Page 20 of The Banned Books of Berlin
Berlin, December 1932
In the drab, empty days between Christmas and New Year, Frau Brodsky arrived at the Zaubergarten, surprising Freya, who wasn’t expecting to see her until the club was open after the holidays. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were strangely blank, as though she couldn’t process what was in front of them.
‘Are you all right?’ Freya asked in alarm. ‘Has something happened? Sit down and I’ll make you a coffee.’
‘No time for coffee, I’m afraid. I’ve come to say a quick goodbye,’ Frau Brodsky replied, taking a seat in front of one of the dressing tables and looking at herself in the mirror. ‘Lord, what a sight.’ She picked up a comb and tidied her hair distractedly.
‘Where are you going?’ Freya asked, panic rising in her chest.
‘To Palestine.’ Frau Brodsky’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion. ‘We leave next week. The exit papers came through and I’ve sold everything we own, apart from some jewellery and a few clothes.’
‘And what about your husband?’
‘He died,’ she said simply, laying down the comb. ‘Just before Hanukkah. There was some trouble in the street. The brownshirts roughed him up – not badly, but enough to give him a fright. He came home, sat in his chair and had a heart attack. I thought he was sleeping until I tried to wake him for lunch.’
‘Oh, Rosa, I’m so sorry.’ Freya took Frau Brodsky’s hands in hers. ‘What an awful thing to happen.’
Frau Brodsky smiled. ‘Thank you, my dear. But he’s safe now; no one can hurt him anymore. And it was a peaceful death, despite what had gone before: his favourite armchair, a fire in the grate and his wife close at hand, cooking potato latkes just the way he liked them. We should all be so lucky.’
‘How will I manage without you?’ Freya asked, unable to hold back the question any longer.
‘You’ll be fine.’ Frau Brodsky patted her hand. ‘You’re running this place already, more or less. I’ve told Herr Goldstein he won’t find a better wardrobe mistress in Berlin and that he’s to give you a raise. He’ll do his best, I’m sure, though I wouldn’t expect too much. The club’s barely breaking even and who knows how long he’ll be able to hang on to it. If I were you, I’d start looking around for other opportunities. Maybe you should see if there’s any work going at the Scala?’
‘This is my home, though!’ Freya gazed around the dressing room, less crowded now with costumes and paraphernalia than it had been when she first saw it, just over two years before. The Zaubergarten had taken her in, given her life structure and purpose in the darkest of times, and she couldn’t imagine starting again somewhere else.
‘You must carry home in your heart wherever you go,’ Frau Brodsky said. ‘That’s what life has taught me, and it’s the only advice I can give.’
She took Freya’s face between her hands and kissed the top of her head. ‘Good luck, my dear. You’re clever, resourceful and stronger than you think. God willing, you’ll survive.’
Frau Brodsky had left the country just in time. At the end of January, President von Hindenburg bowed to the inevitable and appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. That night the streets of Berlin flamed with a river of torches as SS and SA paramilitaries marched in celebration through the government district, singing as they went. Herr Hitler waved to the jubilant crowds below from the chancellery window, while it was von Hindenburg’s turn to appear at the Kaiserhof hotel. Freya kept well away, listening to an account of the procession on the radio she had bought herself for Christmas. The announcer – whom she hadn’t heard before – was practically screaming with excitement and, alone in her room, she felt like the one sane person in a country of lunatics. She had no idea what the next few months would bring; the only thing to be done, she decided, was to take each day as it came.
When the Zaubergarten reopened later in the week, Freya had to break the news of Frau Brodsky’s departure to the dancers.
‘Well, she’ll probably be happier in Palestine,’ Gisela said. ‘Amongst her own kind.’
Perle and Sophie said nothing, exchanging a glance that Freya didn’t understand. There was a subdued atmosphere in the dressing room that evening, with none of the usual backchat and bickering.
‘Cheer up,’ Freya said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Hitler might be Chancellor but life goes on.’ The girls didn’t even smile.
‘Freya, can you have a look at the lavatory?’ Violet asked, heading for the door. ‘I think it’s blocked again.’
Sighing, Freya went to oblige; her first day in charge was not going well. When they were in the corridor, however, Violet grabbed her by the shoulder, pulled her into the bathroom and shut the door behind them.
‘Do you have a death wish?’ she hissed, her fingers digging into Freya’s flesh. ‘You need to watch your tongue.’
‘What do you mean?’ Freya said, shaking her off.
‘Gisela’s in cahoots with the Nazis. If you say anything against our Adolf, she’ll report you to the Gestapo.’
