“Erdberg and the other Soviet citizens will be deported soon under diplomatic protection,” Arvid told Mildred afterward. “He offered me twelve thousand marks and said it was unlikely we would meet again. I reminded him that I wasn’t doing this for money, but he insisted that I keep it for our expenses. I’ll divide it up among the group.”
Erdberg had also taught Arvid and Adam a coding system to use in their radio communications, using the key word “Schraube” and a key book, Der Kurier aus Spanien. Arvid would give one copy of the popular novel to Hans Coppi, and Erdberg would give another to the radio receivers in Moscow. It would be a very difficult code to break, even if the Nazis discovered what key book they used, which they were very unlikely to do.
Four days after German tanks rolled into the Soviet Union, Hans Coppi finally managed to get the recalcitrant transmitter functioning. Tuning to the appropriate frequency, he tapped out a traditional greeting, “1000 Grüsse an alle Freunde”—A thousand greetings to all friends. When an operator in Moscow immediately replied to confirm that their message had been received, Mildred, Arvid, and their friends could breathe a sigh of relief. Although at midnight on the first day of July, Erdberg and the fifteen hundred other captive Soviet citizens would depart Germany on a special train bound for the Russian border, the resistance would still be able to provide him with valuable intelligence.
The Soviet Union had recklessly squandered its best opportunity to defeat the Nazis on the battlefield, but Mildred hoped the Russians had learned from failure and would not repeat the mistake of ignoring their intelligence sources. For with Donald Heath gone and the United States still committed to isolationism, the USSR, for all its faults, remained the resistance’s best hope for bringing down the Reich.
Chapter Fifty-three
July–November 1941
Sara
By the middle of July, the Wehrmacht had captured Brest-Litovsk, Pskov, Minsk, Vitebsk, and Smolensk, and Panzer divisions had come within ten miles of Kiev. Sara’s heart broke every time word came of another Russian town bombed into submission or sent up in flames. So many innocent lives lost, so unnecessarily. Why had Stalin refused to heed their warnings? Great risk had gone into acquiring and delivering those intelligence reports, so meticulous and detailed that only a fool or a profoundly obstinate person could dismiss them as mere speculation or rumor. Bitterly Sara wondered which type Stalin was.
In the weeks that followed, though they were stunned by how badly the Soviets had squandered their advantage, Harro, Arvid, and their highly placed sources nevertheless continued to gather information about the Nazis’ military and economic strategies. Everything Sara discovered chilled her to the core.
As the German army plunged deep into Soviet territory, SS and police units followed in their wake, tasked with suppressing resistance behind the front lines. The foremost of these special units were the Einsatzgruppen—mobile death squads organized by Chief of Reich Security Reinhard Heydrich, who personally selected its commanders from among the best-educated and most fanatical Nazis. By the end of July, numerous reports had crossed Harro’s desk of how the Einsatzgruppen were carrying out their mission of eliminating Russian Jews, Communists, and other enemies of the Reich whom the Nazis believed would interfere with German governance of the conquered territories. First prominent Communist party leaders were executed, then Jews serving in government posts. Jewish Red Army prisoners of war were killed, in defiance of the Geneva Convention.
Still not satisfied that the threat had been eliminated, Heydrich announced that all Jews in Poland should be considered partisans and ordered that all Jewish males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five must be shot. Then he expanded the order to include women, children, and the elderly—any Jew, all Jews.
At first the Einsatzgruppen maintained some semblance of jurisprudence, reading off criminal charges—looting, sabotage, assault—before executing the helpless victims by firing squad. When that proved inefficient, the Einsatzkommandos began herding large groups of Jews to the outskirts of their villages, lining them up on the edge of mass graves, sometimes no more than ravines or ditches, and slaughtering them with automatic weapons, picking off any survivors with pistols. In some regions, Jews were spared death but were forced into ghettos and concentration camps to be exploited as slave labor. As rumors of the massacres spread, many Jews fled ahead of the oncoming terror. Heydrich did not interfere, for their desperate exodus helped achieve, at no additional expense, the ultimate goal of making the region Judenfrei.
Sara could not believe that the children and the elderly could have committed any of the crimes they had been accused of, nor was it possible that every man between eighteen and forty-five was a partisan. “How can they believe that every single Jew in Russia is a threat to the Reich?” she asked her brother, sickened by the slaughter of so many innocents. “The entire Red Army couldn’t defeat the German military. How do they expect untrained, unarmed civilians to do it?”
“Don’t count out the Soviet army just yet.”
“The Wehrmacht is closing in on Moscow,” she reminded him. “Don’t avoid the question. Why are they so afraid of the Jews?”
“It’s not fear,” said Natan. “It’s hatred. And don’t ask me to explain the logic behind it because there isn’t any. We’re different and Hitler needs a scapegoat.”
His words came back to Sara on the first day of September when Heydrich issued a decree requiring all Jews over the age of six in Germany and its annexed territories to wear a yellow cloth star whenever they were out in public. The Judenstern, a Star of David with “Jude” embroidered in black in the center, was to be sewn to the left breast of one’s outermost garment and must be visible at all times. Any Jew who violated the order or attempted to conceal the star would be subject to a fine or imprisonment.
