Pennies For Hitler (2 page)

‘Why?’

‘Kristallnacht,’ said Papa shortly.

Kristallnacht had been the big celebration when the Brown Shirts had risen up against the Jews, burning their houses, smashing their shops, painting the big yellow Star of David on their doors so they couldn’t pretend to be like everyone else.

Kristallnacht had been nearly six months earlier. It had been dangerous to be on the streets then, with so many bands of angry youths roaming around. But now the Führer and his Brown Shirts had the Jewish problem under control. Aunt Miriam is silly, thought Georg.

‘We wouldn’t ever go and live in England, would we?’ Everyone knew the English were cowards, hiding across the Channel. They had only won the Great War because the American Jews had paid for lots of guns.

But now Germany had the greatest army ever seen. One day, said Herr Doktor Schöner, Germany’s Third Reich — its Third Great Empire — would take over the whole world. Every boy in every country would salute the German flag: would raise their arm and yell, ‘
Heil
, Hitler!’

This was the best time ever to be a German.

Papa sat on the bed next to him. ‘You don’t want to live in England?’

‘No,’ said Georg. They had visited England only once, last year, to see Aunt Miriam. London had been grey; it was not beautiful like the silver dappled lake where they usually went for their summer holiday. Georg wondered what sort of head shape the Englanders had. He would have to ask Herr Doktor Schöner.

‘I don’t want to go back to England either. Miriam doesn’t understand.’ Papa could almost have been speaking to himself. ‘A poet is above politics. Politicians come and go.’

‘Even the Führer?’

‘Even the Führer. But the words of the great poets last forever.’

‘Tell me a poem,’ said Georg. Poems were for bedtime, to make the sweet dreams come. But suddenly he wanted a poem now.

Papa looked at him in surprise, then nodded. ‘One poem and that’s all,’ he said, as he did every night when Georg wanted ‘just one more’. Perhaps Papa understood that Georg wanted a poem to make him feel safe, just like he did when he snuggled up in bed, to drive away thoughts of Papa’s sudden anger at the table.

Papa smiled at Georg and took his hand.

‘
Über allen Gipfeln

Ist Ruh,

In allen Wipfeln

Spürest du

Kaum einen Hauch;

Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.

Warte nur, balde

Ruhest du auch
.’

Georg took a deep breath. Papa was right. The great poets’ words did have power, long after their authors had died. He felt the peace of the poem seep through him.

‘Was that by Goethe, Papa?’

Papa nodded. ‘
Wandrers Nachtlied II
.’ He began to translate it, his voice as soft as a cloud.

‘
Above every hilltop

Is peace.

Quiet touches the treetops,

The breeze hardly breathes

Through the leaves;

The tiny birds are silent in the forest.

Wait …

Soon you’ll be at rest too.
’

Chapter 2

The sense of peace lasted as Georg took off his Lederhosen, the brown leather trousers that Tante Gudrun had given him last year for his tenth birthday. ‘So he will look like a proper German boy,’ she had said pointedly to Papa.

As he grew older Mutti would soak the Lederhosen in hot water. The hot wet leather would stretch when he put them on, so his Lederhosen would get bigger as he did. Georg hoped he would grow soon. He was the shortest boy in the class. But at least he had the most Aryan head.

He still hadn’t told Papa and Mutti! After the graduation, he thought, while we are eating cream cakes. Papa could tell the other Herr Professors. They would congratulate Papa on having a perfect Aryan son.

Downstairs he heard the door shut as Papa left for the University. He and Mutti would meet him at the Hall.

Georg put on his new trousers, rubbing his shoes to make them shine, tying his bow tie just like Papa’s. He went downstairs. Lotte was singing again in the kitchen.

‘You look so handsome,’ Mutti said. Her dress was like spring flowers. She arranged her fox fur across her shoulders.

Georg bounced on his toes. ‘Hurry up! We’ll be late!’

Mutti smiled. ‘No, we won’t.’

‘Will there be ice cream as well as cakes?’

