March 15, 1938
“Don’t tell them I’m a doctor,” Frieda murmurs to Hanni as they hurry along the crowded street, still blocks from the British Embassy.
“Why ever not? If I were going to hire a maid, I’d rather get someone who knew something. If they pick me they’ll get a strong worker, but I need to be fed. I wish we’d stopped at that bakery back there. I’m starving.”
“Didn’t you have breakfast?”
Hanni shrugs.
Frieda imagines they look a strange pair marching together along the sidewalk; Hanni, a young Amazon, tall and athletically thin, her curly dark hair cut chin length. Frieda, prettier and daintier in her beret, is a half-foot shorter and has to take two steps for every one of Hanni’s.
They slow down as they pass the newsstands. Heavy black headlines in all the papers shout, “Anschluss! Victory in Austria!” German soldiers have crossed the border after the Austrian chancellor decided to hold a plebiscite about union with Germany. Photos show Austrians cheering as the Wehrmacht rides by on their horses. Women throwing flowers, throwing kisses. Leopold had shaken his head with a profound fatigue that evening as they listened to the radio broadcasts. The Austrian chancellor should’ve known Hitler would never take that chance, Leopold said. “How could Hitler trust a free vote where Nazis weren’t in control of the polling booths?” Now Austria is part of the Reich.
Frieda comes to a halt at a photo on one of the front pages: grinning Nazi soldiers, their guns holstered, lean casually over a row of men and women on their knees scrubbing the sidewalk, while in the background civilians stand smiling. The caption reads, “Jews clean Vienna streets.”
Two men are buying papers nearby. Frieda overhears one of them exclaim with excitement, “Austria! And not a shot fired!”
Hanni pulls on Frieda’s arm and they continue on their way. A couple behind them discusses the new addition to their country. “The Austrians know which side their bread is buttered on,” the woman is saying. “Vienna should be cheaper this year,” says the man. “And the Viennese not so high and mighty.”
Frieda is so occupied by the conversation that she is startled by the sudden roar of engines beside them. From nowhere two policemen on motorbikes jump the sidewalk and cut in front of the path of two men who are walking ahead of them.
“Papers!” shouts one of the policemen.
The two men look like ordinary businessmen in their wool coats and felt hats, carrying the requisite briefcases. Jews, Frieda assumes from their terrified faces. She pulls Hanni away, crossing the street while the men are ordered to open their briefcases.
The women continue on their way to the embassy, startled again by the sudden thunder of the two motorcycles winding down the street ahead of them; one of the unlucky Jewish men occupies the sidecar of one of the police vehicles.
When Frieda and Hanni turn a corner, they are confronted by a long, irregular line of women snaking three blocks all the way to the door of the embassy. Britain has made the humanitarian gesture of allowing Jewish women to enter the country to work as housemaids.
“Every Jewish girl in Berlin must be here,” Hanni mutters taking her place in line. “It’ll take hours.”
So many Jews want to leave Germany that every civilized country in the world has tightened its immigration policy to keep them out. Frieda has tired of reading the German papers that revel in the negative responses from the countries in Western Europe, Central and South America, Canada, Australia. The English don’t want to anger the Arabs so they strictly control immigration to British-held Palestine. Frieda knows from the Sussmans’ frustrating efforts that the United States has stringent quotas for Jews and requires guarantees from an American citizen, usually a relative, willing to sign papers agreeing to support the immigrant. Since Herr Sussman’s heart attack, they have lost their place in line and must wait again.
Frieda and Vati have already stood in line at the Argentine embassy to fill out forms. Mutti’s brother, cousin Greta’s father, has written several times comparing Buenos Aires to Paris. They are adjusting there, he writes, and urges Mutti to join them. The Eisenbaums might have a chance in Argentina, since they already have relatives who settled there. Frieda and Vati have also spent days, weeks, standing in line for Brazil, Venezuela, Australia, and Canada. She painstakingly fills out the forms on the typewriter on their kitchen table but, like Wolfie, she pictures the office clerks pitching the precious papers into the garbage as soon as they come in.
She folds her arms across her chest for warmth and resigns herself to a long wait. The air is still cold in March but not frigid like it would have been a month earlier.
“Save my place,” Hanni says. “I’m going to run back to that bakery.”
Before Frieda can respond, Hanni disappears into the crowd that has already formed behind them. Where she gets her appetite from Frieda doesn’t know. Was she as hungry at nineteen? Well, the line isn’t moving very fast.
Twenty minutes later, Hanni returns carrying a paper cone. She strolls right by Frieda, who is overshadowed by the taller women around her.
