have confided to her about a potential invasion. Although everyone in the study group was antifascist, not all were members of the resistance.
After the meeting, Mildred drew Sara aside as the other students packed up their books and left the apartment, singly and in pairs several minutes apart, to avoid suspicion. “Arvid recently came across disturbing information about Hitler’s construction plans for Berlin,” Mildred told Sara as soon as they were alone.
“There’s nothing about that project that isn’t disturbing,” Sara replied. Within the past year, Hitler had spoken of reconstructing Berlin as the capital of the new Grossdeutsches Reich, the Aryan race, and civilization itself. “These buildings of ours should not be conceived for the year 1940,” he had proclaimed in one public speech, “no, no, not for the year 2000, but like the cathedrals of our past, they shall stretch into the millennia of the future.” It was said that Hitler’s chief architect took him quite literally and intended to design this new German world capital so that it would be more beautiful and awe-inspiring than Paris and Vienna when it was newly complete, and as glorious as the ruins of Athens and Rome when Berlin too had experienced centuries of decay. The idea that Nazis would be in power long enough to sculpt the landscape of Berlin for even a decade filled Sara with revulsion, but to the Nazis, their Thousand-Year Reich was already a certainty.
“The architect’s grandiose plans call for the demolition of older buildings in order to make room for the new,” Mildred said, her gaze fixed steadily on Sara’s. “As a result, many people will lose their houses and apartments. The architect recommends that Jews living outside the construction zone should be evicted from their homes to make room for displaced Aryans.”
“Where are the Jews supposed to go?” asked Sara, aghast. “Will they be compensated?”
“As far as Arvid knows, the details haven’t been worked out yet.” Mildred took Sara’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “But I wanted you to be forewarned.”
Sara nodded and murmured her thanks, her throat constricting as she imagined her mother’s grief if she were forced from her beloved home. Their house was spacious, beautifully decorated, and in a desirable neighborhood—too good for Jews, she imagined the Nazi bureaucrats declaring. Would they be given sufficient notice to pack and find a new home on their own instead of accepting whatever the Reich assigned them? Or would the storm troopers come in the night, drag them from their beds, throw them into the street with nothing but the clothes on their backs?
“Your neighborhood might not be chosen for evictions,” Mildred said, her gaze searching Sara’s face and surely finding every fear and worry written there. “It might not happen at all.”
“Maybe not, but we should prepare.” Sara inhaled deeply to steady her nerves, dreading the thought of telling her parents. Perhaps she should urge them to sell their home before it was taken from them. They could always retreat to the Riechmann estate if they lost their home and if their visas failed to come through, but what of all the other Jews in Berlin?
“There’s something else I wanted to—” Mildred’s gaze flicked to the door, and they both fell silent at the sound of footsteps in the hall. When a key turned in the lock and Arvid entered, Mildred sighed with relief.
“Something else?” Sara prompted.
Mildred hesitated. “Greta and I plan to take Ule around the Tiergarten on Wednesday afternoon. Do you want to join us?”
Sara quickly agreed, eager to know what Mildred had been about to tell her before they were interrupted.
Two days later, she met Mildred, Greta, and eight-month-old Ule at the Englischer Garten in the northern section of the Tiergarten. As they headed toward the zoo, Mildred and Sara flanking Greta as she pushed Ule in his pram, Mildred quietly shared Arvid’s latest news from the Economics Ministry. Hitler’s vision of Lebensraum did indeed include the annexation of the Sudetenland—but as dreadful as it sounded, some good might come of it.
“One of Arvid’s cousins at the Ministry of Justice has organized a conspiracy among certain German military officers and other prominent men,” Mildred said, her voice barely above a murmur. “They intend to declare him unfit for office and remove him from power.”
Essential preliminary measures had already been accomplished. Arvid’s cousin Hans von Dohnányi had assembled a dossier documenting Hitler’s criminal activities. An uncle, Karl Bonhoeffer, an eminent psychiatrist, was prepared to certify that Hitler was mentally ill.