QB VII (27 page)

“Doctor,” Terry said softly, “when you went into this, you did it for a lofty purpose. It’s beginning to sound as though you are bent on vengeance.”

“Well, what of it?”

“To seek revenge for the sake of revenge is an evil in itself.”

“Don’t quote to me from the Oxford philosophers. What do you think this Cady deserves for what he has done?”

“If he concedes his mistake and wishes to purge himself you have to adapt a charitable attitude. You can’t hound him to death.”

“The same kind of charity I received in Jadwiga, in Brixton. The same kind of hounding. No more, no less. They’re the ones who say an eye for an eye.”

“But don’t you see that if you adopt this attitude, you put yourself in a position of behaving like ... well, a Nazi.”

“I thought you would be proud of this,” Adam said, closing the drawer.

“I am, Doctor, but don’t destroy yourself seeking revenge. I don’t think Stephan would want that either.”

Sir Robert Highsmith snipped away at the myriad of rose stalks, leaving only the healthiest to grow later in the summer. He puttered with a particular detachment in his garden in Richmond Surrey.

“Darling, tea is ready,” Cynthia said.

He tugged off his gloves and made to the conservatory of his small manor, which had been the gatehouse of a royal estate two centuries earlier.

“Roses should be lovely this year,” he mumbled.

“Robert,” his wife said, “you’ve been rather far away all weekend.”

“Kelno affair. Strange happenings.”

“Oh? I thought it was almost over with.”

“So did I. Suddenly old Shawcross did a complete turn about when it appeared he was an the verge of an apology in open court. The Cady chap has come to London and is going to fight the case. Shawcross has joined him. The most puzzling thing of all is that Tom Bannister has taken the case.”

“Tom? Isn’t that rather risky of him.”

“Chancy, indeed.”

“Do you suppose Sir Adam has told you everything?”

“It would leave one to wonder, wouldn’t it?”

11

Jerusalem—April 1966

D
R.
L
EIBERMAN RESPONDED TO
a ring of the bell in his flat on David Marcus Street

“I am Shimshon Aroni,” the man before him said.

“I was expecting you’d find me,” Dr. Leiberman answered.

Aroni, the famed Nazi hunter, followed the doctor into his study. His sixty-eight years were deceptive. Aroni was keen and active behind a hard wrinkled race. By contrast Franz Leiberman was soft and fatherly.

“I have read the stories you have planted in the newspapers and magazines. Who did you find?”

“Moshe Bar Tov at Kibbutz Ein Gev. He gave me the names of the others. All told, four men, two women, whom you have treated over the years. You know what is going on in London. I have come to you because of your relationship with these people. It would be easier to convince them to testify if their doctor cooperated.”

“I won’t cooperate. They’ve suffered enough.”

“Suffered? If you’re a Jew you suffer. You never stop suffering. What about you and your family, Dr. Leiberman. How many did you lose?”

“My dear, Aroni. What do you want? To put them on display like animals. To speak in a public courtroom about their mutilations. The woman in particular will never be well. With careful treatment, the devotion of their families, they are able to carry on what appears to be a normal existence. But what has happened to them is buried in a dark room. They risk a dangerous traumatic shock if they have to bring it all up again.”

“It will be brought up again. We will never allow this to be forgotten. We will throw it up for the world to look at at every opportunity.”

“You are hardened by years of hunting war criminals. I think you are a professional vengeance seeker.”

“Perhaps I went mad,” Aroni said, “when my wife and children were torn from my arms at the selection center at Auschwitz. What has to be done, has to be done. Do I see them separately or do you cooperate?”

Franz Leiberman knew Aroni was a relentless tracker. He would never let go. One by one he would drain and shame each of them into testifying. At least if they met together as a group, they could give each other courage.

Alexander, Bernstein & Friedman

Solicitors

8 Park Square

Lincoln’s Inn

London WC 2

April 30, 1966

Shalom Alexander:

I report progress. I have met with six victims whose names and preliminary statements are attached. I have convinced them they have no choice but to come to London. Franz Leiberman will travel with them. He will be a calming influence.

