4 Hans Rothschild, Kurt’s brother, worked for the J. Gerber Company based in Cape Town, South Africa. His travels from there to Berlin and back necessitated stops in the Congo and in other African countries as well.

5 Lorechen means little Ingelore. It also may be a synthesis of the last syllable of Ingelore and the last syllable of Mädchen, the German word for girl.

6 Ingelore’s recall here is faulty. The poem she mentions is by Goethe, not Schiller. For most young children, Der Erlkönig (The Elf King, or sometimes The Alder King) is a terrifying tale of a fantastical apparition trying to lure a young boy from his father’s embrace as they ride home on horseback in storm and in darkness. When they do arrive, the boy is dead in his father’s arms.

7 The Nazi party or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) had only 17,000 members in 1926, but by March 1930 membership had grown to 210,000 (Friedrich, 355). Their legislative membership had also increased from 12 members in 1928 to 107 in 1930 (Vogt, 94).

8 On 27 February 1925, a rally was held in Munich to mark the occasion of the re-founding of the Nazi Party. Over 5,000 people attended (Benz, A Concise History of the Third Reich, 15–16).

9 Omi and Opa refer to Ingelore’s paternal grandmother and grandfather, Hedwig and Leopold Rothschild. Alfred and (the first-mentioned) Uncle Hans are Kurt’s brothers. The second “Uncle” Hans, and his wife, “Aunt” Evchen (the Mendelsohns) were long-time family friends of Ingelore’s parents, but not blood relatives.