another. “Germans, defend yourselves against Jewish atrocity propaganda,” another warned. “Buy only at German stores!” Black-clad SA men strode along the sidewalks with placards hung around their necks bearing identical warnings in Blackletter: “Germans! Resist! Do not buy from Jews!”
“This is absurd,” said Sara in an undertone as they passed two SA men chatting amiably while blocking the entrance to a Jewish-owned department store, one of her mother’s favorites. “The Nazis are persecuted? They need to resist us?”
“Hush. I know,” murmured her sister, the picture of serenity.
Sara had expected the most popular shopping district in Berlin to be nearly deserted, but to her surprise, nearly as many people as on any other Saturday strolled the sidewalks, some gawking at the harsh signs and garish symbols, others pretending they did not exist. Several Jewish-owned shops were darkened, the shades drawn, the signs turned to “Closed” in the front windows, but customers passed freely through the doors of those that were open, carrying shopping bags and string-tied parcels, ignoring the glares of the SA.
A stocky blond storm trooper stood outside Amalie’s favorite dress shop. “I beg your pardon, ladies,” he said as they approached the door. “This is a Jewish shop.”
“Yes, thank you, we know,” said Amalie, fixing him with a smile so radiant that he blinked stupidly and said nothing more.
The proprietor greeted them with a strained smile. After trying on several pretty frocks, Sara chose a lovely crepe de Chine dress, burgundy with cream pinstripes, with a buttoned, jewel-neck bodice, a peplum waistline, and a flounced hem that swirled just above her ankles when she moved. Amalie put the purchase on Wilhelm’s account, and the salesclerk carefully folded the dress in tissue paper and packaged it in a box bearing the store’s name.
“Thank you, Amalie,” Sara said as they left the store, passing the storm trooper, who studiously looked the other way. “Thank Wilhelm for me too.”
“I will, but how are you going to explain this to Mother?”
“I’ll hide the box beneath my bed for a few days. She’ll never know.”
Their simple act of defiance raised their spirits, so they decided to return to the Café Kranzler for an early lunch. Only when they parted company at the Untergrundbahn did Sara feel a stir of trepidation, wondering how she was going to sneak the box into the house and up to her bedroom without her mother noticing. She pondered her options all the way home, but just as she turned onto her own block, she saw her mother approaching from the opposite direction. From her elbow dangled a shopping bag bearing the name of Ernst Kantorowicz’s bookshop.
“Mutti,” cried Sara as they met at their own front gate, utterly astonished. “You broke the embargo. And on Shabbat!”
Her mother drew herself up. “Do you think only the young can defy authority?”
“Not exactly, but—you’re a wife and mother.”
“Who more than a wife and mother has a responsibility to make the country equitable and civil for her family?”
Sara had never been prouder of her.
By evening the Nazis had declared victory, claiming the boycott had succeeded so overwhelmingly that there was no need to extend it beyond a single day. Their words did not change the facts. Anyone who had browsed Berlin’s popular shopping districts that day knew the truth.
When her study group met a few days later at Mildred Harnack’s flat in Neukölln, Sara learned that nearly everyone there had broken the boycott. Sara was deeply impressed when Mildred told them how her husband’s ninety-one-year-old great-aunt had imperiously ignored the cordon around KaDeWe, the Jewish-owned department store where she had shopped for decades. The SA had briefly detained her, but had soon released her on account of her age.
“How could anyone arrest a ninety-one-year-old woman for ignoring a boycott?” exclaimed Sara. “She didn’t break the law, and at her age, she’s earned the right to shop where she pleases.”
Mildred smiled. “That’s essentially what she told the SA.”
Less than a week after the boycott, on April 7, the Reichstag passed the Professional Civil Service Restoration Act, or Berufsbeamtengesetz, which required all non-Aryans and members of the Communist Party to retire from the legal profession and civil service. President Hindenburg had objected to the original bill, but he approved it after exemptions were made for veterans of the Great War and those who had lost a father or a son in combat. Even in its amended form, the law meant that thousands of Jewish lawyers, judges, teachers, professors, and government workers suddenly lost their jobs, and