With the help of a school directrice, the children of the real-life Chateau de la Hille eked out an existence with little food and the humblest of modern amenities. Likewise, The Thought of High Windows's parallel chateau is a refuge for many Jewish children in the French countryside. During this time, Esther turns sixteen years old. Walter makes her a gift of his Mogen David (Star of David), which was given to him by his mother. The gift is more poignant because they "both believe, know with a clammy certainty, that Walter's mother and the rest of his family are dead." Walter tells Esther that she is his family now, and calls her 'little sister'. However, Walter's Mogen David becomes a symbol of betrayal. The incident revolves around Walter's impossible infatuation with blonde, delicate Eva (who can pass for Aryan). He finds out that Esther never delivered Eva's response to his love letter, and stops speaking to her altogether. In her despair and fury, Esther tears the Mogen David off her neck, hurling the broken chain at Walter's feet. She realizes she's gone too far when she sees Walter's "yellow irises are catlike, washed with tears." Esther concludes, "I am more broken than the Mogen David, but something in me is too proud, I suppose: I can never bring myself to apologize." Sadly, one day Esther will betray Walter again.
The children's stay in the chateau ends in the midst of a performance of the story of Noah's Ark. The biblical story focuses, as it often does for children, on gathering the animals instead of a morality and retribution; no wrathful God nor great, purging flood. The allegory is not lost on the reader; like the animals on the ark, the children are hastily thrown together for an indeterminate time in close quarters. Just when Esther (costumed as a mouse, of course) makes the rest of the children laugh with a silly line, Nazi solders storm the chateau, arresting all Jewish children aged sixteen and older. But before, Esther called the chateau "an oasis in a desert of destruction", where children had lessons and chores, and fought their own petty battles. Where children could almost forget that outside were war and genocide.
The Gestapo's Window: Two Appropriated Identities, the Underground
After the arrests, older Jewish children are taken to a camp; some of them are moved to Auschwitz. Esther, Walter, and others
The copyright of the article 'The Thought of High Windows': Memory of Evil in Children's Literature is owned by Irene Tanner-Yuen. Permission to republish 'The Thought of High Windows': Memory of Evil in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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