Echo

Friedrich comes up with a plan to save his father and his uncle: Gunter will leave for Switzerland right away, and Friedrich will bribe a guard to get his father out before joining him in Switzerland. Uncle Gunter is reluctant to leave Friedrich alone, but he agrees, asking Friedrich where his new bravery came from. He replies, “From Father, and you. And even Elisabeth. If she can jeopardize everything important in her life to save Father, shouldn’t I?” (177).

Uncle Gunter leaves for Berne, and Friedrich prepares the speech he will give to the guard—"'My family is ready to receive my father back into the world of Hitler’s Germany’”—over and over again so that he can say them without hesitation, even though they make him feel sick (180).

Alone in the house, Friedrich makes it look like the Brown Shirts broke in to throw the neighbors off his trail. He plays himself a goodnight concert on his harmonica on his last night in his hometown, and Brahms’s Lullaby is once again his song of choice. 

Friedrich goes to work at the factory as usual, and on an impulse, puts his harmonica into a box to be shipped out. He leaves work and boards a train. On the request of soldiers, he shows his papers, but soon discovers one of the men questioning him arrested his father. As they harass him, he begins to hear the Sleeping Beauty waltz. He begins to conduct, and two soldiers take him by the arms.