Ashes (17 page)

However, yet another election was just one month off, and everyone was nervous about that. Would Hitler gain more seats? Could he possibly lose seats, and if he did, would that be the end of him and his party?

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

- Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

O
n the morning of November seventh when I came to the breakfast table Mama and Papa were almost jubilant. “Look at this!” Papa held up to the
Vossiche Zeitung
with a headline NAZIS LOSE 34 SEATS!

When Hertha came in with the eggs, I tried to judge her demeanor. I had remembered that shadow of a smile when she had listened behind the kitchen door to Hitler on the radio in Caputh. Would she betray any emotion now? No—her face was expressionless.

There was a picture in the paper of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's right-hand man, looking quite dour. This was the first time in a long time that the strength of the Nazi Party, the great flood, seemed to begin to ebb. Papa cocked his head and looked thoughtful.

“I just hope . . .”

“What is it, Otto? Please, pass the cream, Ulla,” Mama said.

“Well, I just hope that this defeat doesn't cause a backlash—like in twenty-nine.”

“Do you mean the stock market crash?” I asked.

Mama waved her hand dismissively. “Otto, you cannot compare this to nineteen twenty-nine.”

“Hrrerf!”
Papa made a growlish sound deep in his throat. “In nineteen twenty-nine, we were just beginning to recover from the poverty of the Great War and here we were getting poor again. Millions were thrown out of work. People were looking for scapegoats. Jews were a handy target—books by Jews, ideas that were not Aryan. It was a backlash and it certainly gave Hitler an opportunity. The right-wing National Socialist students at the university began a campaign to ‘cleanse' the university.” He growled again.

“‘Cleanse'?” I asked. “The stone front of the main building was just scrubbed last year. It gleams now, it's so bright.”

Ulla dipped her head down and stared straight into her coffee.

“Not that kind of cleansing,” Papa replied. “A purge of offensive books. They confiscated several before it was stopped, somehow. Goebbels was behind it, of course. He is a master at this kind of thing. He knew how to exploit the despair and manipulate the student union. If Hitler didn't have Goebbels, he'd be lost.”

I stood up and went around the table to look at the picture in the paper of the man who was often called the dwarf.

“Why do they always call him a doctor in the paper?”

“He has a doctorate in literature,” Mama said, “unbelievable as it might seem.” It did seem not just unbelievable but almost fantastical to me. Had Goebbels read Goethe? Written analyses of the imagery of Goethe? Studied Shakespeare and reflected on the tragic flaws in characters, or in exams been asked to compare the meter of Heine to the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare? And now this man worked for Hitler.

“What does he actually do for Hitler?” I asked.

“He is officially the
Gauleiter
, the regional party leader. But he does much more than a normal party leader,” Papa said.

“What?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing he made the ‘Horst Wessel Song' the anthem of the Nazi Party. His most important job is that he directs propaganda—that is where his real talents lie. He loves a fight. And now the dwarf has got one.” Papa tapped the paper with his fingers.

“How come people often call him a dwarf?” I asked looking at the newspaper. “He doesn't look especially short. It's just an insult, right?”
Giftzwerg
, poisonous dwarf, was a common slanderous term.

“Yes, just an insult. He's not really a dwarf. He has a clubbed foot that perhaps makes him scuttle along a bit. But dwarf or not, he's one to watch. If Hitler didn't have him, things would be a lot better. But Hitler would probably find another
Giftzwerg
!”

“Don't be so pessimistic, Otto. It won't be like twenty-nine,” Mama said.

Papa ducked his head and raised his shoulders slightly. It was a faintly apologetic gesture that I had seen him do countless times. “I'm not pessimistic. I mean, look, it could be worse. Thank God he lost those thirty-four seats. I just worry about Goebbels.” Papa still seemed far from optimistic to me.

 

 

Two days later I witnessed a scene between my father and an unfamiliar visitor that made me think Papa's pessimism had been justified. It was in the evening. I had just come from Ulla's room where she had helped me with a math problem, and I was heading toward the kitchen for a snack.

