Sofie
Once when I was young, I tagged along on my parents’ resort vacation to Étretat, in France. I was fascinated by L’Aiguille, the famous needle rock formation, as well as the archways of rock that looped out over the ocean. But my favorite feature was a little cave, tucked at the other end of the beach opposite the resort. I’d been exploring its nooks and crannies all week. On the last morning I sat with my nanny, side by side at the cave’s mouth, watching the waves roll toward our ankles.
“How did this happen?” I asked her. I stared up at the rock ceiling and enjoyed a shiver of adrenaline as I thought about the weight of the coast’s famous alabaster chalk above us.
“It takes a very long time to carve out a cave like this,” she said. “Millions of years. Every wave washes away just a tiny bit of the rock. Even this week, it’s grown. It’s just happened too slowly for us to see it.”
I thought about that a lot after the Nazis came to power and the trickle of anti-Jewish decrees began. The new laws were so narrow at first that they attracted little outcry. First came the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which mandated that civil servants provide proof of Aryan heritage. Most were easily able to do this. Those who had Jewish heritage, like Mayim’s father, Levi, were quietly dismissed.
Then came limits on the number of Jewish students at certain schools and colleges. Few beyond those directly affected even understood the impact of this. And when restrictions came for Jewish doctors, their licenses weren’t revoked—not at first. They could still practice, only now they could not claim reimbursement from public health insurance funds. Who would protest a minor administrative change? Not the Aryan doctors, that was for sure—they benefited because their Jewish competition soon went out of business. And by then, the rest of us were awash in propaganda that painted Jews as money obsessed and greedy. Few paid any attention when Jewish doctors tried to protest.
Hundreds of these decrees were passed, one by one. This is how polite society gives way to chaos. The collapse that comes at the end of the process is a consequence of the slow erosion over time.
The shift was happening with Lydia and Karl too, long before I recognized it. That polite distance between the zu Schillers and Mayim was once easy to explain away. But ever so slowly, the pattern of inviting Jürgen and me to this outing or that, leaving Mayim out of the equation altogether, became entrenched.
“Maybe Mayim could tag along?” I suggested one day, when Lydia invited us to the opera.
“Oh, I only have four tickets,” she told me. And then a few weeks later, when I wanted to bring Mayim to dinner: “Karl and Jürgen need to talk about rocket business, and you know how secretive all that is.”
After that, Lydia called to plan a trip to the Berlin Zoo for Horst and Ernst’s birthday. I twisted the telephone cord around my hand, feeling strangely nervous as I suggested, “Mayim can join us. She loves the zoo, and she’ll be such a great help with the children.”
“Oh, no nannies this time. Better if it’s just us, I think,” Lydia said lightly.
“You know very well that Mayim is not our nanny, Lydia,” I snapped. “Do you have a problem with her?”
“Of course not,” Lydia said, laughing easily, as if I were foolish to ask. “I’d prefer we keep it a small group, that’s all.”
Karl and Jürgen now worked closely together and there seemed no easy way to extract myself from my friendship with Lydia, even after a dinner party that removed any doubt.
I’d been anxious about the dinner for weeks. Lydia assured me we needed new dresses for the occasion, and while I was grateful to be able to visit the dressmaker without worrying about the cost, her insistence only reminded me what a milestone this event would be. The rocket program was almost two years old and the tiny team that once comprised only Jürgen and Karl had grown to dozens of men. This would be the first social gathering of the most senior of the staff with their wives—and most importantly, Jürgen and Karl’s boss, Otto Werner.
“Well, aren’t you a vision?” Jürgen said, when I joined him in the foyer. He had been paid a huge bonus when the rocket program successfully launched a small prototype the previous summer, and he’d given me every cent. I saved some in the safe in Jürgen’s office and gave the rest to Mayim, and she convinced her parents to take it. After Levi lost his civil service job, he found work in a quarry—but within a few months, he badly injured his back. Now he couldn’t work at all—some days, the injury left him bedbound. The family had been surviving on Moshe’s scant wages from his part-time bakery job before school, as well as help from the Reichsvertretung, the Jewish self-help charity. Jürgen and I agreed that we would give them every Reichsmark we could spare.
I admired the fit of Jürgen’s double-breasted silver-gray suit, and the tight knot of his navy-and-white polka-dot tie. He scooped a gray hat from the rack, then extended his elbow toward me.
“Shall we?”
