The Rembrandt Affair (11 page)

25

AMSTERDAM

E
li Lavon began with the basic facts of Kurt Voss's appalling biography.

Born into an upper-class trading family in Koln on October 23, 1906, Voss was sent to the capital for schooling, graduating from the University of Berlin in 1932 with degrees in law and history. In February 1933, within weeks of Hitler's rise to power, he joined the Nazi Party and was assigned to the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, the security and intelligence service of the SS. For the next several years, he worked at headquarters in Berlin compiling dossiers on enemies of the Party, both real and imagined. Ambitious in all things, Voss courted Frieda Schuler, the daughter of a prominent Gestapo officer, and the two were soon wed at a country estate outside Berlin. Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was in attendance, as was SD chief Reinhard Heydrich, who serenaded the happy couple on the violin. Eighteen months later, Frieda gave birth to a son. Hitler himself sent a note of congratulations.

Voss soon grew bored with his work at SD headquarters and made it clear to his powerful backers he was interested in a more challenging assignment. His opportunity came in March 1938, when German forces rolled unchallenged into Austria. By August, Voss was in Vienna, assigned to the Zentralstelle fur judische Auswanderung, the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. The bureau was led by a ruthless young SS officer who would change the course of Voss's life.

"Adolf Eichmann," said Gabriel.

Lavon nodded his head slowly.
Eichmann
...

The Zentralstelle was headquartered in an ornate Viennese palace appropriated from the Rothschild family. Eichmann's orders were to cleanse Austria of its large and influential Jewish population through a mechanized program of rapid coerced flight. On any given day, the splendid old rooms and wide halls were overflowing with Jews clamoring to escape the wave of virulent anti-Semitic violence sweeping the country. Eichmann and his team were more than willing to show them the door, provided they first pay a steep toll.

"It was a giant fleecing operation. Jews entered at one end with money and possessions and came out the other with nothing but their lives. The Nazis would later refer to the process as the 'Vienna model,' and it was regarded as one of Eichmann's finest accomplishments. In truth, Voss deserved much of the credit, if you can call it that. He was never far from Eichmann's side. They used to prowl the corridors of the palace in their black SS uniforms like a pair of young gods. But there was one difference. Eichmann was transparently cruel to his victims, but those who encountered Voss were often struck by his impeccable manners. He always carried himself as though he found the entire process distasteful. In reality, it was just a disguise. Voss was a shrewd businessman. He would search out the well-to-do and pull them into his office for a private chat. Invariably, their money would end up in his pocket. By the time he left Vienna, Kurt Voss was a wealthy man. And he was just getting started."

By the autumn of 1941, with the Continent engulfed in war, Hitler and his senior henchmen decided that the Jews were to be exterminated. Europe was to be scoured from west to east, with Eichmann and his "deportation experts" operating the levers of death. The able-bodied would be used as slave labor. The rest--the young, the old, the sick, the disabled--would immediately be subjected to "special treatment." For the nine and a half million Jews living under direct or indirect German rule, it was a catastrophe, a crime without a name.

"But not for Voss," said Lavon. "For Kurt Voss, it was the business opportunity of a lifetime."

As the lethal summer of 1942 commenced, Voss and the rest of Eichmann's team were headquartered in Berlin at 116 Kurfurstenstrasse, an imposing building which, much to Eichmann's delight, had once housed a Jewish mutual aid society. Known as Department IVB4, these were the men who kept the Continent-wide enterprise of mass murder humming along smoothly.

"Voss had an office just down the hall from Eichmann," Lavon said. "But he was rarely there. Voss had a roving commission. He approved the deportation lists, supervised the roundups, and secured the necessary trains. And, of course, he expanded his thriving side business, robbing his victims blind before dispatching them to their deaths."

But Voss's most lucrative transaction would occur late in the war and in the last country to be ravaged by the fires of the Holocaust: Hungary. When Eichmann arrived in Budapest, he had one goal--finding each and every one of Hungary's 825,000 Jews and sending them to their deaths at Auschwitz. His trusted aide, Kurt Voss, wanted something else.

