Jewish midwife

Elfreda was a midwife, so with his mother and grandmother lived in the city of Wönitz the eastern German border with Poland, a simple house on the outskirts of the city, was 26, was single, did not have a striking beauty, she had black hair, blue eyes and a complexion that robust blended with a peasant.
That year she had a good number of births and on this particular day from four o'clock in the morning, had stopped working.
Arrived home at seventeen hours in the afternoon, seven as he prepared to dine and sleep, was called to go home owner's emporium Her Schneider that was on the other side of town. An employee came with a buggy and took was a grumpy man who did not speak with anyone and looked Elfreda with an apparent bad mood, he should have thirty-two years.
Arriving at the residence of Schneider, She was taken by Her Schneider who was grumpy and complaining of being slow to arrive. He sent the maid to take her to the room of Frau Schneider, it was all sweaty and agitated loudly screamed at the maids who did not know what to do.
Elfreda vigorously and competently, washed his hands and was examining the patient, who was still screaming and cursing all around including Elfreda, after looking at the baby's position and check the dilation reached this conclusion that the only child born at noon and it was just a false alarm inexperienced mother, the maids gave instructions and left the room.
Returning to the living room she asked Her Schneider to arrange the employee to take her back home.
Her Schneider still grumpy with the cries of women, said he had no one to accommodate what she is fourth in the set, she insisted she wanted to go home and he told her to go alone and on foot if you wanted.
Elfreda did so, was the beginning of autumn and cold nights. He walked two hours to arrive at your home where collapsed exhausted into bed.
In the morning with aching with the effort last night She got up and made his desejun while waiting for the carriage of Her Schneider, remembered a box of medications that his mother kept in the closet and that he always carried and used in childbirth more difficult.
She took the box and had two bottles of liquid was a distinct blue-black and an oily consistency bitter, the other white and sweet. Below the bottles a compartment box was a kind of label with handwritten instructions; Elfrida knew it was not his mother's letter, with instructions for use: the pot black should be used in difficult births where there is much agitation, improper names , thoughtlessness, the first child is normal, some also in the second or third child. The pot should be used on white houses of peaceful births.Place a drop on the lips of the child so born.
Elfreda knew it was the first son of Frau Schneider then took the bottle to their house when they came to pick her up.
Still some way from the house of Schneider thought, knew how to Her Schneider?
Nothing really, just three years ago the city had settled with his wife and opened the shop, was not a very friendly man, but it was coarse, with some that she lived in the city since childhood, some of his mother and grandmother had Frau Schneider delivery was kind maids did not speak badly of her.
Arriving at the residence of Schneider took her immediately to the room and Frau Schneider was already in labor still crying a lot.
The maids had arranged everything Elfreda had requested and within an hour came into the world a beautiful and very strong boy crying. Elfreda used black liquid and the child was delivered after cleaning his mother. When Her Schneider saw the boy was so happy that paid almost double the Elfreda, apologized for the rudeness of the other day, had to take her home.
And so life was normal deliveries Elfreda white liquid, difficult births in the black liquid.
The city was changing before our eyes, strangers arrived, settled barracks, police were patrolling the streets, security was apparent, Elfreda noticed nothing taking his little life.
Elfreda was a normal child created with his mother, a woman by nature difficult and moody, always complaining about everything, had a house full of junk that would not allow anyone to take them away from the place. Unlike his father was a vigorous man, full of good humor and singing in full working blacksmith's lungs as he liked to drink beer and fish.
Occasionally called her and leave the camp telling stories and sorrindo.Toda time he went fishing he always had the biggest fish for her, screamed in his lungs: Eeelllfffredaaa! Take your gift.
She was happy with the situation balanced living, but one day his father died in an accident while fishing in the lake.
His mother did not display love both his father was in despair and grief, in that she lost every day and your body weight, ten years after his mother died in hospital after contracting a turbeculose.
Elfreda was alone and with customers to account for the mother, was twenty-three years.
The first thing time after mother's funeral, opened the house, clean the windows, throw away the junk and some kept in the shed where she worked at his father's shop.
