Tightrope!

An Award-Winning True Story

Berlin, November 9, 1938

Kurfürstendamm, the most glamorous street in Germany, lay empty, as if all of mankind had disappeared. In front of the elegant stores, the sidewalk presented a playground for the turbulent November wind. A forgotten scrap of paper danced a minuet with a few heart-shaped leaves, and a single black Opel sedan sped by.

A shiver sped along Margot’s spine. She peered out of the large display window of Busch’s Fashion House, looking for the source of the strange rumbling she’d just heard. Her shoulder hit the corner of the sign warning shoppers that this was a Jewish store. She bit her lip and rubbed the sore spot.

The noise, like the distant murmur of many voices, swelled. On the wall, the clock ticked off the minutes until closing time. Karin, the first-year apprentice, swept the floor, adding a soft rustle. Margot pushed the sign to the side and squinted at the empty sidewalk. This time of the afternoon, crowds in fur coats and the latest hats should be strolling along the sidewalks, admiring the newest fashions and visiting the bars and cafés interspersed among the stores.

Her skin tingled as though static electricity filled the air, and she rubbed her bare arms. A goose had just walked over her grave, as her mother always said. In the glass, her reflection frowned at her, a dark-eyed young woman, face framed in black curls. The image of young Karin joined hers, frizzy peroxide hair in bright contrast to Margot’s. She focused on the street again. Something peculiar was going on. She pushed a silken dress out of her line of sight and squinted around the thick trunks of the linden trees that obscured her vision.

Karin stopped sweeping. “That sounds like squealing,”

“I hear it, too.”

The sounds separated into screams and yells, accented with a musical pinging.

Karin turned back to the sales floor. “Hey, everybody!” she called.

“Something strange is going on outside.”

From the back room, Sarah and Dotty joined them, their skirts swishing. Marianne, in her sage Vionnet suit, which accented her auburn hair and milky skin, came from Frau Busch’s office.

“What’s happening?” Sarah asked.

Karin said, “Shhh, listen.”

Margot now made out rowdy laughter, screams, barked commands, and over it all, a musical jangling. She couldn’t come up with an explanation for this strange mix of noises.

The voices became clearer. A shadowy mass beyond the tree trunks turned into a screaming and yelling mob of people. Young men in brown Hitler Youth uniforms threw rocks at a building Margot couldn’t see and yelled, “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Juden raus! Jews get out!” The sharp plinking of breaking glass underscored their words.

A red-faced housewife ran across the street, her disheveled hair flapping in the breeze. Uniformed men followed.

Margot held her breath. This shouldn’t be happening. Her stepfather Max and her mother had said it over and over, once the Nazi rabble got used to having power, conditions would get better for Jews.

Margot stepped away and hugged herself. “I think they’re coming to our store.”

Marianne raised her hand to her mouth.  “That can’t be. We’re the most important fashion store in the city.”

“Do you think that matters?” Margot said. “This isn’t aimed just at the stores, but at the Jewish people that own them and work in them. We need to do something!”

Karin raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Marianne frowned at her. “Wait. They’ll pass by, you’ll see.”

Frau Busch’s office door opened, and the girls’ boss hurried toward them. “This is bad.” The knuckles on her fists shone white. “Ladies, our business day is over.” Her voice rose. “Gather your things and go home. I need to lock the doors. Schnell!”

The girls stared at her, frozen like the mannequins in the window. Frau Busch never let them go home early.

“Go!” Frau Busch repeated. “Hurry! Use the back door.”

Margot ran to get her coat and hat. She searched the rack above the coat hangers. Where was her purse? She must have left it on the chair in the dressing room when she modeled that new suit earlier.

While the other girls rushed past her out the back door, she turned and raced to the dressing room. I’m a fool, she thought. I need to leave too. But she ignored her own advice and went on. She’d prove to herself and everybody else that she wasn’t afraid. After all, she was only half-Jewish. Besides, her purse was brand new and expensive. She pulled the dressing room door open. There it was on the bench, made of soft nappa leather in charcoal gray to match her coat. She grabbed it and sprinted back through the empty sales floor. A noise from Frau Busch’s office told her she wasn’t the last to leave. She stopped at the rack, grabbed her coat, and slipped into it.