Sara shrank with embarrassment as Judenstern were distributed and she accepted enough for herself and Natan. Over several days, she and Anna Hirsch, the young wife assigned to their apartment, spent hours diligently sewing the yellow stars to dresses, shirts, jackets, and coats before the September 18 deadline. At only four years old, little Elke was not required to wear the star, but one afternoon she darted over to hug her mother while she sewed. “Please, may I have a golden star too?” she asked.
After a moment’s hesitation, Anna agreed that she could have one on her sweater. “She’s too young to understand what it means,” she said after Elke darted off again, “how it’s meant to ostracize us, to rob us of our last shred of anonymity.”
“And our remaining dignity.” Sara paused as a memory stirred. “I remember an American novel I read at university called The Scarlet Letter. A Puritan woman convicted of adultery was sentenced to wear a red letter A upon her bodice so that everyone would know she had sinned. She obeyed, but she defied the community’s elders by wearing a beautiful, lavishly embroidered letter instead of the small, simple mark of shame they had intended.”
“Maybe I should do that,” said Anna bitterly. “I’m not ashamed to be a Jew. I won’t let them make me feel ashamed.”
Sara smiled, momentarily captivated by the idea of flinging Heydrich’s order back in his face by creating a gorgeous Judenstern for herself of golden satin embellished with beads and elaborately embroidered with ebony silk thread. But her smile quickly faded. In Hester Prynne’s seventeenth-century New England town, her daring act had provoked outrage and vicious gossip. In twentieth-century Germany, such defiance could mean death.
And so Sara sewed on the same coarse yellow stars every other Jew did. It was Natan who reminded her to leave a coat and a few dresses unaltered for “Annemarie Hannemann” to wear when she went out.
On September 18, Sara was reluctant to leave the house, but if she did not queue up at the shops with her ration book, she and Natan would not eat that night. As she walked to the market, she kept her gaze fixed on the pavement just ahead, her shoulders curved as if the Judenstern were made of lead, pulling her down with its weig
ht. Occasionally she caught glimpses of bright yellow in her peripheral vision, and for a moment she felt as if she were not alone.
But when she left the ghetto, she passed far more Aryans than Jews. A pair of elegantly dressed ladies recoiled when they approached her from the opposite direction; instinctively, Sara stepped aside, and spent the next ten minutes silently berating herself for the show of deference. Later, as she was leaving the market with a small loaf of bread and two potatoes in her basket, a young man jostled her and muttered “Filthy Jewish bitch” as he hurried past. She glared after him, and as she walked on to the butcher shop where she hoped to purchase a cut of beef or even a bone with a few shreds of meat still clinging to it, she kept her eyes front, jaw set. She might have imagined it, but she thought she glimpsed sympathy in the eyes of some of the women she passed, and one older gentleman out walking his dog actually tipped his hat to her and kindly wished her a good day. But the overwhelming number of people she passed seemed to regard her Judenstern with profound indifference, almost as if it had granted her the power of invisibility. These Berliners did not see it and they did not see her—but only because they did not wish to.
As Yom Kippur approached, Sara found herself yearning for the reconciliation and renewal of the Day of Atonement more powerfully than she had ever before. Natan was not particularly observant, but even he admitted that he hoped to find solace in the traditional rites, in the sound of many voices reciting the familiar Hebrew prayers, in the presence of other Jews seeking forgiveness for the sins of the community. The Reich could take away their every last civil right and privilege and crowd them into a ghetto where they froze and starved, but the Nazis could not separate them from God.
“At least it will be easy to fast this year,” Natan remarked irreverently at sundown on September 30. Anna looked shocked, but her husband grinned. Sara merely sighed and shook her head, feigning exasperation. The day her brother stopped mocking authority, she would know all was lost.
Throughout the next day, she ached with longing for her parents and sister, thinking of how they had observed Yom Kippur together as a family in bygone years, and how she feared they might never again. She imagined them attending a synagogue in Geneva, perhaps on a cobblestone street with a view of the beautiful lake and snowcapped mountains beyond, and then she imagined herself and Natan with them. Perhaps next year.
Sara and Natan decided to attend the evening service of Ne’ila at the synagogue on Levetzowstrasse, one of the largest in Berlin, a simple, elegant classical sandstone building able to accommodate more than two thousand worshippers. It had sustained slight damage during Kristallnacht three years before, but in comparison to the many synagogues that had been desecrated, burned, or destroyed, it had survived the pogrom relatively unscathed. To Sara it felt like a comforting, familiar refuge in a country transformed by hate and malice.
After the final prayers of repentance were offered and the shofar was sounded, the congregation departed with peace and joy in their hearts, off to end their fasts. Sara, Natan, and the Hirsches planned to eat together, combining their scarce rations to make a small feast worthy of the holiday.
So many yellow stars, Sara marveled, trailing behind Natan as the crowd flowed toward the front doors, bright Judenstern on every coat and jacket. She buttoned her own coat as she stepped outside, but suddenly Natan halted so abruptly that she nearly bumped into him. As the crowd shifted, she saw five Gestapo agents standing at attention at the bottom of the stone stairs, evenly spaced across their width.
