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It was like they were invisible.
Josef and his sister followed their mother through the crowd at the Lehrter Bahnhof, Berlin’s main railway station. Josef and Ruth each carried a suitcase, and their mother carried two more—one for herself, and one for Josef’s father. No porters rushed to help them with their bags. No station agents stopped to ask if they needed help finding their train. The bright yellow Star of David armbands the Landaus wore were like magical talismans that made them disappear. Yet no one bumped into them, Josef noticed. All the station attendants and other passengers gave them a wide berth, flowing around them like water around a stone.
The people chose not to see them.
On the train, Josef and his family sat in a compartment labeled J, for Jew, so no “real” Germans would sit there by accident. They were headed for Hamburg, on the north coast, where his father would meet them to board their ship. The day they had gotten Papa’s telegram, Josef’s mother booked tickets for all four of them to the only place that would take them: an island half a world away called Cuba.
Ever since the Nazis had taken over six years ago, Jews were fleeing Germany. By now, May of 1939, most countries had stopped admitting Jewish refugees, or had lots of official applications you had to fill out and file and pay for before they would let you in. Josef and his family hoped to one day make it to America, but you couldn’t just sail into New York Harbor. The United States only let in a certain number of Jews every year, so Josef’s family planned to live in Cuba while they waited.
“I’m hot,” Ruthie said, pulling at her coat.
“No, no,” her mother said. “You must leave your coat on and never go anywhere without it, do you understand? Not until we reach Cuba.”
“I don’t want to go to Cuba,” Ruth whined as the train got under way.
Mama pulled Ruth into her lap. “I know, dear. But we have to go so all of us will be safe. It will be an adventure.”
Ruthie would have started kindergarten that year if Jews were still allowed to go to school. She had bright eyes, wild brown hair cut in a bob and parted on the side, and a little gap between her two front teeth that made her look like a chipmunk. She wore a dark blue wool dress with a white sailor’s collar and carried her white corduroy stuffed rabbit, Bitsy, everywhere she went.
Ruthie had been born the year Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. She’d never known any other life except this one. But Josef remembered how it used to be. Back when people saw them. Back when they were Germans.
They had gotten up early and it had been a stressful day, and soon Ruthie was asleep in Mama’s lap, and Mama dozed with her. As he watched them sleep, Josef wondered if anyone would really be able to tell they were Jews if they weren’t in a Jewish compartment, wearing armbands with the Star of David on them.
Josef remembered a time in class, back when he was allowed to go to school. His teacher, Herr Meier, had called him to the front of the room. At first Josef thought the teacher was going to ask him to do a math problem on the board. Instead, Herr Meier lowered a screen with the faces and profiles of Jewish men and women on it and proceeded to use Josef as an example of how to tell a real German from a Jew. He turned Josef this way and that, pointing out the curve of his nose, the slant of his chin. Josef felt the heat of that embarrassment all over again, the humiliation of being talked about like he was an animal. A specimen. Something subhuman.
Without these stupid armbands, without the letter J stamped on his passport, would anyone know he was Jewish?
Josef decided to find out.
He left the compartment quietly and walked along the corridor past the other Jewish families in their compartments. Beyond the next door was the “German” part of the train.
Heart in his throat, skin tingling with goose bumps, Josef took the paper armband with the Star of David off his arm, slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket, and stepped through the door.
Josef tiptoed down the corridor. The “German” train car didn’t feel any different than the Jewish car. German families talked and laughed and argued in their compartments, just like Jews. They ate and slept and read books like Jews.
Josef caught his reflection in one of the windows. Straight brown hair slicked back from his pale white forehead, brown eyes behind wire-frame glasses that sat on a short nose, ears that stuck out maybe a little too far. He was about average height for his age, and he wore a gray double-breasted pin-stripe jacket, brown trousers, and a white shirt and blue tie. Nothing about him actually matched the pictures on Herr Meier’s presentation on
how to identify a Jew. Josef couldn’t think of any Jewish people he knew who did look like those pictures.
The next car was the dining car. People sat at little tables, smoking, eating, and drinking as they chatted or read the newspaper or played cards. The man at the concession stand sold newspapers, and Josef took one and put a coin on the counter.
The concession stand man smiled. “Buying a paper for your father?” he asked Josef.
No, thought Josef. My father just got out of a concentration camp.
“No. For me,” Josef said instead. “I want to be a journalist one day.” “Good!” the news agent said. “We need more writers.” He waved a hand
at all the magazines and newspapers. “So I have more things to sell!”
He laughed, and Josef smiled. Here they were, talking like two regular people, but Josef hadn’t forgotten he was Jewish. He hadn’t forgotten that if he were wearing his armband, this man wouldn’t be talking and laughing with him. He’d be calling for the police.
Josef was about to leave when he thought to buy Ruthie a piece of candy. Money had been tight since their father lost his job, and she would enjoy the treat. Josef took a hard candy from a jar and fished in his pocket for another pfennig. He found one, put it on the counter, and paid for the candy. But when he’d removed the coin, his armband had slipped out too. It fluttered to the floor, the Star of David landing face up for all the world to see.
A fist closed around Josef’s heart, and he dove for the armband.
Stomp. A black shoe covered the armband before Josef could grab it. Slowly, shakily, Josef lifted his eyes from the black shoes to the white socks, brown shorts, brown shirt, and red Nazi armband of a Hitler Youth.
A boy about Josef’s age, sworn to live and die for the Fatherland. He stood on Josef’s armband, his eyes wide with surprise.
The blood drained from Josef’s face.
The boy reached down, palmed the armband, and took Josef by the arm. “Let’s go,” the boy said, and he marched Josef back through the dining car.
Josef could barely walk. His legs were like lead, and his eyes lost their focus.
After Herr Meier had called him in front of the class to show how Jews were inferior to real Germans, Josef had returned to his seat next to Klaus, his best friend in the class. Klaus had been wearing the same uniform this boy did now. Klaus had joined the Hitler Youth not because he wanted to, but because German boys—and their families—were shamed and mistreated if they didn’t.
Klaus had winced to show Josef how sorry he was that Herr Meier had done that to him.
That afternoon, a group of Hitler Youth were waiting for Josef outside the school. They fell on him, hitting and kicking him for being a Jew, and calling him all kinds of names.
And the worst part was, Klaus had joined them.
Wearing that uniform turned boys into monsters. Josef had seen it happen. He had done everything he could to avoid the Hitler Youth ever since, but now he’d handed himself right over to one—and all because he’d taken off his armband to walk around a train and buy a newspaper! He and his mother and sister would be put off the train, maybe even sent to a concentration camp.
Josef had been a fool, and now he and his family were going to pay the price.
