familiar touchstone when the world’s burdens lay too heavily upon her shoulders.
This was the Germany Mildred loved, the Germany she was willing to risk her life to save. She would not abandon it to the abyss, not while she had any strength left, not while any chance remained that their cause could prevail.
Chapter Fifty-six
May–July 1942
Sara
When Mildred returned to Berlin in May, Sara dressed as Annemarie Hannemann, slipped out the back door of her ghetto tenement, bought a bouquet from a florist shop Jews were not permitted to frequent, and walked along streets from which Jews were banned in order to visit her friend at home.
Mildred looked well, as well as Sara imagined anyone could in her place. Her face had lost its gaunt angularity and her skin had a fresh, soft glow, but an ineffable sadness permeated her usual warm, gentle manner. Sara’s heart ached for her, and she wished she knew what to say, what to do, how to bring her comfort. Perhaps it was enough for Mildred to know that she was loved, and that her friends would do anything to take away her pain, if only they could.
“What I want most, now that I’ve recovered, is to get back to work,” Mildred told her. “I have this awful sense that we’re running out of time, that soon we’ll reach a point of no return where every last good thing about Germany will be forever lost, beyond redemption.”
Out of consideration for Mildred’s grief, Sara restrained a bitter retort. She believed Germany had passed that point when the Nazis devised their Final Solution, but as long as Mildred needed to believe that her adopted homeland could be saved from itself, Sara would not snuff out her hopes.
The harsh winter had demoralized everyone, but it seemed to Sara that spring brought relief and renewed hope to the Aryans, a lifting of spirits that eluded the Jews. Even so, although their fanatical devotion to the Führer surged as he confronted Churchill and Roosevelt, most Berliners remained deeply ambivalent about the war with the Soviet Union. They had not forgiven their leaders for allowing their beloved soldiers to suffer on the Russian front throughout that punishing winter, nor had they forgotten the broken promise that foreign bombers would never breach their city’s defenses. Terrifying air raids had become almost commonplace. Thunder and death rained down from the skies by night, and in the morning, Berliners emerged from their homes and shelters to find rescue workers pulling mangled corpses from smoldering ruins.
The resistance took advantage of the blackouts, meeting at discreet spots to collect antifascist flyers and leaflets and venturing out into the darkness to distribute them throughout the city. They usually traveled in pairs or small groups, pretending to be girlfriends enjoying a daring night out, linking arms and chatting animatedly as they walked along. A casual onlooker would never guess that their purses were stuffed with treasonous materials. Or a young man and woman would pretend to be a couple in love, holding hands, ducking into shadowed doorways for an embrace, their pockets and sleeves stuffed with pamphlets, which they slipped into mailboxes when no one was looking. In the mornings, exasperated green-uniformed city police would be ordered to fan out through the city to collect every last leaflet and scrape the antifascist flyers from the walls.
Once Sara was standing watch while her partner, a handsome Romanian Communist she knew only as Andrei, pasted an antifascist flyer over a Nazi propaganda poster. Suddenly she heard footsteps approaching. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered, and before she knew it, Andrei had shoved the bundle of flyers and the paste pot into an alley and had swept her into a passionate embrace. Sara clung to Andrei, returning his kiss as a pair of storm troopers passed and disappeared around the corner, snickering and making rude remarks under their breath. Andrei immediately released her and apologized profusely. She assured him somewhat dazedly that it was perfectly fine, rather good thinking on his part.
Natan did not like for Sara to venture out at night. “At least leave your Judenstern at home and go out as Annemarie,” he urged, and she agreed. The yellow star was too conspicuous anyway. If only she could get ration coupons in Annemarie’s name, she would never wear the star again, but it was Sara Weitz who must go to the shops after hours and wait in line and hope for a withered potato or head of cabbage to cook into something vaguely