The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond The Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival by Mona Golabek, Lee Cohen Page A

worried and withdrawn she looked.
    “Are you all right?” Gunter asked.
    “All I can think about is how to help my sister get a sponsor, but I don’t know what to do!”
    “Where is she?” Gunter asked.
    “She’s still in Vienna.” She hadn’t wanted to speak too much about her problems, because she knew that everyone had terrible problems and worries just like hers. “She has a place on the train, but they haven’t found a sponsor.”
    “You should do what Paul did,” Gunter said. “Paul! Come here!” he shouted down the table. The blond boy hurried over and squeezed in beside them. “Tell Lisa about your idea.” Gunter turned to Lisa and explained, “Paul’s brother is still in Munich.”
    “I went through the phone book for people with my same last name, then rang them up.”
    “Why?” Lisa asked, not yet understanding.
    “I told them I thought they are my relatives! Who knows, maybe they are.”
    Lisa’s eyes lit up. What a good idea! She would try it immediately. After hurrying through dinner, Gunter, Gina, Paul, and Lisa huddled over the heavy phone books of London northwest.
    “Mueller,” Paul said, paging through the directory. “I looked it up first with the ‘e’ and then without.” He showed Lisa the twenty listings he had underlined. “I called them all. I have two appointments to visit on Saturday.”
    “But what did you tell them?”
    “I said I thought they might be my third cousins!” “But they’re not,” Gina said.
    “Of course not, but I get to see them, and maybe they’ll like me.”
    Lisa quickly turned to the Js, Jura. Dragging her finger down the page, she found a Juracek, and then several Justices—there were no Juras in this part of London.
    Aaron came in the room, leaned over the phone directory with them, and listened for a moment. “Try Y instead of J. People change the spelling sometimes.”
    She turned quickly to the last page; there was nothing between Young and Yusef.
    “Maybe we could counterfeit an affidavit,” Aaron offered.
    “How would you know how to do that?” Gina asked suspiciously.
    “There are ways,” he answered with a look that allowed no further questions.
    The talk of counterfeiting reminded Lisa of Michael, the boy she had befriended on the train, who spoke so much of Sherlock Holmes. She remembered the two huge fur coats that surrounded him at the train station and figured his sponsors were rich—what was his name? Her mind was a blank. Then suddenly she saw the image of poor cousin Sid on the platform and her face brightened.
    “Wait! My father’s cousin! Danziger! We could look for the cousin’s name!”
    There were plenty of Danzigers in the phone book, especially in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood nearby, Golders Green.
    “I’ll help,” Aaron offered gallantly.
    “So will I,” said Gina.
    “Me too,” Gunter chimed in.
    “We’ll each call four of these numbers tomorrow,” Gina offered.
    “And on Saturday Gunter will go with Paul, in case he needs help, all right?”
    Lisa wrote down the phone numbers and handed them out. She decided that she would visit the four closest Danzigers in person, since she didn’t trust her English to the telephone.
    “I love being part of a team!” Lisa said, overcome with excitement.
    “We’ll call ourselves the Committee for the Resolution of All Ills,” Aaron pronounced.
    Aaron put his hand in the middle of the table, and Gina, Paul, Gunter, and Lisa put their hands on the top.
    “We’re the committee, right?” “The committee we are!”
    Lisa received permission from Mrs. Cohen to switch her practicing to the hour after dinner, so she could spend time after work canvassing the neighborhoods. She loved having a plan, and memorized a little speech for herself, resolving to leave no stone unturned—she’d get Sonia out no matter what.
    Knocking on doors proved more tiring than she had anticipated. None of the Danzigers said yes. The petite, determined figure in her