‘Gisela?’ Freya repeated. Kind, friendly Gisela who was everyone’s confidante? ‘I can’t believe it. How do you know?’
‘Because I go about with my eyes and ears open,’ Violet snapped. ‘That’s why the other Sophie had to leave for America in such a hurry: Gisela was on to her. Let’s hope you’ve got away with it this time, but you’d better toe the party line from now on.’
‘Like you do?’ Freya asked sardonically.
‘Yes,’ Violet snapped. ‘Exactly like I do.’ And she strode off without another word.
Freya was shaken. The Zaubergarten had been her sanctuary but now she felt unsafe even here. The Nazis in the audience every evening had no interest in humour or satire; they wanted drinking songs with choruses they could sing along to, stamping their feet, and pretty girls to look at. Elegant costumes were wasted on them: they would no doubt have preferred milkmaids and cats with long tails. Still, at least they brought in some much-needed income. Herr Goldstein employed three more dancers; all of them blonde, blue-eyed and inexperienced. Gisela took the newcomers under her wing and Perle, Violet and Sophie became more withdrawn than ever. The dressing room was a tense, watchful place.
In the wider world, a sense of order had been restored. Hitler gave a speech on the radio, calling for national unity in the fight against Communism and promising an end to unemployment and poverty. He sounded measured, statesman-like. The streets were quieter, apart from the Nazis rattling their collecting tins or marching in squads, singing as they went. Red and black swastika flags clothed the city and the Communist hammer and sickle graffiti on walls was painted over with messages of hatred for Jews. A baker opening his shop one morning greeted Freya with ‘ Heil Hitler!’ and a salute that he clearly expected her to return. She hurried past with her head down and bought her bread elsewhere.
A month or so after Hitler had been elected, she switched on her radio early one morning to hear that the Reichstag building had been set on fire during the night and virtually destroyed. The alleged arsonist, a Dutch Communist, had been arrested at the scene. Seized with misgiving, she hurried to Wolfgang’s apartment at midday to hear his view of the matter. He opened the door a crack, saw who it was and hustled her quickly inside.
‘You shouldn’t have stopped me, that day at the Kaiserhof,’ he said, lighting another cigarette from the stub of the first. ‘We’re in serious trouble now. It’s the beginning of the end.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her stomach in knots.
‘I went there this morning – to the Reichstag, I mean.’ He spoke rapidly, his words falling over themselves as he paced up and down. ‘Not that you could get near the building, but I wanted to find Gunther and that seemed the best place to try. He thinks there’s something fishy about the whole story – not that he’ll be allowed to say so. This Dutch fellow they’ve arrested is a pathetic creature, apparently. How could he have burned down the Reichstag on his own without anyone noticing until it was too late? Hitler’s claiming it’s the start of a Communist uprising. He’s going to use this as an excuse to crack down, you mark my words.’
He was right. That very day, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed, ‘For the Protection of the People and State’. Freedom of the press and freedom of expression were suspended, the right to assembly was banned, and the Chancellor and the President could overrule the Reichstag however they chose. Von Hindenburg was in Hitler’s pocket, so essentially this meant the Chancellor could do as he pleased; he was answerable to no one.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Freya protested to Wolfgang. ‘Why do I need protecting from ideas? How can they hurt me?’
She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t write a word – even though Wolfgang had told her he thought Gerda’s story was brilliant, the best thing she’d ever come up with. Her notebook pulsed under her mattress as though it were an unexploded bomb. What was the point in trying to express herself if she’d never be able to share her stories, and when even daring to write them could land her in trouble? It seemed that every time she went out, she passed men in long trench coats and Homburg hats, hammering on a door or bundling someone into a car which then drove off at top speed. The secret police were everywhere. They had even wormed their way inside Freya’s head, infecting her most private thoughts. ‘We’re watching,’ they whispered. ‘Defy us and you’ll be next.’
‘It’s a rout,’ Wolfgang said. ‘All the writers are leaving while they can: Gunther told me Brecht has gone, and your favourite, Doblin. Joseph Roth, too. So many people have been rounded up that the Nazis are setting up prison camps everywhere.’
‘Aren’t you worried?’ Freya asked.
‘Oh, no one will bother about an old has-been like me,’ he replied. ‘They have fatter fish to fry.’
Sadly, he was wrong. Rupert arrived at the Zaubergarten one sunny spring afternoon to pass on the news that Wolfgang had been arrested.
