The Seven Year Dress: A Novel

by Paulette Mahurin

  “Bullets, Helen. Now stay down.”

  Acid rose in my throat. Now I knew what it felt like to be scared to be Jewish—to be the target of hatred. Each bang! jolted me. I felt grateful that walls separated us from the noise and danger. That small sense of comfort lasted until my mother looked to the ceiling and whispered, “God, please God, keep us safe.” Did she think they would break in and kill us? For what? We never hurt anybody. I would spend the rest of my life asking that same question: why?

  Time passed in slow motion until the noise stopped. Shana was hysterical in Lawrence’s arms, and Ben huddled in a pool of his urine next to me. My ashen-faced mother, frozen to the same spot for nearly an hour, gathered us children close to her. “It is over. We are safe.”

  My father, who had been crouching on the floor, finally stood. “No, we are not safe.” His characteristic optimism fading, he motioned for us to sit with him at the table. “We have to learn to be careful. Do not open the door if a stranger knocks. Go out in pairs and, if accosted by anyone, ignore it. Do not defend yourself. If you come across a man in uniform and he asks a question, answer politely. Be respectful.”

  Squinting my eyes, I cocked my head and sighed. “Why do we have to cower to everyone? We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Helen, you listen to me, young lady. I will not tell you this a second time. No sass!”

  “But father…”

  “Irving,” my mother stroked his back, “she is a child. Be gentle. They are frightened.”

  My father took a deep breath. He looked different to me—defeated. When he spoke, he seemed to be speaking to his shoes, not to us. His voice, always soft, was now somehow heavier. Harder. “We have to be very careful. There is more, yes. But I do not want to tell you. We have enough bad thoughts in our heads. We do not need uglier pictures in our minds and hearts.”

  “I want to know! My whole life’s been uprooted and I have a right to know, Father,” I protested.

  Lawrence pounded the table in disgust. “You’re not the only one in the family, Helen! When are you going to grow up? Listen to Papa!”

  Shana started crying and Ben, trousers still wet, sat quietly shaking his head.

  “Children,” my mother’s voice was soothing and gentle, “try to calm down. Take a breath.” Then with a hand on top of my father’s, she said, “Irving, it is time to tell our children. They need to know.”

  My father conceded. He told us what was happening to political resisters and to Jews throughout Germany. “In the south, there is a place, an abandoned munitions factory, near Dachau, where prisoners are being held.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?” asked Ben. “Our prisons are overflowing and—”

  “Ben,” my father contracted his brows into a half-frowning concentration and continued with, “everything is wrong with that. It is not really for prisoners who committed real crimes. The prison is for people who are voicing disagreements with Hitler and his regime. An evil man named Heinrich Himmler opened a warehouse for men where they will be used as forced labor. There is talk that this…this enslavement camp will house…Jews.”

  “What do you mean house Jews?” asked Lawrence.

  “Just that. The rumor is that Hitler wants Jews separated from mainstream society and put in places away from civilization.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It is hard to explain this in a way you will understand. Suffice it to say Hitler is a hateful man who despises Jews. He holds false beliefs that have misplaced blame on Jews for Germany’s economic problems among other things. He writes of wanting the world rid of Jewish people.” My father shrugged his shoulders. “There is talk he is unstable. Who knows what he is capable of doing?”

  “Why can’t we form groups to protest with guns?” Lawrence looked at each of us before adding, “There must be enough Jews in Germany to band together.”

  “Resistance movements are forming. Meetings occur. But you must never discuss any of this or…” I watched my mother hold her breath as my father finally said, “As long as we mind our business and don’t bring attention to ourselves, Hitler’s soldiers and others instigating the trouble should leave us alone.”

  “This is really happening?” I asked. “It’s not just a bunch of crazy rumors? I can’t believe it.”

  “It is true.” My mother finally exhaled. “Children, you listen to and trust your father. And we need to pray to God that things change.”

  In unison, we all nodded our agreement.

  My mother smiled at Ben. “Go change your pants, son.”

  Watching Ben leave the room with his wet bottom, we broke into giggles. Although most likely a nervous response, the sound of our laughter calmed me. Even then I knew there would not be many days of laughter—or tranquility—ahead.

  Chapter Five

  As 1933 moved through 1934 and into 1935, the development of the Volkswagen Beetle prototypes centered on Hitler’s explicit requirements for the “people’s car.” I wondered, who are the people he is building these cars for? My father was outraged by the news.

  “To this idiot, cars are more important than human beings.” His face was red as he spoke clutching his chest. He had been complaining of a sour stomach of late, and I worried when he would grab for his heart. When he saw my trembling chin, he smiled, waved his hand and said, “Ah, it is just my stomach.” Although my mother’s worry lingered, the rest of us watched it pass and didn’t make a big fuss about it. After all, he was only forty-five.

  The automobile wasn’t the only headline in the news that aggravated my father. Papa told us that while Hitler continued to maintain a bearing of authority, he had designs on transforming Germany into a police state, beginning with the rearmament of its military, which went against the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. “While undergoing his covert internal operations, Hitler presents an international front as a diplomat by deftly negotiating with other European countries, expressing his desire for peace. He is a two-faced moron,” my father protested.

