The War That Came Early: Coup d'Etat Read Free Page A

outside. Of course the booklet bore the big stamp that said
Jude
. The Nazis had made all German Jews take the first names Moses or Sarah. Since Sarah already owned the one required for women, she’d briefly confused the bureaucracy. She didn’t confuse the clerk now. She just irritated him, or more likely disgustedhim. He shook his head. “
You
wish to … marry?”
    “Yes, sir,” she said. Staying polite wouldn’t hurt, though it might not help, either. “It’s not against the law for two Jews to marry each other, sir.”
    That was true—after a fashion. Law for Jews in Germany these days was whatever the Nazis said it was. Jews weren’t even German citizens any more. They were only residents, forced to become strangersin what most of them still thought of as their
Vaterland
.
    “Well …” the clerk said ominously. He pushed back his chair and stood up. He was shorter than Sarah expected; the chair let him look down on the people he was supposed to serve. Shaking his head, he went on, “I must consult with my supervisor.”
    The stout middle-aged woman behind Sarah in line groaned. “What’s eating him?” she said.
    Sarah only shrugged. She knew, all right, but she didn’t think telling would do her any good. She waited as patiently as she could for the clerk to return. The woman and the people in the queue behind
her
grumbled louder and louder. Anything that made him leave his post obviously sprang from a plot to throw sand in the system’s gear train.
    He came back after three or four minutes that seemed likean hour. With him came another functionary, this one a little older, who also wore an
alter Kämpfer
’s gold-rimmed Party button on his lapel. The newcomer eyed Sarah as if he’d have to clean her off the bottom of his shoe.
    “
You
want to get married?” he said, his voice full of even more revolted disbelief than his subordinate’s had held.
    “Yes, sir,” Sarah repeated. Whatever she thought of him,she carefully didn’t show.
    “And your intended is also of Hebraic blood?”
    “That’s right.” Sarah supposed her family had some Aryans in the woodpile. Isidor Bruck looked like what everybody’s idea of looking Jewish looked like. He came by it honestly—so did his father and mother and younger brother.
    “What is his name?” the senior bureaucrat asked. She gave it. The senior man sneered. “No, thatis not correct. He is Moses Isidor Bruck, and will be so listed in our records.”
    “Sorry,” said Sarah, who was anything but. She was mad at herself. She’d just been thinking about the forced name change, but she’d forgotten to use it. Nobody remembered … except people like the ones on the other side of the window.
    “I see by your documents that you are twenty years old,” the senior man said. “Andwhat is the age of the other Hebrew?” It was as if he couldn’t even bear to say the word
Jew
.
    “He’s, uh, twenty-two,” Sarah answered.
    “Why is he not here to speak for himself?” the bureaucrat demanded.
    “He’s working, sir. He’s a baker, like his father.” Bakers never starved. When rations for most German Jews were so miserable, that wasn’t the smallest consideration in the world.
    “Mrmp.” Thefunctionary was anything but impressed. He scribbled a note on a form, then glared out through the bars that made him looklike a caged animal. But he and his kind were the ones who kept Jews in the enormous cage they’d made of the Third
Reich
. “And what is your father’s occupation?”
    “He’s a laborer,” Sarah said, as steadily as she could. “He used to be a university professor when Jews couldstill do that.” Both Nazi bureaucrats scowled. To wipe those nasty expressions off their faces, Sarah added, “He’s a wounded war veteran, too. Wounded and decorated.”
    Benjamin Goldman’s Iron Cross Second Class and his limp did matter. Nazi laws mandated better treatment for Jews who’d fought at the front and their families. Not good