The Last Witness (18 page)

“My blood pressure was acting up and I wasn’t going on that train again.”

“She left this for you and she left it just where you said she would. Behind the first pillar under the bridge that goes over the Irvine River. You were right. We found it, well not us, but the local police up there found it. They scanned everything so I could show you. I didn’t think you’d want a mini kindle so I made hard copies.”

Jack looked at the papers again.
Lodz Ghetto Deportations and Statistics
. Below the title was a list of tables:

Table A: Liquidation of Jewish Population in the Lodz Ghetto, 1942-1944
.

Table B: Number of Deceased in the Lodz Ghetto, 1940-1944
.

Table C: Towns in the Warthegau from which Jews were deported to the Lodz Ghetto
.

Table D: Jews Deported to the Lodz Ghetto from Western Europe in 1941
.

Table E: Timeline of Deaths and Deportations in the Lodz Ghetto
.

Jack stared into space. Unblinking.

“Are you all right?” Hodgson said.

Jack didn’t say anything.

“How about we go through this together?” Hodgson said. He moved his chair in closer. The two began poring through the documents one by one, starting with Table A. Hodgson did the reading.

“January 16
^th
to 29
^th
, 1942. Number of victims … 10,003. Place of Deportation slash Extermination … death camp in Chelmno. February 22
^nd
to April 2
^nd
, 1942. Number of victims … 34,073. Place of Deportation …”

He left out the word
extermination
.

“Death camp in Chelmno.”

He went down the list until he came to the entry for August 9
^th
to 29
^th
, 1944.

“Number of victims … 65,000 to 67,000. Place of Deportation … Auschwitz-Birkenau.”

“I was in that group,” Jack said. “And my parents and my aunt and my two cousins.”

“It says here that 72,000 people were transported to Auschwitz and from that number only 5,000 to 7,000 survived.”

“I survived.”

“Table B. Number of Deceased in the Lodz Ghetto 1940 to 1944. In 1940 there were 160,320 people in the ghetto. A total of 8,475 died and of that number 41 were shot.”

Jack was nodding his head up and down, listening to the numbers.

“In 1941 there were 145,992 people in the ghetto. Some 11,456 died of whom 52 were shot. In 1942 there were 103,034 people in the ghetto and of those 18,046 died. And 43 were shot. The total number of deaths in the ghetto for those five years was
approximately
43,000. That’s what it says. Approximately.”

Hodgson went to the next table. Table C. Towns in the Warthegau from which Jews were deported into the Lodz Ghetto. “What is War-thuh-go?” he said.

“Warthegau,”
Jack said, speaking like a German. “That was the part of Poland that was incorporated into the
Reich
in 1939.”

“The what?”

“The
Reich
.”

Hodgson had a blank look on his face.

“The
Reich
,” Jack said again.

“Jack, I don’t speak German.”

Hodgson seemed to be apologizing, but Jack didn’t buy it.

“Warthegau
is what Germany took over,” Jack said. “
Reichsgau Wartheland
.”

Hodgson had pressed a button and he knew it, but what hit him just then wasn’t Jack’s frustration at his not knowing about the Reich, but the fact Jack didn’t sound at all like a man whose mother tongue was English.

“There’s a list of towns here,” Hodgson said. “Ka-lees? Is that how you say it?”

Jack looked at the list. “
Kalisz
. I knew people from
Kalisz
.” His finger went down the names of the towns. “And
Kutno
… and
Lask
…
Lodz
of course … there were many from there …
Poznan
.”

Hodgson shuffled through the papers.

“Here,” he said. “Timeline of Deaths and Deportations in the Lodz Ghetto. January 16
^th
, 1942 to May 15
^th
, 1942. It says … large-scale genocide begins. That’s what it says.
Genocide
. Some 57,064 Jews from the Lodz ghetto are deported to the death camp at Chelmno.”

He stopped.

“It says genocide,” he said.

“That’s what it was.”

Another document had a list of ghetto inhabitants with the Polish names of Jack and his family among them – Samuel Icek Klukowsky, Bela Chana Klukowsky, and Jacob Klukowsky, all of them at 24 Basargasse. In Lodz.