  * * *

  I loved our home in West Berlin and thought we lived very well. Located off the Kurfürstendamm Strasse, near the Bahnhof Zoo train station, it was close to museums and the Philharmonic Hall. Our large two-story house was in a mixed neighborhood of successful Jewish businessmen, doctors, and lawyers and well-off German Christians. Max’s parents inherited their home, which was next-door to ours, from Ludwig’s father, a wealthy factory owner. My father purchased ours while being employed by the government.

  Upstairs, Shana and I shared a bedroom, while Larry, Ben, and my parents had their own bedrooms. Downstairs was a formal living room, a dining room with a large table that sat ten, and an adjacent bathroom. The front door opened to a foyer with walls adorned with classic art pieces. To the right was my father’s lushly furnished office where he did his paperwork. Antique vases and lamps adorned 18th-century end tables and upon his desk was a statue by Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain, the brother-in-law of the famous Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. My father prided himself on his art collection, which he claimed was a wise investment. Priceless to him, he would lose it all before too long.

  After my father had been dismissed from his government job, he managed to make ends meet by doing some legal and accounting work for Jewish proprietors. When not paid with money, he accepted food and objects we could use. I remember the day he came home with a sewing machine.

  “You can teach the girls to sew,” he told my mother, who gave up sewing years earlier when her machine broke. “It will give them something to occupy their minds.”

  My mother’s eyes lit up. “And perhaps we could supplement your income with tailoring for some friends?”

  “A very good idea, Rose.” My father nodded in approval. “Thank you, dear.”

  The dining room was transformed into a sewing room with thread strewn about and rags for fabric to teach us how to use the machine. While Shana and I busied ourselves learning and practicing, my father found work for us to do. Entering the room w
ith a handful of clothes, he commented, “This should keep you busy. And an advance payment for your work.” He extended a handful of Reichsmarks to my mother.

  “We will go to the grocery store and buy something nice for a meal?” She smiled. “Perhaps even splurge and get chocolate for the children.” Since our funds were diminishing, that would be an extravagant expenditure.

  Word got around that we delivered well-sewn garments, transforming old, tattered clothing into respectable outfits. I found the work enjoyable and meaningful, and I took great pride in my newfound talent as a seamstress. Shana didn’t take to it like I did.

  * * *

  Max was becoming a distant friend, and he would rarely sneak over to see me anymore. Through my sewing room window, I’d watch him in his uniform, marching in the street with his youth group. I wondered if his stern, blank expression held back the fear he shared with me concerning his affinity for boys. Although I missed spending time with him, there was something very comforting about knowing I had a friend who was moving up in the ranks of the Hitler Youth. That feeling helped me when, in 1935, Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws that stripped Jewish people of their civil rights as German citizens. The new laws meant that I would be excluded from Reich citizenship because of my religion. The Nuremberg Laws also prohibited Jews from marrying or having sex with someone of German blood.

  “What does this mean?” My mother asked my father about the rumored laws.

  Wiping the sweat from his forehead, my father responded, “I am not sure.”

  “You are a lawyer! Have you read these laws?” My mother was unusually adamant that Papa explain the situation to her—and to us.

  “I have seen some of the information…”

  “What do you mean by information?” she asked, looking at the rest of us piling around them in the kitchen.

  “Stolen papers, handwritten copies, scraps of sentences. One cannot piece it all together from limited access to the original documents.”

  “What did you see?” Lawrence, my oldest brother, looked so grown-up—so intense.

  My mother stared at Lawrence, nodded, and then turned to my father. “Tell him, Irving. Tell us all whatever you have seen.”

  Shaking his head, my father took a slow, labored breath. “Rose, please…”

  “Please tell us,” I joined in. “We’ve been through this before with holding back information. You said you’d share with us. Papa, please.”

  “Sit,” he commanded and waited for us to comply, then went on to say, “there are many laws. Over a hundred. A Jew is defined,” he coughed, cleared his throat, and continued, “as anyone who has three or four Jewish grandparents. It does not matter if the person practices the religion or not. Hitler is referring to bloodline. There are a lot of Germans who have not practiced Judaism in years and do not consider themselves believers of the faith. That does not matter. Our blood is what matters to that madman and his growing gang of thugs.”

  “Why would someone not want to be a Jew if that was their lineage?” asked Ben.

  “Ben, my boy, not everyone shares our same beliefs. Some Jews have even converted to Christianity in order to—”

  “What?” I interrupted. “That can’t be!”

  “Yes, it is true. They are not bad people. And we are not better or right for our beliefs. People are just different. You and your friend Max had no problems because of religious differences. It is like that, Helen.”

  “But now Max can’t come around,” I moaned.

  “We are not going to get into that again, Helen.”

  “What else should we know about the new laws?” asked Lawrence.

  My father continued to explain that the new laws were an attempt to label and single out Jews. He didn’t feel this would escalate into anything more serious. Once again, he believed that as long as we didn’t cause trouble they’d leave us alone.

