The Last Birthday Cake in Röddenau

February 1936

The Old Bachenheimer House in Röddenau, Germany

Auguste’s youngest grandson Paul opened the front door of the house. He found himself staring into an unfamiliar face. He recoiled slightly, not just because the woman was barely taller than him but because she pointed her index finger almost directly into his face. “Are you the boy who hurt my Willi?”

“Willi?” Paul asked trying to sound well-mannered. On the way to his grandmother’s house, Paul’s mother told Paul and his sisters to be on their best behavior so that their grandmother could thoroughly enjoy her seventieth birthday party.

“My Willi, yes,” said the woman. “He came home with a nasty gash on his arm. What gives you the right?!”

Paul was confused. “One minute please,” he said backing up and opening the door to the living room where Paul had last seen his grandmother. She was still seated on the couch next to his oldest sister Lucie.

Grandmother Auguste was studying Lucie’s embroidery project from school. Paul cleared his throat.  When his grandmother looked up, Paul said, “There is someone at the door.”

“Who is it child?”

“A woman asking about Willi.”

Auguste passed Lucie back her embroidery relieved to be done with it. While Lucie’s mother Lina picked up the chain stitch in record time and completed her trousseau in less than two years — or was that a different daughter? — Lucie showed neither aptitude nor interest. Auguste stood up, patted her hair to make sure her bun was in place, and set out towards the front door.

Willi? Auguste mulled: The Kaiser’s nickname. Perhaps someone was playing a joke. Perhaps there was a new cake, a Willitorte. Or a spray of tall blue flowers called the Willi.

Alas, Auguste found no cake nor flowers, just a short woman in a housedress. She knew the face. Röddenau was too small for her not to know Margaret Kohler, née Keller. A schoolmate of one of her daughters, and still a neighbor. “Hello Frau Kohler,” said Auguste.

“This boy hit my son, Willi.” Margaret pointed her finger at Paul, who had returned to the doorway with his grandmother. He was still curious about Willi.

What happened?” asked Auguste.

“He snapped a whip at my Willi! It cut practically to the bone.” Margaret Kohler held up her left arm to show the spot. “What gives you the right!” She wagged her finger at Paul. Then she shifted her weight from right to left leg and back again.

“I don’t know Willi,” said Paul. Paul was from Berleburg, about an hour’s drive from Röddenau. “I didn’t hit anyone. I was with Fritz.” Everyone in the family knew that Fritz was Grandmother’s favorite. Fritz came home with excellent report cards, or so Paul had heard. He was kind to his younger sisters. And he helped in the family store. If Paul had been with Fritz, which he had, he was surely in no trouble.

Auguste looked at Paul. Had she ever had a full conversation with him? He had two older, and very talkative, sisters. Was he truthful? Perhaps. How old was he? He didn’t look big enough to handle a whip. He looked light enough to be carried off in a strong north wind.

“I didn’t touch the whip.” Paul said again.

“You did. Admit it!” said Margaret.

Auguste had heard many claims of innocence by guilty children. Perhaps this Paul was a fibber. Or maybe Margaret’s son Willi was. “Frau Kohler,” Auguste said, “You’ve come in the middle of my seventieth birthday party. Let’s discuss this outside, away from my guests.” Auguste gestured to the front door.

Margaret pivoted towards the door. The two women went out into the February air, cold, damp, and chilly. Auguste rubbed her temples. As she did it, her father-in-law’s lawsuit burst into memory. He’d been sued by a neighbor for unfair trade practices. This neighbor had alleged that her father-in-law had sold more beef than he was allowed to, Jews having a cap on the amount of beef they could sell annually. The judge in Marburg found against her father-in-law and made him pay a large fine. Was Margaret here looking for money? She didn’t come from a poor family.

Paul tried to imagine when he might have met Willi, and what could have happened. He and his cousins had gone out, as instructed. Fritz had led the way, Fritz holding his arm over Paul’s shoulder. They’d been followed by the two Oppenheimer brothers, and then the two other brothers from Frankfurt. The Oppenheimer brothers were farm boys with common sense. But Paul had understood immediately that the other brothers weren’t farm boys. They were dressed in identical outfits of brown tweed. They weren’t interested in the calf in the barn. They were interested in the pitchforks, shovels, and other tools that could be used in a game of war.

“Knock it off!” Fritz said, when he saw the brothers fighting with a pitchfork and whip. He asked the Oppenheimer boys to take the Stadtmäuse (city mice) outside…and make sure no one got hurt.

Meanwhile, Paul and Fritz looked at the newborn calf with long curly eyelashes. The small one stretched out his long tongue then sought out his mother’s teat. The mother licked him on the back as he began to suckle. Paul noticed that each animal had a black heart-shaped blaze above their right front haunch. That was unusual.

Fritz tousled Paul’s hair and said, “You like the quiet, don’t you?” When Paul nodded, Fritz said “Me, too.” The two of them continued to watch the calf and its mother until the rest of the cousins stomped back into to the barn. Someone said, “We’re going back to the house for lunch.” One of the Stadtmäuse made a big deal of dusting himself off, refastening his belt, and straightening his tweed jacket.

“Very good,” said Fritz. Then they all returned to the house. As they approached, Fritz told the boys to head to the kitchen where they’d find his parents and Karolina finishing up lunch preparations. “If my father won’t give you a wurst, ask Karolina. She never says no!”

