(Found prose poem from a document in Berlin’s archives. Translation of the German by Marcel Rotter. Poem by Ronnie Hess.)
August 31, 1942
A Jewish apartment. Number 10 Altonaer Street. Second floor. Berlin Northwest 87. Three and a half rooms. A bathroom. Hot water. Monthly rent: 83 marks 65 pfennigs.
Vermögenserklärung: A declaration of property, in file number XXVIII/14938. Signed by the tenant Nathan Israel, no occupation, his wife Ida Sara, at the Berlin House Retirement Center. (A euphemism for deportation center.) Number 26 Grosse Hamburger Street. Question: Which family members are emigrating with you? My husband.
Four wardrobes. Four beds. One table, big. Eight chairs. Clothes. A Dresden Bank savings account. Liquid assets: 225 marks. (What they left behind.)
October 23, 1942
The official inventory is much longer: One icebox. One wardrobe. One chest of drawers. One metal bed without mattress. Two chairs. One laundry pot with contents. Two lamps. Two beds. Curtains. A basket with patches. A mirror. A hall tree. (The appraisers go from room to room.) A wardrobe without door. A mirror cabinet. A wardrobe. Two English beds with mattress. A sofa, no value. A dining table with four leaves. Six leather chairs. One buffet. Three small tables. Two lamps. Two sewing machines. Two arm chairs. Three carpet runners. One wardrobe. One metal bed without mattress. Two arm chairs. One lamp. One rattan armchair with matching table. One small table. One serving table. One bed. Curtains. Three carpet runners. One ladder.
The appraisal begins at 8:30 a.m. It takes 1.5 hours. Value of contents: 315 marks, a sum paid to the head cashier’s office by liquidator Walter Hohn.
November 5, 1942
From the head cashier’s office of the president of the head revenue service to the president of the head revenue service asset management office: A deposit of 7 marks 92 pfennigs toward the gas bill, confiscated by the Reich. (By now the tenants probably have been gassed.)
January 30, 1943
The apartment had been properly locked and sealed. The house supervised by the evacuation office. The keys could not be found. It had to be opened with force. One sewing machine had disappeared. The apartment is cleared out. A report is made saying it could be rented out again and our former costumer, the tailor Nathan Israel, current address evacuated, leaves a remainder debt, electricity charges, deducted from the security deposit: 3 marks 87 pfennigs, past due since December 23.
February 22, 1943
The retailer Walter Hohn writes, “Heil Hitler!” to the Dispossession Department requesting 21 marks restitution for the missing sewing machine.
May 27, 1943
The head revenue service orders three months back rent: 366 marks 10 pfennigs, paid to Hanna Klose, the landlady, plus 3 marks 87 pfennigs to Berlin Power and Light. (The file was thereby closed.)
Ronnie Hess is an essayist and poet who lives in Madison. Her most recent chapbook, Canoeing a River with No Name, was awarded the 2018 WFOP chapbook prize.