Ben Elton - Two Brothers

She had not quite sat down when she heard her father’s voice raised in anger.

‘What is the meaning of this!’ Herr Fischer was demanding of someone on the platform. ‘I have committed no crime.’

But he had. He had defamed the German state. He had libelled the SA. He had invented the most dreadful lies about the Berlin police force, saying that they were indifferent to the law.

He had told the truth to the New York Times but neglected to ensure that it was only published after he had left Germany. In fact, quite the opposite, he’d intended the story as a parting shot.

They had so nearly made it too.

It had been nine a.m. in Berlin when the telegraphed transcripts of the first edition of the New York Times had landed on various desks in the offices on the Wilhelmstrasse.

Nine a.m. in Berlin. Three a.m. on the east coast of the US.

Somebody had been up either very early or very late at the German embassy. And bad news always travels fast.

If the German attaché had slept later, or if the Fischers had been on an earlier train, they would have been out of Berlin by the time the Minister of Propaganda caught sight of what Herr Fischer had done. But then they would probably just have been stopped at the docks or even intercepted at sea. They were after all travelling on a German ship.

But then at least Dagmar would have got her coffee and her lunch. An hour or two of extra happiness before the darkness closed in.

Josef Goebbels liked to boast that he read all of the foreign press but that morning he must have stopped short at the New York Times . With its front page article about the famous Jewish store owner beaten up at the entrance to his own shop. His wife and young daughter terrorized and abused. About how one of Germany’s foremost families was being forced to leave what had become a ‘gangster’ nation for safety in the USA.

Such a slur could not go unanswered. This after all was exactly what the Leader had accused the Jews of doing. Slandering the Fatherland abroad.

In no way did the fact that the minister and his staff knew perfectly well that the article was true diminish their genuine righteous indignation. Theirs was a world in which it was always possible to have things both ways. To be both bully and victim.

And so the Gestapo were despatched and an arrest staged.

Later, Isaac Fischer was to ask himself the bitter question whether his catastrophic lapse of judgement had been a genuine mistake or suicidal vanity.

Was it pride that had led him to speak out before he had reached safety? He had known in his heart that it was a risk. Why had he taken it?

Lying on the bare floor of his cell, his legs and arms broken, blood seeping from his face, he tried to take comfort in his anguish from the thought that his intemperate interview had simply given them a convenient excuse.

That they would have stopped him anyway.

But in the darkness that engulfed him Fischer knew that it wasn’t true. That had he not insisted on speaking out on what he had believed was to be his last day in Germany, he would almost certainly have got away.

Other rich and prominent Jews had got out. Plenty of them. But they had had the sense to leave quietly.

He had condemned himself. He had condemned his family. He had deliberately provoked them. Like a fool he had wanted the last word. How could he have ignored what the world knew? That the Nazis were nothing if not vengeful. That spite and wicked pride motivated their every action. That they never forgave.

Watching from the ticket barrier, Paulus and Otto saw it all.

They watched in horror as the men in black coats and Homburg hats appeared as if from nowhere and laid a hand on Herr Fischer’s shoulder.

They looked on as Frau Fischer tried to grab on to her husband and pull him towards the carriage door.

They saw Herr Fischer pointing at the train, gesticulating furiously for his wife to board it. Ordering Dagmar who was leaning out of the window to stay where she was.

They watched as Frau Fischer shook her head and beckoned Dagmar to get off.

They saw Dagmar emerge from the first-class carriage once more and step back down on to the platform, her face white with shock and fear, her brief American dream turned back into a German nightmare.

The Gestapo frogmarched Herr Fischer back down the platform and out through the barrier. As he passed them Herr Fischer saw the boys and Otto thought he briefly tried to mask the terror on his face for their benefit.

Then he was gone.

Along the platform his wife and daughter stood there still as if frozen in shock and grief.

A whistle blew. The train compressed its steam.

Paulus cried out from behind the barrier.

‘Dagmar! Frau Fischer! Get on the train! Go!’

Heads turned. Some openly hostile. Others just surprised.

Otto was surprised too. In the selfishness of youth, a part of him had rejoiced to see the beloved girl remain. But even at thirteen, Paulus understood much more.

‘Otto, you know what happens. They always punish the family too! If Dags doesn’t get out now she’ll never get out.’

Otto wasn’t stupid, he knew his brother was right.

‘Get on the train, Dags!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘Take it to the top of the Empire State building!’

A whack around the head interrupted him. The ticket collector had had enough.

‘Shut your face, kid. You don’t go shouting about and making a scene at my barrier! Particularly over a Jew.’

‘Fuck you!’ Otto said before shouting once again, ‘Dagmar! Get on the train!’

But the train was moving now and the two figures were still, standing motionless in the smoke and steam as their carriage pulled away from them. And then the next and then the next until they were alone on the empty platform.

Together they turned and walked slowly back to the barrier. There were sneers from onlookers as mother and daughter emerged back on to the station. The ticket man’s face wore a look of stern and pompous authority as if by dint of the fact that he wore a uniform he had somehow been a part of the police action.

‘Get along there, you two,’ he ordered pointlessly. ‘Your train’s gone, you’ve missed it. Move along.’

But for a moment at least Frau Fischer did not move along, she paused just outside the barrier seemingly at a loss, her eyes staring but seeing nothing. Dagmar looked up at her mother and gave way to tears.

Paulus took charge.

‘We should go to the taxi rank,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘You should go home, Frau Fischer.’

His voice helped her pull herself together. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you, Paulus. You’re right. We should go home.’

Paulus led Frau Fischer towards the front of the station, leaving Otto to walk with Dagmar.

‘You look great, Dags,’ he said after a few steps. ‘I’ve never seen you in stockings before.’

Dagmar smiled momentarily through her tears.

‘You have to protect me now, Otto,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You know that, don’t you? You and Paulus. You have to protect me.’

‘Well, obviously ,’ Otto replied.

Isaac Fischer was tried the following month on charges of libelling the German State and its servants. There was only one witness for the defence, an American photographer who, it was gleefully reported in Goebbels’ press, had no actual photographs with which to back up his scurrilous claims. The man did, however, have a Jewish grandmother, a point which was raised in court as if it were evidence for the prosecution.

Two other potential defence witnesses did attempt to put themselves forward. The Stengel twins visited Frau Fischer in her big house in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and volunteered to go to court and describe what they had seen on the Kurfürstendamm on the day of the first Jewish boycott. Frau Fischer had been very grateful but declined the offer.