The Auslander by Paul Dowswell

Reiters were not stupid people. They just became more careful about who they saw and how they saw them.
    Anna’s mother had told her about her friend Rachel, who had been fired from her magazine in 1938. She had been the best copy editor in the building and they were all sad to see her leave. Rachel had been transported to the east. ‘Relocated’ or ‘reassigned’, these were the expressions that were used. Now there were only a few Jews left in Berlin. Sometimes they stayed because the work they did was important. Sometimes they stayed because the Nazis had simply not yet taken them. Recently the Reiters had heard it whispered that the Jews were sent to the east to be killed.
    Ula and Otto had discounted such rumours as enemy propaganda when they first heard them. Like the stories the British had concocted during the Great War about how the German army had gathered up the bodies of its fallen soldiers and shipped them back to the Fatherland to make soap, candles and glycerine in macabre Kadaververwertungsanstalten – corpse exploitation factories.
    When Anna’s brother Stefan returned from the Eastern Front on leave, they asked him if there was any truth in these stories. They hoped he would scoff but what he said filled them with revulsion.

.
    CHAPTER 11
    October 13, 1941
    .
    The day after his fourteenth birthday the Deutsches Jungvolk leader approached Peter at their clubhouse and announced that he would be expected to attend a grand parade on 13th October, to mark his coming of age for the senior branch of the Hitler-Jugend . When he told the Kaltenbachs about it, the Professor looked at him proudly and declared, ‘This is the most sacred moment in the life of any young German.’
    Now the moment had arrived and Peter and his comrades were singing at the top of their voices:
    .
    The Reich with our Führer supreme at its head
    Pursues its relentless crusade without cost
    Come follow us, lad, you are German and proud
    The drums are beating, the banners unfurled.
    .
    The drums were beating, and the trumpeters played a fanfare, their instruments gleaming in the autumn sunshine, black banners with the runic ‘Victory’ symbol unfurled beneath.
    There was something about singing all together, out in the open, which made the boys feel euphoric. Peter had felt something similar in the times he had gone to church at Christmas with his parents. It was a bit like that, but with hundreds of voices rather than a few score in the congregation.
    The song over, a great hush descended on the thousand or so boys gathered on the sports field by Potsdamer Strasse. The grandstand beside the field was also packed with parents and relations.
    Today, the leader of the HJ, Reichs-jugend-führer Artur Axmann, was doing them the honour of making a speech at their induction ceremony.
    At one end of the field a large platform had been erected, and public-address speakers set up on spindly scaffolding. Surrounding the platform were long red and white banners, each embossed with a black swastika. Hitler-Jugend flags from all the Berlin troops hung limply alongside.
    â€˜Troop, stand easy!’ came the grating, metallic command over the speakers. ‘The Reichs-jugend-führer will be among us shortly.’
    The boys were given permission to sit on the dry grass and talk among themselves. Peter was with Gerhart Segur. ‘Shame we couldn’t get Adi here,’ said Segur. The boys had nicknames for all the Nazi leaders. Their adult supervisors tolerated the practice as long as familiarity didn’t spill into disrespect. Adolf Hitler was said to have a particular affection for the youth of Germany, so it seemed right that the boys should call him ‘Adi’.
    Segur leaned closer and whispered, ‘Adi would be much better than Axi. He’s a dreary one, for sure.’
    Peter hushed him. Their squad leader Walter Hertz, a sharp-eyed boy of sixteen, might overhear. Segur could be