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  Sara’s parents had not objected to their first date, but they had raised their eyebrows and exchanged significant looks when she had told them about their second. She and Dieter had been dating for two months when Sara overheard her mother lamenting to a friend about her daughters’ unfortunate penchant for gentiles. Wilhelm was wonderful, she had hastened to add, and she did not for a moment regret that Amalie had married him and had given her two beautiful granddaughters, but to see Sara follow a similar path was heartbreaking. To have one child marry a gentile was unfortunate. Two would be a tragedy.

  Sara’s cheeks had burned as she silently withdrew. She had not been thinking about marriage, not with Dieter or anyone else, certainly not anytime soon. She had resolved long before to earn her doctorate, travel abroad, and establish a career before she married and started a family. But as she and Dieter continued to see each other, she began almost unwillingly to mull it over. She wanted to keep things as they were, but Dieter was a few years older and might want to settle down soon. Sometimes they discussed their religious beliefs and traditions, but never the daunting challenges faced by Jews and Christians who intermarried. And although Amalie and Wilhelm had proven that it could be done with understanding and grace, Sara knew from her sister’s shared confidences that their happiness had not been easily won.

  For now, she just wanted to enjoy her time with Dieter without worrying about their future. In the years to come, though, if their feelings deepened and they remained as happy together as they were now—that would be a different matter. When it became impossible to imagine living without him, she would marry him, if he asked.

  For weeks, the predominant topic of discussion in cafés and in the press had been the upcoming elections. President Hindenburg, eighty-four years old and in poor health, had been persuaded to run for reelection because his party, the Social Democrats, considered him the only man who could defeat Adolf Hitler and persuade rival factions to cooperate for the greater good. On the streets of Berlin, fascists and Communists seemed perpetually embattled, an attack of one group upon the other leading to a retaliatory strike in an escalating spiral of violence. Frau Harnack had once told their study group that the back-and-forth shootings reminded her of Mafia gangs fighting over territory in Chicago.

  On the day before the dinner, the National Socialists held a massive campaign rally in the Lustgarten, the vast plaza in front of the palace of the kaiser. Thousands of Communist workers and intellectuals marched upon the Lustgarten to stage a protest, but they found the plaza already packed with ardent National Socialists, most clad in full Nazi regalia. Natan covered the event for the Berliner Tageblatt, and afterward he told the family that judging by the slogans on lofted banners, the triumphant songs, the wild flutter of miniature swastika flags like a vast swarm of furious red, black, and white moths, the Nazis had outnumbered the Communists at least four to one.

  Sara listened in disbelief as her brother described the scene. How could so many people have crowded into the Lustgarten to cheer on the Nazis? Did they not understand what fascists believed? The Nazis had always been a fringe party. Where had these enormous crowds of supporters come from?

  “The rally is over, but there’s more to come.” Natan caught Sara’s eye, and she knew to brace herself for an apology. “I’m sorry, Sara, but I won’t be able to come to dinner tomorrow.”

  “But I want you to meet Dieter,” she protested.

  “I’ve met him.”

  “I want you to get to know him better. Amalie and Wilhelm already declined. What will Dieter think if you do too?”

  Natan shrugged. “He’ll think that important events sometimes occur at inconvenient times and I have to get the story before the competition does. He’s a businessman. Give him my apologies and he’ll understand.”

  Of course Dieter would understand, but that wasn’t the point. Sara had been counting on her brother to help with the conversation in case it caught an errant current and drifted into treacherous waters. Natan could talk to anyone, lead them deftly from topic to topic, draw information from them with such amiable ease that they did not realize how much they had divulged until it was too late.

  Then again, maybe it would be better if Natan didn’t come.

  The following evening, Sara put on her best floral summer dress, helped her mother and the cook with last-minute preparations, and paced in the foyer until the doorbell rang. Her parents were right behind her when she opened the door and welcomed Dieter inside, which, to Sara’s chagrin, meant that their long-awaited reunion was regrettably stilted, a swift clasp of hands and a chaste kiss on the cheek, their eyes promising more if they could find a moment alone.

  Dieter had come bearing gifts, a bottle of Tokaji wine for her parents, a fine piece of traditional embroidered lace for her, so lovely that she cried out with delight when she unwrapped the tissue paper. What she could not say aloud was that Dieter himself was the far more pleasing sight. He wore his best suit, which showed off his broad shoulders and slim waist; his honey-blond hair was neatly parted and combed to the side, where it would stay until she had the opportunity to tousle it; and when he smiled, the dimple in his left cheek made her feel slightly giddy. He chatted with her parents over roast duck and potatoes, describing his travels—the sights he had seen, the business he had successfully conducted. Sara tried to contribute intelligently to the conversation, but she probably spent the entire meal gazing at him adoringly, like a silly girl dazzled in the company of a film star.

  The spell broke over dessert when Dieter mentioned that he had read Natan’s report on the Lustgarten rally in the morning paper. “He described it so vividly I felt as if I had seen it myself,” Dieter remarked. “I’m sorry to have missed it.”

