Excerpt from Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Hellhäutig. Number three," he snapped at Dr. Vogel beside him, signaling that his colleague should mark Gundi's chart accordingly. Gundi had first seen this kind of racial screening tool five years earlier, when Jewish students were still permitted to attend public schools, before the Nazis had deemed classrooms too crowded for children no longer considered German citizens. The Nazis were as obsessed with skin, hair, and eye coloring as they were the size and positioning of facial features.

Even before Jews were banned from public schools, some of Gundi's teachers had shown students how to quickly detect physical characteristics of the inferior Untermenschen. When Gundi was in Mittelschule, her teacher, Herr Richter, humiliated her classmate Samuel Braus by calling him to the front of the room for inspection. The teacher held a fistful of Sammy's thick brown curls and turned his head to the side so hard that his eyeglasses fell to the ground. Offering the other students a profile view of their Jewish classmate, Herr Richter pointed out that Sammy's nose looked like the number six. That was just one way to spot a Jew. As the teacher was pacing, he stepped on Sammy's spectacles. Everyone in the class heard the crunch. Herr Richter was no kinder to Gundi's friend Rose, whom he addressed only as "the Jewess in the back row." Gundi was often required to line up beside the object of her teacher's ridicule to serve as a counterpoint, an example of pure German beauty. As she stood at the front of the classroom, her cheeks reddened, but Herr Richter called it a healthy glow. Herr Richter also favored Gundi's best friend, Erich Meyer, a boy whose chiseled features and butterscotch hair made him look as if he'd been plucked straight off a Nazi propaganda poster.

Much like Gundi's schoolteacher, Dr. Ebner now peppered his inspection with praise. "The freckles are sweet. You love the sunshine, Gundi?" he asked, reaching into his white coat pocket for a card with a row of tiny blue, green, and hazel buttons fastened to the oak tag. Each color had a corresponding number. "I think Gundi's eye color is a five," he said to Dr. Vogel with professorial authority. Holding the iris color samples next to Gundi's right eye, Dr. Ebner squinted to double-­check the match. "And I am correct," he said, lips curling with pride. "Such pretty blue eyes." Dr. Ebner was ebullient once again when he found a hair sample that exactly matched Gundi's sandy-blond locks.

Gundi turned to her mother, furrowing her brows to silently communicate her confusion and concern. But Elsbeth seemed relieved, letting out a sigh and nodding with Dr. Ebner's praise. Gundi perched herself at the edge of the exam table and looked around the room. What is going on here? She took a deep breath and regarded the skeleton in the corner. Why is Dr. Vogel saying nothing? Why does Mutti seem so agreeable?

Dr. Ebner lifted Gundi's chin and opened a pair of calipers to measure her skull, nose, and forehead, issuing grunts of approval after each measurement.

Turning to Elsbeth, Dr. Ebner asked if she had remembered to bring documentation of her family lineage. She reached into her bag for a thick folder and held it out for him with a hopeful smile.

Dr. Ebner set it down next to Gundi, who watched him leaf through not only her baptism papers, birth certificate, and medical records but similar documents for her parents and grandparents. She knit her brows when she saw the old-­fashioned daguerreotype wedding portrait of her paternal grandparents. She hadn't seen them since her father's funeral. What did they have to do with her baby?

Looking up from Gundi's file, Dr. Ebner turned to Elsbeth planted in the corner. "Frau Schiller, I will need to examine the girl further. Please wait outside."

"Of course, Doctor," Elsbeth said, too quickly for Gundi's comfort.

When the door closed, Dr. Ebner turned to Gundi, raising his eyebrows as he scanned her from head to toe. "What are you waiting for? This is not a dental exam."

Excerpted from Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn. Copyright © 2022 by Jennifer Coburn. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.