‘We were meant to meet for a drink this morning but he didn’t turn up,’ he said. ‘The bartender hadn’t seen Wolfi for a couple of days, apparently, so I knew something was wrong, and when I called at his apartment, a neighbour told me the Gestapo had taken him away yesterday. I don’t want to make too many enquiries in case they throw me in a cell too. Perhaps you could find out where he is? A pretty girl might have more luck than a foreigner with dubious connections.’
‘I’ll try, of course,’ Freya said, already looking for her coat. The dancers wouldn’t arrive for another few hours and she was up to date with her chores.
‘You don’t need to go right away,’ Rupert said, putting his hand over hers. ‘How is the writing progressing, dear Freya? Wolfi thinks you’re terrifically talented. I’d be happy to read this manuscript of yours he mentioned the other day. He said it was rather marvellous.’
‘Thanks, Rupert,’ Freya replied, distracted. ‘That’s kind of you. In fact, Wolfi has it at the moment. I suppose I’d better go round to his place and try to get it back.’ It occurred to her now that she only had the one copy.
‘Once you’ve located our mutual friend, of course,’ Rupert said smoothly, now apparently anxious for her to leave. ‘You know the Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse? It’s a huge building; you can’t miss it.’
At that moment, Franz Schwartz put his head around the dressing-room door. ‘Thought I heard a familiar voice,’ he cried. ‘Rupert, you old rascal! What are you doing here?’
It turned out they were acquaintances, if not friends, and Freya left them talking as she hurried towards Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, full of misgiving. What if Wolfi had tried to pull another stunt? What if someone had spotted him pull the gun at the Kaiserhof hotel and waited for some reason until now to tell the police?
She was out of breath by the time she arrived at the police office and stammered out her request to the bored sergeant on the reception desk. He directed her to the top floor of the building, warning her there was a long queue. ‘But I only have an hour,’ she said, despairing, and he shrugged.
The room in which Freya was told to wait reverberated with the din of conversation and typewriters pounding away in a mechanical chorus. The noise was deafening, and she had to raise her voice to have any chance of being heard as she repeated her enquiry about Wolfgang Berger. All the seats were occupied, so she leaned against the wall until an official could spare any time to reply, listening to a hundred personal tragedies play out. An elderly woman was looking for her son, taken from his bed in the middle of the night two weeks before; a girl who could have been no more than ten or eleven with a baby in her arms was trying to find her parents, seized within hours of each other that morning; a heavily pregnant woman sat in the corner, clutching her stomach and weeping. Outnumbering the searchers by at least two to one were the informers, keen to do their duty by reporting neighbours who’d failed to return a Heil Hitler salute, or made a joke about Goebbels, or defaced a swastika flag, or … On and on went the litany, while clerks solemnly typed up every petty accusation.
Freya stayed for as long as she could, but it was clear she wasn’t going to find out where Wolfi had been taken and the racket was making her head ache. After a last hopeless appeal, she made her way back to the Zaubergarten in time to prepare for the evening’s performance. There was no sign of Rupert or Herr Schwartz, who’d probably gone off to a bar together.
When Violet arrived, Freya drew her to one side, well out of Gisela’s earshot, and whispered, ‘Have you heard Wolfi’s been arrested? I’ve been to the Gestapo HQ but no one seems to know where he’s been taken.’
‘They probably have a good idea but they won’t tell you, that’s for sure,’ Violet replied, her face impassive. ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’
How irritating she was, with her assumption of superiority! Yet Freya was glad to have someone to confide in, someone who might be a closet Fascist but was still Wolfi’s friend and would care about him – if Violet cared about anyone apart from herself, which was open to debate.
Soon the invisible net that had been thrown around Germany was pulled into a stranglehold: an announcement was made on the radio that works by undesirable authors were to be banned. Jewish, Communist or pacifist writers, hostile foreigners and those with degenerate tendencies would no longer be published, and their books would be removed from public libraries. Indeed, everyone was ‘encouraged’ (i.e. ordered) to purge their bookshelves at home; there would be consequences if any such titles were found during the raids that were sure to follow. Books could be dropped off at designated collection points and ceremonial book-burnings would be held in two weeks’ time in cities throughout the country. A new German culture would emerge from the flames: racially pure, martial and high-minded.
Freya listened in mounting disbelief before running outside to buy a newspaper to read the reports in black and white. There had been no mistake. All her beloved contemporary authors were to be silenced – Irmgard Keun, Alfred Doblin, Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann among them – and Heinrich Heine, her mother’s favourite radical poet from the nineteenth century, was included among the undesirables. It would also be a crime to read Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Helen Keller, H G Wells, D H Lawrence and scores of other literary greats from overseas. And this move was said to have been instigated by university students!
