Once We Were Brothers (17 page)

“In December, a new commandant was appointed and Otto’s duties were changed. He was made an adjutant to the SS commandant and given the rank of scharfuhrer, which was a staff sergeant. In his new post, he felt like he was under increased scrutiny. So there were more delays.

“Later that winter, in one of their numerous inspections, the Gestapo assembled all the Jews in the town square. Those with permits were dismissed to go to work, those without permits received a painted mark on their foreheads. Many of them were sent to Belzec.”

“Oh,” Catherine said. “The concentration camp.”

“No. It was a death camp.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“No. Many people lump them together, but the Nazis had two different types of camps. Concentration camps were essentially prison camps. Some, like Dachau and Mauthausen, existed in Germany and Austria before the war. People were initially sentenced there by courts to serve out their terms, although the conditions were so terrible – malnutrition, disease, brutality, random executions – that most did not survive. While in the concentration camps, prisoners did slave labor for the Reich. During the war, new concentration camps were constructed, like Bergen-Belsen and Theriesenstadt.

“Death camps, or extermination camps, like Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, called the Operation Reinhard camps, were built for the sole purpose of killing as many people as they could as quickly as possible. When the Nazis decreed in 1941 that mass murder, not expulsion, was the solution to the Jewish Problem, they began to build death camps.

“Concentration camps had large barracks to hold thousands of workers. Death camps were located close to railroad lines and were small – just a short distance and a brief moment in time for a poor soul to be taken from a train platform to a death chamber. The worst death camp of all, Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, was a mixed camp and held about 90,000 prisoners. Together with Auschwitz I and III, well over one hundred thousand innocents were imprisoned awaiting their execution at any given time. And those were the lucky ones – they had a chance for survival. Nine hundred thousand were taken directly off the train and whisked immediately into the Auschwitz gas chambers.

“Auschwitz was immense. Over a thousand Polish homes were demolished to make way for the construction of the camp. The red brick buildings and wooden barracks were surrounded by high voltage barbed wire and guarded by over eight thousand SS. There was a twenty-six mile buffer zone encircling the camp to hide the camp from the outside world. Beginning in 1942, Auschwitz was the principle center for the murder of European Jews.”

“How many people were murdered at Auschwitz?”

“No one will ever know for sure. Most were sent directly from the unloading platform to the gas chamber. They weren’t registered or numbered. Their remains were incinerated or buried in mass graves. It is estimated that a million and a half people were killed at Auschwitz.”

Catherine shivered and reflexively crossed herself.

“As horrible as those statistics are, we now know that the German high command planned to murder millions more all throughout Europe. Records show that Himmler, at a meeting in his Wewelsburg castle in 1941, told his generals that the German master plan for the East called for the slaughter of thirty million Slavs.”

“Oh, my God.”

“There is no way to conceive of the ends of the German genocide had they not been stopped.”

Catherine shook her head and sat perfectly still.

“Anyway, getting back to my story, in 1941 in Zamość, those without work permits were sent to Belzec to start building fortifications.”

“Did your uncle and grandfather have work permits? Your uncle was disabled.”

“Both of them had permits to work in my father’s glass factory. Of course, it no longer belonged to my father. It had been
Aryanized,
seized by the Germans and handed over to some German businessman, but the plant was being managed by my father’s former plant supervisor, so we were able to get permits for Uncle Joseph, who did accounting, and Grandpa Yaakov, who helped in the shipping department.

“One morning in early spring, as Otto handed me a grocery bag in Belvederski Park, he said, ‘Ben, bad orders are coming down. The whole community is to be resettled. Tell your father I’ll come by at midnight. Tell him to get the family together. Get ready to leave.’

“My father had also heard rumors. ‘We were informed today at the Judenrat that several thousand Jews from other regions are being uprooted and sent to Zamość,’ he said. ‘That may be what Otto is talking about. The Judenrat is to have the responsibility of absorbing these refugees into our community, although where we’ll get food and shelter for them, I don’t know.’