  I had so many questions after what my father had told us about these new laws. How could being a Jew make me a target? A target for what? What kind of trouble was I supposed to avoid so I would be safe? I hoped that Max, being in the center of the organization creating all these new rules, might have some answers for me. Arranging a time and place to talk with him would be tricky, but I had to try. I wondered if this was the kind of thing that my father warned us against doing.

  Max and I hugged for a long time. We agreed that neither of us liked to lie to our families and sneak around, but we had to do what was necessary to see each other and protect each other. He filled me in on the new laws from his perspective, including news of escalating violence in the streets. Hitler’s men and those who agreed with the Nazi propaganda harassed customers of Jewish stores. Jewish sympathizers were warned not to buy things from Jews. “The laws are designed to start and implement the process of segregation, isolation, and, from what I’m hearing, much worse.”

  “Like what?” I couldn’t imagine a worse situation.

  “More violence. But what’s the point of speculating right now? Just be careful, Helen.”

  Although I had not witnessed any of these events, I believed what Max told me was true.

  Sleep eluded me most of that night. I realized that every answer I received only created many, even more taunting, questions swirling around in my mind. I felt dizzy and nauseated. Max had told me things my family needed to know, but I never shared anything Max had confided in me with my family. I had to protect him and our precious friendship. But didn’t I have a duty to protect my family? Maybe I was protecting my family by shielding them from terrible truths that could damage my father’s health?

  A young girl shouldn’t have such heavy burdens to bear.

  Chapter Six

  Just as my time with Max dwindled, so did my letters from Isaac. The last time I heard from him was in 1936 when he wrote to me about a man named Jesse Owens, an American track-and-field athlete who would be visiting Germany. Our country was hosting the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. With the world watching so closely, Hitler didn’t want the Games being transferred to another country because of international criticism of his new regime of hatred. He wanted to create the impression that all Germans were prospering, and that any news of unrest was hyped-up rhetoric. Although Jewish athletes were not allowed to participate in the Games, open hostility against the Jews quieted. The Nazi regime moderated its attacks, including taking down “Jews not welcomed” signs from public places.

  With this easing of overt antagonism against the Jews, my father relented about my excommunication from Max. At least I had my best friend back and felt safe to be with him without sneaking around my parents. Max’s parents were a different story. They continued to pressure him to stay away from Jews, and so he took caution when meeting me.

  During dusk, we spent our time together. The darkness brought safety from what was visible; fear was still a persistent intruder each time we met. As twilight approached, we sat in my backyard watching the last of the soft glow disappear from the horizon.

  “Your father has had a change of mind.” Max smiled.

  “He has a good heart, Max,” I replied. A cold shiver moved through my body thinking about my father’s health. The burden of Hitler’s new Germany weighed heavily on him. Although he denied feeling ill, his pale skin told me differently. Knowing he refused to see a doctor, we tried our best to keep his spirits up. I was grateful he eased up on my relationship with Max. I didn’t want him to discover that we had been stealing about to see each other and that my mother knew. “He doesn’t want to see me hurt or without friends. After we got kicked out of school, I—”

  “I felt horrible about that,” Max interrupted.

  Nodding to acknowledge what he just said, I continued. “After that,” I reflected back on the guns going off in front of our house a while ago, “I was terrified by a riot in our street. Momma, Papa, all of us were scared.” I told him about it. “It changed my father.” Since Max joined the Hitler Youth movement, I hadn’t been able to talk about the chaotic event
s and feelings I’d experienced. Most of our sneaking around to see each other was for me to find out about the new laws, or information he had, but we discussed very little concerning my mounting dread. Until now. “So much has changed for us Jews, Max.” He nodded and listened while I shared my most personal thoughts and fears with him.

  “Oh no! Gunshots in front of your home! I must have been away at that time. My parents said nothing about it to me.”

  “Maybe they weren’t home either?”

  Max smacked his lips. “I hate what’s happening.” His melancholy voice cracked. “And I wish we didn’t have to hide our friendship.”

  Max talked slowly and in deeper tones than I remember. I suppose I did, too. Sorrow, fear, regret. That was the language we spoke now. “Me too. How long do you think it will continue like this?” I searched his eyes for the answer I hoped to hear. “I mean things seem to be improving a little, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he frowned.

  The ease between us moments before vanished and tension seized my chest. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve been told…” Correcting what he just said, “no, ordered, to ensure the Olympic Games proceed without incident.”

  “Without incident? What does that mean?”

  Max shifted away from me, averting his eyes. “No public efforts to control the ‘undesirable elements’ of society.”

  I sighed. “So you think all the recent changes are just for show?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he responded, looking back at me.

  “Maybe you’re wrong, Max.”

  “I don’t think I am. But,” his speech became taut, and his left shoulder twitched, “we’ll know for sure when the Olympics are over.”

  There was something about his demeanor—the unspoken caution in the way he spoke—that frightened me. I wanted something from him that was both hopeful and tangible. I wanted a sign that things might get better, or that they wouldn’t get worse. How much worse could they possibly get? Feeling he was holding back, and knowing I wouldn’t rest until I found out, I pressed him for more information.