When the World Was Ours

by Liz Kessler

  Greta is in our apartment and we are sitting together, brushing each other’s hair with a tiny brush that her mother brought with them when they moved here.

  ‘Your hair is so beautiful,’ Greta says as she carefully brushes through the matted, knotted mess: the result of never having any shampoo to wash it.

  I laugh. ‘Beautiful? This knotty mop?’

  She tugs at a knot. ‘Your beautiful red hair is the only thing in this whole tenement block that isn’t grey!’ she insists.

  ‘That and the dreaded stars,’ I say. Since September, all Jews have had to wear a yellow star on their clothes. I wear it, but I hate it.

  Greta shudders. ‘Let’s not think about them,’ she says quickly. ‘Let’s think about your hair instead. It’s my favourite thing.’

  ‘My hair is your favourite thing?’ I laugh.

  Greta stops brushing and comes round to stand in front of me. ‘Actually, no. You are my favourite thing, Elsa,’ she says. Her eyes burn darkly into me. ‘Alongside my parents, you are the best thing in my life. You know that, don’t you?’

  I smile at my best friend. ‘I know it because I feel the same way,’ I reply. It’s true. I’ve never had a friend like her. Leo and Max were the best friends I could ever have wanted back in Vienna. But they’re not here, they’re not sharing this life, these squashed homes, these badges of humiliation on their clothes. And those things are part of the glue that joins me to Greta. She is like my twin and I honestly can’t imagine life without her.

  Just as I am about to tell her this, she holds up a finger and says, ‘Aside from Felix, of course. He comes first.’

  I can’t help smiling. Trust Greta to make me laugh when I’m about to get all sentimental on her. It’s one of her top skills. ‘Of course!’ I reply with mock seriousness. ‘No one can beat Felix!’

  Just then, a rap on the front door jolts us both. Mutti and Vati are in the kitchen with one of the other families. Otto is in the lounge with one of the boys.

  Vati calls us all together. ‘Come,’ he says. ‘They need to speak to us all.’

  The man from the Jewish Council waits while all four families squeeze into the lounge.

  Once we’re all gathered, he clears his throat and looks at the floor as he speaks. ‘You are leaving tomorrow,’ he says. ‘The tenement block is being emptied.’

  We all stare at him for a moment. Vati is first to break the silence. ‘Leaving to go where?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s a good place,’ the man says. ‘You will all stay together. All the families. It’s a safe place. They have assured us of this.’

  He looks up at us and I notice his eyes are glistening. I wonder for a second if he sleeps well at night, or if he lies awake troubled by his job. A messenger for the Nazis. But that is all he is, just a messenger. He doesn’t make the rules, and he will no doubt be discarded like the rest of us when he’s served his purpose.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I do not know any more than that.’

  Vati pats him on the arm. ‘Hey, it’s all right. It’s not your fault.’

  The man nods gratefully. ‘You can each bring one suitcase,’ he goes on. ‘They will be here early.’

  The other fathers step forward to talk further with the man. The mothers gather the children together. I feel like a baby bird, small and helpless, unable to look after myself, to eat, to fly.

  Greta touches my arm. ‘Elsa, I need to get back to my parents.’ Her eyes have lost their sparkle and her face is grey.

  ‘Of course. I – I’ll see you in the morning.’

  We hug briefly and then she leaves. The Judenrat man leaves shortly after her and I go to our room.

  Mutti is already in there starting to tidy and pack up our things. I grab the bags from beside the grubby mattress that the four of us have shared since we came to live here.

  Amongst the fear and panic and sudden rush of activity, one thought brings me a twisted kind of comfort: we own so little now that at least it won’t take long to pack.

  MAX

  ‘One, two, three, go!’ Max slammed his hand down on his knee, fingers spread in a ‘V’ shape.

  ‘I win! I got the scissors!’ He pointed at the other boy’s hand, his palm flat on its side. ‘You lose, Erich.’

