“Only a hundred. You choose which ones.”

The Security Minister, Fried Rievesaltes, who up to then had been silent, now uttered a single word: “Deportations!” He dropped with a thud into his chair.

“Deportations, deportations,” murmured the Council, also sitting down.

“Ga-a-a-a!” It was old Philosoff, older even than Trumpelman. Ninety. Perhaps ninety-five. His face had gone red. “Ga-a-a!” he said again.

But no one paid any heed. Everyone was thinking that in the Church of the Virgin Mary there would soon be new piles of feathers, fresh mounds of hats and shoes.

“This,” said Mathilda Megalif, of Posts and Telegraph, “is a punishment for the Five Day Strike.”

“A punishment from the Almighty!” a different Minister cried. “He sees us sipping wine and eating creamed fish!”

“True! It’s true!”

They all were sighing and groaning. Philosoff, the Minister of Charities and Welfare, continued to make a rattling sound in his throat. Wohltat wiped his cheeks and his brow.

“Ministers! Council members! Listen to what I am saying. I am saying more than is allowed. You are right. It is because of the troubles on the eastern front. Because of Kiev. But if reinforcements are called up from the homeland, who will plow the fields and milk the goats on the farms? The answer is, the lucky one hundred Jews! They just have to pluck fresh eggs out of the nests. It will be like a vacation. In any case, you have my word that the Judenrat will be exempted. My dear friends, you don’t have to worry at all!”

Here old Philosoff came to his senses. He dried the tears from his eyes. “A soft bone,” he said, apologizing. “From the herring.”

Then Dorka Kleinweiss, the only Minister still standing, said the following words: “What if we refuse to do it?”

“What? What did she say?” She had spoken so softly that no one had heard her.

“What if we say to the Blond Ones, No, we won’t do it. You do it. What then?”

There was a gasp from the Judenrat.

“Then,” said Wohltat, “we’ll do it.”

Mordechai Kleen pounded his fist on the Council table. “The Minister of Provisions and Supply, Miss Kleinweiss, has the right idea. It’s a scandal for Jews to put down the names of Jews!”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Margolies, whose eyes were set only millimeters apart, on either side of his nose. “How do we know they’re going to a farm? Maybe they’ll have to dig dikes, or ditches. We are in office to protect our people, not to send them away.”

It was amazing how brave the Jews became. One minute it was as if someone had hit them on the head with an ax; the next thing they were shaking their fists in the air. Baggelman, with his rounded conductor’s shoulders, arose. “To send citizens out of their own country in time of war is a violation of international law!”

The Volksdeutscher looked genuinely perplexed. “But we are the winners,” he said. “We make the law.”