The Boy Who Dared

by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

  Helmuth feels electric with excitement, too. Someday he will fight for the Fatherland. He can feel it, knows in his heart that it’s true.

  The hallway outside his flat smells sweet, like sausage and fried onions. Helmuth drops his leather satchel near the door. In the kitchen Mutti stands at the stove and tends a large black skillet. She has dark circles under her eyes from not enough sleep. Mutti never sleeps enough. She is always tired — tired from working nights at the nursing home, tired from the elderly people and their demands, tired from scrubbing the nursing home floors, changing the patients’ beds, from raising three boys alone.

  Boys need a father, that’s what Oma says. About that, Mutti never argues with her mother. She just says she’s doing her best. But Helmuth knows Mutti is tired of Oma’s advice, too. Mutti divorced Hans and Gerhard’s father long ago, and she never married Helmuth’s father. She doesn’t like talking about that man, not one bit.

  Helmuth clutches the leaflet as he watches Mutti brown the sausage and onions.

  “Have you heard?” he asks. “About Hitler?”

  Mutti smiles and taps the wooden spoon against the frying pan rim, then rests it on the counter. Helmuth senses that he is her favorite, though she would never say so. He senses that Gerhard and Hans know it, too.

  “How can I not hear,” says Mutti, “with all the shouting and marching? Who can sleep with all the excitement? We’re celebrating! With sausage and onions and sauerkraut. No more soup! Before you know it, we’ll eat veal and potato dumplings and plum Kuchen every day!”

  Plum cake! It’s Helmuth’s favorite. He takes his mother’s good mood as a sign. He shores up his courage and shows her the leaflet. “Bitte, Mutti. Please, may I go?”

  Mutti barely glances at the leaflet, doesn’t even think it over. “Ach, nay,” she says firmly. “You’re too young.”

  “What if Hans and Gerhard take me?”

  His mother hesitates. Helmuth uses her hesitation to dig in a toehold. “I’ll stay by them. They will watch me. I’ll be careful. We will be careful together.”

  Helmuth feels her giving in, but Mutti shakes her head, her dark brown hair billowing around her pretty face, her pale, tired face, and says, “Nein, it is verboten. I forbid you to go. You’re not old enough. If something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

  Helmuth crumples the leaflet, shoves it into his pocket. Darkness spreads through him. It isn’t fair. “You let Hans and Gerhard go.”

  “Never mind about your brothers. They’re older.”

  Helmuth scuffs at the floor with the toe of his shoe. His classmates will talk about the parade tomorrow. They will boast how their fathers took them. If only Helmuth had a father, things would be different. A father would let him go. A father would take Helmuth himself.

  * * *

  After supper, Mutti hums as she dresses for her job at the nursing home. Helmuth turns on Mutti’s old radio. It’s a small luxury to have a radio. Each month Mutti pays a tax to the Reichspost. That makes Oma click her tongue in disapproval, but the radio makes Mutti happy. Helmuth twists the dial and finds the Reich station, the RRG. He turns up the volume to tune out Mutti.

  Over the radio, the RRG blares reports that the parade to celebrate Hitler’s victory is under way. Thousands of flag-waving revelers are lining Germany’s streets.

  Helmuth glances at the clock. It’s nearly seven. Hans and Gerhard are still not home. Helmuth can barely stand it. He feels certain that Mutti has allowed them to ride the train into the city center. He’s convinced that they are jostling and pushing for a place on the sidewalk outside City Hall. And later, when they return home, they will rub it in, rub it in that they are old enough to participate in the celebration, and he is not.

  Mutti kisses the top of Helmuth’s head. “Your brothers will be home soon. Oma will come over to tuck you in,” she says as she slips into her old, brown woolen coat. It’s so worn the edges are frayed, and so huge it swallows her up, so tiny is she.

  At the door she trills her fingers good-bye. She feels bad, Helmuth can tell. Good. She should feel bad. He doesn’t wave back, sits sullenly at the table. He’s eight. Old enough to put himself to bed.

  Helmuth turns up the volume on the radio, and the sounds of the parade fill the flat. He rests his chin on his hand and closes his eyes. He imagines the sidewalks jammed with revelers sporting swastika armbands and waving red, white, and black flags.