“Later that evening, with the family all gathered and nervous as hell, Otto came to the house. He pulled a chair to the center of the room. I remember it struck me at the time that he had the look of the quintessential German officer – a handsome, square-jawed, well-groomed man, in his creased Nazi uniform, white silk scarf and polished boots.

“‘I have heard from Berlin,’ he said. ‘Reischsfuhrer Himmler has selected Zamość to be the centerpiece of the new German territory, the General Gouvernment. He’s very fond of our town – in fact, he intends to change the name to Himmlerstadt. It is to be the first resettlement area for German nationals. All the Poles, not just the Jews, will be removed to make way for German settlers. Initially, the plan calls for all the Jews to be re-housed in New Town. Eventually, they’ll be moved to resettlement camps.’

“My mother gasped. New Town was the poorest section of Zamość with dilapidated homes and buildings – a congested, blighted slum. Warehouses and factory buildings, many of them vacant or damaged in the bombing, added to the social disorganization. ‘What about our home?’ she asked.

“‘It will be confiscated for use by others, mostly occupation forces, perhaps SS officers.’

“My mother stamped her foot. ‘They can’t do that! This is my house!’

“‘When is this going to happen?’ Father said.

“‘Sometime in April.’

“‘That’s just days away. How do they expect us to move our entire home in such a short period of time?’

“Otto just lowered his eyes and shook his head.

“‘Can you get us out of here, Otto?’ Father said.

“‘I think so. That’s why I came. I have volunteered to take a shipment of wine and food south to an SS post at Debice tomorrow. I’ll have a covered truck. I can hide three people behind the crates of wine. If I drive again, I can take three more. I’ll keep trying to get the assignment and take all of you south to Uncle Joseph’s cabin in the mountains. Because it’s so remote, there are very few troops in that area. From there, you’re on your own.’

“Uncle Joseph protested. ‘This is not good. We want travel papers to take the train to Turkey or Greece, or maybe to Spain. The cabin is small and has only the little fireplace. The villages are several kilometers away and we won’t have a car. How are we supposed to get food and supplies?’

“‘You’ll have to fend for yourself. And you can forget about travel papers,’ said Otto, irritated at Uncle Joseph’s rejection of his offer. ‘The train is out, don’t you understand? You wouldn’t get as far as Krakow. Right now, all the Polish borders are closed. There are armed soldiers at every border crossing. All trains are required to stop at the borders and the passengers have to disembark to be examined for their identification. You’d be caught and shot.’

“‘I don’t like it,’ Uncle Joseph said.

“‘I don’t like it either,’ Grandpa Yaakov said. ‘I was born here and I’m going to stay here. No Nazis are going to kick me out of my country.’

“‘You tell ‘em, Papa,’ Uncle Joseph said. ‘We have our work permits. We’ll keep working at the glass factory. Sooner or later the Brits will come and these thugs will get the boot.’

“Otto looked to my father. ‘Uncle Abraham, can you make them understand?’

“‘Maybe over time they’ll change their mind,’ he said, ‘but they have the right to make decisions about their own lives.’

“Otto shook his head. ‘Well, let me take the women tomorrow. I can take Aunt Hilda, Aunt Leah and one of the girls.’

“Aunt Hilda said, ‘Not me. I’m too old and I won’t leave Joseph. Take the young ones.’

“Mother agreed. ‘Take Beka, Hannah and Ben. They should be the first ones out. They have their whole lives in front of them.’

“The three of us immediately protested. None of us wanted to leave the family.

“‘I’m staying with you,’ I said. ‘You’ll need a strong hand to help you move and survive in New Town. I’m grown now, Father, and I can protect the family.’

“He put his gentle hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes and I knew, somewhere deep down, that he was casting me to sea and from then on I was to pilot my own ship. ‘That’s why you must go with Hannah and Beka. They’ll need your strength and your wisdom. I’m needed at the Judenrat and my absence would be noted. If I didn’t show up, they’d search for me. I should be the last of the family to leave Zamość.’”

Ben paused his story and swallowed hard. He shut his eyes.

