‘Dad, I’m not talking about my
sons
,’ Frieda said gently. ‘They are both eighteen, they’re men now. I’m talking about my
children
. The ones I care for. The ones I continue to deliver into the world, for whatever our Leader may hope for, nature takes its course and new Jews come. Tiny babies, who don’t know they’ve been born in hell. Those babies, those children, need a doctor.
I’m
their doctor. I will stay with them and care for them for as long as I’m able.’
Her parents were astonished. It had never occurred to them that Frieda would take this view. She had spoken so often of emigration. She had written so many letters.
‘When Wolfgang was alive it was different. I had to care for him and so I knew that if I could get him out I would have done so. But he’s gone. He made a sacrifice for me and—’
‘Exactly!’ her mother exclaimed. ‘He did that terrible thing
for you
. His note was clear, he was holding you back, making it so much more difficult for you to leave. But now that—’
‘Now that he’s gone I intend to honour him and our love for each other by staying.’
‘It’s not what he would have wanted, Frieda!’ her father said, his voice rising.
‘It doesn’t bloody matter what he would have wanted, does it, Dad! He’s dead! He doesn’t get a vote!’ Frieda’s voice was rising too. ‘He’s released me. Given me back the time I would have spent caring for him, protecting him. I’m going to put that sacrifice to good use. The best use. Lots of people are never getting out, Dad. You two for a start, but a couple of hundred thousand others I’d have said at least. The very young, the very old, the ones with no money, no influence. They are all going to need a doctor. I’m a doctor. That’s my job.’
‘But what about the boys?’ her mother asked, almost timidly now, taken aback by Frieda’s passion.
‘Paulus will leave once he’s finished school,’ Frieda said, her firm resolve in some danger of faltering. ‘We have a place for him at Goldsmith’s College in London to study Humanities, and the British Central Fund have a place for him in a hostel. And don’t think it doesn’t break my heart to let him go, but every child leaves the nest, and at least I’ll still have Otto. Even if I can’t see him I’ll know he’s near.’
Her father nodded. ‘Of course, he’s an Aryan. If you’re to stay then there’s no reason for him to leave.’
‘He wouldn’t have left anyway, Dad. He’s in love.’
Her parents both smiled.
‘The Fischer girl,’ Frau Tauber said.
‘Of course,’ Frieda replied.
‘Well,’ Herr Tauber commented, ‘you can’t exactly blame him. She is a damned peach.’
‘Yes. Poor Paulus,’ Frau Tauber said.
The Taubers exchanged regretful smiles. Although they came from a generation that did not pry or discuss personal matters even within the family, they had been perfectly aware over the years of the feelings that both their grandsons harboured towards Dagmar Fischer.
‘Yes,’ Frieda agreed with a regretful smile. ‘Pauly lost in love and he was heartbroken, of course. He still is. Young love can be terribly cruel. But of course the truth is it’s worked out very nicely. Imagine if Dagmar had chosen Pauly, I know that boy and he’d be insisting on staying with her. He may be the clear logical one in most things but when it comes to Dagmar he’s as crazy as Ottsy. Funny, you know, when they were kids, before all this began, Wolfgang and I used to watch them playing in their Saturday Club and we’d joke that one day Dagmar would love Pauly and Silke would love Otto. That’s how it always seemed to us it would be. But love of course never turns out the way you’d expect.’
Herr Tauber frowned somewhat and tapped his pipe thoughtfully.
‘And so Ottsy wants to stay on,’ he said. ‘That will mean being conscripted. He knows that, I presume.’
‘Of course, he’ll do his National Service after he leaves the Napola.’
‘And after that? Those boys are all supposed to become
Gauleiters
and party leaders, aren’t they?’ Herr Tauber asked.
‘As far as I can gather, his idea is to give the appearance of being as good a Nazi as possible so that he can do what he can for Dagmar.’
Frau Tauber frowned. ‘Well, that’s all very well at the moment while it’s just a question of getting her into swimming pools and the like, but what happens next? They’re growing up.’
The three of them exchanged glances.
‘He can’t
marry
her,’ Herr Tauber said. ‘It’s illegal.’
‘I know and I don’t know exactly what they’ll do,’ Frieda said. ‘All I know is that he’s sworn to protect her. To be her knight in shining armour. I think eventually he thinks he’ll smuggle her out, once he’s in uniform, or later as a party official. It’s not a bad plan – he’s bold and he might pull it off. All I can say is that for the moment Otto isn’t the worry. He’s not a Jew, he’s not in danger. Paulus is and it’s him I’m going to get out.’
‘And you really are determined that you will stay?’ Frau Tauber asked.
‘Yes, Mum. My boys are men. My husband is gone. I’ve told you. I have other children now.’
‘Well,’ her father said, pretending to blow his nose. ‘You always did make us proud, my dear. Always.’
English Conversations
Berlin, 1938
ALONG WITH ALL her other frantic activities, Frieda decided to start an English language conversation group.
Even before the coming of Hitler, she had made a point of speaking English informally with the twins. Now she decided to spread her knowledge further. All Jews now being prospective migrants, it seemed like a sensible idea.
Frieda also knew she was looking for ways to help get herself through the lonely evenings. Paulus was still living at home but he was absorbed mainly in study and kept to his room a lot of the time. Frieda missed Wolfgang and Otto terribly and so tried to fill every waking minute in an effort to distract herself from the empty spaces they had left behind.
