Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas

PART ONE : PICTURES OF FRANKFURT

Chapter 1

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What has happened to me? I feel just like I did when I was around ten years old and I got hit by a soccer ball right between the eyes and I wandered around the field disoriented, not knowing who I was, where I was, where I should be going. I feel like that now—stunned and confused. Who am I? Where am I going?

This much I know. My name is Daniel. I am fourteen. And I am Jewish. I am on a train with my mother, father, sister, and what looks like over a thousand other Jews from Frankfurt. We do not have any idea where we are going, only that the Germans no longer want Jews in Germany. My country. Generations of our family have lived here going back a thousand years, but it looks as if we will be the last.

Father and Mother sit across from me and speak in low voices to each other. My sister, Erika, who at twelve is two years younger than I, sits beside me humming a tune to herself, no doubt composing a song for her violin.

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I bend over and pull my photo album out of my rucksack. I feel the need to look at my pictures, pictures of my life. Perhaps they can help me understand how I came to be on this train, who I am, and what has happened. I open the album to the first page.

The first picture in my album is that of me on my sixth birthday. Marked on the bottom is March 30, 1933. I am smiling at the camera, all pudgy cheeks and thick black wavy hair, my brand-new gleaming toy train on display in front of me.

Uncle Peter, my favorite uncle, would have taken this picture. He was the unofficial family photographer. The picture just beneath it is one he took later that day of our whole family. Everyone looks serious because they don't want to appear silly in the photograph. Still, I remember that day. The adults talking and laughing, the hustle and bustle as dinner was being prepared, the smell of freshly baked bread and roasting chicken, and, of course, the screaming and noise of all my cousins.

I look at each face in the photograph in turn. Uncle Peter isn't in the picture because he was taking it. He was married to Auntie Leah, my mother's older sister, a nurse. She always bossed us around and tried to organize our lives. Uncle Peter and Auntie Leah had four children under the age of five-Friedrich, a year younger than I, Mia, age four, Gertrude, age two, and Brigitte, age one. The children look so quiet and well behaved in the photo. But in reality they would run, scream, fight, and drive me crazy. I remember the first thing they went for when they got in the door that day was a magnificent castle I had made from my building set.

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I had labored over it for weeks, methodically snapping the pieces together until I thought it was perfect-it was demolished only seconds after their arrival. "Daniel," my mother always said to me just before they came over, "you are the oldest. You must hold your temper even if they do things you don't like.” When I was five, I'd bopped Friedrich on the arm, hard, for breaking one of my toys. He'd cried. And ever since then all I'd heard was “You're the oldest." I looked at the shambles of my castle and felt like bopping them all. Strange, really, that they should be so wild, considering how strict Auntie Leah is. Perhaps she is better at controlling other people's children than her own.

Also in the picture is my mother's younger brother, David. He was an engineer and a bachelor, and we usually saw him at dinnertime, when he just happened to drop by to visit.

Standing beside my father are his three brothers: Leo, who came from Berlin with his family; Walter and Aaron, and their wives. Sitting on the floor are their children, three per family, most around my age or younger. I remember that as the photo was being taken Uncle Walter and Father were fighting, talking back and forth with clenched teeth so as not to ruin the picture.

“Palestine is the answer, Joseph,” said Uncle Walter to my father. "We should all emigrate there."

"And do they need concert violinists in the Holy Land?” Father had replied. "No, Walter, they'll put you to work in the fields."

“Even a new country needs music,” Walter retorted. “And the Jews need a country of their own."

"We have a country!” Father exclaimed. “Our family has lived in Germany

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for over six hundred years. How long does it have to be before you call someplace home?” . “And my family," said Mother, and then the entire family joined in, 'has been here for almost one thousand years.!” Mother turned red. "Well, we have.”

"We know!” Everyone laughed.

Auntie Leah spoke up. “It never hurts to be reminded.”

Everyone laughed again. The picture had to be delayed while the adults put their serious faces back on.

Oma Rachel and Opa Samuel, my mother's parents, are in the picture too, as is Oma Miriam, my father's mother. Oma Miriam lived in an old-folks' home in Frankfurt, but was with us for my birthday. Opa Karl had died two years earlier. Right after the picture was finally taken, I remember Auntie Leah began to lecture me.

“Now, young man, I hope you'll work to deserve such a fine present. I understand your mother has just returned from another trip to see your teacher. It seems to me that she's called to your school at least once a week!” She looked at me sternly, and I was so mad I could have kicked her. She was always butting in! And it was so unfair! All I did in school was crack a few jokes and make some funny faces. My classmates thought I was funny and so did I. Why did my teacher, Mr. Schneider, have to be so sour? He always looked like he'd sucked on a lemon just before coming into the classroom.

“Leah, it's his birthday,” Mother protested.

“I know, I know," Auntie Leah replied. “But you're too soft on him—he should realize how hard these meetings are on you."

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“If Mr. Schneider wasn't so mean and stupid, I'd behave better!" I declared defiantly. Auntie Leah looked like she wanted to run over and cover her children's ears. They were all listening with great interest.

