Too Lovely for the World
by Marina J. Neary
The Garden of the Reich Chancellery, May 1, 1945, a few minutes after the Goebbels’ suicide. Magda is sitting on a bench, trembling, holding a hairbrush, humming a lullaby. Haim “Viktor” Arlosoroff, her former lover, slowly emerges from the shadows.
Magda:
|
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf! Der Vater hüthet die Schaf, Die Mutter schüttelt’s Bäumelein, Da fällt herab ein Träumelein. Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf! |
Sleep, little child, sleep! Father is watching the sheep, Mother is shaking the little tree, And down falls a little dream. Sleep, little child, sleep! |
Viktor: You don’t have to whisper. Your children can’t hear you. They’re dead.
Magda: (with a mixture of terror and relief): It worked...
Viktor: Cyanide usually does. It worked on the Führer’s dog. Poor Blondi. Only four years old. Such a clean, quick death. Well done, Frau Goebbels.
Magda: Viktor...
Viktor: I go by Haim now, but you can still call me Viktor, for old time’s sake. Your Jewish lover, the manic Zionist. Did your German husbands know that bit of your personal history?
Magda: I’m not very good at keeping secrets. Yes, they knew. I told them how you dragged me to a Jewish youth meeting and let your friends make fun of me. That was cruel of you.
Viktor: We were teenagers, drunk on kosher wine. That’s what teenagers do. They make fun of each other. My friends were just testing you, to make sure you weren’t a poser. A convent girl flirting with Judaism.
Magda: I was sincere! I tried to recite a poem in Hebrew, and they were laughing.
Viktor: Your pronunciation was horrid. It sounded nothing like Hebrew.
Magda: You were laughing the loudest!
Viktor: I made it up to you later that night, didn’t I? So, what did your husbands think of our little tryst?
Magda: Gunther didn’t care. Joseph pretended not to care. It was a matter of pride, I think. He’d never admit to being threatened by someone like you.
Viktor: And yet he was threatened enough to vow our extermination.
Magda: Don’t flatter yourself.
Viktor: Six million of us.
Magda: Don’t exaggerate. How do you come up with these numbers? My husband had bigger tasks than flushing out a few rabbis and bankers.
Viktor (shakes his head): Why do I bother? Do you still have that star I gave you? Never mind. You don’t have to answer that question. Somehow I’m not surprised by how you turned out.
Magda: And how did I turn out?
Viktor: The Reich’s unofficial first lady. Rest assured, Emmy Göring has nothing on you. She only had one child. You’ve outbred her. The country sees an Aryan icon.
Magda: And what do you see?
Viktor: I see a flighty, excitable girl, easily bored, easily smitten by extremist men. You went from a Zionist to a Nazi. It’s not shocking. I’m glad I didn’t take you with me to Palestine. You would’ve hated the climate.
Magda: How did it work out for you? Building a kingdom for God’s chosen?
Viktor (shrugs casually): It was good while it lasted. The ending was a little abrupt. I got shot on the beach in Tel Aviv back in ’33. Such a bloody mess!
Magda: So I heard.
Viktor: It was the biggest, most pompous funeral in the history of Palestine. Some eighty thousand mourners showed up. Politicians, journalists tripping over each other. If I possessed any false modesty, I’d say all that fuss was unnecessary. But I don’t... (Throws his arms up in the air). To hell with modesty! I totally deserved it. (His demeanor suddenly becomes somber.) I wonder who’ll be burying the Goebbels brats.
Magda: Leave my children out!
Viktor: Out of what? They are on every propaganda poster. You turned your offspring into a sideshow. You made them have tea parties with Hitler, sit in his lap, sing for him. And when you heard the Allies’ engines roar, you killed them. It seemed like the most... hygienic solution.
Magda: I spared them torment and mockery. They’d bear the burden of their father’s crimes.
Viktor: I’m not disputing that. If the Russians got their hands on your brats, it wouldn’t be pretty. First take photos of them against the backdrop of a red flag, then separate them and lock them up in Soviet orphanages. At least you made the effort to brush their hair beforehand. Your last motherly duty. (Yanks the brush out of Magda’s hands and examines it closely.) What do we have here? Six shades of dirty blond, tangled in one clump. There’s Helga, daddy’s girl, resentful of her mother. She knew something was up. She fought. I saw the bruises on her arms. Then Hilde, the “little mouse.” Helmut, the dreamy clown. Holde, the homely middle daughter, always overlooked. Hedda, the explorer, fascinated with prosthetic limbs and glass eyes. And finally, Heide, the little flirt, who shared a birthday with her father. She wouldn’t stop giggling. It was all a joke to her.
Magda: They were too good, too lovely for the world.
Viktor: They were rotten! Rude and unruly. Even the giddy four-year old. Still, not entirely hopeless. I have plans for them.
Magda: Do you?
Viktor: Yes. I’m taking them with me.
Magda: Where?
Viktor: To the Holy Land! Where else? Your rascals will wake up in a kibbutz, in the shade of orange trees. It will take a few decades to repopulate our nation, and the Goebbels children will play their part. They won’t remember having cake with the Führer.
Magda: You would do that for me?
Viktor: For old times’ sake. Now that I’m not bound by flesh, I can go places, do things. I made a promise to your stepfather. I visited him in Buchenwald back in ’39. Poor old Richard! He continued to care for you, even after your mother divorced him.
Magda: I feel terrible.
Viktor: You should. The man doted on you. He gave you all the treats and trinkets you wanted. He paid for your Catholic schooling, turned a blind eye to your mother’s infidelity for years. And you made no effort to save him when he was sent to the camp.
Magda: It was entirely out of my control. Even if I had tried to intervene... The Führer wanted it thus, and Joseph had to obey.
Viktor: I didn’t expect a different answer.
Magda: What did Richard look like when you saw him?
Viktor: A shivering skeleton. You know what they put on his death certificate? “Heart muscle failure.” I was there when he drew his last breath in the barrack. I stood over his bunk. He saw me and whispered, “I know it’s too late for my little girl. She’s a lost cause.”
Magda: He was right, though. I am a lost cause. I followed a man like Joseph, bore his children, and now I must pay.
Viktor: Tomorrow, the Soviet troops will find your charred corpse in the garden. An SS soldier will douse your corpse with petrol and set it on fire. It’s not a pretty sight. “Jawbones and dental remains detached in the oral cavity,” the autopsy report will say.
Magda: Sounds right.
Viktor: If it’s any consolation, your children’s bodies are perfectly intact. Freshly pressed nightclothes and ribbons in the girls’ hair. Not that it matters. Tomorrow they’ll have new bodies and new names. A new life in the Holy Land while Europe licks her wounds. And so begins a day of godly work!
Viktor puts the brush in his pocket and walks away, singing a Hebrew lullaby.
|
Numi, numi yaldati, Numi, numi, nim. Numi, numi k’tanati, Numi, numi, nim. |
Sleep, sleep, my child, Sleep, sleep, sleep. Sleep, sleep, my little one, Sleep, sleep, sleep. |
Copyright © 2026 by Marina J. Neary
