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West. He had been unapologetic. “I have nothing against Jews unless they’re Reds or Cosmopolitans. I wish I’d gotten more of them. Now, I guess, Jews hunt me.”
    How did he re-cross the border? It was a question that must have been answered at the trial. The bullet had come from Durmersheimer’s gun. Hans Klemmer’s name was on a list of so-called collaborators found on Durmersheimer’s person. Durmersheimer seemed bewildered by the trial itself, never denied the charges. He kept repeating: “What’s a Saxon to you? Just shoot him in the head if he gets in the way, or let the Reds do your shooting for you.”
    There was more—she was sure—about the other suspects, the folk-dancing, the list of collaborators. There must be a transcript somewhere. She could certainly request files to be transferred to the archive. Yet if she took that step, it would raise questions that felt—against all logic—private. This was not state business. Whoever broke into her archive had risked something to get to her.
    No, she couldn’t pursue this openly. She had other sources: what Kornfeld called her “regional field trips.” Loschwitz was worth a try.
    *   *   *
    The Stasi had no jurisdiction in Loschwitz. Those people had their own laws and their own courts. There were no street signs, only Yiddish pashkevils in Hebrew script reporting births, deaths, and feuds between rabbis. Sometimes there’d be a pashkevil in German to address outsiders: “Women: Be Modest” or more jarringly, in some shop window: “Bundists are not Jews.” Tucked between synagogues were shops that sold black-market goods or exchanged Judenmarks for foreign currency. Rumor had it that a girl who got into trouble could bypass the state clinic for an abortion in a room above a kosher butcher shop.
    When Judit went to Loschwitz, she took care to cover her head with a beret and wear a calf-length skirt and stockings. The disguise was worth the trouble because it was in Loschwitz that Judit found a junk shop, never in the same place twice, but always carrying the same inventory: plastic bowls and tarnished flatware, magazines from Judenstaat’s deep past, some in yellowed slipcases, and others half-chewed and unreadable.
    The owner had a long, thin beard and wore a skull-cap, and he never met Judit’s eyes, but he took care to push a certain bin in her direction. The film canisters and photographs in that bin had all been marked DISCARD in red, and when she sorted through it, they proved to be from Judenstaat’s earliest years.
    She asked, “How much?”
    He answered in the high-pitched Yiddish of the black-hats. “ Three zloty. ”
    She gave the man ten Judenmarks, which he did not reject. The next time she managed to find the shop, he asked for fifteen dollars, and the third and fourth time, twenty Deutsche marks. In every case, he took what Judit offered. In every case, she went straight back to her archive and spent the night viewing and sorting until her eyes gave out and her legs gave way.
    She’d never been sure why some footage was discarded. The images of Stephen Weiss were hot stuff, sure, but then there were other reels that seemed harmless enough, though certainly unfiltered: American- or Soviet-made. She kept the Loschwitz footage in a separate drawer and never included it in her formal catalogue; she kept its contents in her head:
    A newsreel from 1950: six young Ghetto Fighters waving across an airfield. Leather jackets slung over their shoulders. The propeller hums, and a Soviet pilot urges them on board. They’re headed for Moscow, where they will become the officer corps of Judenstaat’s defense force.
    Grainy footage of three slender Americans in well-tailored raincoats, walking beside Leopold Stein as they survey the sandstone foundation of Judenstaat’s new Parliament. 1949. One of the Americans whispers