"You must show respect for your teachers, Daniel,” she scolded.

“Why? They don't show respect for me,” I shot back.

At that point Uncle Peter intervened.

"Who wants birthday candies?” he asked with a smile. I loved Uncle Peter..

"I wish you were my teacher, Uncle Peter," I said, giving him a kiss as he handed me a huge piece of chocolate toffee. "I'd never be bad in your class."

“No, Daniel, I'm sure you wouldn't. I agree with you, mutual respect is very important.” Then he whispered in my ear, “But just to make things easier for your poor mother, maybe you could pretend a little respect.

I giggled and he gave me a wink. That made me feel so grown up that I decided to try it. Not that I could always control myself, but after that my mother visited Mr. Schneider every month or so instead of every week.

I stare at the next page and the next picture. Uncle Peter took this one two days after my birthday. It shows my father's hardware store. My father had a very successful business. People came to his store from all over, not so much for his merchandise, but for his advice. He knew how to fix anything and always took the time to show the people who came in what the best tools would be for a specific job. There was also a large section of household items like pots and pans and knives, and he would discuss the advantages of one over another with his customers as seriously as if they were deciding the fate of the world.

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That's why his customers would never consider shopping anywhere else—even if the price was a little cheaper. My mother worked in the back of the shop, doing all the accounting. I stare at the picture. Across the front window, written in large letters, is the word JEW.

I still remember when I first saw it. I was so confused. Jew. What was wrong with that? I went to a regular public school and most of my friends at school weren't Jewish, but that didn't matter. It was just a different religion. We lit candles on the Sabbath and went to synagogue—a reform synagogue where the service was mostly in German-and celebrated Jewish holidays. They celebrated Christian holidays. So what? But that day there wasn't only writing on the window. There was a storm trooper-Father said he was called a Brown Shirt because of the brown shirt of his uniform—and he was standing outside the door of the shop. With a gun! I had run there to help in the store, and then I didn't know what to do. I was scared.

I thought that maybe the storm trooper would shoot me if I got close. He looked so mean. And then Mrs. Werner came around the corner. She walked very slowly because she had to use a cane. She walked up to the man and said, “Excuse me, please."

The Brown Shirt looked at her and replied, “All Jewish shops are being boycotted. You can't go in there."

Mrs. Werner tapped his boot with her cane.

"Now you listen to me, young man. I walked a long way to get here. I'm ninety years old. Don't you tell me what I can and can't do!”

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And the Brown Shirt stepped aside. I ran up to her and took her hand and we went in together.

“Daniel!” my father cried. “Mrs. Werner! You shouldn't have come. He might have hurt you!”

"Nonsense,” she replied, and then went about her business. All she had needed was a light bulb!

I think back to that incident now and I wonder if the madness could have been stopped then. What if Father's regular customers had insisted, like Mrs. Werner, on being allowed in? Mrs. Werner wasn't Jewish and she didn't care that we were. But how many people had the courage to walk up to a young man holding a gun? What if he should shoot?

The next day the Brown Shirt was gone, and Uncle Peter came to the store to take the picture. As we stood in the street gazing at the shop, I asked him to explain what was happening.

"Have you heard of a man called Adolf Hitler?” Uncle Peter said.

"Of course!" I replied, insulted.

"Who is he?”

"He is chanskellur of Germany," I replied.

"Yes, Daniel, you mean chancellor, appointed by President Hindenburg. His party, the National So cialist party—they are called Nazis—has lots of seats in Parliament. Hitler has changed the constitution so that he now rules us. He can do anything he wants, Daniel, and the German people are happy to let him. They think he can solve all their problems of unemployment and that he can stop the fighting.”

I nodded knowingly. I'd seen people fighting in the streets. “But why won't they let people shop in our store?” I asked.

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"That's a good question, Daniel. Hitler wants someone to blame all of Germany's troubles on, and he's decided it will be the Jews. And anyone else that isn't a 'pure' German of the ‘Aryan' or 'master race. I've heard they've opened up camps—they call them concentration camps—where they're putting all his enemies—communists, socialists, Gypsies, Jews, any one who disagrees with him and anyone he doesn't like. And they are making sure everyone has heard of these camps—so people do not protest, for fear of getting arrested too."

“But," I said, “how can everyone love him so much if he's so mean?” I thought of the huge rallies Father had told me about, where tens of thousands cheered Hitler, and of the torchlight parades I'd seen many nights, in which his followers would march through town singing. I often felt like running out and joining the parades. They always looked so exciting.

"People think he will make Germany strong again-give it back its dignity. Come, let's go help your father wash that sign off.”

The boycott of Jewish stores lasted only three days, and like any six-year-old, I quickly forgot all about it and went back to my happy life. My mother and father must have started to worry then, but they hid it well and I had other things to worry about—such as whether or not I would make the school soccer team and if I could convince Father to buy me the beautiful model car that was displayed in the shop window next to his.