  He hears the brass bands, too, and the living room gleams bright with the showy flutes and trumpets and trombones. He imagines the streets booming with Nazi storm troopers, hundreds of them, like distant thunder, marching straight-legged, twelve abreast, singing in echoing voices:

  We have broken the bonds of servitude,

  For us it was a great victory.

  We shall march on and on,

  Even if all is destroyed;

  For today Germany shall hear us

  And tomorrow the entire world.

  Beneath the singing, Helmuth feels the drums. They stir his blood, call him to duty, make his legs long to leap away from the table, away from the radio, and run down to the inner city to join the marchers.

  The flat door cracks open. It’s Oma, wearing her housecoat and slippers, come to shoo Helmuth to bed. “Your mother spoils you, letting you stay up this late,” Oma says, clucking her disapproval, but she leaves the radio on.

  Helmuth crawls between the bedcovers. Shivers. It’s cold without Gerhard and Hans to warm the bed. He thinks about the storm trooper earlier that day, how he said Germany needs soldiers. Soldiers like him, and he feels a deep love for all things German.

  Helmuth tries to stay awake, but somehow he falls asleep. By morning the radio is quiet, and there lie Gerhard and Hans, fast asleep, anchored on either side of him.

  Two nights later, Helmuth lies belly down on the livingroom floor, listening to Hitler’s first speech over the radio. Hitler speaks plainly, in words easy to understand. Helmuth likes the sound of Hitler’s voice, the way his rasping, barking voice pulses with energy.

  It charges Helmuth up, makes his own heart beat with fear as Hitler warns that Communism could destroy the Fatherland.

  “It seeks to poison and disrupt in order to hurl us into an epoch of chaos,” shouts Hitler. “Beginning with the family, Communists have undermined the very foundations of morality and faith, and scoff at culture and business, nation and Fatherland, justice and honor.”

  As their new chancellor, Hitler promises to protect Germany from Communists. He also promises to restore greatness to Germany, and he calls upon the German people to join in.

  “Every class and every individual must help us create the new Reich,” Hitler implores. “The National Government will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our country has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life.”

  Nation. Christianity. Morality. Family. Helmuth knows these things are very important.

  The speech isn’t very long, and at its end, Hitler prays, “May God Almighty give our work His blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting not for ourselves but for Germany!”

  “See?” says Mutti to Opa. “Hitler wants what’s best for us.”

  Opa disagrees. “He wins the kingdom by flattery, just as the Bible warns us,” he says, clicking off the radio. “But like it or not, Hitler’s our chancellor now.”

  And so the morning of day number 264 begins like every other morning on death row. Helmuth uses the slop bucket again, a handful of cut-up newspaper squares in his hand. He picks out the ones with Hitler’s name and uses those to scrape himself.

  It’s the end of February. Helmuth stirs awake as Mutti pulls up the bedcovers, smoothes them, bends over him, kisses his forehead.

  “Mutti,” he murmurs. “I was dreaming. About a sparrow.” He doesn’t want to open his eyes, doesn’t want the dreamy, flying fe
eling to go away.

  The bed sinks as Mutti sits beside him. “God watches over sparrows,” she says softly. “The sparrow guides the soul to heaven.” Her voice cracks a little, the way it does when she’s anxious or troubled. “Now go to sleep,” she says.

  Mutti stands. She closes the bedroom door behind her, but Helmuth is wide awake now. He slips from bed, finds Mutti sitting in the dark, listening to the radio, her hand over her mouth. The radio dial glows amber.

  “Mutti, what’s happened? Is it bad?”

  She hushes him, pulls him onto her lap.

  “The Reichstag is on fire!” blares the radio newscaster. “Burning out of control!”

  This is shocking news. The Reichstag is the parliament building, the seat of government in Berlin. And now it’s on fire.

  “Adolf Hitler has pronounced the raging fire a Communist plot,” cries the newscaster. “A plot to take over the German government! Germans must remain on ready alert!”

  Helmuth’s eyes open wide. “Are we in danger?”

  “No, not us,” says Mutti, pulling Helmuth close. “We’re safe. They’ve already arrested the culprit.”

  “How do we know it’s the right person?” asks Helmuth.

  “They said so on the radio,” says Mutti. “Hitler will protect us from Communists.” She grasps his shoulders, steers him toward his bedroom. “Now go to bed.”

