Ashes

by Kathryn Lasky

  And then it came to me, a memory—bitter, acrid, a hot searing blade cutting through the scent of the linden trees. That same odor that I had detected in Karl’s beautifully tailored jacket when he had come to our house for dinner the night he had returned from the Rhineland. It was the smell of burning books.

  chapter 34

  In two weeks the sheep-like masses can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that the men are prepared to put on uniform and kill and be killed, for the sake of the worthless aims of a few interested parties. Compulsory military service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering to-day.

  -Albert Einstein,

  “The World as I See It”

  One day in the second week of May, the phone rang as I was working on some mathematics problems Papa had assigned to me.

  I jumped up to answer it.

  “Gaby!”

  “Rosa! Where are you calling from? It’s a school day.”

  “Yes, it’s Wednesday, May tenth.” She paused. “Do you know what is happening today?”

  “Yes, they are lighting the pyre, but aren’t you in school?”

  “No. I’m calling from downtown. Meet me at the Brandenburg Gate, on Ebertstrasse near the underground entrance. I’ll explain when you get here. Come quick. Make any excuse to get out of the house.”

  Papa had gone to meet Hessie and Mama and Ulla were out doing wedding things. No excuse would be needed.

  When I got off the bus, Rosa was already there waiting for me.

  “So what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Hah!” A sharp sound exploded from her. It wasn’t really a laugh at all, more of a snarl. “Pays to have connections.” There was a bitterness I had never seen before in her gray-green eyes.

  “What connections are you talking about?”

  “Fräulein Hofstadt. She might have left school, but she has not forgotten us. She works in the office of the Ministry of Propaganda now, and she had three special vans sent to school to take us and the books from the library that were on the list to Opernplatz to witness what we were told would be a wonderful event, an ‘affirmation of the German spirit.’ She was on the same van I rode in, telling us the great scene we were about to behold like a tour director.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “Easy. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people there—students mostly with Gestapo, SA, and SS troops. I just wandered away from our school group.”

  “So they finally finished the building. I want to see the pyre,” I said.

  “No, you don’t. It’s going to be awful.”

  “I know.” I had never told her about Karl, my suspicions that he had taken part in a burning in the Rhineland. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her. It was Ulla that I should have told, but my sister seemed to be in some sort of trance these days, ever since the engagement party. A hundred times a day I had wanted to say something to Ulla. To tell her that she could get out of this marriage. But I watched her and it was as if she had crossed a distant horizon and receded into some remote landscape. Often her hands were loosely clasped over her stomach where this baby slept, oblivious to the world that was disintegrating, the world that it would be born into.

  I felt a bitterness steal over me. “But I want to see it anyway!” I took Rosa’s hand and yanked it. “Come on.”

  The Opernplatz was crammed with throngs of students and SA officers. There were vehicles as well, and on top of one an SA officer screamed out instructions to make way for the arriving trucks with their cargos of “filth,” by which he meant the books.

  It was impossible to see what exactly was happening. Rosa and I were getting jostled and squeezed from all directions. A young man wearing a brown shirt and swastika, the uniform of the German Student Association, came up to us.

  “Good girls! You are here. This is the schedule of events!” He shoved a piece of paper into my hands. Rosa read over my shoulder. The torchlight procession was to begin at eleven that evening. The second item on the agenda was band music and singing! Singing as books burned! It was as if the whole world was being turned upside down. After the singing there would be an address by Kurt Ellersiek, president of the German Student Association. And then the minister of propaganda himself, Paul Joseph Goebbels, would speak and then ignite the pyres of books.

  “Does your mother know you are here, Rosa?” I asked.

  “No.” Color suddenly flushed Rosa’s checks. “Let’s go tell her. And we can see all this from her office. The classics department is right over there.” She pointed at one of the imposing neoclassical buildings that faced out on the square. We threaded our way through the crowd toward the entrance where Rosa’s mother worked only to be met by Göring’s new uniformed Gestapo officers coming down the steps with loads of books in their arms.

  “Achtung! Make way! Make way!” We had to flatten ourselves against the stone railing. I tried to look at the books they carried but did not recognize any titles.

  “Come on, let’s go. Mama’s office is on the third floor,” Rosa said.

  She and I ran up the stairs, meeting more officers and students who were dressed in brown shirts with swastika armbands coming down the stairs.

  “This is the Classics department,” I whispered to Rosa. “What are they burning, The Odyssey? The Iliad?”

  “Who knows,” Rosa muttered

  At just that moment a book clattered down the stairs. I bent over to pick it up and read the title. Homeric Odyssey and the Evolution of Justice: A Critical Analysis by Max Rothberg.

