Emil was terrified to be outside. It was beautiful and sunny, but he kept tripping over his own feet. In fact, it was the bright light that made Emil so afraid. Karl was running, almost skipping down the street, and Emil trudged after his friend with reluctant footsteps.
Emil realized that he actually felt safer in Josef’s cellar. Now the sunlight forced him to open his eyes, but he was afraid to look around.
Karl knew that Emil wasn’t very happy to be out on the street. As Emil straggled along after him, Karl consoled his friend. “Look, we’ll just look around for a little bit, and then we’ll go back to Josef’s. Josef and his wife are very good people,” Karl added, to show Emil that even though he was excited to be outside he hadn’t forgotten all about his friend.
Little streams of water from the previous day’s rain, now warmed by the sun, ran down the pavement. Karl charged boldly down the center of the street.
“We’re going too far,” Emil pleaded.
“Don’t worry, I can’t get lost here. We’ll turn here on this street, turn left on the next street, and then I’ll show you a trick. We go into that big building, then through the courtyard, and we come back out on this street,” said Karl, showing off his expertise.
Emil let himself be persuaded, and he began to run after Karl. He even began to feel like playing tag with his friend, when all of a sudden he caught sight of a grocery store. Though the shop was locked up behind a metal grate, all its windows had been shattered. Shards of glass were scattered in front of the store. Usually a shop window like this would be filled with all sorts of jars and cans, different kinds of bread and sausages, but now it was littered with slivers of glass, and all the display stands had been stripped bare.
Emil stood there, trembling. Karl sensed that something had happened to his friend. He, too, came to a halt, looked at the shop, and all at once his happy mood vanished. He stood frozen in place.
“Look,” said Karl, pointing at another store. According to its sign, it was a shoe store. It had been left wide open. The windows on both sides had been knocked out completely. The display window was empty, and inside dozens of open boxes lay scattered about. Between the grocery and a clothing store was yet another store, a butcher shop, which stood undisturbed, open for business. The butcher, wearing a bloodstained apron, stood calmly in the doorway. There was no one in his shop, so he walked slowly over to the shoe store and looked in, folding his arms and tucking in his hands, as if to warm them up. He bent over and took a long look inside. Then he walked over to the grocery and examined its empty window. He picked up a couple of pieces of glass and tossed them into the street. Then the butcher sat down on a bench in front of his store, took out a cigarette, and lit it. All at once he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that he almost choked on the smoke.
“Let’s go back,” Emil pleaded.
“Sure, we’re going back,” Karl replied, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the two shops with their shattered, empty windows.
As they started to walk away, a man appeared from a side street. He was dressed in the same kind of uniform as the men Emil and Karl had seen the night before, which had sent them racing into the cellar.
But now it was too late to run away. They both froze in their places. Neither one made the slightest attempt to escape.
“And what are you boys doing out in the street at this time of day?” the stranger asked, grabbing Emil’s shoulder. “Why aren’t you in school?”
Both boys stood there, their heads bowed.
“Why aren’t you in school?” The man in the uniform shouted so loudly that it startled the butcher, and he jumped up from his seat.
“Because, because—” Emil stammered, “Because I’m a Jew.”
Emil began to cry, and the man, who was holding onto him as though he were a criminal, wasn’t entirely sure that he’d heard correctly.
“Why?” he asked again.
“Because I’m a Jew,” Emil answered through his tears.
“Is that so!” the man stretched his body to its full height. “A little Jewboy, just as I suspected!”
The butcher, still in his bloody apron, came closer.
The man in the uniform waited patiently as the butcher approached. And when the butcher looked at him and began to smile, the man in the uniform raised his foot and kicked the butcher so hard that he fell over. The butcher got right up and ran back to his bench, and he sat down.
From the bench the butcher began to shout, “You have no right to beat up your fellow man, no right. No, none whatsoever!”
The man in the uniform turned to Karl. “And you, what are you, a Jewboy, too?”
“A friend of his,” Karl answered quietly.
A slap rang out, and Karl fell down. When he got up, a warm stream of blood gushed from his nose. He tried to stop it with his hands, and they became completely covered with blood.
Emil cried even louder when he saw the blood running from Karl’s nose.
“Come on, Jewboy, and you, too, Jewboy’s friend,” the man said, and he began to herd them along.
“Stop crying,” Karl said quietly to Emil.
Even though the boys didn’t resist, the man in the uniform dragged them along roughly, as if they were about to break away and run off.
He took them into an alley, where there wasn’t another living soul to be seen. Suddenly a short, stout woman came out of a house. She stood there, using her body to block the path of the man, who was still dragging Emil and Karl.
The woman clasped her hands together. “Now you let go of those two boys, Rudolf, do you hear me, my great big hero? Otherwise, dear husband of mine, I’ll split your head open.”
“Leave me alone, duty is duty.”
“I’ll give you ‘duty,’ my fine hero. How much beer have you poured down your throat? What d’you want with these two?”
He tried to continue on his way, but she stood there like a wall and wouldn’t let him pass.
“These are Jewboys!”
“Kids are kids, my big hero,” and she spat right in his face.
“I’ll have to arrest you,” he yelled, “I’ll tell the authorities. I do my duty, and a wife’s not supposed to interfere.” He gripped Emil and Karl so tightly that he almost pulled off their skin.
The woman cleared the path for him and let him pass by. “Go on, go on, my fine hero, do your duty, but I’m warning you! Don’t you dare come home. I’ll split your head open.”
She started to walk away but then came running back. “Rudolf, wait! What’ll you do with those two?”
He grabbed Emil and Karl with his left hand, clicked his boots together and saluted with his right hand. “It’s my duty. Heil!”
The woman turned and hurried away, as if she wanted to escape. But as she ran, she shouted down the length of the entire street. “You drunkard, let go of them! Listen to me, let them go!”