‘No ice cream, I think.’

‘Why not?’

Mutti laughed. ‘Today is for the University students. Ice cream might drip on their gowns.’

She took Georg’s hand as they walked out the door. Like all their tables and bookshelves, it smelled of lemon polish. The daffodils smiled at them from the garden, nodding their heads in the spring breeze. The rosebuds were swelling.
Röslein rot
, red roses, just like in Lotte’s song.

He would never see them again.

Papa waited for them in the echoing foyer of the University. All the buildings in the University looked like they had been made for giants. Stone faces with tongues poking out or long hooked noses stared down from the tops of the buildings around the quadrangle.

Papa said the stone heads were called gargoyles. Georg liked the one with round cheeks best. The others made him shiver — a fascinated shiver as though the gargoyles knew something that the small humans below them did not. Sometimes he imagined that when all the people were gone at night the gargoyles made faces at each other and yelled insults across the grass.

Papa kissed Mutti’s cheek and patted Georg on the back. ‘You look very fine,’ he said. ‘I’ve reserved you seats in the front row.’

He led the way up, up, up the two flights of broad stone stairs and through the big wooden doorway into the Hall.

The Hall was full of women sitting in silk dresses, and hats like Mutti’s, with a sprinkling of proud fathers too.

Georg stared out the long windows at the tops of the trees outside, then up at the dragons and knights with swords painted on the ceiling. He had hoped the Hall might have a clock where a knight chased a dragon when the clock struck the hour, like the one down in the quadrangle, but there was only a portrait of the Führer on the wall by the stage.

Georg wondered what the Führer was doing today. It would be something grand. Already he had reclaimed Austria and the Sudetenland for Germany; and Czechoslovakia again; and pushed the arrogant French from the Vaterland. Georg thought of the soldiers in the newspaper. Maybe even now they were marching into Poland to free the Germans in Danzig. Herr Doktor Schöner said that Danzig was a German town, even though it was in Poland. Soon the Führer would free Danzig too …

Mutti sat next to Frau Doktor Hansmeyer, who smelled of peppermint drops. Georg wriggled onto the chair next to her. His legs dangled. He hoped he would start growing soon.

‘I’ll see you later,’ said Papa softly. Then he was gone, his black academic gown swishing around his trouser legs.

Georg watched the students stand in a line in their new black robes. The University orchestra began to play.
Gliddle, gliddle, gliddle
went the violins.
Boom PAH
went the tuba.

The University lecturers strode in, the Rektor in his red robe, the Herr Doktors and Professors in their black. Papa looked straight ahead till he was level with Georg and Mutti, then turned and winked as he passed.

The lecturers sat in a row on the stage as the music stopped.

The Rektor gave a speech. It was interesting at first, but went on too long.

A tall student with blond hair got up to speak. It was a long speech too.

‘We also serve who do not fight with guns!’ The student’s voice was fierce and proud. His blue eyes were as bright as the sky. ‘Our swords are words. We fight with pen and page. Even here, in the still heart of learning, we keep faith with our fathers and with destiny …’

Georg looked at the paintings on the ceiling. Who was the knight? Why did he have to fight the dragon?

Maybe the dragon had been stealing sheep. The villagers were starving! They implored the knight to save them, to kill the hungry dragon
…

The story began to weave itself. The dragon roared. The trees burst into flame
…
No, that wouldn’t work. The knight would roast in his armour and his horse might run away.

Georg started the story over. This time Hitler was the knight, but on a tank instead of a horse, just like the photo in the paper when the Führer entered Prague. A tank would be better against a dragon than a horse
…

At last the student sat down. One by one the students came onto the stage to get their scrolls and to shake the Rektor’s hand. The students shook Papa’s hand too. Papa looked important up there on the stage.

The last student bowed and smiled, and took his scroll.

Cream cakes at last, thought Georg.

The orchestra began to play the national anthem. Up on the stage the Herr Doktors and Professors stood to leave.