"The Bauer-Rubin industrial works," said Lavon. "The owners were a consortium of highly assimilated Jews, most of whom had either converted to Catholicism or were married to Catholic women. Within days of his arrival in Budapest, Voss summoned them and explained that their days were numbered. But as usual, he had a proposition. If the Bauer-Rubin industrial works were transferred to his control, Voss would make certain that the owners and their families would be granted safe passage to Portugal. As you might expect, the owners quickly agreed to Voss's demands. The following day, the managing partner, a man named Samuel Rubin, accompanied Voss on a trip to Zurich."

"Why Zurich?"

"Because that's where the vast majority of the firm's assets were held for safekeeping. Voss pulled the company apart piece by piece and moved its holdings to accounts under his control. When his greed was finally satisfied, he allowed Rubin to leave for Portugal and promised that everyone else would follow in short order. It never happened. Rubin was the only one to survive. The rest ended up in Auschwitz along with more than four hundred thousand other Hungarian Jews."

"And Voss?"

He returned to Berlin on Christmas Eve 1944. But with the war all but lost, Voss and the rest of Eichmann's desk murderers were treated as outcasts and pariahs, even by some of their colleagues in the SS. As the city shook beneath the Allied air raids, Eichmann turned his lair into a heavily guarded fortress and began hastily destroying his most damning files. Voss the lawyer knew that concealment of such vast crimes was not possible, not with evidence scattered across a continent and thousands of survivors waiting to come forward to tell their stories. Instead, he used his remaining time to more productive ends--gathering his ill-gotten riches and preparing for his escape.

"Eichmann was woefully unprepared when the end finally came. He had no false papers, no money, and no safe house. But not Voss. Voss had a new name, places to hide, and, of course, a great deal of money. On April 30, 1945, the night Hitler committed suicide in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, Kurt Voss shed his SS uniform and slipped out of his office at 116 Kurfurstenstrasse. By morning, he had vanished."

"And the money?"

"It was gone, too," said Lavon. "Just like the people it once belonged to."

26

AMSTERDAM

G
abriel Allon had confronted evil in many forms: terrorists, murderous Russian arms dealers, professional assassins who shed the blood of strangers for briefcases filled with cash. But none could compare to the genocidal evil of the men and women who had carried out the single greatest act of mass murder in history. They had been a constant if unacknowledged presence inside Gabriel's childhood home in the Jezreel Valley of Israel. And now that night had fallen over Amsterdam, they had crept into the suite at the Ambassade Hotel. Unable to bear their company any longer, he stood abruptly and informed Eli Lavon and Chiara that he needed to continue the conversation outside. They drifted along the banks of the Herengracht through yellow lamplight, Gabriel and Lavon shoulder to shoulder, Chiara trailing several paces behind.

"She's too close."

"She's not tailing us, Eli. She's just watching our back."

"It doesn't matter. She's still too close."

"Shall we stop so you can give her a bit of instruction?"

"She never listens to me. She's unbelievably stubborn. And far too pretty for street work." Lavon gave Gabriel a sideways glance. "I'll never understand what she saw in a fossil like you. It must have been your natural charm and cheerful disposition."

"You were about to tell me more about Kurt Voss."

Lavon paused to allow a bicycle to pass. It was ridden by a young woman who was steering with one hand and sending a text message with the other. Lavon gave a fleeting smile, then resumed his lecture.

"Keep one thing in mind, Gabriel. We know a great deal about Voss now, but in the aftermath of the war we barely knew the bastard's name. And by the time we fully understood the true nature of his crimes, he'd disappeared."

"Where did he go?"

"Argentina."

"How did he get there?"

"How do you think?"

"The Church?"

"But of course."

Gabriel shook his head slowly. To this day, historians bitterly debated whether Pope Pius XII, the controversial wartime pontiff, had helped the Jews or turned a blind eye to their suffering. But it was Pius's actions
after
the war that Gabriel found most damning. The Holy Father never uttered a single word of sorrow or regret over the murder of six million human beings and seemed far more concerned about the perpetrators of the crime than its victims. Not only was the pope an outspoken critic of the Nuremburg trials, he allowed the good offices of the Vatican to be used for one of history's greatest mass flights from justice. Known as the Vatican ratline, it helped hundreds, if not thousands, of Nazi war criminals to escape to sanctuaries in South America and the Middle East.

