A public announcement details new, restrictive government policies. The authorities have stopped issuing “transvestite cards” and are revoking all existing ones, rendering them invalid. Additionally, reports confirm that most applications for legal name changes by gender nonconforming people are now being rejected. The announcer ends with a message of solidarity, urging the affected community to remain hopeful that these oppressive measures will be short-lived.

The narrator reports that authorities have begun rescinding legal name changes that were previously granted. Many are being ordered to stop living according to their identities, and some have had their homes searched to ensure they no longer possess clothing deemed inappropriate. The narrator offers a message of support to those affected, hoping this wave of persecution does not spread.

A report announces that the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, is on fire. Hitler immediately blames Communists, arguing it as an attempt to destroy the government from within. However, eye witnesses claim to have seen Nazi brownshirts entering the building just before the fire started. The narrator conveys the terror of the unfolding crisis and urges the “lilac people” to look after one another.

An unnamed narrator reports that Adolf Hitler has successfully urged President Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree under the state purpose of protecting Germany from Communists. The decree gives Hitler’s government the legal authority to arrest and imprison political opponents without trial, censor the press, and suspend many civil liberties and protections. The narrator describes the development as “distressing” but ends with a message of hope for the future.

A bulletin announces that Hermann Göring, a minister in Hitler’s cabinet, has ordered the permanent closure of all social venues, including clubs and bars, associated with the lilac people. As a direct consequence of this new decree, reports confirm that these individuals are now being systematically arrested and imprisoned. The message concludes with a call for the them to remain strong and endure this period of persecution together.

An announcement reveals that a prison, officially called a “work camp,” has opened in Dachau. This camp is specifically intended to incarcerate “transvestites, inverts, and political opponents of Adolf Hitler” (170). Amid rumors that more such camps are planned, a warning is issued to the community to remain inconspicuous and avoid giving the authorities any reason to target them.

A message reports that the Eldorado has been seized and converted into a local Nazi headquarters. Its signs and banners have been removed and replaced with swastikas, except for the banner above the entrance reading “Hier ist’s richtig” (171). The narrator believes this was intentional and notes that a propaganda photograph of the building appears staged to emphasize the symbolism. The message ends by urging listeners to stay safe, look after one another, and maintain a low profile in the face of this new development.

A narrator reports that the Enabling Act has officially passed the Reichstag and been signed by President Hindenburg. This act legally transfers all legislative power from the Reichstag directly to Hitler. As a result, Hitler now possesses the authority to enact laws unilaterally, imprison political opponents without trial, and implement press censorship. The narrator stresses the distressing fact that this complete consolidation of power was achieved through legal, constitutional, and democratic processes. It is believed that Hitler is now creating a one-party state. The message concludes with an urgent warning for allies to remain vigilant and to blend in.

A message to “fellow lilacs” confirms that people are being transported to a new work camp in Dachau. Conditions inside the camp and the possibility of release remain unknown. The communication also reports that Kurt Hiller, one of the leaders of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut, has been arrested and taken to Dachau. The message acknowledges the community’s distress, noting that less than two months have passed since Hitler became chancellor.

The narrator reports that Hitler’s government in Germany is encouraging a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses beginning in April. The narrator expresses solidarity with Jewish people affected by this action, especially for those who are also “lilac.”

A broadcast warns about a newly enacted sterilization law, the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, which will take effect on July 14. The law mandates the forcible sterilization of individuals with a wide range of conditions, including genetic blindness or deafness, manic depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and more. The message ends by urging listeners not to draw attention to themselves and to remain safe.

The narrator reports that all remaining lilac journals and newspapers have been forced to cease publication. The message ends with the bleak declaration that nothing of their community remains in print.

A new message reports that the Gestapo are collecting the names of “all men engaged in homosexual activities,” though the narrator remains unsure how this will affect “transvestites” (177).

News is received announcing the death of President Hindenburg. The interlude then reports that Adolf Hitler has appointed himself head of the German state.

A brief update reports that Adolf Hitler has publicly declared Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld to be “the most dangerous Jew in Germany” (179).

With the immediate threat gone, Karl no longer has to hide inside the house. He and Sofie practice piano openly while Bertie pushes through his exhaustion to finish carving the stamp for their forged passports, which must be completed in three days. Their routine is interrupted by a visit from Frau Baer, who reveals that she knows they have a guest and says she saw someone drop from the spare-room window twice, both times when the American officer visited. Bertie attempts to lie, claiming they are Jewish, but she dismisses it. Frau Baer observes that Karl resembles neither of them before pointing out they have mail and departing, leaving them more paranoid than ever.

The letter is addressed to Sofie and comes from a former neighbor in Arnstadt. Sofie initially reacts with hope, but while reading it she learns that her family died in a bombing three years earlier. Overcome with grief, she blames herself for their deaths. Bertie comforts her and insists that she is not responsible, even as he begins privately blaming himself, while Karl places a hand on her shoulder in support.

