DREIZEHN

Zwielicht

Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.

Where they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

~ Heinrich Heine

Later that night

"Hermann?"

"Kopa? What are you doing up and about at this hour?"

"I couldn't sleep. Vitani snores, and she hogs all the blankets too."

"She's probably just enjoying having someplace to sleep that isn't a rock or a tree stump. Don't forget, she's had it pretty rough until yesterday, and I can't imagine what it would be like to know your own mother is—"

"I know, I know."

"For the record, I can't get to sleep either, probably on account of having slept quite well already. I can't believe I fell for my own joke…we'll have to keep the sleeping pills hidden from now on. That being said, there are worse places to be besides here when one can't get to sleep. We never get a night sky like this in Stuttgart; all you can see is the light from buildings and highways. But here, it's just stars as far as you can see, alle stille."

"Yeah, just so you know, that whole sleeping pill thing was Markos's idea, not mine. He thought it was hilarious."

"I'm sure all three of you did."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, just keep your voice down so the others don't wake up. What's on your mind?"

"Why did you and Markos help me? All I've ever heard since before you came here was that people are bad."

"It's true, there are bad people out there, just like there are bad lions out there, but there are good ones as well. Markos and I aren't bad, are we?"

"No, I really like you."

"What was it exactly that you heard?"

"All kinds of things…that people are evil; that they kill each other all the time, destroy whatever they come across and can't be good no matter how nice they seem at first. Is that really true?"

"No. There are just as many good people as there are bad people, probably more, and thinking like that never does anyone any good. I'm going to tell you something rather serious, but something I think you ought to know regardless. You remember the name of the country I come from, right?"

"Germany?"

"Yes, Germany. And in Germany, not terribly long ago, but still many years before you were born, a horrible man was running the government. He thought that certain kinds of people—people who had foreign ancestry, differently-colored skin, or spoke another language—were all but poisonous…that they did nothing but pollute humankind and drag society down. Of course, such was not at all the case, and it never has been, but like whoever was telling you about humans said, this man was determined to believe that those people 'couldn't be good no matter how nice they seemed at first'. Do you have any idea of what happened to all the people he didn't like?"

"I don't know…were they sent out of Germany?"

"No, Kopa, they were murdered. Ten million of them in all…were murdered. Women, men, children alike, entire families at once; this man did not care in the least about what he was doing, never mind that it made absolutely no sense. He had no conscience, no capacity for sympathy or emotion other than pure, unfettered hate for those who were not like himself. Even something as simple as a last name could have spelled death for someone in those days, and in many cases, it did."

"What…kind of last name?"

"Well, for starters, 'Sterlitz'."

"But 'Sterlitz', that's, aren't you…"

"Yes, of course. As you might remember, my father's middle name is Dietrich, which comes from his grandfather, Dietrich Sterlitz. Markos's middle name, Wilhelm, was the first name of his great-grandfather, Wilhelm Schreiber. Unfortunately, neither of those men survived to see their births of their own sons or grandchildren."

"You mean that they were—"

"Murdered. Yes."

"But what did they ever do to deserve that?"

"Nothing; they didn't do anything. They committed no crimes, had no enemies and worked hard their entire lives to provide for their families and for others who were close to them. Their only 'crime', along with ten million others who ultimately shared their fate, was being slightly different from everyone else, and the bad man couldn't stand that. You see where I'm going with all this?"

"I think so. I guess you shouldn't—"

"You shouldn't pass judgment on someone until you know for sure what they're like, even if it's easier to assume first and ask questions later. When Vitani showed up here for the first time, for example, I was ready to turn her away because she was related to Zira. I thought that since she was Zira's daughter, that relation automatically made her a threat as well…but I was wrong. Completely wrong. It's something I doubt I'll ever forgive myself for, given that I of all people should know better than to think like that in the first place. At best, that kind of thinking costs you your friends, and at worst, it costs others their dignity, their self-worth… even their lives."

"I'm sorry…I didn't mean to offend you. And I'm sorry about what happened to your family."

"It's OK, you didn't know any better, but now you do. If you learn nothing else from my being here, I want you to remember this: such a terrible thing as that which happened in Germany—an event so awful that the country and its people are still struggling today to shake off the stigma—such a thing must never be permitted to happen again."

"You know, my mom once told me that when we die, we leave our bodies and go up to where all those stars are. She said that they can still see us, even though they've passed on. Maybe…maybe Dietrich is up there too."

"Perhaps he is, Kopa. Perhaps he is."