Evening was normally a time for relaxation, but Lena was anxiously pacing up and down the living room. Once or twice she glanced upstairs, in the direction of the rooms where the children were sleeping.
"Come on, Lena, sit down", urged Herman. "What are you worrying about?"
"I've got the feeling that something terrible will happen tonight", said Lena.
"Why do you think that?", asked Herman.
"It's that shooting in Paris", said Lena, barely looking at her husband. "Didn't you hear the news? The man has just died, the radio was calling it 'An abominable Jewish crime that shall be avenged.' I just know that something will happen."
"But aren't they always saying things like that?", suggested Herman.
"This just feels different", said Lena. "This wasn't their usual threats, there seemed more of a focus to it."
Herman got up from sofa and put his arm around Lena.
"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about", he said, though he did not sound entirely convinced.
Lena turned her head sharply to face him.
"Why are you so happy and smiley about everything?", she demanded. "Can you not see what has happened to us over the last five years?"
"It's been horrible, of course", said Herman, "but there's always a bright side. And didn't Hitler once say he was going to hang us all? Well, he hasn't done that."
"But he constantly demonises us, and that is an encouragement to violence.", said Lena.
Herman thought for a minute or two about how he would respond to this.
"Yes, but can we not forget about Hitler for a little bit?", he asked. "Try and have some enjoyment?"
"I don't feel like enjoying myself, not tonight", answered Lena. "In fact I think I'll go to bed."
And she swiftly made her way upstairs before Herman could attempt to dissuade her. Herman remained downstairs for another hour or so, but in truth, even he was feeling a strange anxiety, and eventually he went to bed too.
Herman and Lena woke with a start. What was that noise? They looked at each other, wondering if the other had heard the same thing as them. Then the sound came again, unmistakably the sound of glass being smashed. Then, from downstairs, they could hear shouts of "Heil Hitler!" and "Down with the Jews!" Lena hid herself under the bedclothes. Herman hesitated: might he not be able to fight these men off, as he had done so often in the war?
"Get under!", Lena hissed, and Herman assented: it had dawned on him that he alone would not be able to confront what would surely be a large gang. From underneath the bed cover, Herman clasped and caressed Lena's hand. They could hear more smashing noises downstairs: the intruders seemed to be destroying everything in the house. The sound of crying could be heard from the children's rooms: Herman and Lena desperately wished they could go over to comfort them, but did not dare to.
All too soon, they heard the sound of boots thundering up the stairs. The boots came ever closer: they were clearly marching towards the bed. Suddenly, the cover was roughly pulled back, and some 20 men, armed with sticks and clubs, surrounded the bed. Then Herman started: among the men was Theobald. Franz was also there, with a young man who was apparently Wilhelm. The men raised their weapons, poised to strike. Herman fixed his gaze on Theobald.
"Please", he begged, "remember me, your old friend . . ."
Theobald's expression softened, and the hand holding his club wavered.
"You pathetic weakling!", shouted Franz. "The Jews who betrayed you, and you can't do what you should? I'll show you."
And he set about striking Herman and Lena alternately: Theobald, Wilhelm and the other men soon joined in. The beating was relentless, with the men hitting every part of their victims' bodies they could reach. One blow to Herman's arm was so severe as to draw blood, while Lena received bruises all over her legs.
"Get off me!", one of the attackers shouted suddenly. His comrades left off the beating to see what was happening, and this also gave Herman and Lena the chance to catch a glimpse. They froze as they saw Isaac pulling at the man's leg, obviously trying to drag him away from the bed: Rebecca was standing behind him, her eyes darting between her brother, her parents and the assailants. Before Herman could tell his children to get back to their rooms, Franz seized Isaac by the hair and yanked him back from the other man. Isaac screamed.
"You dirty little Jewish scumbag", growled Franz, his face so close to Isaac's that the boy received a dose of his saliva, "I'll teach you to mess with the Master Race."
He flung Isaac onto the floor and hit him in the head with his club. The other attackers all crowded around the terrified child, almost competing with each other to strike a blow. Herman and Lena attempted to get up from the bed and somehow rescue their son, but were too badly hurt to move. Rebecca ran up and tried to force herself in between two of the attackers to reach her brother. Wilhelm grabbed her by the arm and forced her back: then he looked at her with a greedy expression, and put his hands underneath her nightdress, cackling as he felt her developing breasts.
"No!", Lena instinctively cried out.
"No!", commanded Franz, "stop it, Wilhelm, do not defile the race."
Wilhelm opened his mouth to argue, but his father stopped him.
"Franz is right, Wilhelm", said Theobald. "I think we've done enough here, let's go next door."
"Yes, let's", said Franz, and he charged down the stairs shouting "Heil Hitler!": the other attackers followed.
Herman, Lena, Isaac and Rebecca were left behind in the bedroom. Herman bowed his head: he was feeling a mixture of shock at the brutal assault, and sadness at what Theobald had become. Lena was breathing very heavily, still trying to take in what had just happened. Both the children were crying: Isaac staggered as best he could over to the bed, where his father placed a hand on his shoulder, while Rebecca sat down on the floor with her head in her hands, feeling a mixture of horror and shame. None of them spoke.
