Page 8 of The Berlin Sisters
‘Would someone please tell me why the Goldman family are hidden in our attic?’ Ava asked, hearing the high lilt of her voice as she finished her sentence, the unmasked panic of her words. ‘We will all be hung if they’re discovered!’
‘Ava,’ her papa began, his brow furrowed as he stared at her. ‘Please just take a moment to—’
‘No!’ she cried, not caring how hysterical she sounded, as she looked at her mother, her sister, and then her father again, not knowing how they could all seem so unflustered, how they could all be standing there so calmly while she felt as if she could explode. ‘No, I will not take a moment to do anything! They cannot be here! We have to get them out of our house!’
Why was everyone looking at her as if she were the crazy one? As if she were the one in the wrong? As if she were the one making them uncomfortable?
‘What is even happening here?’ she demanded. ‘We have to check all the doors are locked, that the curtains are drawn. If the SS—’
‘No one would dare to enter my home without knocking and waiting for me to open the door, most especially any member of the SS,’ her father said, coming to stand between Ava and the Goldmans. ‘Ours is one of the safest homes in Germany, given my rank, which is precisely why I made the decision to allow this in the first place.’
Ava closed her eyes, her head beginning to throb.I thought it was Hanna. I thought we were going to spend time together, just the two of us. I thought my sister was in the attic.
‘Papa,’ she murmured, as she opened her eyes. ‘Papa, you know what happens to those who help the Jews. You must know that it’s not worth the risk, not for anyone. I know you think I don’t understand, but I understand very clearly what would happen to us. ‘
‘Ava, if you knew the truth, if you understood what was happening, you would know that it is very much worth the risk. And it’s because of your blindness that we chose to keep this from you.’
Ava recoiled from her father’s words. Her blindness? She swallowed, her mind swirling as everything began to make sense, including her mother giving Zelda time off work. She’d never given her two full days off before.
‘Ava,’ Hanna said, coming to stand beside her and placing her hand on her arm, at the same time as her mother went to sit with Frau Goldman. ‘Please let Eliana tell you her story, of how they ended up here. I would like you to understand how they came to live in our attic, if you’d give them the chance. It’s time you listened, so that you can understand the truth.’
Ava looked at the faces all turned to her and recognised hope, sadness and possibly desperation, mixed most likely with despair at the way she’d reacted. But how was she supposed to act, when this went against everything she knew and believed in? Was shenotsupposed to be hysterical at finding Jews in her attic?
Ava brushed tears from her cheeks and looked around the dimly lit room, at the books stacked on a small table, at the piles of clothes and belongings, at the makeshift beds where the Goldmans had been sleeping. It simultaneously broke her heart and filled her with fear; her family had done something so deeply kind for others, but in doing so, they had risked all their lives.
‘Ava?’ Hanna asked.
She didn’t feel as if she had a choice other than to listen, not with her family and the Goldmans all watching her, and so she reluctantly went and sat beside her mother, her knees tucked up to her chin as Eliana finally stopped her pacing and sat down across from her. Ava was struck by how pretty she was, how wide and beautiful her eyes were, but she shouldn’t have been surprised – Eliana had always been one of the prettiest girls in the neighbourhood, and for many years they’d been friends, often walking home from school together, or chatting at the park or when their families had dinner together over summer. But Ava would have been lying if she’d said she’d thought about them in the years since. She had dutifully joined the youth groups for girls along with her other eligible German friends, swept up in the excitement of the time, of the new Germany that was being created under Hitler. Never oncehad she wondered what became of them, or what it must have been like for them to try to survive.
Where had Eliana been when Ava and Hanna had been at summer camp, training with all the other girls who’d been chosen to join the League, dreaming of meeting a dashing soldier and doing their duty to have beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed babies?
Where had Eliana been when Ava had stood on the streets, waving little flags and screaming outHeil Hitlerwith the rest of the crowd? Or when she’d lined up to join the party with her other friends, chatting excitedly with their ten-mark notes in their hands to pay their membership dues.
‘Where would you like me to start?’ Eliana asked as their eyes finally met.
‘Start from the very beginning,’ Hanna said, before Ava had a chance to respond.
Eliana looked at Ava once more, and she nodded to her. ‘Yes,’ Ava said, clearing her throat and deciding that she would hear her out, that if the rest of her family had chosen to help the Goldmans, then they must have good reason to. Perhaps there was something that she didn’t understand, that made them different. ‘Please, start at the beginning, Eliana. Please, tell me your story.’
She watched as Eliana turned to first her father and then her mother, waiting for them to nod their approval, before she folded her hands in her lap, the soft lilt of Eliana’s voice forcing Ava to consider how she’d ever forgotten about such a kind-hearted, gently spoken friend. Her face felt hot and she knew it would be bright red, her embarrassment impossible to hide.
‘I knew the world was changing for a long time,’ Eliana said. ‘I think we all did. But I also don’t think any of us could have comprehended what would happen next.’
Ava wondered when the last time was that Eliana had raised her voice beyond a whisper, how long they had actually been hidden in her home. Had they been here last time she’d been to visit?
‘Even when I was the last Jewish girl in class at school, even when I was told not to return by a teacher who had once praised me for my academic achievements, when I was told that I couldn’t swim in the pool because I had the Jew disease, I still didn’t believe...’
Ava found herself holding her breath as Eliana looked to her family again, pausing for a long moment before continuing. She remembered that day; she had sat there and listened to Eliana be berated by their teacher, and not once had she imagined what it must have been like for her.
‘I still didn’t believe that my people would be persecuted and murdered so brazenly, that people who’d once been our friends, who’d once frequented my father’s shop, would stand by and not even think to question such violence against their neighbours.’
Eliana’s arms went around herself, as if she were suddenly cold, as she spoke of her memories, as everyone watched and listened to her, and it was so quiet Ava could have heard a pin drop.
‘You were subjected to violence? Personally?’
Eliana met her gaze, and Ava saw a sadness there that she knew would haunt her forever. ‘We were subjected to violence long before your father smuggled us from the city, when crowds of Jews were being rounded up and dragged from the streets, as fathers were murdered for trying to protect their families. That’s when I understood that everything I’d heard was true, that no one was going to stop what was happening to our people.’
Ava looked over at her father; her father who’d only hours before been dressed in his perfectly pressed SS uniform, the picture of a dedicated Nazi, a man who was so well respected he was on a first-name basis with the highest-ranked party members. Was the SS truly using such violence against the Jews?