"Voss got to Rome with the help of old friends from the SS. Occasionally, he would stay in small inns or safe houses, but for the most part he found shelter in Franciscan monasteries and convents."

"And after he arrived?"

"He stayed at a lovely old villa at Number 23 Via Piave. An Austrian priest, Monsignor Karl Bayer, took very good care of him while the Pontifical Commission of Assistance saw to his travel arrangements. Within a few days, he had a Red Cross passport in the name of Rudolf Seibel and a landing permit for Argentina. On May 25, 1949, he boarded the
North King
in Genoa and set sail for Buenos Aires."

"The ship sounds familiar."

"It should. There was another passenger on board who'd also received help from the Vatican. His Red Cross passport identified him as Helmut Gregor. His real name was--"

"Josef Mengele."

Lavon nodded. "We don't know whether the two men ever met during the crossing. But we
do
know that Voss's arrival went more smoothly than Mengele's. Apparently, the Angel of Death described himself to immigration officials as a technician, but his luggage was filled with medical files and blood samples from his time at Auschwitz."

"Did Voss have anything interesting in his luggage?"

"You mean something like a Rembrandt portrait?" Lavon shook his head. "As far as we know, Voss came to the New World empty-handed. He listed his occupation as bellman and was admitted to the country without delay. His mentor, Eichmann, arrived a year later."

"It must have been quite a reunion."

"Actually, they didn't get on terribly well in Argentina. They met for coffee a few times at the ABC Cafe in downtown Buenos Aires, but Voss apparently didn't care for Eichmann's company. Eichmann had spent several years in hiding, working as a lumber-jack and a farmer. He was no longer a young god who held the fate of millions in the palm of his hand. He was a common laborer in need of work. And he was seething with bitterness."

"And Voss?"

"Unlike Eichmann, he had a formal education. Within a year, he was working as a lawyer in a firm that catered to the German community in Argentina. In 1955, his wife and son were smuggled out of Germany, and the family was reunited. By all accounts, Kurt Voss lived a rather ordinary but comfortable middle-class life in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires until his death in 1982."

"Why wasn't he ever arrested?"

"Because he had powerful friends. Friends in the secret police. Friends in the army. After we grabbed Eichmann in 1960, he went underground for a few months. But for the most part, the man who put Lena Herzfeld's family on a train to Auschwitz lived out his life without fear of arrest or extradition."

"Did he ever publicly talk about the war?"

Lavon gave a faint smile. "You might find this difficult to believe, but Voss actually granted an interview to
Der Spiegel
a few years before his death. As you might expect, he maintained his innocence to the end. He denied ever deporting anyone. He denied ever killing anyone. And he denied ever stealing a thing."

"So what happened to all that money Voss
didn't
steal?"

"There's general consensus among Holocaust restitution experts, myself included, that he was never able to get it out of Europe. In fact, the exact fate of Kurt Voss's fortune is regarded as one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Holocaust."

"Any ideas where it might be?"

"Come now, Gabriel. You don't need me to tell you that."

"Switzerland?"

Lavon nodded. "As far as the SS was concerned, the entire country was a giant safe-deposit box. We know from American OSS records that Voss was a frequent visitor to Zurich throughout the war. Unfortunately, we don't know who he was meeting with or where he did his private banking. While I was in Vienna, I worked with a family whose ancestors had been fleeced by Voss at the Zentralstelle in 1938. I spent years knocking on doors in Zurich searching for that money."

"And?"

"Not a trace, Gabriel. Not a single trace. As far as the Swiss banking industry is concerned, Kurt Voss never existed. And neither did his looted fortune."

27

AMSTERDAM

T
hey had arrived, coincidentally, at the top of Jodenbreestraat. Gabriel lingered for a moment outside the house where Hendrickje Stoffels had posed for her lover, Rembrandt, and asked her a single question. How had her portrait, stolen from Jacob Herzfeld in Amsterdam in 1943, ended up in the Hoffmann Gallery of Lucerne twenty-one years later? She could not answer, of course, and so he put the question to Eli Lavon instead.

"Perhaps Voss disposed of it before his escape from Europe. Or perhaps he brought it with him to Argentina and sent it back to Switzerland later to be sold quietly." Lavon glanced at Gabriel and asked, "What are the chances the Hoffmann Gallery might show us the record of that sale in 1964?"