Chapter 2

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I look at the picture on the next page—the last class

photo taken just before I left public school. It is I marked Class of 1936/37. What strikes me is all the faces not in the picture—my Jewish friends who had over the years either left voluntarily to go to Jewish schools or been forced to leave. I had wanted to stay at that school because my best friend, Hans, was there, and he wasn't Jewish. But slowly Hans began to find excuses for not coming over to my house, and he started to pick fights with me in the schoolyard. I always got in trouble for those fights, of course, because I was a Jew, a natural troublemaker, according to Mr. Schneider.

Just thinking about Mr. Schneider gets me mad all over again. One day, soon after my tenth birthday, he called me to the front of the class. He had a measuring tape, which he flung about in the air.

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"Jews,” he cried in his shrill voice, "are not our equals. They never were. They bribed their way into positions of power. They tried to take over all our banks and financial institutions. They tried to take over our country. We must all thank God that He sent Adolf Hit ler to us, for only he has had the courage to deal with this Jewish problem. Now the Jews are no longer citizens, they have no rights, and soon they will no longer pollute our schools."

I was torn between kicking him and throwing a desk at him, so for the moment I did nothing. He'd always been mean to me. Whenever I got an answer wrong, he'd say, "What can you expect from a Jew?" But he'd never gone on like this before.

“The authorities have instructed us to illustrate the inferiority of this race to you students in this way,” Mr. Schneider continued. “True Aryans have specific head measurements.” Before I knew it, he had the tape around my head. He quickly marked it and held it up triumphantly to the class. “You see! Inferior species. Head too small, no room for brains, a close relative to the vermin in our gutters.”

That was it. I could take it no more.

"Good!” I exclaimed. “Because I'd hate to be like you!” And then I kicked him.

Everyone in the class gasped.

"Leave this room!” Mr. Schneider screamed, hitting me around the head and shoulders. “Go straight to the principal's office.”

"I'll leave this room and I'll never come back," I screamed as I tried to duck the blows. I went straight to Father's store, and I pleaded with him to take me out of that school. The next day both Erika and I started in the Jewish school, about ten blocks from home.

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This next picture shows me outside my new school, with Erika and Uncle Peter. Father took this picture. It is dated April 1937. It's amazing to look at it and to realize how little I understood then. I didn't care that I'd been virtually forced out of my own school. I was thrilled at the idea of never seeing Mr. Schneider again and delighted that Uncle Peter would be my new teacher.

Uncle Peter had been fired from his teaching job because he was Jewish—that's why he was now teaching at the Jewish school. Not only him; all the Jewish professors from the University had been fired—so we had very talented, knowledgeable teachers. It wasn't as much fun getting into trouble. The teachers looked at me with such disappointment when I did something stupid that I eventually stopped. And I started to enjoy myself. I discovered that with a good teacher, school could actually be interesting.

I look at this picture of the three of us smiling in front of the Jewish school and I realize that it was then that my life really began to change. I remember running home to tell Mother all about my first day at my new school.

Something in her face made me stop, as I chattered on about my new schoolmates, how good it was to have friends again, and what a good teacher Uncle Peter was.

"What's the matter?” I asked.

“What's the matter?” she replied, and suddenly her eyes blazed with fury. “I'll tell you what the matter is. Our family goes back a thousand years and yet you aren't German enough to go to public school. How dare they! That criminal Hitler isn't good enough to carry your books!”

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I was so shocked, I didn't reply. Mother was always so calm, so quiet. She never got mad.

"Don't be mad, Mother," I said. “I like it there."

“I know you do, Daniel,” she said, and I saw tears in her eyes, “but that's not the point.” Then she sat down at the kitchen table and looked so sad I didn't know what to do. Slowly I backed away and went to my room. When I saw her at supper, she was back to her calm, quiet self and never mentioned it to me again.

Uncle David moved to the United States that summer. A few years earlier the Nuremberg laws had been passed, laws designed to “protect” German blood and honor. Jews were not allowed to marry Germans. Uncle David was engaged to a Christian woman, and they left Germany so they could marry. Those laws also took away citizenship from all Jews and their right to vote. Uncle David wanted us to join him in the United States, but my parents didn't want to leave Frankfurt. Still, lots of their friends were leaving. Every day Father announced a new name at the dinner table.

"You know the Cohens down the street? On their way to England. The Pearlmans, who have the clothing store near ours? Australia!”

Mother would shake her head. And then Father would say, “They'll be back."

Still, it felt to me like everything was changing too fast—and for the worse. It seemed there was a law for everything, most of them forbidding Jews to do the things I most enjoyed. We couldn't go to concerts or eat at restaurants or even swim in public pools. Big signs were posted at the pools saying “No Jews or Dogs Allowed." Still, I tried to convince myself that it wasn't that bad. My mother cooked better than any restaurant chef, and my friends and I played soccer after school.

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Very quickly the Jewish community banded together and organized its own Jewish cultural centers-Uncle Walter was fired from the Frankfurt Symphony, so he joined the Jewish Symphony. We even had our own community swimming pool. I made new friends and I joined a sports club sponsored by a Zionist organization. Zionists believed that Jews needed their own homeland, so along with martial arts and soccer, we also had lectures on how we would create the perfect Jewish state in Palestine. By the time I was eleven, I'd almost forgotten life had ever been different.