While Paul was recalling the outing, Auguste was thinking she had heard far more than she cared to from Frau Kohler. She’d heard about the high prices charged at the family store, that the family was not of “good German” stock, and that they were not as smart as they made out to be. If Willi was really suffering, Auguste came to realize, then Frau Kohler wouldn’t be dredging up this nonsense. Auguste asked, “Should I call a doctor for Willi?”

“No,” said Margaret, “But bandages cost good money and your grandson.…”

“…should not be playing with a whip. I agree.” Auguste cut her off. “Let me think. I’ll be back.” Auguste went into her house. Margaret stayed where she was, shifting her weight from leg to leg.

“Am I in trouble?” Paul asked. Auguste stared intently at the boy still wondering if there was a real problem or the complaint was a fabrication of the Kohler family.

Then there was another knock at the door. Why can’t that obnoxious woman just wait for me? Auguste wondered as she pulled open the door.

“Mother!” Auguste looked into the face of her oldest daughter Mathilde. The daughter stretched out her arms and pulled her mother to her. Paul watched his grandmother be engulfed by the aunt’s full-length fur coat. Another Stadtmaus.

“We’ve all come!” said Mathilde. “Hugo, Lore, come. Lore, give your grandmother a hug.” Paul looked behind this aunt and saw a man carrying an absurdly large pink bakery box. Next to the man was a teenaged girl carrying a smaller package, perhaps a book. The teenaged girl’s coat had a fur collar.

Then, as if she were afraid that she’d been forgotten, Frau Kohler poked her head out from behind Hugo and Lore. “Should I get the police?” She pointed at Paul with her index finger.

“I don’t know Willi,” Paul said.

“I’d like to bring this cake into the house,” said Hugo. “It is a beaut! You are going to love it!”

“A Baumkuchen,” said Mathilde. “With seventy layers. One for each of your years. From the finest bakery in Frankfurt.”

“And I have a present for you, Grandmother,” said Lore holding up her package.

Auguste looked at her presents. She squinted intently at the cake box. Then she asked Hugo to turn around and meet Frau Kohler. Hugo turned around and nodded.

“Hugo,” Auguste continued, “Frau Kohler’s son hurt his arm. I think the Baumkuchen would make him feel better. Yes? Yes! 70 layers of cake to heal his wounds.”

Frau Kohler looked at the large pink box tied shut with a piece of red twine.

“What?” asked Hugo and Mathilde in unison.

“Give the Baumkuchen to her?” asked Lore, studying the very short woman in a housedress.

“Yes,” said Auguste looking directly at Frau Kohler. “A lovely cake for your injured boy.”

But no one moved. “Go on now,” Auguste said. Hugo looked at Mathilde who shrugged.

“What was all that about?” asked Mathilde after Frau Kohler was out of sight. “We spent good money on that cake.”

“Now Tilde,” Auguste said, “We can enjoy ourselves without a fancy cake.” But as Auguste said those dismissive words, words so often said from mother to a daughter, (we can make do, don’t worry, forget about it), she felt sad, angry, and disappointed. She hadn’t even gotten a peek at the Baumkuchen. It was likely magnificent and decadent. Who didn’t want something like that on her birthday?

“What happened?” asked Lucie who had come to stand next to her brother.

“Grandmother just gave away her birthday cake, a beautiful Baumkuchen!” said Lore.

“A tree cake? I’ve never heard of that,” said Lucie. “Does it have chocolate frosting?”

“Mocha,” said Lore. “It would have been the highlight of the party. But it’s gone now.”

Lucie said nothing but studied Lore’s fur collar. Lucie hoped some day she’d get an invitation from her cousin to visit Frankfurt. She pictured herself and Lore eating Baumkuchen after an afternoon visiting a large art museum on a fashionable street.

Paul didn’t care about the cake. He was just relieved that he hadn’t gotten in trouble.

When Auguste closed her eyes that night, she saw Margaret Kohler shifting her small frame from leg to leg. She heard a litany of specious complaints. Then, in the middle of night, Auguste awoke in a sweat. Her heart was thumping hard – too hard. When Herbert, Auguste’s oldest, who she’d sent to New York as a young man, offered to arrange for her immigration, something he offered every year, Auguste finally agreed. She set sail for New York in June 1936 on the ship Deutschland.

Two years later, Auguste sent for her grandson Fritz. He started working right away. Once the US entered World War II, Fritz served in the US Army’s Third Infantry Division, where he was decorated with the French Fourragere for combat in multiple battles. Just after the war, in 1945, he went to Röddenau before returning to the States.

Fritz knew his father had died in 1939 and that the old family house, where he’d lived with his grandmother, parents, and younger sisters had been sold. But what had happened? Had any of his family survived? He wanted to know.

Karolina, who had worked for the Bachenheimer family, offered to give Fritz several precious things that his mother Selma had entrusted to her. But no one else in town offered information on what happened. Most hauntingly, no one considered taking in any of his sisters, the youngest of whom was barely five the day the family left for good.

That day in June 1942, Selma and her daughters Doris, Anneliese, and little Hilda, were to report to a transit station in Dortmund. All four of the travelers were wearing backpacks. Selma was holding little Hilda’s hand. At the Röddenau train station, Selma turned around and wave shyly goodbye. But the witness, a girl herself at the time, was not sure if anyone waved back.

Documentation from the Hesse state archives (1947) of the last Jews to leave Röddenau.

Plaque placed on the Bachenheimer family home in 2005, photo by Karl-Hermann Völker. Text says, In memory of the Jewish Bachenheimer family who lived here until 1942, and who fell victim to the tyranny of the Nazis.