Page 22 of The Banned Books of Berlin
Berlin, May 1933
So the Gestapo had not, after all, got their hands on Freya’s account of defiance in the face of Nazi brutality. She was free for the moment to carry on with her secret campaign of resistance: a campaign that gave her life meaning and purpose – despite, she had to admit, making very little difference in the great scheme of things. Early each morning, she would set off in a coat with voluminous pockets and a leather satchel over her shoulder, and rescue as many books as she could manage. Her favourite Jewish bookseller had long since closed, his windows daubed with anti-Semitic graffiti; rumour had it he’d moved to England, and she could only hope that was the case. In his absence, she searched out other bookshops, looking for any piles of forbidden books that might be waiting in some cupboard or back room for collection. Wherever possible, she left money in return for what she had taken, although once a woman ran after her and pressed the note back into her hand.
‘I cannot be found to have sold these titles,’ she hissed angrily. ‘Come around here again and I’ll call the police.’
Public libraries were fertile hunting grounds, too, though she had to be particularly careful since there were often officials hanging around and the staff were more suspicious.
‘What are you up to?’ an officious youth with glasses and pockmarked skin demanded one day, appearing out of nowhere as she crouched beside a crate.
‘Just curious,’ she said, dropping the copy of Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams she’d been about to slip into her satchel. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, filthy Jew.’ And she spat on the floor for good measure.
The youth nodded, apparently satisfied, but she sensed his eyes on her back as she left the library, walking as quickly as she dared without breaking into a run. Once safely back at the Zaubergarten, she hid her spoils in the storeroom. Wolfgang’s suitcase had soon become full, so she’d transferred twenty pairs of tap shoes and top hats from a trunk into a burlap sack to make room for her growing collection. Sometimes she remembered Grube’s remark about her place of work being of interest to the Nazis, but the threat was too vague and she couldn’t think of another hiding place. These books were under her protection, safe for the time being. What if this copy of Irmgard Keun’s latest novel at the bottom of the trunk turned out to be the very last one in existence? One day, she told herself, the Nazis would be gone, Wolfi and so many other prisoners could come home, and she would have made some gesture, no matter how small, to stand up for truth and civilisation. She would no longer turn a blind eye to the terrible things that were happening every day. When windows were smashed and people beaten up on the streets, she would watch and take note, as Leon had asked; she would not pretend she hadn’t known, and hate herself for it afterwards.
Yet soon Freya became dissatisfied with these fishing expeditions. Collecting books surreptitiously wasn’t enough; she wanted people to be aware of the stand she was taking so they might feel encouraged to protest in some small way themselves. And she wanted the Nazis to know that at least one person couldn’t accept what they were doing and was prepared to say so. ‘Find your voice and use it,’ she heard her mother whisper.
One sleepless night, the line of Heinrich Heine’s that Frau Kohl had quoted came back to her: ‘Where you burn books, you will in the end burn people.’ The next morning, Freya wrote the words in capital letters with a black pen on to a plain white postcard, the sort anyone could buy from a street kiosk, and took it with her when she slipped out of the club. She would leave the card somewhere it could be easily found, in an area far from Schoneberg where she had no connections. Always careful to make sure no one was following her when she went out on these trips, now she was doubly wary. This was an extraordinary risk and perhaps she was mad to consider taking it, but there were only a couple of days left before the book burnings and she had to make a final effort before it was too late.
As she was sitting on a tram heading eastwards through the city, the perfect spot flashed into her mind. She got off at the next stop and walked the rest of the way through the eastern side of Tiergarten and on to the Opernplatz. An ominous wooden pyre was being constructed in the centre of the square, like the gallows awaiting a public execution. Casually, she walked closer. Scaffolding boards and shorter planks of wood criss-crossed in an elaborate structure, about ten feet tall, that Otto would surely have been proud to have designed. A ladder leaned against one side and three or four labourers stood admiring their handiwork, hands on hips. Freya still found it hard to believe this ceremony was actually going to take place; it seemed inconceivable that people would stand around this bonfire to watch the work of so many brilliant minds going up in flames.