  Helmuth crawls between Gerhard and Hans, who are both sound asleep. The windows are closed against the cold, but Helmuth can hear the steady wail of a police siren. The police must be off to arrest Communists, Helmuth assures himself. That’s good. Jail is a good place for people who want to destroy the government.

  * * *

  More swastika flags hatch overnight, and the next day they flutter like bright birds from balconies and windows everywhere.

  That afternoon Helmuth is eating bread with strawberry jam when Opa’s good friend Heinrich Worbs knocks loudly on the door. Brother Worbs is a peculiar old man, full of opinions, and everything he thinks he says in a loud voice. Brother Worbs just can’t help himself, that’s what Oma says. Helmuth likes the old man, shouts and all. Everyone does.

  Brother Worbs waves a newspaper at Opa. The headline blares in thick bold letters:

  REICHSTAG BURNS!

  COMMUNIST THREAT TURNED BACK!

  HITLER DECLARES EMERGENCY DECREE

  FOR PROTECTION OF STATE AND PEOPLE

  “That carpet chewer!” cries Brother Worbs. “This new decree takes away our freedoms. Freedom of speech, gone! Freedom of the press, gone! Right to privacy, gone! The police can search our home, listen to our telephone calls, read our mail. And Hitler calls it protection! Sometimes I think the biggest winner is the biggest liar!”

  Helmuth is shocked at Brother Worbs. Brother Worbs is a Mormon, just like Helmuth’s family. Mormons are taught to respect their country and its leaders, even if one disagrees with them. “But the Communists burned our Reichstag,” says Helmuth. “Hitler wants to protect us.”

  “It’s not the Communists we must fear,” says Brother Worbs. “Now we must fear what we say to our neighbors, what we say in our own homes, what we say over the telephone, what we write.”

  Opa tries to calm down Brother Worbs. “The decree is just a temporary inconvenience. A few freedoms aren’t too much to sacrifice for safety.”

  Helmuth is surprised. It’s the first time that he has heard his grandfather agree with Hitler.

  “How can you say that?” says Brother Worbs. “Decree or no decree, I have always spoken the truth and I intend to continue to do so.” He stands, thrusts his black felt hat onto his head.

  Oma comes from the kitchen, wipes her hands on her apron. She motions to a chair at the table. “Come, Brother Worbs, sit.”

  But Brother Worbs won’t stay, even though Oma asks two times. “I can’t sit,” he says. “I need to walk to settle my stomach.”

  Opa folds the newspaper and sets it down. He follows Brother Worbs to the door. “The decree won’t last forever,” says Opa.

  “Nor will Hitler,” says Brother Worbs. “That’s what I pray for. I will never vote for a Nazi — no matter what they promise us.”

  Helmuth glances at the folded newspaper. He sees a photograph of the arsonist, a squinting, tousle-headed young man.

  Oma peers over Helmuth’s shoulder and clicks her tongue. “So young,” she says. “I can’t help but wonder how Hitler knew so quickly it was a Communist plot.”

  Helmuth can’t stop staring at the culprit’s face. “What will happen to him?” he asks Oma.

  “The Nazis will find him guilty, no doubt,” she says with a sigh. “They’ll sentence him to death. That’s what happens to traitors.” She clicks her tongue again. “So young.”

  * * *

  A week later, it’s election day and Opa and Oma dress in their Sunday best. They stroll, arm in arm, to vote at the town hall.

  Later they hear the results. The Nazi Party has gained a slight majority of seats in the Reichstag. Even people who despise Hitler have voted for Nazis, believing that the Nazis are the best protection from Communists.

  Suddenly brown uniforms sprout up everywhere. Helmuth’s teacher, Herr Zeiger, wears his SA uniform to school, and his Nazi Party badge winks in the light as he struts around the classroom. He holds up the Völkischer Beobachter — the Nazi Party newspaper — to Helmuth’s class. The headline shouts in thick letters: GERMANY, DEFEND YOURSELVES! DON’T SHOP AT JEWISH STORES!

  “Look what the Jews force us to do,” says Herr Zeiger. “We must boycott the Jews in order to save the Fatherland.”