“Well what do you think?” said Hodgson.

“I’m shocked these records exist.”

“Christine got them for you. The sheer number of people killed. It’s mind boggling.” Hodgson looked at the papers again. “Over a period of five months in 1941 more than 57,000
people were sent to the death camp at Chelmno. That’s more people than were killed in the holocaust. In the whole thing I mean.”

“You mean 2029?” said Jack.

Hodgson nodded.

“Let me tell you something,” said Jack. “There is only one holocaust and it wasn’t in 2029. Why, 57,000 was a drop in the bucket. We’re talking about six million people.
Six million
.”

“Jack, I have to tell you something and I know you’re not going to like this. But I find a number like that hard to fathom.”

“Why?”

“How do you kill six million people? Especially back in those days.”

Jack brushed his hand against the envelope as if swatting a fly. “It’s all right there,” he said, pointing to the papers. “It tells you … 57,000 Jews … they were all Jews … were sent from Lodz to Chelmno. What do you think happened to them when they got there?”

Hodgson was shaking his head.

“And that was only one place. There were more. Many more.”

Jack slipped off his glasses and stared into the sky. “I watched the news last night and a boy was gunned down in the street. They tried to interview his mother but she couldn’t say anything. She just lost her son and the only thing she could do was cry. I didn’t know this woman but I could feel her loss … her pain … from her sobbing.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Yes I guess you do but that was only one death. Sometimes you hear about a bomb that goes off and maybe ten people are killed. Just like that. Then they have those big bombs that reach their target and a hundred people are killed. Blown to bits. Now imagine you have this
enormous room that can hold a thousand people if you pack them in tight … so tight they can barely move. You lock the door and then you drop poison pellets through openings in the ceiling and in the walls and the pellets release cyanide gas. For some … a little child … it doesn’t take long to die … for an old woman a little longer … and for a young man even longer than that. But soon everyone in that room is dead and when they open the door they find them in a pile. The smallest ones … the children … they were the weakest … and when everyone was trying to escape the gas the stronger ones climbed on top of the weaker ones and that’s how they found them. The bodies of the strong young men are at the top of the pile … the women and the old people are under them … and the little children are at the bottom. That’s how it was at
Auschwitz
and a thousand people are dead. They could kill twenty thousand a day like that. And they did.”

Hodgson was numb, but Jack wasn’t finished. He sniffed at the air.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he said. “There isn’t a cloud in the sky. And it’s so blue up there. Have you ever seen such a blue sky? When I was at
Auschwitz
you would never get a day like this even if the weather was perfect. Even if it was a day like today.”

“What do you mean?” said Hodgson.

“Just what I said. The sky was never clear.”

“Why not?”

Jack took another sniff. “There is so much you don’t know,” he said. “But I guess it’s not your fault. It’s our fault. It’s my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s my fault for not telling people. I kept quiet all these years. I didn’t even tell my own grandchildren about it. Not until Christine. I was trying … hoping … to forget.”

“Why wasn’t the sky clear?”

“Because of the smoke.”

“What smoke?”

“From the incinerators. They were burning the bodies. The thousand people, remember? The crematoria. That’s why there was always so much smoke. You could see it and you could smell it. All the time.”

Hodgson was staring Jack in the eye.

“I saw it and I smelled it,” Jack said. “Every day. That’s what happened to all those people from
Lodz
… and
Kalisz
… and
Kutno
… and
Lask
… and
Poznan
… and
Warta
… and
Zgierz
… and
Klodawa
… and
Chodecz
… and everywhere else on that list of yours.”

Hodgson checked the list again. “What was that last one you said?”

“Chodecz.”

“You’re right. Here it is. They’re all here.”

“You know nothing about this, do you?” said Jack.

“About this?”

“You never learned about it in school? When you were a boy?”

“No. Not really.”

“And you’re an American. A New Yorker.”

“That’s right.”

“This is exactly what Christine has been fighting all these years.”

Hodgson had the envelope on its edge. It sat on his lap, his big hands going up and down the sides. Up and down. Up and down. “What I don’t understand is why,” he said. “Why did they want to kill all those Jews? For what possible reason? What did they stand to gain from it?”

