box—only those, it would have been spiteful to return every gift he had given her through the years—and set out for Dieter’s apartment.
His mother answered the knock, pursing her mouth and narrowing her eyes as her gaze traveled from Sara’s face to the box in her arms. “What’s this about?” she asked.
“Would you please see that Dieter gets this?” As Frau Koch accepted the parcel, she added, “Please keep it somewhere safe. It’s . . . valuable.”
A faint triumphant gleam lit up Frau Koch’s eyes. “Does this mean what I hope it means?”
“I don’t know what you hope.”
“Then it’s true. He finally ended it.”
Sara saw no reason to clarify the finer points of their breakup. “The marriage is off, yes.”
“Praise God!” Frau Koch clutched the box to her chest and gazed heavenward. “This is an answer to a poor mother’s prayers.”
“Yes, well—” Sara forced a tight smile and stepped away from the door. “Goodbye.”
“He’s better off with his own kind,” Frau Koch called after her as she left. “You both are.”
Sara broke the news to her family the next time they gathered for Shabbat. Wilhelm and the girls were off at the Riechmann ancestral estate in Minden-Lübbecke, but her parents and siblings absorbed the news with obvious relief. Everyone expressed their sympathy in careful phrases, but no one seemed surprised or regretful.
Soon thereafter, Amalie tremulously made a far more upsetting announcement: She, Wilhelm, and their daughters were leaving Germany indefinitely.
“But why?” their father protested.
Because recent events and rumors in military circles had convinced Wilhelm that withdrawing to Schloss Federle would offer Amalie and the girls scant protection in the days to come. He intended to move the family to Switzerland until the Nazis fell from power and the persecution of Jews ceased. He had already resigned from the Wehrmacht and was getting their affairs in order, preparing their homes and household staff for a lengthy absence.
Tears filled Sara’s eyes as she embraced her sister. “I’ll miss you so much! I feel like my heart is breaking.”
“I’m sorry, Sara, but Wilhelm insists.”
“Wilhelm’s right,” said their mother. “You must get out while you still can.”
Sara and Amalie broke off their embrace and turned to her, startled.
“Far be it for me to complain that Wilhelm is too devoted and protective,” said their father, shaking his head, “but I believe he’s overreacting. Surely the Nazis have already done their worst. If we go about our lives, do our work, pay our debts, and cause no trouble, they will leave us alone.”
“The way they left Natan alone?” Sara said, incredulous.
Her father fixed her with a look of pained reproof. “Natan broke the law.”
“A law so unjust that the only proper response was to break it,” said Natan.
“Please, let’s not argue,” Amalie begged. “Wilhelm is worried for me and the girls, and he won’t change his mind. As soon as he can make arrangements, we’re going, and we urge you all to come with us.”
“Sara and Natan, you should go,” said their mother. “I would too, but I won’t go without your father.”
He reached for her hand. “There is no need. We are German. This is our home.”
“I can’t leave,” said Sara, thinking of the resistance, deliberately avoiding Natan’s gaze. “I won’t interrupt my studies.”
“I won’t leave,” said Natan. “I just got a job. I have too much to do.”
“You could write for another paper at least as good as the Judische Nachrichtenblatt in Switzerland,” said Amalie, but her despondent expression revealed that she knew it was a lost cause.
Within days, Amalie, Wilhelm, and their daughters left for Switzerland. Amalie invited the family to visit them at the chateau Wilhelm had taken in Geneva, but Sara missed her sister terribly and not even the hope of a brief reunion comforted her.
In the second week of September, Natan attempted to rouse Sara out of her unhappiness by inviting her to accompany him on a trip to Nuremberg to cover the annual Nazi Party rally for the Judische Nachrichtenblatt.
“That’s an odd choice for a cheerful distraction,” said Sara.
“I didn’t say it would be cheerful, but it won’t be boring.”
Sara mulled it over. Perhaps she might observe something at the rally that would benefit the resistance, something worth enduring several days in the company of tens of thousands of fanatical Nazis. She decided to go, although her parents had strong misgivings and begged her never to leave her brother’s side when they were out in public.
On September 10, Natan and Sara took the train to Nuremberg, squeezing into the