In the three years following the birth of Schneider's first child she had the joy of helping Frau Schneider in two parts of a girl and a boy, she used the white liquid. In the vicinity of the city and elsewhere she did the same thing.
In the summer the city was shaken by the death of two young Walfrido Odillia Jagger and Hornburg, they were lovers and were riding a chariot through the fields when they were attacked and beaten to death, the bodies were found by a peasant.
At first, people thought it was a crime committed by Poles who crossed the border in search of work, and the animosity and hostility of the Poles grew a lot from beatings and deaths of some.
Until the farmer who found the bodies after a heavy drinking session revealed that those who killed them was Rudolph's older brother Jagger Jagger Odillia.
The chief commissioner of police in hearing these rumors held the peasant and Rudolph, who after hesitating and cry confessed.
The city was abuzz, because Pastor Rudolph was the son of the city was a boy was introspective and sometimes bitter but nonviolent.
Elfreda remembered him, who had been his classmate a year older and that she was his mother who made the delivery, he was the first son of the prelate.
Shortly after a son of the butcher killed a rival in a contest to see who drank more beer mugs his name was Otto and he had a twin brother Oduvaldo.
Elfreda remembered that whenever I went to buy meat Otto was looking at her with inexplicable hatred since his brother Oduvaldo treated her with great kindness as well.
One night Elfreda took an old trunk that was in her home, she wanted to see pictures of father and mother, was homesick forgetting them. He looked at the photos of their marriage: the radiant mother, realized that the relatives of the father never sought, the portrait of his paternal grandparents did not appear in the wedding photos.
At one point he gave his eyes a notebook where his mother registered the births, the hours and days the liquid had worn. She was looking and found the year 1908 at birth the midwife had been his maternal grandmother in the note showed that she had used white liquid. Curious who sought born that year and saw several names that had grown familiar with it, some had gone to the army, some to other countries, and some were studying at university in Berlin, Hamburg etc..
She saw the name of Rudolph Jagger and his mother had used the black liquid, and was looking for all those who had used black liquid until Otto Waldemunt found in his brother's name Oduvaldo Waldemunt his mother had used the white liquid.
She came to realize that the boys that his mother and she used the black liquid all had strong personalities stern, she saw them with parents, school, church.
One thing that caught the attention of Elfreda were changes in the city, suddenly the old mayor was replaced by Dr Otto Schiller, owner of a tire factory that began to flourish when he became a member of the Nazi party. The city council was gradually being replaced by party members either by election or by coercion.
Young people who stray from the city before and bullies were gradually entering the army, navy and the Luftwaffe, some went to military academies, some manufactures have been working on weapons that had settled on the outskirts of the city.
The church was now the center of meetings with young people and men of the party, the new bishop took long sermons on the need to preserve the moral values ​​of German society.
Never both in the city prospered, farmers sold their production of meat, milk, fruits and vegetables to the barracks and the factory or local dairy. The merchants were thriving new and old, Jews were thrilled with the increase in sales. New teachers were sent to prepare the youth for the future of Germany.
One day a party of the parish of the city, Elfreda had been invited, and she noticed a group of people of various ages looked so strange, penetrating it bothered her.

And there were others that dealt with so courteous, the discomfort was such that before the end of the party she went home.
Arriving home, took the record book of his mother and grandmother and was reading about the birth difficulties, people who could not afford, people who had to flee, the hidden part of which was Polish.
He suddenly felt as if being watched by many eyes, his dog began to whine restless, she felt very afraid, and rose from his chair, turned off the lights, the window was slowly and closed the curtains after a few minutes’ walk felt away, did not sleep all night.
He spent the night awake thinking: Why is everybody looking at me like that? My father was not a member of society and friend of many of those men and women who now looked at in a strange way? And their cousins, despite not having intimate contact by who looked as if it were a leper?
She noted that some friends of his mother had gone to other cities; some returned to Poland, others had gone to England.
Elfreda morning, he packed his few things in a suitcase in the trunk of the mother picked up the notebooks of notes, the small menorah and the money that had gathered on the years of work and that her mother had left town and left the letter with the address of yourUncle Joseph Cohen of the United States was early spring 1938.
Daniel Silva Gomes
June 24, 2011