THE SEARCH
From the Book “Arch of Fire” Copyright 1995
It was a Sunday in early June 1939, about twenty minutes before ten in the morning.
My parents liked to linger in bed on Sundays. They talked, even sang a song together before getting up and making breakfast. After all, Sundays were different from weekdays. With all the work that my father had to do, with all the traveling, and all the help my mother gave him – all that she did in addition to taking care of the house and raising me, they deserved some morning peace and quiet. And I was quite happy about those late Sunday mornings. Our radio played classical music from ten until eleven; I liked that music. Probably my father would rather have heard operettas, but it did not matter: He was occupied in their bedroom. So I enjoyed these mornings.
On this occasion, a finch sang in the quince tree outside of my window. I imagined the bird appreciated my music and was singing along. The window was wide open and fresh spring air was gently moving the lace window curtains back and forth.
Finally, I heard my parents getting up. They were beginning to make breakfast. On Sundays, I was allowed to come to breakfast in a robe. I still had time. I decided not to join them right away – I did not yet want to interrupt that warm, pleasant, sunny feeling.
So I stayed in bed. Suddenly, there was a harsh pounding on the front door. The doorbell rang insistently at the same time.
My mother opened the door. Three men pushed her out of the way and forced themselves into our hallway. Even though I was only wearing a nightshirt, I ran to see what was happening. A five year old runs around without being fully dressed – it doesn’t matter.
I knew one of those three men: the local policeman. He seemed just a bit embarrassed. From time to time we had spoken a few words with him, always on the street outside, nothing important. But we lived in a suburb of only eight hundred people, and we knew about all of the inhabitants of the town, more or less.
The second intruder also seemed a bit familiar. But I was not sure. Maybe all of those who wore brown Nazi shirts and black boots looked the same. But the third one – I knew I had never seen him before. He was wearing a suit, and he stared at me with angry, unpleasant eyes. “We are going to search the house!” he barked at nobody in particular. Somehow he looked and acted as though he was more important than the other two. He opened all the doors leading from the hallway to other rooms, I guess to
orient himself. “Where is the basement?”
My father had finished dressing and emerged from the bedroom. “Can I help you?” he asked in a tone of voice I had not heard before. “What are you doing here on a Sunday morning?”
“We are going to search your house!” the important one barked again. He reminded me of that angry hound a neighbor kept tied up in the yard. One day that dog had torn off a piece of my playmate’s ear. This man would do something like that!
He stared at my father. Now he sounded sarcastic: “We are going to get you!” His hand moved horizontally across his neck as though he was cutting off his own head. A triumphant look crept over his face.
They started searching. Books were flying off our shelves. They found nothing behind those books except bare walls. Nothing behind the cabinets in the study – except a little dust. The drawers were ripped out of my father’s desk – I would even have been afraid to pull them out gently! I would never have touched the contents of those drawers! But these three were not bothered by anything!
They found only supplies and some papers related to my father’s work, nothing that was of interest to them. Next they marched into my bedroom. The bed had not yet been made and the radio was still playing.The man in the suit looked suspiciously at the radio. “That is a big radio,” he said. “You can listen to foreign stations with that thing. You know that is forbidden. You must trade it for a People’s Radio, one that receives only German stations!” He looked expectantly at my father, but there was no response.
So he and the other two continued to search. But our local policeman only made believe that he was searching for things. I don’t think he was paying attention to anything he was touching. He seemed terribly uncomfortable.
I would have loved to know what they were looking for… If I had known, I would have hurried to hide it better, very quickly. But I was too young to know all the things that were or were not allowed during the Nazi years.
I watched the three men – from some distance, of course. It seemed so strange that they would just push themselves into the house – that they would throw everything around. I did not like it. Well, I thought, sometimes grown-ups are hard to understand. They don’t make sense. These people did not even let us eat our breakfast! And I was getting hungry. At that moment it did not occur to me that they could find something “illegal” – and that the consequences could be terrible. But, then, I remembered a few books on the shelf. The dust covers had been changed. The books inside were forbidden. The covers outside were taken from books that were allowed. It was curious, the Nazis had already searched our house several times. They had just been through the book shelves all over again, yet they never thought that the books might be different than their jackets. “They must be pretty stupid,” I thought.
I was vaguely aware that there would be other things, hidden things, that were illegal too. But I was too young to know exactly what those things might be, and I certainly did not know where they might be hidden.The one object that I knew could displease them was that sad picture in the hallway. It was a lithograph, an old painting that had recently become a protest picture against Hitler. Actually, I had never liked the picture: it was too sad. An old woman was sitting on a park bench, in Vienna I think, crying bitterly. Her husband had put his arm around her shoulders and was staring into the distance. He didn’t look happy either. He did not try to comfort her. The whole scene was so unpleasant!
Just the previous week, I had asked my mother about the picture. “Why do we have to have such a sad picture?”
“Those are people who used to live in South Tirol. At the end of the World War, southern Tirol was given to the Italians. They call it Alto Adige. And now Hitler has finally given their home away forever, because he wants Mussolini to be his friend. Now the old woman and that old man are sitting in a park in Vienna. They don’t have a home anymore.
I could understand why those two would be sad. If someone had chased me away from my home town, I would have been unhappy too.
“But, don’t tell the story of that picture to anyone,” my mother reminded me, “we are not supposed to have such a picture.”
I got the message. I had learned long ago that anything we would say at home was not to be repeated anywhere else.
The three men had been in the basement. They had inspected our supply of coal, whatever was left from heating the house in the winter. They had looked at canned foods. They came back upstairs. The entire house was an unbelievable mess. I was not the most orderly child in the world, but this kind of mess was awful, even for me. Sure, my mother had to remind me from time to time to put away my toys. But in comparison to those three, I was extremely good about cleaning up!
The angry man in the suit had come into the kitchen and moved very close to my mother, nearly pushing her into the wall. His eyes were hard, yet mocking.
“Where are you hiding everything?” he wanted to know.
“What are you looking for?”
Now he yelled; “You know perfectly well what we are looking for! Don’t pretend innocence!”
“Nearly like Kafka” she mentioned under her breath as he turned away.
“Nearly like what?” he screamed. I guess he had never heard of Kafka. As a five year old, I had not heard of him either. The civilian’s face had turned bright red. He looked intently at the walls in the room. His eyes stopped when he saw the sad picture through the open kitchen door. I was scared and started to tremble a little. I had a funny feeling in my stomach.
“What kind of picture is that?” he demanded.
“A lithograph.”
“I know that!” He seemed in thought for a minute. “That is such nonsense,” he continued with sharp anger in his voice. “We are living in Germany’s finest hour. Our armies will conquer the world. Adolf Hitler has made all that possible. This is a glorious time. His picture should hang there, not such sad nonsense! If you had the sense to hang up a beautiful picture of Adolf Hitler, instead of that kind of garbage, we probably would not have to search your house! But that is something you will probably never learn!”
He turned and the other two followed him. As he opened the front door on the way out, he looked back: “Next time we will surely get you! Then you’ve all had it! Heil Hitler!”
They were gone. My parents looked at each other, with much love, yet very somberly. I pushed myself closer to my mother. Somehow I was still afraid. And still hungry. That comment about the picture, that it is much too sad…, I thought he was right about that.
But everything else they had said and done…..
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