“Hanni!” she shouts.
The girl turns at her name and steps into the line. “I got you some Abfall,” she says, handing Frieda the cone.
Because people are so poor these days, bakeries have begun to sell leftover crumbs from bread and cake trays. She has seen the clerks twist a sheet of white paper into a glass for support and tap the metal tray, shaking the crumbs into a cone that sells for ten pfennig.
“That’s very nice of you,” Frieda says, hoping Hanni had enough money to treat herself to a pastry.
After a few licks of the crumbs on top — donut pieces, some grated nuts — Frieda feels Hanni watching her sideways. “I’m not very hungry,” she says, handing the cone back to Hanni. “You have it.”
“Well, if you’re not hungry,” says Hanni, shrugging. She takes the cone and sticks her tongue down to dislodge the assorted mixture. “Hmm,” she says, her head on an angle. “Shaved chocolate and a bit of rye bread, I think.”
The line moves very slowly toward the embassy. Girls nearby who were chattering earlier are quiet now, hugging themselves for warmth. A small Asian man in a well-cut black coat and hat has approached some girls behind them. He is talking to them in a voice too low for Frieda to hear. In a few minutes he steps toward Hanni. He bows and smiles at them with yellow teeth. Frieda stiffens as he looks Hanni over with approval.
“Good morning, young ladies,” he says in a heavy accent, his mouth struggling with the German syllables. “Perhaps you tired waiting in line to leave country. I represent agency seek for lovely ladies like you. Interesting work in China. Many cities, you choose. We make necessary arrangements — you no concern for passport or transport. You have lodging when arrive. Could be out Germany tomorrow.” He smiles with prominent teeth, his eyes drinking in Hanni. “My car there.” He points to the corner.
“Could our families come too?” Hanni asks.
The little man shrugs noncommittally.
Frieda loops her arm through Hanni’s and interjects in a harsh voice, “We’re not interested.”
The man’s smile vanishes and he moves down the line.
“Why did you say that?” Hanni asks, watching the man leave. “I’d love to see China.”
“How much do you think you’d see from a brothel?”
Hanni’s brown eyes go large and blink. “You think ...”
They both turn and, after a moment, watch him escort a pretty young woman away from the line, across the street, presumably to a waiting car. The woman walks with her eyes lowered, perhaps embarrassed, but resigned.
Frieda takes a deep sigh. “If you want to go to China, go stand at the embassy. I hear they’re letting Jews into Shanghai without a visa.”
“So why are we standing here?”
“We can’t afford the tickets. The fare’s a fortune. And there was fighting there, but it’s calmed down now.” Frieda pulls her arm out of Hanni’s and hugs herself for warmth. “Besides, I can’t imagine going to China. It’s so far. It’s so foreign. It would be like going to the moon.”
Once they get into the building, they must fill out a form and drop it into a deep box on top of all the others. Frieda pictures an English butler lifting each sheet out with an immaculate gloved hand and dropping it into a fire. They never hear from the embassy one way or the other. Yet another silence.
In April the government sends Jewish families forms on which they must list all their valuables. After dinner that night, instead of scouring through the books on Ecuador, Peru, and South Africa, less appealing countries but ones they haven’t tried yet, Vati begins to write down the articles on a piece of paper, starting with their silver candlesticks and cutlery.
“There’s only one reason why they’d need a list like that,” Wolfie says, putting on his jacket to go out.
Vati keeps writing without looking up. “Of course. But we have no choice.”
Wolfie sneers. “Soon the swine will come here and collect it all. You’d be better off selling it — at least you’d get some money for it.”
“I have to put down something. We’ll hide what we can. But each of us must hand over something. We don’t want to give them an excuse to search the apartment.”
Frieda sees Mutti place her hand over the ring on her finger, next to her wedding band.
“Don’t put down my ring,” Wolfie says. “I’m going to sell it.”
Frieda remembers the gold ring engraved with his initials that her parents presented him when he was sixteen.
Wolfie slams the door behind him. Frieda turns the amethyst ring on her finger round and round. Leopold gave it to her when he thought his family was leaving for America.
“Don’t put down my amethyst ring either,” she says to Vati.
Without looking up he says, “I’ll put down the amber one.” Her parents’ gift when she was sixteen.
Within a month policemen come to the door armed with the lists that the families themselves have filled out. Government-sanctioned theft, Frieda knows, but Jews are not going to risk their lives by making a fuss about silverware or jewellery. She doesn’t know what Wolfie did with his ring, but she has hidden hers in a drawer among her underwear.
