Fee-Christine Aks - Thoughts are Free

“Come on, eat, Paul!” Father’s voice interrupts Paul’s thoughts.

The soup already turned cold. Annemarie fell asleep on the couch. Father sits at the table and flips through the weekly newspaper, Die Woche (The Week). Every now and then he makes some notes on the side of the newspaper.

Paul thinks about Alina. About Pauline and her parents, about Maria Goldberg; and about cute Liza Giesemann, he once was in love with. Katja and Peter Lipowetzky are afraid as well that they could be picked up. They both have to wear the star.

Paul remembers his teacher Herr Wolf at school who told them about the bad Jews. Supposedly all Jews have a hooked nose and black, wirily hair paired with black, piercing eyes. Besides, they all are supposed to be pudgy and stealing whatever they can. But the Jews that Paul knows are completely different.

Liza Giesemann had beautiful hazelnut brown curls, brown almond eyes and a cute snub nose. Furthermore she was very petite and the cutest and nicest girl, Paul had ever met. Maria Goldberg had blonde curls and blue eyes. She was slim-figured and a real good friend. She liked his friend Axel quite a bit.

Frau Lipowetzky is slim as well and has a pretty face, a straight nose, grayish blue eyes, brown hair; and besides that, she is the most honest woman Paul has ever known. Her husband is very thin and probably average height. His grey hair was brown, when he was young; his grey eyes are hidden behind thick glasses. He was a goldsmith before the Nazis closed down his shop. He is exceptionally honest and trustworthy.

But somebody like Herr Wolf doesn’t care at all. Herr Wolf is a brown one as well. Many people are brown: the families Schulze and Möller from across the yard, Herr and Frau Behm and Herr Braun in Paul’s house, just like most of the others from the surrounding houses, or Hamburg, or Germany.

Eventually there are some that do not believe the Nazi lies: The Sommer and the Schmidt family, Herr Holz and Fathers friend Heinrich Schön.

“Red Hein“ they call him; he lives somewhere hidden away. He is well known at the Gestapo, they have a big file about him. In there is documented that he was a jack on the same ship as Father. Luckily Hein was always able to escape and the Gestapo could never get a hold of him.

Axel’s father, Bernhard Sommer, a friend of Father’s as well, was a Socialist. He was not liked by the Führer and his men either. He was hit by a bullet at a meeting of the Social Democratic party that was brutally ended by the Nazi Storm Troops. He died the same day in the hospital, deadly wounded.

“Well, here I am.”

Mother comes through the door.

“Good that you’re here, Grete”, Father says. “Here, you should read that.”

He holds up the newspaper. Mother is reading and shaking her head at the same time.

“They are crazy. This time of the year in Russia…”, she murmurs and is talking about the “Operation Barbarossa”, the official Nazi name for the war against Russia. Thousands of German soldiers have frozen to death already. But the Führer won’t order the retreat. Instead he lets them continue to fight. More men are dying every day due to the arctic temperatures of Russia’s winter. That is why it was announced that they all have to collect winter clothes; so the soldiers won’t freeze to death.

Paul gets up to start the cast-iron stove again, so his mother’s soup can be heated up as well. But Mother pushes him back on his chair.

“Don’t worry. I’m not hungry anyway”, she states and gently strokes his hair.

Annemarie woke up. Mother sits down on the couch next to her.

“Did you feed Louise yet?” she wants to know from Father who just nods and goes back to reading his newspaper.

Annemarie snuggles up to her mother to sleep some more.

“Come on, Annemi”, Mother says, picks her up and carries her into the bedroom. “All right, both girls are asleep”, she sighs when she comes back. “Well, and how about you?”

She stands next to Paul and looks at him.

“How is Alina?” Paul inquires. Father looks at Mother as well.

“Her temperature is very high”, Mother says quietly. “She probably won’t make it through the night.”

Both Paul and his father look concerned. Mother sits down at the table and takes some soup. Paul watches her for a little while, then gets up and gazes out the window again.

The snow remained on the ground. A white blanket of snow formed over the yard. It still keeps snowing. Paul can only imagine the white snowflakes in the dark. But he can see the ice crystals on the kitchen window just fine. They sparkle in the candle light. They are not allowed to turn on the electric light, in case of another air attack. When there is light, there are people.

A chair scratches over the floor. Father got up. He walks over to the kitchen sink and fills a cup with tap water.

He drinks three more cups, then sits back down at the table and continues reading his newspaper. Mother takes the kettle with the soup and puts it in the pantry. Then she starts to do the dishes.

Suddenly they all stop and listen. There are heavy footsteps in the stairway.

Mother turns off the tap and Father puts his newspaper to the side. Paul walks over to his mother and waits next to her. Mother grabs his hand and holds it tight. Father is already in the doorway, trying to hear, what is going on.

The footsteps stop in front of their door for a second, but then continue to go up. Upstairs somebody knocks at a door. Then Paul and his parents can hear Herr Lipowetzky’s startled voice, but can’t understand what he is saying.

“Oh no!” Mother whispers shocked. “Not Katja and Peter!”

They can hear Frau Lipowetzky’s voice now, she is begging and pleading, but rough male voices cut her short.

Paul and his parents stand behind their door and listen. The footsteps seem to go downstairs again. This time they can hear another set of clicking footsteps and somebody scuffing his feet. The heels on Katja’s shoes make the exact same clicking noise and Peter always scuffs his feet. All footsteps pass their door and continue downstairs. Father is ready to open up the door and run after them, but Mother holds him back.

“Don’t, Max!” she begs. “Do you want them to take you as well?”

Father sighs and takes his hand off the door handle.

“You are right, Grete”, he says quietly. “Sadly, we can’t do anything for them anymore.”

Mother takes Paul’s hand and pulls him away from the door as well.

“You have to go to sleep now”, she states.

A little reluctant at first to go to bed that early, Paul is taken to the bedroom and put to sleep. It is not that late yet, a little after 10 p.m. maybe. Yet he can sleep in tomorrow, because he doesn’t have to go to school. The schools have been shut down due to the air attacks; besides, many teachers have been drafted for the war. Herr Wolf’s brother, a teacher as well, died a lieutenant in Russia.

*****

“Finally that dirty lot was taken”, Paul can hear Herr Braun saying.

Paul sits on the carpet bar, his feet are dangling in the air and he tries to look as innocent as possible. He pretends he doesn’t watch Herr Braun or Herr Behm, but he listens to every word they say.

“I don’t understand, how they were allowed to live here for that long and soil that beautiful apartment”, Frau Behm says.

“Correct”, her husband agrees, “the Führer said years ago that something has to be done about that dirty Jewish lot.”

“So those parasites won’t steal our work places!” Herr Braun rants.

Herr Braun is unemployed. He thinks the reason for him not having a job is that the Jews already took all jobs; even though that’s not true. Paul learned from his father that Herr Braun was simply fired, because he was so damn lazy. But usually everybody finds faults in everyone but themselves, Father said. Consequential somebody had to take the blame for everything. They were looking for a scapegoat.