But then the children appeared on the landing, dutifully coming downstairs to say goodbye. Georg was five and looking forward to entering the Grundschule elementary school program in the summer. Laura, at three, had a striking combination of my auburn hair and Jürgen’s thick waves, his bright blue eyes and my petite nose.
“Mama, you look so pretty,” Georg told me, eyes wide. The morning of the party, I’d been to the salon and had my hair set, and I’d purchased a new lipstick. I was touched that my little boy noticed the extra effort.
“Thank you, treasure.”
“Laura has some lipstick too?” Laura asked hopefully. Mayim, who joined us in the foyer, hid a smile as she extended a hand. Laura ran unsteadily down the last set of stairs to take it.
“Maybe you can try some of mine on after we have dinner,” Mayim told her. Laura gasped in delight as they waved us off.
I was nervous about meeting Otto. He wasn’t just Jürgen and Karl’s boss and a manager with the program—he was also a senior member of the Nazi party. Otto’s wife, Helene, would be in attendance too, as well as the other senior staff from the Kummersdorf program...and our neighbors Dietger and Anne Schneider, who lived across the road from us.
Dietger had recently been appointed the official Nazi Blockleiter—our neighborhood block warden. He was the perfect choice. He had always been the neighborhood gossip, and the authority that came with the role only amplified his keen observation skills. I had no idea how he kept abreast of the business of the entire neighborhood, but if a window was smashed, he knew how it happened, seemingly before the owner did. If a husband and wife had an argument, he knew who was at fault and who had been wronged. It was because of Dietger that Jürgen, Mayim, and I realized we had no choice but to adopt the now-standard greeting—the Hitler salute. Another neighbor from around the corner, Leopold Braunbeck, refused to give Dietger the salute. By the next morning, Leopold was imprisoned in one of the horrid concentration camps the Nazis had set up to punish their political enemies. It was months before Leopold was released, and when he came home, he was a quiet, compliant shadow of his former self.
Maybe once upon a time, we’d have said a variation on hello or good day a handful of times each day, but now we were absurd parrots, greeting every person we encountered with a Heil Hitler.
Dietger’s remarkable ability to keep track of the neighborhood’s business was deeply unnerving. In the beginning, I dared to mention this to some of the neighbors, and we all agreed we were feeling more than a little paranoid. But over time, as none of us could figure out how he knew so much about our private lives, we realized it wasn’t even safe to speculate. A call from a Blockleiter to the Gestapo guaranteed trouble, usually starting with a knock at your front door in the middle of the night.
Our second-story bedroom window opened to the street, and I’d heard some of those overnight visits. First came the roar of an engine, then the sound of hard-soled boots on the pavement and men scurrying like rats. Even if I didn’t hear the thumping on the door and the cries of protest as people were dragged from their homes, I often heard the car speeding away. Dietger was always there, seemingly delighted at the cascading fallout from his phone calls.
“What should I expect tonight?” I asked Jürgen, as he drove us to the party in his new Daimler 15. I pressed my hands over my stomach, trying to quell the nervous butterflies. Jürgen’s entire life had changed with that new job—he now worked from sunup to sunset, six or even seven days a week, out at Kummersdorf, a forty-minute drive from Berlin. But while I’d been a firsthand witness to the changes in wider Berlin society, I felt so removed from Jürgen’s work life.
“The staff are all scientists—just ask them about their work and you can let your mind wander while they ramble on. You’re good at that after all of these years with me.”
“Very funny.” I swallowed a lump in my throat and prompted hesitantly, “And Otto and Helene?”
“I’ve never met Helene. Otto takes some getting used to.”
“In what way?”
“He reminds me of your brother, actually.” Jürgen paused, then clarified, “Which one is the pastor? Is it Alwin?”
“Alwin married that peasant girl,” I corrected him. I didn’t blame him for confusing my brothers—they all looked similar, and he’d only met them three times: at our wedding, and then at each of my parents’ funerals. “Edwald is the pastor. So Otto is very religious?”
“He’s a zealot, but not for the Christian faith,” Jürgen said heavily. “He’s a Party man—very much all about his ideology. It’s hard, Sofie—I won’t lie to you. You’ll hear things you don’t like. But for God’s sake, don’t argue with him—it would do me no favors at Kummersdorf, and from time to time I get the impression he only tolerates me because he needs me.”
“I hoped that the program was so focused on the rockets, you weren’t dealing with any of that.”
