White Rose Black Forest(27)

The rest of the school year passed in a blur, and summer was hollow and joyless. Her family tried to re-create the times in the cabin from summers past, but Franka found more comfort in the comradeship of the troop she now led. With her mother gone, her father had to take time off at the factory to look after Fredi. Franka couldn’t be expected to give up all of her commitments to look after her younger brother. She helped out where she could, but with the promise of university beckoning, she didn’t want to create a precedent. She had her own life to live, her own cause to dedicate herself to. Her father had always encouraged her independence, so he allowed her to shirk her commitments to her family, to her own brother. University began in September 1935. She started her studies, and Daniel was with her every step of the way. It was then that he began his Gestapo training.

Her family life now fractured, it was painful for Franka to spend time at home. She wanted to break away from the painful memories of her mother’s passing that haunted her there. Franka realized that Fredi had drawn strength from their mother, and no matter how much she or her father tried, they could never replace her. Fredi was still his same cheerful self, a bright light in the darkness, but his body betrayed him more and more.

In October of 1935, her father ordered Fredi’s wheelchair as a temporary measure, although they both knew that he’d likely never walk again. Fredi delighted in his new mode of transport, seeing it as a game. Franka often pushed him through the town, where he waved to everyone he saw on the street. Almost everyone returned his smiles. The party members were the only exception, strutting along with their chests out, brandishing their armbands and pins on their lapels. They seemed annoyed by his cheerful demeanor. Franka grew to despise their glares.

Later that fall her father came to her. They had just finished dinner and cleared the plates away. Evening meals were not the same now. Franka’s father insisted on preparing the same recipes her mother had, but he cut corners and had no flair for cooking. She was reading to Fredi, one of those fairy tales he loved so much. The book was dog-eared and frayed, yet he never grew tired of hearing those same stories, over and over. Her father put on the radio and tuned it to one of the Swiss stations that reported the news with some semblance of accuracy. He sat down beside his children.

“Thank you for not reporting me for listening to the foreign stations.”

Franka felt her cheeks flush. “Oh, Father, I would never report you.”

“I know they put pressure on you to tell them what I’m doing, and since Daniel is preparing for life in the Gestapo . . . I realize the strain you’re under.”

Franka sat there, remembering Daniel’s words from just a week before. “The German people are your family,” he had said. “And your loyalty should be to them.”

Franka knew that he wanted her to report something, to give him a crumb of information to feed his new masters with, but she didn’t say a word. She knew that her father could be jailed for listening to the foreign radio stations, or for reading the books he’d insisted on keeping despite the new laws, or for the casual remarks he made about the regime. There were so many things. Several girls she knew had already reported their parents. Gilda Schmidt’s father had spent weeks in jail for a derogatory comment he’d made about the Nazis and was being monitored by the Gestapo now. Gilda had reported him for saying that Hitler was a dangerous warmonger.

“The führer is eager to have everyone support his brave intentions,” Franka said, hearing the words of her instructors coming out of her own mouth. “He is determined that enemies of the state be identified so that they can be educated in the correct ways of serving the German nation.”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” her father said.

“What are you talking about?”

“That sounds like Daniel or one of the Nazis who stomp about downtown speaking. Remember who you are, Franka.”

“I do, Father.”

“I have something I want to show you.” He placed the newspaper, the People’s Observer, on the table in front of her. The headline spoke of the heroic new laws created to subjugate the threat of the Jews in Germany. “The Nazis have said that Jews cannot be German citizens. They’ve had their citizenship stripped from them and are not allowed to intermarry with Germans any longer. This is the brave revolution to which you’re so committed.”

It took her a few seconds to answer. “I’m sure that the führer knows what’s best for Germany. I asked some of the local leaders of the league just the other day. They assured me that it was better to focus on the bigger picture and to leave the details to the führer.”

“And that satisfied you?”

Franka didn’t answer. She picked up another book to read to her brother.

Her father interrupted her before she had a chance to begin. “I have something else to show you.” He took another newspaper out. “This paper is called The Striker. It’s controlled and published by the Nazi Party, just like the People’s Observer, but this one is less surreptitious with its intentions.”

Franka took the paper. She’d seen it on newsstands but had never picked it up before. The pencil-drawn picture on the front cover was of a caricatured Jewish man, his long curls hanging down over his dark suit, strings of saliva dripping from his razor-sharp teeth. He held a curved dagger in his claw as he bent over a beautiful Aryan-looking woman asleep in bed. The headline read “The Jews Are Our Misfortune.” Franka could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She turned to Fredi, but he was playing with a toy train he’d found.