part. As one of a handful of women in my medical school, I’d been lucky to be able to study dermatology, never mind surgery, and had received only basic surgical training.
“We all must sacrifice, but Germany’s changing thanks to my generation. Such poverty yours left us with.”
“Hitler will be the death of all of us, just taking what he wants—”
“
Quiet,
Father,” I said. How dangerous for him to respond in such a way in public. He even told jokes about Party leaders. “Hitler is our hope. In no time, he’s gotten rid of the slums. And he
must
take. Germany can’t thrive without room to expand. No one will just give back the land we’ve lost.”
Many parents had grown wary of confronting their children for fear of being denounced by them, but not my father.
“He’s killing Germany to feed his own vanity.”
“This war will be over within weeks. You’ll see,” I said.
He turned with a dismissive wave.
“Go straight home and rest before afternoon coffee, Father.”
He walked away, barely avoiding a passing tram. Father would need a nap. The cancer was having a party in his body. Could Katz have helped him live? It was no good wasting time with such thoughts. I busied myself searching the piles for medical books.
Mutti hurried to me. “I found rose-scented soap…and a toaster.”
“Don’t you worry about Father, Mutti? He’s going to be denounced. I can feel it.”
Though my parents were both products of German blood and could trace their pure German ancestry back to 1750, my father could not hide his lack of enthusiasm for the Party. He still put his traditional striped German flag in our front window next to Mutti’s new red Party one, though Mutti was always moving his to a side window. No one noticed it in the sea of swastikaed flags hung outside every building, but it was only a matter of time before someone turned him in.
“Ja, feind hirt mitt,
Herta,”
Mutti said. The enemy is listening.
She pulled me closer. “Don’t worry about that,
Kleine Kuh
. Focus on work.”
“I’m allowed only dermatology—”
Mutti pressed her fingers into my forearm. “Stop it. You’ll be working with the best and brightest soon. You can go all the way.”
“Someone needs to rein Father in.”
Mutti turned away. “What will people say if we have these things in our home?” she said, shaking her head at the toaster in her hand.
We paid for the items we’d chosen: the toaster, the scrapbook, the paintings, and a mink stole with the glass-eyed heads still attached, a luxury item Mutti was willing to risk lice for. The soldiers threw in a doctor’s framed diploma Mutti said she’d use to display her Aryan blood certificate and some canvas running shoes for me. All for only ten marks. We seldom had bread to toast, and Mutti could not afford to go anywhere she could wear such a mink, but the smile on her face made it all worthwhile.
—
I WAS HAPPY TO HAVE those new running shoes for a sleepaway trip I was chaperoning the next week at Camp Blossom, a camp situated in a pine forest half a day’s train ride north of Düsseldorf. It was run by the Belief and Beauty Society, which was affiliated with the BDM, the Bund Deutscher Mädel or the League of German Girls, the female wing of the Nazi Party youth movement. The Belief and Beauty Society was for older girls only, to prepare them for domestic life and motherhood. This sleepaway trip was intended to transition the younger ones into the organization, and my job as unit leader was to look after the girls in my cabin—not an easy job.
Unit leaders received day assignments, and I was sent to the craft hut, a blatant mismatch, since I considered painting amateurish watercolors and weaving gimp lanyards a complete waste of time. Plus, my considerable talents lay outside the art world. With my extensive medical training, I should have been running the camp health clinic, but one serves where one is needed. At least the hut looked out over
“We all must sacrifice, but Germany’s changing thanks to my generation. Such poverty yours left us with.”
“Hitler will be the death of all of us, just taking what he wants—”
“
Quiet,
Father,” I said. How dangerous for him to respond in such a way in public. He even told jokes about Party leaders. “Hitler is our hope. In no time, he’s gotten rid of the slums. And he
must
take. Germany can’t thrive without room to expand. No one will just give back the land we’ve lost.”
Many parents had grown wary of confronting their children for fear of being denounced by them, but not my father.
“He’s killing Germany to feed his own vanity.”
“This war will be over within weeks. You’ll see,” I said.
He turned with a dismissive wave.
“Go straight home and rest before afternoon coffee, Father.”
He walked away, barely avoiding a passing tram. Father would need a nap. The cancer was having a party in his body. Could Katz have helped him live? It was no good wasting time with such thoughts. I busied myself searching the piles for medical books.
Mutti hurried to me. “I found rose-scented soap…and a toaster.”
“Don’t you worry about Father, Mutti? He’s going to be denounced. I can feel it.”
Though my parents were both products of German blood and could trace their pure German ancestry back to 1750, my father could not hide his lack of enthusiasm for the Party. He still put his traditional striped German flag in our front window next to Mutti’s new red Party one, though Mutti was always moving his to a side window. No one noticed it in the sea of swastikaed flags hung outside every building, but it was only a matter of time before someone turned him in.
“Ja, feind hirt mitt,
Herta,”
Mutti said. The enemy is listening.
She pulled me closer. “Don’t worry about that,
Kleine Kuh
. Focus on work.”
“I’m allowed only dermatology—”
Mutti pressed her fingers into my forearm. “Stop it. You’ll be working with the best and brightest soon. You can go all the way.”
“Someone needs to rein Father in.”
Mutti turned away. “What will people say if we have these things in our home?” she said, shaking her head at the toaster in her hand.
We paid for the items we’d chosen: the toaster, the scrapbook, the paintings, and a mink stole with the glass-eyed heads still attached, a luxury item Mutti was willing to risk lice for. The soldiers threw in a doctor’s framed diploma Mutti said she’d use to display her Aryan blood certificate and some canvas running shoes for me. All for only ten marks. We seldom had bread to toast, and Mutti could not afford to go anywhere she could wear such a mink, but the smile on her face made it all worthwhile.
—
I WAS HAPPY TO HAVE those new running shoes for a sleepaway trip I was chaperoning the next week at Camp Blossom, a camp situated in a pine forest half a day’s train ride north of Düsseldorf. It was run by the Belief and Beauty Society, which was affiliated with the BDM, the Bund Deutscher Mädel or the League of German Girls, the female wing of the Nazi Party youth movement. The Belief and Beauty Society was for older girls only, to prepare them for domestic life and motherhood. This sleepaway trip was intended to transition the younger ones into the organization, and my job as unit leader was to look after the girls in my cabin—not an easy job.
Unit leaders received day assignments, and I was sent to the craft hut, a blatant mismatch, since I considered painting amateurish watercolors and weaving gimp lanyards a complete waste of time. Plus, my considerable talents lay outside the art world. With my extensive medical training, I should have been running the camp health clinic, but one serves where one is needed. At least the hut looked out over
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