Jakob led the way along the wet dirt floor, until, as promised, they reached a room at its end. There they stood, huddled in a wet, shivering circle, for perhaps five minutes.

The sound of a door opening somewhere above them sounded. They all glanced up. A tiny, thin, circular staircase in the corner was now lit by a lantern in the hand of a woman dressed in the clothes of a maid.

“Come with me,” she said. “The stairs are narrow and steep, so please take care. We will be climbing more stairs, but you are safe now and need have no fear. You are among friends.”

Jakob followed her, taking his young daughter in his arms, and went up the tiny corkscrew as best he could. Ulrike followed, then the others, with the rabbi last of all.

The light was sufficient to indicate they were indeed inside a house at last, and what appeared to be an enormous one. They wound around and through many passages and corridors, up two more narrow flights of stairs, through a half dozen doors, around more corners, through the oddest-shaped passageways, until at length a door opened and they found themselves suddenly in a well-lit, hospitable, wonderfully clean bedroom.

“Here is the first room for you,” said their guide, turning to them with a bright smile. “The other is just across the hall. I have bread and dried fruit being brought up. Baths are being drawn for the children and you two dear mothers,” she added, glancing at both of the women. “We will have dry clothes for you shortly. My name is Heidi, and if there is anything you need, each of your rooms has a bell that sounds in my room. Please, do not think twice to ring it if there is anything I have missed.”

Thinking that they must have died and gone to heaven, and that the angels were now attending them, both Ulrike and Helga broke into tears and wept with abandon.

Great drops standing also in his eyes, a weary but contented Rabbi Wissen spoke to his hostess, who was dressed in a white smock that made her appear very much indeed an angel to his Jewish eyes.

“Tell me please, young lady,” he said, “when will we meet our hosts? We… we must thank them for—”

His voice broke, but Heidi understood his heart perfectly.

“There will be plenty of time for that in the morning,” she said. “You will be with us for a while. Be comfortable now. Get clean and dry and have what food and drink you want.”

“Thank you—you are more kind than we can thank you for!”

“Sleep well, all of you,” said Heidi. “We are happy you have come to us.”

She led them to the second room, gave the still-weeping mothers instructions about clothes and the baths, then left the travelers alone.

“God be with you,” she said.

“Shalom,” said the rabbi.