‘No, Sam. Not in teaching. I had a family to feed.’ She turned away. ‘You’ll never understand.’
‘I understand you taught this!’ He picked up another book and showed it to her. ‘This filth!’
‘I didn’t. Not the way you think I did.’
‘But you didn’t refuse. You went along with it.’
‘You’ll never understand.’
‘Why not?’
She spun around to face him. ‘Because I don’t fully understand it myself!’
She sat down heavily at the teacher’s desk and covered her face with her hands. He watched her in silence, angry at her, hating her, yet wanting her to explain it all away. Sheshouldexplain,mustexplain, and he would not fill the silence to help her evade it.
Eventually her face emerged from her hands to look up at him. Her eyes were full of shame — or was that just what he hoped to see?
‘How could you not see how bad this is?’ he asked as he dropped a book on her table.
She stared at the title then shoved it away. ‘You won’t understand.’
‘Explain it to me. Now. I want to hear your excuses.’
‘You look at this classroom and judge me as though it all appeared overnight with one change in education policy, but the foundations for this were dug years before. The changes in our life, in our schools, came slowly at first. When I was a child, division was nurtured. And division causes distance, both emotionally and physically. As a child all I knew was that my life improved after the Nazis came to power and it didn’t seem like there was anything to be concerned about. The changes were insidious and the real intent was not as clear as that book cover.’ She fell silent for a moment. ‘I suspect you must think I must be indifferent, ignorant or complicit. I’m probably guilty of all three. But I, along with many others, never thought the changes would come to what you see here now. I don’t think you will ever understand. I am not sure I understand myself.’ She thought of a Jewish school friend who had suddenly disappeared. She had later learned they had emigrated to another country. She was too young to ask why they had left with such urgency, not even stopping to say goodbye.
‘Go on,’ pressed Sam.
‘There is nothing wrong with being proud of who you are, having someone to believe in... being part of something bigger and better. My generation had never experienced it before and it felt good.’ She clasped her hands together and stared at them intently. ‘But that was in the beginning. Things began to change. As I grew older I noticed that people who disagreed or spoke outlost their jobs or disappeared. It happened slowly, yet suddenly it felt no one could be trusted any more... not even your own colleagues and, as a teacher, even your own pupils. If you did not support Hitler, youwouldbe reported. So I kept my mouth shut, taught my pupils their lessons and tried to dilute the worst of it. I greeted my pupils the same way as other teachers and ensured my class chanted “Heil Hitler” three times to greet me in the morning. It was what was required, or I risked losing my job. The Führer was in charge and he was here to stay. What harm could it do? That’s what I convinced myself.’
She looked up at him. Was she hoping what she had said was enough? He silently stared back at her.
‘When I think back now there were so many changes. I’m not sure if any of us took them seriously at first. “It won’t last.” “It’s just one thing, the government won’t do any more.” Even our Jewish friends felt the same... at first. But the government did do more. It was easier to ignore when it did not directly affect you. After all, the seeds of division were well established by then. In a way, it’s easy to fall into the same way of thinking. Father had work at last... for the first time in years, we had a new home and we were told we were how a good German family should be. For a time, life was good. For a time, it was easier to believe in the Führer’s plans and ignore the rest.’
She was rambling now, talking to herself as if he was no longer there, watching, his stomach churning, his understanding still muddied with how a population could be turned. ‘But then...’
‘But then what?’ He sounded hopeful. How desperately he wanted her to be redeemed in his eyes! After all, she was Elsa, who he had come to care for far too much.
‘Kristallnacht happened and our Jewish friends disappeared... and I had done nothing to help them. I had done nothing to stop their lives from becoming increasingly difficult.That night I just watched from a window. I knew then that what had been happening over the years had infiltrated our lives like a cancer and we were dying from it a little more day by day.’
‘So you gave up teaching?’
She braced herself. ‘No, I did not. I stayed. I have already told you the reasons why. But I resisted and fought back in the only way I could. I did not report those parents that placed doubt about the Führer in their children’s minds. I was expected to, but I did not. I didn’t report the neighbour who bought more food than she needed. I knew her son’s Jewish wife and grandchildren were hiding in her attic and I said nothing. I didn’t report the shopkeepers who did not greet customers with “Heil Hitler”, but I always insisted my pupils used that greeting.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if they did not learn to greet in that way, they and their families would be treated with suspicion and punished. I did not want that to happen.’ She stood up abruptly, picked up the book he had thrown and placed it carefully on the desk where it had come from. ‘We must leave this place the way we found it. I don’t want people to know we have been here.’
She turned to face him. ‘Could I have done more? Undoubtedly. But I did my best. No one, not even you, can judge me. I had been trained to believe in the Führer since I was a child. As an adult I saw that speaking out was dangerous for not only yourself, but your family too. I did notlikewhat I saw happening. I wanted no part of it, but I wasinit. It was all around me — work, home, radio, newspaper, everywhere — until it was normal and what was once normal was not. Even now I don’t know what to believe. Today I have seen this classroom through your eyes and I am ashamed for not doing more. Tomorrow... I don’t know.’ She wiped her cheeks roughly with her fingers, her face finally crumpling like a child in distress. ‘I’m not a bad person, Sam. I’m not. My people are not bad people.’
He wanted to be angry with her, but would he have acted any differently? It was easy to say he would have had more courage, but was that true? His uncle had volunteered to fight in the First World War, believing the propaganda that the war would soon be over and they would be victorious. Propaganda that hid the truth about the realities of war and scorned those who objected, labelling them as cowards. The nation had gone along with it. Even so, it was hard to imagine living in a country where everything one heard on the wireless or read in the paper was based on lies. Where work, school and leisure centred around one ideology that, if ignored, avoided or denied, meant punishment in every form.
Sam noticed Klara staring at a poster of a Jew with what he assumed were unflattering labels on it. Was Klara as indoctrinated as Elsa had been? Elsa crouched down before her, spoke softly in German and wiped the child’s tears away as well as her own. The girl nodded and Elsa picked her up, hugging her tight as she walked away from the poster. It was a comforting, loving hug from a woman who was able to live with such hatred, and the complexity of it all was too hard to understand.
‘Klara’s upset. She doesn’t understand why we are arguing. It scares her.’
‘Let us not talk about it any more,’ he said gruffly as he turned away from her. He wasn’t quite ready to prolong their tears, but he still wasn’t ready to forgive. Elsa wasn’t responsible for everything — but, he thought, she should have done more.
* * *
