Forty-Five
Forty-Five
T he conversation I overheard last night about the Leipziger Meuten replays through my mind. In the crisp morning light, I wonder what I should do.
I wander through the downstairs rooms, Kuschi at my heels. I should pass the information to Herr B?cker. Would he know the leaders of the Meuten? They need to be warned. Unease grows. This is beginning to feel horribly like it did before Kristallnacht last year.
In the garden room, my eyes fall on a two-day-old copy of the Leipziger , which lies on the coffee table. Hitler’s recent speech to the Reichstag is printed in full. It takes up more than a double-page spread. I sink into a chair to read it.
... when the outside world insists Germany is threatening other peoples by military extortion, it is on the grounds of grossly distorted facts.
Germany has realized the right to the self-determination of ten million German people without the mobilization of any forces, contrary to the fictitious reports by the foreign press.
In this area, neither the English nor other Western nations have any business meddling.
The Reich does not pose a threat to anyone, it has merely defended itself against the attempts at intervention by third parties.
.. We will not stand for Western states meddling in our affairs. ..
... What is the reason for our economic woes?
Simply the overpopulation of our lands! The German people survives with 135 inhabitants per square kilometer, and yet the rest of the world has looted Germany throughout the past one and a half decades.
The German people are not enemies of England, America, or France and desires to live calmly and peacefully, while Jewish and non-Jewish agitators persist in rousing the animosity of these peoples against the German people.
.. Germany will not be swayed from its reckoning with Jewry.
It is a shaming display when we see the entire democratic world filled with tears of pity at the plight of the poor, tortured Jewish people while at the same time crying that they “cannot possibly admit the Jews!” And these world powers have no more than ten persons per square kilometer!
Small matter that Germany has been good enough to provide for these elements for centuries, with their infectious political and sanitary diseases.
What we do today is no more than to set right the wrongs these people committed.
... Europe cannot find peace until it has dealt properly with the Jewish question.
In the time of my struggle for power, it was primarily the Jewish people who mocked my prophecy that, one day, I would assume leadership of this Germany and would press for resolution of the Jewish question.
The resounding laughter of the Jews then may well be stuck in their throats today, I suspect.
Once again I will be a prophet: Should the international Jewry succeed in plunging mankind into yet another world war, then the result will not be a Bolshevization of the earth and the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
I put the paper down. What if there is another war?
What if it reaches England and Walter is no longer safe there, either?
What if this thing spreads all across the world?
I think of the Leipziger Meuten and I know for sure: if we don’t fight this here, now, then it will gather force and sweep over Europe and beyond.
It’s time I put aside my own problems, my own safety, and live up to my promise to Walter.
Dressed for school, I first make for the café. I’ve not seen Lena since that awful day in December when I met with Frau Keller for the first time. The door jangles as I enter and she looks up in surprise.
“Hetty!” She comes to the door to greet me. The café is semifull of workers, either having finished a shift or about to go on one. There is a strong odor of sweat, tobacco, and grime. “Come through, to the back.”
Her mother is working in the kitchen. She looks older than I recall. More stooped and gray. Her dress hangs loosely from her shoulders. Lena also looks thin, her cheeks drawn in. There are lines on her forehead and around the corners of her mouth I’d never noticed before.
“How are you?” I ask. The two exchange a look. Lena’s mother turns her attention to the stove and places potato and bacon into a pan with a sliver of butter.
“Oh, you know,” Lena says, wiping a hand across her forehead. “We’re getting by.”
I nod. There’s an awkward pause.
“I was hoping you would be able to get a message to Frau Keller. And”—I hesitate—“it might be of interest to you, too. For your boy.”
She nods quickly. “Yes?”
“The British are organizing for children to travel to England, to be looked after by foster parents, until it is... safe for them to be reunited with their parents. Someone I know is trying to find places on one of the trains. It’s very difficult—there are more requests than spaces.
But he will keep trying, for the Keller children, and for your boy, if you would wish it? ”
She nods again. “I heard talk of this. And also, that a politician in America is trying to organize a similar program. If he’s successful, they will be able to double the numbers.
..” Her face crumples. “What has it come to, that we must send our precious children to the care of strangers in foreign countries?”
On a sudden whim I grab her hands. “Don’t give up hope, Lena. We must all... fight this, however we can.”
Lena’s eyes fill with tears, and she looks away, embarrassed.
“I must go, I have school. But I’ll try to come back soon. Hopefully with good news,” I add.
I leave the café feeling better than I have in weeks. I’ll find an opportunity at school to tell Erna what I heard about the Leipziger Meuten. Herr B?cker will know what to do about it. At last I feel useful. It may not be much, but it might make a difference.
Wissen ist macht , after all.
And I smile to myself as I hurry to the tram stop.