The Children's Train

CHAPTER 2: The Fuhrer Is Here (November 1938)

CHAPTER 2

THE FUHRER IS HERE

(November 1938)

The trees in nearby Edelweiss Park were ablaze with the red and gold of fall. The birds, as always, were squawking and singing. German weather was unpredictable, but this was one of the last warm days of the year, “altweibersommer” or “old woman summer,” as they called it.

Peter’s school was a large brick building near the center of Berlin by the business district, not too far from his father’s butcher shop and their apartment. Peter and most of the neighborhood children walked to school.

Inside the school, Peter hurried down the hall, swinging his violin. He had come from the music room. As always, he had been reluctant to stop playing, and now he was late for his homeroom check-in before school ended.

Wolfgang, a brutish boy with thick eyebrows and cruel eyes that a cunning smile couldn’t hide, stepped out of the hall bathroom. He snatched Peter’s violin and tossed it to Kurt, the tall, sweaty boy who was his unquestioning sidekick. The boys were older and much taller than Peter and easily played catch with his precious violin, as he repeatedly jumped for it. Wolfgang dangled it, and then threw it over Peter’s head to Kurt.

The bell suddenly shrilled, announcing the end of school. Done with their keep-away game, Wolfgang tossed the violin above Peter’s head. It twisted in the air, beyond Peter’s frantic grasp. Wolfgang and Kurt laughed at Peter’s clumsy attempts to grab his somersaulting instrument.

Wolfgang swept his leg out and hit Peter’s legs, knocking him off his feet. As Peter fell, his long delicate hands reached for his falling violin. Wolfgang and Kurt laughed and pointed as Peter hit the ground.

When Peter’s uncoordinated, flying body came to rest, he held the violin safely above him, a prized trophy. Peter was as surprised as Wolfgang that he had rescued the treasured violin from the taunting assault. As Peter realized he’d won, his mouth couldn’t help but curl into a smile of triumph and that made Wolfgang mad.

Wolfgang snarled as he quickly advanced toward Peter, kicked him with a black leather boot, and turned away. “Jew rat!”

Peter couldn’t hear what he said. All he heard was the loud beating of his own frightened heart and his pounding thoughts. At least his violin was safe.

Then Wolfgang gave a Nazi salute, his arm extended.

“Heil Hitler!” Kurt said in response.

Then Peter understood. They hated him, not his violin, which, oddly, was a relief. He was used to people hating Jews and had come to expect it, but there was little hope of redemption for anyone who hated music.

Wolfgang sauntered down the hall with his self-satisfied swagger, never looking back. Kurt, his ruffian shadow, ran after him.

Peter knew that Wolfgang had been born into a family of hate. Wolfgang’s father, Wilbur, had been fired from his button factory job for stealing tools. He had blamed his years of making small buttons with the machines for his arthritic hands and had felt entitled to supplement his income with the factory’s tools. His family had lost their home and had to move in with Wolfgang’s grandparents. Wolfgang’s father hadn’t been able to find another job, because nobody wanted to hire a tool thief with gnarled hands. He had started drinking, and soon he had no hope left. The factory owner who had fired him had been Jewish. Wolfgang’s father’s hatred of Jews had grown from his own thievery, misplaced blame, and painful arthritis. He had eagerly passed that hate on to his son.

In the school hall, Peter pulled his violin to him in a protective hug, breathing heavily, still curled up on the floor.

The classroom doors flew open, and children stampeded down the hall, somehow avoiding the small boy curled around his violin like a musical cocoon.

“Peter, what are you doing down there? You’re going to get trampled.” Peter looked up. Eva Rosenberg, eleven, with black hair, towered over him. Her friend, Olga Schmidt, was standing beside her. Olga tossed back her long blonde hair. She was pretty, and she knew it.

Eva reached down and grabbed Peter’s skinny arm, which was still locked tightly around the violin. She unexpectedly pulled him up off the floor, like a ribbon of horsehair snapped from the violin’s bow.