  From the corner of her eye, Sara saw her parents exchange a significant glance. “Not that Dieter would have attended, even if he could have,” she quickly said, forcing a smile. “Dieter isn’t a National Socialist or a Communist.”

  “Neither is Natan, and he was there,” said Dieter.

  “In a professional capacity,” Sara replied, with a warning look.

  He seemed not to notice it. “If I hadn’t been at work, I might have wandered over for a look.”

  “A sightseer rather than a participant, of course?” prompted Sara’s father.

  Dieter smiled. “I prefer the term objective observer. I think it’s important to listen to both sides, don’t you?”

  Sara desperately wanted to change the subject, but the longer his question hung in the air unanswered, the more urgently it demanded a response. “Yes, listen to both sides,” she said brightly. “Then, if you discover that one side is irrational and utterly wrong in every way, you know you’re free to ignore them.”

  Dieter laughed and her parents smiled, and Sara quickly changed the subject.

  After supper, declining her parents’ invitation to join them in the living room, Sara took Dieter’s hand and led him outside to the garden, behind a stand of linden trees where she knew they could not be seen from the house. “Welcome home, Dieter,” she said, interlacing her fingers behind his neck and rising up on her toes to kiss him.

  “My pretty Sara,” he murmured, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her back. “I missed you.”

  She pulled him down to sit beside her on a hidden bench. “We can’t stay out here alone too long or my father will invent some excuse to examine the flower beds.”

  He gave a wry snort. “So, did I pass?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Did I pass your parents’ inspection?”

  “Of course you passed. There was no inspection.”

  He laughed. “Well, which is it?”

  She feigned indignation and gave him a little shove. He grinned, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her again, sending her heart pounding with joy and desire. Soon he seemed to forget that she had not really answered his question, which was just as well because she didn’t know what to say.

&nbs
p; Two weeks later, Natan’s byline led with a harrowing report of rumors that roughly seven thousand Nazi SA and SS in Prussia had taunted their political enemies by marching through Altona, a strongly Communist suburb of Hamburg, only to be fired upon by rooftop snipers. In the next day’s edition, the city’s correspondents confirmed that seventeen people had died of gunshot wounds and several hundred more had been wounded. Three days after that, Chancellor Papen declared that the events of Altonær Blutsonntag—Altona Bloody Sunday—required him to dissolve the center-left coalition government of Prussia, as well as its formidable police force, and place both under federal control.

  “This is a coup,” Sara’s father declared, shaking his head in disbelief as he set one newspaper aside and picked up another, searching in vain for some good news. “This is nothing short of an overthrow of the Free State of Prussia.”

  The national elections of July 31 leveled another blow. The National Socialists won more than fourteen million votes, or 37 percent of the electorate. Even more dismaying to Sara, university students voted for Adolf Hitler in overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers. How could her peers be so enthralled by Hitler’s rhetoric, his obvious pandering to people’s worst fears and prejudices?

  “What does the younger generation see in the Nazis?” Sara’s mother asked her.

  “I have no idea,” said Sara, sick at heart. “None of my friends are getting swept up in all of this.”

  “I’ll tell you what the young people see,” said her father. “Something different. Something disruptive. For as long as they can remember, their government has failed them. They have no jobs, no hope, only anger, and they have no reason to believe the political parties they’ve trusted in the past will stave off further decline. To them, change must equal improvement.”

  “And what about the rest of the electorate?” said Sara. “Your generation should know better, shouldn’t they?”

  “Older generations still resent how the rest of the world punished them after the Great War. I’m sure Hitler’s promise to restore the country to some mythical golden age appeals to them.”

  “This is dreadful, dreadful,” said her mother, voice shaking. “Perhaps we should get out of the city. We could stay at Wilhelm and Amalie’s estate for the rest of the summer, until the violence subsides.”

  Sara’s father shook his head. “I know things look bleak, but Hitler isn’t president, nor chancellor, and he never will be. The German people would never accept someone like him as their leader. He’s utterly unqualified for the role.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Sara’s mother countered. “Those thousands of German people who rallied for the Nazis at the Lustgarten seemed quite prepared to crown him king.”

  “Their enthusiasm will burn itself out,” her father said firmly. “Within a year, Hitler’s star will fade, and with it the influence of the National Socialists. They can sow hatred and violence, but they cannot rule.”

  Sara’s mother nodded, mollified, but Sara’s own doubts lingered. She wanted to believe her father, but she could not forget Natan’s description of the wild fervor in the eyes of the masses at the rally. Some fires burned themselves out only after consuming everything within reach of the flames.

