SUNDAY, MAY 7, 1944
The Jewish House had emptied over the last few months. This increased the probability of the remaining tenants having to move to new, even more cramped dwellings in the near future. The former residents had disappeared one after the other: window dresser Schwartz, who had constantly sketched drawings and like Oppenheimer was married to an Aryan; the Lewinsky family with their four children; an orthodox Chassidic couple called Jacobi, who had annoyed him terribly with their constant praying; and the distinguished lawyer Dr. Kornblum, who called himself a liberal and showed no sympathy for Reform Judaism or orthodoxy and had to live next to the Jacobis. The mildly proletarian glassblower Franck, who had always had strong reservations about eastern European Jews, had also disappeared. They all left empty spaces in the building following their evacuation by the Gestapo, locked rooms one was not allowed to enter.
Of course, the word evacuation, the official term used by the authorities for the removal, was just window dressing. This had nothing to do with protecting the Lewinskys or Jacobis from the bombs that pelted down on Berlin. On the contrary. They had been shipped farther east to concentration camps. Oppenheimer’s neighbors had heard the rumors and knew that they were as good as dead. But they refused to give up hope, down to the last minute; even when the Gestapo came to bundle them off into the railway carriages, they wanted to believe that the whispered horrors were exaggerated, that they would somehow manage to survive. The Gestapo would probably be coming to pick up Dr. Klein soon. As his Aryan wife had passed away a week ago, he was no longer under the protection of a mixed marriage. Dr. Klein hoped that, due to his age, he would be taken to Theresienstadt, which was generally considered less terrible. Soon his room would be empty too.
And now Lisa, too, had almost left a gaping hole in the house under tragic circumstances.
“I must have forgotten to light the gas under the kettle,” she mumbled dazedly. “All the excitement with Richard … wanted to make some ersatz coffee.”
“It was a good thing the gas was turned off because of the air raid, Mrs. Oppenheimer; otherwise, things might have ended badly,” said Dr. Klein. He replaced his utensils in his battered medical bag. Oppenheimer looked thoughtfully at the two red Gestapo time cards fixed to the door opposite. “Unfortunately, the Lewinsky family isn’t here anymore. They would have noticed the smell of gas.”
Dr. Klein scrutinized Lisa, who was sitting at the table. The kettle began to whistle. Oppenheimer had boiled some water on the doctor’s instruction.
“Right, I think you really need some ersatz now. Or, wait a moment…” Furtively, Dr. Klein fumbled in his medical bag and conjured up some coffee beans. “Here, to get your circulation going again. Better than that old coffee substitute,” he remarked.
The effect was similar to him having dropped a lump of gold on the table. For a few seconds, Lisa’s accident was forgotten; they were much too busy staring in shock at the coffee beans. Provisions such as meat, eggs, or milk were rationed and were primarily only given to purebloods. Scarce goods like tomatoes or cauliflower were forbidden for Jews. Lisa was the only one in the Jewish House to occasionally receive a few grams of Aryan coffee. It was mainly handed out as special rations after particularly heavy air raids, which was why it soon came to be known as bomb coffee. Despite their stimulating effect, the black beans were clearly an effective means of keeping the population calm.
While Oppenheimer ground the coffee beans, he considered where the doctor might keep his secret stash. Given his considerable corpulence, there was every reason to assume that he hoarded provisions somewhere, but neither the vigilance of his fellow residents nor the Gestapo’s lootings had unearthed even a single crumb of his supplies.
“We’ve had numerous departures since I’ve lived here,” Dr. Klein remarked. “This is particularly painful to me as a doctor. You understand, the Hippocratic oath and all that. On the other hand, I can understand someone in our situation taking death into their own hands. But it shouldn’t happen by accident.”
He winked meaningfully at Lisa. Was he trying to imply that she had turned the gas on intentionally to kill herself? Oppenheimer was not sure.
Lisa ignored the doctor’s insinuations and sipped from the steaming cup that Oppenheimer had placed in front of her.
“I’m much better,” she mumbled. “We need new sand for the firebombs; Richard poured it out. And Schlesinger has to do something about the broken windowpane.”
When she made a move to get up, Klein placed his hand on her shoulder. “You must rest now, Mrs. Oppenheimer. I’ll inform Old Schlesinger. You’d best stay here, Mr. Oppenheimer.”
A telltale glimmer appeared in his eyes. Oppenheimer understood. “Do you need to”—he searched for the right words—“report the incident?”
“If our caretaker doesn’t ask, then I won’t have to lie. But don’t be surprised by your next gas bill. If I were you, I wouldn’t question it.”
