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| About the Book |
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| read an extract |
This
extract is part of the second chapter – I hope
you enjoy it.
1939
Eight-year-old
friends, Jana and Eva, happy carefree children, are playing in the square in
Prague when a strange sound brings their attention back to the world around
them – the distant drumming of many feet marching in unison.
The
fear of the recent, hushed talk of danger to all Jewish people that they have
heard amongst the grownups grips them as the German soldiers come into view.
At first, nothing changed but . . .
“It
began with finding her Máma sitting at the kitchen table sewing for all she was
worth. ‘Máma, why are you sewing those yellow stars onto all of our clothes?’
‘Hush,
Jana, I . . .’
Poppa
came through the door at that moment. ‘No, Marie, we must prepare Jana . . .’
Jana
felt apprehension creep into her. ‘Prepare me for what, Tat . . . Poppa?’
‘Call
me whatever sounds best for you, my dear.’ Poppa put his arm around her. ‘I
should not have tried to make you American. You are Czech and should be as
proud of your heritage as I am of mine.’
‘But
I am half American, Poppa, and I like to call you Poppa; I just forget
sometimes.’
Poppa
took her into his arms. His suit jacket felt rough against her skin, but she
didn’t mind. She liked the smell of his aftershave; it was something she never
wanted to forget, nor the feel of his arms, and looking at his huge hands with
lovely, clean nails – unlike most of her friends’ Tatas, who worked at
labouring jobs and had rough hands – often with dirty nails.
She
looked up into her poppa’s handsome face, where his black hair fell forward
over his forehead, almost covering his dark eyes. Eyes that now shone with love
for her but also twinkled with tears. The sight of one of the tears trickling
over, hurt her heart.
‘What’s
wrong, Poppa?’
Poppa
released her and crouched down beside her. ‘Jana, my darling girl, we are going
to have to be very brave. The Germans hate us because of our Jewish faith, but
we will never give that up for them. To mark us as the hated ones, they demand
that we wear the yellow star of David on our clothes and that it must always be
visible.’
‘Why,
Poppa, why do they hate us?’
‘It
is complicated, my dear one. Some say that Hitler fears us, that he believes
that our people, along with the communists, betrayed Germany in the last war
and led them to defeat; others say that it is our religion that he hates. Like
all Catholics, he believes that it was the Jews who brought pressure to bear on the Romans to
kill Jesus.’
‘And
Jesus is their God. Don’t they have a God now?’
Jana
listened, fascinated by all her poppa told her about Jesus. ‘So, Jesus is fake,
someone they worship, who they only think of as the son of God?’
‘No.
He is not fake. But we consider him simply as a good person. He did many good
things and should be loved for them. But he did not fulfil all that a son of
God should do. He didn’t bring a period of
universal peace, nor the rebuilding of the Third Temple, and the one promise
that would have meant so much to us was not fulfilled: the ingathering of all
Jews to Israel. However, we still love and respect Jesus and often pray to him.
Not as the son of God, but as a good man who is certain to be
in heaven.’
All of this went over little Jana’s
head, except that she still couldn’t understand why she should be hated for
what Hitler thought other Jews had done a very long time ago.
Máma threw a little light on it with
her theory: ‘They hate how successful we are, how we club together to help each
other achieve the riches of the land that can be everyone’s if they work hard.
They look on us as owning everything worth owning and eating well, while they
scrape a measly living out of the dregs they were left with after the Great
War. They ignore the charity we extend to them and look on it as an insult!’
Though this explained the German race’s
antagonism towards her people, she still didn’t understand why they should have
to wear a yellow star. ‘Will I have to wear the star on my school clothes,
Máma?’
Poppa cleared his throat and held her
tighter. ‘There is no more school for you and Eva, little one. Jewish children
can no longer attend school.’
This shook Jana to her bones, and with
how Máma gasped out Poppa’s name, ‘Jan, no!’ Jana knew it was a shock to her,
too.
Jana’s body trembled with the fear that had returned to her.***
Poppa looked over at Máma. ‘I’ve only
just found out, my darling; I should have told you first. But all Jewish
children are banned from attending school . . . and all of us are instructed
that we must not walk on the same side of the street as non-Jews . . .’
‘But how are we to do that, in the busy
streets around here?’ Máma asked.
‘We can only go out when it isn’t busy
. . .’
‘But shopping . . .’
‘We aren’t allowed into non-Jewish
shops . . . and soon there won’t be any Jewish ones as the Germans are taking
all our businesses over . . . Oh, Marie, I’m . . .’
Poppa let go of Jana and sank onto a chair he’d pulled out from under the table that stood against the wall of the living room. He put his elbows on the tabletop and buried his head in his hands. His body shook with sobs.
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