The Burnt Offering: A Tale

Plot

It purports to be told by a librarian. The background is the 1939-45 War. When Herr Walker, the butcher, is called up, his wife takes charge of the business, and the local Nazi Gauleiter instructs her to supply meat to the Jewish community. A sympathy springs up between her and her new clients, who in the course of time confide in her, relating their sufferings. As the war goes on, they disappear one by one, and Frau Walker, who knows their fate, suffers an acute sense of guilt, because she belongs to the community responsible for so much suffering. After an air raid she is found injured in her burnt-out house. The cause of the fire is not discovered, but it is suggested that her crisis of conscience induced her to sacrifice herself as a ‘burnt offering’, and that for this reason she had set fire to the house.