One night, though, I was reminded how different things really were. My friends Joshua and Mordechai and I were walking home from the Zionist sports club at around nine o'clock. We had been practicing martial arts all evening, but we weren't tired. A fresh layer of snow lay on the ground and we were feeling happy and full of energy. We threw snowballs and chased one another down the streets. We had paused at a street corner to say good-bye when four boys in Hitler Youth uniforms came up behind us. Perhaps they had followed us, I don't know. These were the "perfect Aryans," children training to be future leaders of Hitler's Germany—the Germany that had no place for Jews.

“Hey, Jew boy,” one called, “didn't your mother ever teach you to wash?”

"Yours should wash your mouth out with soap!” I replied.

"Why, you ...!” He turned red. Couldn't believe a Jew had actually answered him back. And then suddenly they were all over us. But even at their four to our three they were no match for us. The blue-eyed blond who'd taunted me was soon flat on his stomach, his face in the snow.

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"Give up?" I asked.

"No!” he screamed, struggling.

I sat on him hard and pushed his face farther into the snow.

"Now?”

"Yes! Yes! Let me up!"

He scrambled up and raced off with the others. The three of us laughed and joked about it, but as I lay in bed that night, I knew that none of us had found it fun--or funny. We were separate now from everyone else in Frankfurt. Separate and somehow less important. Not as good as the "pure," "real" Germans. And everywhere there were posters, exhibits, and articles that described to the German people how terrible Jews were. I knew I was no different from them, and yet sometimes—I wondered.

In fact, I took Erika to see a newsreel about one of those exhibits.

I look at the next picture. Little Erika standing with her violin, staring seriously into the camera. Under it is written June 1938. Erika was nine. A little mouse. She had brown wavy hair and brown eyes and a little nose that she would rub when she was worried. Uncle Walter had begun teaching her violin when she was only four years old because she'd begged and begged him. From the moment she attended her first symphony to hear her Uncle Walter play, all she wanted to do was learn the violin. She is so much like Mother--quiet, calm—but she's also terribly shy. Everything she feels she expresses in her music.

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Shortly after this picture was taken, Erika and I went to the movies. I wanted to go because I'd heard that before the feature they were showing a newsreel about a public exhibition called “The Eternal Jew,” which was coming to Frankfurt. This exhibition was created for one purpose only—to convince German people of how disgusting Jews were. I just had to see it. I wanted to know what they were saying about us. I was looking after Erika, so I dragged her along. She was devastated by it. The newsreel described what was in the exhibit-a picture of Jews as slave drivers, thieves, and madmen, unlike the upstanding, honorable German people. I tried to laugh at it all, but in-' side I was terrified. Erika wept silently until I was so guilt stricken at having taken her that we got up and left. Auntie Leah waved to us from across the street.

"Daniel! Erika! I've been looking everywhere for you! Come on!”

Erika and I hurried over to her, relieved there was someone to take us home. I felt like everyone on that street knew we were Jewish, that they would gladly rip us to shreds or try to stamp on us as if we were bugs. Mother and Father were furious with me when they heard where I had taken Erika, and I was sent to my room for the rest of the day and evening.

That night I had a dream. In the dream Erika and I went to the movies and saw the horrible newsreel, just as we had that afternoon. When we came out, Auntie Leah called to us, her voice shrill, "Come on!"

Suddenly someone on the street yelled. "Hey, I know her. She lives near me. She's a Jew. Let's get her. Teach her a lesson.” And then the people on the street moved as one as they went after her.

"Jew. Filthy vermin.” They punched her and kicked her and then began ripping off her clothes.

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“Run, Erika, run!” I screamed, and I pushed her away. Erika ran. I threw myself into the mob, screaming, “Leave her alone, leave her alone!" I punched and kicked, but they punched and kicked back. Finally Auntie Leah grabbed me, covered me up, threw her body over me, and went limp. Slowly the crowd lost its momentum and began to disperse.

Auntie Leah got up. Her clothes were in tatters. There was a terrible gash along her cheekbone, and two bottom teeth were gone.

“Daniel, are you all right?” she whispered. She was only worried about me. I started to cry. “I'm sorry," I said. “I'm sorry."

“It wasn't your fault,” she said. Perhaps she thought I was apologizing for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How could she know I was sorry , that I'd never liked her and now this had happened to her and I still didn't know if I liked her, but I knew, I knew that no human being deserved to be treated that way—whether I liked her or not.

I kept repeating how sorry I was, and I took off my shirt and gave it to her. Father and Mother came with Erika, and then Mother started to cry. And I started to scream because I was scared, and how could this happen? Wasn't this Frankfurt? My home? And I screamed and screamed ...

“Daniel, Daniel, wake up! You're having a nightmare!” My mother was holding me tight. “It's all right, sweetheart. You're safe. Nothing's going to hurt you. It's that movie,” she scolded. “No wonder you're having nightmares."

The next day Father called a family conference to discuss what should be done about leaving or staying in Germany. Maybe he had started to realize that his children were going to grow up in fear. And he didn't want that for us.