One morning, Luise disappears. Oma shrieks her name into every corner of the tiny apartment and searches under the beds. In all the commotion, Frieda hears a timid tap at the front door and opens it.
Frau Thaler, their elderly neighbour down the hall, is smiling sheepishly at them, while Luise stands beside her, holding her hand. Luise’s other hand is engaged in stuffing a pancake into her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Frau Eisenbaum,” the woman says to Oma, who stands with her lips firm in anger and relief. “But she came to my door when I was bringing in the milk.”
Milk is no longer delivered to Jewish households. They must buy it on the black market at inflated prices, hence they have very little of it.
“I didn’t think there was any harm giving her some. She drank it down so fast, dear girl.” Frau Thaler wears a frumpy brown dress beneath a flowered apron tied around her stout waist. She turns adoring eyes at Luise.
“She’s such a sweet girl. I’m happy for the company. I’m all alone, you know. My poor Gerhard died three years ago and we had no children.”
When Luise starts licking her fingers, Frau Thaler brings out a handkerchief from her apron pocket. “There, dear, you can wipe your hands with that.”
“It’s very kind of you,” Oma begins, “but she’s ...”
Frieda holds her breath. The neighbour must see what Luise is, but Oma must not put it into words that can be repeated, even unintentionally. The Gestapo has informers everywhere.
“The Lord Jesus loves all his children, Frau Eisenbaum,” says the neighbour. “She’s welcome to come over whenever she likes. Send her over for breakfast in the morning. It’ll give me someone to cook for.”
During the summer Frieda is asked to fill in periodically for a physician who works at the Jewish hospital. She remembers him as a sought-after doctor with a busy practice. Now he ekes out a living tending to Jewish patients who have little means of paying him after being forced out of their occupations and businesses. Even he must take time off once a week or so, and Frieda has been recommended by Herr Doktor Kochmann. The senior physician pays her from his earnings, a meagre amount, with apologies.
The government has even decreed that Jews can no longer be travelling salesmen, so Vati and Wolfie must stop their selling jaunts in the suburbs. Oma has taken in alterations for Jews whose bodies are shrinking and who are still vain enough to want their clothes to fit. She shares the work with Vati, who otherwise mopes around the apartment, afraid to go out. Sometimes Frieda sees him sitting in a chair, staring at nothing.
A week doesn’t go by without a decree issued from the government. In July, the edict comes down that all Jews must carry identity cards with their photos and fingerprints. Along with all the other Jews in Germany, the Eisenbaums must troop to their local police precinct and get fingerprinted. They decide to go individually or in pairs; in case one of them is “detained,” at least the others will be safe. Vati goes with Mutti one morning.
“It is humiliating,” he says, “but there seems to be no danger.”
The next day, Oma escorts Luise with explicit instructions for her not to open her mouth. Frieda and Wolfie go separately at different times.
In the station Frieda watches the heavy, middle-aged policeman place her left index finger carefully into the ink pad then press the black tip onto her identity card. In a daze, she feels his cool, business-like hand repeat the process with her right index finger. Without looking at her, he wipes the black ink off her fingers with a cloth quite delicately, almost apologetically.
In August, the Nazi government outdoes itself: it issues a decree that all Jewish males must add the name “Israel” to their names, and all Jewish females “Sara.” These new middle names must go on the new identity cards. The first time she sees “Frederika Sara Eisenbaum” on her new card, it is a shock. The names must also be included in signatures. When Frieda writes out a prescription she must remember to sign it with her new middle name. She is enraged that the government revels in its humiliation of the Jewish population even after it has stripped them of everything they owned and the means by which they might earn enough to live like human beings.
One evening everyone has gone to sleep, Luise snoring softly in the bed she shares with Oma. Nearby Frieda shifts restlessly on her cot. Maybe she should take something, but barbiturates are costly and she is saving the few she has for a serious case of nerves. She has no doubt she will need them.
She hears a soft rustling of fabric and sees Oma’s shadow approaching in the dark. “Are you awake?” Oma asks.
Frieda pushes herself up on one elbow. “What’s wrong?”
Oma lowers herself carefully to sit on the edge of the cot. “I have to ask you to do something for me, Frieda. It’s very important.”
The bed creaks as Luise turns over.
“What is it?”
“I want you to get me some pills. Enough to put me to sleep.”
Frieda swallows hard. Is she really awake? Can she possibly have heard right? “I have some here if you can’t sleep.”
“You know what I mean. For when I can’t go on. Enough pills to make me sleep for good.”
Frieda feels her stomach sinking. What is she supposed to say: Don’t be silly, Oma, everything will be all right? She knows it won’t be all right, ever again.
