The hateful laughter, the jubilant shouts, the roar of the flames, the wail of sirens filled Greta’s ears as she stood and watched, her eyes tearing up from the smoke and the heat of the blaze. She felt Adam’s arm around her shoulders. “We must get home before this gets any worse,” he spoke loudly into her ear.
She nodded, her heart in her throat, a cold rush of fear coursing through her as she imagined the riot in their own neighborhood, fire threatening Ule. Taking Adam’s hand, she ran alongside him for the trolley, but they found it packed full and at a dead stop in the middle of an intersection as a flood of rioters swept around it. Turning again, they glimpsed a sign for the Untergrundbahn and hurried toward it, but the crowd thickened between them and the entrance, forcing them to change direction twice more and work their way against the crowd until they were in the clear. Out of breath, they slowed their pace and went three blocks more until they reached another station. Everywhere they passed broken storefront windows of Jewish shops and businesses. Everywhere shattered glass littered the streets and sidewalks, glittering in the lamplight.
Eventually they made it back to their neighborhood, breathless, their clothes in disarray, their hair smelling of smoke. They found Erika waiting up for them, anxious and alarmed, little Ule slumbering peacefully in the cradle beside her daughter. “Greta, you’re bleeding,” Erika gasped, hurrying off to fetch a damp washcloth. Inspecting Greta’s face, Adam called after Erika to bring a pair of tweezers too, and as he picked small fragments of glass from the narrow cut across her cheekbone, they told their horrified friend what they had witnessed.
When Greta’s wound was cleaned and bandaged, they gathered up Ule and went home. Safe inside their own apartment, Greta laid the baby in his crib and returned to the living room to find Adam at the open window, gazing out into the night. The smell of smoke had grown fainter, but the sirens and shouting persisted—louder, perhaps, unless that was an illusion sparked by exhaustion and fear.
They cleaned themselves up, checked on Ule once more, and went off to bed, where they both lay awake listening to the fading sounds of the riot. Greta’s thoughts churned with questions—whether they were safe in their apartment, if they should take Ule and flee, where they might go, what tomorrow would bring. Eventually she drifted off to sleep.
The next day Greta stayed home minding Ule and listening pensively to the radio. Adam ventured out, but he returned home early in the middle of the afternoon, outraged and shaken. Tens of thousands of Jews had been arrested, he told her, dragged from their homes, paraded through the streets, and eventually forced into trucks and hauled off to concentration camps. Jewish businesses were forbidden to reopen unless they were managed by an Aryan. Curfews had been imposed upon Jews, restricting them to their homes from nine o’clock in the evening until five in the morning. Almost every synagogue in Berlin had been desecrated and severely damaged, or destroyed utterly, after their archives had been stolen and turned over to the Sicherheitsdienst. What the Security Service intended to do with the records, one could only imagine.
“The official story is that these were spontaneous demonstrations, rising up from theVolk,” said Adam as he dropped wearily into a chair. “Observe, the Nazis say, how almost no one in the mobs wore uniforms.”
“I would argue that the absence of uniformed Nazis makes it even more suspicious,” said Greta.
Adam nodded grim agreement, “The truth as far as my comrades understand it is that the regional Nazi Party leaders organized the riots in response to Goebbels’s speech. They ordered the SA and the Hitler Youth not to wear their uniforms to create the illusion of a popular uprising.”
A fuller picture of the nightmare came out in the days that followed. Nearly one hundred Jews had been killed and hundreds more injured. Throughout Germany, more than a thousand synagogues had been burned, and seventy-five hundred Jewish businesses had been destroyed. Jewish cemeteries and schools had been vandalized. And more than thirty thousand Jews had been arrested and sent to concentration camps, convicted of no crime, accused of nothing more than simply being Jewish.
On November 13, Mildred unexpectedly appeared at Greta’s door. The Harnacks did not have a phone because Arvid was wary of wiretaps, so when Greta missed their usual weekly walk in the Tiergarten—in all the turmoil, she had completely forgotten the day—Mildred decided to check in to make sure they were all right.
When Mildred coaxed her to bring Ule out for a walk, Greta reluctantly agreed. She was surprised to find that most of the shattered glass had been swept up from the streets and pavements, although many broken storefront windows had yet to be repaired. Some had been boarded over, but many more stood gaping open, accusing mouths with sharp glass teeth silently demanding justice. Greta could hardly bear to look at them as she pushed Ule steadily along in his pram, Mildred beside her, neither of them speaking
“Walther Funk is calling itKristallnacht,” Mildred suddenly said. “Derisively, as one might expect, to make light of the Jews’ suffering.”
“Walther Funk?”
“The Reich minister of economics. Yesterday Hermann Göring held a meeting of top Nazi officials—himself, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Funk—”
“Arvid?”
Mildred allowed a small smile. “Not Arvid. He only heard about it later. The purpose of the meeting was to assess the damage and determine who was responsible for it.”
“Responsible?” said Greta sharply. “Is there any doubt? Obviously Goebbels deserves the blame, although perhaps he would say he earned the credit.”
“They’re sticking with the story that this was a spontaneous protest, and therefore the Jews are to blame.” Mildred sighed. “The real problem, as Göring sees it, is that Aryan insurance companies are now obliged to pay Jews for the damage done to their shops and businesses.”
“That’s some small measure of justice, at least.”
“I’m afraid not. They’ve ruled to fine the Jews one billion marks to cover the cost of repairs. The six million marks the insurance companies have already paid for the broken windows must be turned over to the Reich.”
“That’s madness,” said Greta, her voice low and flat. “How can they blame the Jews for the crimes committed against them? How do they expect to collect this outrageous fine?”
“I have no idea. Arvid is trying to find out.” Mildred hesitated. “Something else came out at the meeting, though, and it’s been troubling me ever since Arvid mentioned it.”
Steeling herself, Greta adjusted Ule’s blanket, tucking it more snugly around him. “And that is?”
“At the meeting, Göring announced that he had just received a letter written at Hitler’s command, requesting that ‘the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another.’”
“The Jewish question?” echoed Greta. “What’s that supposed to mean? Coordinated and solved how?”
“That,” said Mildred, “is what keeps me up at night.”
Greta inhaled deeply and let out a long, shaky breath. Whatever it was, it meant suffering and death, she was sure of it.
The next time Greta and Mildred met was on the morning the news broke in the German papers that in protest to the pogroms, the United States had recalled its ambassador to Germany. Only a small staff, including Donald Heath, would remain behind to monitor American interests in Berlin. In response, Germany promptly withdrew its ambassador to the United States.
For years the resistance had hoped the United States and the nations of Europe would shake off their isolationist lethargy and join the fight to defeat fascism in Germany. Now they could only watch in dismay as one by one, potential allies withdrew from their country, leaving the resistance to struggle on alone.
