Hitler's Daughter

‘Mum, if Hitler had been in power would you have protested?’

‘Of course,’ said Mum absently.

‘Even if it meant going to prison.’

‘What? No, I don’t suppose so. Mark, I’m just not interested in stuff like that. Alright? Just eat your breakfast.’

Mark sprinkled the sugar over his porridge, making sure it spread evenly over the whole bowl, with just a few hard lumps dissolving in the middle. ‘What I mean is,’ he said, swallowing the first spoonful and blowing on the next. ‘If everyone—or almost everyone—thinks something is right, but you know it’s wrong, what do you do then?’

Mum sighed. ‘For the love of mud… Eat your porridge. Okay?’

Mark shrugged and took another spoonful of porridge. There was no point keeping on if Mum had had enough.

He wondered what it would be like to have a mum who loved answering questions. A mum who really liked thinking about things.

‘That’s a really good question, Mark,’ the imaginary Mum would say. ‘My first reaction is to say, “Mind your own business.” But that’s the wrong answer, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ asked Mark in his mind.

The imaginary mum would nod. ‘It’s what I do all the time,’ she’d say slowly. ‘Turn off the TV, avoid arguments with people like Mrs Latter who want to discuss everything and sign petitions and things. But…’ and she’d shake her head. ‘That’s what people in Germany did, didn’t they? They didn’t agree with Hitler. Or not with everything he did. But they went along with it, till it was too late. They simply shut their eyes and let things happen.’ The imaginary mum would nod her head and look at him seriously. ‘You’ve made me think a bit,’ she’d say.

And then she’d start listening to the news all the time and going to demonstrations and signing petitions like Mrs Latter, which would be really embarrassing…and anyway, Dad said most of the time Mrs Latter just got people’s backs up.

And maybe Mum would have to go to prison if someone like Hitler did get into power, and there was no way he wanted her to go to prison, or spend all her time involved in stuff like Mrs Latter.

But maybe… maybe…

‘What’s up?’ asked Mum, the real Mum. ‘Porridge too hot?’

‘It’s okay,’ said Mark.

Mum sighed. ‘Look, ask me questions when I’m not so rushed. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Mark.

chapter twelve The News

There was still no sign of Ben at the bus stop on Monday.

‘He must have a really bad cold,’ said Anna.

‘His mum told my mum she didn’t want him going to school in the rain in case it got worse,’ said Little Tracey. ‘’Cause he gets asthma sometimes when he gets a cold. Come on, Anna!’

‘Come on what?’ asked Anna.

‘Go on with the story about Heidi,’ said Little Tracey.

For a moment Mark thought she was going to refuse—would say she’d forgotten how it went over the weekend or something like that.

But instead, Anna began, and the story flowed as if there had been no break, as though it was as clear as a movie in her mind, and all she was doing was describing what she saw and heard on the screen inside her mind.

‘Frau Leib brought her news one morning,’ said Anna, her voice clear and low. ‘Along with the fresh goat’s milk in the bright green china jug with the flowers on it.’

(Two of Frau Leib’s nannies were in milk now. One was called Lottie and the other Hildegard, after two old friends of Frau Leib. Heidi wasn’t at all certain if she would want a goat named after her but she never said so to Frau Leib, and sure enough, the next baby goat was called Heidi.)

Frau Leib waited till Fraulein Gelber had gone upstairs to write the letters she seemed to be so often writing now.

Frau Leib seemed to know that Fraulein Gelber wouldn’t approve of gossip, particularly the gossip she had today.

‘They sent him away!’ she whispered excitedly, as she stoked the fire in the old cracked stove. ‘Just last night and Lisl came running over to tell me this morning.’

‘Your daughter? What did she say? Sent who away?’ asked Heidi.

‘Herr Henssel!’ Her voice was happily horrified. ‘He has the farm over past the mill. No one would have guessed! None of us guessed!’

‘Guessed what?’ wondered Heidi, but Frau Leib went on as though she hadn’t heard.

‘His sister married a draper in town.’ She lowered her voice and brought her wide, shiny face close to Heidi’s. ‘A Jewish draper. The sister and her husband disappeared a long time ago, and everyone thought, Oh, they have been taken to the camps. Herr Henssel never spoke of them. But Herr Henssel has been sheltering his sister and her husband all the time! He has been hiding them so they wouldn’t take them to the work camps! Someone must have seen, someone must have noticed, and they must have notified the authorities, because today they took him away—took them all away. Oh, it is awful!’, but Frau Leib’s small eyes had the joyous gleam of a good gossip nonetheless.

‘If the Jews just go to the camps to work, why did Herr Henssel have to hide them? Are the camps so terrible?’ asked Heidi.

Frau Leib shrugged. She didn’t care what the camps were like. The things that were important happened in her village, or to people she knew.

‘Are there any other Jews near here?’ asked Heidi.

‘Not in our village, not any more. But before the war, in town, there were the Solomons, of course, in the drapers’ shop—not that I ever went there, you understand. My husband would have been angry if I went to a Jewish shop. And there was Herr, oh, what was his name? The teacher at the school, and the doctor, not the new one, the old one. One of his children went to school with Gerta, who married my… but you know that, I showed you the photo of the wedding, and the Fuhrer sent a copy of his book with his signature just inside the cover. Not that I have ever read it. I have sometimes taken it and looked inside. I have looked at it often. Such a wise clever book. But now, of course, all the Jews have been sent to the camps…’

‘Heidi!’ Fraulein Gelber stood at the door. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Helping Frau Leib,’ said Heidi.

Fraulein Gelber fixed them both with one of her hardest looks. It was evident she had heard at least the last part of the conversation.

‘It is time for your lessons,’ she announced, although the only lessons they had had recently were the passages Heidi read at night by the light of the candles on the table and the fire in the stove, while Fraulein Gelber sewed or looked at the flames as though she were far away and listening to a voice that was not Heidi’s at all.

‘Yes, Fraulein Gelber,’ said Heidi.

Brown water splashed across the road as Mrs Latter pulled the bus up to the curb.

chapter thirteen Heidi’s Plan