"Hugo!" I called as I went into the apartment. "Hugo, are you here?"
"Yeah!" he called from the kitchen. "Did you get a job?"
"No, you need to see this," I said a little quieter and pulled out my wallet.
"What's up?" he asked and wiped his hands on a towel near me. There was a really good smell coming from the kitchen. "Oh, shit. What happened?" he asked and touched the space around my eye.
"Don't worry about that," I swatted him away and pulled out my ID card in my passport. It had a huge, red J on it, my picture that was taken an hour ago was on it, and my name seemed foreign to me. Eli Israel Johann Fertig.
"Israel? Your second name is Johann!"
"Not according to the German government. My first name wasn't Jewish enough, so they added it."
"What the fuck?"
"You have to make sure they don't know that your parents were Jewish."
"I'm not though—"
"Doesn't matter. You are to them. Your parents were."
"It's pointless anyway, I'm a homo."
"Mhmm," I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "Target practice, I've heard. Gay Jews are the jackpot for Nazis."
"You gotta leave," he shook his head and sighed. "It's dangerous if we're caught together."
"I don't have the money to get to Berlin," I shook my head.
He rolled his eyes and walked away. I just sighed and sat on the edge of the small table with my head in my hands. When he came back I heard something softly land next to me. "That should cover you getting there and a few months of rent."
I looked at the money on the table. "Thank you," I breathed out and gave him a tight hug. "Stay safe, please?"
"Yeah, I've gotten this far I'm not going to give up now."
I chuckled and gave him a kiss, both of us looking at each other. "Can I stay for dinner?"
He rolled his eyes. "I know you have to leave, I'm not letting you go on an empty stomach."
"Papers?" the man asked me. I looked up from my hands and saw he was a Orpo man, the public police.
I stayed quiet and pulled my passport out of my pocket. I combined it with my ID and handed it to him.
"Where are you going?"
"Berlin."
"Why?"
I sighed and licked my lips nervously. "My house got destroyed, I need somewhere to live."
The man scoffed and threw my forms of ID at me. "Good luck finding someone that will let a Jew pay rent. Do you even have a job?" I put my identification away and stay quiet. "Hey!" he shouted and ht the back of my head. "I asked you a question."
"No," I replied quietly, "not yet."
He scoffed and turned away. I knew he muttered something, but I didn't catch it. Hoenstly, I didn't really want to.
I went back to looking at my hands and noticed no one was sitting near me. There's no way I could have been identified and singled out before this, right? Or does no one want any contact because of fear all of us have of each other? I honestly didn't know, resting my head against the window pane and closing my eyes.
When we'd gotten to Berlin, I took my one piece of luggage Hugo had sent me with and tried to find somewhere to stay in the city. I had absolutely no luck. As it got dark, I ran a hand through my hair and settled into a small alley and sighed.
