Toni Kalem

My grandmother, Dr. Gertrude Hallo (nee Rubensohn) fastidiously researched and wrote our family history: THE HALLOS and THE RUBENSOHNS: Three Centuries of Jewish Family Life in Germany. It was presented to each of her nine grandchildren on the occasion of their Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

She was passionate that we, first generation Americans, and the children of parents who belonged to that group known as “German Jewish refugees” should know about our past. She handed us the historical background of our families as far back as the 16th century because, she wrote, we represented the future of our family and the future of this group as a whole.

What she failed to omit, however, was what happened to us once Hitler came to power and we were uprooted and forced to flee. In her words, “it was the duty of our parents to tell us the rest of the story.” With little more than the barest of facts, they never did. All I knew was that Martin Buber was my grandparents’ closest friend and that my mother and her siblings often picnicked with him. That Franz Rosenzweig handed over the task of completing his tome “The Star of Redemption” when he was too sick to continue. And that many years later my grandmother and my uncle, Dr. William Hallo, would translate it into English. I knew that my mother and her younger siblings, no longer able to attend school in Kassel, moved to Frankfurt to attend a Jewish school. And that in March 1938, the three children boarded a train at Frankfurt station, never knowing if they would see their mother again, and traveled via Holland to England, where they were placed with foster families and headed for a strange new life, in a new country, living in a new language.  Pulled from everything they knew and everyone they loved.

I only found out later the train was The Kindertransport and that my mother’s years in England were very unhappy ones. And that the family never lived together again, although a day before the Second World War began, my grandmother was able to convince her mother and father, totally assimilated Jews and devoted to the culture and life of Germany, to leave with “the shirts on their backs” as she described their departure for England.

Growing up, I knew that my sisters and I were different than our regular “American friends.” Our mother had an accent, albeit slightly English. She had worked hard to get rid of her German accent. I knew that she made our sandwiches on dark brown pumpernickel bread while our friends were enjoying the wonders of Wonder Bread. We ate white asparagus and our mother occasionally whispered us German lullabyes and our cat was named Pupshin. She objected to my father driving a German made car and did not encourage us to learn German in high school, which I still regret.

In 2000, my mother and other Jewish citizens of Kassel who were forced to leave, were invited back to their hometown for a rededication of the synagogue. I never ever expected my mother would respond to the invitation. However, she surprised us all, and my father, sister and I and our children joined her for a life changing visit back to her birthplace. My mother embraced the city. She spoke her native tongue like she’d never stopped. We visited the Jewish cemetery, though desecrated, and were able to find the graves of my grandfather and our other ancestors. Together we cleaned off the graves and placed stones on their names to honor them. My mother was interviewed on television and radio, and we spent time in the Kassel town hall combing through articles about our family back through the centuries. It was as if she had had been reborn, and it was thrilling.

Unfortunately, soon after this monumental trip, my mother’s memory began to fade, as Alzheimer’s set in. However, she was still able to record a Shoah tape, which I cherish. But having been with her in Germany, I could picture what she had talked about. And by this point in my life, I had begun to pivot from being an actress to also being a writer and filmmaker. I began to imagine telling stories that would reflect who I really was and the noble tradition of influential thinkers and writers from whom I am descended. Instead of the tough Italian characters who I usually played, I had a strong desire to reconnect with my Jewish origins and to tell my authentic story.

I discovered Lore Segal’s autobiographical novel, OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES. Nine months after Hitler seized power, ten year old Lores’ parents put her on a train in Vienna along with five hundred other children. They were transported to safety in England. In Lore’s story, I discovered my mothers.  And a flame was lit in me to share this little known chapter in Holocaust history with the world.

As an adolescent, I had no understanding of my grandmother’s fervent desire for us to know who we were and where we came from. Now, as a new grandmother myself, I share her passion that my daughter and her daughter be connected to their roots. In reconnecting with our family’s history and with the plight of child refugees everywhere, it felt essential to be returned the German citizenship that had been taken from the Hallo and Rubensohn families. With incredible good fortune, I met Isabelle and Felix Couchman, who under Article 116 helped me with the application process. In June of 2022, I received German citizenship not just for myself, but for my daughter and my granddaughter, as well. Together we traveled to Berlin and met with others who recently were granted German citizenship and shared stories similar to our own. Though none of us had ever met before, it felt like a true family reunion. Together we toured the Bundestag and together we were greeted by German diplomats and artists.

I am now able to work and live in Europe. In fact, I have a German producing partner and have been to Germany several times in the last year. I travel proudly with my German passport and this June my family will be honored with six Stolpersteine to be installed by the artist, Gunter Demnig, in front of the homes in Kassel where they last lived. Thirty five members of my family will meet there from cities all over the world to join together in a ceremony of hope and reconciliation: honoring our past and celebrating the message of healing that comes with it. 

Art, for me, has always been my survival mechanism. In reconnecting with my German roots and spending time in Germany, I have also discovered that I am not only a German Jew, as my family identified. But I am a Jewish German, as well. Now, when I visit Berlin or Cologne or Kassel, I recognize my past in my present: the taste of white asparagus, the dark, rich brown bread, the “hallo” with which I am greeted. The Hallo of my family name of which I am a proud descendant.