Thirty-Six
Thirty-Six
A t school, during break, I tell Erna all I heard of Vati’s conversation yesterday.
“I need to find a way to warn Walter.”
“But what does your father mean?” she asks. “The German people are ready... Ready for what?” She looks at me, eyes full of fear. “I should tell my father.”
“I don’t know. I’ll try and find out more. I need to go to the café and get a message to Walter, but Mutti will want me home this afternoon.”
“Tell her you’re having supper this evening with me. You can go and find Walter instead.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll cover for you, if for any reason she should check. What else are friends for?” Erna smiles.
Later, when Mutti is taking her usual afternoon nap, I send Ingrid on an errand to buy some fabric and strong thread for a school needlework project. Bertha decides to take a break in her room. The house is quiet. A gem of an opportunity.
I stand alone in Vati’s study, straining my ears.
The silence crackles as, dry-mouthed, I press my back against the closed door.
I tiptoe my way across the room to the desk.
Ever since we moved into the house, this has been a hallowed place.
Vati’s sanctum. Forbidden to all but him. The back of my neck prickles.
The room is gloomy in the late afternoon.
I click on the lamp, casting a soft yellow circle of light over Vati’s desk.
It’s perfectly neat. The big square of leather-bound blotting paper lies in front of his chair, the pot of ink at the top end.
A marble ashtray and his fountain pen are on one side of the blotting paper, next to some wooden trays neatly stacked with papers.
I carefully pull out the top drawer of the old oak desk. It creaks and I freeze. No footsteps sound in the hallway. The door does not fly open.
Exhale. Inhale. Carry on.
Inside the drawer I find an assortment of personal letters.
On one I recognize Oma’s beautiful cursive with the Berlin postmark.
Underneath the pile are a stack of small folded envelopes, written in a female hand.
Hilda Müller’s, surely. My fingers itch to open the little envelopes and read the disgusting secrets held inside.
But at the same time, I’m repelled by them and would rather not know.
I close the drawer quietly. They are a distraction.
They’re not what I’m looking for, and Walter needs me to be focused.
I move to the next drawer. A spare blotting pad, writing paper, and envelopes.
The bottom drawer is empty. I sigh and lift my gaze.
On the wall opposite the desk, deep in shadow, are the various framed accolades to Vati.
His Nazi Party membership certificate. Number three thousand, two hundred and thirty-five.
Above them, Hitler’s portrait, in pride of place in the room.
We stare at each other, eyeball to eyeball.
I loved you once.
His eyes are piercing black. His voice resounds in my head, clear and deep. You have sinned in the worst way imaginable. You will pay a price. Your punishment will be of the worst kind...
Shut up, SHUT UP! I cover my ears and screw my eyes shut.
I sink into Vati’s big chair, slowly open my eyes, and concentrate on the papers in the trays.
The top two sheets are memoranda to newspaper staff about timekeeping and behavior codes for journalists.
Then an invoice for a repair to the car.
The rest is a mixture of business correspondence and other invoices.
I move to the second tray. Right at the top is a letter marked, “To All Regional and Local SS Commanders: TOP SECRET. WITH UTMOST URGENCY.” It bears today’s date, 9 November 1938, and is signed by Herr Fischer, head of the Leipzig branch of the Gestapo, following direct orders from Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS. I snatch it up.
Operations against the Jews, in particular against their synagogues, will commence very soon.
There must be no interference. Preparations must be made for the arrest of between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews across Germany.
In particular, affluent Jews are to be selected.
If any Jew is found in possession of weapons during the operations, the most severe measures must be taken.
Further directives will be forthcoming during the course of the night.
SS may be called upon for the overall operations.
As soon as events permit, as many Jews from all districts, especially the rich, as can be accommodated in existing prisons are to be arrested.
For the time being, only healthy males are to be detained.
The appropriate concentration camps are to be contacted immediately for prompt accommodation of the Jews arrested.
The room spins. What sort of orders are these? I place the papers and trays carefully back in the right order with shaking hands.
Twenty to thirty thousand ! It sounds like the size of an army.
Is this an army of Jews about to attack Leipzig?
