aesthetic roots of her childhood. When she was a young girl in pre-World War II Berlin, Gerta’s parents were major supporters of the arts. Her neighborhood had been home to some of the most educated, wealthiest families in the city. In her earliest memories, she is kneeling on the vanity chair in her parents’ bedroom, watching them dress for a night at the opera or the Berlin Philharmonic. Sorting through items in a beautifully carved jewelry box, she would try on earrings and bracelets, and then she was proud to help choose which intricately designed piece her mother would wear. As her mother raised her hair from the nape of her neck, Gerta loved the way her father would secure the necklace clasp and then place a tender kiss on her shoulder, and she longed for the day when she would be old enough to join them for a concert in the evenings. But often on afternoons when the weather was most inviting, they would all stroll the boulevards of the bustling city of Berlin and would visit the art museums and private salons together. At all of the galleries she would run past the large, somber Renaissance works, and she would coax her parents toward the multihued, vibrant paintings from the turn of the century, the French Impressionist works, and she had memorized the names of her favorites artists. When she would point to the canv
ases by Max Lieberman, who had led the movement of German Impressionism and had been president of the Prussian Academy of Arts, her father would laugh and remind her that Max, himself, had been a family friend, had often sat in the same dining room chair next to him that she would now occupy.

  The Rosens and their friends were assimilated Jews, a vital part of the German cultural nation—or so they thought as they were lulled into their false sense of security.

  And so on this day, as Gerta had requested, the women of the family planned a beautiful afternoon for their beloved matriarch, including the granddaughters and the five great-grandchildren. First, Gerta enjoyed her favorite light lunch of salad and soup in the courtyard restaurant. Then, while the young mothers followed their children as they ran up the Grand Staircase to the Impressionist rooms, her three daughters, accompanied by some baby strollers, escorted her on the elevator.

  Naturally, her family immediately went to the main Pritzker Gallery, where Gerta loved viewing the master-work, Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, surrounded by van Goghs and Renoirs and Monets. Only at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, did she feel there was a collection that rivaled that of Chicago’s Art Institute.

  But today she asked to be wheeled to a side room, which she now realized she had neglected all these years. And then she spotted Jeune Fille à la Plage.

  “Mother, please calm down. Please tell us what’s upsetting you so. We want to understand.” Darlene’s words were calming, were accompanied by an interested, rather than patronizing tone. She knew from attending seminars and group sessions for children of Holocaust survivors, that when victims wanted to talk, they must not be silenced.

  Gerta fought to regain her composure. Even the youngest ones settled down, as if they sensed the importance of the moment. The two babies continued quietly sucking bottles.

  “My children, this beautiful work of art hung in the Berger home during my last year in Berlin.” Then she turned to her oldest again. “Darlene, you know from my telling you, maybe 1937 to 1938. Until shortly after Kristallnacht. The Nazis were taking everything precious, objects and souls.” She was speaking slowly now and her eyes were no longer focusing on those present. “I was often at the Berger house. The daughter, Sarah, was maybe three years older than me. She was my…how do you say…idol, role model. Her father was an important businessman and she was a beautiful, intelligent girl.” Now her eyes seemed to return to the present. Her softer tones had invited the group to circle closer to her chair and she reached out to one of the teenage girls, who bent to the level of her grandmother’s chair as an adult would to a small child, and Gerta continued as if she were speaking only to her. “Eventually, I found that Sarah had left from Hamburg on the ship, the famous ship, the St. Louis, which was turned back when it reached the Americas.”

  Now she raised her gaze and the young girl stood and Gerta focused on her own three daughters. “You know my story—I have told you many times. Our family went into hiding and then we were ‘relocated.’ Only my protective older brother and I made it through the camps.” There was a longer pause now, as the loss of her parents became fresh again. “Yes, so many gone. It never leaves me. And I never did know what happened to Sarah. Sarah could easily have been slaughtered by the Nazi filth.”

  Once again she made a gesture that signaled the group to re-shift and allowed more of the children to be at her side, each wanting to comfort her in some way, touching her hand or her arm or stroking her hair, as they imitated their mothers.

  “But they did not destroy great works of art—these they valued above life, especially Jewish life.” She stopped to catch her breath.

  Understanding where her mother was leading, Darlene took her cue. “We know how many masterpieces were stolen by the Nazis, hidden, and then sold.”

  Gerta nodded and regained her forceful voice. “This painting is a theft from my Jewish heritage. If I could not help my friends then, I will seek justice now.”

  “Mother, I understand. We’ll continue our plans for today, but I will return tomorrow and relate your story to the museum director, and I promise you—this I will do for you—I will make sure they find the provenance of this painting.”

  Within the next four months, this accusation of impropriety would set into motion a series of events that would bring controversy and scandal to the revered Woodmere name.