“I can't believe that you have come here, into my own home, and brought this . . . this foulness!”

Papa was speaking to someone in the foyer of our apartment. I froze when I heard these scalding words. “Are you actually suggesting that I . . .” Papa's voice dropped. I could not hear the end of the sentence. I crept down the hall just a bit to see if I could catch a glimpse of whoever this was. I pressed myself against the wall and inched forward. Luckily Papa's back was to me, but a tall figure stood facing him with his hand raised in a scolding gesture. His hair was dark and he wore a Kaiser Wilhelm beard although his mustache was not as long and flowing as the kaiser's.

Papa raised his voice again. “Look, that idiot of yours lost two million votes and thirty-four seats in the Reichstag two days ago and now you come to me and you really expect me . . .” Again Papa's voice dropped and I could not hear him. Then I saw him move toward the front door and hold it open. “
Gute Nacht
, Herr Professor Lenard. Go back to Heidelberg.”

Lenard! I had heard Mama and Papa speak of him. He was another physicist, the man who had practically invented the term “Jewish physics.” That was really all I knew about him, except for the fact that he hated Einstein and had referred to his theory of relativity as the “Jewish fraud.” I wondered what he could have possibly said to Papa that made him so mad. It was as if his anger seeped into the very air of the apartment. I forgot about getting a snack.

 

 

Not five minutes later I heard Papa actually laughing. He was in his study and evidently on the telephone. I had been on my way to ask him about the man Lenard.

“What, Albert? No! Read that to me again.”

I slipped into his study, and he motioned for me to sit down. “Yes . . . yes . . .” He nodded, his face wreathed in smiles. “Yes . . . yes, you're right. I won't give Lenard another thought.
Gut! Gute Nacht
.” He hung up the telephone and rocked back in his chair, smiling as if at some private joke.

“Papa, what's so funny?” I asked.

“Einstein. A group of patriotic American women don't want him to come to CalTech in Pasadena for his December trip.”

“Why not?”

“They find him dangerous.” Papa giggled as he removed his spectacles and wiped them. My own glasses were sliding down my nose. I pushed them up. It was amazing how much better I could see with them. “Imagine anyone thinking Albert dangerous?”

“Dangerous—Einstein dangerous?” Mama shook her head in wonder as she walked past Papa's study on the way to her music room.

“He's a pacifist, isn't he, Papa?” I asked.

“Most assuredly,” Papa replied.

“Then he should be anything but dangerous,” I said.

“They apparently don't think so, but that won't stop him from going.”

“And what about this man who visited you tonight? Lenard?”

Papa's eyes darkened. “Gaby, were you eavesdropping?”

“No, Papa. I was just coming down the hallway to go to the kitchen for a snack and I heard you. You were talking pretty loud, you know.”

“
Hrrerf
.” This was the way Papa growled when he did not like something.

“Well, who is he?” I persisted.

“An idiot.”

“So is Hitler. I heard you say that.”

“
Aachh!
” A different growl from his repertoire of gruff animal noises. Slightly more intense, it denoted not mere dislike but disgust. He waved his hand in front of his face the way he did when he was trying to clear away smoke from his pipe, but he wasn't smoking his pipe. “You shouldn't be troubling yourself with this kind of thing. You are too young.”

“Papa, I am not too young! In five years I shall be going to the university. I want to know about this man. This Lenard. It's ‘Jewish physics,' isn't it?”

“So it is.” He sighed, and his shoulders sagged. He now reached for his pipe and the pen knife he kept on hand for digging out the old tobacco. He became completely absorbed in tending to his pipe, jabbing the point of the knife in. It was a challenging occupation for Papa, for the hand on his weakened bow arm could not be of much help. “Philipp Lenard is a disgrace to science and culture. He epitomizes why Nazi rule and what we call German culture—the culture that produced Goethe, Heine, Bach, and Beethoven—cannot exist at the same time as men who are fundamentally dogs.”

