All God's Children

by Anna Schmidt

  Unable to sleep once he reached the small apartment near the hospital where another medical student had offered him a spare bed, Josef didn’t wait for the first rays of dawn to streak the sky. He dressed and headed for his lab at the university. He might as well get some work done. He had taken far too much time away from his studies and research these last days while he tried to come up with some way to get Beth’s visa replaced. Now there was this new and far more dangerous situation that needed a solution.

  He strode across the square, barely hearing the chiming of the Rathaus-Glockenspiel—the clock with its little figures putting on a show that as a boy he had so loved to watch. A trio of black sedans that had become synonymous with the government rumbled into the square, going so fast that if Josef had not stepped quickly into a doorway he would have been hit. As the cars roared away, Josef slumped against a pillar and looked at the buildings surrounding him. This was his home—the place where he had been born, gone to school, spent so many happy hours with his friends. But it all seemed so different to him now. Something sinister permeated the city these days—something that bordered on pure evil. Josef grieved for the country he loved.

  Weighed down by despair, he walked the rest of the way to the university and unlocked the door to the laboratory that he shared with three other medical students. He had just switched on the lamp when he noticed the folded paper on the floor near the door. It brought back the memory of the first time he had found a copy of one of the leaflets calling for resistance and written by the group known as the White Rose. Now as then, notes left by unseen messengers were more often than not missives of bad news or words that could cause a person no end of trouble should such a document be found on his person. After the day and night he’d had, Josef decided the last thing he needed was to get caught up in something that could lead to more trouble for him or others. He ignored the paper and set to work.

  But barely half an hour later he gave up any pretense of focusing on his work. He picked up the paper and spread it flat on his desk. The type was so faded that the words were almost unreadable. Josef held the paper closer to the desk lamp. He was barely past the opening sentence when he realized what he was reading.

  This indeed was a copy of a White Rose leaflet—different from the one he’d read in the summer before he and his fellow medical students had left for their military assignments. Reading that original paper, he had been stunned and more than a little excited to realize that whoever had written those impassioned words shared his feelings about the current state of politics in their homeland. That essay had been a call to action—not to save the Jews and others designated as undesirable by the Third Reich, but rather to save Germany from Hitler and his Third Reich.

  He turned his attention to the paper in his hand. This time the author or authors had taken a more strident tone:

  There is an old proverb that children are always taught anew: Pay attention or pay the consequences. A smart child will only burn his fingers once on a hot stove.

  In the past few weeks, Hitler has registered successes both in Africa and in Russia. As a result, optimism grew among the people on the one hand, while consternation and pessimism grew on the other hand—and this with a rapidity that is unrivalled [in a nation known for] inertia. On every side among the opponents of Hitler—that is, among the better part of the nation—one heard plaintive calls, words of disappointment and discouragement, which often ended with the exclamation: “But what if Hitler really…?”

  In the meantime, the German offensive in Egypt has ground to a halt. Rommel must hold out in a dangerously exposed position. And yet the march eastward continues. This apparent success has been at the expense of the most ghastly sacrifices, so that it can no longer be described as advantageous. We therefore must warn against every form of optimism.

  Who has counted the dead, Hitler or Goebbels? Probably neither. Thousands fall every day in Russia. It is the time of harvest, and the reaper approaches the standing crops with all his energy. Mourning returns to the cottages of the homeland and no one is there to dry the tears of the mothers. But Hitler deceives the ones whose most precious possession he has stolen and driven to a senseless death.

  Josef read the words quickly, not because he feared being discovered but because he was in complete agreement with the author. The last line of the piece was especially compelling.

  “We will not keep silent. We are your guilty conscience. The White Rose will not let you alone!”

  Josef leaned back in his chair and realized that his breath was coming in short gasps of excitement as if he had run a race and crossed the finish line ahead of his competitors. Given the events referred to in the document, the leaflet had been composed sometime after July— possibly just before the White Rose leaflets had simply stopped. He had assumed the author or authors had been caught. But if that was true, their cause had been taken up by others. This document—written months earlier—had been copied and left for someone like him to find—just as the original leaflets had been. Whoever had left this was still fighting for the Germany that Josef loved. He felt the sting of tears—tears of relief. Tears of hope.

  Since returning from his military duty, he had been stunned by the changes in Munich. Beneath the surface of gaiety and holiday festivity ran an undercurrent of fear and caution that permeated everything. He thought about that autumn day when he’d first seen Beth Bridgewater. That day she had come into the apartment so full of vitality. He had thought of her high spirits as American, but now he realized that in some ways she had displayed the openness and energy of Bavarians as they had been before the war—before Hitler came to power, before everything changed.

  Beth.