  Jason Stone

  Chicago

  September 2004

  “I know you’re tired. I know you’re hungry. But don’t even think of settling at the table yet. I have a strange story to tell you.” As Jason Stone entered his lakefront condominium after a stressful day at his law office, his wife, Lara, greeted him, anxiously, with these words. His young son, his little clone, came running into his arms, a “My Name is Marcus” sticker clinging to his shirt.

  “Am I allowed to first hug Marcus, my new kindergartener?” he teasingly asked, as he grabbed and tickled his son. Then he reached to raise Lara’s face to his. She smiled at him. She would never deny him his welcome home kiss, but she was intent on telling her story.

  “OK, now listen to this,” she said, grasping each of his hands with hers as they rested at the small of her back, and she looked into his eyes. “The craziest thing happened today at Marcus’ first day of school.” She was conscious that her husband was anticipating a light-hearted story. He began walking toward the stack of mail on the hall table as she spoke. She backed up slightly and placed herself in front of the pile so that he would have to focus only on her words. “Jason, just listen. It was really strange.” Finally, she had his attention. “There was this lady, another mom—never saw her before. But when she saw Marcus, this woman literally left her own daughter with one jacket sleeve on and one off, and turned to Marcus with what seemed to be tears in her eyes. She bent down and then grabbed his arms and began to either embrace or examine him—I swear I was a moment away from calling security.” Lara could tell that her husband wanted to interject a comment, but she raised her hand in a halting motion and continued.

  “And then, as if in a trance, this woman said, ‘Rusty—my God, Rusty, I have been looking for you for so long.’ I thought she was insane—I thought—oh, my God, maybe her child was kidnapped and I’m going to have to prove that Marcus wasn’t adopted and that I gave birth to him. Then the mom backed off and seemed to be in deep thought for a moment and then she simply introduced herself. But I swear it was more so that she would hear our name. When I said I was Lara, she quickly asked…‘and his dad is?’—But then she just retreated when I said your name was Jason. I guess she finally remembered she had her own child to tend to.”

  As Lara finished telling her story she didn’t see the peculiar narrowing of Jason’s eyes as the name “Rusty” registered on her husband’s face. If it weren’t for his trained self-control practiced in the courtroom, he would have shown that he was shaken. He spoke so softly when he composed himself that she could barely hear him ask his question and so he cleared his throat and repeated a second time, “And what was her name?”

  “I only remember her first name, Sylvie.”

  Then it began, once again—the memory that had followed him most of his life. It would waft from soothing daydreams to tormenting nightmares. It was always the same—the image of a mansion and a winding staircase with a thick black and beige carpet runner. And a picture on the curve of the wall, an oil painting he realized later. And the girl, younger than he was, saying, “Hi, I’m Sylvie"—then following her up the stairs to a playroom. And then, a short time later, him responding to the words, adult words, “Rusty—we’re leaving—now.”

  The next memories were vivid ones, déjà vu moments at the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting again—knowing he has seen it or it is part of his history, but always dismissing it. It began first on a class field trip when he was twelve years old. He simply had a double take when he passed it, and returned quickly to clowning around in the gallery with his friends, not paying attention to the tea
cher and docent—almost embarrassed within his clique that art had drawn him in.

  He saw the same painting again, this time at the age of sixteen, actually proud to be with his beautiful, intelligent mother, Rachel, who was whisper-narrating the history of paintings. She too stopped at the same painting, first pointing out its beauty, with no recognition like he had, but then halting when she read aloud the adjacent plaque and then the donor nameplate, finishing in midsentence—moving on quickly, pulling him as if he were five again.

  Sylvie Woodmere Hunt

  Chicago

  September 2004

  Loosely curling masses of hair cascading over her eyes, Sylvie had no free hand to hook them back behind her ears, as was her habit. Although at the moment she was walking with a slightly bent posture and with a less than graceful step, it was still obvious that she had the tall, slim, long-legged physique, and certainly the face, of a fashion model, the radiant hues of her hair apparent even in the dim light of the office corridor. But she was not reaching for the door to one of the many advertising agencies that populated the building; rather, she was turning the knob beneath the elegantly etched glass panel that read, Dr. Sylvie Woodmere Hunt, Clinical Psychologist.

  Sylvie had left her daughter’s new classroom dazed. Even she didn’t understand the tears in her own eyes, but she knew that they were not for her daughter’s first day of school. She was unsettled and disturbed on the one hand, yet some sense of happiness also enveloped her. Something about her young life, one that was privileged, but tormented, was resurfacing, some isolated happy memory that she stored among the frequent recurring sad ones of a dysfunctional father and absent mother.

  And now, she could barely remember boarding, riding, and disembarking from the city bus, when suddenly she was opening the door to her Michigan Avenue office.

  “Lisa, is my first patient here yet?” she asked her receptionist.