“But Lenard is a scientist?”

“He won the Nobel Prize in nineteen-oh-five.”

“He did?”

“Three years ago,” my father continued, “he was part of a group that authored a book called
One Hundred Authors Against Einstein
that condemned Einstein's physics as ‘fantasy, ' ‘deceit,' and ‘fraud.' There had been talk of Jewish physics before, but no one paid much attention. That book put it on the map.”

“What did he want from you, Papa?”

“Oh, for me to sign some stupid manifesto.”

“What kind of manifesto?”

“Something against Jewish scientists. He's trying to get them all kicked out of the Institute and the Prussian Academy.”

“This was what you were worried about when you said Goebbels would come back and fight, right?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Goebbels will of course use people like Lenard for propaganda. But just remember, the Nazis lost thirty-four seats in the Reichstag.”

“Is Professor Einstein worried?” I asked.

“We were just discussing a series of meetings for next spring at the Institute and his travel schedule, for he's going to CalTech in December no matter what these ladies say. And he plans to be back in time for the meetings.” Papa smiled. “So I suppose he's not too concerned. But the good news is this.” He reached for a paper.

“What?”

“Your school report. It's so good! For the first time your literature marks are as high as your mathematics. And I know Fräulein Hofstadt teaches literature on a very sophisticated level.”

“Oh, really?” I had forgotten that reports were to be sent out to our families this week. I brightened considerably. This
was
the first time my literature marks were as high as my math ones. Although I loved to read, in the past I made careless errors in my compositions for literature class.

“Yes, Fräulein Hofstadt cannot say enough nice things about you. Listen to this: ‘Gabriella is an inspiration to any teacher. Not simply a hard worker, diligent, and precise, she has an extraordinary grasp of the subtlest nuances in literature. Her analyses of the poetry and rhetorical treatises we have been reading indicate a sophistication beyond her years. Many of her papers really are what I would call university level. She is a pleasure to have in the classroom. Truly an extraordinary young woman!'” Papa looked up. “Can't beat that, can you, Gaby?”

“Well, she makes it easy to love literature. She's an inspiring teacher.”

“Mama and I are very proud of you.”

“Thanks, Papa.” I caught a certain wistfulness in his eyes, almost like a mist.

“And Gaby, don't worry about all of this. I think times are getting better; maybe by spring everything will be back to normal. And that reminds me, will you help Mama plant the new tulips? The bulbs just arrived. She always orders too many. Then she has a stiff back for three days.”

“Sure, Papa.”

“And remember, things are getting better, I really think so. By spring there will be no more Hitler, just lovely tulips.”

He wanted me to believe this so much. So much! I wondered if he would lie to me, or maybe he was lying to himself.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

-Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

A
few days later the telephone rang as we were eating breakfast. Once Hertha finished serving me, she walked hurriedly back to the kitchen to answer it. When she returned, she said, “It's Frau Blumenthal, madame.”

“Oh, Baba! I was supposed to call her about the theater tonight. Are you going, Otto?”

“No, I can't. I'm behind on a lecture I have to prepare.”

Mama got up to take the call and returned a few minutes later. She turned to me and Ulla. “So now since Papa can't go, I have an extra ticket for this evening. Do either of you want to go to the National Theatre tonight?”

“I have a date with Karl,” Ulla said. She had hardly touched any of the food on her plate.

“Can I have your bacon, Ulla?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I began to reach for it.

“Not that way! We are not barbarians here,” Mama scolded. It drove Mama crazy when we would pick food off of each other's plates. She insisted on an entire choreography in the transference of food in this situation. Said bacon would be forked by the giver, Ulla, onto a butter plate that would be passed to me. I would then take the bacon off that plate with my fork and put it on to my plate. It seemed like about three times as many steps as were necessary. It would be so much easier to just pluck the bacon off of Ulla's plate with my fingers.