Autumn arrives, and the autumn holidays are approaching. First comes Rosh Hashanah, bringing in the New Year. The day before, all the rooms are swept, and on the eve Mama and Papa go to the synagogue, wearing their festive best: Papa in his frock coat and top hat, Mama in her deep blue velvet dress and the bonnet made entirely of white lilac blossom. Meanwhile, at home, Leo and I spread a starched linen cloth on the table and place the wine glasses on it, and under our parents' plates we put our New Year letters, written in our finest hand. A week and a half later is Yom Kippur. Father, in his death robes, moves about the house like a ghost. A mood of rue and penitence prevails. None of us will eat until the stars rise. Anbeiƒen. And four days later it is already the Feast of Tabernacles. Franz has put up the trellis for the sukkah under the elder, and we have decorated it with colourful garlands of glossy paper and long chains of threaded rosehips. From the ceiling hang ruddy-cheeked apples, yellow pears and golden-green grapes which Aunt Elise sends us every year from Mainstockheim in a little box lined with wood-shavings. On the two main and four half feast days we shall take our meals in the sukkah, unless the weather is exceptionally bad and cold. Then we stay in the kitchen, and only Papa will sit out in the bower, eating all by himself — a sign that winter is gradually coming. It is also at this time of the year that a wild boar the Prince Regent has shot in the Rhön is brought to Steinach, where its bristles are singed off outside the smithy on a wood fire. At home we study the May & Edlich catalogue from Leipzig, a thick compendious volume that reveals the entire wondrous world of merchandise, page after page, classified and described. Out of doors the colours gradually fade away. Our winter clothes are fetched out. They smell of naphthalene. Towards the end of November the Young Progressives' Club holds a masked ball at Reuss's. Frau Miintzer from Neustadt has made Mama a dress of raspberry-coloured silk for the occasion. The gown is long and flounced very elegantly at the hem. The children are allowed to watch the opening of the ball from the doorway to the next room. The hall is abuzz with festive murmuring. To set the mood, the band plays tunes from operettas, softly, till Herr Hainbuch, who works for the forestry commission, climbs onto the dais and, by way of an official start to the occasion, delivers a speech in praise of the fatherland. Glasses are raised, a flourish from the band, the masks gaze seriously into each other's eyes, another flourish, and the landlord, Herr Reuss, carries in a black box with a tulip-shaped metal funnel — the new gramophone, which pours forth real music without one's needing to do a thing. "We are speechless with wonder. The ladies and gentlemen take their positions for a polonaise. Silberberg, the cobbler, quite unrecognizable in his tails, black tie, tie pin and patent leather shoes, walks ahead, conducting with a baton. Behind him come the couples, wheeling and twirling about the hall in every conceivable kind of way. The loveliest of them all, by far, is Aline Feldhahn as the Queen of the Night, in a dark dress bestrewn with stars. She is partnered by Siegfried Frey, wearing his hussar's uniform. Aline and Siegfried later married and had two children, but Siegfried, who was said to have a taste for dissipation, suddenly disappeared, and neither Aline nor old Löb Frey nor anyone else ever found out what became of him. Kathinka Strauss, though, claimed that Siegfried emigrated, to Argentina or Panama.
We have been going to school for a few years now. It is a school where we are all taught together in one form, exclusively for Jewish children. Our teacher, Salomon Bein, whose excellence the parents miss no opportunity to praise, imposes strict discipline, and sees himself first and foremost as a loyal servant of the state. Together with his lady wife and his unmarried sister Regine, he lives in the schoolhouse. In the mornings, when we cross the yard, he is already there in the doorway, spurring latecomers along by shouting hopp! hopp! and clapping his hands. In the classroom, after the blessing — Thou who hast made the day, O Lord — and after we have sharpened our slate pencils and cleaned our quill pens, jobs I dislike and which Herr Bein supervises closely, we are delegated to various tasks in rotation. Some are assigned to practise their handwriting; others have to do sums; yet others have to write an essay, or draw in their local history books. One group has visual instruction. A scroll is fetched out from the back of the cupboard and hung in front of the blackboard. The whole picture is of nothing but snow, with one coal-black raven in the middle. During the first one or two periods, especially in winter when the daylight never really brightens, I am always very slow about my work. I look out through the blue panes and see the deaf and dumb daughter of Stern, the flour merchant, on the other side of the yard, sitting at her work bench in her little room. She makes artificial flowers out of wire, crèpe and tissue paper, dozens of them, day in, day out, year in, year out. In nature study we learn about real flowers: larkspur, Turk's cap lily, loosestrife and lady's smock. We also learn about red ants and whales, from the animal kingdom. And once, when the village street is being newly surfaced, the teacher draws a picture on the blackboard, in coloured chalks, of the Vogelsberg as an erupting volcano, and explains where the blocks of basalt come from. He also has a collection of colourful stones in his minerals cabinet — rose quartz, rock crystal, amethyst, topaz and tourmaline. We draw a long line to mark how much time it has taken for them to form. Our entire lives would not even show as the tiniest dot on that line. Even so, the hours at school stretch as vast as the Pacific Ocean, and it takes an eternity till Moses Lion, who is sent to fetch wood almost every day by way of punishment, comes back up from the wood store with a basketful. Then, before we know it, Hanukkah is upon us, and it is Herr Bein's birthday. The day before, we decorate the walls of the classroom with branches of fir and little blue and yellow flags. We place the present on the teacher's desk. I remember that on one occasion it was a red velvet blanket, and once a copper hot-water bottle. On the morning of the birthday we all gather early in the classroom, in our best clothes. Then the teacher arrives, followed by his wife and the slightly dwarfish Fràulein Regine. We all stand up and say: Good morning, Herr Bein! Good morning, Frau Bein! Good morning, Fraulein Regine! Our teacher, who has of course long since known what was being prepared, affects to be completely surprised by his present and the decorations. He raises a hand to his forehead, several times, shaking his head, as if he does not know what to say, and, deeply touched, walks up and down the class, thanking each one of us effusively. There are no lessons today; instead, stories and German legends of old are read aloud. We also have a guessing game. For instance, we have to guess the three things that give and take in infinite plenty. Of course no one knows the answer, which Herr Bein then tells us in tones of great significance: the earth, the sea, and the Reich. Perhaps the best thing about that day is that, before we go home, we are allowed to jump over the Hanukkah candles, which have been fixed to the threshold with drops of wax. It is a long winter. At home, Papa does exercises with us in the evening. The geese are gone from their hutch. Soon after, parts of them are preserved in boiling hot fat. Some village women come to slice the quills from the feathers. They sit in the spare room, each with a heap of down in front of her, slicing almost the whole night long. It looks as if snow has fallen. But the next morning, when we get up, the room is so clean, so devoid of feathers, that you'd think nothing had ever happened. Early in the year, spring cleaning has to be done in preparation for Passover. It is worse at school. Frau Bein and Fràulein Regine are at it for at least a week. The mattresses are taken out to the yard, the bedding is hung over the balcony, the floors are newly waxed, and all the cooking utensils are immersed in boiling water. We children have to sweep the classroom and wash the shutters with soapsuds. At home, too, all the rooms and chests are cleared out. The bustle is dreadful. The evening before Passover, Mama sits down for a while for the first time in days. Meanwhile, Father's job is to go around the house with a goose feather checking to see that not a single crumb of bread is still to be found.