Free The French War Bride by Robin Wells Page B

father’s business, at our neighbors’ homes were all broken that night. And afterward, the military relentlessly preyed on the Jewish community. They would stop us and make us do stupid things.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œThey made an elderly woman who lived across the street hop on one leg while carrying water. They made an old man crawl down the street.”
    I put my hand over my mouth.
    â€œThey repeatedly vandalized our property and looted my father’s store. They confiscated insurance payments for the damage they had inflicted, saying we were responsible for the destruction. We decided to emigrate. Father thought Paris would be the best location to open another store. But the Germans did not make it easy for Jews to travel. We had to get a visa and have documents approved, and to do so, we had to pay bribe after bribe. Delay piled upon delay.”
    Joshua’s hand curled tight around his coffee cup. “In order to emigrate, we had to agree to leave everything behind and to pay extraordinarily high ‘taxes.’ In the end, we had only a little money—maybe enough for a few weeks of food, but not enough to start over. But by then, it didn’t matter. The situation was so bad that it was impossible to stay. We were so glad that at last we had all the required papers.”
    I barely dared to breathe. His eyes had a faraway look, and I was afraid that if I interrupted, he would end the conversation as he always had before. This time, he kept talking.
    â€œThe night before we left, I went to say good-bye to a girl. She and I . . . well, we were romantically involved. It is a mistake I will regret all of my life. I should not have left my family.”
    â€œWhy?” I gently prodded.
    â€œWhen I got back, my mother was hysterical, and my sister . . .” He put his hand to his forehead and rubbed between his eyes. “She was catatonic. My father—he was lying in the hallway, on what looked like a red carpet. It took me a moment to realize it was a pool of blood, and he was dead.”
    â€œMon Dieu! What had happened?”
    â€œThree German soldiers had come to check our house, supposedly to see what goods we were leaving behind. The real reason, I believe, is that they were looking for me. That night, they rounded up all young Jewish men in our neighborhood and sent them to concentration camps.”
    I reflexively started to make the sign of the cross, then stopped myself.
    â€œMy father didn’t want to let the soldiers in. This, of course, angered them. They forced the door, then saw my sister. My father tried to get her to run. This infuriated them more. They tied my sister to the bed, strapped my parents to chairs and then, they . . .” He ran his hand down his face. “They raped her. All three of them, one after the other, like dogs, while my parents watched. My father broke free—how he managed, my mother says she does not know; outrage and courage must have given him supernatural strength. He charged—Mama said he was like a bull. They shot him, then they left.
    â€œAn elderly neighbor came over as soon as I arrived home. He had been watching the house from across the street. He’s the one who toldus the Nazis were rounding up young Jewish men that very night. I wanted stay and bury my father, but my sister was out of her mind with terror and shock, and my mother was hysterical, and the neighbor insisted we go. We took only what we could carry. We walked and walked and walked until we reached a train station in the suburbs of Vienna, a neighborhood where no one expected to see a Jew, so no one was looking—and with our papers, the papers we had given everything for—well, we were able to catch a train to Paris.”
    He looked up at me. “So. That is my story. That is how I came to be here. That is how I know the Nazis are brutal beyond belief.”
    â€œYour sister—you told me