Chapter Forty-two
October–November 1938
Greta
Greta had always believed that the Allies would not go to war over the Sudetenland if Hitler invaded, but she never could have predicted that the leaders of Great Britain and France would capitulate before a single German tank rumbled into the disputed territory. How could they believe that the Sudetenland would be enough for Hitler? The more of Europe he greedily consumed, the more ravenous he would become to devour the rest of it. They were deluding themselves if they thought otherwise. Greta could not understand why they treated Hitler as if he were a legitimate statesman. No one could believe any promise he made when he had already broken so many.
The Munich Pact had staggered the resistance, rendering them demoralized and shaken. For years they had watched in dismay as the vast majority of their fellow Germans embracedGleichschaltung, adopting an unshakable belief in Aryan superiority and open hostility toward the Jews, the same people they had once considered friends, neighbors, and coworkers. It frightened Greta to see how quickly ordinary, reasonable people had become glassy-eyed, flag-waving, slogan-shouting fanatics. Then there were Germans who did not beat Jews in the streets or paint graffiti on synagogues but stood by passively, watching it happen, convincing themselves that it was none of their business. To Greta, they were no better than the Nazis who declared themselves with armbands and lapel pins.
The resistance would rally. They must, or everything they once loved about their country would be gone forever. Hitler’s triumph in Munich and his seizure of the Sudetenland emboldened the Nazis to increase their oppression of the Jews, legislating spite and racism through a series of new restrictive laws. In early October, Jews’ passports were declared invalid until they were surrendered to the authorities and returned to them stamped with a red J. By January 1, Jews whose names did not clearly indicate their heritage were required to add “Israel” or “Sara” to them, and all were required to carry identification cards noting their status as Jews. And if it were not already clear that the Nazis wanted to make life so miserable for the Jews that they would voluntarily emigrate even if it meant becoming impoverished refugees, the wordJudenfreibegan appearing in speeches and in the press, used almost wistfully to describe a purely Aryan Germany, entirely free of Jews.
At the end of October, dissatisfied with the pace of voluntary emigration, the Gestapo forcibly expelled roughly seventeen thousand Polish Jews, compelling them, often at gunpoint, to illegally cross the Polish border. When the government of Poland refused to let them enter, they were left stranded in a no-man’s-land between the two countries. Many refugees made their way farther east, congregating around the Polish town of Zbaszynabout one hundred kilometers east of Frankfurt an der Oder, but others were so traumatized by deportation that they committed suicide.
“I could hardly believe my own eyes and ears,” Greta’s brother Hans wrote to her from her old hometown soon thereafter. “Hundreds of our fellow citizens lined the streets, shouting ‘Out with the Jews! Off to Palestine!’ as thousands passed through our city on trains and trucks, to be dumped like so much rubbish just over the border. They cannot stay, they will not be taken in. What will become of them?”
Although he dared not express his feelings more openly than that in a letter, Greta detected her brother’s anger and disgust in the jagged strokes of his pen. She shared it. In some regions, the Gestapo had rounded up only the men, assuming that their wives and children would voluntarily follow after them, but elsewhere in Germany, entire families had been snatched up—men, woman, children, infants in arms. Many elderly deportees, frail and distraught, died before they reached their destination.
In the days that followed, Adam’s Communist sources in Poland sent word that the Red Cross was feeding Jews stranded along the border, but they had no shelters and conditions were dire. International Jewish relief organizations had established a refugee camp near Zbaszynand were pressuring the Polish government to allow some Jews to settle permanently in Poland and to help others obtain visas so they could emigrate elsewhere. Although Greta was relieved that some aid was being provided, it seemed woefully insufficient. She also feared that Poland’s initial refusal to accept the Polish Jews, many of whom held Polish citizenship and passports, would echo in other countries as desperate German Jews were forced to flee the Reich and seek sanctuary in foreign lands.
Then, on November 7, news from France scorched radio wires throughout Europe. A seventeen-year-old named Herschel Grynszpan—a German-born Jew of Polish heritage residing with an uncle in France—had become distraught upon hearing that his elderly parents had been expelled from Germany and confined to a refugee camp. He had entered the German embassy in Paris and had shot a diplomat, seriously wounding him. At that moment, the diplomat was in critical condition and Grynszpan was in the custody of the French police.
“What did this diplomat have to do with the deportation order?” Greta asked Adam.
“Nothing, as far as I know,” he replied. “Herschel Grynszpan is probably just a desperate, frightened young man, frantic about his parents. Maybe he wanted to draw attention to the plight of the Polish Jews living as refugees in the country of their birth. Maybe he didn’t think it through, but struck back the only way he knew how.”
Greta studied her husband, taken aback by the grim approval in his tone. “I don’t see how any good can come of this. The Nazis will twist this attack to their own purposes as they always do.”
“They might,” Adam acknowledged, gently lifting their sleeping son from her arms. “But at least one Jew struck a blow.”