She finds her grandmother’s hand in the dark. It’s soft but cold as she holds it in her own. “Oma.” She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to lose her grandmother, who has always been the strong one in the family. “Is this really what you want?”
Frieda feels a tear drop on her hand. She pulls her grandmother into her arms.
Now that Austria has joined the Reich, Hitler has turned his gaze further afield, toward the Sudetenland, an area in Czechoslovakia where the people speak German. Leopold says that the region has mountains, and so is a natural defence for Czechoslovakia. But if Hitler takes it ... Every day Frieda reads the papers and cringes at the enraged voice on the radio as Hitler rails against the Versailles Treaty: this treacherous piece of paper created Czechoslovakia at the end of the war and tore the Sudeten Germans from the bosom of their rightful country. Frieda notices with alarm headlines like, “Pregnant Sudeten mother pushed off bicycle by Czech subhuman in Ostrava!” Or, “How long must our patient German brethren yield to such humiliating atrocities?”
By September, Hitler is making speeches on the radio about going to war over the Sudetenland to save the German population there: “The German people, united as one behind their Leader, can wait no longer ...”
There’s a heightened anxiety in the air, not just among Jews. Frieda sees it in the faces of people on the street during the much publicized conference when the leaders of France, England, and Italy meet with Hitler in Munich to try to avoid war. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now — Hitler must have Czechoslovakia; even if it means igniting a world war, he will not back down. Are France and England willing to go to war over a strip of land in an insignificant country like Czechoslovakia? In one of Leopold’s New York Times, Frieda reads that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain calls the crisis “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”
The Eisenbaums have no papers yet, and Frieda knows imminent war will make it even harder to acquire them. Embassies, even borders, will be closed and it will be impossible to leave.
During the conference, Goering speaks at the Nuremburg Party rally, which is broadcast live. Frieda and Vati sit staring at the radio while Oma stitches the hem of a skirt that lies in a heap on her lap.
“A petty segment of Europe is harassing the human race ...”
Czechoslovakia was the most recent enemy of the Reich. The Nazis are so transparent; why can’t people see?
“This miserable pygmy race is oppressing a cultural people and behind it is Moscow and the eternal mask of the Jew devil.”
“Why do you listen to this crap?” Wolfie jumps up and heads for the door.
“We have to know what’s going on,” Vati says quietly, without conviction.
Everyone in Germany holds their breath, Jew and Gentile alike. On a crowded bus, Frieda is standing over two women when she overhears one of them whisper to her companion, “I don’t want my son going to fight for Czechoslovakia.”
When the conference ends, the news is dismal. At least it’s dismal for the Jews, though good for everyone else. Aren’t all things relative these days? Hitler has won back the Sudetenland and in exchange has promised peace. He never wanted war, he says, only what rightly belonged to Germany. All the papers carry photos of Chamberlain, with his little pencil moustache, waving a sheet of paper in the air and proclaiming, “Peace in our time!”
“He didn’t have the backbone to stand up to Hitler,” Wolfie says, slapping the newspaper down on the table. “So much for England coming to save us. They’ve just shown him they’re weak and can be pushed around. He’s not going to stop with the Sudetenland.”
November 7, 1938
While Frieda is stitching up a young boy’s knee at the Jewish hospital, a nurse sticks her head in the doorway. “A German diplomat was shot in Paris. By a Jew.”
“Why did he do it?” Frieda asks.
“His parents were on that transport to Poland in October. He was angry.”
Frieda blanches. A few weeks ago, fifteen thousand Polish-born Jews who lived in Germany were taken from their homes at dawn and pushed into boxcars heading toward the Polish border. Some lived in Germany for decades; their children were born here. None of that mattered; now they are “Polish citizens.” The Eisenbaums should have been on that transport, but Vati’s Iron Cross saved them one more time.
“Stupid young pup,” the nurse continues. “If the diplomat dies, we’ll pay for it.” She continues down the hall, spreading the news.
For the next two days, the condition of the young diplomat, Ernst Vom Rath, occupies the headlines. While he lies near death, the Nazis rub their hands: the world conspiracy of Jews has clearly shown its hand. Something must be done to punish them. All the Jews in Berlin are whispering among themselves, “If only he doesn’t die.”
Then, on the evening of November 9, regular radio programming is interrupted. “After a brave struggle, Ernst Vom Rath, third secretary in the German Embassy in Paris, has succumbed to his injuries. The Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, has been arrested and charged with his murder.”
When Frieda looks up, Oma’s stitching lies in her lap. “God help us all,” she says. Herr Doktor Kochmann, Hans Brenner, Ilse Remke, and Frieda are standing around a woman screaming in childbirth. They wear the usual white coats, except for Frieda, who wears one in bright yellow.