  The boys were at the park for a Hitler Youth afternoon. Erich was one of Max’s Hitler Youth friends. He wasn’t his best friend. To be honest, Max wasn’t sure which of them he would call his best friend. Probably none of them. He didn’t need a best friend anyway. He served Hitler. That was all he needed.

  The other boys would be here soon for a rally and training but they had arrived early and decided to play their favourite game while they waited: Soldiers.

  ‘Best of three!’ Erich said. He put both palms together, in a mock begging action. ‘Please! I always lose. It’s not fair!’

  Max laughed. ‘You always lose because I am better than you,’ he teased.

  Erich stuck his elbow out to nudge him in the side, but Max swerved out of his way. ‘See. You can’t get me. I’m better than you at everything.’

  Erich jumped up. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said.

  Max was on his toes in a second. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘If you can catch me before I get to the end of the field, you get to choose who’s who. If you can’t, I do. Fair?’

  Erich shrugged. ‘Fair,’ he said.

  ‘Okay. Go!’ Max ran as fast as he could across the field. Erich was right behind him, maybe an arm’s length away. As Max fought to stay ahead of his friend, something about it felt familiar. Running like this, playing chase in the park. How many times had he done this with Leo? Too many to count.

  The thought of it flashed a pain across his chest. He sped up even more, so that he could outrun the memory.

  Max reached the end of the field two seconds before Erich. ‘Loser!’ he said, laughing as the two boys panted and fell to the ground.

  ‘Okay. Fair enough,’ Erich said. ‘You win. You get to choose.’

  Max didn’t have to think about his decision. ‘I’ll be the Nazi soldier.’

  ‘Of course you will,’ Erich said dejectedly.

  Max mimed putting a steel helmet on his head. As he did so, he could almost feel himself becoming a real soldier. He filled his lungs with air, puffed out his chest and stuck out his jaw.

  Then he pointed at Erich, still sitting on the ground. ‘Sieg Heil!’ he shouted. ‘Get up! Lazy Jew!’

  Erich held his hands up in front of him and laughed. ‘Hey, all right, all right. I’m getting up,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize we’d started playing.’

  Max was firmly in role before Erich had even stopped laughing. He shouted even louder this time. ‘Get up! NOW!’ He felt the soldier inside him fizzing through his veins. Max tried to remind himself it was a game. But to him it was so much more. It was training. It was preparation. It was enacting the words that he said out loud in front of the mirror each morning. The speech that every member of the Hitler Youth knew by heart.

  The German boy of the future must be slender and supple, swift as a greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel.

  Those words guided his actions and defined his ambitions. Next year, he and Erich would join the senior ranks of the Hitler Youth and Max could hardly wait to take everything he had learned to the next level. Games like this were his chance to hone his skills to the finest point possible, prove himself to his father – and to Hitler.

  Erich dragged himself off the ground. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, standing up and straightening his jacket.

  ‘March!’ Max barked at his friend, almost spitting the words out. ‘Now!’

  Erich sloped across the field. As he walked, he bent a finger in front of his face in the shape of a massive hooked nose, just like the Jewish caricatures on the Nazi posters that lined every wall of their city. Every now and then, he stopped to hold his arms out in a wide, exaggerated shrug. ‘Oh, poor me. I’m a dirty Jew,’ he’d say. ‘I am a despicable h
uman being. I am worse than a human being. I am a dog, a rat. I am a stain on society.’

  The way he did it was so over the top Max couldn’t help laughing. Then he shook himself and got back into role. ‘Come on,’ he said, giving Erich a prod. ‘Keep marching.’

  Max taunted and shouted and called his friend names all the way across the field. And with every step and with each insult he hurled, he felt waves of relief flood over him that he had won the race.

  Erich looked so dejected by the time they reached the other side, Max wasn’t sure if his friend was playing his own part well or if Max had made such a good job of playing soldier that Erich was genuinely fed up.

  But he knew one thing: he would do all he could possibly do to make sure he was always the one who got to make the decisions in this game.

  There was no way he would ever be the filthy Jew.

