Summary

Section One is titled “October 1933, Trossingen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany.” In Chapter One, Friedrich Schmidt is a boy who is about to walk to work at the harmonica factory for the first time without his father, Martin, who has retired. Martin reminds Friedrich that they have talked about this. At his father's prompt, Friedrich says he knows he is supposed to walk with his head up.

In Chapter Two, Friedrich gets around the corner and immediately drops his head to look downward. He does not attend a “regular school” and so he and Martin read the newspaper together each evening. Martin is critical of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Friedrich hears a song coming from the music conservatory. He is working on music for his audition there and cannot decide if he is more worried that he will fail, or that he...