By the time Jürgen returned to Peenemünde the next day, we were paid-up members of the Nazi party, just waiting for our membership numbers to arrive in the post.

Georg chatted excitedly the morning of his first overnight Jungvolk camp, more animated than I’d seen him since Adele’s death.

“There’s sports and adventure courses and we get to fire guns and we sleep in the tents and they will teach us how to do all kinds of amazing things—even how to serve the Führer better! I’ll be in Hans’s Jungenshaft.” This was a unit of ten children, led by a slightly older child. The Jungvolk was structured as a paramilitary organization. I was sending my nine-year-old son off to play combat games designed to shape him into a mindless Hitler acolyte.

Georg was already wearing his uniform—shiny black boots and dark shorts, a tie paired with a collared shirt, the Jungvolk logo on the sleeve. He’d emerged from his room in the uniform so early that morning, I had a feeling he slipped it on straight out of bed. But he couldn’t fix the final part of the uniform without help, and that was why he was standing before me now, chin raised, waiting impatiently for me to put his rolled kerchief around his neck.

“…and we will learn to expel the Untermensch and defeat all of the Führer’s enemies. It is going to be so much fun!”

It was all a game to Georg—a glorious, fun-filled lark. I slipped the kerchief around his neck, tucked the collar over it, and then reached for the woggle—the loop of woven leather that secured the kerchief in place at his collarbone. I stared down at him until tears filled my eyes.

“What is it?” he asked, suddenly alarmed as he stared back up at me, his blue eyes filled with concern. “Mama?”

I forced myself to smile.

“You’re just such a big boy, Georg. I’m so proud of you.”

He beamed at me, then straightened his shoulders as he stepped away to pick up the canvas bag containing his overnight things. The bag was almost bigger than he was. He swung it over his shoulder, then stepped toward the door, waving impatiently for me to follow.

At the camp, Laura hovered beside me, taking it all in with big, curious eyes—hundreds of young boys, assembling into perfect lines at the sharp sound of a whistle. I was holding a squirming Gisela on one hip, but Laura took my other hand and tugged it to get my attention.

“Mama, I can’t wait until it’s my turn.” As a young girl, she wouldn’t attend the Jungvolk—rather, the Jungmadelbund, the Young Girls’ League, focused on activities deemed suitable for German girls, preparing them for their future roles as mother, wife, and homemaker.