Jürgen parked the car, then turned the ignition off. He sat for a moment, pondering this. Then he turned toward me.
“My work—my team’s work—is about the rockets, that’s true. But there’s no escaping ‘that,’ not even at Kummersdorf. I bite my tongue every day. Every hour, on the worst days.”
“You never talk about that side of it.”
“Of course I don’t,” he said. “I’m your husband. It’s my job to shelter you, not burden you.”
“But...I want to support you. To help.”
His expression softened, and Jürgen reached for my hand.
“My love,” he said quietly. “As you’ll see tonight, there’s really not anything you can do to help with this. We just have to keep our heads down and not draw attention to ourselves.”
I nodded silently, but there was a rock in the pit of my stomach. Whenever I asked Jürgen about work, he always spoke only about the science—and never in much detail, because the program was becoming increasingly secretive.
We mingled in Lydia’s sitting room—a space so expansive it may as well have been a banquet hall. Every new scientist I met said some variation on the same thing. Jürgen is a genius. Jürgen is my hero. Jürgen is a visionary. As he often did at parties, Jürgen followed me around like a lost puppy. He waved away these compliments and occasionally blushed in a way I found so endearing.
But while I found the scientists exactly as I expected, Lydia surprised me. We’d gone to such lengths to plan our new outfits and I’d expected Lydia to dazzle in her new plum frock—inspired by the height of the season’s fashion. Instead, she was dressed in Trachtenkleidung—a traditional folk outfit. She wore a long, full brown skirt with a thick black band encircling the hem, paired with a white blouse with gathered sleeves and a crocheted collar, and over the top, a black bodice.
I’d known Lydia since my first day at finishing school, and I’d never seen her dress in such an old-fashioned way. I tried to ask her about it, but when she wasn’t busy with guests, she was busy with her staff. After a while, I decided I would talk to her when things were a little quieter. While I waited, Jürgen and I made obligatory small talk with Dietger and Anne.
“And how are things at the Rhodes household?” Dietger asked. I smiled politely and rested my head against Jürgen’s arm, stifling my irritation. He knew how things were in our household. He spent a good portion of his life staring out his front windows, watching us.
“I hear you are doing great work for the Reich these days, Jürgen,” Anne said quietly.
“I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such exciting science,” Jürgen said carefully. Just then, Otto and Helene approached, exchanging warm and familiar greetings with the Schneiders.
“And you must be Sofie,” Otto said, finally glancing my way. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His tone conveyed a different feeling. His brow furrowed as his gaze roamed over my face and then quickly down my body, before he pursed his lips. I flushed self-consciously, then glanced at Helene. Otto was older than I’d imagined he would be—at least in his fifties, maybe older. He was a portly man with thinning silver hair. Helene was decades younger than Otto and she was pregnant, her small belly jutting out.
Like Lydia, Helene was dressed in Trachtenkleidung. Unlike Lydia, Helene did not wear a scrap of makeup, and her light hair was clumsily braided. Was my modern style the reason for Otto’s displeasure?
“Do you have children?” she asked me quietly.
“Two,” I told her, smiling. “Georg has just turned five, and Laura is three.”
“Your husband is a gifted man, Sofie,” Otto said. “I hope you realize how lucky you are to bear his children for the Führer. The Reich needs Aryan families to be productive.”
I lifted my wine to my mouth to take a sip, only to choke as I swallowed. Jürgen gently tapped me on the back—the gesture both comfort and warning. We did hope to have more children—but we were also unconcerned that I hadn’t got pregnant again. I was only twenty-four, after all. There was plenty of time left for us to expand our family.
Just then, Lydia sailed past me on her way to the kitchen. I excused myself, insisting she required my help. I caught up with her in her kitchen, where she was delivering sharp chastisements to her staff about a delay with the starters. When she was done, she turned to me. My gaze dropped to her clothes automatically and she grimaced.
“Yes, I know. I look like I’ve just come in from the fields on some godforsaken farm,” Lydia whispered. “But it’s the newest style, apparently. I picked it up from the Deutsches Modeamt today.”
The Deutsches Modeamt was a fashion department backed by the Nazi government, advocating for German designers and German fabrics. I’d heard they made beautiful clothing, but as I took in Lydia’s outfit, I struggled to hide my confusion.
“I think this was the style some time ago. Didn’t we move on to more modern clothing?”
