Resistance Women

by Jennifer Chiaverini

And in the quiet shadows, Sara and Natan would continue the work of the resistance, although they privately agreed it seemed increasingly unlikely that Hitler would be brought down from within.

  One evening in September, Sara went to the Harnacks’ apartment for a meeting of the progressive study group. Mildred met her at the door, her face pale, stricken, her eyes red-rimmed. Immediately Sara assumed something terrible had happened to Arvid, but when she asked, Mildred pressed her lips together, shook her head, and gestured toward the living room. Anxious, Sara joined the other students, and in a quick exchange of whispers she learned that no one knew why Mildred was upset, although everyone in that room had good reason to be.

  When the last student had arrived, Mildred took her usual chair at the top of the circle. “I apologize for my distress, and for worrying you,” she said, lowering her gaze. “Arvid and I are fine, but I’ve had distressing news from America. An author I deeply admire, a friend—” She took a deep, steadying breath. “It grieves me to say that two days ago, Thomas Wolfe passed away.”

  The cause was miliary tuberculosis, Mildred told them, her voice catching in her throat. He had died a few weeks before his thirty-eighth birthday.

  Even those who had not met Wolfe when he had visited Berlin were shocked and saddened by the news. Abandoning the evening’s assigned reading, they instead contemplated Wolfe’s work, the transformation of his understanding of the Nazis over time, the tragedy of a profound voice silenced too soon. That led them to sober reflections upon other voices that had fallen silent, lost to emigration, imprisonment, or death. Those who remained, determined to speak out through allegory or in the underground press, often found themselves muffled by censorship or drowned out by the loud, angry voices preaching intolerance and hate.

  Earlier that month, the annual Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg had once again been a showcase for such vitriol. Excerpts from Hitler’s speeches and descriptions of the rapturous cheers of his audience had appeared in German newspapers, but the students were skeptical of the Nazi-controlled press and urged Sara to share her impressions. As in years past, she had attended the rally to help Natan cover the events for the Judische Nachrichtenblatt and the underground press, and her fellow students hung on her every word as she described what she had witnessed. A rumble of disgust followed her account of Hitler’s closing speech at the rally, in which he had attacked the president of Czechoslovakia and denounced what he called the oppression and humiliation of nearly three and a half million ethnic Germans living in the Sudetenland, a suppressed minority placed by the Treaty of Versailles “at the mercy of an alien power they hate.”

  Karl Behrens glowered. “Can there be any doubt that Hitler intends to invade the Sudetenland next?”

  “Time will tell,” Mildred said simply, and although the group exchanged uneasy glances, no one urged her to say more. Sara understood why Mildred did not disclose whatever her husband might have confided to her about a potential invasion. Although everyone in the study group was antifascist, not all were members of the resistance.

  After the meeting, Mildred drew Sara aside as the other students packed up their books and left the apartment, singly and in pairs several minutes apart, to avoid suspicion. “Arvid recently came across disturbing information about Hitler’s construction plans for Berlin,” Mildred told Sara as soon as they were alone.

  “There’s nothing about that project that isn’t disturbing,” Sara replied. Within the past year, Hitler had spoken of reconstructing Berlin as the capital of the new Grossdeutsches Reich, the Aryan race, and civilization itself. “These buildings of ours should not be conceived for the year 1940,” he had proclaimed in one public speech, “no, no, not for the year 2000, but like the cathedrals of our past, they shall stretch into the millennia of the future.” It was said that Hitler’s chief architect took him quite literally and intended to design this new German world capital so that it would be more beautiful and awe-inspiring than Paris and Vienna when it was newly complete, and as glorious as the ruins of Athens and Rome when Berlin too had experienced centuries of decay. The idea that Nazis would be in power long enough to sculpt the landscape of Berlin for even a decade filled Sara with revulsion, but to the Nazis, their Thousand-Year Reich was already a certainty.

  “The architect’s grandiose plans call for the demolition of older buildings in order to make room for the new,” Mildred said, her gaze fixed steadily on Sara’s. “As a result, many people will lose their houses and apartments. The architect recommends that Jews living outside the construction zone should be evicted from their homes to make room for displaced Aryans.”

  “Where are the Jews supposed to go?” asked Sara, aghast. “Will they be compensated?”

  “As far as Arvid knows, the details haven’t been worked out yet.” Mildred took Sara’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “But I wanted you to be forewarned.”

  Sara nodded and murmured her thanks, her throat constricting as she imagined her mother’s grief if she were forced from her beloved home. Their house was spacious, beautifully decorated, and in a desirable neighborhood—too good for Jews, she imagined the Nazi bureaucrats declaring. Would they be given sufficient notice to pack and find a new home on their own instead of accepting whatever the Reich assigned them? Or would the storm troopers come in the night, drag them from their beds, throw them into the street with nothing but the clothes on their backs?

  “Your neighborhood might not be chosen for evictions,” Mildred said, her gaze searching Sara’s face and surely finding every fear and worry written there. “It might not happen at all.”

  “Maybe not, but we should prepare.” Sara inhaled deeply to steady her nerves, dreading the thought of telling her parents. Perhaps she should urge them to sell their home before it was taken from them. They could always retreat to the Riechmann estate if they lost their home and if their visas failed to come through, but what of all the other Jews in Berlin?