Suddenly the tall student who had spoken earlier ran up onto
the stage again. He gazed at the audience and began to sing. ‘
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles
…’

The crowd muttered, startled. Georg wondered if the Rektor would order the student to be quiet.

Down below the stage a small group of students stood apart. Now they sang too. One by one the crowd began to sing as well. Georg smiled. It must be all right to sing then. Georg joined in; he’d learned the words at school. ‘
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles in der Welt …
’

Germany, Germany above all others in the world.

All at once the students’ song changed. Georg strained to understand the words.

‘
Juden ’raus! Juden ’raus!
’

Jews out! Jews out!

The audience’s singing straggled away. They sat, confused.

‘
Juden ’raus! Juden ’raus!
’

Jews? Georg looked around. There weren’t any Jews here. Jews weren’t allowed to teach, not even in schools. They couldn’t go to University.

The group’s song was a chant now. Young men in their black robes — blond hair, brown hair, black hair, some with glasses, one with a moustache — the same intent look on all their faces.

The crowd grew silent. Even the orchestra stopped playing. No one moved or murmured. It was as though they had been turned into gargoyles too.

‘
Juden ’raus! Juden ’raus!
’

Suddenly a man at the back of the Hall joined in the chant. ‘
Juden ’raus! Juden ’raus!
’ Others in the audience yelled too. The sound echoed across the Hall.

‘
Juden ’raus! Juden ’raus!
’

The tall student ran down the steps. ‘Now!’ he yelled.

The small group of students began to march. They marched like schoolboys marching into class. Left right, left right, they marched.

‘
Sieg heil! Sieg heil!
’ the students shouted as they passed the photo of the Führer. They saluted, their arms held out. ‘
Sieg heil! Sieg heil!
’

The tall student yelled another order. Two of his group grabbed one of the other students by the elbows.

The young man struggled. His friends tried to pull him back. The band of students linked arms, a wall of black-robed shadows impossible to pass. The two students dragged the young man across the room towards the windows. The chant was even louder now.

‘
Juden ’raus!
’

Someone screamed at the back of the Hall. Mutti leaped up and looked around. All the adults scrambled to their feet too. Georg climbed up on the chair to see.

‘Mutti … Mutti, what’s happening?’ Was the student a Jew? Was that why the other students were dragging him away? But he didn’t look Jewish. He didn’t even have a long nose. There couldn’t be any Jews here!

‘Stop them!’ cried Mutti.

The students stopped at the windows. Suddenly the student vanished, flung out the window by the strong young arms of those who had been his friends.

His shriek was swallowed in the yells of the crowd.

Georg thought he heard a thud far down on the ground. The Hall was filled with noise. Noise and hate, he thought, still staring at the students.

The student executioners smiled, as though they had done good work. Their friends were already dragging a second victim towards the window.

‘No!’ screamed the young man. The scream went on and on, as though it was a song.
Neeeiiinnnn …

‘My God. My God,’ whispered Mutti. She gazed up at Papa on the stage, her gloved fingers twisting in anguish.

Most of the audience seemed dazed too. Only Papa moved.

‘For pity’s sake, stop them!’ yelled Papa, reverting to English in his anger.

He ran down the steps from the stage, his face white. ‘Someone help me!’ he yelled, in German now.

Three of the students broke from their group. But they didn’t help. They grabbed Papa’s arms. Papa wrenched himself around. ‘Do something!’ he appealed to the Rektor.

The Rektor stood, uncertain. He glanced at the photo of the Führer. He shook his head.

The two executioners lifted the second victim up to the window. ‘
Juden ’raus!
’ they screamed, their voices high in triumph.

‘No! I’m not a Jew!’ the young man yelled.

One of the executioners laughed.

‘
Nein!
’ The young man screamed. He tried to grasp the window sill as they thrust him through the opening. For a moment Georg could hear the scream outside too. Then it was gone.

Suddenly Papa ducked, forcing his arms free. He ran across the Hall, towards the students at the window.

‘Why in heaven’s name are you doing this?’ he began, his voice so furious it rose above the chant.