Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

We were in Locust Valley on the Island at the time. That day was a year after the war had ended. I hated going to school, and that morning I said I wasn’t going to go. I had said the same thing on other mornings, and after saying it I had walked to the stop where the yellow bus picked me up.

I was ornery that morning, as I had been ornery on other mornings, and on other occasions. I did not know that this special morning was the wrong time to be ornery. Sure, every morning and all day long on every day is the wrong time to be ornery, but that day was a special day.

All of a sudden, my mother broken down. She fell to the floor crying and lay there sobbing.

I tried to comfort her before leaving for school.

When I came back from school, I found out that my Aunt Mimi had drowned herself in Loch Lomond. She had not been able to bear the news that that came from Austria about our family, and my mother could not bear that news, as well as the news of her sister’s suicide. And a little eleven-year snotnose had picked that day to carry on at breakfast.

My mother later told me that she would have stayed with my grandmother, if it had not been for me. We had left in July of ‘39, just before the doors closed when war broke out. She and I had visas, but she waited until my father had one. He had never felt any gratitude for that. He needed someone to focus his frustration on, and my mother was that person, until they divorced years later.

My grandmother was “lucky.” She died of natural causes before the murderers could kill her. Of course, the natural causes were due to what happened after March of 1938. Soon after my mother and I had left, her heart stopped beating.

I remember my grandmother well. And I understand my mother’s desire to stay with her. I wouldn’t have left my mother either, unless I had a snotnose to care for.

I will never be able to forgive myself for what I did. If there is such a thing as mortal sin, I committed one on that day.