Without a Country

by Ayşe Kulin

The German parliament building was left in smoking ruins. When Hitler had arrived at the scene, Goebbels, his minister of propaganda and the man who purportedly said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” was watching the blaze.

He pressed his hands against his ears and flushed in shame as he remembered his reaction when poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht fled with his family to Denmark shortly after Hitler took power.

Susy’s Turkish had gotten far more fluent than her German. She spoke Turkish in the street, in the park, at her ballet lessons, with Fatma, and now with Peter. Even when asked a question in German by her parents, she had begun answering in Turkish.

Elsa peered out at her grandchildren from under the brim of her straw hat. “Look at them, Gerhard. Here we are, a German Jewish couple on a Turkish beach. Our son is American, and our daughter is Turkish. Our grandchildren are all Christian or Muslim. Was this our destiny?” “I don’t have any complaints, Elsa. And anyway, don’t blame destiny. Blame Hitler!”

I was the proud daughter of a nation with a shining future. My father devoted his life to the advancement of science and medicine in this country. If we enjoyed a mini Renaissance, we owe a debt of gratitude to him and to the other scientists and academics, mostly Jewish German, who came here. They educated a golden generation of high achievers.”