“They will.”
“And if they don’t listen to Hitler’s men?”
“There are ways to convince them.”
“You have to stay out of this,” his mother begged. “Let others fight the war this time if they must, but not you.”
Max stepped onto the Persian rug in the salon, a red carpet stitched with golden thread. “Other people like me?”
His mother waved her hand. “Not you either!”
“Of course him.” His father flicked ashes into the tray. “Every man able to join will be fighting for the Reich.”
“I won’t fight for Hitler.”
His father’s eyes narrowed, eyebrows punctuating his words with a rigid line. “You will fight.”
“No—”
“They’ll kill any man who refuses to join.”
His mother’s hand slipped up to her mouth, unsuccessfully muffling her gasp as his father’s declaration hung in the air.
“I still won’t fight... at least not with them.” Max’s words seemed to ripple out across the room, slamming into the hutch of china plates, shaking the portraits on the walls.
He was no martyr. He didn’t want to die, didn’t even know if he was truly brave enough to resist. But how could he spread this hatred born from a man obsessed? A man stirring up the deep-seated animosities already in their country, stomping all over people in his scramble to the top?
Exactly how high was high enough for Adolf Hitler? Max suspected that each time the man climbed to the top of the ladder he would add another rung. And then another. Even if Hitler conquered the entire world, Max doubted it would be enough.
He inhaled deeply, trying to calm his racing heart. “A herd, that’s what Hitler calls the people of Germany and now Austria. As if we’re animals capable of being led straight to slaughter.”
“That’s not true,” his father retorted.
But his mother inched to the edge of her chair. “Where did you hear that?”
“From Herr Ebner,” he said, recalling yesterday’s lesson. “Or actually, from Hitler himself. All the students are required to readMein Kampf. According to Hitler, whoever owns the youth owns the future.”
“That’s true about the youth,” his mother said quietly.
His father crushed his cigarette against the glass. “But not about the herd.”
“Have you readMein Kampf?” Max asked.
His father shook his head.
“Hitler believes ridding ourselves of the Jewish people is the only solution to what he terms a problem. He’s created an enemy for everyone to rally against.”
“He doesn’t have to create an enemy.” His father paced toward the window that overlooked Ringstrasse before he turned back to them. “The enemy is already here.”
“The Jews are not our enemy,” Max insisted.
“They are everyone’s enemy.”
His mother blanched. “Wilhelm!”
Max needed to make his father understand. “The Weiss family—”
“We cannot align ourselves with such people.”