In May 1933, three months after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, Berlin is tense and covered in swastikas. Bertie lives in constant fear because the revocation of his identification card and other rights means he now breaks the law simply by going outside as himself. The Institut is in decline, with fewer visitors, Nazi-sympathizing staff, restricted services, and frequent police harassment. Bertie finds a badly bruised Doktor Hirschfeld, who explains why he advocates for the lilac people using a canary in a coal mine analogy: as some of society’s most vulnerable people, their persecution is a warning that the country is becoming dangerous and that attacks will eventually spread to other groups. Hirschfeld warns that no group is safe.

Bertie has finalized the details for Hirschfeld’s world lecture tour, which begins that day. They share an emotional farewell, and although Hirschfeld insists that he will return, Bertie has seen his notes and suspects that he eventually intends to leave Germany permanently. Bertie wishes he could accompany him, but his own passport application has been halted.

Shortly after Hirschfeld leaves, a frightened young man arrives seeking help obtaining an identification card and legal name change. Bertie explains that cards and passports are no longer available but that name changes and medical services have not yet been completely stopped. As Bertie agrees to help him with everything the Institut still can, he feels a renewed sense of belonging and purpose. When Bertie asks the young man what name he wants to use, he introduces himself as Karl Fuchs.

While working late at Doktor Hirschfeld’s Institut, with Karl’s application still on his desk, Bertie hears a brass band approaching. He looks out the window to see a mob of more than 100 Nazi students from the German Student Union arriving with torches and flags. The mob breaks into the building while chanting “Death to Hirschfeld!” (196) and begins violently ransacking the Institut and attacking its staff. 

When the students discover Bertie in his office, he barricades the door with his desk. Knowing he is trapped, he retrieves his own file and deliberately burns it before escaping through a rear window, injuring his wrist in the fall. When one of the students looks outside, Bertie remains still and is mistaken for dead, allowing him to escape. From outside, he watches students tear apart the Institut’s library, destroying books, photographs, documents, and years of collected research and history. Watching the destruction, Bertie concludes that their efforts to gain acceptance through visibility and education, without first securing legal protections, has instead made them targets. Devastated, Bertie flees home, where he collapses in front of Sofie and tells her that everything is gone.

Believing the materials threaten their survival, Bertie burns his treasured photo album and identification card, feeling that destroying them is a necessary betrayal of his own history and friends. As he watches them burn, Karl joins him. Bertie confesses that they met once before at the Institut and that he feels responsible for Karl’s imprisonment at Dachau. During the Nazi raid on the Institut, Bertie deliberately burned his own file for self-protection but failed to burn Karl’s folder, which was sitting on top of his desk. Bertie believes the Nazis used the Institut’s files, including names, addresses, and photographs he had personally recorded, to create lists that targeted their community. He blames himself for what subsequently happened to Karl, Gert, and his other friends.

Karl reveals that he recognized Bertie from the beginning and remembers him as the first and last person like himself he had met before his imprisonment. He explains that beneath his outward composure he continues to grieve for himself and others who suffered. Karl feels trapped between believing that giving up would dishonor those who died and fearing that moving forward and becoming happy would dishonor them as well. After Bertie tells him that the Institut’s materials burned, Karl observes that they are all that is left of their history. Bertie asks whether Karl would warn his younger self about what was coming if he could not change it; while Bertie admits that he sometimes resents his own former hopefulness and innocence, Karl says he would tell his younger self nothing. Bertie then recalls that history has repeatedly shown that people like them are never completely erased, and Karl accepts this as a small source of comfort.

On June 30, 1934, over a year after the Institut was permanently closed, Bertie and Sofie are living largely isolated in their apartment, leaving mainly for odd jobs and trying to avoid attention. Late that night, Gert bursts into the apartment and warns them that Hitler has ordered Ernst Röhm killed and that a simultaneous “pogrom [against] the third sex” (210) is under way. Gert reveals that Nazis are killing people or taking them to Dachau using lists and that he had barely escaped. When Bertie asks how they could have found an entire list, Gert only stares at him helplessly. He gives them an address for his grandparents’ farm in Ulm, instructing them to write a joint suicide note, abandon their belongings, and flee immediately. When Bertie asks about their other friends, Gert admits that he only had time to warn one person.

After Gert leaves to plant a similar note at his own apartment, Bertie takes his photo album with his old identification card inside, and Sofie takes a framed photograph of her family. They otherwise leave with only the clothes they are wearing. While they are escaping Berlin, they encounter a Nazi roadblock. Sofie fakes a miscarriage, screaming and pretending that she is losing their baby while Bertie begs the soldiers to let them seek medical help. The soldiers eventually allow them through, and Bertie and Sofie drive through the night to Ulm.

Upon reaching the Baumann farm, they disguise their car with mud before approaching the house. Oma and Opa have been expecting them after a call from Gert, but Gert has not arrived. Bertie insists that he cannot be far behind, and the chapter ends as they all wait for him, increasingly worried.