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Uncle Aaron announced he had applied for visas to England and that they would leave the moment the visas came through. He said we should all do the same.

“Now listen," Uncle Peter said, “for a thousand years Jews have survived pogroms, ghettos, and anti Jewish laws, and we'll survive this. It's just more of the same. It'll pass."

“Maybe,” Mother said slowly, “this is different."

"Ruth," Father said to my mother, “if it is different, we have to do something. It's time to think about going. David can sponsor us to go to the United States. Tomorrow you should go and fill out applications for our visas."

My mother nodded her head. And she did go the next day. But Uncle Peter was wrong that it would all just pass away. He was arrested a few days later for having pleaded guilty six years earlier to two parking violations. He was taken away to Dachau concentration camp.

Auntie Leah stared into nothingness as she told Mother what had happened. "He got those tickets when Brigitte was born. I was in labor and we couldn't find a parking place, so I screamed at him, 'Park illegally! We'll get a ticket, so what? Should I have the baby in the car, instead?' Oh God help us, what is happening?"

Oh God help us, what is happening?

Chapter 3

Pag 20

I look up from my album to find my mother staring at me. It is warm in the train because it is so crowded, and Mother's face is flushed. Of course, it doesn't help that she is wearing two layers of clothes and her heaviest coat and her ski boots. Still, the flush on her cheeks just makes her look prettier. My friends were always telling me what a pretty mother I had, and all of Father's friends were taken with her the moment she walked into a room. She has dark wavy hair and large brown eyes; nothing unusual in that, it's just the way her face all comes together. She's not only beautiful, though, it's that her inner calm and sweetness shine through her eyes. I love to photograph her.

"What?” I say to her.

“It's your photo album," she replies. “When I was fourteen. Oma Rachel and Opa Samuel had pictures of all our special events-weddings, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries. . . . Look what your album has in it.

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Nothing but horrible memories."

“They aren't all so bad, Mother," I say, trying to make her feel better. How can I tell her that I'm look ing through them to try to make sense of this nightmare? I can't let her see how upset I am. It would only make her more miserable.

Her eyes well up with tears. She smiles in the hope that I won't notice. “Of course they aren't, Daniel.”

She knows that I am trying to make her feel better, and that makes her feel worse.

"Why don't you close your eyes for a few minutes and rest?” my father suggests to her.

"Yes,” she agrees. "I think I will."

She leans her head on Father's shoulder. Erika looks down at my album. She shakes her head when she sees the pictures I have it opened to, and goes back to composing quietly in her head.

I remember Auntie Leah giving me Uncle Peter's camera when she and her children moved in with us after they took Uncle Peter away. Friedrich settled into my room, and the first thing we did was turn one of the closets into a darkroom. Then I read every book I could on photography until I felt ready to begin taking pictures. Since Uncle Peter was my favorite uncle and Auntie Leah had given me his camera, I felt it was my duty to take over his responsibility as the family photographer. Friedrich and I made a pact that we would photograph everything we could as a record of our ill treatment by our fellow Germans.

I look at the photos of the identification cards we Jews had to carry. Our I.D. cards were stamped with a big) for Jew. If you didn't carry it at all times, you could be arrested, and yet if you did carry it you were marked as a Jew. The date on the photo reads July 23, 1938.

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Erika suddenly interrupts my thoughts.

“Just after you took that, we had to change our names," she remarks, pointing at the I.D. card photos. The Germans, in their search for "racial purity,” de creed all Jews had to add a Jewish name to their other one—Sara for a girl, Israel for a boy. If I signed anything, I had to sign it Daniel Israel. Father was Joseph Israel, mother was Ruth Sara, and Erika was now Erika Sara.

I remember Erika said at the time that Sara was a beautiful name and she was proud to add it to her own. Still, we should have seen then how much they really hated us, hated us so much that we couldn't even have German names. We had to be identified as Jews above all. But weren't we German, too? No more. This was another way to separate us from the “true" Germans.

The next photo is very underexposed. It shows Father's store, but this time the windows have been smashed, and it shows people leaving the store, arms filled with merchandise. These people were looting his store, carrying away whatever they could. They were Father's customers. People he trusted. It is the day after Kristallnacht, "the night of broken glass,” called that because all night you could hear the sound of glass breaking, the glass of synagogues and Jewish stores and homes and prayer halls. Under the picture is the date November 10, 1938.

Father told me later that the events of that night had started in Paris, when a young Polish Jew had shot a German official. He did it to avenge his family, who had been expelled from Germany by the Nazis with thousands of others and sent without food, money, or any of their belongings to a city in Poland called Lodz. After the man he shot died, the SS, Hitler's elite bodyguards and powerful police force, ordered its troops into the streets of all German cities to take action against the Jews, to teach them a lesson. What a terrifying night it was.