About an hour later, Franz led the gang to Rosa and Richard's house.
"Here", he said, "lives a Jewess and her Aryan lover."
Angry murmurs from his followers.
"But", grinned Franz, "we have some special treatment in store for them."
After smashing the glass, they charged inside.
Richard was slowly making his way downstairs: he had heard the smashing in the neighbouring houses, and had got out of bed on hearing the destruction of his own window.
"There he is! Kill him!", shouted Franz, and he and his men charged onto Richard and started viciously beating him. Franz raised his club high above his head and brought it crashing down onto Richard's skull. Blood burst out, and Richard collapsed lifelessly at the foot of the stairs. All the men cheered.
"Bastards! Scum!"
Rosa had come running down the stairs and witnessed the murder of her partner. She ran furiously towards Franz, but he just laughed and cracked her skull open just as easily as he had done to Richard. More loud cheers followed: the men barely seemed to notice the blood seeping all over the hallway.
"So should end all race defilers", shouted Franz. "The Aryan for treachery, the Jew for leading the Aryan astray."
Herman, Lena and the children remained awake all night, barely speaking. Finally, as daylight began to seep through the bedroom windows, Herman attempted to get up, but was so badly hurt he was unable to, and he fell back onto the bed. Lena reached out to him, but barely had she touched him than they heard the sound of more men thundering into the house, evidently through the broken window downstairs. Then the ominously familiar sound of boots on the stairs, and of Nazis pouring into the bedroom. The children screamed and hid in the wardrobe, Herman and Lena once again hid under the bed clothes, but barely seconds later, the invaders had whipped the blanket off and dragged Herman out.
"Please! No!", cried Lena. "Let him be!".
"Shut up, you silly Jewess", said the leader of the men, with a threatening sneer. Lena flinched.
"Where are you taking him?", she asked.
"Somewhere special", the leader answered, smirking.
"Can I please get dressed", begged Herman, through he could tell that it was useless.
"You think we'll do favours for a Jew? After what you made us do?", said the leader.
"We didn't make you do anything", said Lena stoutly.
The leader pointed his pistol at her.
"Yes, you did, one of you committed a most heinous murder of one of our diplomats. It was a terrible crime that can never be forgiven, and last night you got your punishment. Now take him away", gesturing to his men.
They complied, dragging Herman out of the room. Lena wanted to call out to her husband, but with the gun still pointing at her she did not dare. The children ran out of the wardrobe, crying "Daddy!", but the leader thrust his pistol in their direction, and they fell silent. Once Herman was clear of the bedroom, the leader marched after his men, leaving Lena shaking badly, and the children once again crying.
Herman was dragged down the stairs, banging his head against the wood, and out into the streets. His head and shoulders were hurting very badly, and his injured arm began to bleed again. After several hours, the man who was dragging him pointed to something.
"See that sign?"
To the best of his ability, Herman looked up. They were in front of a set of gates, and above it was a sign proclaiming, "Arbeit Macht Frei" - "Work Sets You Free".
The men laughed as Herman read the sign, and dragged him through the gates, and over some rough ground into a small room: there they left him, before locking the door.
Herman soon learned he was in a concentration camp called Sachsenhausen. He would never forget his time there: the guards routinely mocked him and beat him, he was forced into hard and arduous labour, and the food was terrible. On his first day, just hours after he had been locked up, the guards came back to his cell and laughingly told him that they had discovered someone who looked like him, and had taken him to the mortuary, where he saw the body of Rosa, with a horrible gash on her head. Herman cried out in anguish, and the guards laughed at him even more. About a week later, he and the other Jewish prisoners were forced to see pictures of all the synagogues that had been destroyed on that awful night: Herman gasped when he saw the one of them was the place where he and Lena had got married.
After about a month in the camp, Herman was finally released. His body frail from mistreatment and malnutrition, he staggered back to his house, where he noticed wooden boards had been put up to replace the smashed windows. He knocked at the door, and when Lena answered she instantly embraced him, sobbing profusely, while Isaac and Rebecca flung their arms around his waist. Eventually Herman asked, with a feeble smile, if he could please be permitted to enter his own house: he sat down in the kitchen, where Lena made him a delicious beef steak pie and afterwards a cup of tea. This was the first proper meal he had enjoyed since his arrest.
Lena asked him what conditions in the camp had been like, but he didn't feel able to tell her. There was a brief silence, before Lena said in her most forthright tone:
"We've got to get out of here. Now. Straight away. If we don't they'll kill us all."
Herman nodded.
"You're right", he said, his voice much weakened by his ordeal.
"We should go to Palestine", piped up Isaac, "and fight to have our own country. Then we'll be safe."
"Really?", asked Lena. "What about the Arabs? Won't they fight against us? They're the ones that live there, after all. And what would you do when that happens?"
"We'll force them out", said Isaac. "It's our land and the Arabs have so many other places to go, so they can't complain."
The other three all stared at him.
"But surely that's not right", said Rebecca. "Why should other people suffer for what the Germans have done to us?"
Isaac opened his mouth to argue back, but Lena cut across him.
"We should go to England", she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
"Yes, you're right", said Herman. "England it shall be."
