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.Here’s the brochure.” Eli handed Ezekiel a grey pamphlet with a figure of an American woman in a long dress gracing the cover.“You ought to leave tonight to pick up the tickets.You can stay at a hotel in Hamburg and purchase them first thing tomorrow morning.”“How much will the tickets cost?” Ezekiel’s left brow rose.“About two hundred dollars each.”“One thousand American dollars?” Ezekiel whistled in surprise and rubbed his forehead.“How long is the journey?”“About ten days.” Eli stood and carried his cup of tea with him.“I have to get back to tend to Rebecca soon.”“Yes, yes.” Ezekiel took his son’s face into his hands and kissed him on either cheek.“We’ll miss you.”“I love you, Papa.” Eli helped his father carry his overnight luggage into this car.He hugged his father and then Ezekiel started the engine and began his journey into Hamburg.* * *The following Friday on the fourteenth, the Nazis passed another law Germany would have to suffer, the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, initiated by the Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick.The law required the forced sterilization of German citizens with congenital disabilities such as feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, manic depression, epilepsy, and others.Doctors throughout the Reich performed the procedures on everyone fitting the descriptions.Following the sterilization law, the Denaturalization law stripped non German blood citizens of their citizenship.Jews were now no longer protected under the law with the little safety they received as German citizens.Saturday morning after these new laws, Deseire came to visit Rebecca unannounced.Rebecca had rested the entirety of the week under doctor orders with meals provided by Eli and with readings of some of his favorite books of literature and poetry.The two lay arm in arm over the bed sheets when the knock at the door alarmed them.Eli jumped off the bed and stood at a distance from the door.The thought occurred to both of them that the Gestapo made a second trip for Eli’s arrest.The knock sounded again and Rebecca hurried to answer it.She buttoned the top three buttons of her white blouse and straightened out her sky blue shirt as she approached the door.Eli concealed himself in the shadows of the room.The door squeaked open.“Mutti?” Rebecca said not really as a question, but more in disbelief.“Yes, dear.” Deseire spoke in a polite, but clipped manner.Rebecca stood for a few moments gazing at Deseire.“Are you going to invite me in the room?”“Yes, sorry, of course, Mother.Come in.” Rebecca pulled the door further open and took her mother’s caramel cashmere coat off her back as she entered.Eli hastened to the door with a sigh of relief and took the coat from Rebecca’s hands before placing it over the sofa.Deseire walked in regal grace to the sofa and wiped the seat a few times with her spread out hand before sitting down.She adjusted the gold necklace that hung over her silk white blouse.Rebecca pulled her hair back behind her, combing it with her fingers a few times before sitting down to join her mother.Eli prepared warm tea in the kitchen.The room remained silent except for the fidgeting of Rebecca’s body trying to find a place of comfort, and the clinking of the kettle.“Would you enjoy a morning tea, Mrs.Baum?” Eli suggested, turning his head in her direction.“I would, thank you, but no sugar please.” She answered cordially, but as if she spoke to her cook Rueben.“What brings you here, Mother?” Rebecca inquired.“A few matters have come to my attention.” Deseire opened her beige colored handbag and pulled out a folded letter.She began to open it and look it over, “I felt I needed to address them personally.” She handed the letter to Rebecca and as Rebecca’s eyes fell upon its words, Desiere continued.“My sister Martha has told me about your marriage to Eli and your desire to depart Germany and sail to America.” The cup in Eli’s hands hit the counter and he turned his head toward her
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