Two Brothers

A Quiet Day at the Store Berlin, 1933

AFTER THEIR DAUGHTER’S flight from the front of the department store, Herr and Frau Fischer were forced by the SA gang to remain on their knees on the pavement for some ten minutes longer.

Collecting torn shreds of Herr Fischer’s vandalized ‘discount’ banner and licking the paving stones until both of them thought they would choke to death.

‘Some water please,’ Frau Fischer croaked, looking upwards at the boys standing over her, who were young enough to have been her sons.

‘What was that, old sow?’ one laughed. ‘Can’t you speak German? I can’t understand you.’

Frau Fischer’s tongue was swollen up and her mouth was filled with grit and dust. She struggled once more to speak.

‘Water, please, for pity’s sake.’

But there was no pity to be had. Her tormentors would have argued that it was not that they lacked heart or conscience, but simply that Jews did not deserve pity. Their crimes were too terrible and their natures too sly. Heartless cruelty towards such Untermenschen was the stern duty of a German patriot.

Only that week in an editorial in the Völkischer Beobachter Herr Goebbels had warned specifically against the temptation to show pity, reminding decent Germans that such weakness was in fact not just weak foolishness, but treason. The Minister of Propaganda pointed out that the cousins of the poor old Jew granny appealing for help in Berlin were sitting in Washington and Moscow, rubbing their hands together with glee and plotting the annihilation of European civilization.

Therefore Frau Fischer simply could not be shown pity for fear of the global threat her blood posed for Germany.

Which was fortunate for the young men towering over her, because there could be no doubt that tormenting helpless creatures was also the best fun.

It was not pity that brought the Fischers’ ordeal to an end but pragmatism. Word of the scene taking place outside the famous department store had spread to the offices on the Wilhelmstrasse, where there were those who understood that such incidents would not look well abroad. And for the time being at least the new German Government, anxious for its voice to be heard in the world, still considered that to be an issue.

As Frau Fischer was begging for water, a second Mercedes pulled up.

Roaring to a halt behind the splendid empty vehicle that had delivered the proud Fischer family to their fate.

From this second car stepped a man in a gabardine coat and wearing a homburg hat, the inevitable ‘tough guy’ look favoured by the Prussian Political and Intelligence Police, who were shortly to be renamed the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo. This gangster-like policeman was followed by another, less stern-looking individual in a lounge suit.

‘You!’ the Gestapo man shouted, flashing his police identification at the SA troop leader.

‘Heil Hitler!’ the SA man shouted back, springing to attention and delivering his stiff-armed salute all at the same time.

‘This necessary action is over. Get these two to their feet.’

The SA man looked a little put out at having his sport curtailed. The official police and the SS to whom they were now attached were much resented by the rank and file of the SA, who considered themselves to be the true inheritors of the Nazi revolution. But orders were orders and that was something that could never be ignored. The troop leader therefore swallowed his disappointment and shouted at his men to pull the Fischers to their feet.

‘That man with the camera,’ the Gestapo officer snapped, ‘bring him to me.’

A man in the crowd who had been taking photographs saw himself pointed out and turned on his heel. He was clearly hoping to be able to get away but wisely chose to stop when ordered to and waited while two troopers pushed their way through the crowd in order to escort him back.

Meanwhile Herr Fischer had shaken himself free from the SA men and now approached the Gestapo officer. Despite his ordeal, the bruising on his face and the disarray of his clothing, Isaac Fischer still managed to carry himself with some dignity.

‘My name…’ he said, speaking with great difficulty. His lips were bleeding, his tongue dry and swollen, and like his wife he was in desperate need of water. ‘My name,’ he repeated, ‘is Isaac Fischer.’

‘I know who you are,’ the Gestapo officer replied curtly. ‘Why are you addressing me?’

Herr Fischer was forced to cough and clear his throat several times before attempting another sentence. A function which provoked a look of utter offence and contempt from the policeman.

‘Because,’ Herr Fischer began, his voice like sandpaper on stone, ‘because you clearly have some authority and I wish to make a complaint.’

There was something of a gasp amongst the crowd. Some surprised at the man’s bravery, others shocked at his effrontery. This was followed by much angry murmuring as word of the Jew’s whining spread.

‘A complaint?’ the officer enquired coldly. ‘What have you to complain about?’

Fischer’s eyes widened. It was a shock. Even in his dazed and battered state he had not expected quite such brutal indifference to his obvious plight. And to that of his wife, a middle-aged woman publicly assaulted by a large gang of young men.

What had he to complain about? He attempted to gather his thoughts to frame an answer to such a question.

Only eight weeks before, the thugs standing behind him would be facing years in prison for what they had done.

‘I have been prevented,’ he said finally, ‘from entering my store by these men.’

‘One moment.’ The Gestapo man turned to the photographer whom the SA troopers had brought from the crowd.

‘But—’ Fischer found himself protesting.

‘You will address me when I give you permission and not otherwise!’ the Gestapo officer snapped, his rising tone giving warning that despite his pretence at formality he was every bit as unpredictable and as dangerous as Fischer’s previous thug tormentors.

Fischer fell silent.

‘Who are you please?’ the officer asked the man with the camera.

‘I am an American citizen,’ the photographer replied in poor German. ‘I am an American citizen, I work for Reuters and these men have no right to be holding on to me.’

‘The camera please,’ the Gestapo officer demanded, holding out a black gloved hand.

