Originally published December 7, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1464
Back in the 1930s, there was a small shoe store in the heart of Berlin, run by a soft-spoken, unprepossessing Jew named Martin David. He had a wife, Hela, and a small boy named Gunter. The political situation had been deteriorating in Germany, and there were concerned noises from members of the Jewish populace, but there was a general belief that everything would calm down. How bad, it was figured, could it get?
And then one night a brick was hurled through Martin David’s store window, and the shouts of “Dirty Jews!” were heard from outside. Martin looked at the broken glass, at the brick with the word “Juden” etched upon it, lying upon the floor like a still-steaming animal dropping, and then he turned to his wife and said, “Start packing, get everything together. Sell what you don’t need. We’re leaving.”
All the neighbors told them they were crazy. That they were overreacting. That things would go back to the way they were. The Davids, despite the nay-sayers, left anyway.
All the neighbors died in concentration camps.
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