  “There’s something else I wanted to—” Mildred’s gaze flicked to the door, and they both fell silent at the sound of footsteps in the hall. When a key turned in the lock and Arvid entered, Mildred sighed with relief.

  “Something else?” Sara prompted.

  Mildred hesitated. “Greta and I plan to take Ule around the Tiergarten on Wednesday afternoon. Do you want to join us?”

  Sara quickly agreed, eager to know what Mildred had been about to tell her before they were interrupted.

  Two days later, she met Mildred, Greta, and eight-month-old Ule at the Englischer Garten in the northern section of the Tiergarten. As they headed toward the zoo, Mildred and Sara flanking Greta as she pushed Ule in his pram, Mildred quietly shared Arvid’s latest news from the Economics Ministry. Hitler’s vision of Lebensraum did indeed include the annexation of the Sudetenland—but as dreadful as it sounded, some good might come of it.

  “One of Arvid’s cousins at the Ministry of Justice has organized a conspiracy among certain German military officers and other prominent men,” Mildred said, her voice barely above a murmur. “They intend to declare him unfit for office and remove him from power.”

  Essential preliminary measures had already been accomplished. Arvid’s cousin Hans von Dohnányi had assembled a dossier documenting Hitler’s criminal activities. An uncle, Karl Bonhoeffer, an eminent psychiatrist, was prepared to certify that Hitler was mentally ill. A high-ranking officer in military intelligence was in place to arrest him at a moment’s notice, and a general, who until recently had served as a chief of staff, would handle relations with the military.

  All the plan required to be set in motion was for Hitler to commit a reckless act of aggression, a breach of international law so outrageous that the democratic nations of Europe would be compelled to retaliate with united force. “This would disgrace him in the eyes of the German people and embolden his opponents,” said Mildred. “When Hitler is vulnerable, Arvid’s cousin and his group will take him into custody, remove him from office, and, with the cooperation of th
e military, restore democracy.”

  Sara felt a thrill of hope, but beside her, Greta walked steadily ahead, pushing the pram and frowning pensively. “Europe and America did nothing but complain when the Nazis sent tanks and troops into the Rhineland. Then came the Anschluss, and still they did nothing but protest from a distance. Why should anyone expect them to spring into action now?”

  “If the German army invades Czechoslovakia, Great Britain would be obliged to go to war on their behalf,” said Mildred.

  “The same way they were obliged to go to war when Germany violated the Treaty of Versailles the first two times?”

  “This would be different,” said Sara, her excitement rising. “The Rhineland is within Germany’s borders. The majority of Austrians welcomed annexation. But this would be the invasion of a foreign country that has no interest in becoming part of the Reich.”

  “I agree with your premises but not your conclusions,” said Greta. “Yes, it would be an escalation of Hitler’s aggression, but the response from the rest of the world would be the same.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Sara.

  “Let’s say for the sake of argument that Germany invades Czechoslovakia, and in return, Britain and France attack Germany,” said Greta. “Why does Arvid’s cousin assume this would turn the German people against Hitler rather than inspire them to rally to him?”

  Mildred hesitated. “I suppose we must trust the expertise of the military officers among the conspirators.”

  “I want to believe it could work,” said Greta, reaching into the pram to stroke Ule’s dark curls. “Truly, I would. But if this plan depends upon intervention from the Allies, it will never happen.”

  In the days that followed, tensions heightened throughout Europe as heated, frenzied negotiations took place, concessions were offered, ultimatums issued. Hitler would not relent. On September 24, he declared that Czechoslovakia must cede its German-speaking regions to him within four days or he would take them by force.

  For years Sara had prayed that war would be avoided, but now, knowing that Arvid’s cousin and his coconspirators were poised to force Hitler from office if Britain and France were provoked into military action, she found herself wishing for it.

  As September drew to a close, Hitler invited representatives of the other three most powerful nations of Europe—Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain, Benito Mussolini of Italy, and Édouard Daladier of France—to a summit in Munich to resolve the Sudeten crisis once and for all. Sara imagined the summit as a vigorous shouting match, with Hitler screaming and spitting on one side of the table, Mussolini seconding every declaration, Chamberlain and Daladier coolly regarding them from the opposite side, resolute in their refusal to let Hitler snatch up whatever parts of Europe caught his eye and tuck them into his pocket.

  Then, on September 29, an announcement came from Munich: The four nations had reached an agreement. The German army could occupy the Sudetenland by October 10, and Great Britain, France, and Italy would not intervene. Czechoslovakia could submit to the German invasion or resist, but if they chose war, they would fight alone.

  The next morning, recognizing the futility of their circumstances, the Czech government acquiesced. Later that day, Chamberlain and Hitler signed a peace treaty between Great Britain and Germany that Chamberlain proudly declared from 10 Downing Street would offer them “peace in our time.”

  Just as Greta had predicted, Hitler’s aggression provoked no military response. The conspiracy led by Arvid’s cousin fell apart.

  Sara realized then what Greta had surely figured out long before: No one was coming from afar to save them. They had only one another, and they were on their own.

  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 embraced Gleichschaltung, 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 word Judenfrei began 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 Zbąszyń about 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 Zbąszyń and 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’s Kabale und Liebe at 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 of Kabale und Liebe would mark the gala reopening. Adolf Hitler was scheduled to attend, and he would view the show from the Führerloge, 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.