‘Why do you need all that wood?’ she asked one of the workmen.
‘Because books are hard to burn,’ he replied, taking the stub of a cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it. ‘Get the blaze going first and then toss ’em on, that’s the way to do it.’
Freya nodded, gazing around the square at the Old Library and the law school next to it. She wondered whether Leon had been watching the bonfire take shape, and whether he might be looking out of the window even now. She had met him at the library once – it must have been at least three years ago – bringing a message from Otto to cancel some outing they’d planned. Any excuse to see Leon had been welcome. He’d shown her around the library as if she had a right to be there, and the future had seemed so bright and full of promise. Anyone wanting to use the library had to show their green student pass but Leon had told her to tell the guard she’d forgotten hers and slip him a couple of marks to enter.
This time, the official by the turnstile at the library entrance didn’t even need a bribe. When she approached with her most winning smile and trotted out her excuse, he nodded her through with a bored jerk of the head. Keeping her head down, she followed a group of students along the marble corridor as though she knew where she were going, although she could remember very little of the library’s layout. Glimpses through doors to the right and left showed rooms lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, but none of these places seemed appropriate for what she had in mind as they were well-staffed and busy, and it would soon become obvious she had no reason to be there. She would walk about the library to get the lie of the land, she told herself, and if necessary, she could just walk right out again.
The students were mostly male, with a few women striding confidently among them. Freya watched them enviously, wondering whether they knew how fortunate they were. Several of the young men wore brown shirts with swastika emblems, aping those of the stormtroopers, and must have been members of the Nazi Students’ Union. They had no business being in a library at all, she thought, her fingers closing over the card in her pocket.
A pair of double doors stood open at the end of the corridor, and beyond them was a large hall, filled with row upon row of gleaming mahogany desks, each with two chairs side by side and a shared lamp and inkwell stand in the centre. A plaque on the wall announced, ‘Reading Room. Silence, please!’ Freya followed an older woman through – a lecturer, perhaps – and stood on the threshold, looking about. Around half the desks were occupied with students, most reading or making notes from piles of books open in front of them. A couple, she noticed, were asleep with their heads on their elbows. Only a scratching of pens and the odd cough disturbed the quiet. Her heart thumped so loudly that she was sure someone would hear and her legs trembled. It wasn’t too late: she could sit down and read for a while before heading back to the Zaubergarten. But then how would she feel? Summoning all her resolve, she picked up a book that was due to be reshelved from a nearby table and carried it to a seat at one of the empty desks in the middle of the room.
She had ended up with a weighty tome that described the Prussian criminal code of 1851 in more detail than anyone could ever have imagined necessary. Freya sat looking at it, turning the odd page every so often and thinking about the kind of life she would have had if she’d been born a boy, with the chance to study in a place like this. After half an hour or so, her heart had gone back to beating with its usual rhythm and her breathing had calmed. Glancing casually around, she retrieved the postcard with its stark inscription from her pocket, leaned across the desk to turn off the lamp and, in one swift movement, propped the card against the stand. Then she closed the book, her actions measured and deliberate, picked up her satchel and turned to leave.
A blond youth in a brown shirt was standing almost immediately behind her, ready to take the seat she was about to vacate. ‘Excuse me,’ he said politely as she took a step back, half paralysed with fear, the blood rushing into her cheeks.
He was looking at her curiously when – either by accident or design, she didn’t know which – the book she was holding fell from her grip and tumbled noisily to the floor. The boy tutted in alarm and bent to retrieve it. Coming to life at last, Freya reached for the card on the lampstand and crammed it back in her pocket.
‘You should be more careful,’ the youth said sternly, straightening up and smoothing the book’s pages before returning it to her. ‘This is a valuable edition.’