Peter shot to his feet. He nodded, still clutching his violin. “Danke. Thank you.”

He didn’t move, because he did not want Eva to release her touch. He knew everyone thought Olga was the prettiest girl in the school, but all Peter could see were her cold empty eyes and her bad attitude, and he was not impressed. Eva was obviously the most beautiful girl in the world, and one day he wished she would be his girlfriend. Who was he kidding? That was never going to happen. She was already taller and braver than him. Peter didn’t stand a chance.

Olga sneered at the disheveled Peter. “You look like you almost got run over by a train. No one is going to take your violin.”

Eva let go of Peter’s arm. He looked down the hall where Wolfgang and Kurt strutted, and he nodded. “Not today.”

“Is your mother meeting you?” Eva asked him.

Peter shook his head. Eva was so pretty that it was hard for him to respond when she talked to him. “No, she had to take Becca to see Dr. Levy.” Peter looked down and straightened his clothes.

“What’s wrong with my favorite little spitfire?” Eva asked, smiling.

“She talks too much, but the doctor can’t fix that.”

Eva laughed.

“She got a blister from roller skating, and it’s infected,” Peter explained.

“Come on then, you can walk with us.” Eva smiled at him again.

“Okay.”

“Behind us. You can walk behind us,” Olga corrected. Peter shrugged, but Eva reached over and pulled Peter beside her.

Outside the school, the German children poured out the front door. Charlie Beckman, a slight seven-year-old, ran to his father Arnold, who waited for him at the corner like he did every day. Charlie ran into his arms, and Arnold picked him up and swung him around. Charlie threw his head back and laughed at something his father said. Peter wondered if his father would have done that, if he hadn’t been in the way of a land mine in the war.

Gripping his violin, Peter walked with Olga and Eva as they hurried down the steps. Olga was not as well dressed as Eva, but she had a confident, almost flippant, attitude that made her stand out in an attention-getting, superior way. However, Peter’s eyes were on Eva.

Hans Vogner and Stephen Levy came up to the girls and Peter. “Hey, Peter, are you ready to play football?” Hans asked.

Peter shook his head. He was terrified when the ball came hurtling toward him, and all he wanted to do was avoid it. To him, the game of football seemed to be pointless and extremely injury-prone.

“Real heroes of Germany play football,” Stephen said, smiling.

Peter shrugged. “I don’t want to be a hero.” His father was a hero. What good had it done him?

Hans and Stephen laughed. “Are you going to the park today?” Hans asked.

Eva nodded. Olga flipped her long blonde hair back and scoffed, “You’re not allowed there.”

“They haven’t caught us yet!” Stephen said, sending out the weekly challenge before their race to the park.

“What about you, Peter? Are you coming?” Hans asked.

“No, I have violin lessons.”

“Too bad,” Stephen replied.

“Not really.” Peter knew he would much rather play the violin than have a ball kicked at him by Stephen and Hans, embarrassing him in front of Eva.

“Last one there loves Hitler!” Hans teased. Stephen and Hans laughed and jogged away, disappearing into the crowd of students.

Olga and Eva left the schoolyard and hurried through the crowded downtown streets, with their school knapsacks over their shoulders. They could barely move through the surging crowd that was shifting and murmuring in anticipation. Peter followed the girls, swept up in the frantic motion of the nervous people.

“Oh no, we’re going to be late. The boys will get there first,” Eva said.

Olga pointed as the crowd’s excitement rose. “What is this? What’s going on?”

The girls stood on their tiptoes, straining to see through the sidewalk crowd. Peter pulled his violin in closely and bent down to peer through the moving throng of people. The crowd squished him as he looked for Eva. He saw her right in front of him, as she bounced up to see over a hulking man with gnarled arthritic hands and a frazzled, fair-haired woman. Peter tried to squeeze in closer to the girls.

“What is it? What’s everyone looking at?” Eva asked.

Olga shrugged. “I don’t know.”

