West and East: The War That Came Early, Book Two by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Alternative History, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, War & Military
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-07-27T04:51:01+00:00

LITTLE BY LITTLE, Sarah Goldman got used to wearing the yellow star whenever she went outside. She hardly noticed. Hardly anyone else in Münster seemed to notice, either. The Nazis might have wanted to turn Jews into a spectacle, but they hadn’t done it.

Aryans were entitled to cut in front of Jews in a queue at any shop. Shopkeepers were supposed to serve Aryans ahead of Jews, which was doubly unfair because Jews had limited hours in which they could go out. The yellow star was designed, among other things, to make that easier.

It didn’t happen, not right away. German women took their places behind Sarah when they got into line after she did. No shopkeeper followed the rules to the letter. That surprised her; she knew how orderly the folk of whom she’d once thought herself a part were.

It must have surprised the Nazis, too. A flood of new edicts came from Berlin. No one was to extend Jews any courtesies, no matter what. These people are the enemies of the Reich, and must not be treated softly, newspapers thundered. Always remember—the Jews are our misfortune!

“What did we ever do to them?” Sarah complained over a miserable supper that night. “What they’ve done to us … But what did we do to them?”

“Nothing,” her mother said. “We don’t do anything to anybody. All we try to do is stay alive. They don’t even like that, and a choleriyeh on them.”

“You haven’t done anything to them,” Father said. He was weary, but contrived to look amused even so. “I haven’t done enough—nowhere near so much as I wish I had. But Einstein and Freud and Schoenberg … They’ve done plenty. They’ve tried to drag Germany kicking and screaming into the twentieth century. ‘Jewish physics! Jewish psychology! Jewish music!’” He did his best to sound like a Nazi plug-ugly bellowing on the radio. His best was alarmingly good. He didn’t have a red face and a roll of fat at the back of his neck, but you would never have guessed as much from his voice.

“But what if Einstein’s right even though he’s Jewish?” Sarah said. “Then Germany will miss out on … on whatever he was talking about.” She knew more about the theory of relativity than she did about Zulu, but not much more.

“That’s the chance they take,” Samuel Goldman said, not without relish. “I don’t pretend to understand Einstein, but I’d think twice before I bet against him.”

Sarah always thought of her father as knowing everything. So hearing him admit ignorance always came as a surprise. Of course, Socrates hadn’t just admitted ignorance—he’d professed it (being a scholar of ancient history’s daughter, she knew such things herself). But that was different. Socrates had been—what did the card-players call it? He’d been sandbagging: that was the word. When Father said he didn’t understand Einstein, Sarah thought he meant it.

“Jewish physics? What can Jewish physics do that German physics can’t?” Sarah picked the wildest thing she could think of: “Blow up the world? That would serve the Nazis right, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.

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