She mumbled an apology and turned away, forcing herself to walk at a normal pace to the exit, where she replaced the book on the table for reshelving. No one was about; the doorway was empty and a quick look over her shoulder confirmed nobody had followed her or was watching her now. This could not be the end of it: she wouldn’t go back to Schoneberg having failed in her mission. She dropped the postcard with its neat black capitals in the centre of the table and left the reading room, joining the stream of students going about their business. As she slipped out of the library into the square, she wondered how soon the card would be discovered, and whether the first person to see it would look away, pretending not to have noticed, because even to read such a subversive statement was inviting a whole host of trouble.
That afternoon, Franz Schwartz announced he was leaving the Zaubergarten. Two extraordinary things had happened: he had been granted a visa to emigrate to the United States, and his relationship with the American screenwriter was still going strong. They would be travelling to Hamburg in a few days’ time, and catching a boat from there to New York, before travelling on to California.
‘Your friend Rupert’s coming with us,’ he told Freya, ‘but you probably knew that already.’
‘I didn’t, actually,’ she replied. There had still been no word of Rupert’s promised farewell party. ‘Well, I’m pleased for you, Franz, but I shall miss you very much.’
‘Dear Freya,’ he said, hugging her. ‘Why don’t you come, too? Go to the embassy today and start the process. It’ll take months but Grant will be happy to sponsor you.’
‘I’m not leaving. Write and tell me how you get on, though – you know where I’ll be.’ Such misplaced confidence!
‘Then you should think about looking for another job,’ Franz told her. ‘This place is on its last legs. I haven’t even been able to get hold of Herr Goldstein to tell him I’m going so Kurt will have to run the bar tomorrow night. At least find somewhere else to sleep. It’s not safe for you here alone.’
Freya’s thoughts turned immediately to her collection of books in the storeroom. She’d been in a fever since returning from the Opernplatz that morning, giddy with terror and exhilaration, and now fear threatened to get the upper hand. But she took a breath, straightened her spine and said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Franz. I’ll be fine.’
Violet was later than usual for the evening’s performance and eventually it became clear she wasn’t going to turn up at all. Gisela – who was now supervising the dancers, much to Perle’s irritation – merely shrugged her shoulders and gave a solo spot to her favourite among the new girls. Apparently she had always thought Violet’s performance undisciplined and overrated.
Freya had mixed feelings about Violet’s departure. There was no denying life was more interesting with the English girl around, but it was just as well for Leon’s sake that she was leaving – and for Freya’s, too, since Violet might well decide to investigate that mysterious suitcase of Wolfgang’s in the storeroom. Wolfi was a friend of hers, in theory, and she wouldn’t want to incriminate him further, but she might have been glad of a chance to take revenge on Freya. Life was precarious enough without that added complication.
Time was running out: in a couple of days, book burnings were due to take place across the country, so Freya decided to distribute several postcards in one go. The next morning, she left the Zaubergarten through the back entrance just as Schoneberg was waking up, walked up to Nollendorfplatz and took a tram heading north through the city. A light rain was falling . If the cards became wet, she thought, no one would be able to decipher them, and even if they could, they might dismiss her message as the work of a crackpot. The Nazis would seize the cards as soon as they were found, and only one or two passers-by might have seen them before then. Was this whole mad escapade nothing but a pointless gesture? Absolutely not, her mother’s voice replied; Freya was lighting a fuse and even if the spark only reached one other person, that was enough.
Half an hour later, she got off the tram, pulled her hat low and turned up her coat collar to walk another mile to the Technical University, where Otto studied. What if she ran into him there? The thought of how he’d react to what she was doing made her smile, even as her heart pounded. The architecture of this building was as impressive as those around the Opernplatz, with a sweeping circular drive in front of the main entrance. Freya had visited a couple of times, for a public lecture and then a prize-giving ceremony, and could roughly remember the layout. It was early still, and not many people were about. Opening a side door off the main corridor at random, she found an empty lecture hall with seats arranged in ascending tiers. Closing the door behind her, she walked to a lectern in the middle on which she propped one of her cards, then ran up the steps to the back of the room and out through the rear door into a smaller passage, which took her on a winding route down some stairs to a side exit and out into the damp, quiet day.