  It had taken weeks for him to secure the precious document that could assure her safe departure. Of course, his father had named his price—to deliver the document himself and meet this American woman. Josef had had no choice but to agree, and he had hurried back to the apartment to prepare Beth for his father’s visit. His plan had been to coach her on what to say—and more to the point what not to say. But then he had walked into the house and come face to face with Anja and her children, setting off a series of events that he could not have imagined.

  Outside the laboratory door, he heard footsteps and froze. He glanced at the paper still clutched in his hand and crushed it into a ball as the doorknob turned.

  “Ah, Herr Doktor Buch,” the custodian said. “You are here earlier than usual.”

  Josef glanced at the wall clock and ran his fingers through his hair. “I could not sleep.”

  Instead of leaving and apologizing for disturbing Josef, the custodian rolled his mop bucket into the room.

  Irritated at the interruption, Josef wrapped his fingers more tightly around the wad of paper clutched in his palm. “I’ll likely be here for at least another hour before I leave for class,” he said, hoping the custodian would move on down the hallway to clean another room.

  “We all have our duties, Herr Doktor. I won’t take long.” He set his mop into the sudsy water and began moving around the room, swiping the wet mop under lab tables and desks, pausing only to move or empty a wastebasket or retrieve a fallen piece of paper.

  Josef turned back to his work, glad that once he’d decided to abandon any possibility that he might be able to concentrate he hadn’t packed up his papers and books. All the while he considered how he might best dispose of the incendiary leaflet still gripped in his hand. A metal wastebasket was close enough that he could certainly drop it there and then tear off sheets from his notebook and add them to the refuse.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see what the custodian was doing and saw the man emptying a similar basket into a larger container that he had dragged into the room along with his mop bucket. But it was the way he emptied the contents of the trash that gave Josef pause. The man did not simply upend the smaller receptacle into the larger one. He pulled out the contents one paper or wadded ball at a time, setting the crumpled papers aside in a separa
te bucket as he tossed the others into the garbage bin.

  Josef stealthily worked the incriminating leaflet beneath the cuff of his shirt and then stood and stretched as he reached for the uniform jacket draped over the back of his chair and shrugged into it. The custodian looked up.

  “I just remembered that I need to stop at home before class,” Josef said as he gathered his papers and thrust them inside his briefcase.

  “Sorry for interrupting your work, but…” The janitor smiled but did not return to his work.

  “Kein Problem,” Josef said as he left the room. But there could definitely have been a problem—a huge one if the custodian had come in and caught him reading that paper.

  He was halfway down the hall when he heard the custodian call out to him.

  “You must have dropped this paper, Doktor.” He was holding up a page that had clearly been crumpled into a ball and smoothed out again.

  Josef felt the start of panic but realized that he could feel the leaflet he’d hidden in his sleeve scratching against his arm as he moved. Whatever the custodian was holding, it was something else. Josef took the paper the man held out to him and held it up to the light spilling into the dim hallway from the laboratory. It took less than a second for him to realize that this was another copy of the leaflet he had hidden in his sleeve.

  The custodian watched him closely. The man was testing him.

  “Where did you get this?” Josef demanded, waving the paper in the man’s face. He saw at once that he had effectively turned the tables. The custodian was now the one on the defensive, having realized too late that in giving such a document to Josef, he had raised questions of his own involvement in distributing such seditious literature. “I could report you for this,” Josef added for good measure.

  The custodian backed away, his hands raised in protest even as sweat leaked from every pore of his balding head. “Nein, Doktor. I…I saw the paper on the floor near where you were working, and I thought perhaps—”

  “Get back to work,” Josef ordered. “I’ll take care of this.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode down the hall, taking the second copy of the leaflet with him.

  Outside he drew in long deep breaths of the cold morning air. How many of these papers were there? The originals had been printed on a mimeograph machine. This one as well as the copy hidden in his shirt sleeve had been typed. There could not possibly be many copies. It was possible that he had in his hands the only two.

  He knew that he should simply burn the papers and forget about them. But somewhere people felt as he did. They were afraid for the future of their beloved country as he was and had decided to try and reach out to others who shared their concern. If they all banded together, perhaps they could change the course the Third Reich had set for their beloved fatherland. They could make a difference. He could make a difference.

  I have a concern….

  He thought of the evening when Beth had uttered that phrase— the night when he had learned the true story of her missing visa. The night their lives had become intertwined.

  Beth Bridgewater had taken actions every bit as risky and courageous as the author of the call to action against the Third Reich that Josef had hidden in his sleeve. She had done so not because of her love of country or even because of any special connection to the woman she’d given her visa—or for that matter Anja and her children.

  She had been faced with a choice between doing what was safe and doing what was right, and on at least two occasions that Josef knew of, she had chosen the more dangerous but noble path. In so doing she had shown more courage than any soldier Josef had ever encountered on the field of battle.