  Benno Seligmann’s eyes narrow to pinpricks. It’s no secret that the Jews hate Hitler and have called for an economic boycott. Jews all over the world have called on fellow Jews to boycott German goods in order to protest Hitler and the Jew-hating Nazi regime.

  A classmate raises his hand. “My father says the Jews want to cripple the Fatherland’s economy. Then they will take over.”

  “Exactly,” says Herr Zeiger. “We have six million unemployed and three million more so poor that they can’t put food on the table. Haven’t we Germans suffered enough already? Do you want your mothers and fathers to suffer more?”

  The students murmur in agreement. Helmuth thinks about Mutti, how hard she works, how tired she is. He doesn’t want Mutti to suffer more. But all the things Herr Zeiger says about the Jews feel terribly wrong. Unease crawls over Helmuth.

  Herr Zeiger glares at Benno and lowers his pointer, aiming it like a sword. “You see, class, Jews are traitors who want to destroy Germany. And what does the Jew Seligmann say to that?”

  This shocks Helmuth. Benno Seligmann and his family, traitors? How can that be? Benno’s father flies the gold-and-black flag of the Weimar Republic. A portrait of Reich president Hindenburg hangs in his butcher shop. Herr Seligmann fought in the Great War, where he was wounded and earned the Iron Cross for his bravery. He wears his lieutenant’s uniform on national holidays.

  Herr Zeiger doesn’t wait for Benno to answer. He stalks around the room. “We must defend ourselves against bankruptcy! We must defend ourselves against Jews and their worldwide plot to take over Germany. We must fight back. If Jews want to boycott everything German, then we must boycott everything Jewish.” He stops at Benno’s desk and leans into his face. “After all, it’s an eye for an eye, isn’t it?”

  “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, Herr Zeiger,” says Benno.

  This infuriates Herr Zeiger. His neck stretches into tight cords as he screams, “See how the Jew twists my words? See why Jews can’t be trusted?”

  Herr Zeiger grabs Benno’s collar, drags him to a front-row seat. Shoves him into the chair. “Sit here,” he says, his face purple with rage. “So we can keep an eye on you.”

  Benno sits, chin jutted. Doesn’t look the least bit sorry. The next day Herr Seligmann and his wife come to school to meet with the head teacher. Benno retrieves his books and never comes to class again. H
e has transferred to the “Jewish school.”

  * * *

  April in Hamburg is usually cool and damp, but the first day in April, a Saturday, is sunny. Mutti hands Helmuth a five Pfennig coin and tells him to buy a bag of apple-cake trimmings from Herr Kaltenbach.

  Helmuth rushes outside and turns east onto Süderstrasse, the street where the Kaltenbach bakery and several other Jewish shops are housed. He stops short at the sight of brown-and-black uniforms. SS and SA men are everywhere. Plastering posters on walls. Stretching banners. GERMANS! DO NOT BUY FROM JEWS! WORLD JEWRY IS OUT TO DESTROY US!

  There are Hitler Youth, too. Boys Helmuth knows, older boys from his school. Scrawling the word JEW in thick yellow paint and painting crude yellow outlines of the Star of David. On windows. Doors. Kaltenbach’s bakery. Abraham Tobacco and Cigarette Import. Baumgarten Hats for Women. Cibulski Shoes. Galewski Women’s and Children’s Clothing. Seligmann’s Butcher Shop.

  Outside Herr Kaltenbach’s bakery, a storm trooper stands. His legs are wide, his arms folded across his chest, his face tightly muscled. On the store window, the words Germans! Don’t buy from Jews! have been painted. Over the front door, a yellow star glares thick with wet paint.

  Helmuth spots Herr Kaltenbach inside, a short, round, kind-looking man with wisps of white hair and a spotless white apron. His wooden cases gleam, their paper-lined trays heaped with pastries and breads and cakes.

  Herr Kaltenbach paces back and forth, rubbing his hands together. He reaches into his apron pocket, extracts a white handkerchief, and mops his glistening forehead.

  Helmuth clutches the coin and starts for the door.

  “Juden Laden,” growls the storm trooper. “This is a Jewish shop.”

  Just then, there are shouts. Helmuth glances across the street. Benno Seligmann’s father is standing outside his shop, wearing, of all things, his lieutenant’s uniform from the Great War, medals and all. He has a bucket and is washing the slurs from his window, smearing the yellow paint into huge wet circles.