  ELSA

  ‘Come on, come on, we haven’t got all day.’

  The soldiers shout and curse at us as we file out of our buildings and into the street. There must be over a thousand of us: old, young, couples, families. It’s not a military operation, but the guards are acting as if it should be.

  We are soon squashed together so tightly we have to coordinate our movements with each other to make any progress. An elderly couple in front of me are shuffling along so slowly that a woman behind me keeps walking into me and catching my heels with her case.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she says.

  ‘It’s fine. Honestly, don’t worry,’ Mutti says to her on my behalf. I’m too busy looking down at my feet concentrating on my next step to be able to turn around and speak to her myself.

  We are approaching the edge of our small neighbourhood. We haven’t been allowed past this point for months now. As we near the corner to the outside world, a guard is screaming at everyone who passes. ‘Get back in line! Turn left! Pick your feet up! Keep moving!’

  To underline his orders, he uses the end of his rifle to prod people as they come past him. I am terrified he will point his rifle at me, so I double my speed, even if it means I am shoving the old couple in front of me.

  We get past the guard without incident. And then we are in a wide street. Mutti, Vati, Otto and I, a line of four in amongst the thousand other ragged, dirty, tired, confused people shuffling along beside us.

  Otto is holding on to his leg. His limp has been worse than ever recently.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I ask him.

  He nods. ‘I’m fine. Honestly.’ He gives me a weak smile.

  ‘Lean on me if you need to, okay?’

  ‘I will.’

  Just then I hear a familiar voice. ‘Elsa!’ I spin round to see Greta turning the corner and coming out on to the street. She grabs her mother’s arm and drags her parents over to join us. As soon as she is beside me, we clutch hands and a tiny bit of my fear melts away. As long as I have my best friend beside me, I will be all right.

  ‘Did you feed Felix?’ I ask her.

  Greta nods. ‘He came to our apartment before the sun was up. I think he must have known we were leaving. I gave him half my dinner from last night. I’d been saving it for him.’

  ‘I can’t believe we have to leave him,’ I say.

  ‘I know. Maybe he’ll find us,’ Greta replies brightly. ‘I’m sure we’ll get to see him again.’

  I don’t know if she really believes it but the thought of him padding along, following us to wherever we’re going, cheers me a little.

  ‘Move!’ one of the guards yells so suddenly it makes me jump. ‘Go!’

  The group lumbers on down the road. We are somewhere around the middle and, now we are in this wide street, people have begun to spread out enough that at least we can walk without bumping into anyone.

  Soldiers march along on both sides of us. There seem to be more of them than ever this morning. All wearing rifles over their shoulders, swastika bands on their arms and the fiercest expressions on their faces.

  They glance into the crowd, barking at people as we walk. Instinctively, Greta and I stop talking, keep looking ahead and walk as briskly as we can. We’ve learned how we have to act in order to not draw attention to ourselves.

  After what feels like hours of walking, my legs are tired. I want to stop and rest. I need water, my stomach is growling for food. But I daren’t say anything. I saw a man a few rows ahead of us ask if he could stop a little while ago and one of the guards grabbed him by his arm and dragged him away. I don’t know where they took him. I didn’t dare look. But it was enough to make sure I won’t be stopping to ask for anything.

  Eventually the pace starts to slow. We’re approaching the train station and as we get closer we can see that people seem to be gathering in a group up ahead.

  ‘It’s the old junkyard,’ Vati says, in a low voice so the guards won’t scream at him for talking.

  ‘What are we going there for?’ Otto asks.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Mutti replies. As we get closer, we see a line of long tables with all sorts of things on them. It reminds me of the square in Vienna on market days.

  The guards push us and prod us and direct us to file past the tables. People are stopping in front of them in groups of twenty or so at a time.

  When our turn comes, SS guards stand all around us. ‘Open your cases here!’ one of them shouts. ‘Anything valuable goes on the table. Necklaces, bracelets, rings – all of it on these tables.’