  He pulled the leaflet from his sleeve and folded it with the one he had taken from the custodian. Somehow he would find the author or authors of these papers—and once he did, he would join them. For the first time in weeks, he felt a kernel of hope sprout inside him, and he was determined to help it grow.

  CHAPTER 7

  For two days and nights Beth managed to keep Anja, Benjamin, and the children safe. She slept in her own bed, alert for any sound coming from the attic. In the evenings Josef joined them, and in spite of the meager supper Anja helped Beth prepare, their time together was filled with discussion and laughter and the rudiments of building friendships. They took turns telling the children stories until they fell asleep. After that the four adults would sit in a corner of the attic and talk about their lives before the war—places they had traveled, plans they had made for their future, people they had known in common.

  While Anja asked Beth about life in America, her eyes shone with excitement when she imagined one day she and Benjamin might take their children and live there. “In peace,” she always added quietly.

  On these occasions, it seemed perfectly natural that Beth should sit with her head resting on Josef’s shoulder as Anja stretched out so that her head was on Benjamin’s lap. Josef would gently stroke her hair as he and Benjamin talked about sports—the 1936 Olympics in particular. Beth would link her fingers with Josef’s as she told them about her life in America.

  “Perhaps one day,” Anja would murmur wistfully, “we will go there with the children and live in peace.”

  But they all understood that these idyllic evenings could not last. On the third such night Beth reminded them all that her aunt and uncle were due home in just two days. This would be their last night together for a while because the following night Anja and Benjamin and the children would have to leave.

  It was that night that Josef excused himself, went up to his room in the attic, and came back a moment later with a small radio. He plugged it in, and to their amazement through whistles of static they heard the unmistakable voice of Winston Churchill addressing the people of Great Britain. As the four of them sat with their heads bent toward the radio, trying to catch every word, they took hold of each other’s hands, forming a circle of solidarity around the radio. And when the static finally drowned out the British prime minister’s voice, they remained sitting in silence, drawing strength from one another as they considered their futures. Beth did not know what the others prayed for or thought about during those moments. For her there was but one thought: getting Anja and her family to a place where they would be safe until this horrid war could be brought to its end.

  With no idea how she and Josef might manage that, the following day she bought some peroxide and told Anja as a first step to lighten Benjamin’s and the children’s dark hair. Anja already had the golden blond hair and Aryan features preferred by the current regime—even though most Bavarians, not to mention Hitler himself, had brown hair. Still, if the entire family were fair-haired, they might be able to move around more freely.

  She had left them to this task while she went to the market and stood in the long line of people waiting to see what they might be able to buy with their ration stamps. Across Germany food was becoming increasingly scarce, and usually Beth felt fortunate to be able to trade the family’s food stamps for a few potatoes and black bread, sometimes a small stunted onion, and if she was very blessed a beef salami sausage. The wait was over an hour, and Beth came away with very little—a small loaf of stale black bread, five small potatoes, and one orange.

  “Happy Christmas from der Führer,” the woman distributing the oranges announced, presenting each small, hard, green piece of fruit as if it were the gold laid at the manger by one of the three kings.

  As Beth trudged home, she mentally ran through what supplies were still in the pantry that she might be able to give Anja for the journey ahead. Then as she approached the bakery, she heard someone call out to her.

  “Beth! We’re back!” She looked up to see Liesl leaning over the shallow balcony outside the apartment’s kitchen. “We brought a present for you. I’m coming down. Mama says we can buy something at the bakery.”

  Beth’s mind was racing along with her heart as she waited for Liesl to reach the street. She glanced up at the attic window and thought she saw th
e curtain move. Was that Anja or Benjamin? She saw Liesl exiting the street entrance to the apartments. Her cousin ran to meet her, taking her hand and dancing alongside her, her eyes sparkling with excitement as they walked the rest of the way together.

  “You weren’t due back until tomorrow,” Beth said, glancing toward the attic window again, and this time she was certain that the curtain moved. Either Anja or Benjamin had to be keeping watch. Hopefully they recognized the problem and would take up their place in the closet Beth had shown them behind the trunks and boxes of off-season clothing that Ilse kept stored there.

  “Mama says we have ever so much to do to prepare for Christmas. She is feeling much much better,” Liesl said. “And Mama says I mustn’t expect that you will have presents for us but that’s fine because Mama says presents are not important. Our best present is that we are all together and safe and…” She frowned. “But Mama says this might be our last Christmas with you for a while.”

  Beth’s mind was so focused on what to do about Anja that she was barely listening to her cousin’s chatter until this last statement caught her attention. “Why? Are you going somewhere?”

  “No, silly. Mama says you have to go back to America and the sooner the better,” she added. “She says it’s not safe for you here now that we’re enemies and all.” She sighed. “I so wish we could be friends, Beth.”

  “You and I are not enemies, Liesl,” Beth reminded her as they entered the bakery.