‘Absolutely not! I am an accredited news photog—’

At a nod from the Gestapo, one of the SA troopers snatched the man’s camera, which had been hanging around his neck on a leather strap, and handed it over to the officer.

‘That camera is the property of…’ the American protested, but then did not bother to complete his sentence, there being no point because even as he spoke the Gestapo officer took the film from the camera and exposed every frame of it. He then returned both the camera and the ruined film to their owner.

‘And here is your property returned to you. Everything is in order, is it not?’ the officer said. ‘My colleague from the Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda will be happy to answer any further questions you might have regarding the necessary police action you have just witnessed.’

The American was led protesting from the scene, the civilian who had arrived in the same car as the Gestapo man following him, already firing off a series of rapid excuses and qualifications.

‘Jewish provocation,’ the man from the Propaganda Ministry could be heard saying. ‘An essential containment action in order to maintain public order… Jews required to clean up results of their own vandalism.’

The Gestapo officer turned back to the Fischers.

‘So, you will now get inside your shop,’ he said.

‘Sir,’ Herr Fischer began, ‘you are clearly a policeman. These troopers have acted illegally. The boycott is voluntary…’

‘Herr Fischer.’ The Gestapo man spoke quietly now. Leaning forward, bringing his face quite close to Fischer’s, conveying more menace than ever mere shouting would have done. ‘You have been given an order by an officer of the Prussian Political Police. I suggest you follow it immediately. Otherwise I will have you arrested for a breach of public order and, believe me, you do not wish these men to take you into their custody. Now, Jew, take your Jew wife and get inside your Jew shop.’

Frau Fischer tugged gently at her husband’s arm.

‘Come, Isaac,’ she croaked, ‘please, they are releasing us. And I must have water.’

Herr Fischer made a small bow, then taking his wife’s hand turned away from his tormentor. With stumbling step and aching knees weakened by their ordeal on the pavement, they made their way towards the multiple glass-front doors of their store.

It was 9.05.

Thirty-five minutes late.

Thirty-five minutes later than the Fischer department store had ever been opened in all its history.

The doors swung open as the Fischers approached them.

Shocked, white faces awaited them, cowering behind the glass. Such familiar faces, made strange with fear.

The doorman.

A store detective.

The senior under-manager, due to retire in only two weeks’ time after forty years of service. His gift was already at the engraver’s.

All the Jewish members of the Fischer’s staff were there. Making do to cover the numerous tills, waiting behind their counters, as they had all been waiting since 8.15 that morning, in theoretical anticipation of a visit from the Empress Augusta Viktoria.

Lovely young people. Fine, upstanding young people. Smartly turned out in their matching outfits. The girls with little caps that Frau Fischer had designed herself.

But no customers. A ghost shop. Silent during business hours for the first time in its history.

The beautiful, sparkling, tastefully sumptuous store was like a film set just before the extras were ordered to their places. As if some unseen director was about to shout ‘action’ and flood the aisles and counters with hundreds of eager shoppers.

Herr Fischer attempted to smile and even found his voice, or at least a croaking semblance of it.

‘Thank you all for coming,’ he said. ‘I hope that you will stay at your positions in expectation of later trade.’

Then, still holding his wife’s hand, he began to make his way across the floor.

Some of the girls gave way to tears as the injured couple passed. The young men too looked shaken and close to breaking. The Fischers seemed to notice this and attempted to hold their heads up a little, giving a small nod or the hint of a smile to various of the longer-serving employees.

On they walked through the tension and the silence. Their footsteps ringing on the polished marble floor. The sole sound in that great and splendid room.

Past porcelain and china. Perfumery.

Cosmetics. Small leather goods. Luggage. Stationery. Sticks, canes and umbrellas.

Through the glass central arcade where stood the food hall and restaurant. The very Konditorei from which Dagmar had chosen her chocolate cake to take to the Stengels, seven years before, and again just weeks ago on their birthday.

Past the famous escalators. Those mighty moving stairways which all Berlin had marvelled at and admired when the old Herr Fischer had installed them. Which Crown Prince Willy himself had opened and which every day since had thronged with shoppers, but which were empty now.

Empty but running.

Making their rumbling, vacant progress, up and down, up and down from 8.30 till 6.00, with only ghosts to ride them.

Finally Herr and Frau Fischer arrived at the elevators in the far wall of the building.

Herr Fischer turned to his wife, addressing her for the first time since they had been assaulted. ‘We must go to the office and begin telephoning, my dear. We must find Dagmar.’

‘Begging your pardon, Herr Fischer,’ the under-manager interjected softly, ‘but Fräulein Fischer was seen by the staff members who were assembled at the south doors. She’d been running from the disgraceful scene at the main entrance when she once more found herself in the grip of those villains. However, it seems that two boys got her away. Only young lads but somehow they were able to extricate the Fräulein from the Sturmabteilung and get her on to an east-bound street car, sir.’

‘Ah,’ Herr Fischer nodded and it seemed as if the ghost of a smile might be playing on his scabbed and bloodied lips, ‘then, my dear, I think we may know where she is gone.’

That night, alone in their bedroom, Paulus and Otto made a pact.

They swore to themselves and to each other that no matter what happened, no matter what Hitler tried to do to them, they would protect Dagmar.

It would be their mission in life.

They would be her brave knights in shining armour, she their damsel in distress.

Their own lives meant nothing, their only value was that they be placed in the service of the girl they loved. Somehow or other the Stengel boys would protect their princess and see that she survived this fire-breathing dragon which threatened to devour them all.

Hitler wouldn’t get her.

They would be her shield.