“The girls are sobbing. Dr. Weissbaum holds Hannah in a bear hug, burying her face in his big chest. There are tears in his eyes, as well. ‘Abraham and Leah are wise,’ he says. ‘Let’s listen to them. As for me, there are only three doctors in our community and our existence worsens every day. I can’t leave our people now. You go with Ben and Rebecca. If something should happen here, at least the three of you will have made it out.’

“‘No, please,’ Hannah cries. ‘I don’t want to leave you. Please, Daddy.’

“‘It breaks my heart,
Ziskeit
, but I know it’s for the best. Mother’s gone. We have no home any more. You, my precious one, are all I have left. I’ve had a wonderful life. You deserve your happiness, a full and rich life. You and Beka and Ben, go and be safe. Go far from this town. I will stay and do what I can with Abraham.’

“She cries. He smoothes her hair and wipes her tears.

“‘Then it’s settled,’ says Father. ‘Otto, you’ll take the three children.’

“Otto stands to leave, positioning his cap on his head. ‘I’ll come by at daybreak and stop the truck in front of the house. I’ll only pause for a moment, so be ready to jump in. Bring whatever you can carry in a bag, there’s not much room in the truck.’”

Catherine set down her pen. “I know you must be tired, Ben, because I’m exhausted. I’m anxious to know what happens next, but we have to stop somewhere. Let’s pick this up tomorrow.”

“I can’t. It’s Friday.”

“Then let’s meet Monday and try hard to finish.”

Chapter Twenty

Chicago, Illinois November 2004

“Now this is special,” Ben said, unloading a box of bagels and assorted cream cheeses on the sideboard. “Fresh baked from Meyer’s Delicatessen. I took the ‘L’ out there early this morning. Got ‘em right out of the oven. You’re going to taste heaven.”

“You’re wreaking havoc on my diet,” Catherine said, lifting dishes from inside the cabinet and setting them next to the cups. She sliced a whole wheat bagel and poured a cup of coffee.

“Ben, your story is taking its toll on me,” she said, working her knife methodically, counterclockwise, carefully spreading a very thin layer of cream cheese over her bagel. “I’m putting in fourteen hour days trying to catch up. And when I finally get home I can’t sleep. I lie awake thinking about the death camps and the break up of these families that I’m getting to know.” She took a small bite of bagel. “Oh, my. That is good. Now you’re not only ruining my sleep, you’re ruining my figure.”

“I don’t want to be indelicate, but you don’t look any the worse for wear.”

“Thanks.” She smiled. “But, being immersed in your saga, it’s truly unsettling to me. I’m not naïve, I know the world is full of racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, and civil wars. But to marshal the world’s most powerful army in a sinister plan to conquer the world, annihilate tens of millions of people because of their race and then proceed to brainwash an entire populace….”

“Not just race, Catherine. Religion, national origin. How would you characterize the Slavs? Gypsies? Moors? All the lines get blurred. There are many races practicing Judaism, just as there are diverse races that belong to your church. There are Negro Jews in Ethiopia and Middle Eastern Jews in Iraq. There have been Jews in Japan since the 1860s. Poland was fractionally Jewish, but there were still three-and-a-half million Jews living there in the 1930s”

“But still, today, living in America, it all seems so incomprehensible.”

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Incomprehensible because we’re Americans? Land of the free and home of the brave? Let’s not kid ourselves. We’ve authored our own chapters in the history of shame, periods where the world looked at us and shook its head. Early America built an economy based on slavery and it was firmly supported by law. Read the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott. We trampled entire cultures of Native Americans. ‘No Irish Need Apply’ was written on factory gates in nineteenth century New York.”

Ben shook his head. “We’d like to think we’re beyond such hatred, but the fact is, we can never let our guard down. That’s why this case is so important. To you and to me. It’s another reminder of what can happen when evil is allowed to incubate. Find a reason to turn your nose up at a culture, to denigrate a people because they’re different, and it’s not such a giant leap from ethnic subjugation to ethnic slaughter.”