But something about the wording doesn’t seem right.
I retrieve the order and read it again. Operations.
.. against their synagogues... in particular affluent Jews are to be selected.
.. if any Jew is found in possession of weapons.
.. the most severe measures must be taken.
None of it makes sense. My brain feels foggy and slow.
Operations against their synagogues? That’s no order against a threat .
I wonder again about the concentration camps.
These shadowy places that shape-shift in my mind as misery-filled, medieval-style prisons; or a Roman model, with work gangs of slaves tied together with ropes and whipped if they don’t work hard enough.
Such tales of atrocious conditions in these places that leak in from foreign press reports are denied as vicious propaganda.
Radio coverage, just the other day, said that Germany is merely following this camp invention of the British, who maltreated women and children in the Boer War by incarcerating them.
At least in our version of the camps, we only hold men. Which tale is true?
I must go straight to Erna, then find Walter. I am reaching out to slip the paper back into the tray, when the study door swings wide open.
“Franz?” Mutti’s voice is slurred with sleep. “Oh! Herta ?”
“Mutti!” I quickly replace the letter and jump to my feet.
“What are you doing in here? I saw the light beneath the door...”
“I was looking for”—my mind races—“Oma’s address. I thought I would write to her. I’ve been very lax.”
“You can’t expect me to believe that,” she replies, sounding more awake. “You could have asked me for Oma’s address. Why are you snooping around Vati’s study?”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I was just trying to find out what was going to happen. You said something big was going to take place. I just wanted to know. I shouldn’t have. Please don’t tell Vati.”
Mutti takes a few steps into the room.
“You’re right. You shouldn’t be in here. Vati would be very angry. There are important, confidential papers in here. I would never dream of looking through them. It’s very wrong of you, Hetty. How could you?”
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise.” I snap off the light and move away from the desk toward her. “Please forgive me for being foolish and nosy.”
“I can’t ignore this.” She stands, stiff and straight, unyielding.
“I just want to know what’s going on. Please, Mutti—”
“Go to your room. Stay there until your father gets home.”
She ushers me out.
“Mutti, please. I’m sixteen! I’m not a child anymore. And I’m supposed to be at Erna’s this evening, for supper.”
“Don’t answer back! You’re going nowhere. Your father will deal with you when he gets home. And don’t for one second consider defying me on this.” She is quivering with rage, with sucked-in cheeks, and a thin, hard line to her mouth.
My cheeks burn hot as I thunder up the stairs and slam my bedroom door behind me. How dare she treat me like a child. How dare she keep me a prisoner in my own home.
Breathing hard, I stare out my window over the top of the bare limbs of the cherry tree, toward the corner of Fritzschestrasse.
A ghost of Walter walks down the pavement toward our house, hands in his short-trouser pockets, satchel slung over his shoulder, on his way to walk to school with Karl.
Preparations for arrest... Jews from all districts.
.. How did it come to this? I can’t just sit here and let this happen. I must go to him.
Throwing open the window, I maneuver myself onto the sill.
From here I can easily reach out and touch the tips of the branches of the tree.
But they bow easily under the lightest pressure.
There is no way they will take my weight.
I cry out and slam the window shut in frustration.
Pacing the room, I rub away my useless tears with balled fists.
“Fr?ulein Herta?” Bertha’s voice outside the door, accompanied by a soft knock. “What is it?” She opens the door a crack. “May I—”
“Oh, Bertha!” I fly to the door and pull Bertha inside.
“It’s the most terrible thing...” I whisper, embracing her as though she were my mother.
She freezes in shock, arms locked at her sides.
Then slowly, gently she layers her arms around my back, patting between my shoulders as she might a small child.
“There, there,” she says soothingly. She is warm, her body solid against my own. I let myself melt into the comfort of her.
After a few moments, she gently takes my shoulders and holds me away. “Whatever has happened?” she asks, studying my face.
Watching the door and speaking in a hoarse whisper I quickly tell her that Mutti caught me in Vati’s study.
I give her the briefest outline of what I read in that shocking command from Herr Himmler, and tell her I’m desperate to leave the house and warn Walter and his family of what is going to happen.