Then came limits on the number of Jewish students at certain schools and colleges. Few beyond those directly affected even understood the impact of this. And when restrictions came for Jewish doctors, their licenses weren’t revoked—not at first. They could still practice, only now they could not claim reimbursement from public health insurance funds. Who would protest a minor administrative change? Not the Aryan doctors, that was for sure—they benefited because their Jewish competition soon went out of business. And by then, the rest of us were awash in propaganda that painted Jews as money obsessed and greedy. Few paid any attention when Jewish doctors tried to protest.

Hundreds of these decrees were passed, one by one. This is how polite society gives way to chaos. The collapse that comes at the end of the process is a consequence of the slow erosion over time.

The shift was happening with Lydia and Karl too, long before I recognized it. That polite distance between the zu Schillers and Mayim was once easy to explain away. But ever so slowly, the pattern of inviting Jürgen and me to this outing or that, leaving Mayim out of the equation altogether, became entrenched.

“Maybe Mayim could tag along?” I suggested one day, when Lydia invited us to the opera.

“Oh, I only have four tickets,” she told me. And then a few weeks later, when I wanted to bring Mayim to dinner: “Karl and Jürgen need to talk about rocket business, and you know how secretive all that is.”

After that, Lydia called to plan a trip to the Berlin Zoo for Horst and Ernst’s birthday. I twisted the telephone cord around my hand, feeling strangely nervous as I suggested, “Mayim can join us. She loves the zoo, and she’ll be such a great help with the children.”

“Oh, no nannies this time. Better if it’s just us, I think,” Lydia said lightly.

“You know very well that Mayim is not our nanny, Lydia,” I snapped. “Do you have a problem with her?”

“Of course not,” Lydia said, laughing easily, as if I were foolish to ask. “I’d prefer we keep it a small group, that’s all.”

Karl and Jürgen now worked closely together and there seemed no easy way to extract myself from my friendship with Lydia, even after a dinner party that removed any doubt.