  “May I have that, miss.” It was not a question but a command. A hand suddenly appeared inches from my nose.

  I will hate myself if I give this book to him. I clutched the book to my chest. “I don’t want to give it to you,” I whispered. My heart was thumping so hard I thought it would jump from my chest. I pressed the book harder.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  I looked up, genuinely confused. He was young. A student. He was dressed in brown. “I mean I don’t want to give it to you.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  I backed away from him. He couldn’t snatch it, or he would drop the armload of other books he was carrying.

  “Yes, I do!” I hissed, then turned and ran up the stairs. Rosa followed me.

  “Go left!” she yelled. We raced down a long corridor. “This way! There’s a back staircase. We can use it to get to Mama’s office.”

  There was a door with pebbled glass and letters that read DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS.

  “Rosa!” a woman behind a desk who was not Rosa’s mother exclaimed when she saw the two of us. “Rosa, what are you doing here?”

  “Is my mother here?”

  “No, dear. She had to go to your grandmother’s. She wasn’t feeling well. And I must say that although I don’t wish ill for you grandmother, this is a good time to get out of here.” She cast a glance toward the window. “I’m leaving myself as soon as I can. But why are you here?”

  “My school brought me.”

  The woman blinked. “Mein Gott!They bring children to this! Well, I think you’re safer in here than down there.” The woman stood up and walked to the window that looked down on Opernplatz. She shook her head wearily. “Not since the Middle Ages!” That was all she said, then took a wrap from the coat tree, picked up her handbag from her desk, and walked out.

  “I guess I’d better call Mama,” Rosa said.

  Rosa began dialing her grandmother’s number.

  “Be sure to tell her Fräulein Hofstadt brought you to see the book burning. She’ll have to let you leave school now.”

  Rosa nodded.

  “Mama! Yes, it’s me. Is Grandma all right? Oh . . . oh . . . yes . . . Mama you’ll never guess where I am.”

  Rosa began to explain. “Yes, Gaby is here. . . . Wait, I’ll ask.” She put her hand over the receiver. “Mama wants to know
if you can spend the night with me, because Grandma’s having one of her heart episodes and she needs to stay with her, but if she has to run out for the doctor she wants me there in the building.”

  I nodded. Then I called my house and Mama answered the phone. I told her I was with Rosa and was spending the night at her apartment. I did not tell her where I was calling from. I suppose Mama thought I was already at Rosa’s, and I thought it best to let her believe that. Mama seemed almost relieved in some way that I was spending the night with Rosa. She just asked that I get back the next morning by nine o’clock.

  After the telephone call we went to the open window and leaned on the sill, looking down. From this third-floor window, we had a good view. The scaffolding that we had watched being erected was now completely obliterated by the growing pile of books. Behind the pile of books we could see the state opera house. Perched on the triangular pediment of the opera house were three sculptures of the classical muses. They, too, looked down upon what was no longer a mere pile but at the rising mountain of books—literature and volumes of science. I wondered if its peak would reach the toes of the muses.

  There was a pale pink light in the sky as the sun began to set. And from the linden trees that lined the broad avenue leading up to the square, a scent wafted toward us. I could imagine those heart-shaped leaves unfurling and trembling in the evening breeze. Everything suddenly seemed so fragile.

  “Did I tell you that at Ulla’s engagement party, Karl’s parents gave us a signed photograph of Hitler?”

  “What?”

  “Yes, they’re real Nazis.” My voice suddenly sounded dead and flat as I spoke. “I think he is too.”

  “How can you be sure? Ulla wouldn’t . . .” The words died away.

  I turned to Rosa. “I’m sure. I smelled it on him.”

  “What do you mean? What did you smell?”

  “Ashes, smoke, chemicals, the smell of burnt paper. Karl was in the Rhineland visiting farms for part of his studies. And Ulla told me she had heard that books were confiscated from that region.”

  “Ulla told you that?” I nodded. “Did she say that they burned the books or just confiscated them?”

  “Just confiscated. But I smelled that scent on him when he came to dinner after his trip.”

  Rosa said nothing.

  “And then the other day when we were down there . . .” I nodded toward the Opernplatz. “Remember the lady with the baby in her arms who was standing next to me?”

  “Sort of.”

  “She said something about her son who was a member of the Student Association going to the Rhineland, and there was some sort of experimental burning—of books. It all came together for me. Karl’s jacket, the smell, the fact that he had been down there too.”

  “Did Ulla smell it?” Rosa asked. “What did she think?”

  I sighed. “Ulla does not allow herself to think or feel anything. I think Ulla has lost all her senses.”

  “Oh.” We looked at each other. It was as if in the space of a few minutes we had both grown old before each other’s eyes.

