In the morning Karl awoke to discover a pair of brown, smiling eyes, and for a brief moment he thought he was looking at his mother. Still half asleep, he enjoyed the warmth of her smile.
But as he emerged from sleep, he realized that it was the sad smile of the janitor’s wife. She stood bent over a small suitcase and kept pushing down on it with her knee to get more clothes to fit inside.
Emil was already sitting in a chair, drinking a glass of milk. He looked refreshed, his shirt had been washed and pressed, and he had been scrubbed completely clean.
Karl saw that it was sunny outside. Some pale light seeped in through the cellar window, and the room was pleasantly quiet.
“We’ve been waiting for you long enough,” Emil greeted him.
Only then did Karl wake up completely. Until he heard Emil’s voice, his eyes kept opening and closing.
Karl jumped out of bed and was about to grab his shirt, which was waiting for him, washed and pressed, on a chair next to the bed.
“Oh, no,” said the janitor’s wife. “That won’t do. First you have to give yourself a good washing.”
She gave him a basin of cold water, and he started to splash about, almost as if he were going for a swim. He liked cold water and would always splash some on his face whenever he wanted to wake himself up.
But the janitor’s wife didn’t let him fool around for long. She took him in her hands and washed and scrubbed him. She rubbed him with soap until it felt as though she was scrubbing beneath his skin. Then she combed his hair, parting it in the middle.
Now Emil and Karl looked at one another happily. Emil remembered when they used to meet in the schoolyard. That was a happy time, when all the children would still play with him.
As he recalled those days, Emil’s heart felt heavy. He began to think about what had happened since then, and he couldn’t believe it. He tried to remember how long it had been since that night when his father had been beaten and dragged from the house. He started to count—a night, a day, a day, a night—but he got confused.
He could only remember that when he had left his house he was all alone in the world. He had no one except for his friend Karl. Emil suddenly realized how grateful he felt to Berta, who was now making breakfast. He went over and embraced her.
She didn’t move away, but shut her eyes and put her arms around him as tears ran down her face.
“Come here, Karl, come to me,” Berta called out and embraced both boys. “Things will get better, they will. Today we’ll say good-bye to each other, but Josef will come back, and we’ll be happy again.”
Still, tears still continued to run down her face.
Emil felt much freer and happier. Later, as he and Karl walked with Berta to the park, he felt much more at ease than the day before, when he had run, terrified, out of the house.
But as soon as they reached the park they heard wild cries and laughter. Emil almost broke away from Bertha’s grasp. She wanted to run herself but froze with fear, holding both children firmly by the hand.
The park was small, and Emil and Karl knew every corner of it. They often took walks there on Sundays. Now it was packed with people standing about. Even if Emil and Karl had wanted to run away, there was no way that they could have pushed their way through the crowd. People kept running through the gate toward them, and there was simply no place to move.
The shrieks and laughter sent chills through them. A storm trooper in uniform ran ahead of them and stopped Berta.
“Are you an Aryan?” he asked.
She nodded her head.
He took a hard look at her and at the two children. Then he smiled.
“Very well, ma’am, go on in with your children. They’ll find it very amusing.”
Numb with fear, Berta walked into the thick of the crowd and pulled the two children after her.
She forced her way through to an open spot. A few people shouted and complained that she was pushing them.
“How rude! Why all this shoving?”
Berta felt like turning back, but other people stuck up for her.
“Let the children be entertained. Aryan children need to be amused,” they said, looking affectionately at the boys, their faces glowing happily.
Once more Berta approached an open spot. Other mothers and fathers with their children pushed forward along with her.
There was a large circle in the middle of the park. Dozens of men, women, and children stood inside the circle. Karl noticed right away that they were different from the rest of this Sunday crowd.
“Look—they’re Jews!” Emil cried out.
Berta put her hand over his mouth. Emil wanted to shout again, but her warm hand restrained him.
Dozens of storm troopers also stood in the circle. Near Emil and Karl a man staggered about, barely able to stay on his feet. He began clapping his hands and whistling.
“C’mon, let’s get started! The German people are impatient!”
Many others started clapping, too.
“They’ve been dragging these damned Jews out of their houses all morning. They pulled all of them out of our building,” said a young woman with a parasol, smiling.
“Careful with that umbrella! You’ll poke someone’s eye out,” people warned her.
“They cleaned all the Jews out of our place, too,” a tall thin man, who looked as though he were standing on stilts, said in a loud voice.
“What’s going to happen now?” asked a man who had only just elbowed his way through the crowd.
“He has no idea what’s going on,” someone else said, making fun of him. “These lousy Jews are going to amuse us Aryans.”
“Terrific!” the man shouted. “We deserve no less. They ought to make it a law to do this every Sunday.”
“Yes, they really should make it a law. Only it’s a pity that the storm troopers have to work so hard! They’ve been dragging Jews here since dawn.”
The man who’d started the clapping began to clap even louder. It could be heard everywhere.
“C’mon, let’s start! We’re suffocating from this heat!”
Mothers kept pushing forward with their children.
“Stop shoving! How rude! It’s so crowded, we’ll suffocate!”
“Let the children move up! It’s their treat,” other people suggested.
“No!” protests came from all sides. “This is for everyone. Grown-ups should be entertained, too!”
“That’s right,” dozens of others agreed. “Everyone wants to see.”
“Why are you pushing?” people said to the lady, who by now had closed her parasol.
“I want to see my Jews, the ones from my building, I want to see them when it’s their turn. That would be wonderful.”
“We all want to see! We all want to see our Jews!” dozens of people shouted from among the crowd.
The man began clapping even louder. Then, suddenly, little pieces of red and green paper rained down on the crowd. All around, people looked up to see where this colorful shower came from.
Thousands of pieces of paper fell on the crowd. Many got caught in the trees or stuck to people’s hats. Karl picked up a red piece. There was something printed on it, in fat, black letters:
FOR SHAME! DON’T LET THE AUSTRIAN PEOPLE BECOME ANIMALS!