She reached tentatively for the bag but didn’t move out of the doorway. Instead, she tilted her head at me.
“I haven’t forgotten how awful it was back then,” she said, dropping her voice as she glanced at Felix. “Sometimes you had to pay a price just to keep your family alive. I do understand that. But is it true?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied. Her eyes narrowed.
“I think you do. Can you honestly tell me that Jürgen wasn’t involved in what happened at Mittelwerk?”
How could one word have so much power? As Claudia said Mittelwerk, my stomach dropped, and a wave of shame and guilt rushed over me, so powerful I swayed with the force of it. Felix was oblivious to all of that. He tugged at my hand, impatient to go inside to play with Claudia’s son Luis. Eventually, I wanted to tell my children everything, but he wasn’t even five years old. It wasn’t time yet for him to overhear a conversation like the one Claudia was trying to prompt.
My voice was thick with emotion as I managed, “As you say, Claudia, things were very difficult during the war.”
“Some of my friends joined the Party or turned a blind eye to the harassment of Jews on the street,” she said stiffly. “These things I can forgive. But I absolutely draw the line at running a—” she looked from me to Felix and then mouthed dramatically “—forced labor camp.”
“He didn’t run a camp!” I exclaimed fiercely, but then I sighed, knowing I’d already lost this battle. “Maybe we can sit down, and the children can play while I tell you the whole story? We didn’t have any choice about what happened.”
I felt sure if Claudia heard me out, she’d understand the impossible position Jürgen and I had found ourselves in. But she had already made up her mind. She stepped back inside and gave me a grim look.
“There’s always a choice, Sofie. Always.”
She moved to shut the door, but I couldn’t let the conversation end like that, so I stuck my foot out to hold the door open.
“As I understand, you and Klaus were living a long way from Berlin during the war,” I said firmly. “And you’re younger than us—I’m assuming Klaus was very junior at his workplace back then. You don’t know what you’d have done if you were in our position.”
Claudia raised her chin. “Actually, we refused to join the Party, and that meant Klaus was passed over for every promotion and pay rise. At times, those people made our life very uncomfortable. But more importantly, we held on to our self-respect.” She flicked a glance down to Felix and added, “I understand that Klaus and Jürgen will work together—that is unavoidable. But I have come a long way to remove my children from the influence of Nazi ideology. I am sure you understand why I do not want them mingling with the family of a man who enforced it.”
“But—”
“Please excuse me. I need to do some housekeeping.”
She pushed the door and I had no choice but to remove my foot. As the latch clicked into place, I looked down at Felix, who was staring up at me with big, sad eyes.
“Am I going to play with Luis today, Mama?”
“Not today,” I said heavily, turning back toward home.
Misery threatened to envelop me, but I shook myself. I had to keep perspective. Things in America were more complicated than I’d expected, but still not as bad as everything we’d already endured.
17
Sofie
Berlin, Germany
1935
Once when I was young, I tagged along on my parents’ resort vacation to étretat, in France. I was fascinated by L’Aiguille, the famous needle rock formation, as well as the archways of rock that looped out over the ocean. But my favorite feature was a little cave, tucked at the other end of the beach opposite the resort. I’d been exploring its nooks and crannies all week. On the last morning I sat with my nanny, side by side at the cave’s mouth, watching the waves roll toward our ankles.
“How did this happen?” I asked her. I stared up at the rock ceiling and enjoyed a shiver of adrenaline as I thought about the weight of the coast’s famous alabaster chalk above us.
“It takes a very long time to carve out a cave like this,” she said. “Millions of years. Every wave washes away just a tiny bit of the rock. Even this week, it’s grown. It’s just happened too slowly for us to see it.”
I thought about that a lot after the Nazis came to power and the trickle of anti-Jewish decrees began. The new laws were so narrow at first that they attracted little outcry. First came the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which mandated that civil servants provide proof of Aryan heritage. Most were easily able to do this. Those who had Jewish heritage, like Mayim’s father, Levi, were quietly dismissed.