Through discussions I have learned the names of two other victims, one Ida Peretz née Cardozo, who lives in Trieste. I leave to see her tomorrow.

Also, one Hans Hasse of Haarlemmerweg 126 in Amsterdam.

I suggest you supply this information to the I.F.J.O. in The Hague.

I will continue to report as events warrant.

Yours,

Aroni

Warsaw Zakopane Poland, May 1966

Nathan Goldmark had aged seedily. When his position as an investigator for the secret police in the matter of war crimes ceased to exist he wormed his way into the hierarchy of the Jewish Section of the Polish Communist Party.

Most of Poland’s Jews had been exterminated by the Nazis. Most of the survivors fled. A minute minority of a few thousand chose to remain for reasons of old age and fear of the hardships in beginning a new life. A few stayed as idealistic Communists.

Writers such as Abraham Cady took the view that the extermination camps would not have been possible in a civilized Western country that did not agree in spirit with what the Nazis were doing. There were no extermination camps in Norway or Denmark or Holland or France or Belgium despite their occupation nor in Finland or Italy despite the fact they were German allies. Poland, however, with its centuries’ tradition of anti-Semitism was a practical place for the Auschwitzes and Treblinkas and Jadwigas.

In order to live down this reputation Poland later went through the motions of keeping a Jewish community in the country as a showpiece to the world that things had changed under communism. Intact were a few synagogues, a small Jewish press, and a national theater kept as superficial and pitiful remnants of the once great community of three and a half million.

Using Nazi methods of forcing the Jews to do it to themselves, a separate Jewish branch of the Communist Party was invoked upon them with the mission of keeping and controlling some kind of Jewish population. They tried vainly to flog life into the theater and press with Communist slogans.

Nathan Goldmark, a crafty politician whose sole ethics were survival and servitude, was put to good use as a tool of the regime.

His train had climbed into the Carpathian Mountains where the last snows of winter were retreating into the glacier fields. Zakopane, in addition to being a winter resort, was Poland’s most important center for tuberculars.

He had come to keep an appointment with Dr. Maria Viskova, chief medical officer of a workers’ sanitarium and of the rarest breed, a Jewish Polish Communist out of belief. As a national heroine she had chosen to work away from Warsaw and the Nathan Goldmarks, whom she despised.

Her appearance, of one who has known enormous tragedy, had been softened by the years and translated into compassion. In her fifties, Maria Viskova was a silvered and handsome woman. She closed her office door behind her.

A late spring storm of half rain, half heavy wet snow was falling.

Nathan Goldmark unbundled and crouched over her desk, hiding his bitten nails and tugging at the collar over the skin rash on his neck

“I am in Zakopane to speak to you on the Kelno matter,” he said. “It has been brought to our attention you have been contacted by certain Western elements.”

“Yes, by a firm of solicitors in London.”

“You know our position about international Zionism.”

“Goldmark. Don’t waste my time or the time of my patients with this nonsense.”

“Please Comrade Doctor. I have traveled a long way. Twenty years ago you made a statement against Kelno. The committee feels your position is no longer valid.”

“Why? You were eager enough to extradite him to Poland for trial. You yourself took my statement. What changed your mind? Kelno has never answered for what he did.”

“The matter became invalid when the Hungarian, Eli Janos, failed to recognize Kelno in a police line-up.”

“You know as well as I do, Goldmark, that Dr. Konstanty Lotaki was also doing these operations with Kelno and that in all likelihood it was Lotaki who castrated Janos.”

“Pure speculation. Besides, Lotaki has purged himself of guilt and totally rehabilitated himself as a dedicated Communist.”

“It is nothing short of criminal that Lotaki has never been brought to justice. What is all this about, Goldmark? The guilty have suddenly become innocent. Twenty years or a hundred years do not absolve them of their crimes. And what of Mark Tesslar, who saw Kelno at his work?”

“The committee feels that the word of Tesslar cannot be relied upon.”