  The light leaked from the sky. The pink deepened to lavender and then purple. But it would be hours until the actual pyre was ignited. What did we do during that time? It was like waiting for a funeral to begin. For even though Rosa and I were the best of friends, there seemed to be an awkwardness that had never been there before. We tried to stay very quiet, as we did not want anyone to know that we were still in the office. We did not even turn on a light. Finally an acrid smell cut through the darkness that obliterated the scent of the linden trees, just as I had imagined. Petrol! They were dousing the books now with petrol. Then from a distance we saw the torchlight parade like an immense iridescent worm oozing across the city toward Opernplatz. Swelling in the night were the voices of what must have been tens of thousands of people on the square beneath us as they began to sing.

  Zum letzten Mal wird Sturmalarm geblasen!

  Zum Kampfe steh’n wir alle schon bereit!

  Schon flattern Hitler-Fahnen über allen Strassen

  Die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit!

  Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!

  SA marschiert mit ruhig-festem Schritt.

  Kameraden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen,

  Marschieren im Geist in unseren Reihen mit.

  For the last time the storm call has sounded.

  We are all ready for the fight.

  Soon Hitler-flags will fly over the streets.

  The servitude will not last long now.

  The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!

  SA marches with silent, firm pace.

  Comrades, shot dead by Red Front and Reaction

  March in spirit within our ranks.

  More students flooded onto the square. The mountain of books grew higher and higher. I realized I had been holding the Homeric Odyssey book the entire time we had been waiting. Now I clutched it closer.

  “Look, there he is! On the high platform walking toward the microphones,” Rosa said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Him—Goebbels.” I had seen him before at the National Theatre, but at that time he was just another high-ranking Nazi out for a festive evening. Now I could see him at work, so to speak. Did he look like a doctor of letters, of literature? Did he look evil? I don’t know. What is the face of evil? From my perch I couldn’t really see his face, but I did remember it from that night at the theater, and if anything his face had been remarkable for its blandness, its anonymity. I could see his posture now as he stood on the platform, erect, and there was almost a prissiness to his gestures as he waved at the crowd. The singing wound down and he stepped up to the bank of microphones.

  “German men and women! The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path. The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. As a young person, to have the courage to face the pitiless glare of life, to overcome the fear of death, and to regain respect for death—this is the task of this young generation. And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past. This is a strong, great and symbolic deed. Here the intellectual foundation of the November ‘Democratic’ Republic is sinking to the ground, but from this wreckage the phoenix of a new age will triumphantly rise.”

  At that very moment the first torch was thrown on the books and a claw of fire leapt into the night. There was a huge cheer.

  “And now the fire oaths!” Goebbels said. Then one by one members of the German Student Association, and others as well, mounted the platform each holding a book aloft in one hand and stepping up to the microphone. Each student said the name of the author and the particular offense with which the author was charged.

  “I commit to the flames the works of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser, and Erich Kästner, for crimes of decadence and moral decay. We do this to support discipline and decency in family and state.” And then the book was tossed into the fire.

  “I commit to the flames the works of Erich Maria Remarque for the crime of literary betrayal of the soldiers of the Great War. We do this for the education of the nation in the spirit of standing to battle.”

  The fires grew fiercer. It appeared at one point that the gowns of the three muses were actually burning! But that was, of course, impossible. They were made of stone. Stone can’t burn,I thought. The night was torn with flames and jagged cries of triumph, and the air spun with ashes and of course there was the smell, the exact smell I had detected on Karl’s jacket, the smell of burning paper. I looked up to find the stars stuttering in the night beyond the flames. Orion was rising. I tried to remember the scent of the linden trees, but the smoke was too overpowering. The heat must have been very intense, for people had backed away to the edges of the square and into the streets surrounding it.

  “Gaby! Your sister
!” Rosa grabbed my arm as we leaned out the open window.

  “Where?”

  “Down there, near the statue of the kaiser.”

  I spotted her. Ulla looked dazed as she had for the last several days. Her hands were lightly clasped over her belly.

  “I have to stop her!”

  “Stop her from what?”

  “Marrying Karl! I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her that I know what he did in the Rhineland.” She couldn’t have known, I told myself. She simply couldn’t have, or maybe she buried it so deep inside her, beneath layer upon layer of denial. I ran out the office door and tore down the four flights of steps. I could hear Rosa’s feet pounding after me.

  As soon as I reached the square, I felt as if I were in a boiling cauldron of insane hate. People were shouting. “Heil Hitler!” “Down with obscene Jew literature!” “Slaughter the commies!” Their faces were stretched into horrendous grimaces.

  “Ulla! Ulla!” I screamed. Drafts of hot air slapped around me.