“But at what cost?” Greta asked softly so she did not wake the baby. If Adam heard, he did not reply.
Two days later, they learned that Grynszpan’s blow had proven fatal. Despite the valiant efforts of Hitler’s personal physician, the German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, had died of his wounds.
Later that evening, Greta and Adam left Ule in the care of a neighbor—Erika von Brockdorff, a countess married to an artist and the mother of a young daughter—so they could attend an important dress rehearsal for a revival of Friedrich Schiller’sKabale und Liebeat the Schiller Theater in Charlottenburg. For more than a year, the theater had been closed while the building underwent significant renovations, and the first night ofKabale und Liebewould mark the gala reopening. Adolf Hitler was scheduled to attend, and he would view the show from theFührerloge, a luxurious state box constructed especially for him. Under the circumstances, the theater could not be opened for the usual previews, so acquaintances from the theater world, friends who would not mind the construction dust, had been invited for a private showing to help the cast and crew prepare for the important night.
Adam had some misgivings about attending. He was barely on speaking terms with the director—Heinrich George, a former Communist turned Nazi collaborator who worked on several Reich propaganda films—but he had several friends in the cast and he owed the stage manager a favor. At the last minute, Adam accepted the invitation and suggested he and Greta make a night on the town of it.
Although Greta missed little Ule, she enjoyed the indulgence of an evening out with Adam alone, dressing up, savoring a leisurely meal at a fine restaurant rather than gobbling down something quick between feeding the baby and changing his diaper, conversing without interruption, seeing a play rather than collapsing on the sofa and taking turns trying to coax the baby to sleep.
The performance was going quite well, Greta and Adam agreed as they strolled to the lobby during intermission. They both noted only a few stumbles near the end of the first act, nothing the cast could not correct before opening night. But as she sipped a cocktail, Greta realized that most of the conversation around them was not about the show at all but rumors out of Munich.
That night marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler’s failed coup attempt that had earned him a charge of high treason and eight months in jail. November 9 had become the Nazi equivalent of a Holy Day of Obligation, and National Socialist party leaders had gathered in Munich to commemorate the occasion. From what Greta and Adam overheard, other members of the audience had heard from friends in Munich that Goebbels had made a tempestuous speech accusing “World Jewry” of conspiracy in Grynszpan’s assassination of Rath. The minister of propaganda had announced to the assembly that the Führer had decided the party should not prepare or organize any protests, but if demonstrations erupted spontaneously, they should not be thwarted.
“That’s a rather poorly disguised call for violence,” said Adam as blinking lights reminded the audience that the second act would begin shortly. As Greta and Adam returned to their seats, her heart sank as she recognized one Jewish friend sitting a few rows behind them, and another across the aisle. It was not a good night for Jews to be out and about in the city, not that any night was safe. She hoped they would not run into any storm troopers on their way home.
She was too distracted to enjoy the second act, impatient for it to end so they could return home to Ule. In the lobby, when Adam helped her into her coat and asked her what she thought of the show, she murmured a few compliments for the lead actress and the ensemble, but her thoughts were elsewhere.
They emerged from the theater onto Bismarckstrasse, still bustling despite the late hour. “Do you want to stop for a nightcap on the way home?” Adam asked, but his last words were drowned out by the wail of a siren.
At that same moment, Greta smelled smoke.
Quickly Adam seized her hand and strode off through the crowd, which only then Greta realized was mostly young men, jostling startled bystanders as they jogged along, shouting to one another. Her hand held fast in his, she hurried after Adam toward the Knie, the curve in the junction of five streets between Bismarckstrasse and Hardenburgstrasse. Suddenly just beside her a grinning young man flung a brick through a storefront window, shattering the glass.
Instinctively she turned her head away and raised her free arm to protect her eyes, but Adam was pulling her along, urging her to hurry. The smell of smoke intensified; the air carried shouts of “Juda verrecke!”and strains of the “Horst Wessel Lied.” She glimpsed a yellow Star of David painted on a bookshop window, but as they hurried past, three young men bearing short clubs rushed forward and smashed it, sending a shower of crystal shards over them. Greta’s cheek stung; as Adam quickened their pace, she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and brought away a smear of blood.
Smoke billowed out of an alley just ahead. “This way,” Adam shouted, turning sharply. Glass shards ground underfoot as she stumbled to keep up with him. They were headed south, she realized, opposite to the direction of home, but before she could urge Adam to turn back, they rounded a corner and discovered a tall building engulfed in flames.
Coughing, disoriented, Greta needed a moment to recognize the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue. Shock brought her to a sudden halt and her hand slipped from Adam’s grasp. On the street before the synagogue, a dozen firefighters stood idle, smoking and laughing with a crowd of onlookers as flames consumed the temple. Others unleashed their hoses full force upon adjoining buildings to keep the fire from spreading, but the synagogue was allowed to burn freely.