“We wish to speak with your rabbi,” one of the men announced.
Sara’s heart thudded as a stir of apprehension passed through the crowd. Eventually the white-haired, bespectacled rabbi, Leo Baeck, emerged from the synagogue. “I am Rabbi Baeck,” he said, his voice both curious and welcoming. He was known for his kindness as much as for his intellectual gifts, and he was greatly beloved in the Jewish community.
“We require the keys to your building,” the Gestapo officer said. “You and the other elders are ordered to report to the Gestapo office on Burgstrasse at once.”
A murmur of protest quickly fell silent when the rabbi turned and calmly gestured for peace. “Might I ask why?” he asked, turning back to the officer.
“You will find out soon enough.” The Gestapo officer strode up the steps, halted before the rabbi, and held out his open palm. “The keys. Now.”
The rabbi frowned, but he nodded and sent a boy back into the synagogue to fetch the key ring. In the meantime, several older men gathered around the rabbi, their expressions grave and puzzled. Most of the congregation quickly left, but others lingered, scattered between the officers and the tall, pillared portico at the front entrance, beneath the quote from the Book of Isaiah engraved high above: “O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” The Jews had greater numbers, but the Gestapo carried sidearms and had the law on their side, however corrupt it had become.
“I’m going to follow them to the Burgstrasse,” Natan murmured in Sara’s ear. “I’ll meet you back home after I find out what’s going on. Save me some supper, if there’s enough.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sara protested in a whisper, just as the boy returned with the keys and the Jewish elders reluctantly set off on foot in the direction of Gestapo headquarters.
“It’s too dangerous. In the blackout I can move more swiftly alone.” Then, as if to prove his point, Natan slipped away and lost himself in the darkness before she could follow.
Frightened, indignant, Sara made her way back to their apartment, where she broke her fast with the Hirsches and anxiously watched the clock and listened for Natan’s footsteps in the hallway. When he finally arrived, his expression was so harrowed and grim that her recriminations caught in her throat.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice a breathless whisper. “Tell me.”
“The Jews of Berlin are going to be resettled in the east, in the captured regions of Poland and the Soviet Union.” He shrugged out of his coat, but as he turned to hang it on the peg by the door, in a sudden burst of rage he flung it to the floor. “Our own elders have been ordered to prepare the lists for deportation. The synagogue on Levetzowstrasse will be used as a transit camp until the deportees can be transported out of Germany.”
Anna cried out and clasped a hand to her heart. Her husband, Levi, drew her into his embrace, where she trembled, choking back sobs.
Sara kept her gaze locked on her brother. “What awaits us in the east?” she asked.
“The Gestapo was somewhat vague on the details.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Little more than a fortnight. The first group selected for deportation will be notified by mail within the next few days.”
“They will take young men first, don’t you think?” said Anna, wide-eyed and trembling, glancing toward little Elke, asleep on her makeshift bed on the floor next to the sofa. “Usually they want young, strong men, good workers, because there is always work to do. They won’t want children.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Levi soothed, throwing Natan a sharp look, pleading for reassurance, but he had none to offer.
A few days later, the Hirsch family received notice that they must report to the transit camp on Levetzowstrasse on October 16 in preparation for their emigration two days later.
Anna shrieked and burst into tears, clutching Elke so tightly that the little girl began to cry.
“It might not be so bad,” said Levi, holding the letter in one hand and stroking his wife’s back with the other. “Look, this letter is from the Berlin Jewish Organization, not the Gestapo. Our own people. Everything seems in order. They provide a list of everything we should bring—warm clothing, underwear, bedding, medicines, umbrellas. Matches and scissors and shaving tools. We’re allowed fifty kilograms of luggage apiece. I’m sure you could bring your entire sewing basket if you want to.”
Anna sniffed and wiped her eyes, dubious.
Anna looked from her husband to Natan and Sara. “Maybe we could leave our valuables with you instead, for safekeeping.”
“They will probably follow us on the next transport,” said Levi. “What would become of our papers and valuables then?”
Nodding, Anna lowered her gaze and kissed Elke, who had stopped weeping but squirmed in her mother’s lap, glaring at Natan as if he were to blame for upsetting her parents.
Over the next few days, Sara helped Anna prepare for their departure, and Anna gradually resigned herself to their circumstances. Rumors swept through the ghetto that the deportees would be settled on a kibbutz modeled after those in Palestine. Although the work would be strenuous, they would have plenty of food and fresh air. “It will be good for Elke to be in the country,” Anna remarked as she folded her daughter’s clothes into a suitcase. “Away from this wretched ghetto, away from the bombs.”
“It sounds lovely,” Sara admitted, but that was precisely why she found it so unlikely.
On the night before the Hirsches were to report to the transit camp, Natan took Sara aside. “Say your goodbyes tonight. When the Gestapo comes for them in the morning, we can’t be here.”
“Why not? We didn’t receive a letter.”
“They have a quota to fill. If they’re running short on Jews, they’ll snatch up any they can get their hands on.”
Resistance Women Page 51