After the doctor had taken his leave, Oppenheimer awkwardly placed his arm around Lisa. He felt guilty toward her; it was only because of him that she was in this situation. But Oppenheimer was not only plagued by guilt. Fear had crept into their love over the last few years. Oppenheimer knew that this situation wasn’t new to Lisa; she had always worried about him. After all, during his time with the police, he had often dealt with dubious characters. But ever since the first bombings began and put Lisa’s life in constant danger, too, Oppenheimer could appreciate what she had gone through all those years. When they weren’t together, there was always the fear that something might have happened to the other one.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“It was nothing. A murder investigation, routine stuff,” Oppenheimer reassured her.
“But you’re not with the crime squad anymore.”
“I don’t really know what they want. Me, of all people. It’s completely mad, but it seems like the SS needs me as an advisor.”
The mention of the SS made Lisa shudder. Panic flared up in her eyes.
“It could have been worse.” Oppenheimer tried to allay her fears. “They let me go again after all.”
“You’ve got to go to ground,” Lisa urged him, “immediately. You can’t stay here tonight; otherwise, they’ll catch you.”
“They won’t come again.”
“You can’t be sure of that. Go to Hilde. I have to go and see the Hinrichs later anyway. I promised Eva I would come by.”
“You heard what Dr. Klein said,” Oppenheimer reasoned. “You shouldn’t go to the Hinrichs’; you need to rest. I can’t leave you alone now. After all, I don’t need to visit Hilde every Sunday.”
Lisa shook her head. “You don’t understand. She’s helped us before. She should do something for you. You said she has connections. She knows people underground. It’s too dangerous if the SS is already turning up. You have to disappear!”
At first, Oppenheimer was reluctant, but he had to admit that Lisa was right. Hilde was his only hope. “All right, maybe it is possible to organize something. But it’s not necessary.”
“Richard, promise me you’ll disappear?”
Oppenheimer mumbled something incomprehensible. He hated when Lisa made him promise something. It was her way of giving orders.
It felt good to escape the Jewish House at the weekend. Although Oppenheimer and Lisa had a harmonious marriage, being confined to their accommodations was a test of their resilience. This was the reason why over time they had each gotten into the habit of doing their own thing on Sunday afternoons. Lisa rarely accompanied Oppenheimer when he visited Hilde. He knew that a different wife would probably not have allowed him to meet, unobserved, with another woman every Sunday. Even though Lisa had never been the jealous type, it was striking how relaxed she was about it all. Oppenheimer could only speculate about the reasons. Maybe it was because Hilde was a good ten years older than he, and Lisa didn’t see her as a rival. Maybe the fact that she could be certain he was safe also played a role. Hilde had repeatedly proved that she could be counted on.
Oppenheimer, on the other hand, had encouraged Lisa to cultivate her own circle of friends in the last few years, as he did not want her to rely on him too much. He could not rule out that he would be fetched by the Gestapo at some point. Too many Jews in mixed marriages had been killed for anyone to rely on being protected by their Aryan partner.
When Oppenheimer finally picked up his coat and hat, ready to leave, he hesitated. Eventually, he took the small vial out of the inside pocket of his coat.
“Here, take it,” Oppenheimer said and pressed one of his Pervitin pills into Lisa’s hand.
Lisa hesitated. “But you need them…”
“I’ve got enough for a while,” Oppenheimer lied and embraced her. He was unwilling to let her go again, but he had to leave.
Before Oppenheimer dared to go through the front door of the building, he, too, took a Pervitin pill. As he didn’t have any water, he chewed it and swallowed. When he wasn’t worrying about Lisa, he barely felt anything else. Too much had happened in the last few months. Death was part of everyday life. One could barely even influence his own fate. But he knew that in just under half an hour, the effect of the methamphetamine drug would set in, and then nothing could affect him anymore. One pill gave him the necessary energy to make it through the day. Given that after several months of regular consumption the effect slowly began to weaken, Oppenheimer should have increased the dosage, but because of his supply shortage, he only permitted himself one pill per day.
Thus strengthened, he stepped out into the street. The smell of burning assailed his nose. The light was hazy, the sky overcast in sulfur yellow. Although it was only two in the afternoon, night seemed to have fallen prematurely in the east as black smoke clouds enshrouded the city center. Oppenheimer briefly considered whether it made sense to take the tram or the subway to get to Hilde. But then he rejected the thought. The departure times would probably be all muddled after today’s attacks. He needed just under two hours to get to Hilde’s house on foot, so he strolled across the Hansa Bridge toward the Victory Column as if he were taking a Sunday morning walk.
