“A Volksgemeinschaft is possible!” one speaker thundered, as he painted the image of a German people’s community, which sounded almost Utopian until he followed it up with references to the racial purity it would be built upon. Another looked to the past and found a villain he didn’t need to name. “The Treaty of Versailles was designed only to cripple us! We were stabbed in the back by those who agreed to it.” We all knew this was a clear reference to the long-standing conspiracy theory that Germany had not really lost the Great War, but that our brave soldiers were betrayed by those at home, mostly Jews, who fomented unrest and undermined the war effort.
Another man spoke in generalities—rattling off a long list of the challenges we faced as a nation, from economic woes to the ever-increasing political instability—and then he simply shrugged and said, “Germany should be for Germans. We shall bear our national misfortune no longer.” That use of the word misfortune struck an uncomfortable chord. I’d seen it on the Nazi posters around the city, usually beneath a crude, offensive caricature of a Jew.
“People seemed enthralled, Mayim. Like they were under a spell,” I said uneasily. “It was a flashy affair—almost like a concert, with an orchestra and a choir and boundless enthusiasm and passion. I just don’t understand how a bit of music and some theatrical speeches could turn a crowd like that into a bunch of raging anti-Semites.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed Mayim’s face. We had been best friends since before we even started at elementary school—our families once residing in side-by-side, twin mansions in Potsdam. I knew her well enough to know she had something to say.
“Speak your mind,” I prompted. Mayim sighed impatiently.
“You have no idea how anti-Semitic this country really is, Sofie. You can’t understand it the way my family does.”
“Your family is my family,” I said. I was a late-in-life surprise for my mother, who gave birth to me when she was forty-eight years old. Anna von Meyer had no interest in starting all over again nine years after her fifth son, so she generally left my care to my nannies. My family was cold and formal, so I much preferred spending time at Mayim’s house, with her lovely warm mother and her jovial, kind father. Even Mayim’s little brother, Moshe, had always annoyed and amused me.
“You’re my best friend in the whole world—a sister if not by blood, then by choice. But you can’t know what it’s really like to live your whole life under the shadow of hate. To wake up every morning knowing that there’s a large portion of your own countrymen who would sooner see you gone. You’ve seen the big, openly aggressive moments—but you don’t notice the way people look at me when I’m on the trolley car. You might notice the No Jews sign in the windows of some stores, but don’t hear the undertone in the grocer’s tone when he counts my change, or the casual way people joke about me and my family, sometimes right in front of our faces. You said it was like the crowd tonight had been turned into raging anti-Semites by the rally, yes?” I nodded slowly and she shrugged. “All Hitler and his ilk are doing is connecting with something that has always been there.”
I knew that in other countries, even Poland, where Mayim’s mother was born, many Jews lived in Jewish Quarters or Districts. It was different in Germany. In my country, especially in Berlin, Jews lived and studied and worked alongside everyone else, so much so that I often had no idea if a person was or wasn’t Jewish unless their surname gave it away. For the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps our integrated society also gave cover to subtle incidents of bigotry. Even Lydia sometimes made those silly, casual remarks about the Jews.
“What about people like Lydia and Karl?” I asked hesitantly. “You and Lydia are friends.”
“Lydia and I were friends,” Mayim said quietly. “I hardly see her these days. I highly doubt she or Karl have been spending much time socializing with anyone with a surname like Nussbaum since they joined the Party.”
That was the other great shock, and one I still couldn’t make sense of: Lydia and Karl had joined the Nazi party.
“But why?” I’d blurted when they told me, too surprised to temper my reaction.
“Perhaps there were some less-than-savory aspects to their politics historically,” Lydia admitted. “But the other parties only offer the same tired rhetoric, with no plan to stabilize the nation. We decided to throw our money and our time behind a party we feel sure can win.”