“And did you notice Helene isn’t wearing makeup?” Lydia murmured, as we walked back toward the party. “I bought a traditional outfit when Karl asked me to, but if he tells me to stop wearing my eyeliner, I’ll throw myself off a cliff.”
“I doubt Karl even knows what eyeliner is.”
She laughed. “Otto says it’s unfeminine for women to wear modern clothes or makeup. But the worst...” She groaned and touched a careful hand to her blond bob. “He says German women should never dye their hair. I can’t go back to mousy brown, Sofie. I just can’t.” Lydia visited the salon so often, I never noticed a shadow at her root line.
“You really needn’t concern yourself with what Otto thinks,” I said quietly. “He’s not your husband.”
“Sofie,” she scolded. “Don’t you realize how important Otto is? Our husbands have the ear of a man who has the ear of the Führer.”
It quickly became clear that what Otto thought about any particular subject was of great concern to the rest of the dinner party, and he monopolized the conversation that night. It didn’t matter who was speaking or what the discussion was about—Otto found a way to interject, often to disagree.
I always loved Lydia and Karl’s dinner parties, in that beautiful dining hall with its high ceilings and elaborate chandeliers. That night had all the makings of a fun evening—dressing up, socializing with clever and important people, beautiful surroundings, excellent food. Jürgen was seated to my right, beside Otto, and on my left was Aldo Radtke, a recent university graduate and the youngest scientist present. As the scent of roasting pork knuckle wafted from the kitchen, I sipped on my wine and turned to Aldo, trying desperately to ignore Otto’s booming voice.
“I’ve only been working at Kummersdorf for about six months, Mrs. von Meyer Rhodes—”
“Please, call me Sofie.”
“Sofie,” the young scientist said, his cheeks turning pink. “I’m an electrical engineer. You see, there are many ways to control—”
But once again, Otto was delivering a sermon. My ears pricked up, and I turned ever so slightly toward him.
“...when a man is sick, you cannot just treat the symptoms. You have to rid him of the underlying cause of the sickness—the germs. It is like this with the Jews, you see. While the Reich is riddled with Jews, society cannot function as it should. That’s why the Party’s highest priority is addressing the scourge.”
I turned fully toward Otto, but I was looking beyond him at the reactions of those at the table. Whenever I’d encountered such hateful comments in the past, I’d noticed a split-second pause after the words—as if the audience held their breath to see how others would respond. Even if no one spoke out, that pause reminded everyone that a line had been crossed.
But there was no pause when Otto spoke. Every single guest seemed enthralled. A chill ran down my spine when my gaze landed on Lydia. She was seated beside Karl. Her cheeks were rosy red, from the fire or the wine or the excitement of the evening, her eyes bright. I wanted so much for her to look at me, even for a second. What would I see in her eyes? We once had a good friendship—a solid friendship—but my respect for Lydia was disappearing by the minute.
“They look human, I know,” Otto continued, louder now, pleased to have the attention of the entire gathering. “It can be confusing to those who do not yet understand, but the science is clear—Jews are truly subhuman creatures. They lack the intellect and the moral purity the Aryans possess. It is such a problem that they have weaseled their way into secret positions of authority, pulling the strings of so many inferior nations. Even our nation in the past.”
“Which is it?” I whispered under my breath to Jürgen. “The Jews are intellectually inferior, or they are smart enough to secretly run the world? Surely both things can’t be true.”
“Sofie?” Karl called on me suddenly. “Did you have something to add?”
All eyes turned to me. I imagined two paths forward—the first, where I repeated my question again, louder. This was surely the moral thing to do. How could I sit idly by?
But how would the room react? Otto would be embarrassed and furious. Even if he didn’t report me to the Gestapo for disloyalty, Dietger surely would.
Who would support me if that happened? Karl was the man who put me on the spot. Lydia looked confused, her gaze flicking between me and Otto. Jürgen turned to face me too. I saw a mix of panic and pleading in the depths of his blue eyes.
My face flamed as I realized I had no choice but to choose the other path—the lesser path. The Nazis had not just made comments like Otto’s acceptable—they’d made them fashionable. That was why there was no pause, no silent acknowledgment of the line that had been crossed. The line had been moved. How on earth had the Nazis flipped things around so quickly?
“I’m embarrassed to admit it,” I said, forcing a weak laugh. “I was just wondering how far away that pork knuckle is. Doesn’t it smell delicious?”
