I was now nine years old. I was still reading everything I could get my hands on, even the reports and announcements in the Swiss newspapers about Germany – now calling itself “new” and “the Third Reich”. Most of the reports were critical or downright negative. Especially about the behavior of the assault squads of the SA, who were terrorizing their opponents. I now pictured my homeland Germany as a land of fear and horror. But when we returned to Germany in the autumn of 1934 at the end of our summer tour, my first impression was completely different. There was no more violence in the streets, no endless lines of people waiting at the State Employment Offices. I was utterly surprised: on the surface it was a peaceful new home, which at first seemed to me anything but hostile. Quiet and order prevailed. I would learn later that that was deceptive, and that in fact it was the quiet of the graveyard.

I would have loved to stay with the Knie Circus in friendly Switzerland, where I had made a lot of friends among the circus children and didn't have to go to school. But the ben Ahmeds wouldn't agree. They explained that the Youth Welfare Bureau wanted to see us back in one piece, and that there was nothing to be afraid of. Life in the new Germany was wonderful and everything would be fine.

And Berlin really did look transformed to me. The main reason for that was that we no longer lived in Prenzlauer Berg, but in the more respectable Karlshorst, deep in Berlin's southeastern suburbs.6 Land was being cleared for development there, and plots could be bought for low prices. The ben Ahmeds had seized the opportunity in 1931–32 and built themselves a villa that contained three apartments.

On the ground floor there lived Erich Walzer with his wife, Käthe; one of Aunt Martha's brothers, Erich worked for the National Bank and had been badly wounded in the First World War. At first their daughter lived there too, until she married and moved out.