Two Brothers

Aryan-free Zone Berlin, 1935

ONE DAY PAULUS and Otto arrived at school to be informed that their classroom was to be segregated. The form-master made the announcement in the gravest and most self-important of tones, standing at the head of the room in front of the photograph of Hitler. Both the master and Führer looked stern and resolute as together they shouldered the heavy and heroic burden of belittling and terrorizing defenceless juveniles.

‘It has been declared intolerable,’ the master pronounced, ‘that any German child should be forced into association with Jews in our public schools. The Jew children will therefore be put apart, sitting only amongst their own kind in those seats which have been generously allocated for their use.’

Then the teacher read out the names of the six boys in the class who were Jews, even though everybody was already well aware who they were. He read the names slowly, pausing between each in order to frame his face into a nasty sneer and to shake his head. Making the boys stand up as their names were called.

‘You Jews,’ he solemnly intoned, evoking a phrase which was used daily in every classroom in the country, ‘are Germany’s misfortune. You six standing amongst us now are Germany’s misfortune. You are poisonous mushrooms.’

It was a brutal and deliberately demeaning slur. He was quoting from a kindergarten book called The Poisonous Mushroom, which was the first book every child in Germany, including Jewish children, encountered when starting school.

‘We know,’ the teacher continued, ‘from our classes in Racial Science that just as in a field there are good and bad “races” of mushroom, so it is with the various human “races”. Some human “races” are poisonous and some are not. Jewish humans are, of course, the most poisonous race of all. And remember, boys, just as with mushrooms, sometimes the most poisonous of all look the most harmless. Many an innocent woodsman has died having believed a mushroom that he picked was safe. And the body of our nation has for too long thought the Jews were harmless. Just as these six who have studied amongst us all these years have always seemed so.’

The teacher paused in his lecture while the six boys stood and waited.

‘And what of you? Hartmann?’ the teacher added, turning to a nervous-looking lad sitting at a desk amongst his friends. ‘Do you know what a hybrid is? Of course you do. You will have learnt in your biology class that in the animal world creatures stick to their own species. A herd of chamois never allows itself to be led by a deer. A cock starling only mates with a hen starling. When creatures cross-breed, unnatural, mongrel hybrids are produced which combine in themselves only the worst qualities of each species. This is science, boys! Pure and simple science and in you, Hartmann, we have a scientific example of just such a species hybrid. A half-breed. A mongrel. Stand up.’

The boy Hartmann rose to his feet. Face blazing red with shame. His friends sitting around him looked puzzled and embarrassed. Most looked away.

‘The mother of this half-breed is a Jewess,’ the teacher went on, ‘and so the German blood of the father is corrupted in this boy. Irredeemably corrupted. Hartmann is a Mischling. A mongrel child of mixed races. And he will sit with the Jews until his status has been clarified in law. From today all these seven boys are to be separate. Their presence in the classroom will be tolerated but no more. German pupils are forbidden to associate with them. They are the poisonous mushrooms.’

It was quite a shock. The class had been together since kindergarten and such a division went across numerous relationships and a lot of shared history. However, the vilification of the Jews had been so constant and all-pervasive over the previous two years that many old friendships had long since been severed and it was already a brave boy who maintained a foot in both camps.

The six Jewish boys and the single Mischling took up their books and went to their corner. Heads bowed, understanding very well that another step was being taken towards a time when their lives would become unliveable. Six of the boys sat down at their desks. One, however, remained standing.

‘Sit down, Otto Stengel,’ the master ordered.

Otto did not sit down, but instead stood foursquare with his hands on his hips.

‘I have something to say,’ he announced.

‘Then say it at break-time. Sit down and open your books.’

‘I’ll say it now.’

Paulus tugged at Otto’s blazer.

‘Otts, sit down,’ he hissed. ‘Please.’

