Isidor Bruck

Isidor Bruck was the son of a family of Jewish bakers living in Münster durig the European war. He was embarrassed that the twin pressures of wartime rationing and racist laws had forced his family to bake inferior products, though he maintained that they were doing the best they could under the circumstances. He was proud to remember that in the good old days his family's bakery had been the best in the city.

Bruck had once been a football player, even playing with Sarah Goldma's brother, though he was not nearly as good. In 1939 he appeared to be developing romantic feelings for Sarah. Sarah, the daughter of a (former) university professor, would once have considered a baker's son beneath her station, but recognized that, under the Nazis, Jews were all equally lowly in their social standing. In fact, she considered the advantages of being married to a baker if food shortages were to arise.