The Runaway Family by Diney Costeloe Page B

street, away from the gardens, towards the canal that carried sluggish brown water behind the apartment buildings. There was a path on either side, joined by two bridges that spanned the water giving pedestrian access to the neighbourhood beyond. The children loved to walk by the canal, running ahead of their mother to drop sticks from one bridge into the slow-moving water, and rushing to the other bridge to see them arrive there.
    Ruth had been afraid to let the twins play this game at first, for fear that they might fall into the canal as they raced along the path, but, holding the hand of each, she too ran between the bridges, encouraging the sticks they had dropped. It was harmless fun, it gave the children some exercise, brought a little colour to their cheeks, and laughter to their lives. Nowhere was there a sign banning Jews from the towpath.
    Today when they returned from this excursion, climbing the stairs to the apartment, it felt to Ruth, for the first time, as if they were coming home. She unlocked the door and the children tumbled inside, the girls rushing into their new bedroom, the twins stumping across to the window to watch the streetlamps come on in the quiet street below.
    For the first time since they had arrived in Munich, that night Ruth lay down upon the sofa, and drifted off into an easy sleep. Things were still going to be difficult, she knew that, but as she said her prayers, praying as always for Kurt to come and find them soon, she thought that maybe God was listening to her after all, and she knew the glimmerings of hope. Herbert had left them, but they had a roof, some money and each other. As she had stood beside the children’s beds, the twins, curled up together in the bed like kittens in a basket, Inge flat on her face, one arm thrown over her head and Laura, almost invisible under the quilt, she felt a sudden and overwhelming flood of love for them. Whatever happened, it was her job to protect them.
    The first crash on the door made it shudder. The second splintered the wood around the lock and the third made it swing open drunkenly on its hinges. The noise set the children screaming, and Ruth shot to her feet, her heart hammering. Two men burst into the room, shouting. “Out! Out! Out!”
    At first they were huge, dark figures, bursting into the apartment, making the children scream with terror, but then they were revealed as long-coated, jackbooted storm troopers, carrying guns.
    Behind them was Frau Schultz.
    Ruth and the children had just finished their midday meal and were still round the table.
    One of the men strode through the apartment, peering into each room while the other marched over to Ruth and grabbed her violently by the hair.
    “You’ve got ten minutes to pack,” he growled, yanking at Ruth’s hair so that she gasped in pain. “This place is too good for Jews. Out! The lot of you! Out! Out now!”
    “Where? Where shall we go?” faltered Ruth, leaning towards her captor to try and ease the tearing at her scalp. Her words were almost drowned by the screams of the children, and the other man suddenly backhanded a slap across Inge’s face.
    “Shut up!”
    Inge’s hysterical screams stopped abruptly, and were replaced by a soft whimper. A white-faced Laura gathered the boys into her arms, doing her best to soothe their terrified cries, while struggling to stop her own.
    “You’re terrifying the children,” Ruth stammered. “Please leave them alone. We’ll go if we must, but let me collect their things together.”
    “Ten minutes.” The man released her hair. “And you can only take what you can carry.”
    Frau Schultz walked across to the sofa and sat down, her back erect, her handbag on her knees, watching. Her eyes gleamed with triumph as she said, “And don’t take anything that belongs to me!”
    “To you?” Ruth couldn’t help herself. “Belongs to you?”
    “All this belongs to me now. I’ve earned it!”
    Earned it? Somehow Frau Schultz was