As a rule, passersby were rarely unfriendly when they caught a glimpse of his Star of David. Sometimes they even nodded understandingly. But you had to be on your guard when faced with children or overzealous Nazis. The Gestapo had been strangely quiet in the last few months, seemingly ignoring the Jews who’d remained in the city. Although that was probably due to the fact that the Gestapo had more important problems to deal with ever since the Allied air raids, Oppenheimer found it impossible to trust the calm.
Previously, the Gestapo had clamped down with an iron hand. Oppenheimer had not been spared either. Nearly two years ago, one of the Gestapo’s so-called Dogcatchers had stopped him in the subway and taken him in to check his papers. At the time, Oppenheimer had resolved not to play along anymore, an act of defiance. Like many others, he could have traipsed to the Reich Office of Genealogy, laden with old photographs, family documents, and other papers, to somehow show that the family resemblance was not particularly strong. If you were a so-called cuckoo child—or even better yet, adopted—you could hope to be classified as half or quarter Jew. Oppenheimer, however, had not even considered this, but instead sought a way to surreptitiously get rid of his Star of David.
As he was now drawing nearer to the Victory Column, the time had come for him to enact his very personal Aryanization process.
He turned left at Großer Stern. Albert Speer, in his function as the inspector general of buildings for construction, had had the Bismarck memorial moved here together with its enormous column. Poured in bronze, the first German Reich chancellor stood on his podium of red granite, set back from the roundabout, flanked by the statues of his highest-ranking military officers Roon and Moltke. Each of these generals had been given his own alcove, separated from the surrounding park by a low stone wall. Today, Oppenheimer selected the memorial of Count Albrecht von Roon.
After having made sure that no one was watching, he began walking slowly around the podium, looking up toward the count, whose rigid visage with the demonic eyebrows and the pointed beard would have been reminiscent of a second-rate actor in the role of Mephistopheles had he not been wearing a splendid uniform, with his helmet held casually at his hip. The back of the podium was wide enough to hide behind. With a resolute tug, Oppenheimer removed the Star of David, which was sewn on only perfunctorily, and put it in his inside pocket. In Berlin, many wearers of the star did this because they knew they were protected by the anonymity of the big city.
As he stepped out from behind the memorial, no one would have paid any attention to the middle-aged man. Oppenheimer was perfectly disguised without the star. No one would have suspected that he had an identification card with a capital J for Jew on it and that for several years now he had been forced to use the additional first name Israel. Any passerby would have sworn that Richard Israel Oppenheimer could be nothing other than a true Aryan.
Oppenheimer’s relationship to the Jewish faith had been ambivalent since his early youth. Although his parents had not attached great importance to religion, he celebrated his bar mitzvah when he was thirteen as a matter of course. Oppenheimer enjoyed the ceremony in the synagogue, during which Jewish boys take on the religious “obligations of being a man” and become full members of the community, and he enjoyed the fact that he was allowed to read from the Torah in front of the entire community even more. But when, in the months leading up to this, he had to learn the mitzvoth, God’s 613 “positive and negative commandments,” he rebelled. Maybe he couldn’t see the purpose of some of these commandments, maybe adherence to the mitzvoth was just too inconvenient—Oppenheimer couldn’t really explain it afterward. In any case, his doubts became skepticism, which later turned into an aversion against all types of religion. Oppenheimer was a born skeptic who had seen too much to still believe in the existence of a God.
When he reached Potsdamer Platz, he saw where today’s bombing had caused the most damage. An impenetrable smoke cloud had formed parallel to Saarlandstraße, and he deduced that Wilhelmstraße was probably the worst hit.
Women were heading toward the fires from the high-rise bunker at the Anhalter Bahnhof train station. Wearing head scarves and with spades on their shoulders, they marched in pairs in a long row. Oppenheimer was able to make out blue labels with the word East stitched in white on their clothes—they were forced laborers from the East.
About three weeks ago, around the date of Hitler’s birthday, which was celebrated with great pomp and circumstance in Germany as usual, the fear of Berlin’s citizens had reached its zenith. As instructed by the propaganda ministry, countless red swastika flags hung from the windows. Some jokers had even decorated the piles of rubble in the street with paper flags. But no one saw them rustling in the wind, as the streets were long empty. Those able to afford it had squeezed into the overcrowded trains to escape the much-feared air raids. However, it turned out that the strategists in the Royal Air Force headquarters didn’t give much thought to trifles as the führer’s birthday. A birthday gift in the form of several tons of explosives failed to materialize, and so, against all expectations, the day had passed calmly.
The big hit had happened last Saturday.
