Refugee: Josef: Berlin, Germany – 1938 Summary & Analysis

Twelve-year-old Josef Landau wakes up with a start as Nazi soldiers break into his family’s home. He is dragged from his bed and becomes so scared that he wets himself. The soldiers grab Josef’s six-year-old sister Ruthie by the hair as she screams. They then destroy everything in the room as Josef and Ruthie cling to each other.

The soldiers then drag Josef and Ruthie into the living room, where the children’s mother, Rachel, and father, Aaron, are. They accuse Josef’s father of practicing law, despite the fact that Jews are forbidden to do so under German law. For this “crime against the German people,” he will be taken into custody.

Josef tries to fight the soldiers. The Nazis laugh at the wet spot on Josef’s pajamas, mocking him for being a little boy. Josef insists he’ll be a man soon, and the soldiers turn on him, saying that if he’s a man, he could go to the camps as well. Rachel cries in protest. The Nazis drag Aaron away, warning Josef not to be “so quick to grow up.” The Nazis then destroy the rest of the furniture and objects in the house.

The next day, Josef discovers that the Nazis raided and destroyed thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues all over Germany. They called it Kristallnacht, “the Night of Broken Glass.” Josef and the others know it means that they aren’t wanted in Germany. Rachel, meanwhile, tries fruitlessly to find Aaron. They do not hear about him until six months later. They receive a telegram saying that Aaron would be released from a concentration camp called Dachau, on the condition that he leave the country within two weeks.