in which the sound grew fainter and faded away, she drifted back to sleep, trusting that the unknown danger was too far off to harm her family.
When daylight broke, she learned that she could not have been more wrong.
The morning papers delivered the shocking news. While they slept, the Reichstag building had gone up in flames. Within three hours of the first alarm, firefighters had brought the fire under control and determined that the cause was indisputably arson. Without any evidence to support his claim, Hitler had blamed Communist dissidents for the blaze. He had quickly convinced the ailing President Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree granting him unprecedented powers—ostensibly to enable him to find and apprehend the culprits, but in truth to eliminate the Communists as political rivals.
By early morning, Hitler had already exploited his new authority by ordering the police to arrest more than four thousand Communists. Civil rights guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution were suspended indefinitely. Banished overnight were the rights of habeas corpus, the inviolability of residence, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom from censorship, the rights of correspondence privacy, the right to property, and the rights of assembly and association. The official definition of treason now included the production, dissemination, or possession of written material that called for strikes or other uprisings.
“We must warn Natan,” said Sara’s mother, blanching. “He’s always been too outspoken for his own good. He may unintentionally write something that was tolerated yesterday but is treasonous today.”
“Unintentionally?” echoed Sara. “I think it’s more likely he’ll do so on purpose.”
“Sara,” her father chided, with a surreptitious look that begged her not to upset her mother. To his wife he added, “I’m sure Natan is well aware of the new regulations.”
“I doubt Natan will call for an uprising, but we can’t expect him to stop writing about Nazi outrages,” said Sara. “A free press is fascism’s most dangerous opponent. That’s why Hitler wants to discredit and silence it.”
“I wouldn’t expect Natan to stop reporting the truth,” her mother replied, “only to be more circumspect.”
“Our Natan is brave but also clever,” Sara’s father said, taking his wife’s hand. “He won’t be intimidated into silence, but he won’t recklessly provoke enemies either.”
Sara thought it took very little to provoke the Nazis, but as she watched her mother fight back tears, she kept the observation to herself.
In a frenzy of activity leading up to the March 5 elections, leftist newspapers were banned, and new National Socialist newspapers and magazines filled the vacant spaces on newsstands. The Nazis tightened their control on state radio, filling the airwaves with party propaganda. With the freedoms of speech and assembly eliminated, it was a simple matter for Hitler to ban political rallies for any party but his own. Communist and Social Democrat politicians hardly dared set foot outside their own homes for fear of attack or arrest.
Since the night of the Reichstag fire, Sara and her parents had seen Natan’s byline in the Berliner Tageblatt several times, but Sara’s parents became increasingly worried when he did not come by the house or phone. When Amalie told them that he had canceled a night out with Wilhelm, apologizing and blaming the frenetic pace of his work, Sara decided to stop by his apartment after classes to check in. She would get dinner started, study until he came home, and catch up with him while they ate. She doubted he had enjoyed a nourishing meal or a good night’s sleep since the Reichstag burned.
On the night before the elections, Sara let herself in with the spare key, calling out her brother’s name as she opened the door. His apartment was dark and silent, the stale air suggesting that no one had crossed the threshold in days. She turned on the lights, picked up the mail that had collected on the rug after tumbling through the slot in the door, carried the groceries to the kitchen, and began washing and chopping vegetables.
Before long, she had soup simmering on the stove and had settled down at the kitchen table with her books and notes. It was difficult to focus as twilight descended and her brother still had not appeared, but eventually she became engrossed in her studies.
It was almost midnight when the door opened and her brother walked in, his hair and clothes disheveled, his lower lip cut and bleeding.
“Natan,” she exclaimed, bolting from her chair. “What happened?”
He let her take his satchel and help him out of his coat. “The police