As Oppenheimer crossed the hall of the Anhalter Bahnhof, he saw the significant progress that the clearing operations had achieved since then. You could hardly tell that during the air raid a driverless express train with burning carriages had borne down on the terminal at full speed. The train had hurtled into the station like a flaming missile, rammed through the buffer stop, and plowed up the platform alongside the tracks. But the remains of the train had already been removed and the gaping hole in the paving covered with new stones.
Oppenheimer had to force his way through a cluster of people at the exit to Möckernstraße. Beneath the stone arches, surrounded by the few possessions they had been able to save from their destroyed homes during the last air raid, stood those who had been bombed out. Children mute with shock, countless suitcases and bags, in between an old man in a rocking chair—a panoply of private catastrophes.
“Retaliation had to come.” The old man’s voice was full of apocalyptic ardor. “It was obvious that the English wouldn’t stand for Coventry.”
“Just leave it, Father,” his daughter silenced him and looked around surreptitiously for denunciators. Just to be sure, she added, “Everyone knows that the English started the bombing.”
A passerby wearing a gray felt hat tried to enter the station. “Please, everyone! People still have to get through! Thank you.”
“Just wait until our robot planes begin their attacks,” a twelve-year-old said, the circular insignia of the Hitler Youth proudly displayed on his chest. “They’ll get their dues when we hit back.”
“I hope our wonder weapon is ready soon,” said another boy with the same insignia. “It’s about time we showed those bastards.”
“Stop talking rubbish,” the old man sputtered. “You saw what happened. These terror bombers are flying in broad daylight. In daylight! How are we meant to oppose them?”
“Our fighters couldn’t get up there because of the clouds,” one of the squirts explained expertly.
Once again, the old man wanted to say something when his daughter pushed him firmly back down onto his rocking chair. “Be quiet now!” She looked toward the boys as if she wanted to excuse the old man’s utterances. But he wasn’t having any of it.
“They can’t harm me anymore. Everything’s gone! Everything!”
That was the last Oppenheimer heard of the discussion. There were enough people who harbored a grudge against Hitler. Hilde had told him that there was increasing bewilderment overseas about the fact that the bombings had not roused any resistance in the German people. They complained, but that was it.
Hildegard von Strachwitz owned a large house on the edge of Berlin-Schöneberg. Her uncle, an officer of the Imperial German Navy, had had it built at the turn of the century. With no children of her own, Hildegard became his sole heiress, as she had cared for him with great devotion during his last few years and was his only remaining relative not scared off by the old man’s increasing eccentricity. The fact that she was a doctor and had a good deal of experience with difficult characters had probably come in useful. Of times prior to that, Oppenheimer only knew that Hilde had been married. But the marriage had not gone well and had been annulled after a few years, after which she had taken on her maiden name again.
Next to the impressive mansion, there were two smaller buildings on Hilde’s property, subsequently built by her uncle: a garage and a separate house for the chauffeur. Since Hilde needed neither a chauffeur nor a car, she had turned that house into her doctor’s surgery. But as the National Socialists thought she had more than enough space at her disposal, over the last few months, families had been billeted to live in the main house after their houses had been bombed out. Without further ado, she had packed her belongings and had moved into the doctor’s surgery.
Oppenheimer was relieved to see that Hilde’s property had survived today’s attack unscathed. As usual, he turned into the small side street, where he could enter via the small back gate. He had often wondered where Hilde found the courage to meet him alone. After all, they risked being tried for racial defilement if it came to light that Oppenheimer was a Jew. But Hilde rarely paid any heed to the National Socialist rulers’ regulations.
As Oppenheimer headed to Hilde’s surgery, a woman staggered toward him, probably in her early thirties. She had just about reached him when she stumbled and clung onto his arm.
“Oops!” she cried cheerfully. “Those steps weren’t here earlier.”
As far as Oppenheimer could tell, there weren’t any steps now either.
“Sweet Jesus! Don’t say you got it from me, but that stuff the doctor lady has is much better than any liquor.”
Following this statement, she swayed toward the pavement. Oppenheimer was too surprised to consider helping her. Instead, he pressed the doorbell.
The door opened immediately, and Hilde stood before him. She didn’t normally go out at this time, but as usual, she wore subtle makeup and her hair was immaculately styled into waves. Her figure was growing increasingly plump with age, but she was able to hide this to some extent with her choice of smart clothes, and her graceful appearance continued to be untouched by the passage of time. Every inch of Hilde showed the observer that this was a woman of the world. Although she had experienced a great deal in her life, her eyes widened at the sight of Oppenheimer.
“Bloody hell, you look like something the cat spat out!” she exclaimed.