The group was an instant success. Quite apart from the practical consideration of gaining a language with a view to emigration, the problem of boredom was endemic across the whole Jewish community. Largely shut up and hidden away, people were simply going crazy with nothing to do.
Assembling the group was therefore easy, finding something for it to talk about proved harder. Or at least something that didn’t concern the woes of their community. Frieda soon found herself developing rules and strategies to avoid falling endlessly into the same deeply depressing conversational ruts.
‘We’re playing that game again!’ she’d say two or three times at every meeting. ‘The game of who’s suffered the most and who deserves it least.’
It was almost inevitable that most conversations degenerated into an exchange of misery. People fell over each other to describe the dreadful experiences they had suffered and which they were quite certain trumped anything that their fellow group members might have gone through that day.
Sometimes the exchanges became heated. Previously calm and temperate neighbours raised their voices at each other. Arguing passionately about whether being refused service in a shop by an old acquaintance was more outrageous than being spat at in the street by a small child.
‘My daughter was ejected from the railway station lavatory.’
‘They took my umbrella. Just took it from my hand.’
‘An umbrella? So what! They took my bicycle.’
‘Ha! They took my car!’
‘I am a war veteran.’
‘I’ve paid my taxes all my life.’
Then Frieda would ring the little ‘no moaning’ bell that she kept beside her and insist, ‘We must stop this! And if we can’t stop it we must at least be civil about it. We’re all starting to bicker and snap at each other. It’s hardly surprising, all cooped up together as we are, but that’s all the more reason to try harder to show each other respect.’
Try as she might, though, it was not possible for Frieda to steer the conversation away from endless discussions about the rapidly deteriorating situation in general.
The truth was there was really little else to talk about.
The register of Jewish assets in April had been a huge psychological blow, and even Frieda herself could not help dwelling on the cruelty of the action.
‘It’s like a note through the door saying,
We’re coming to get you
,’ she said. ‘Or a thug on the other side of the street just standing, watching you with a smile on his face, whacking his cosh into the palm of his hand. It’s really quite brilliant. Making us
list
our things and then letting it hang over us. If they ever make bullying an Olympic sport, then Germany will win Gold in Tokyo in 1940.’
‘
Ja, es ist absolut erschreckend
…’ Morgenstern the ex-book dealer agreed in frustration.
‘In English, please, Mr Morgenstern,’ Frieda said. ‘This is an
English
conversation group.’
‘Yes. Of course,’ the old man stammered, searching in his mind for the correct words. ‘It is so very terrified,
nicht wahr
? I mean, is it not?’
‘Terrify
ing
,’ Frieda corrected, ‘not terrified.
You
are terri
fied
because
it
is terrify
ing
.’
In June the conversation group lost a member when the government announced that any Jew previously convicted of an offence, even as minor as a traffic violation, could be
rearrested
for it at the discretion of the police and sent to a concentration camp.
Schmulewitz the ex-insurance broker fell immediate victim to this new decree.
‘He was done for drunk driving in 1925,’ his tearful wife explained, bravely struggling to deliver her dreadful news in English as the rules of the group required. ‘A local policeman Hans once challenged over insurance is now having his revenge, and Hans has been sent to Ravensbrück. For a glass of schnapps he was fined for in 1925!’
In July came news that was particularly demeaning for Frieda.
‘I have to tell you all,’ she told the group, in perfect English, ‘that officially at least you must not call me “doctor”. The medical certification for all Jewish doctors is to be cancelled. I am no longer qualified. They’re only going to let us function as nurses and even then, of course, only to Jewish patients.’
‘
So haben sie endlich einen Weg gefunden
…’
‘In
English
please, Mrs Leibovitz,’ Frieda interrupted. ‘Always in English.’
‘I was saying,’ Frau Leibovitz corrected herself, ‘that they’ve finally found a way to redress the so-called “imbalance” regarding Jewish doctors that used to worry them so much. We used to be told we had too many doctors, now we don’t have any.’
In August came the shocking decree that all Jews were required to add the names ‘Israel’ or ‘Sara’ to their own names and that a large letter J was to be stamped on to every Jewish passport.
‘They’re marking us down,’ Herr Katz said. ‘Identifying every single one of us so we can’t hide. Why? What are they planning? What more can they do to us?’
Frieda almost smiled.
What more can they do to us?
Each of them said it. To themselves and to each other, over and over again. Whoever could have imagined that such a phrase would be the most common English sentence used in her conversation group?
‘Ah ah, Herr Katz,’ she admonished gently. ‘You know that I have banned that phrase as overused. Try to come up with an alternative construction.’
‘Very well then, Mrs
Doctor
,’ Katz said, his brow furrowed in concentration. ‘How about – the end, where will all of it be coming?’
‘Not bad,’ Frieda said. ‘The correct English sentence would be:
Where will it all end?
’
The Night of the Broken Glass
Berlin, November 1938
OTTO WAS AWOKEN by the familiar harsh rasping bark of a command delivered as unpleasantly and as aggressively as the speaker knew how.
‘
Jungmannen!
Parade, you lazy swine!’
Otto looked at his wristwatch. It was nearly midnight.
Of course it was.
Midnight. The Nazis’ favourite hour.
Everything felt more
special
at midnight, more sternly historic. Swearing-ins, oaths of allegiance, flag ceremonies. Brutal initiations and impossibly tough physical tasks. Why do them after breakfast when you can do them in the middle of the night? With bonfires, flickering torches and muffled drums?
Otto rolled out of his bunk. He had been asleep and lost in dreams of Dagmar from which he was most annoyed to have been torn.