“You mean the Nazis?”

Hodgson nodded.

“Lieutenant, what do you know about Nazis? And Hitler? What do you know about him?”

“What I know …” Hodgson said more to himself than to Jack, “is from old movies. At least, those that went digital. But they were just movies.”

“The Nazis were a lot more than movies.”

“But that still doesn’t tell me why. Why did they do it?”

“Lieutenant Hodgson, can I tell you something?”

“What’s that?”

“I think you’re a nice man. A decent man. But you are the victim of an ignorant people.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ignorant people. Americans … Westerners … people all over the world. They are ignorant. We have a whole generation of people who know nothing about the human condition and that’s the danger. That’s why it can happen again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean people don’t know and what’s worse they don’t even
want
to know.”

“They don’t want to know what?”

“The truth.”

Hodgson eased his huge frame back into the chair.

“Lieutenant Hodgson,” said Jack, “you’re a police officer and I’m sure you’ve probably seen a lot of bad things in your day.”

“I have.”

“Do you ever ask yourself why these things happened?”

“All the time.”

“Now you know how I’ve lived my life for the past ninety-five years.”

22

Colton Brock was six-four and 245 pounds. Chiselled. They called him Coal and it fit. He was all rock and no emotion except for rage, and it came in a torrent. When he fought on the street, it was in blue jeans and black boots that were laced up his shin. The boots were heavy and did a lot of damage, especially the way he kicked with those steel-pipe legs built through merciless hours in the gym. But in the ring he was bare-chested and barefoot, and he wore shorts. Money was at stake and they wanted to see what he looked like – the sculpted torso, the rippling arms, the tapered back, and those two pillars of muscle that he stood on. If he had boots in the ring, the bouts would have been over much faster. A flurry of jabs and uppercuts and the odd roundhouse with his right would soften his opponent and prepare for the final blow, more often than not a well-placed kick to the side of the head. Coal had cracked more than one skull that way. The boots – jackboots – were perfect for it, but in the ring there were rules; an open battle was waged within the confines of a prescribed space, the only weapons your hands and feet and any other part of the body you want to risk. No three-minute rounds or anything like that. It was a brawl, but organized. Structure but not too much structure. Coal preferred fighting in the street where there were no rules at all, but you couldn’t make a living there. One did carve a reputation, however.

His opponent today was of similar size, two raw specimens in the super heavyweight division about to battle, and there was great anticipation leading up to the match. Both men were undefeated, and large sums of money were wagered. Coal was the favorite, but at 3-2 not by much, and he was surprised with the odds because he had little respect for this man. He had never fought anybody good, not really good like Coal, who for two years now had been destroying
everyone they threw at him. The fight was held in an intimate arena for 1,000 people who forked over money to witness the spectacle of two professional fighting men pulverizing each other. Before things got regulated, the bouts were illicit affairs in an abandoned warehouse in the Jersey backwoods. But that attracted organized crime, so they opened it up with official sanction. As headliners for the night, Coal and his opponent would each take home a handsome stipend, the winner a little extra. There was no referee. Only an announcer.

The bell sounded and it started like a boxing match with the two behemoths sizing each other up, feigning moves to one side and then the other. But their hands were bare, not even taped, open and constantly circling in front of their bodies. Their feet never stopping. Their brains strategizing about what to do next. And, of course, they could use their legs, too.

Coal knew this man liked to begin with his right, either a punch or a kick. It could be high or it could be low and if he did lead with his right, a punch or a kick, it might be a fake to set up with his left. Then again, maybe not. Coal allowed this to go on for a minute or two, waiting for his chance. He waited and waited, and then the man made his move. He leaned to his left and brought his right arm back to deliver an uppercut, but Coal saw how he planted his left foot on the mat, bracing himself for a kick. Not an uppercut. Coal knew what was coming. He swerved his head to the side and the big foot came up high just off his ear. No contact. Not even close. Now the man was off balance. He had just lunged full force with his right leg, hit air and had to come down for a landing. And he did. All his weight was on his right foot, his other foot far to the side.