Jürgen missed the birth of the baby. Whatever milestone he was working toward was more important even than the birth of our daughter, at least according to Otto, who wouldn’t grant him leave. I left the older children with Adele and went to the hospital alone.

I called him after she arrived. Exhausted but elated, I told him about her delicate features, her barely there eyebrows, her wispy hair. The frustration in his tone was palpable as he promised he’d be home to meet her in a few days.

But the very next morning, Hitler annexed Austria. From my hospital bed I read a newspaper that showed photos of wildly enthusiastic crowds on the streets of Vienna, welcoming Hitler and celebrating the annexation. I stared at those photos for hours, trying to figure out if I could trust the images. Who would welcome Hitler to their nation? Surely this was some artifice invented by the Department of Propaganda.

Jürgen called the hospital to tell me his visit had been delayed again but he was sending a photographer to the hospital as a consolation prize.

“I’ll have to name her myself, won’t I?” I snapped.

“A good German name. A strong German name,” he said cautiously. I huffed impatiently. It wasn’t as though I was about to name the child Mayim, although I might have entertained that thought under different circumstances.

I stared at the baby. She was sleeping in my arms, innocent and pure, but just like Georg and Laura, this baby would soon be the Reich’s hostage, ultimately powerless to choose her own destiny, or even to make her own mind up about the worth of other human beings.

“Sofie? Are you still there?”

Hostage. Geisel, in German.

“Gisela,” I blurted. Despite its linguistic roots, Gisela was a common name and I knew that no one would even question it. But I’d know. Every time I spoke her name, I’d be committing a quiet rebellion in my heart.

“I love it,” Jürgen agreed, sounding relieved.

Eventually, Gisela von Meyer Rhodes would start school, and whatever purity and goodness had existed in her nature would be washed away by hate. Maybe one day I could tell her that from the moment of her birth, I loathed that she was hostage to her country’s ideology. There was just nothing I could do about it, other than to leave a clue in her name to prove my regret.

Georg and Laura were now old enough to walk to school alone, and often after I saw them off, Gisela and I would go next door to visit Adele. Something was changing with Jürgen’s aunt. By the summer, she felt faint when she stood in the heat for too long. I feigned a sudden interest in horticulture so I could take over her courtyard garden.