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We lived in a quiet residential area. We had both Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors. Our area was not deeply affected by the rioting, but Father had been working late and didn't return home that night. Fires blazed all over the city, glass broke, screams filled the air. My mother would let none of us leave the house. We turned off all the lights and pretended no one was home. We were in a panic, worried sick about Father. The next morning she allowed Friedrich and me to go search for him. We ran to the store. That's when I took this picture. But Father was nowhere to be seen. All that day we waited. Even Erika's violin was silent. Barely anyone spoke. Uncle Walter came over with Uncle Aaron. They sat with Mother. She cooked our meals and never broke down once.

Finally, at around nine P.M., the door opened—it was Father! Mother flew into his arms. I wanted to do the same, but suddenly I felt shy. He motioned Erika and me to come over, and gave us both a kiss. His brothers hugged him. Auntie Leah hugged him. He sank into a chair. Mother ran to get him a glass of water.

"I've been at the police station," he said softly. “I managed to bribe my way out. I don't want to talk about it.” He turned to his brothers. “It's time to leave," he said. “Past the time."

"And what country will take us?” Walter said. “Re member that newspaper headline this summer after the conference at Evian in France? “Jews For Sale. Who Wants Them? No One.""

“Still,” Father answered, "we must try.”

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Jews for sale. No one wanted us. The Germans would have gladly let us go, but no country would open their doors to us. They got together at a conference and decided that they didn't want us any more than Germany did. Yes, they took a few—just not too many. Father tried hard to get us visas, but many countries had decided that they would let in a certain number of Jews each year, that many and no more—they called it a quota. The United States had a quota of people from Germany that was not filled, yet they wouldn't let any more in either. Uncle David, who was already in the United States, tried to help us, but his letters became more and more discouraged.

Most of the synagogues burned down during Kristallnacht. And many of the smaller prayer halls. After that night, life became harder and harder. Father's store was taken over by the Germans. They paid him a few marks to make it all seem nice and legal, and a man called Mr. Schnerr was given ownership of it. Father was heartbroken. He'd worked all his life to build up that business, and suddenly it was taken away from him. Mr. Schnerr kept father on as a clerk—that way the customers continued to come. Now we had almost no money. Auntie Leah managed to get work as a nurse at a Jewish hospital.

We were no longer even allowed to vacation in Germany—to go to the sea to swim or to the mountains to ski. How I had loved skiing—the speed, the cold, the daring. Mother had bought all of us brand-new ski boots. They stood idle in the back hallway.

The next few pages of the album are a series of photos I took on the streets of Frankfurt. To earn money, I'd snap a picture and then ask the person if he wanted to buy it. If he said yes, I'd take down his name and address and deliver the photo to him when it was ready.

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I was able to make a little money that way, and I also felt like I was recording these faces, and that behind each of these faces was a story, even if I didn't know it. Of course, the photos in my book are those that weren't bought. I look at a well dressed gentleman, fear written all over his face. He was Jewish and he was terrified of me and my camera. Why had I taken his picture? Who was I working for? It shows how bad things were then-a twelve-year-old boy takes an adult's picture and the adult is terrified. Of course, children were dangerous—just down the street from us a Hitler Youth boy turned in his own parents to the authorities because his father was a socialist, a political enemy of Hitler's. They were sent to a concentration camp, and the boy was placed in a “good” home. I remember his parents well. They always had a smile for me and were quite friendly with Father and Mother.

Here is a picture of one of Mother's ration cards. After France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, in September 1939, we could buy food only with these cards. Our groceries became very limited. But Mother was a wonderful cook and a really tal ented baker—she could whip up anything with a bit of flour. I remember one day creeping into the kitchen, powdering my face with flour as she and Erika were working, and then shouting “Boo” at them. Mother knocked over the bowl she was so shocked, and Erika spilled the milk. They both scolded me terribly, but inside I enjoyed it. It felt good to be scolded about something ordinary like that, I think it made me feel that things were ordinary.

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But nothing was ordinary or simple. When the war began, my friends and I were so confused. Some wanted Germany to win, others to lose, figuring that was the only way to get rid of Hitler. I was one of the ones who wanted us to lose, but that felt so wrong everything was upside down.

I look at the next picture. It is one I took of Oma Miriam at the Jewish old-folks' home. She is staring seriously into the camera, her hair still black, only flecked with gray, her dark eyes boring into me. She wanted to move there after Opa Karl died. She didn't want to burden us, she said, by coming to live with us. She was funny and smart. I loved her. She did the strangest thing. When I think back on it now, it strikes me as so bizarre. But then, as a twelve-year . old boy, it seemed wild and wonderful. She made me a Hitler Youth uniform. I'll never forget the day she gave it to me. It looked almost exactly like the real thing. I gazed at her in disbelief.

"What is this?” I said.

“What does it look like?" she retorted.

"It looks like a Hitler Youth uniform,” I replied.

I suppose I must have given her a rather odd look, because she smiled then and said, “No, Daniel, I'm not crazy. I know you. You're a free spirit. To tame you would kill you. I don't want that. You'll have to be strong, Daniel. And wild. And untamed.” She paused. “Wear it. Go places you wouldn't be allowed to go. Have the freedom it gives you. And take that camera along. Record things. For history.”

I was so astonished, I don't think I said anything. I just took it and left.