The harsh sound of squealing brakes made her look back at the window. She froze, one arm in her coat. Two large trucks had stopped in front of the store, loaded with men in brown uniforms. Men and women, dressed in coveralls and cheap coats, milled around, screaming and yelling. A short, skinny youth with glasses jumped from one of the trucks.

This man looked familiar. She blinked. It was Hans. In fourth grade, Hans had a crush on her. During recess, he used to give her small bouquets of buttercups he picked along the school ground’s fence. What was he doing here? Margot shrugged into the other arm of her coat and stepped from the shadow of the rack, but then she hesitated. This wasn’t grammar school, and she’d better not let the crowd outside the window see her. She shrank back into the protective darkness.

Hans resembled an overgrown monkey in his Hitler Youth uniform. He struggled with a large wooden post. Three older men, also in uniform, followed, like a distorted version of circus clowns, but instead of hoops and balls, they carried a carpet beater and metal rods.

More men in uniform jumped from the trucks. Margot’s vision of a circus parade vanished. The Nazis waved bats, sticks, canes, anything that could harm and destroy. Their harsh voices shouted, “Judenschweine raus! Jewish pigs leave! Heil Hitler! Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!”

Hans swung his fence post through the window. Glass exploded in glittering shards.

Something in Margot’s mind gibbered at her to leave, but her limbs didn’t obey. As if in a trance, she stood fixed in this dark corner. In spite of the warmth in the store, she felt cold, as if she’d never be warm again.

Sounding like thousands of small chimes, shattered glass rained to the ground. The hoarse laughter of the crazed men gave a chilling counterpoint to the delicate sound.

Margot trembled. If Hans and his cohorts saw her, they might do more than merely hit and kick her. The downy hair on her neck stiffened and she gulped. Still, she couldn’t move. All she could do was squeeze deeper into the welcoming shadows. With shaking hands, she tried to button her coat.

At the back door, Frau Busch dug frantically in her purse. A strand of her chignon had come lose and obscured her face.

What would happen to her boss if they found her? Frau Busch was always fair and treated everybody with dignity. She was a hundred times better than these so-called Aryans outside, acting like a murder of crows.

Margot whispered, “Will you be all right?”

“I don’t know.” A quaver distorted Frau Busch’s voice. “Go, go. We need to get out of here.” She tugged her keys out of her purse and dropped them.

Margot’s hands shook, but she stood still in her dark niche and hid like a cornered fox. Men and women trampled over the glass shards, pressed through the shattered window, and tore the dresses from the mannequins.

A big-chested teenager, her mouth open and eyes bulging, pulled a French fur-collared dress over her head. As she squeezed into the too small dress, buttons popped off and flew in every direction.

A short, heavy matron wrenched an Italian silk blouse out of the hands of a skinny blonde. “It’s mine, mine!” she screamed.

The expensive blouse ripped and Margot shuddered. They can’t even loot successfully. This Hitler-loving mob can only destroy. They want what belongs to people they don’t understand, and because they can’t have what the Jews have, call them inferior. She thought of her Jewish father, dead now so many years, and a flash of pride coursed through her.

A movement at the corner of her eyes caught her attention. Hans pushed through the display window and gaped into the store. His eyes fastened on her. “Margot?” he said, uncertainty in his voice.

Margot returned his stare. He used to be such a nice boy. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

Before he could answer, Frau Busch grabbed Margot by the arm and pulled her toward the rear door.

Margot took a deep breath and followed her. She should have kept her big mouth shut. This boy, who once confessed his love for her, would now call the others’ attention to her. The image of her lifeless body lying curled up on the glass-strewn showroom floor burst into her mind. Breathlessly, she ran after Frau Busch.

Outside, she gasped when the cold hit her.

Screams of, “Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! Juden raus! Jews out!” echoed through the streets and pursued her for several minutes, a reminder of a world gone insane. She fled along the back street, only slowing when she smelled the acrid scent of smoke.