“Why? Because he defected? Does that make him a liar?”

“Comrade Doctor,” Goldmark argued, “I can only convey the recommendations of the committee. In the days we were trying to extradite Adam Kelno the British were attempting to discredit the legitimate Communist government of Poland. Today we look to the West for cooperation. The committee feels that it is best not to stir up old hatreds. After all, Kelso has been knighted. For Poland to cooperate in this trial could be considered as an affront to the British ...”

Goldmark chewed at his fingernails under the heat of the glare of Maria Viskova.

“There is another matter and it is that of Abraham Cady, a Zionist provocator and an enemy of the Polish people.”

“Have you read
The Holocaust
, Goldmark?”

“I don’t wish to comment on that.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t report you to the committee.”

“It is filled with slanders, lies, provocations and Zionist propaganda.”

The snow fell more heavily. Goldmark, the master at avoiding eyes, was all but shattered. He decided to walk to the window and comment on the weather. The courage of Maria Viskova was well known. Her dedication as a Communist was above question. One might think, for the good of the party, she would yield on the issue and save them embarrassment. How would he be able to report her attitude back to Warsaw? The thought occurred to him that the secret police should enter the matter and silence her. But then, the Zionists would get wind of it and create an international scandal.

“I intend to go to London at the time of the trial, Goldmark. What are your intentions?”

“It is a question for the committee,” he answered.

Paris Rambouillet—June 1966

The home of Dr. Susanne Parmentier a few miles south of Paris was neat, quaint, and with a touch of elegance, as Jacob Alexander had envisioned it. He and Samuel Edelman, the French L.F.J.O. representative, were led by a bent old servant to the drawing room after which he fetched Madame Parmentier from the garden.

She was quite aged, in her mid or late seventies, but there was a Gallic twinkle in her eye. She seated them in a room of high taste most prominently adorned with silver framed photographs of her late husband, their children, and grandchildren. Alexander excused himself for his fractured French accent.

“When I received the letter from Maria Viskova stating she had given you my name I had very mixed thoughts on the matter. As yon can see I am quite old and decrepit and not altogether well. I am not so certain I can be or much help, but Maria said to see you and so, here we are.”

“We’ve studied your situation as an inmate of Jadwiga and we definitely feel the importance of your testimony,” Alexander said.

She shrugged and gestured heavily with her hands and arms as she spoke. “I only knew of Kelno’s activities second-handed. I cannot swear to it through personal observation.”

“But you are close to Mark Tesslar.”

“We are like brother and sister.”

“Strange, he never gave your name.”

“He was only honoring my wishes. Until I received Maria Viskova’s letter I saw no reason to bring up the past.”

“Let me ask you a direct question,” Alexander said.

“I will try not to give you an evasive French answer.”

“The case may largely depend on Tesslar’s testimony. What is your opinion of his reliability? As a practicing psychiatrist, Dr. Parmentier. I’d like a view detached from your personal friendship with him.”

“To speak to you in lay terms, Mr. Alexander, I would say something happened to him that day in November when he witnessed Kelno’s surgery. The impact of the trauma may have caused him to cloud his judgment.”

“It is a gamble we must make, as you know. What about Kelno’s charges that Tesslar was an abortionist before the war and later in the concentration camps?”

“A fantasy of Adam Kelno. Anyone who knows Mark Tesslar knows he is a humanitarian. He left Poland to finish his medical studies in Switzerland because of anti-Semitism. Both Maria Viskova and I will swear he never performed an abortion for the Nazis.”

“Will you come to London?”

“I have meditated for many hours. I have conferred with my pastor at great length and prayed for divine guidance. As a Christian, I have no choice but to testify.”

The sparkle left her eyes and she was weary. She plodded to a spray of flowers, nipped a pair of tea roses, and placed one in each of their boutonniere buttonholes.

“There is a woman in Antwerp who was operated upon on that day. After the war I gave her psychiatric care for several years. She is a person of great character. Her scar will never heal, but I know she would never forgive me if I did not take you to see her.”