"Zero," replied Gabriel. "The only thing more secretive than a Swiss bank is a Swiss art gallery."

"Then I suppose that leaves us with only one option."

"What's that?"

"Peter Voss."

"The son?"

Lavon nodded. "Voss's wife died a few years after him. Peter is the only one left. And the only one who might know more about what happened to the painting."

"Where is he?"

"Still in Argentina."

"What are his politics like?"

"Are you asking whether he's a Nazi like his father?"

"I'm just asking."

"Few children of Nazis share the beliefs of their fathers, Gabriel. Most are deeply ashamed, including Peter Voss."

"Does he really use that name?"

"He dropped his alias when the old man died. He's established quite a reputation for himself in the Argentine wine business. He owns a very successful vineyard in Mendoza. Apparently, he produces some of the best Malbec in the country."

"I'm happy for him."

"Try not to be too judgmental, Gabriel. Peter Voss has tried to atone for his father's sins. When Hezbollah blew up the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires a few years back, someone sent a large anonymous donation to help rebuild. I happen to know it was Peter Voss."

"Will he talk?"

"He's very private, but he's granted interviews to a number of prominent historians. Whether he'll speak to an Israeli agent named Gabriel Allon is another question entirely."

"Haven't you heard, Eli? I'm retired."

"If you're retired, why are we walking down an Amsterdam street on a freezing night?" Greeted by silence, Lavon answered his own question. "Because it never ends, does it, Gabriel? If Shamron had tried to lure you out of retirement to hunt down a terrorist, you would have sent him packing. But this is different, isn't it? You can still see that tattoo on your mother's arm, the one she always tried to hide."

"Have you finished psychoanalyzing me, Professor Lavon?"

"I know you better than anyone in the world, Gabriel. Even better than that pretty girl walking behind us. I'm the closest thing to family you have--other than Shamron, of course." Lavon paused. "He sends his best, by the way."

"How is he?"

"Miserable. It seems the sun is finally setting on the era of Shamron. He's puttering around his villa in Tiberias with nothing to do. Apparently, he's driving Gilah to distraction. She's not at all sure how much longer she can put up with him."

"I thought Uzi's promotion meant Shamron would have carte blanche at King Saul Boulevard."

"So did Shamron. But much to everyone's surprise, Uzi's decided he wants to be his own man. I had lunch with him a few weeks ago. Bella's given the poor boy quite a makeover. He looks more like a corporate CEO than an Office chief."

"Did my name come up?"

"Only in passing. Something tells me Uzi likes the fact you're hiding at the end of the earth in Cornwall." Lavon gave him a sideways glance. "Any regrets about not taking the job?"

"I never wanted the job, Eli. And I'm genuinely pleased for Uzi."

"But he might not be so pleased to hear you're thinking of running off to Argentina to talk to the son of Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man."

"What Uzi doesn't know won't hurt him. Besides, it's an in-and-out job."

"Where have I heard that one before?" Lavon smiled. "If you want my opinion, Gabriel, I think the Rembrandt is probably long gone. But if you're convinced Peter Voss might be able to help, let me go to Argentina."

"You're right about one thing, Eli. I can still see that tattoo on my mother's arm."

Lavon exhaled heavily. "At least let me make a phone call and see if I can arrange the meeting. I wouldn't want you to go all the way to Mendoza to be turned away empty-handed."

"Quietly, Eli."

"I don't know any other way. Just promise me you'll watch your step down there. Argentina is filled with the sort of people who would love nothing better than to see your head on a stick."

They had reached Plantage Middenlaan. Gabriel led Lavon into a side street and stopped before the narrow little house with the narrow black door. Lena Herzfeld, the child of darkness, sat alone in a gleaming white room without memory.

"Do you remember what Shamron told us about coincidences when we were kids, Eli?"

"He told us that only idiots and dead men believed in them."

"What do you think Shamron would have to say about the disappearance of a Rembrandt that had once been in the hands of Kurt Voss?"

"He wouldn't like it."

"Can you keep an eye on her while I'm in Argentina? I'd never forgive myself if anything happened. She's suffered enough already."

"I was already planning to stay."

"Be careful around her, Eli. She's fragile."

"They're all fragile," Lavon said. "And she'll never even know I'm here."