The next morning everyone – including Jean herself – was astonished to see her emerge at 8.30am. She struggled through a History of Art lesson with Fräulein Scheunemann, but then retired to bed with “a devilish suffering stomach”. While she was in bed, Karl came to visit, but the maid told him Jean was lying in bed, so he left without seeing her. He was about to start his exams, he told her the next day on the phone, and would have to concentrate on his work for a few weeks. Jean was desperate: “That is far too long. I would so like to see him, but now I must wait two weeks, and perhaps for ever!” But there were other complications. At the Student Ball she had told him she was seventeen, but at the ski resort she had said she was eighteen. Would he notice the disparity? And, contrary to her experience with the unfortunate Barth, she was worried that she liked him more than he liked her. “Why do I like him so, and he has so many girlfriends that I’m sure he doesn’t like me that much.”
But far worse was to follow. She had discovered that his surname was an unromantic Pobelik. When the girls were discussing this together, Fräulein Tahm, the music teacher, immediately said in a tone of disgust, “They must be Jews.” “I do hope not”, wrote Jean worriedly.
diary of an English debutante in Nazi Germany 