The Wife Who Risked Everything: Based on a true story, a totally heartbreaking, epic and gripping World War 2 page-turner by Ellie Midwood

Author:Ellie Midwood [Midwood, Ellie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803144733
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

NOVEMBER 1938

Margot arrived at work that Wednesday, she discovered the shop deathly still. Her colleagues were all there, but nobody was working. Instead, they were huddled in small groups in various corners, smoking a great deal and speaking in undertones, from time to time throwing frightened glances over their shoulders. From Herr Grohm’s office, the unmistakable sound of Goebbels’ voice carried long and far above the main floor of the shop. Otherwise, silence lay all about the machines and the workers alike, and it screamed volumes.

“Whatever is that lunatic raving about this time?” Margot also lowered her voice as she took her place at her workstation.

She was just about to arrange her handbag under her feet when she caught a warning glare from Emmi, also a German married to a Jewish man. Next to her, Lisl was staring into space with glassy eyes, her teeth biting into the already-raw skin around her nails relentlessly. Just like Jochen, Lisl was a baptized Jew. Just like Jochen, she had been married to a German; only, he had divorced her as soon as the marriage became an inconvenience to his career prospects.

“Some Polish idiot has gone and shot our German ambassador in Paris.”

Margot turned around in her seat toward the voice. Johanna, another button-girl, was swinging her foot pensively, with her head half-turned toward Herr Grohm’s office door.

“He wasn’t an ambassador,” Lisl said in a hollow voice, her eyes still staring, unseeing, into the void.

“Doesn’t matter what he was,” Johanna muttered, still listening closely to Goebbels’ speech that was progressively growing in volume, threatening, stirring to action, calling for blood: The Jews were to blame. The Jews were to pay! “What matters is the Pole was a Jew and the fellow he shot was a German.”

All at once, the radio died mid-word. With a sudden harsh screech, Herr Grohm’s office door flew open, revealing Grohm himself, his face pinched into a frightful mask. “Everyone’s dismissed for today.”

When the workers exchanged uncertain looks but made no move to leave, Grohm bent over the railing separating the second floor where his office was situated and the first, where the workshop was set up.

“Go on. Well?!” He shouted at them, growing red in the face. “Are you waiting for the SA to barge in and escort you, what? I said, what!”

At the second what, wrenched out of Grohm’s very gut from the desperate sound of it, they finally came out of their collective stunned state. The groups broke up; office workers poured out from their cubicles on the second floor, valises in hand, pulling their hats down on their faces. Workers began pulling on their overcoats, from time to time throwing looks at Grohm like sheep at their sheepdog.

Only the German workers remained by their stations, stealing glances at one another and thoroughly avoiding looking at their Jewish colleagues for some reason they all felt deep inside but couldn’t quite explain rationally even to themselves.

“Herr Grohm.” Emmi spoke up. “We can stay and work.” She looked up at their immediate superior questioningly.

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