“Leave her alone,” Korinna said to her best friend. “You know how Eva is. She cries when someone kills a wasp. She’ll get over this.”
Rita shrugged. “She’s a baby. When the Führer makes Germany strong again, and we can all hold up our heads, she won’t feel so sorry for those Jew-lovers.”
Korinna stomped her feet to warm them up. “You’re right, but I’m freezing. Let’s go.”
Rita smiled and took Korinna’s arm. For a moment, they walked quietly arm in arm. Then Rita said, “Wasn’t our meeting fun today?”
Korinna laughed. “You looked so funny with all that flour in your hair.”
Rita grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll get Ute back at our next meeting. I wonder how she’ll look with flour in her hair, and all over her uniform, too!”
“You wouldn’t!” Korinna said with a gasp.
Rita just looked at her and laughed.
“Poor Ute,” Korinna moaned. “The poor girl didn’t know what she was starting.”
Still laughing, Rita said, “Did you ask your mother if you could come over for dinner?”
Korinna nodded. “But she said you should come over to our house instead. Sometime this week.”
Rita squeezed her arm. “I’d like that. Your mother is the best cook around.”
When they came to the corner where they parted, they simply waved at each other. Best friends didn’t need to say anything, Korinna thought as she walked home. And Rita had been her best friend for two years now, ever since they had both turned eleven and discovered that their birthdays were in the same week.
Rita was like the sister she’d always wanted. They shared all their secrets and dreams. They shared everything. But, of course, that’s what best friends were for.
“Mother, I’m home!” Korinna called as she stepped into the cozy warmth of her house. She put down her heavy book bag and immediately pulled off her winter boots and coat. Her fingers and toes started to tingle painfully as they warmed up. It felt as though someone were stabbing her with millions of needles.
Frau Rehme came through the kitchen door. “Hello, Liebling.” She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Brrrr. You feel like an icicle.” She smiled and took Korinna’s hands between her own and rubbed them vigorously back and forth. “How was school?”
Korinna shrugged. “The same. We received new history books today, though.”
“Oh, really? What was wrong with the old ones?”
“We had to paste together too many pages because our teacher told us those pages were no longer accurate. Things are changing so quickly that we needed an updated book.”
Her mother squeezed Korinna’s chilly hands. “But history doesn’t change,” she said softly. “Just people’s perception of it.”
“What did you say?”
Frau Rehme shook her head. “Nothing, dear. Nothing important.”
Korinna shrugged and pulled her hands free. “It must be Rita yelling in my ear all the time. It’s making me deaf. Anyway, our new books have pages and pages about our Führer and all he’s doing for Germany. He’s making jobs for people. He has such exciting plans for us all. Hitler is the most wonderful man, Mother. Don’t you think so?”
Frau Rehme looked at the framed picture of Adolf Hitler hanging above the couch. “Yes, he’s a wonderful man,” she said slowly.
Korinna hugged her. “Don’t worry, Mother, the Führer says it’s only a matter of weeks, months at the most, before Germany will be great again and we win the war.”
Frau Rehme sighed and looked as if she were about to say something, but instead she turned and walked back into the kitchen. Korinna followed her.
“Where’s Papa?”
“He’s correcting school papers upstairs. Call him for supper, please.”
Korinna walked halfway up the narrow stairs to the second floor of the house where the two bedrooms were. She shivered in the cold stairway. “Papa,” she called. “Time to eat!” She waited until she heard the scrape of his chair being pushed back, then she hurried downstairs to the warmth of the kitchen.
“The butcher was arrested tonight,” Korinna said, once they were sitting down to eat.
“Herr Haase?” her mother asked sharply, glancing at her husband.
Korinna nodded. “Hans Damerau was one of the officers. Rita and Eva and I saw the whole thing. They called Herr Haase a Jew-lover.”
“Oh, my God!” Frau Rehme exclaimed, nearly dropping her fork. “A Jew-lover! Poor Frau Haase. What will she do with those little children? She’ll have to work extra long hours to keep food on the table. No one will help her now that her husband’s been arrested. It will be too dangerous.”
“Someone will help her,” comforted Korinna’s father. “Herr Haase helped many people. No one will forget it that quickly.”
Korinna looked up from her plate, her eyes wide with surprise. “But he’s a Jew-lover. Why would anyone dare to help a traitor or his family?”
“First of all, we don’t know for sure Herr Haase is, in fact, a so called ‘Jew-lover,’ and secondly, it’s none of our business,” Herr Rehme said firmly. “And I don’t want you standing around watching people get arrested. It’s dangerous.”
Korinna shrugged. She didn’t see anything dangerous about watching an arrest. She didn’t see many of them because they usually happened late at night when she was asleep, but she was glad to see traitors to Germany get arrested.
She shifted in her chair, trying not to picture the blood on Herr Haase’s head, or the wide, sad eyes of his children. If he were a traitor to Germany, then it was right he should be taken away. It was all for the good of the Fatherland.
While her parents ate in silence, Korinna played with a piece of bread on her plate.
“Why aren’t you eating?” her mother asked, eyeing Korinna’s full plate.
“I’m not really hungry,” she said, intently studying the tines of her fork.
Korinna’s father raised his bushy, red eyebrows. “Not hungry? Hundreds of poor people would do anything for what you have on your plate, and you say you’re not hungry?”
Korinna didn’t look up. “After our hike, we—we made sweet buns.”
“Sweet buns? For what?”
“Just to eat, I guess. Anyway, they weren’t very sweet because we didn’t have enough sugar. Just a couple of pinches.”
“Don’t you do anything worthwhile at those Jungmädel meetings?” her father growled.
Korinna brightened. “Oh yes, we help the poor and babysit for people. And today we got bundles of new pamphlets to pass out. They’re very nice. They even have the Führer’s picture on the front. Would you like to see them?”
Her father put down his fork with a loud clang. “No!”
Her mother stood to clear the table. “Maybe later. Right now your father is tired. It’s been a long day at school for him, too.”
Herr Rehme pushed himself away from the table and took out a pipe from his pocket. “Every day gets longer,” he said, sighing. “Longer and longer.”
Korinna looked at her father.