  The four of us look at each other. Mutti’s face has drained of colour. ‘What does he mean?’ she hisses. ‘What valuables do we still have, even? Have they not already taken everything we own? My life is in this one bag. I have nothing valuable!’

  Vati puts his hand on Mutti’s arm. He strokes her finger. ‘My darling,’ he says, his voice croaking as if it is filled with sawdust, ‘we must give him your ring.’

  Mutti makes a sobbing sound that comes out as though she is choking. ‘My wedding ring? It is not enough that these Nazis have taken our home, our possessions, our lives, our dignity? They must have the symbol of our love as well?’

  ‘I will buy you another one, I promise you. When this is all over, I will put a band of gold around your finger and it will stay there for ever, with my love.’

  Mutti doesn’t say anything. But eventually, she nods and silently begins to tug the ring from her finger.

  At that moment, one of the SS guards pulls a man out of the line, seemingly for no reason, and drags him to a shed behind the tables. We hear the sounds of a scuffle, the man crying out.

  I clap my hand over my mouth. The salty taste of bile is in my throat and I don’t know if I can stop myself from being sick. Each time I think they have treated us as horribly as they can, somehow the guards manage to do something even worse.

  For a moment I am grateful that we have barely eaten in days. At least I have nothing to bring up.

  A few moments later, the man is dragged out of the shed. His left eye is closed and already swelling. He’s limping. He has blood dripping from his forehead.

  ‘This is what happens if you try to hide anything!’ the officer shouts to us as he lets go of the man. He stumbles back into the crowd.

  My mouth is as dry as the gravelly path under our feet. What if I have something in my bag that I don’t realize is valuable? What if I forget it or miss it and they take me to the shed and—

  ‘Come on children, hurry,’ Vati says, breaking into my terrified thoughts. ‘Just look through your things and check there is nothing they might want.’

  I scrabble through my bag. There is nothing in here. Nothing of any value. At least not to the SS men anyway. My hand grazes the thing of most value to me, besides the people I am with: the photograph of me, Leo and Max. The memory of that day still shines a light inside me and I cannot bear to give it away. To anyone else, it is a fading photograph, a torn scrap of paper. The Nazis would not want this. But I also can’t risk them finding something so precious to me.

  I fold it into a cardigan t
o keep it hidden as I finish rifling through my clothes. ‘Nothing,’ I say.

  The guard behind the table gives me a sharp nod. ‘Close it. You are done,’ he says before moving on to check Otto’s bag.

  I close my bag and turn to see where Mutti and Vati are up to. In front of them on the table, Mutti’s wedding ring and Vati’s gold watch sit next to each other. The guard grabs them and drops them in a box by his side. ‘Go,’ he says to my parents.

  Wordlessly, they close their bags and turn away from the table. The four of us shuffle into the crowd as the next group line up to hand over their last remaining valuables.

  We are directed towards the train station by the guards. I look for Greta in the crowds. We’ve become separated and a tiny sliver of panic starts to creep into my chest until I spot her, near the platform. A large train is waiting and people are being shoved and pushed into carriages.

  There she is! Standing outside one of the carriages with her parents. ‘Greta! Wait for me!’ I shout.

  She turns and sees me but, a second later, a guard pushes her forward and she is forced to get into the carriage.

  I pull on Mutti’s sleeve. ‘Hurry, please. We must get into the same carriage as Greta.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll try,’ Mutti replies, but there are still too many people in front of us and we are pushed on to the next one instead.

  Mutti grips my hand. ‘You’ll see her when we get there,’ she says. ‘Let’s stay together for now.’

  She’s doing that thing she does so often nowadays: trying to sound calm and normal, but I know she feels far from either. I hear the quiver that runs through every word, and I know not to argue. Instead I squeeze her hand, and keep hold of it.

  ‘Where are we going, anyway?’ Otto asks. ‘Why won’t they tell us?’

  One of the guards overhears him and flashes a cold smile in our direction. ‘You have nothing to worry about,’ he says. ‘You’re being taken somewhere safe to keep you away from the stresses of war.’