Sara
Sara could ignore the swastika flags and the Brownshirt recruiting posters proliferating all over the University of Berlin campus, but she froze in terror whenever she came upon storm troopers smashing windows of Jewish-owned shops, destroying merchandise, and roughing up the frightened proprietors. At first city police attempted to intervene, but they were no match for the SA, and over time many began to look the other way, as if it were more important not to muss their green uniforms than to uphold the rule of law.
Natan told Sara that he had seen SA officers stride into courthouses, haul Jewish lawyers and judges out to the street, berate them, beat them, spit on them. Attacks on synagogues were so commonplace that it had become second nature to glance over one’s shoulder while walking to Shabbat services.
The outrages received widespread coverage in the international press, and a movement began among Jewish organizations worldwide to boycott German goods in protest. Adolf Hitler denounced German Jews for turning the international press against the Nazis, and in retaliation, he proclaimed a national boycott of Jewish businesses beginning the first day of April.
Sara thought the date was a curious choice, as April 1 was a Saturday and many observant Jews closed their businesses for Shabbat. Perhaps Hitler hoped people would see the darkened windows and assume the intimidated Jews had not bothered to open their doors that morning. Or perhaps he knew that observant Jews did not shop on Shabbat, preempting any attempt the Jewish community might have made to offset the boycott with shopping sprees.
Indignant, Sara phoned her sister. “Dieter invited me to a party and I need a new dress,” she said. “Want to come shopping with me on Saturday?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Amalie agreed. “Don’t tell Mother,” she warned.
“Of course not! She’d lock me in the house.”
On the morning of April 1, Sara and Amalie met in front of the Café Kranzler in Charlottenburg. Amalie was as breathtakingly lovely as ever, her dark hair arranged in a graceful chignon that emphasized her slender neck and high cheekbones, and her clothing, elegant and perfectly tailored, spoke of wealth and excellent taste. Only a tremulous smile betrayed her nervousness.
The sisters linked arms and strolled along Kurfürstendamm, their conversation falling silent at the sight of storm troopers standing menacingly outside shops and businesses unmistakably identified by the symbols painted on their windows and doors, a yellow six-pointed Star of David withJudeorJüdisches Geschäftscrawled in black in the center. Posted on walls and lampposts were chilling signs in stark black and white: “Don’t Buy from Jews,” ordered one, and “The Jews Are Our Misfortune,” another. “Germans, defend yourselves against Jewish atrocity propaganda,” another warned. “Buy only at German stores!” Black-clad SA men strode along the sidewalks with placards hung around their necks bearing identical warnings in Blackletter: “Germans! Resist! Do not buy from Jews!”
“This is absurd,” said Sara in an undertone as they passed two SA men chatting amiably while blocking the entrance to a Jewish-owned department store, one of her mother’s favorites. “The Nazis are persecuted?Theyneed to resistus?”
“Hush. I know,” murmured her sister, the picture of serenity.
Sara had expected the most popular shopping district in Berlin to be nearly deserted, but to her surprise, nearly as many people as on any other Saturday strolled the sidewalks, some gawking at the harsh signs and garish symbols, others pretending they did not exist. Several Jewish-owned shops were darkened, the shades drawn, the signs turned to “Closed” in the front windows, but customers passed freely through the doors of those that were open, carrying shopping bags and string-tied parcels, ignoring the glares of the SA.
A stocky blond storm trooper stood outside Amalie’s favorite dress shop. “I beg your pardon, ladies,” he said as they approached the door. “This is a Jewish shop.”
“Yes, thank you, we know,” said Amalie, fixing him with a smile so radiant that he blinked stupidly and said nothing more.
The proprietor greeted them with a strained smile. After trying on several pretty frocks, Sara chose a lovely crepe de Chine dress, burgundy with cream pinstripes, with a buttoned, jewel-neck bodice, a peplum waistline, and a flounced hem that swirled just above her ankles when she moved. Amalie put the purchase on Wilhelm’s account, and the salesclerk carefully folded the dress in tissue paper and packaged it in a box bearing the store’s name.
“Thank you, Amalie,” Sara said as they left the store, passing the storm trooper, who studiously looked the other way. “Thank Wilhelm for me too.”
“I will, but how are you going to explain this to Mother?”
“I’ll hide the box beneath my bed for a few days. She’ll never know.”
Their simple act of defiance raised their spirits, so they decided to return to the Café Kranzler for an early lunch. Only when they parted company at the Untergrundbahn did Sara feel a stir of trepidation, wondering how she was going to sneak the box into the house and up to her bedroom without her mother noticing. She pondered her options all the way home, but just as she turned onto her own block, she saw her mother approaching from the opposite direction. From her elbow dangled a shopping bag bearing the name of Ernst Kantorowicz’s bookshop.
“Mutti,” cried Sara as they met at their own front gate, utterly astonished. “You broke the embargo. And on Shabbat!”
Her mother drew herself up. “Do you think only the young can defy authority?”
“Not exactly, but—you’re a wife and mother.”
“Who more than a wife and mother has a responsibility to make the country equitable and civil for her family?”
Sara had never been prouder of her.
By evening the Nazis had declared victory, claiming the boycott had succeeded so overwhelmingly that there was no need to extend it beyond a single day. Their words did not change the facts. Anyone who had browsed Berlin’s popular shopping districts that day knew the truth.
When her study group met a few days later at Mildred Harnack’s flat in Neukölln, Sara learned that nearly everyone there had broken the boycott. Sara was deeply impressed when Mildred told them how her husband’s ninety-one-year-old great-aunt had imperiously ignored the cordon around KaDeWe, the Jewish-owned department store where she had shopped for decades. The SA had briefly detained her, but had soon released her on account of her age.
“How could anyone arrest a ninety-one-year-old woman for ignoring a boycott?” exclaimed Sara. “She didn’t break the law, and at her age, she’s earned the right to shop where she pleases.”
Mildred smiled. “That’s essentially what she told the SA.”
Less than a week after the boycott, on April 7, the Reichstag passed the Professional Civil Service Restoration Act, orBerufsbeamtengesetz, which required all non-Aryans and members of the Communist Party to retire from the legal profession and civil service. President Hindenburg had objected to the original bill, but he approved it after exemptions were made for veterans of the Great War and those who had lost a father or a son in combat. Even in its amended form, the law meant that thousands of Jewish lawyers, judges, teachers, professors, and government workers suddenly lost their jobs, and when a second law was passed soon thereafter, countless doctors, tax consultants, notaries, and even musicians were thrown out of work too.