The brittle tinkle of laughter echoed around the table. Jürgen almost slumped with relief, and he fished for my hand under the table, then squeezed it. Hard.
But Otto’s eyes stayed on me a moment too long, as did Dietger’s. Before the main course was served, I was counting down the seconds until we could leave.
Guests were excusing themselves by eleven o’clock. Dietger and Anne were the first to go, rubbing their full bellies and thanking Lydia and Karl as they left. When Aldo rose to leave, he stumbled as he tried to push back his chair. The wine and beer had flowed thick and fast all evening, and many of the men looked disheveled.
There was a flurry of conversation about how everyone would make their way home. Jürgen offered to take Aldo. We’d be traveling well out of our way, but I didn’t mind—the young man was clearly in no state to drive. Others decided to drive despite their evening of indulgence. To my surprise, Otto asked for assistance.
“Do you think you could see to it to have your driver help Helene and me get home?” he asked Karl. He’d had plenty to drink, but it was over many hours, and he seemed relatively sober compared to some of the others.
“I’ll fetch Gerhard,” Lydia said, offering Otto a reassuring smile before she turned toward the staff wing. Jürgen was still deep in conversation with another colleague, so I fell into step beside her, frowning.
“Gerhard?”
It struck me suddenly that it had been some time since I’d seen Karl’s driver, Fischel. That wasn’t unusual—the zu Schiller staff generally remained invisible unless there was a need for them.
“Yes,” she said lightly. “Our lovely new driver.”
“What happened to Fischel?”
“It was time, Sofie,” she said, dropping her voice.
“You fired him?” My stomach dropped. Fischel worked for Karl for years—since even before he married Lydia. I thought the two men were friends.
“He moved on,” she simply said. “And thank God he did, because I’m fairly sure Otto is only asking to use our driver to double-check that we let the Jew go. It really was for the best.”
If I’d been a braver woman, I’d have asked: The best for who?
But that lonely moment at the table was so fresh in my mind, and I hadn’t even had the chance to sort through my thoughts on it.
I fell behind as Lydia powered toward the staff quarters, but a sudden wave of sadness hit me, and instead of waiting for her, I turned and walked back to Jürgen and Aldo.
“You just can’t do things like that,” Jürgen said. We were still at the curb out front of Aldo’s parents’ home, watching as the young man walked unsteadily up the path toward the front door. Jürgen pinched the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses askew. “I told you in the car on the way to the party. You have to ignore the comments you don’t like. It’s the only way.”
“Did you know Karl and Lydia fired Fischel?”
Jürgen sighed and tilted his head back, as if looking to the heavens for help.
“What?” I said impatiently.
“Of course they fired Fischel.”
“But—”
“Unlike me or most of those men you met tonight, Karl is replaceable. He doesn’t have a science background to bring to the program, so instead, he plays politics to advance his career,” Jürgen said. “It’s working for him so far. Otto is fond of him.”
“But Fischel has been on Karl’s staff as long as we’ve known him. I cannot believe that Karl would fire him just to climb the ladder.”
“Maybe Karl’s decision is just like when you and I realized we simply have to give the salute.”
“So...you don’t think Lydia and Karl really buy into all of that nonsense about the Jews?” I asked Jürgen uncertainly.
“If they are acting, they are doing a very convincing job of it.”
“We could ask them.”
He pulled away from the curb, sighing heavily.
“It’s my intention to do everything I can to focus on my work. If we force a confrontation with the zu Schillers, there’s a good chance we’re going to be disappointed with how they respond, and by asking the question, we’ve revealed our discomfort. It’s like listening to Otto when he rants about the Jews or the disabled or the homosexuals. I could argue back—I mean, for God’s sakes, what ‘science’ is this? But does that really help? Does it change Otto’s mind? No. All it does is force him to confront the reality that he and I disagree. It’s best to stay focused on what we still have in common. In the case of Karl and Otto and me, that’s the rocket program. For you and Lydia, it’s our children and our friendship.”
In those first few early years of Nazi rule, each day mostly felt like the one before—warm family dinners, lunches at the park with Lydia while our children ran wild around us, frustrating and wonderful moments with my children, Mayim and I chuckling over some private joke, sharing glances at Adele each morning as I somehow, yet again, managed to offend Jürgen’s aunt with a single word or phrase.
