The girls are giggling at the back of the last car, nine of them on their way to a special parade on Unter den Linden. They don’t really know what the excitement is all about but will find out soon enough. Some foreign dignitary or other is to be honoured once again.
They are wearing their Hitler Youth uniforms, their hair braided in different styles but braided.
There will be singing, and marching, and standing in rows three deep. It’s always the same. And waiting, a lot of waiting in the sun.
As the S-Bahn makes its way through the suburbs and under the city, the cars fill up with more and more kids, boys and girls in uniform, but separate. The taller ones, quiet-spoken counsellors, stand together eyeing their flock.
“Unter Den Linden we get out, and wait on the platform for further orders,” they have been told.
The twelve-year-olds, bunched together near one of the exits, are pressing against the separation wall, holding on to the rail. None of them speaks. In front of them a small man is ducking into the corner, with his face to the wall, clutching a slim attaché case in front of his chest. He is pale, hot, his curly hair plastered to his forehead and around his ears.
From time to time he turns his head in their direction with an apologetic smile, as if to say, “Don’t mind me. I shouldn’t really be here.”
It is hard to guess his age. He looks like forty, but then again, he might be much younger. He looks up and checks the station each time the train slows down. “Stettiner Bahnhof” — and the doors open.
The man turns around and struggles to the exit. As his attaché case slips, the yellow Star of David is revealed on his jacket, and the girls look away, rattled and uneasy.
When they arrive at Unter den Linden, the train disgorges a couple of hundred youngsters and their senior folk who assemble in loose formation on the platform, awaiting instructions as to their next move.
A quieter gaggle of twelve-year-olds emerges at the rear. The girls are lined up in three rows, with a public transit map on the wall behind them, showing the overlapping S-Bahn and U-Bahn network in vivid colour schemes. They start up the stairs and out to the street. Three stragglers stay behind.
“Look,” says one and pulls another girl by the shoulder. They turn and stare at the words that are scribbled across the map. “Juden Raus!” it says here in fat black letters. Jews Out! The girls stare in silence. Finally, as the others have left, one gets out a handkerchief and says “Here, spit on it. Quick, spit!” Two other girls spit and spit. She turns to the map and begins to rub furiously at the word, “Juden” which results in a smear across the letters that are still clearly visible. More spittle. More wiping resulting in a muddier message. Not good enough.
Angry calls from the direction of the stairs. They wipe. And rub. Not good enough. A well-groomed woman approaches. One girl turns to her.
“Excuse me, do you by any chance have a lipstick?” This is a risky question. Lipsticks are hard to come by already, and quality lipsticks are a treasure. The woman stops. She eyes the girls, examines the ruined transit map, deciphers the offending words, and, ignoring other passengers uttering loud opinions, hands the girls a lipstick. Walking along the platform she briefly looks over her shoulder as the girls cross out first “Juden” and then “Raus” in a smart crimson red.
They wipe their hands in the spittle-wet hanky and run on towards the stairway to join the others waiting in three neat rows on the sidewalk of the formerly elegant Unter den Linden, for an hour or two, to honour yet another foreign dignitary.