Two Brothers

‘I look like a schoolgirl.’

‘You are a schoolgirl, dear.’

‘Why can’t we just close for the day like everybody else.’

‘Because, dear, we are not everybody else. We are the Fischer family. And as such are expected to set an example with our behaviour. With privilege comes responsibility, you must understand that. People expect us to lead by example and we shall not disappoint them. Now hurry up and put on your shoes. No, not the ones with the heels, the flat ones.’

Fischer’s department store had been a part of Berlin life for fifty years. It was founded by Dagmar’s grandfather who had begun (as most great shopkeepers do) with only a hand barrow. That tiny street business had since grown into one of the great shops of Berlin, patronized by office girls and movie stars alike. It was a symbol of stability, offering quality products at competitive prices through war and peace.

Through prosperity and disaster.

It had never once failed to open for trade.

‘And we shall open for trade today,’ Herr Fischer had said over breakfast before calmly returning to his newspaper, a newspaper which made grim reading indeed.

It was 1 April 1933 and the previous day it had been announced out of the blue that all Jewish-owned businesses were to be ‘voluntarily’ boycotted by all ‘true’ Germans from the following morning and until further notice.

The edict was shockingly comprehensive in its detail. Non-Jewish employees of Jewish-owned businesses were expected to boycott their own places of work while the ‘law’ insisted that the Jewish owners would be required to pay the absent workers in full for not attending.

That morning all over the country hundreds of thousands of Nazi Party storm troopers with the full backing and cooperation of the police were to turn out to stand ‘guard’ at the entrance to every Jewish-owned business in the country. This was in order to ensure that the population observed the spontaneous demonstration which their leaders had announced on their behalf. Paint was to be daubed on every window announcing that German citizens were committing a traitorous act if they shopped or did business there. Also to be daubed on walls and windows was the boycott slogan, coined by the notorious Nazi Gauleiter Julius Streicher, a man who was now a senior government official but who up until a few weeks before had been known to the authorities as a mentally imbalanced pervert and rapist. What Streicher’s slogan lacked in elegance it made up for in brevity.

Death to Jews.

Most of the businesses thus picketed by the all-powerful Brown Army elected simply to close up shop for the time being in the hope that this momentary ‘punishment’ for their global crimes would pass.

Herr Fischer, however, famous proprietor of Fischer’s department store, had other ideas.

‘The people of Berlin know our opening hours and they expect us to be open during those hours. We will not let them down,’ Herr Fischer told his staff on the previous evening (having ‘granted’ his non-Jewish employees a paid day off). ‘The Empress Augusta Viktoria herself visited us only a month before the Kaiser abdicated. She purchased gloves as a present for one of her ladies-in-waiting on the occasion of the girl’s engagement. Should her Imperial Highness be visiting from Holland tomorrow and wish to purchase gloves again, she will find us open, eager to serve and offering the most competitively priced and comprehensive selection of ladies’ gloves in Berlin. As usual.’

This speech was met with considerable applause and, thus buoyed up with the support of his workers ringing in his ears, Herr Fischer instructed his maintenance department to prepare two signs with which to counter the messages that had already begun to be daubed across the great plate-glass windows of his shop. The first sign was a copy of the store’s war memorial, the original of which was mounted beneath the clock in the splendid central gallery of the building. This memorial listed those employees of Fischer’s stores who had given their lives for the Fatherland in the Great War, of whom several had been Jews. Fischer ordered that those names were to be underlined and marked with a six-pointed star.

The second sign was a huge banner that was to be hung directly across the grand entrance, announcing that Fischer’s welcomed all its many regular and loyal customers, adding that in respect of that loyalty there was to be a 25 per cent discount on all purchases made on the first of April. This sale would last for one day only.

Despite the nightmare situation, Herr Fischer almost chuckled when he announced his plan to his wife that evening. ‘Let’s see if we can’t turn this nonsense into a business opportunity,’ he said. ‘If I know Berliners the offer of twenty-five pfennigs in the mark off all goods will be too much to resist.’

Fischer’s plans for passive resistance, however, were not confined to banners. They included Dagmar, who to her dismay had been called to the drawing room after supper and informed that she would be excused school on the following morning and was to attend the shop instead.

‘You and your mother will stand together with me at the doors of our building and we will personally welcome every single customer who graces our premises. The Fischers of Berlin will show these hooligans and the world what a respectable German family looks like.’

Later, before getting ready for bed, Dagmar phoned Paulus and Otto. She had a telephone in her own bedroom (a refinement the Stengel boys found almost bewilderingly grand) and she often chatted to the boys after she had finished with her homework.

Paulus and Otto usually fought over the phone when Dagmar called, sometimes quarrelling so hard about who would speak first that she got bored and hung up. Tonight, however, understanding the seriousness of the situation, the boys didn’t fight but clustered together around the receiver trying to offer comfort to their friend.

‘It won’t be so bad,’ Paulus said. ‘And a day off school’s pretty good news, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe you’ll get something from the cake department for lunch,’ Otto added. ‘See if you can grab any stales and keep them for us at the weekend.’

It was a very one-sided conversation and after a little while Dagmar said she’d better go because she wasn’t supposed to use her bedroom phone after eight o’clock.

She put the little pearly white-handled receiver back into its polished brass cradle and prepared for bed, holding tight to the frayed woollen monkey that she had held tight to every night of her conscious life.

And then it was morning and breakfast which she was allowed to take in her room as a special treat but which she couldn’t touch a crumb of, and then the hated sailor dress and the white socks and her mother’s insistence on flat shoes. And suddenly it was time to go.

Her parents were waiting for her downstairs in the large entrance hall of their beautiful town house.

Father trying hard to look as if this was a day like any other.

Mother looking noble but nervous.

Dagmar took her hat and coat from the butler and went outside to where the great shiny black Mercedes car was waiting.

‘Ten past eight,’ her father said to the waiting chauffeur. ‘I wish to draw up in front of the store at precisely 8.29 that I may personally open the doors exactly on time.’

‘Of course, sir.’

The chauffeur held the door open as the proud, elegant family got into the car. Dagmar first and then Frau Fischer, who paused in front of the impassive, uniformed servant.

‘Thank you, Klaus,’ she said.

‘Ma’am?’

‘For working for us today.’

‘I am not working for you today, madam,’ the chauffeur replied. ‘As you know, I am instructed by the Leader not to do so. I have already informed Herr Fischer that today’s pay must be deducted from my monthly salary.’

‘But—’ Frau Fischer began.

‘I am, however, honoured to serve you today,’ the chauffeur continued, ‘in my own free time and of my own free will.’

There were tears suddenly in Frau Fischer’s eyes.

‘Thank you very much,’ she said, getting in beside Dagmar, who was also struggling not to cry.

Then Herr Fischer joined them and their short journey began.

‘Such a lovely day,’ Herr Fischer observed. ‘Perhaps we might later ride together in the park, dear, if the