footsteps stop in front of their door for a second, but then continue to go up. Upstairs somebody knocks at a door. Then Paul and his parents can hear Herr Lipowetzky’s startled voice, but can’t understand what he is saying.
“Oh no!” Mother whispers shocked. “Not Katja and Peter!”
They can hear Frau Lipowetzky’s voice now, she is begging and pleading, but rough male voices cut her short.
Paul and his parents stand behind their door and listen. The footsteps seem to go downstairs again. This time they can hear another set of clicking footsteps and somebody scuffing his feet. The heels on Katja’s shoes make the exact same clicking noise and Peter always scuffs his feet. All footsteps pass their door and continue downstairs. Father is ready to open up the door and run after them, but Mother holds him back.
“Don’t, Max!” she begs. “Do you want them to take you as well?”
Father sighs and takes his hand off the door handle.
“You are right, Grete”, he says quietly. “Sadly, we can’t do anything for them anymore.”
Mother takes Paul’s hand and pulls him away from the door as well.
“You have to go to sleep now”, she states.
A little reluctant at first to go to bed that early, Paul is taken to the bedroom and put to sleep. It is not that late yet, a little after 10 p.m. maybe. Yet he can sleep in tomorrow, because he doesn’t have to go to school. The schools have been shut down due to the air attacks; besides, many teachers have been drafted for the war. Herr Wolf’s brother, a teacher as well, died a lieutenant in Russia.
*****
“Finally that dirty lot was taken”, Paul can hear Herr Braun saying.
Paul sits on the carpet bar, his feet are dangling in the air and he tries to look as innocent as possible. He pretends he doesn’t watch Herr Braun or Herr Behm, but he listens to every word they say.
“I don’t understand, how they were allowed to live here for that long and soil that beautiful apartment”, Frau Behm says.
“Correct”, her husband agrees, “the Führer said years ago that something has to be done about that dirty Jewish lot.”
“So those parasites won’t steal our work places!” Herr Braun rants.
Herr Braun is unemployed. He thinks the reason for him not having a job is that the Jews already took all jobs; even though that’s not true. Paul learned from his father that Herr Braun was simply fired, because he was so damn lazy. But usually everybody finds faults in everyone but themselves, Father said. Consequential somebody had to take the blame for everything. They were looking for a scapegoat.
Paul wanted to know from his father, why the Führer and his Reich Minister of Propaganda chose the Jews to go after, out of all people? Is the weird Nazi’s Raciology the reason for all this? It states that Jews are inferior to the Arian Master Race.
That’s all rubbish, Father said, a pseudo-scientifically justification for the exclusion of one part of the population. The bad part about it is that the majority of all Reich citizens believe that explanation without ever questioning it, so there are not many people pro-Jewish.
Jews have been an expelled and hunted group of people for centuries and have always been outsiders in society. That’s probably why they were picked by the Nazis and the Führer to blame them for everything. Even Emperor Wilhelm back then didn’t really mean well. He just didn’t hate them as much as the Führer does.
Paul cannot understand at all what the Führer has against people like the Lipowetzkys, the Goldbergs or the Giesemanns. They are just normal people, human beings like him and Axel. Just like the Führer is. He is just a human being as well. He has red blood running through his veins like everybody else has.
“Still his people and the Führer think they are something better”, Father says.
Paul can’t really comprehend all that. He hopes though that he will one day. “Earlier today they picked up the old Silberstein woman”, Herr Behm continues. Frau Silberstein, the old lady from No. 38? Paul has a hard time believing it.
“She deserved it, that old witch”, Frau Behm rants.
Just last week Frau Silberstein took the last badge of dried vegetables at the store, right when Frau Behm wanted to get it. After that, Frau Behm told everyone, that Frau Silberstein is a witch.
Father just silently shook his head, when Paul told him about that. If he could imagine Frau Silberstein flying on a broom for Walpurgis Night, Father had asked him then. Paul couldn’t imagine. He still couldn’t, when Frau Behm told Frau Schulze she had seen Frau Silberstein cooking devilish potions in her kitchen.
Frau Silberstein knows about herbal remedies and has “healing hands”. She has helped Katja Lipowetzky to deliver Alina. Paul has to think about Frau Silberstein’s wrinkly face with those shiny, quick eyes, and about her silver hair. Back then, when there still was candy to be bought at the shops, she always gave him and the other children something sweet. That nice old lady was picked up? Paul doesn’t want to know, where she is taken and what they will do to her.
“The Führer is right”, Herr Behm carries on. “Those Jews are damaging the German nation’s reputation.”
“Yes, indeed”, nods Herr Braun. “That is why it’s so important to get rid of all public enemies.”
“I agree with you”, Herr Behm replies. “Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler!” Herr Braun salutes and disappears in the stairway.
Herr and Frau Behm walk across the yard and through the adjacent house into the parallel street. They probably are going to Frau Steiner’s little shop, but she doesn’t have anything to sell anymore. She didn’t get any deliveries since last week. Mother was very upset, when she came from the store with nothing but some dried vegetables. There is nothing else to get.
Axel enters the yard. When he sees Paul sitting on the bar, he waves his hand. Paul waves back and jumps down. Axel is his best friend.
“Hey Paul!” Axel shouts now. “We were supposed to go looking for wood, remember?”
That is true, Paul remembers now. They need wood for heating. Furthermore they don’t know how long the charcoals will last; and when they are out, they will have to use the wood stove in the living room for cooking. So they need wood for that, too. The friends take a saw and sacks and head out.
Axel is in a good mood and talks the entire time. Paul walks silently next to his friend and keeps thinking. He won’t understand what Herr Braun has said earlier. Why is Frau Silberstein damaging the reputation of the German nation?
Or the Lipowetzkys? Or Liza Giesemann?
And why does Herr Braun call them ‘public enemies’? Those people don’t do anything to the nation or the Führer. More dangerous for the Führer are the people that tell the truth: Resistance groups, Red Hein, Father. He flinches a little scared. If anybody had heard, what he just thought!
“Hey Paul! Are you dreaming?”
Axel nudges him.