I hid the uniform in plain brown paper under my mattress so Mother wouldn't find it when she cleaned.

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I would change into it on the days when the house was empty_Mother out trying to find food, everyone at school or work. I would double back from my way to school, go home, change, and then go out and enjoy Frankfurt.

I remember the first time I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror. My black hair tucked into the cap, with my blue eyes and fair skin I looked every inch the perfect Aryan. It gave me the strangest feeling. When I went out in the street, people often walked as far away from me as possible. I took my camera and took pictures of Jewish shops that had been taken over, of troops marching through the streets, even of exhibits of downed enemy war planes. I also took advantage of the freedom the uniform gave me to go to movies and museums, places I normally wouldn't be allowed to go into. My heart always pounded and I was sure I'd be discovered, but the uniform was a passport to freedom, just as Oma Mir iam had promised.

One afternoon in early March I was walking across a small square near the center of town. I was in my uniform. Two SS Black Shirts were harassing and humiliating a group of Jewish men. Often the Nazis would go to Jewish homes and drag the men out or just find them on the street and pick on them.

A wooden platform had been erected in the square, and four men, all about Father's age, were sitting on stools. Around their necks were signs reading "Violated the Spirit of National Socialism" or "Insulted Our Way of Life.” A crowd had gathered, and they taunted these men. Some threw rotten tomatoes. The men could not defend themselves, could not even wipe the rotten fruit from their faces.

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Suddenly one of the Black Shirts noticed me. "Hey, you," he called. “Come here with that camera. Have a look at our show-and-tell."

I walked over, forcing myself not to tremble, not to look afraid.

“Take a picture of these idiots,” he laughed.

"With pleasure," I agreed, my voice louder than normal so he couldn't tell how terrified I was.

“You take that picture to your youth group," the Black Shirt told me. "Your instructor will be very proud of you. Now that's real show-and-tell."

"Yes, I will, thank you," I said. I took another one just to make sure he thought I was enthusiastic enough, and then hurried away. Tears burned in my eyes. I knew one of the men. He was a distant cousin of mine. He hadn't even recognized me in my uniform. I don't have those pictures. I know I should have kept them for my records, but when I saw them after they'd been developed, I ripped them to shreds in a fury of disgust.

And then I put the uniform away. I realized that even though it gave me freedom, I had to be who I was—Daniel, a twelve- almost thirteen-year-old Jewish boy who carried an I.D. card stamped with a big red J. But now I understood what all those non Jewish boys who wore the uniform felt. The uniform gave them power, respect, and freedom. It must have been terribly exciting. How easy for them to put on the uniform and with it all of Hitler's ideas, forgetting any moral standards they might have had. After all, the whole country loved (and feared) them. Surely there could be nothing wrong in that! And who told them anything different? Their teachers, their parents, those who should have told them right from

wrong, told them wrong was right.

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Not long after that, Mother discovered the uniform one day when she was making my bed. When I admitted what I'd been up to, she and Father were furious. Father dragged me to Oma Miriam's room at the home and confronted her.

“What could you have been thinking of?” he exploded. “He could've been killed.”

"He wasn't, was he?" she replied calmly.

He was so angry. He glared at her. “No thanks to you," he said, and he stomped off. She gave me a wink as he dragged me behind him.

I pat her picture. She killed herself a month later, just after my thirteenth birthday. She saved up the sleeping pills they gave her each night. One evening, she took them all, went to sleep, and never woke up. But she made sure to come to my bar mitzvah first. It was held at a small prayer hall. Uncle David was gone, married now and living in the United States, and Uncle Aaron and his family had left for England. Uncle Leo couldn't come from Berlin because his family had no money for the trip. And, of course, I couldn't help but miss Uncle Peter. I'd always thought he'd be there at my bar mitzvah. A few of Father's friends came, and all my classmates. It wasn't the celebration I had once imagined, just a small, quiet marking of my entry into Jewish manhood and all its responsibilities.

Oma Miriam had left a note before she died. It said, “Please don't be angry. I've had a good life. I fear what is ahead. I don't want to suffer and I don't want to see you suffer. I go in peace."

I read those words over and over and over. I was angry. So angry. I wouldn't talk to anyone for a week.

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Not even Erika, who tried to console me. But I'm not angry anymore. Thank God she didn't live to see us thrown out of our homes and out of our country. And right now that's all I can thank God for. Not much, is it?

Chapter 4

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I close my photo album. I don't have pictures of the

most important things that happened over the next -year-how can you take pictures of such terrible things? But I can see them in my head like photos, the expressions on people's faces, the backgrounds, everything.

One day a few months after Oma Miriam died, I answered the door and a postman asked me to sign for the parcel he was delivering. I signed and took it into the house with much curiosity. Mother and Auntie Leah ran over, excited. All the children gathered around. A parcel. Perhaps a friend was sending us food, special treats, or clothes for the children. Or maybe it was from Uncle David or Uncle Aaron. But no, the postage was German. In fact, as I looked closer, I realized it was from Dachau.