But when I was forced to look back at how life changed in such a short period of time, I could barely believe I was in the same city. Outside of our family and outside of our home, the nation had morphed, and every interaction was now fraught.
As Jürgen parked the car on the street outside our house, I looked across the road to the Schneider house just in time to see an upstairs curtain swing back into place.
“Dietger keeping watch on us?” Jürgen asked. When I sighed to confirm his suspicions, Jürgen waggled his eyebrows at me and leaned in as if he was going to kiss me. “Should we give him a show?”
I laughed and moved to push him away playfully, but he caught my hands in his and his expression suddenly sobered.
“I’m important to the program in a way that Karl is not. I have no interest in joining the Nazi party, let alone climbing its ranks. I hope we’ll be okay, but you do need to understand...” He cleared his throat, then jerked his chin toward our house. “I hope to God it doesn’t happen, but the day may come when it’s a problem for a man like me to have a Jewish friend, especially one who lives under his own roof.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he said gently, “You’ve seen how quickly things have changed. You know in your heart that what I’m saying is true.”
My heart sank. I looked back toward the house, chest tight as I whispered, “And if that day comes?”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said. I turned back to scowl at him, and Jürgen’s gaze softened. “I just wanted to make sure you were thinking about it, because the day may come when our relationship with Mayim becomes a problem.”
Early at the start of the new school year, Mayim’s brother, Moshe, learned that his school’s quota of Jewish students had been reduced. He was sixteen and had already decided to train as a baker, so he dropped out to free up a space for another student.
Levi and Sidonie decided that Moshe should go to Krakow to live with his grandfather because “it’s only a matter of time before it becomes illegal for a Jew to even bake bread in this country.” Like Sidonie and Mayim, Moshe was a Polish citizen. This was not an uncommon scenario—there were tens of thousands of people born in Germany to Polish parents who were automatically granted Polish citizenship.
A boy like Moshe had become a walking target on the streets of Berlin by then. He’d been harassed by Hitler youth thugs a number of times and lucky to escape with only minor scrapes and bruises.
Mayim asked me to go with her to say goodbye to Moshe, so we left the children with Adele and took the trolley car across to Mitte. By the time we arrived at the tenement building, she was weeping. We paused at the bottom of the stairs so she could compose herself.
“I don’t want to upset my parents any more than they already are.” Mayim sniffed as she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Moshe is a strong boy. And he’s resourceful. Remember that summer at Potsdam when he had been sick, so your mama wouldn’t let him tag along when we played in the creek? And he set that dishcloth on fire in the kitchen sink to distract her so he could run off after us?”
She laughed through her tears, but the grief and the fear returned to her eyes almost immediately.
“He’s just sixteen. He shouldn’t be sent away like this. We barely know my grandfather.”
“Your grandfather also raised your mother, and she’s one of the finest people I know.”
I felt like an intruder as they prepared to say goodbye—a feeling reinforced by the fact that there wasn’t enough room in the kitchen for a fifth chair. Sidonie insisted I take hers, but that simply meant she hovered behind me, wringing her hands and sobbing. Levi was beside me, his face blanched with pain as he sat twisted on the hard wooden chair. He was determined the family should farewell Moshe together, and the original plan was for us to meet at the train station—but his back was so bad that day, the kitchen was as far as he could manage.
“We mustn’t take long or Moshe will miss his train,” he said stiffly, and after that, Moshe went to fetch his suitcase from his bedroom. When he returned, Mayim embraced him, weeping into his chest.
“I love you. I’ll miss you,” she choked out. I couldn’t remember when he grew taller than us, but at sixteen, Moshe towered over Mayim and me. He seemed mature beyond his years—calm and reserved. When the time came for Moshe to hug me goodbye, he spoke quietly in my ear.
“Look after her, won’t you?”
I’d been dry-eyed as Mayim’s moral support, but the concern in his voice made my eyes sting. I cleared my throat as we separated and tried to keep my voice light as I said, “Isn’t it you we should be worried about, venturing off into the big wide world on your own?”
Moshe shook his head.
“I’ll only be in Krakow,” he said quietly. He glanced toward his family, then dropped his voice as he added, “I wish they could all come with me.” The rest of the family were Polish citizens, but Levi was not, and Poland was issuing few entry visas to German Jews. “Papa says Germany is our home, but is a place really ‘home’ if you’re not welcome there anymore? I’ll be safe in Poland. I wish I could say the same for those I’m leaving behind.”