I called Avril to postpone our coffee to the next morning. She was horrified when I told her about the graffiti, and her reaction reassured me. Some Americans were kind—even supportive. After I hung up, Jürgen called the police. I sat in the living room with Felix and listened to his side of the conversation.

“…right out the front of my house—that’s at 1401 Beetle Avenue, sir…Yes, it says ‘Nazi’…I’m not sure what you mean…Well, no, sir…Actually, yes, I did think you would come to—I see. Is defacing public property not a crime in this country?…No, no. I understand. Yes, okay. Thank you. Fine.”

He came to the door of the living room, his expression grim.

“What are they going to do?” I asked.

“Officer Johnson said if it was bothering me, I could paint over it,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Aren’t they coming to investigate?”

Jürgen unwound his bow tie as he shook his head.

“But…why not? This is harassment!”

“The police officer said it’s to be expected, given the circumstances,” Jürgen muttered bitterly. “He suggested I might want to buy the paint in bulk so I’ve got some ready for next time.”

20

Lizzie

El Paso, Texas
1935

Henry and I sold everything we could at a yard sale and bought bus tickets to El Paso. We arrived on a blustery spring day in 1935, just a week after we buried our parents, and checked into a rooming house, with every little thing we had left in the world neatly packed into two suitcases.

I’d never been to a city before. I’d seen photos in the newspaper, so I thought I knew what it would be like, but I wasn’t prepared for the sensory overload. Cars and trucks roared past us, people hurried by, store signs and street signs and clothing were all so bright. Even the air smelled wrong, like a tractor had just backfired right near me.

There was no time to say goodbye to the land we loved or to begin to mourn our parents, but as I found myself completely out of place, the immensity of the loss and the abruptness of the change all hit me at once. I hadn’t cried much other than the day Mother and Daddy left us. I didn’t even cry when Pastor Williams picked us up from the farm to take us to the bus stop. But it wasn’t car exhaust causing my eyes to sting as I looked around the tiny room Henry and I would be sharing. He set his suitcase on the bed and I set mine on the little sofa, staring down at it so Henry didn’t see the tears in my eyes.