“Do you think he’ll agree?” Delphine put down her knife and fork and pushed her plate aside.
“I don’t know,” Martha murmured. “I hope so. I don’t know what I’ll do if he refuses.”
The following month brought the first real ray of hope for the DPs: Belgium put in an official offer to take twenty thousand coal miners. When the news came through, she and Stefan danced around the office. He went to pass it on to the blockhouse leaders, while she ran to the hospital to tell Delphine.
Delphine clapped her hands together when she heard. “Twenty thousand! That’s a big number!”
“They’re only taking men under the age of forty,” Martha explained. “But there are hundreds here who could qualify.”
“What about wives and children? Are they allowed to go?”
“They have to leave their families behind for three months until they’ve proved themselves in the mines.”
“And what about the money? Do they say how much they’ll be paid?”
“It’s between five and seven dollars a day. If they can stick with it for the two years of the contract, they’re allowed to look for other jobs. After five years they’re eligible for Belgian citizenship.”
Delphine’s eyes widened. “There’ll be a stampede.”
“I know. Stefan’s already gone to tell them.”
There was a constant stream of applicants throughout the day. Martha had to tell them that it wasn’t going to be her decision who would be chosen. The Belgian government was sending officials to each camp to screen potential recruits. Medical examinations would be required, as well as all the paperwork.
Among the applicants was Marek, the father of Martha’s godson. She could hardly speak when he sat down in front of her to answer the questions required on the form. She had always known that a time would come when little Rodek would disappear from her life. But the reality of it was like a fist squeezing her heart.
If that wasn’t upsetting enough, Delphine came to the office halfway through the afternoon, grim-faced. She said she’d found Dr. Jankaukas weeping in the side room at the hospital.
“What’s happened?” Martha jumped up from the chair. “It’s not Anka? Or Mikolaj?”
Delphine shook her head. “They’re both fine. It’s this.” She tilted her head toward the pile of forms lying on the desk. “He wanted to apply.”
“To be a miner?” Martha gasped.
“He said he’d do anything to get a proper home for Anka and Mikolaj. But he knows he wouldn’t even get an interview—because of his missing fingers.”
There was no time for Martha to dwell on the wretchedness of what Delphine had described. Part of her was glad that the doctor was debarred from applying. It would be such a terrible waste for a man of his talent to spend his days hewing coal. But there were other men waiting in line who were vastly overqualified for such a job: men who had been architects, bank managers, teachers in their former lives.
It wasn’t until the office closed its doors for the day that she had a chance to talk to Stefan. It had occurred to her that he might want to apply himself. Would the prospect of an assured job in Belgium be more tempting than an uncertain future with her?
He shook his head when she asked him. “If it was a coal mine in America, I would say yes.”
Martha’s eyes went to the floor. Was it selfish of her to hold out this hope that he would be able to go with her to the US when the camp was closed? Could she sit back and watch him miss chances like this, with no real certainty of being able to take him there as her husband? With no response yet from Arnie, she could only hope and pray that America would soon follow Belgium in opening its doors to DPs.
More than 1,500 of the men living at Seidenmühle met the age criterion for selection to go to Belgium—but only 250 were chosen. The medical tests were the undoing of some applicants. They were checked for everything from venereal disease to TB. Others were rejected because they had too many children or had elderly dependents. It seemed that the shortage of housing in postwar Belgium precluded the admission of any man with a large or extended family.
It was Martha’s first experience of selective immigration. There had been no such restrictions on the transports to Poland. She wondered what would happen to the middle aged and elderly, those left disabled by injuries sustained during the war, and those deemed medically unsuitable for admission.
Five weeks later, the selected men prepared to leave the camp. They were the cream of the crop: strong young men whose eyes were alight with eager anticipation as they stood clutching the contracts that were their passports to a new life. Such elation was a rare sight at Seidenmühle.