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Table of Contents
Laura E. Williams’s titles include:
Laura E. Williams’s titles include:
Middle Grade Novels
The Executioner’s Daughter The Ghost Stallion Sixth Grade Mutants Meet the Slime The Spider’s Web Up a Creek
Series Novels
Let’s Have a Party series Mystic Lighthouse Mysteries series
Picture Books
ABC Kids The Long Silk Strand Torch Fishing with the Sun
This book is dedicated to my parents, Sally Williams and Bill Fuller, who allowed me to make my own choices. And to children everywhere, who know how hard those choices are to make.
Thanks go to the many people who gave their time, advice,
and knowledge in the shaping of this book.
Special thanks go to the people at Milkweed Editions
for all they’ve done, and to Leopold and Maria Sans
for their memories.
Thanks also to my agent, Edy Selman, who is lavish with
her praise and honest with her criticism.
Chapter One
“Jew-lover!” spat the tall, blond Gestapo officer, pushing Herr Haase toward the car. Herr Haase, wearing no jacket or shoes against the February cold, slipped on a patch of ice and fell.
Frau Haase stood in the open doorway of her house. Her two children clutched her skirt, watching their father with wide, tear-filled eyes.
“Get up, Jew-lover!” said a second officer, his dark leather boots glinting in the fading evening light. He kicked the fallen man. “Get up or I’ll shoot you now just to get it over with,” he threatened.
Herr Haase slowly rose to his knees, one arm clamped to his side where he had been kicked. On the icy snow where his head had rested, a patch of red stained the whiteness.
“Faster!” the first officer commanded. He nudged Herr Haase with his boot so that the prisoner faltered again before he finally struggled to his feet.
Three girls stood on the opposite side of the road, watching, their blue and white Jungmädel uniforms hidden under their heavy woolen coats.
“Isn’t Hans handsome?” Rita asked proudly, as her tall, blond brother viciously kicked Herr Haase again.
“I think it’s just awful,” Eva whispered, her voice quivering slightly. “Why are they beating poor Herr Haase? What’s he done wrong?”
Korinna shifted her bulky book bag from one frozen hand to the other. “They’re calling him a Jew-lover.”
“Who’d want to hide a stinking Jew? Besides, he’d be dead already if he’d been hiding a Jew,” Rita said. “I heard Hans tell Papa they’re supposed to shoot first and ask questions later. Herr Haase must have been seen talking to a Jew.”
“How can it be so terrible just to be talking to a Jew?” Eva asked, shaking her head, her short, dirty blond hair swinging against her cheeks.
Rita looked at her sideways, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You don’t see anything wrong with it?” she asked, forgetting to keep her voice down. “Jews are
