Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/178

claiming that her presence at the German Club would prove to his student friends that love stood above patriotism and that a Jewess could be as cultivated and refined as any Aryan girl. "Your presence will help the cause you are fighting for," he had argued, "the equality of all peoples, regardless of race, creed or color. What better time to demonstrate the message of the People's Front than now when all Paris is celebrating the victory of the Revolution?"

Anna and Eric found themselves separated as soon as they entered the hall. As president and chairman of the evening, Fritz collared him, and took him away, handing Anna over to the care of the Viennese Kurt.

The evening passed riotously. At eleven a temporary halt was called to the dancing. The orchestra disappeared; benches and chairs were hurriedly set in rows on the dance floor. Everyone was seated. The lights were turned out. Voices became hushed. Only the electric fans continued whirring in the darkness, cooling the hot air with their mechanical gusts of wind.

Slowly the curtain before the platform lifted. Five men, standing erect, stiff as scarecrows. At either side waved a French flag; betwen them a swastika banner fluttered ghostly.

Anna hardly recognized Eric. Under the glare of the spotlight and the yellow haze of the Nazi flags, he seemed strangely alien and unfamiliar. It was as if they were separated by a planet that had suddenly thrust itself between them.

At a signal the entire assembly jumped to its feet and sang out a lusty "Deutschland über Alles." Anna, too, found herself impelled to get up, and was at once shocked by her impulsive action. Ashamed, she sat down again like one who has made a gesture of reverence to an alien god, a