“See, Mutti?” said Natan sardonically the next time the family gathered for Shabbat. “I was right to choose journalism over law school.”
“They may come for reporters and editors next,” she replied.
Sara and Natan deliberately avoided each other’s gaze, and Sara offered only the slightest shake of her head to say that she had not told anyone about his arrest and questioning. Why give their mother more reason to worry about her son’s occupational hazards when he had resolved not to give up his occupation?
By then the Nazis had arrested more than forty-five thousand of their opponents, nearly all of them Communists and Social Democrats. Day by day, the SA and the SS intensified their attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues. Four times Sara went to class only to find a stranger at the front of the lecture hall, someone invariably fair-haired and blue-eyed and male. After introducing himself he would explain with righteous condescension that he was taking over as instructor because his predecessor had decided to take a leave of absence.
Sometimes the news met with murmurs of confusion or disgruntlement, sometimes with a smattering of applause, sometimes both. Only once did a student call out, “I spoke with Herr Professor yesterday evening and he said nothing of this.”
The new instructor allowed a thin smile. “It was a sudden decision.”
“He lent me a book,” the young man persisted. “Where shall I return it to him?”
The smile hardened, turned brittle. “Leave the book with the department secretary and we will see that he gets it.” Without pausing he began his lecture, and the student sank back in his seat, glowering mutinously.
What will happen next? Sara wondered as policies that would have seemed outrageous a year before were written into law, enforced, obeyed. What more does Hitler have to do before the German people realize that he is unfit to lead? Sara and her friends asked one another in hushed whispers when they crossed paths on campus or met for a beer after a long day of study. Mildred urged her to remain watchful, but to let nothing distract her from studying, working, earning her degree. Sara devoted so much of her time to her books that Dieter ruefully lamented that he rarely saw her anymore. Fervently she read and wrote and learned, as if she were running out of time, as if she feared that she too might be banished from academia as nearly all her Jewish professors had been.
And then one day, she nearly was.
On April 25, the Reich government passed the Law Against the Overcrowding of German Schools and Universities—another title with a lie built into it, like “National Socialist,” for there was no overcrowding and that was not the situation the law sought to amend. Quotas were established to reduce the number of Jews in German public schools and universities until the percentage fell to that of Jews in the general population. For new admissions, Jews could make up no more than 1.5 percent of the class. Schools that were judged to have more students preparing for a profession than there were jobs available were required to reduce enrollment, with Jews the first to go, until the school reached a maximum of 5 percent non-Aryans.
Sara was brought up short on her way to class by an ugly placard listing the provisions of the new law in dispassionate legalese. Blood rushed to her head, but her panic subsided when she read past Paragraph 4 to the exemption for certain Jews, including “Reich Germans not of Aryan descent whose fathers had fought at the front during the World War for the German Reich.” Her father had served and had been decorated for bravery. Thanks to him, Sara could continue her education, for now.
Nevertheless, her entire academic future seemed imperiled, and she felt helpless outrage for her fellow students and friends who had been expelled. She wanted to resist, to fight back, but how? What could one undergraduate do against such crushing opposition?
Her parents urged caution, warning her not to jeopardize her own precarious position. “This is not the same as ignoring a boycott,” her father said over dinner two days after the law was announced.
“It’s very much the same,” Sara countered. “What if they come for bankers next? What if you lose your job?”
“Mr. Panofsky would never comply with orders to fire his fellow Jews.”
“And if the Nazis close down the bank entirely?”
“I doubt anyone will harm Mr. Panofsky or his interests,” her father replied. “He has a plan to protect himself and his family from the Nazis. It will require the unwitting cooperation of the American ambassador, but if it succeeds,whenit succeeds, not even the most zealous SA man will harass him. And if Mr. Panofsky is protected, he will protect his employees.”
Sara’s mother shook her head, puzzled. “The ambassador left Germany last month after their new president was inaugurated.”
“I meant his successor, whoever he may be. Mr. Roosevelt will surely appoint a new ambassador soon.”
“Let’s hope nothing happens to Mr. Panofsky in the meantime,” said Sara’s mother.
Despite her father’s certainty that his job was secure, Sara could not shake off pervasive anxiety about her future. One evening, as she and Dieter strolled hand in hand through the Tiergarten after seeing42nd Streetat the cinema, her worries about potential new restrictions upon Jewish students spilled from her, until he twice had to plead with her to lower her voice, as she was attracting curious stares.
“I’m sorry I’m so upset,” she said, swallowing hard, blinking back tears, “but the thought that I might be expelled from the university all because of my religion terrifies me.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Dieter said. “Your father is a veteran. You’re exempt from the quotas. The law says so.”
“What if the law changes? We Jews face more restrictions every day. Although I’m exempt now, that may change tomorrow. And what about all the other Jews whose fathers didn’t serve? How can I sit in the lecture hall, smug and satisfied, when my friends have been shut out?”
“Sara, listen.” Halting on the footpath, he took both of her hands in his. “I don’t think the University of Berlin is foolish enough to let a bright student like you slip away—”
She choked out a laugh. “They let Herr Professor Einstein get away. He’s at Princeton now. If they don’t bend the rules to keephim—”
“That was their mistake, and surely they’ve learned from it. If you do have to leave the university, it doesn’t have to be the end of your education. You can study on your own, as I did.”
“If they don’t ban Jews from libraries next.”
“If they do, I’ll buy you every book you need.” Dieter raised her hands to his lips and kissed them. “Darling, I promise to love you and protect you every day for the rest of my life.”