The woman in front of them turned around. She smiled, her face flushed. “It’s the Fuhrer! Herr Hitler is coming!”

Peter’s eyes grew big with fright. The Bogeyman was coming here, right in front of him. Peter’s heart pounded, his hands shook, and he was ready to run.

As the woman turned back around, the crowd lurched forward, surrounding them. There was no escape.

Olga bumped into the man with crooked fingers in front of her. He turned around and glared at her. It was Wilbur, Wolfgang’s father, the tool thief, come to pay his respects to his hero.

Peter didn’t even notice the sweat beading on his forehead, as he watched the motorcade of dark cars draped with swastika banners approach. Following the escort, Adolf Hitler stood up in his open car, his face drawn in seriousness, as if smiling was undignified. His eyes were pinched into slits of dull arrogance. Peter thought he looked like the hungry rats on their hunt for prey in Vogner’s nearby fastener factory. The crowd cheered, beside itself with awe and excitement. Peter shivered.

Hitler raised his right arm, holding his hand straight. “Sieg heil!” he shouted.

The people in the crowd responded by raising their arms in the Nazi salute. “Sieg heil! Sieg heil!” they yelled in unison. “Hail to victory!”

Eva and Olga stared, but they did not raise their arms. Peter gripped his violin, as his eyes darted around the crowd. He wished he could get out his violin and disappear into his music, so all this would vanish. This was too real for the magic of his violin, and he was worried about Eva.

Wilbur whipped around and glared at them. “Salute! Show your respect,” he ordered, as he pointed his crooked fingers at them. He spied Peter. “You too, you little worm!”

Peter could smell Wilbur’s alcohol-soaked breath. He turned away, hiding behind Olga.

Olga looked at Wilbur’s snarling face, then at the agitated crowd around her. She glanced at Eva. Then she quickly looked down, unable to look her friend in the eyes, as she slowly raised her arm in a salute.

Peter’s eyes widened as he watched Olga’s arm creep upward. He peeked out at Eva, who clenched her arms at her side, her face contorted into defiant lines of anger. Peter’s knuckles turned white, as he gripped the violin as if it were the only thing that could save him.

“Heil Hitler!” the crowd shouted in impassioned unison.

Wilbur stepped in front of Eva. His breath hissed out; Peter could smell the foul odors of alcohol. He cringed and hid back behind the temporary protection of Olga.

“Raise your arm! You must be a dirty Jew,” Wilbur shouted at Eva. She looked at Olga, who was frozen with fear. There would be no help there. Peter stayed hidden behind Olga with only the end of his violin visible.

Eva turned and faced the ugly Wilbur, with her hands balled into fists, unable to move.

Peter carefully released one side of the violin and reached out to Eva from behind Olga. He wanted to save her, but he wasn’t brave or fast enough.

Wilbur swung his huge gnarled hand at Eva with great force. Peter pulled his outstretched hand back, as the man hit Eva on the side of her head. She fell down, slamming her head on the sidewalk.

Wilbur kicked her and turned back around, as if he assaulted young girls every day.

Wolfgang’s mother looked back with concern at Eva sprawled on the sidewalk, but Wilbur jerked her back around. “Pay attention! The Fuhrer is here!” he ordered.

“Heil Hitler!” the crowd shouted in political unison.

The motorcade passed by Peter, who saw the Fuhrer from between the surging bodies. Adolf Hitler, the great leader of Germany, was not a cartoon after all; he was real. Peter pulled back his violin to protect it, then vomited on the ground. No one noticed.

After Hitler passed, the crowd dispersed, stepping around Eva lying dazed on the sidewalk. She reached up, touched her head, and groaned. Her school knapsack lay beside her.

Peter wiped his mouth on his sleeve and watched, as Olga knelt beside Eva and looked up at the hurriedly passing people. Tears ran down her face. Then she stood up and ran into the crowd, leaving Eva on the ground.

Peter crept up cautiously to Eva, reached out his hand, and pulled her up. He had missed his chance to save her, and he saw in her eyes that she knew it.