It had been so easy, the work of a moment! Her mind raced ahead as she walked towards the Tiergarten park. She would carry on distributing cards around the city, even after the book burnings had taken place. There were all kinds of messages she could write, and other people might be inspired to protest in the same way; so many must feel as she did but not know how to translate those feelings into action. Even if she were caught, the movement would continue. The thought of being discovered made her stop for a moment and cling to a nearby railing, breathless. She would be sent to one of the concentration camps that were springing up all over the place, and quite possibly tortured, if not killed. The Nazis wouldn’t tolerate any opposition, no matter how mild. Yet she’d gone too far to turn back now. Her small postcard bombs were worth the risk.
Rain dripped mournfully from the trees in Tiergarten and her boots crunched along paths shining wet. She’d planned her route the night before: a straight line that would take her through the park, passing the Victory Column topped by a bronze winged statue overlooking the city, then out by the Brandenburg Gate and along Unter den Linden to the Opernplatz. The symmetry pleased her. She’d wondered about climbing to the viewing platform near the top of the Column and leaving a card there, but she’d have to queue for a ticket and the space would be confined and probably crowded. Instead she wandered around the base until she was alone, then knelt to place her message against one of the huge granite columns. Running steps nearby and a child’s cry made her jump to her feet, but luckily the mother chasing an escaping toddler was too fraught to pay her any attention.
She carried on through the park, glancing behind every so often to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Her breath came fast as she walked by the Brandenburg Gate, dodging the inevitable sightseers, then past the green-roofed Hotel Adlon with its uniformed doormen and line of idling limousines, like gleaming black sharks. She was in the heart of official Berlin, the burned-out Reichstag building only half a mile away. In the cold light of day, her plan to leave a postcard somewhere near the Gate seemed far too risky. She would, though, look for a spot at the site of the bonfire. This was where an act of desecration would take place the next day, where the values by which she lived and her hopes for the future would go up in flames.
The wooden pyre loomed uncompromisingly in the centre of the square. The workmen and their ladder had gone, replaced by a single guard who strolled at a leisurely pace around the structure’s perimeter with a rifle over his shoulder. Freya stood under an arched entrance to the opera house, assessing the situation. The guard’s circuit took about thirty seconds; it would be hard to place her card and get away without attracting his attention. She decided to cross to the law school and watch from a closer vantage point. There were only a few other people walking by and they kept to the outer edge of the square; she felt as vulnerable setting off into the centre as if she were naked. Rows of windows looked down from every side, and she had to remind herself that nobody would be taking any notice of her, and that even if anyone did happen to spot her solitary figure, they wouldn’t be able to see her face under the hat she wore.
Just as she was passing the bonfire on her left, an opportunity suddenly presented itself. Another armed figure approached from the direction of the library, and the guard walked some distance away to meet him. As they exchanged salutes and cries of ‘Heil, Hitler!’ Freya changed direction, swerving towards the structure, her hand already reaching for the postcard in her pocket. She was about to spear it over a splintered branch sticking out waist high when a voice from somewhere behind her cried, ‘Hey, you! Stop right there!’
She caught a glimpse of a figure in a brown shirt and black trousers before she started to run, panic shooting through her body, with this person racing in hot pursuit and gaining ground every second, she could tell from the sound of his boots and his breath, until it seemed he would only have to reach out to grab her. She was tiring quickly, a stitch burning in her side. The law school wasn’t far now but she had no chance of reaching it; would it be better to stop and fight? For a second she wondered whether there was enough time to chew and swallow the postcards in her pocket and she was about to stuff one in her mouth when she heard a scuffle close by, the footsteps now staggering and sliding rather than chasing, and thumps and groans of pain. Before she could turn to see what was happening, her arms were pinioned by her sides and she found herself virtually lifted off her feet and half-dragged, half-carried towards the building. A door was opened by an unseen hand and she was thrust inside, the door slamming shut behind her and bolts scraped into place.