crowded third-class compartment, each carrying one small suitcase and Natan his typewriter case as well. They were still standing in the aisle when the train unexpectedly lurched forward. Sara instinctively grabbed the nearest seat with her free hand and managed to keep her feet, but Natan stumbled and the corner of his typewriter case nudged another man in the back.
“I beg your pardon,” said Natan. In reply, the man shot him a withering glare over his shoulder.
As the train picked up speed, Natan and Sara tumbled into a seat, but they had barely gotten settled when she felt eyes boring into the back of her head. A surreptitious glance revealed the same man two rows back and across the aisle, fixing her and Natan with a hard stare.
Sara resolved to ignore him. “They’re calling this the Reichsparteitag der Freiheit,” she said to Natan in an undertone. “The rally for freedom—freedom from what?”
“From the Treaty of Versailles,” he replied. “Now that Hitler has reintroduced compulsory military service and has revealed his secret rearmament program to the public, Germany is no longer bound by the treaty’s restraints—”
“You there,” a voice broke in. “Where are you from?”
Sara and Natan turned in their seats to find the same man glowering at them. Sara quickly looked away, but Natan smiled. “From Berlin, where we boarded,” he replied affably.
“That’s not what I meant. Are you Jews? You look Jewish.”
Natan’s smile deepened, but his voice took on an edge. “So what if we are? Anyone is allowed on this car.”
“Not for long. You’ll see. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”
Heart pounding, Sara squeezed her brother’s arm. “Pay no attention to him.”
Miraculously, Natan obeyed. The angry man said nothing more to them for the rest of the journey, but Sara was conscious of his malevolence, and of the sidelong suspicious glances from other passengers. In the seat in front of them, two young women about Sara’s age murmured to each other and inched as far away from her and Natan as they could. From time to time they glanced over their shoulders, their mouths pursed and noses wrinkled as if they smelled something foul. Cheeks burning, Sara fixed her attention on the scenes passing outside her window, the early autumn hues coloring the countryside, the disheartening sight of picturesque villages draped in swastika flags and banners.
When they reached Nuremberg, Sara and Natan quickly retrieved their luggage and disembarked before anyone else could confront them. First they went to the home of a friend of Natan’s, a fellow journalist who had offered them a place to stay since rally attendees had booked every hotel room and boardinghouse in the city. Over supper, their host and his wife repeatedly emphasized that they should avoid drawing attention to themselves and must deny that they were Jews if challenged. As they walked to the site of the rally, six square miles of stadiums, buildings, and parade grounds, Natan handed Sara a stiff paper card. “Keep this in a safe place,” he said. “It’s your press credential.”
“So official,” she joked to hide her rising trepidation, but after a closer look, she gasped. “The Los Angeles Times?”
“That’s right. I’m covering the rally for them as well as the Judische Nachrichtenblatt. Under a nom de plume.”
“What if the Gestapo finds out?”
“Writing for a non-Jewish newspaper is the least offensive crime I plan to commit against the Nazis.” His brow furrowed. “You don’t expect to bring them down without breaking their rules, do you?”
“No—no, of course not.”
She steeled herself as they approached the massive parade grounds. They had missed the arrival of Hitler’s motorcade, but throngs of Nazi faithful still milled about excitedly, swastika flags clenched in fists, pins like Dieter’s glinting on lapels, arms snapping out the Hitler salute when acquaintances met, impromptu chorales breaking into the “Horst Wessel Lied.”
As the crowd pressed upon them, Natan seized Sara’s hand and led her through the crush of people into the stadium, where they joined the press corps, a pocket of watchful stoicism amid the frenzy. As Natan conferred with colleagues, Sara took in the scene. The air was electric with expectation and euphoria, the seats filled with men and women in various Nazi regalia from simple armbands to full uniforms, their rapt gazes fixed upon the parade grounds, where more than 150,000 marchers paraded in precise geometric formations. Boys clad in the uniforms of the Hitler Youth performed on drums and trumpets; girls in the middy blouses and full, dark blue skirts of the Bund Deutscher