“No,” said Leo, moving to her side of the bench, even though it made their little compartment unbalanced. “You need to be you. What I care about is you. What allows me to smile as some fat brute kicks me and the teacher laughs away is you. As long as I have you, everything will be fine.”
Emi threw her arms around Leo, kissing his face, his neck, until the Ferris wheel had come back down and she had to scoot quickly to the other side of the bench. Leo fixed his collar and paid the attendant to let them ride again. “This is what’s important,” he said and kissed Emi without stopping for two more rides up and down over Vienna. That was the day that Leo and Emi finally said the word. Love. And once it was said, it was repeated during every quiet moment, between every kiss.
Emi had told Leo that she needed him more than he needed her when they met in 1937 and she was brand-new to the school, but things took a turn in 1938 when one word started dominating every conversation: Anschluss. Nazi Germany’s annexing of Austria. At the start of the new year, the Hartmanns and many other Jewish families were still confident that the young chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, who was a fascist but was still pro-Austria, could preserve the country’s independence, despite the mounting power of Adolf Hitler and his determination to unify Austria and Germany. But everything changed on the twelfth of March when the Nazis plowed through the Austrian border. The fate of the country was sealed when Hitler drove through Vienna two days later.
Leo and Emi, like all the Austrian children their age, were at school the following day when they heard the tumult in the street. They ran to the windows and listened to the mayhem of raised voices, followed by elated shouts and screams. Then they saw the rush of people. Hitler, they were told by their teachers, would be addressing the people at the Heldenplatz, one of the city’s main squares, in a few hours. It was within walking distance of their school.
Granted an early dismissal, the students started running toward the square, including Leo, with Emi reluctantly in tow.
“What are you doing?” she said as they ran through the crowds of people. Almost all of them were holding small red and black flags, the swastika emblazoned brightly in the center. “We can’t go to the square. You can’t go there. Hitler’s going to speak! It’s not safe!”
“They’re all going,” he said pointing to the students from their school.
“They’re not Jewish!” she shouted back. “Some of them are in the Hitlerjugend. Look at their armbands! And the flags,” she said, swastikas waving all around them. “They’re salivating for this moment. We should be hiding, not running toward loaded guns.”
Leo looked out at the street they were on and noticed that in most of the shop windows, huge swastika flags hung. They were also draped across government buildings, and hanging from lightposts. The image of Nazi Germany was everywhere.
In the days leading up to the Anschluss, the bullying that Leo endured crescendoed and nearly broke him. It wasn’t just Fritzie Dorn and the chemistry teacher, it was every child in school. His clothes were stolen in gym class, and if it weren’t for his habit of carrying so many uniforms, he would have been stuck in the changing room naked. Even some of the younger girls were spitting near his feet and then smiling at their bravery. They didn’t dare spit right on him, but as Austria changed, so did their proximity to his face. They were clearly feeling more and more confident that they should be targeting the school’s only Jew.
“I need to see it,” said Leo, pushing past a group of laughing children. “I’m not just running away from this like a coward.”
He felt Emi pull her hand away from his. He looked at her as she stopped in the middle of the street, which had been closed to cars that morning after Hitler drove through. “I wish you would act like a coward instead of an idiot. We shouldn’t be here and you know it,” she said. “Your parents are going to worry about you until they’re sick. They will hear what’s happening and how close we are at school.”
“I haven’t run from my aggressors yet,” said Leo, looking down at his hands, which were marked with dozens of little cuts. “I don’t want to start today. Come. We’ll be all right.” He took her hand again and pulled her into the crowd.
They could see in the distance, a hundred yards away, a podium set up for Hitler on the balcony of the ornate Hofburg Palace, with rows of Nazi flags hanging crisply below it. Emi tried to drag Leo back toward city hall, but so many people had pushed into the square that it was almost impossible to move. There were men climbing everything that was climbable, all clambering for a view of the Führer. Just ahead of the crowd were tight rows of German soldiers, all identical with the ropes around their chests and their black helmets. Beyond them, Leo and Emi could hear a band playing, and the troops were pacing back and forth, walking with their legs straight, in perfect time to the songs. Leo felt Emi reach out for him as the crowd jostled them even more and the clanging of cymbals got louder. As the metal crashed, the crowd started screaming “Sieg Heil!” and reaching out their arms in front of them in the Nazi salute. Leo put his lips to Emi’s ear and was about to tell her not to worry, when he was drowned out by an even louder chant of “We want to hear our Führer,” and the noise of German bombers flying in formation above them.
Leo looked at the enraptured faces, fanatical with excitement. Maybe they weren’t as safe as he thought, but it was a nightmare he couldn’t turn away from. He had to see these people—the ones who had worked in his father’s factory, who had benefited from his family’s charity—shed tears of joy over Hitler. He took Emi tightly by the hand and whispered, “No one is going to think I’m a Jew if I’m with you.” They walked through the crowd, past a large group of men, being careful not to push them, and watched as boys their age tried to climb on the statue of Prinz Eugen of Savoy to get a better view.
Leo eased up as Emi reached for his shoulders. “You don’t know that,” she said quietly. “I am not your guaranteed savior just because I’m obviously not Jewish. People know who your father is. They might recognize you. Let’s not get any closer,” said Emi, stopping by the statue, which was already surrounded.
Leo held Emi tight as he watched the faces of the people around them. He was trying to stay still, though he wanted to get as close to Hitler’s podium as he could. Old and young, male and female, everyone around him was rejoicing. Did they know what it meant to be German? Leo wondered. Did all these people, his countrymen, really support the Führer so blindly?
He started to whisper as much to Emi when he felt her pinch him.
“They’re looking at us,” she whispered, glancing very carefully over to a group of men to their right. Leo noticed that though they were wearing what was probably their best winter clothing, it was dirty and worn. Suddenly he felt very conspicuous in his cashmere coat. He unbuttoned it to show his Catholic school uniform and Emi quickly did the same.