Wolfgang’s words echoed in Freya’s head as she leaned against the wall: ‘There are books they won’t open because they don’t want to be challenged. Just when they should be reading anything and everything, and deciding for themselves what to think!’
Now Wolfgang had been arrested she had no one with whom to share her dread – or almost no one. Summoning all her determination, she hurried through the streets to Potsdamer Platz, where she took a tram towards the Kohls’ apartment. It was months since her last awkward meeting with Leon and she had no idea how he’d greet her, but she yearned to see him. This time, it was Frau Kohl who answered the bell in Gutenberg Strasse and came down to let her in.
‘So good to see you, my dear!’ she said, with a warm embrace. Freya let herself be held for a moment before she drew back and began to stammer out an explanation.
Frau Kohl put a finger to her lips. ‘Not here. We can talk in the kitchen.’
Over coffee upstairs, all Freya’s fears for the future came spilling out. ‘I don’t know how we’ve ended up in this state,’ she finished. ‘My mother would have been heartbroken. Why should those illiterate thugs tell me what I can and can’t read? I won’t put up with it!’
‘Where you burn books, you will in the end burn people,’ Frau Kohl said. Freya must have looked puzzled because she added, ‘That’s a line from a play by your mother’s favourite, Heinrich Heine. But you must be careful, Freya. I promised Ingrid I’d look out for you and I haven’t made a very good job of it so far. I’m telling you now, though, to choose your friends wisely. It’s fine to blow off steam with me or Leon but don’t speak like this to anyone else or you’ll end up in prison faster than you can spit. It will be safer to keep your head down while the Nazis are in power.’
‘But that will be for ever!’ Freya exclaimed. ‘No one is allowed to oppose them. Am I to keep quiet for the rest of my life? It’s intolerable.’
‘I know,’ Frau Kohl replied with a sigh. ‘What are we to do? I’ve lost my job but that came as no surprise. I’m thinking about emigrating but Leon doesn’t want to abandon Germany.’
‘Is he at home?’ Freya asked, glancing towards the door.
‘He’s busy studying,’ Frau Kohl replied, looking evasive. ‘Exams soon. But I’m sure he’ll be pleased to catch up with you another time.’
After another cup of coffee, Freya asked to use the bathroom before she left. On her way out, she noticed the door opposite was ajar, the sound of voices drifting through into the hall. Intrigued, she crept forward to listen. There seemed to be at least three people talking in hushed, urgent voices, though she couldn’t make out what they were saying. A floorboard creaked under her tread as she inched closer, however, and the conversation stopped abruptly. After a few seconds’ silence, Leon appeared. His face cleared when he saw her and he stepped outside, closing the door behind him – though not quickly enough to hide the four or five faces looking back at her in alarm. She caught the eye of a boy with flaming ginger hair, sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘I’m sorry, Leon,’ she stammered. ‘Your mother told me you were busy but I just wanted to say hello.’
Frau Kohl appeared in the corridor, too, and Freya apologised again. ‘It’s all right, Mutti,’ Leon said. ‘I’ll show Freya downstairs.’
He took her elbow and guided her out of the apartment. ‘My study group,’ he said briefly on the stairs.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Really?’
Once outside, she stopped him in the shelter of an archway and said quietly, ‘Whatever you’re planning, I want to help. I could be so useful. So many Nazis are coming to the Zaubergarten – I can pass on any useful information they let slip. And I could try to find out from Walther Grube what Goebbels is up to.’ There was more point helping Leon than her friend Gunther; he’d only wanted information about Goebbels so he could write it up for the newspaper and that was forbidden now.
‘We’re not planning anything,’ Leon replied.
Freya snorted. ‘I don’t believe that for a second. Look, I’m going mad by myself. If I can’t join in with you, I’ll make a plan on my own and that’ll be a hundred times more dangerous. Surely you need all the support you can get?’
‘I can’t let you get involved at this stage,’ Leon said, speaking honestly at last. ‘It’s far too risky and my mother would kill me if she found out. But let’s keep in touch, Freya. I’ve missed you. Can we be friends again? Times are too hard to hold a grudge and people who think like us should stick together.’
She smiled and hugged him. ‘Of course. You know where to find me and I’ll come here again, I promise.’
At last, a glimmer of hope for the future. With Leon on her side, she could take on the world.
‘Keep a record,’ he whispered, pulling back. ‘Make a note of everything you see and hear. One day, God willing, the Nazis will be held accountable.’