A father's letter becomes a legacy of the Holocaust

VIRGINIA BEACH

Barry Friedman heard about the postcard in January, just a few weeks before his mother died.

His grandfather had written it in January 1944, when he and his wife were on a train headed to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. He was worried about his children - 14-year-old Anne, who became Barry Friedman's mother, and her younger sister. When he finished writing, Izak Altenhaus tossed the note out of the train window, hoping someone would find it and deliver it.

Izak and Pepi Altenhaus arrived at Auschwitz, where they and 417 others on the train were gassed to death by the Nazis.

But someone found his note along the tracks, put it in an envelope and addressed it. Anne Altenhaus got it, packed it away, and immigrated with her sister to America in 1946.

She married Thomas Friedman, learned English, had four sons, made a life.

A few days before 79-year-old Anne Friedman passed away on Jan. 30, Linda Peck, Barry's wife, asked if she knew where the note was. Anne shrugged: Good luck finding it.

"Mother was a pack rat," Barry said. "She kept everything. We started going through boxes, boxes, boxes."

They found old birthday cards in her Virginia Beach home, notes from kids touched by her talks to their school classes, even drafts of letters she wrote - but no postcard.

On Saturday, they went to her home again and took the last three boxes back to their Norfolk home. Sunday night, they dug in.

"If it's not in here," Barry said as they opened the last box, "there's no postcard."

This box was different: Everything in it seemed to be from the war. They emptied it, but found no postcard.

Linda looked down and saw an envelope. It was so old, the paper had softened. It was addressed: Prevos, Van Marlanstraadt 37, Antwerpen.

"You know what," Barry said, "maybe we're looking for an envelope, not a postcard."

Barry Friedman's mother grew up in Antwerp, Belgium, where her father was a tailor, and the family had hidden there until a friend betrayed them. Anne and her sister were sent to an orphanage when the Nazis hauled away her parents.

From the envelope, the couple slid out a small piece of paper. It was ragged on three sides, cut cleanly on the fourth. It might, Linda Peck thinks, have been written on a piece of toilet paper that Izak Altenhaus tucked away.

Altenhaus had scrawled the letter in French. Barry and Linda don't know the language, so at 8:30 Sunday night, Linda drove to the home of a friend, who translated it.

"These two letters have been found along the train tracks. Please send this letter which is not yours."

In the note, Altenhaus wrote not to his daughters, but to friends who could reach them:

"Mr., Mrs., and dear Monique,

I thank you one thousand times for the packages. I regret a lot that I couldn't write to you from Maline. It was forbidden. Unfortunately, we were denounced October 20. I am so happy that my children are in a good/safe place. If my children ask you (something illegible), tell them only that we will do it when we come back... We are on the road to the unknown. Most cordial greetings and see you soon."

He signed just his last name.

Anne Altenhaus never saw her parents after that. So Barry Friedman never met his grandparents, and for the longest time his mother didn't talk about the war.

"I remember hearing the edited version of it," Barry Friedman said. "I remember her leaving the door open. She didn't say her parents were killed - she said she didn't know where they went and maybe some day they would come back."

About 20 years ago, the Holocaust Commission found out that Anne Altenhaus had a story to tell, and she started speaking to school classes. Telling the story tore her up, Barry Friedman said, but she loved getting the thank-you letters from the kids.

She kept the letters, too, in her boxes.

A decade ago, she wrote a memoir, "My Name is Anne Too," a nod to the parallels between her story and that of Anne Frank.

So when Linda called the Holocaust Museum in Washington, they found Anne Friedman's memoir. When she told them about the note, they wanted to see it - and would travel from Washington for it.

Barry Friedman, as long as his brothers agree, would like to donate the letter to the museum.

Better for people to be able to see it, he figures, than hide it in a box for another 60 years.

Lon Wagner, (757) 222-5119, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com