Paul asked his father, where they were taken, Father told him about the concentration camps the Nazis set up. Everybody the Nazis have a problem with is taken there.
Since the year before last, there is a camp named “Auschwitz”.
This camp is located in occupied Poland and the reason why Father broke his promise and became active again. His conscience just doesn’t allow him to sit around and do nothing, he told Paul. Not as long as “Auschwitz” exists.
Paul did not want to believe his father, when he told him that people in there, in particular Jews, are truly murdered. Is something like that really possible? That somebody just gives a cruel order to murder thousands of people, just because he doesn’t like them?
The whole thing sounds outrageous, but it is the truth. Father knows one of the Jews that was in there and lucky enough to escape. Father and his friend Hein helped this young man to get away to America. For hours, Paul’s parents and Hein were talking in the kitchen about that incredible cruelty, while he and Annemarie were sleeping. Father also told Paul about the selection process, the furnaces and giant mounts of laundry, jewelry and human hair that pile up in one of the extermination camp’s big halls.
They had this talk two weeks ago. Back then, they took the Weiß family that was living underneath their apartment for many years. Paul remembers how Pauline Weiß and he always played together with Axel, Maria and Liza, when they were younger.
They got woken up early in the morning. They could hear loud voices and crying in the hallway.
After that, the Behm family moved into the Weiß’s apartment. Behms are brown shirts, Father says. He is talking about the Nazis that used to wear brown shirts in the beginning of Hitler’s reign. Nowadays you can’t really tell who a Nazi is. Not all of them are wearing a uniform or a Nazi Party Swastika badge in their coat’s buttonhole.
“Come on, eat, Paul!” Father’s voice interrupts Paul’s thoughts.
The soup already turned cold. Annemarie fell asleep on the couch. Father sits at the table and flips through the weekly newspaper, Die Woche (The Week). Every now and then he makes some notes on the side of the newspaper.
Paul thinks about Alina. About Pauline and her parents, about Maria Goldberg; and about cute Liza Giesemann, he once was in love with. Katja and Peter Lipowetzky are afraid as well that they could be picked up. They both have to wear the star.
Paul remembers his teacher Herr Wolf at school who told them about the bad Jews. Supposedly all Jews have a hooked nose and black, wirily hair paired with black, piercing eyes. Besides, they all are supposed to be pudgy and stealing whatever they can. But the Jews that Paul knows are completely different.
Liza Giesemann had beautiful hazelnut brown curls, brown almond eyes and a cute snub nose. Furthermore she was very petite and the cutest and nicest girl, Paul had ever met. Maria Goldberg had blonde curls and blue eyes. She was slim-figured and a real good friend. She liked his friend Axel quite a bit.
Frau Lipowetzky is slim as well and has a pretty face, a straight nose, grayish blue eyes, brown hair; and besides that, she is the most honest woman Paul has ever known. Her husband is very thin and probably average height. His grey hair was brown, when he was young; his grey eyes are hidden behind thick glasses. He was a goldsmith before the Nazis closed down his shop. He is exceptionally honest and trustworthy.
But somebody like Herr Wolf doesn’t care at all. Herr Wolf is a brown one as well. Many people are brown: the families Schulze and Möller from across the yard, Herr and Frau Behm and Herr Braun in Paul’s house, just like most of the others from the surrounding houses, or Hamburg, or Germany.
Eventually there are some that do not believe the Nazi lies: The Sommer and the Schmidt family, Herr Holz and Fathers friend Heinrich Schön.
“Red Hein“ they call him; he lives somewhere hidden away. He is well known at the Gestapo, they have a big file about him. In there is documented that he was a jack on the same ship as Father. Luckily Hein was always able to escape and the Gestapo could never get a hold of him.
Axel’s father, Bernhard Sommer, a friend of Father’s as well, was a Socialist. He was not liked by the Führer and his men either. He was hit by a bullet at a meeting of the Social Democratic party that was brutally ended by the Nazi Storm Troops. He died the same day in the hospital, deadly wounded.
“Well, here I am.”
Mother comes through the door.
“Good that you’re here, Grete”, Father says. “Here, you should read that.”
He holds up the newspaper. Mother is reading and shaking her head at the same time.
“They are crazy. This time of the year in Russia…”, she murmurs and is talking about the “Operation Barbarossa”, the official Nazi name for the war against Russia. Thousands of German soldiers have frozen to death already. But the Führer won’t order the retreat. Instead he lets them continue to fight. More men are dying every day due to the arctic temperatures of Russia’s winter. That is why it was announced that they all have to collect winter clothes; so the soldiers won’t freeze to death.
Paul gets up to start the cast-iron stove again, so his mother’s soup can be heated up as well. But Mother pushes him back on his chair.
“Don’t worry. I’m not hungry anyway”, she states and gently strokes his hair.
Annemarie woke up. Mother sits down on the couch next to her.
“Did you feed Louise yet?” she wants to know from Father who just nods and goes back to reading his newspaper.
Annemarie snuggles up to her mother to sleep some more.
“Come on, Annemi”, Mother says, picks her up and carries her into the bedroom. “All right, both girls are asleep”, she sighs when she comes back. “Well, and how about you?”
She stands next to Paul and looks at him.
“How is Alina?” Paul inquires. Father looks at Mother as well.
“Her temperature is very high”, Mother says quietly. “She probably won’t make it through the night.”
Both Paul and his father look concerned. Mother sits down at the table and takes some soup. Paul watches her for a little while, then gets up and gazes out the window again.
The snow remained on the ground. A white blanket of snow formed over the yard. It still keeps snowing. Paul can only imagine the white snowflakes in the dark. But he can see the ice crystals on the kitchen window just fine. They sparkle in the candle light. They are not allowed to turn on the electric light, in case of another air attack. When there is light, there are people.
A chair scratches over the floor. Father got up. He walks over to the kitchen sink and fills a cup with tap water.
He drinks three more cups, then sits back down at the table and continues reading his newspaper. Mother takes the kettle with the soup and puts it in the pantry. Then she starts to do the dishes.
Suddenly they all stop and listen. There are heavy footsteps in the stairway.
Mother turns off the tap and Father puts his newspaper to the side. Paul walks over to his mother and waits