“This is killing me!” the woman cries. “Can’t you give me something for the pain?”
Brenner says, “You must push the baby out, Luise, then we can give you something for the pain.”
Frieda assumes it’s another Luise, but when she looks down at the patient’s face, it’s her sister. Luise screams out again and Ilse slaps her on the side of the head. The slap is so loud it sounds like glass breaking.
Frieda startles awake. Oma is standing at the window in her nightdress; Luise is sitting up in bed, her eyes large with fear. Frieda hears noises outside and jumps from her cot to look out the window. Is she still dreaming? A chest of drawers is being thrown out the window of a nearby apartment. Then a stuffed chair, brown cushions flying. Then an accordion that clanks out a strident death rattle as it drops. Lamps, tables, books all plunge into the courtyard with a horrifying clatter.
Frieda runs into her parents’ bedroom. Vati is standing in his nightshirt by the window while Mutti cowers in bed. Voices of men laugh and shriek all around outside, upstairs, downstairs. The shattering sound of china breaking, lots of china.
Then it’s their turn: fists begin to hammer at their door. Incessant fists, then boots.
Vati, his face flooded with terror, looks at Frieda, then steps slowly toward the front door. He puts his hand out to unlock it, turns to look at Frieda once more, as if she is his last comfort, then undoes the latch.
The door flies open as a group of men in civilian dress storm in with axes and hammers, their faces contorted with hatred. Are they really men? Are they human? One of them, a tall young man with clipped blond hair, lashes out in his rage and hits Vati in the face, knocking him to the floor. Frieda rushes to his side as the fiends run to destroy everything in their path. They pull the dishes from the small cabinet in the kitchen and throw them to the floor in a frenzy of destruction.
Frieda dabs at Vati’s bleeding nose with her handkerchief, helps him sit up amid the deafening noise of their lives being reduced to rubble. Mutti runs from the bedroom in her nightdress and crouches near Vati. Oma leads Luise toward them.
In an abrupt moment of panic Frieda remembers her medical bag — it’s sitting near her cot in the bedroom.
As she steps away from her family, Oma grabs her arm. “No,” she says, but Frieda pulls away and creeps to their bedroom, where the men are slashing away with their axes and knives at the featherbeds and mirrors. Feathers fly everywhere. As she watches, one of the men picks up the black medical bag and lifts out the stethoscope.
“Please,” she says.
He looks up, eyes puffy with rage. He steps toward her, lips curling at an ugly angle. She steps back.
“Those are medical instruments,” she says. “I can help people with them.”
“Look, Heinz,” says the young man with the cruel lips. “This Jewish cow thinks she can help people.”
Another man stops his rampage through the dresser drawers for an instant. “Shit on her,” says the other man. “Just do what you’re supposed to.”
The first man picks up a hammer, glowers at her with loathing in his eyes. She thinks she’s going to die. Maybe it would be better than this. Instead, he throws the stethoscope down on a night table they’ve neglected to pitch out the window and smashes down hard with the hammer: her beloved instrument is in pieces. Her audioscope is next, then the blood pressure cuff. All destroyed.
She stumbles back to her family in time to hear one of the men bark an order at Vati to get dressed.
“You’re making a mistake,” Vati says quietly. “I have the Iron Cross.”
One of the men slaps him across the face, his eyes full of disgust. “Another Jew with the Iron Cross. How much did this one cost? It won’t protect you anymore, you piece of shit.”
Oma says, “Where are you taking him?” The men pay her no attention as they continue to break whatever they find.
When Vati has put his clothes on, Mutti clings to him, but two of the men pull her away. They are taking him out the door.
Frieda cries out, “Vati!” He looks back at her with mournful eyes, then vanishes down the stairs. As she stands at the door, stunned, Frau Thaler opens her door a crack, then quickly closes it shut.
Once the men have gone, the family leap to the front window to see Vati being pushed into a truck filled with other men. He’s holding the bloody handkerchief in his hand. The truck pulls away out of sight. Frieda is numb. Her head spins with the racing of her heart. Will she ever see her father again? They let him go the last time, but that was different. They got what they wanted from him then, the business. This time there’s nothing left to give them. Only blood.
Through her shock she hears Luise wailing. Oma is too distraught to comfort her and stares out the window, tears rolling down her cheeks. Mutti is whimpering in the corner. What will they do now, Frieda thinks, when they have nothing left? Everything is gone. She looks out the window to see a hellish orange glow in the distance. Something is on fire. Their whole world is going up in flames.