‘But I still don’t understand why she would tell me that – if it’s all just rubbish?’ said Asta. ‘She likes me – she wouldn’t want to upset me!’
‘You can love a dog, Asta, but never think of it as an equal. I think that she wants it to be true – your brother had a point. She would never measure the heads of the other girls in your class because then she might have to doubt everything she’d been told… and right now, these lies, these slurs, they’re holding everything together, for the people using it to rise to power.’
The twins were enrolled at the local Jewish school due to the sheer force of their mother’s will – that and the sympathy of Rabbi Bloch. They were past capacity but when Mutti explained what had happened, he said they could make things stretch a little wider to accommodate them.
For the twins, the new school was a reprieve. After a year and a half of education that was becoming increasingly about the Nazi Party – that left them feeling like outsiders while they were forced to listen to incentives that encouraged the non-Jewish youth to become model German children and join the Youth League, where lessons on what made someone seemingly inferior was because they were like them, and Jewish, or had some other ‘flaw’ had become daily life – the new school was like coming up for a breath of air.
Here they could speak loudly, laugh or say what they felt. Their new friends were like them; many hadn’t even known they were ‘Jewish’ in any real sense, until Hitler told them they were.
‘My grandfather was Jewish, apparently,’ said a boy named Otto on their first day. ‘I mean, my mother was adopted so she didn’t know until we were told we had to prove our ancestry.’
‘Same thing happened to our priest – he was told he couldn’t be one anymore because someone in his family had once been Jewish,’ said another girl, named Sara.
‘A priest?’ Asta asked in shock. ‘Even that’s not Christian enough?’
‘Apparently not.’
For a time, it was possible to forget about Hitler, and their worries. ‘He won’t be in power forever,’ said their mother, ‘and then those stupid laws will be gone; they’ve lost too many valuable people – doctors, lawyers and the rest – they’ll have to change it back.’ They hoped that was the case.
It certainly felt like life was improving. The twins came home from school with smiles every day. They weren’t the same children who’d once come home laughing and pulling pranks on Polgo Hausman’s water taxi; they were older, and warier, but the longer they spent in their new school, making friends like themselves, the happier they had become. Which gave their parents comfort.
‘It was a good call, that school,’ Papa said one Saturday as they walked to the park. They’d just finished their ice creams and for a while they could almost feel as if things were about to return to normal.
On the way home, they passed their old neighbour, Geoff Rubenstein. He looked like a shadow of his former self. He’d lost weight and his hair had turned completely white. His clothes were old, dirty and frayed.
They stared at him in shock, while Papa clutched his arm. ‘It is good to see you, my old friend, but I must admit, I am surprised – I thought you’d gone to England?’
‘Pah, that fell through – my cousin couldn’t vouch for me, he needed to be earning enough for us all. Times are tough there, too. We’re looking at other options now.’
‘But are you all right – where are you staying?’ asked their father, concerned.
‘We’re with my sister – her husband served in the war so he still has a job. Hana – my wife, she’s doing some sewing and washing – we’re getting by, we’re better off than many, don’t worry. Besides, we’re going to America, I have family there – it’s going to be fine. It was nice to see you,’ he said, stopping and smiling at the children like he always used to on the stairs of their apartment – usually after he handed them each a sweet from his pocket. Peppermints or toffees.
He handed them each one now. ‘Still can afford these, so it’s not all bad,’ he said and he winked.
He wasn’t the only one forcing a smile on his face.
On 15 September 1935, new laws came into effect, known as the Nuremberg Laws. They forbade marriages and relationships between Jews and Germans and officially stripped the Jews of their German citizenship.
Papa became obsessed with keeping their passports safe. ‘They can’t take these from us,’ he kept saying.
Finally, even Mutti agreed that the time had come to look at moving.
Unfortunately, there were half a million Jews in Germany thinking of doing the same, and many countries had begun making the process increasingly difficult.
‘We still have our jobs,’ said Mutti. ‘We’re okay.’
Their friends felt the same way, including a fellow doctor, who had taken a job selling medical supplies to hospitals – because he hadn’t fought in the First World War and wasn’t allowed to practise medicine unless it was in a Jewish hospital. ‘It’s not all bad, my hours are better and besides, Hitler is focused on expanding Germany – and rebuilding the economy, so at some point they’ll see sense.’
Papa had looked at him incredulously. ‘I don’t think he will.’
‘Oh, Fritz, you worry too much,’ said Mutti, patting his knee.
Germany invaded Austria and got away with it, with not so much as a slap on the wrist. It seemed that no one wanted to enter another world war. Nineteen thirty-eight brought with it new laws that were going to make life even harder for them. Jews were forbidden from practising medicine, but Papa got around this by getting a job at the Jewish hospital with Mutti. It was not even a third of the salary of what he had before.
‘We’re lucky,’ Mutti told the twins. ‘At least we have jobs.’
The twins knew that their parents wanted them to believe that was the case. Late at night they heard them talking about their aunt, Trine, in Denmark.
‘Do you think we should try to get hold of her – try to get her to help us, perhaps she can vouch for us?’ Mutti asked Papa.
Asta heard them speaking on her way to the kitchen, and paused behind the door in the sitting room.
‘I don’t want to worry her,’ said Papa, ‘besides, we haven’t registered our paperwork yet.’
It was a horrible predicament – they couldn’t apply for a visa without showing the authorities their passports – and that would ensure that theirs were stamped with the official ‘J’. And there was the possibility that the visa could be denied and then they’d never be able to get out of the country.
She heard Mutti’s anxious voice. ‘She’s sent two letters already. I think we can safely say that your sister is worried.’
‘I thought you didn’t want to go to Denmark?’
‘That was before!’
‘Okay, okay, I’ll phone her,’ he promised.
Asta left then, wondering if they were going to leave for Denmark after all. But in the days that followed they heard nothing more.
All Jews were now required to have a new middle name, Sara for females, and Israel for males – these were to be added at the registry office by law. Also, a large J was to be stamped inside their passports. Papa refused – especially the latter.