Trudy hesitates, then presses her advantage: Are you going to see them at Christmas? she asks.
Frau Kluge snatches the photograph.
Ja, of course I am, she snaps. Why should I not? Do you have grandchildren?
No, I-
Children?
No-
You have at least a husband?
I was married once, but-
Frau Kluge nods in satisfaction. He is dead, she says.
Trudy laughs.
No, he's very much alive. Runs an extremely successful French restaurant, in fact. Le P'tit Lapin, maybe you've heard of it? It-
I do not eat French food, Frau Kluge announces. Rich sauces rot the bowels.
She glares triumphantly at Trudy. A small silence occurs, during which Trudy hears water dripping and dripping in the woman's sink.
Then Frau Kluge, perhaps mollified by her victory, thaws somewhat, for she tells Trudy, You remind me a little of my daughter. Of course, you are several years older. But you are something like her, through hier.
She pats the air near her cheeks. Trudy nods.
You are German? Frau Kluge asks.
Yes.
A true German? Not a Mischling?
Trudy makes a mental note of Frau Kluge's use of the Nazi term for half-breed, but she is not about to spurn this peculiar olive branch the woman is offering. She decides to go a step further.
Nein, Trudy answers. Ich bin keine Mischling, Frau Kluge. Ich bin Deustche.
Frau Kluge scrutinizes Trudy from behind her glasses, which a beam of weak light has transformed into opaque white squares. Then she slowly lowers them and gives Trudy a smile of complicity.
So, she says. Sehr gut. I should have known you were pure of blood. From your pretty blond hair.
Trudy's hand involuntarily rises to her bangs.
Excuse me, Thomas calls.
Trudy turns toward him with dread, anticipating what he might say, but his face is benign. Behind him the area around Frau Kluge's daybed is now a movie set of sorts: light screens and big lamps, a camera mounted on a tripod, a sound boom the shape of an enormous peanut dangling in midair. Thomas holds up two microphones, their wires trailing into a tangle on the tired carpet.
Let's get you ladies miked and bring those chairs over here, he says. Then we'll be ready to begin.
19
THE GERMAN PROJECT
Interview 1
SUBJECT: Mrs. Petra Kluge (née Petra Rauschning)
DATE/LOCATION: December 21, 1996; North Minneapolis, MN
Q: Let's start with a few simple questions, Frau Kluge. When and where were you born?
A: I was born 14 August 1919, in Munich, Germany.
Q: Did you remain in Munich throughout your childhood?
A: Ja, I lived there until I came to this country.
Q: So you were in Munich at the beginning of the war, in September 1939?
A: Where else would I be?
Q: You were how old then-twenty? No, excuse me, twenty-one.
A: Ja, just turned.
Q: So you were a young woman when Hitler invaded Poland. What was your reaction to that?
A [subject shrugs] Whatever the Führer wanted to do, this was fine by me.
Q: So you approved.
A: Approved, disapproved, it made no difference. Who was I to question such things?
Q: Were you frightened?
A: There was no cause for fear. Everybody knew the Poles were no match for us. And the Führer was recovering only what belonged to Germany. He was thinking of his people, of Lebensraum-
Q: Living space. He invaded Poland for more living space.
A: Ja, for Aryans, that is correct.
Q: So you agreed with the war in principle.
A: Ja, I already have said this. Natürlich, if I had known what would then happen, I might not have… But I was only young.
Q: What did you think of Hit-of the Führer's other theories?
A: What do you mean by this?
Q: About the Jews. About making Germany, um, free of Jews.
A: Judenrein.
Q: That's right.
A: I was too busy to pay attention to such things. It did not concern me.
Q: What was happening to the Jews did not concern you?
A: Ja, it held no meaning for me personally. I did not know any Jews.
Q: None?
A: Ja, well, perhaps in Gymnasium, there were… But they soon had to go to their own schools. They kept to themselves. You know how they do, in their temples and their… their what-have-you.
Q: But surely you must have encountered Jews in the course of your daily life. On public transportation, in cafés, on the street-
A: Nein, nein. Very little. Very little. At first perhaps I encountered some without knowing it. But when they had to wear the Star, nein, they were no longer in the parks and trains and such.
Q: And what did you think of this?
A: I thought nothing of it. As I have said, it had little to do with me. Perhaps it made some things easier-
Q: What things? In what way?
A: [shrugs] Ach, you know. Not so crowded. In the stores, more space, more food for us Germans, once they had to go to their own stores where they belonged.
Q: I see. Did you think this was fair?
A: Fair, unfair, it made things easier. You knew who belonged with who.
Q: It didn't bother you that Jews were no longer allowed to buy things in Aryan stores, to visit Aryan doctors, to attend the theater-
A: Nein. And it did not bother them either. They like to stick to their own kind. And they did not suffer, believe me. They could still buy whatever they wanted.
Q: How is that?
A: They had their ways. They always had their ways.
Q: They had money, you mean?
A: Ja, ja, this is exactly right. Before the war, when Germans were starving, when we had to wait hours for a loaf of bread… when there was looting, windows being broken, people being killed for a few Pfennigs…they could just waltz in and buy whatever they pleased. Their pockets clinked with money. Their coats were lined with fur.
Q: And during the war?
A: Ach, this made no difference to them. They still had the money. They hid it. Buried it in their cellars, in their homes, under the floors. You know how they are.
Q: How they-
A Sneaky. The Jews were sneaky. They no longer flashed their money about under our noses, but they had it. They had diamonds sewed into the linings of their coats.
Q: But, Frau Kluge-Not to contradict you, but you said you had no contact with Jews. How did you know they were hiding money?
A: Everybody knew.
Q: Everybody?
A: Ja, everybody.
Q: Well, how did everybody know?
A: They just did. It was a fact.
Q: By everybody, I assume you mean Aryan Germans.
A: Ja, Germans.