Free The Runaway Family by Diney Costeloe Page A

necessary for a family like his.”
    “A family like his?” Ruth spoke with the utmost scorn. “Does he really think he’s too well connected to be in any danger? Does he think the Nazis pay any attention to that? He’s a Jew. All Jews are at risk.” Ruth pulled Leah Meyer’s letter out of her pocket and handed it to Herbert. “Read that,” she said. “Jews are being rounded up and sent to this dreadful camp, well the men are anyway, and they are only being allowed out if they agree to leave Germany for good. Kurt is in this camp… at least I assume he is, as he was arrested the same night as Martin Rosen. God knows if he will be offered the same chance to leave, but in the meantime things are getting worse, you know they are. Look what she says here, ‘terror stalks the streets’, she means the Gestapo.”
    “I know it, you know it. But there’s nothing we can do about it except keep out of the way.”
    “That’s not going to work forever,” Ruth said. “Only today when I was out with the children we heard them marching towards us. There was nowhere to hide, and as they came towards us those dreadful boots they wear crashing on the road, they sounded like an enemy army. They took no notice of us this time, but I was terrified for the children.”
    “You shouldn’t be taking them out,” Herbert said.
    “I have to. They can’t stay prisoners in here all day and every day. Oh Herbert, I wish I knew what to do!”
    Herbert nodded wearily. “So do I,” he said.
    Ruth hardly slept that night, churning everything over in her mind, considering and discarding ideas as to what they might do. Herbert losing his job meant that his income had dried up, which meant that hers had too. What were they going to live on? How was she going to feed four hungry children, not to mention herself and Herbert? It wasn’t just money for food that she had to find. The winter was coming, they would need warm clothes. She could try and get work herself, but there were so few jobs, and almost none that might be given to a Jew. Ruth didn’t mind hard work, would welcome it if it meant that her children were warm and fed, but she knew there would be little on offer.
    And even if I can get work, she wondered, who’ll look after the children? It’ll have to be Laura; though she’s only ten, she’ll have to look after them if I do manage to find something.
    Herbert might be more lucky, she thought. He, unlike her with her dark hair and eyes, her slightly hooked nose and wide mouth, was not so obviously Jewish. He might find himself a job of some sort, even if not the kind of work he was used to. He won’t be able to be choosy about what he does, she thought. He’ll have to take anything that’s offered.
    At last she drifted off into fitful sleep, from which she woke in the morning, un-refreshed, her eyes as heavy as her heart.
    Herbert left at his usual time next morning, as if he were going to the office. Ruth was pleased he did, it prevented any awkward questions from Laura, who was quite old enough and bright enough to notice a change in routine. At the end of the week he gave Ruth her usual housekeeping money, but though he had been looking for work every day, he told her, “There’s no work for anyone. I did call on Herr Durst again, but he was not at home.”
    “Not at home, or not at home to you?” asked Ruth.
    Herbert shrugged. “It’s all one when it comes down to it,” he said. “He’s not going to be able to give me any work, even if he gets something set up for himself. He has two sons. They will keep anything like that in the family. It’s everyone for himself these days.”
    Ruth could only agree with him. There had been unrest all over the country, though not, thank goodness, in their immediate locality. All Jews were constantly looking over their shoulders now. Frau Meyer’s words lived in her mind: “terror stalks our streets”. Ruth, like almost all Jews, had become more and more aware of the