  Chapter Eight

  April–November 1932

  Greta

  Zurich was everything Felix had promised and more. The gracious Henrich residence was an oasis of serene prosperity, and since Felix and Julia treated her as a member of the family, Greta enjoyed luxuries that she had never before known—Périgord truffles, Russian caviar, the finest champagne. Her suite, comprised of a large bedroom, a sitting room, and an en suite bath, was larger than any apartment she had ever called home, and her windows boasted lovely views of snowcapped mountains and meadow valleys awash in violet asters and yellow chamois ragwort. Felix and Julia included her on their outings to the theaters, operas, and concert halls, and she had as much time as she wished to explore Zurich and the environs on her own.

  Her work was interesting and enjoyable, and never so arduous as to invite complaint. Felix’s library was a bibliophile’s dream, vast in quantity and scope, but packed so arbitrarily that when she first opened the cartons, Greta laughed aloud in astonishment at the disorder. The Henrich daughters were clever and delightful, generous with hugs and kisses and sweet compliments, so quick to master their simple English lessons that Julia declared herself amazed and envious of their gifts. For all this, Felix paid Greta a generous salary in addition to her room and board. She was able to provide for her necessities, save for less bountiful times, and send a considerable amount home to her parents, thankful to be able to repay at long last a small portion of all that they had sacrificed for her.

  As if all this did not suffice, her job in Zurich also put more than eight hundred kilometers between her and Adam, whose letters, when she neglected to reply, became infrequent, and then rare, and then ceased coming altogether.

  Greta had always known that the work would not last forever, but she felt a pang of regret when she placed the last of Felix’s books in its proper place on the shelves and realized her Swiss idyll was nearing its end. Felix and Julia assured her that she was welcome to stay on as the girls’ English tutor as long as she liked, but their lessons occupied only a few hours each week, and she found herself restless, impatient for a new challenge.

  For quite some time, she had watched students passing between classes and lectures at the Universität Zürich or poring over books at the library or in the courtyards, scenes reminiscent of her days at the University of Wisconsin. She thought wistfully of her incomplete dissertation, her unfulfilled plans, and began to wonder if perhaps she should finish what she started. As much as she had enjoyed her diversion into theater, it was difficult to see how she could continue along that path without eventually colliding with Adam. Time and distance had eased her heartache, but her wounds were too newly healed to risk tearing them open again.

  During the long afternoons that followed the girls’ English lessons, Greta wrote letters of inquiry to universities throughout Germany, beginning with her former professors at the University of Berlin. She sent other inquiries to the University of Jena, wondering if Arvid and Mildred Harnack were on the faculty there, thinking how wonderful it would be to reunite with them—with Mildred, at least. Other letters followed, to universities in Giessen, Frankfurt, and Hamburg—which reminded her painfully of the Internationaler Theaterkongresse—and to a few places in Austria and Switzerland for good measure.

  In early September, she received a reply from Karl Mannheim, a professor of sociology at Universität Frankfurt am Main. “He says he finds my credentials impressive,” Greta told Felix and Julia after supper that evening, “but he insists upon an interview before officially taking me on.”

  “You must go to the interview, of course,” said Felix. “We won’t find the girls a new tutor until you decide to take the position.”

  “It might not be offered to me.”

  “I’m certain it will.”

  “The only question is whether you will accept,” said Julia. “If you don’t think you’ll like the work or Professor Mannheim, you must come home to us.”

  Touched that Julia thought of their home as her own, Greta thanked them and promised to keep their kind offer in mind. And yet when the time came, she purchased a one-way train ticket and packed all of her belongings. Even if Professor Mannheim did not hire her, she knew her future did not lie in Zurich.

  After an early morning farewell with the Henrich family, where her young pupils shed a few tears and sweetly begged her to come back soon, Greta traveled four hundred kilometers north to Frankfurt am Main, a thriving city spanning the Main River in Hesse. Dr. Mannheim was not quite forty, with dark, receding hair and a keen, intelligent gaze, his voice warmed by a charming Hungarian accent. He greeted her cordially, smoked a pipe throughout the interview, and seemed especially curious about Greta’s research at the University of Wisconsin and her work with Profess
or John Commons and the Friday Niters. He explained that his own intellectual focus was the sociology of knowledge, and he hoped she could tell him more about academic developments in the United States.

  “I have sufficient funds in my budget to take on a graduate student who will also serve as my assistant and secretary,” he told her. “One of that student’s first duties would be to put my library in order.”

  “As it happens,” said Greta, “I have considerable experience organizing libraries.”

  When she left his office twenty minutes later, she had the job, as well as his signature on precious documents admitting her to the university as a doctoral student.

  Once again her days were full. She took a room in a boardinghouse within a short walk of campus, settled in, and familiarized herself with the sociology section of the university library. Another library demanded most of her attention: Dr. Mannheim’s massive personal collection of books, haphazardly crammed onto bowing bookshelves and piled in precarious heaps on the floor of his office. When Greta was not sorting volumes, she was typing letters, organizing papers, grading undergraduate essays, and handling every other sort of dull but essential task Dr. Mannheim entrusted to her. Along the way, she met several other graduate students in the department, all as overworked and as relieved to be employed as she was.