But Paulus knew he could not stop Otto. Whatever his brother wanted to do he would do and damn the consequences. The killing of Karlsruhen (about which they rarely spoke but often thought) had of course affected both boys deeply but in opposite ways. For Paulus the memory of that desperate, horrifying action and its aftermath had made him even more careful, more calculating. Determined always to have a plan, to take the path of least resistance towards the most beneficial result. It was not that he lacked passion; he hated the enemy no less than Otto and felt every humiliation just as deeply. But he also understood that pride and hot-headedness were not only the enemy of survival but also the enemy of revenge.

‘The trick to beating them,’ he often told his brother, ‘is not to try and kill them but to stop them killing us.’

Otto, on the other hand, had drawn an angry strength from their victory over their mother’s attacker. His family had been attacked and they had successfully defended themselves. That was the lesson. If he had been reckless before he was more so now. He had killed one. He had tasted their blood. He knew that if you fought them you could hurt them.

The brutal imprisonment of their father had also affected the boys differently. Paulus tried very hard not to think about it, because when he did he was so overcome by fear and misery that he could scarcely function at all. He knew that the best and only way he could support his father was by helping his mother. By keeping going. Working hard at school and hard at the practical task of day-to-day survival.

Otto instead dwelt constantly on his father’s plight and it constantly enraged him. Filling him with an overwhelming fury that made him fearless.

And so now, empowered by the blood on his hands and the misery of his father, Otto faced down his teacher and his classmates.

‘This,’ Otto said, making a sweeping gesture to the seven Jewish seats, ‘is an Aryan-free zone! You are all prohibited from entering it since no Jewish boy should be forced to associate with you. This order,’ Otto barked, in impersonation of the man in the photograph that hung on the wall, ‘is my unalterable will!’

The stunned silence that followed such shocking insolence lasted perhaps two seconds. Just long enough for Paulus to manoeuvre his chair so that his back was to the wall.

Then mayhem ensued.

It is true that some of the ‘German’ boys found Otto’s protest funny and had laughed, one or two even banged their desklids. But a sufficient number were outraged and formed an instant squad of retribution. Eight boys in all leapt to their feet and piled on to Otto. Even with such weighted odds the attackers didn’t have it all their own way. Otto was solid muscle and due to his boxing lessons knew how to use it. Also the space was limited and obstructed by desks so the full force of the attackers could not be brought to bear. The first two boys were knocked down before the others were able to close on Otto and drag him to the floor. Meanwhile Paulus had leapt to his feet and was attempting to fend off other boys who had made their way around the desks in order to attack the twins from the flank. Paulus knew of course that there was no way of his keeping out of the fight. Since kindergarten everyone in the school had recognized that the Stengel boys came as a pair.

It took the master and two more teachers from next-door classrooms to break up the mêlée and then only by wading in and flailing about themselves wildly with their canes. When some order had been restored Otto was hauled to the front of the class, where he stood, wiping blood from his face and staring down his attackers through swollen eyes with fierce belligerence.

‘You will attend the headmaster’s office immediately, Stengel,’ the master shouted, ‘where I have no doubt you will be beaten and then expelled.’

‘Too late,’ Otto spat back through his bloody lips, ‘I quit! Otto erwacht!’ he shouted in imitation of the Germany Awake slogan so beloved of the Nazis. ‘You stole my father! You’re not keeping me.’ And with that Otto walked out of the classroom, never to return.

The master turned to Paulus, his lip trembling with fury at this Jewish affront.

‘Well, Paulus Stengel?’ he said. ‘Have you anything to add?’

‘No, sir, absolutely not, sir!’ Paulus replied, snapping to attention. ‘I am very happy to sit in whichever seat the school chooses in its generosity to allow me, sir! Also I apologize unreservedly for my brother’s disgraceful display. He is stupid and hot-headed but he will learn his place, I swear, and until then I beg that you forgive him his foolishness.’

‘Well then, Jew,’ the master said, pleased as ever to be grovelled to, ‘you may return to your books.’