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“I have some excellent news for you both,” Karl announced. “I know that Georg is not due to go until his birthday, but I was speaking with Hans’s supervising captain and he agreed to admit Georg to theJungvolkearly. Congratulations.”
TheJungvolk—the junior division of the Hitler Youth. I was always going to have to cross this bridge when Georg turned ten—I just thought I had a few more months to come to terms with it.
“The Führer needs young warriors like Georg,” Karl said. He looked between the three of us, a glint of determination in his eyes. Just as Jürgen had changed over those past few years, Karl had changed too—he’d become a much harder man, much less inclined to flash his charming smile. “The sooner we get him started, the better—and the early entry reflects just how much the Party values your work, Jürgen.”
“Thank you,” I heard my husband say. Watching the convincing job he was doing of expressing delight at this development, I understood why he was so tired all of the time.
“On that note,” Karl continued, “my friend, there is something I’ve been meaning to speak to you about...” His charming smile made a brief reappearance. “You’re the most senior staff member at Peenemünde who isn’t a member of the Party. I know that’s just an oversight, but don’t you think it’s time we rectified it?”
This was a test of loyalty, just like the specialJungvolkarrangement, and an explicit threat was no longer required. We all understood exactly what the stakes were.
By the time Jürgen returned to Peenemünde the next day, we were paid-up members of the Nazi party, just waiting for our membership numbers to arrive in the post.
Georg chatted excitedly the morning of his first overnightJungvolkcamp, more animated than I’d seen him since Adele’s death.
“There’s sports and adventure courses and we get to fire guns and we sleep in the tents and they will teach us how to do all kinds of amazing things—even how to serve the Führer better! I’ll be in Hans’sJungenshaft.” This was a unit of ten children, led by a slightly older child. TheJungvolkwas structured as a paramilitary organization. I was sending my nine-year-old son off to play combat games designed to shape him into a mindless Hitler acolyte.
Georg was already wearing his uniform—shiny black boots and dark shorts, a tie paired with a collared shirt, theJungvolklogo on the sleeve. He’d emerged from his room in the uniform so early that morning, I had a feeling he slipped it on straight out of bed. But he couldn’t fix the final part of the uniform without help, and that was why he was standing before me now, chin raised, waiting impatiently for me to put his rolled kerchief around his neck.
“...and we will learn to expel theUntermenschand defeat all of the Führer’s enemies. It is going to be so much fun!”
It was all a game to Georg—a glorious, fun-filled lark. I slipped the kerchief around his neck, tucked the collar over it, and then reached for the woggle—the loop of woven leather that secured the kerchief in place at his collarbone. I stared down at him until tears filled my eyes.
“What is it?” he asked, suddenly alarmed as he stared back up at me, his blue eyes filled with concern. “Mama?”
I forced myself to smile.
“You’re just such a big boy, Georg. I’m so proud of you.”
He beamed at me, then straightened his shoulders as he stepped away to pick up the canvas bag containing his overnight things. The bag was almost bigger than he was. He swung it over his shoulder, then stepped toward the door, waving impatiently for me to follow.
At the camp, Laura hovered beside me, taking it all in with big, curious eyes—hundreds of young boys, assembling into perfect lines at the sharp sound of a whistle. I was holding a squirming Gisela on one hip, but Laura took my other hand and tugged it to get my attention.
“Mama, I can’t wait until it’s my turn.” As a young girl, she wouldn’t attend theJungvolk—rather, theJungmadelbund, the Young Girls’ League, focused on activities deemed suitable for German girls, preparing them for their future roles as mother, wife, and homemaker.
“Soon enough,” I replied, my heart sinking as I said it. She would likely start at ten—just a few short years away. I looked back to Georg, who was almost quaking with excitement as the leaders barked instructions at the children to prepare to recite the pledge.
Several hundred boys straightened their spines and echoed in unison the chant my son had already learned by heart.
“In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all of my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler.” My son looked right at me and beamed with pride as he chanted, “I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.”
Adele’s apartment was still vacant and I couldn’t bring myself to rent it out. We didn’t need the money, and the thought of sorting through her belongings was still too much. Every morning, I went into her courtyard to tend to the animals and the plants that remained. On Wednesdays, I packed a basket of whatever was in season, and Gisela and I took a trip to drop it off to Martha.
There were still somany unknowns from the night Adele died. We never figured out how the Gestapo caught wind of the chain of women helping Mayim’s family for all of those years, nor did we know why some of those women, including Martha, escaped suspicion. But Martha could explain some things.
“Adele called and asked me to come by in the morning with my son’s car. She was trying to stay calm, but I heard her panic.” Martha arrived at sunrise—only to find Adele had passed. “I convinced the Bavarians to go to their room and freshen up, and while they were gone, I checked the apartment. I found Mayim hiding beneath the kitchen sink. She’d been there all night.” I swallowed a lump in my throat at the thought of that. The same hiding place she’d endured while her father was killed. What a torture it must have been to see history repeat itself twice in just a few days. “I snuck her out the back door and over the courtyard wall. By the time the couple came back downstairs, Mayim was hiding in my son’s car and I was sitting with Adele on the bed, calmly saying goodbye.”
“I see why you and Adele were friends.” I smiled tearfully.
“It was nothing,” Martha said dismissively. Then her face fell. “I wish I could have done more for her, Sofie. There were thousands of Poles camping out in the open at the border because the Reich wouldn’t let them stay but Poland wouldn’t let them in. I don’t know what happened after she left my car, but I think of her all the time.”
After that, Martha mentioned that her son knew of several other Jews in hiding. I could no longer help Mayim, but that didn’t mean I was powerless.
Not even Jürgen knew that every Wednesday I dropped some of Adele’s produce off to Martha—caring for an elderly Aryan German, just as the Reich wanted me to do. But in a layer of folded newspaper at the bottom of the basket of produce, there was always a stack of Reichsmark—as much as I could skim without arousing suspicion from Jürgen. I knew he wouldn’t protest if he knew what I was doing, but I wanted to protect him, just as Adele had tried to protect me.
I never met Martha’s son, but I knew he always visited her on Wednesday afternoons. While he was there, he’d collect the cash and pass it to Jewish friends who needed it most.
I never learned who the recipients were. It didn’t really matter. I desperately wanted to help—but I knew, deep down, that my gesture was so small as to be laughably insignificant.
