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I had done nothing but sit for five hours, first on the train and then in the waiting room. Besides, I felt I could make my point better on my feet. “You promised us a visa. You skipped our turn on the list, and now my husband is in Buchenwald. Where is our visa? ” I had not intended to shout, but my self-control vanished. I screamed at this stranger who had given our visa away to another family. I poured out all the rage that I had pent up for the past three days. “Please, please, calm down. We will get it for you, I promise.

Markus looked at him oddly. “All right,” he said. Then he put the roll back in his coat pocket. I watched him walking back down the Reilstrasse. He seemed so small between his escorts. The brim of his black hat just reached the black swastika on the white arm-bands of the tall, polite Nazi policemen. I watched the three men until they disappeared. When I couldn't see them any more, I went into the store. “All his papers are in order, Sal. His passport is good. ” Sal was visibly alarmed. “I don't like it,” he said.

When life had followed orderly procedures, I would have been ashamed of the way I acted now. As it was now, I faced strange officials, pleaded, cajoled, and lost my temper without a shred of shame. I followed up the flimsiest rumors that I overheard in consular waiting rooms. When a chic, perfumed woman whispered that the French Consul could be bribed, I rushed to a telephone and begged Hannah to go back to the foreign office. “A woman at the French consulate said there are ways if you are willing to pay,” I said desperately.