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"It's from Uncle Peter!" I exclaimed. I ripped it open. Auntie Leah's face was full of expectation. We had not received a letter from him for one full year. He'd been arrested two years ago, and at first he'd written all the time. Then he'd had a friend from the camp write to tell us that he'd gotten into some kind of trouble, and instead of letting him out, as they did with most of the people who were there for petty offenses, he was being held. And that was the last thing we'd heard. Auntie Leah was afraid he'd tried to organize the prisoners against their jailers or had become a spokesman for them.

A small box tied with string was inside the wrapping. And a note. Auntie Leah grabbed the note; I tore open the box. But what was this? Was it a strange joke of Uncle Peter's? Sending us a box full of ashes?

Auntie Leah started to scream. Mother took the note from her and read it. She looked at the children, who were starting to cry because their mother was so upset.

“Daniel, take the children to their room. I'll be there in a minute." Auntie Leah was screaming and crying. I still couldn't understand what was happening. And then finally it dawned on me. I hustled the children into their room. They were all crying, even Friedrich. I sat them all down on the bed. “It's Father. He's dead, isn't he?" Friedrich sobbed.

I nodded. He was dead, and the Nazis had sent us his ashes.

I stopped taking pictures after Uncle Peter's death. I just didn't have the heart for anything after that. I dragged myself to school, but my marks dropped because I couldn't concentrate. I didn't want to study--what was the point? So I could grow up to be a teacher, an engineer, a lawyer? All those professions were banned to Jews. I couldn't see my future anymore.

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So many of my school friends were gone now—the lucky ones having left for other countries while they were still allowed to do so. Erika was no companion really. She became even more quiet and withdrawn, practicing her violin constantly. Friedrich was now my closest friend. I started to read a lot and would spend hours in my room with my books. My favorite one was The Count of Monte Cristo, which I read at least five times. I suppose in better times Mother and Father could have helped me more, but they were so upset themselves, they didn't see how unhappy I'd become. Mother spent all her time going from consulate to consulate, desperately trying to get us papers so we could leave the country. She must have tried the black market, too, because her mink coat suddenly was gone one day, along with some of her best jewelry. But nothing worked. We were stuck.

I almost failed school that year, and summer holidays came as a great relief. Slowly I started to feel better. I swam at the Jewish community swimming pool, played soccer, and sunbathed in our yard. Erika also perked up. She often brought girlfriends over, and they giggled and made eyes at Friedrich and me. We were both interested in a couple of fifteen-year-old girls at the sports club, but they thought we were too young. Still, the sun and the heat and the lazy days all made me feel better—and I guess the passing of time helped too. It still hurt when I thought about Oma Miriam and Uncle Peter—but not as much. Although I never stopped missing them.

When summer was over, I felt ready to get back to school, and I buckled down to my studies. But that September another law was passed. I can see them, just like in a photo, the yellow stars with the word Jew printed on them that we were all forced to wear on our clothes.

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And then we got the news in October that we were to be deported. That meant we were to be forced out of our homes. All our property and our clothes were to be itemized and signed over to the authorities. We were told what we could and could not pack. Naturally they wanted anything of value, such as furs, good boots, or warm clothes. But Mother made sure we packed our warm things and took along lots of food. Father took money along in case he needed to bribe anyone. They marched us through the streets of Frankfurt toward the market hall. I felt so helpless—I couldn't do anything to stop any of it.

They crowded thousands of us into the cellars of the market hall to spend the night until the trains departed. And what happened there—I don't want to think about that. Will remembering this help me to understand? How can one understand this? They were so afraid that we might leave with something of value, they hated us and despised us so much, that they body-searched us all. Mother and Auntie Leah and Erika were searched. They couldn't cry out for help, couldn't complain, because then they'd be beaten as well. After that, Erika couldn't stop crying. She cried all night. And so did I. Because I couldn't do anything to stop them from hurting my mother and sister and aunt.

Now I look out the train window as we move farther and farther away from Frankfurt. My album is back in my rucksack, and we are traveling away from Frankfurt. Yes, I can see from going through these pictures how it all started slowly and then got worse and worse and how the German people didn't try to stop it and how slowly all our rights were taken away

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until we were nothing but bodies being shipped out. I am scared. Still, I've defied them by taking pictures and not listening to their rules, and I'll keep doing that. I will.

I close my eyes and try to rest. At least our family is together. Auntie Leah and her children are also on this train, and so is Uncle Walter's family.

We travel all day, and finally the train stops for good and we are roughly ordered off. I step out, carrying my rucksack and my suitcase, and I can't believe what I see. It is cold and raining and before us is a waste land of mud. Old buildings and slums loom in the distance.

"Where are we?” I ask.

“Just a minute," Father says, “let me find out." He comes back soon. “We are in Lodz, Poland. They've moved all the Jews into a ghetto here. That is where we are going.”

German guards push us over to wagons, where we are told to deposit our belongings.

“Keep everything you can carry with you,” Father orders. "Who knows if we'll ever see any of it again, otherwise."

So we trudge with the others from the train toward our new home in the ghetto of Lodz, Poland.