The Nazi Officer's Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

as a pioneer in Israel.
    Steffi Kanagur was a Red. So was her brother Siegfried. On a certain Saturday, I told my parents that I was going to attend one of his communist demonstrations against the Christian Democratic government. In truth, I was going to meet Rudolf Gischa in the park.
    “How was the demonstration?” Papa asked when I arrived home.
    “Marvelous!” I exclaimed. “There were bunches of red balloons. Everybody was carrying a red flag! The Communist Youth League chorus sang beautifully, and there was a band with many horns and a big drum … and … what’s the matter?”
    Papa was scowling. Mama had buried her face in her apron, to stifle an explosion of giggles.
    “There was no demonstration,” Papa said. “It was canceled by the government.”
    Banished to my room, disgraced, I played chess with Hansi and wondered why in the world the government would cancel Siegfried Kanagur’s demonstration.
    You see, I had no head for politics. For me, political activity was fun, an ideological romp with smart kids. When Mimi and I joined the high school socialist club, it was not for the sake of ideology but to get ourselves a new social center, where we could listen to lectures on the plight of the workers and learn socialist songs and meet some new boys from other schools—like “Lugubrious” Kohn, who was studying to be a doctor; and “Jolly” Zich, who was planning to go skiing for the rest of his life; and Wolfgang Roemer, short, dark, charming; and Josef Rosenfeld, whom everyone called Pepi.
    Pepi was only about six months older than I was, but a full yearahead of me in school and much more mature. A lithe, slender young man, he had—at age eighteen—already begun to lose his hair. But he had bright blue eyes and a sly pussycat smile, and he smoked cigarettes. And of course Pepi was brilliant, absolutely brilliant; there was that too.
    While we danced at the high school ball, I talked his ear off about the plays of Arthur Schnitzler.
    “Meet me in the park at the Belvedere next Saturday at eight,” he said.
    “Very well,” I answered. “See you then.” And off I waltzed with Zich or Kohn or Anton or Wolfgang or Rudolf.
    Well, along came Saturday. I decided to go shopping and asked Wolfgang to come along. He agreed. It began to rain, and I got all wet. So Wolfgang took me home to his mother, Frau Roemer, one of the sweetest women I have ever known. She dried my hair and fed me strawberries in cream. Her husband and his happy-go-lucky brother Uncle Felix arrived. Then Wolfgang’s younger sister Ilse came in, shaking out her umbrella. They pulled back the carpet, rolled out the gramophone, and put on some new swing records, and we all started to dance. And in walked Pepi Rosenfeld, soaked to the skin.
    “That girl from the socialist club—she agreed to meet me at the Belvedere and I waited for her for an hour and finally I gave up. I am so annoyed! Mother was right! Girls are impossible!”
    He stood there looking at me, dripping. The music was playing.
    “I’m sorry,” I said sweetly. “I forgot.”
    “Dance with me,” he said, “and I will tell you how angry I am with you.”
    The next day a boy named Suri Fellner came to our house with a letter, signed by both Wolfgang and Pepi. Apparently they had discussed the situation and had decided that I must choose betweenthem. The one I selected would be my boyfriend. The other would withdraw, brokenhearted.
    On the bottom of the letter, I wrote “Wolfgang,” and I sent my answer back with the dutiful emissary. A few weeks later I went on a holiday with our family in the mountains and completely forgot that I had “chosen” Wolfgang Roemer. Luckily, so did he.
    In my last year of high school—it was 1933—I wrote a final essay on Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche. For my research, I decided to go to the National Library. (I also agreed to pick up my sister Mimi in front of the twin columns at the Karlskirche on my way home.) Pepi