Publikacija SEP 2011 - Vilenica

of martial music – just as they are marching here now. Banners with
swastikas flew from buildings – just as they are flapping in the wind
here. From radios and from the public address systems that had been
set up in the squares and parks you could hear the Führer’s voice – just
as we hear it here now. He promised a new Germany, a better Germany,
a pure Germany.”
It was 1938. Three years earlier, my sisters Pauline and Marie had
left Berlin and come to live in the house they had left behind when
they married. Pauline was nearly blind, and someone always had to
be at her side; she slept in the bed where our parents had slept, and
Marie and I took turns in the place beside her. We took turns, because
Pauline woke up every night, and either Marie or I, depending on
which one of us was with her in the bed, would be kept up all night.
“It will be the same here,” continued my sister. “Do you know how
it was there”
“I know,” I answered sleepily. “You have told me.”
“I have told you. Men in uniform burst into Jewish homes at night;
they broke everything; they beat us and told us to leave. Anyone who
didn’t support the Führer and who was brave enough to express his views
publicly, disappeared suddenly without a trace. It was said that those opposed
to the ideals that were to be the foundation of the new Germany
were taken to camps and forced to do heavy labour. There they were
tortured and killed. That is what will happen here. Believe me.”
I believed her, yet I kept silent, because every word I said would
compel her to say more. Several weeks ago, the German army had
marched into Austria and set up a new government. Sensing danger,
our brother Alexander fled with his family to Switzerland. The following
day, the borders were closed, and anyone wishing to leave Austria
had to report to the new emigration office. Thousands applied for exit
visas, but only a few were granted permission to leave the country.
“If they are forbidding us to leave the country, that means they
have a plan for us,” said Pauline. I did not say a word. “First they will
take us away, and then they will fill up trenches with our bodies.”
A few days before, men in uniform had entered our sister Rosa’s
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