by Henry Hack
There was no answer and also no answer when, his finger wrapped in his handkerchief, the officer pushed the door bell hard, followed by several loud knocks. With flashlights in one hand and service revolvers in the other, they opened the screen door and entered the living room.
Searching for table lamps and light switches, Patrolman Bob Livoti once again shouted, “Police! Is anyone here?”
Patrolman Neil Brogan finally found a standing lamp and switched it on displaying an orderly, modestly furnished living room. He stopped moving and whispered, “Bob, do you hear that?”
Livoti stopped and listened. “Jesus, Neil, that’s a baby crying.”
They followed the sound and turned on the hall light switch, creeping toward the open doorway, entering the room, guns drawn. Livoti flicked on the light and Brogan went over to the crib. The instant the infant saw the man in the uniform he stopped crying, smiled, and lifted his tiny arms up toward him. Brogan remembered the dispatcher saying the resident of the home may be a police officer and figured that’s who the baby thought he was seeing.
They retraced their steps to a partially closed door which was most likely the master bedroom. There was light coming from inside the room and Livoti knocked and said, “Police! Are you all safe in there?”
When they received no response they stepped to the sides of the doorway and Brogan reached out and gently pushed the door open. Revolver pointed straight ahead, he entered the room and stepped to one side. Livoti entered immediately after him and stepped to the other side. They saw a scene before their eyes that would be seared into their memories forever.
“My God,” Livoti whispered. “It’s a massacre.”
Brogan holstered his revolver and said, “Let’s check for signs of life.”
When they found no pulse and no breathing on the three bodies, Livoti, the senior officer said, “Notify the other sector to call the dicks and the desk sergeant and tell them what we have here. And let’s not touch or disturb anything.”
What had stunned the two veteran police officers was not the sight of three dead bodies, but the volume of blood soaked into the bed and the carpet. Most of the shots fired – how many at this point was anybody’s guess – seemed to have caught an artery on all three. Livoti, now alone in the bedroom, saw two definite entrance wounds on the young female’s nightgown, but couldn’t see any on the young man slumped over half out of his side of the bed, his back facing him. Nor could he see any on the male body which was lying face down on the carpet at the foot of the bed. He most definitely noticed the two guns, one in the right hand of each dead male. The metallic smell of the congealing blood and the sharp odor of gunpowder filled the room and made him retch.
He shook his head as he tried to piece together what had happened, but couldn’t keep his eyes and mind off the bright-red blood displayed on the queen-size bed. He was overwhelmed, but his head cleared when his partner returned and said, “The dicks and Crime Scene Unit are on the way.”
The detectives from the 105 Squad arrived, followed by detectives from Queens Homicide, and the investigation into the deaths of Andrew Simon, Veronica Simon, and an as yet unidentified male white, began in earnest. All the stops were pulled out for a fellow cop, albeit one from another department, but whose precinct was literally right next door.
The initial assessment was that the Simon’s had left their inside front door open, with a locked screen door, due to the excessive heat. The perpetrator spotted the open door and decided to commit “a crime of opportunity.” He figured people were home and sleeping, but he would control them with the threat of his gun, and force them to give up their valuables. But apparently Andy Simon had heard something and came up shooting. Three dead, including the perpetrator, and a six-month old infant left all alone. Our family tragedy.
. . .
My emotions got the better of me when Alan finished the last page of the journal and closed its cover. I ran to the bathroom holding in a sob as Michael burst into tears and hugged Alan who was sobbing in short, convulsive gasps. Some priest I was, running away when I should provide comfort to the grieving, but to hear the events of that night repeated so matter-of-factly from another point of view was like re-living the murders all over again. I splashed some cold water on my face, composed myself as best I could, and came back into the living room. Andy and Michael were still embracing and, thankfully, the tears and sobs appeared to be winding down. Apparently satisfied with his newly discovered revelations, Michael said, “I have a lot to think about. I’m going to lie down for a while. Goodbye, Father Manzo. Thanks for being here. Love you, Dad.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked to my car. Alan’s journal concluded there was only one killer, Pete Selewski. The case was closed. Or had the police not told him everything at the time, withholding certain blood and fingerprint evidence they had found pending further investigation? Were they still looking for me after eighteen years?
FIFTEEN
Michael Simon joined the United States Army as planned, and when he emerged, a strong young man of twenty years, he applied to take the examination for police officer in all the surrounding departments – the Nassau County Police as well as the Suffolk County Police, Port Authority Police, and the NYPD. While he awaited the test results and eventually passed them all, and went through the physical and psychological exams, he attended Queensborough Community College and got his Associate’s Degree in Criminal Justice. Having already decided to take the first job offer from a police department that came his way, two weeks later his letter of acceptance to the ranks of the NYPD arrived.
A week before he was to be sworn in, I was again at the Simon household for afternoon coffee. Andy Simon said, “Michael, I have another box for you, a bigger box I saved for you just in case.”
“Just in case of what, Dad?”
Andy smiled and said, “Just in case you decided to follow in your father’s footsteps.”
Michael ripped the box open and withdrew an assortment of leather goods and navy blue police uniforms. Andy said, “You can take off the Nassau Police shoulder patches and replace them with NYPD patches. I think you are about the same size as my brother was. A few bucks for tailoring and you save a few hundred bucks on your uniform bill.”
“Thanks, Dad. I …I don’t know what to say….”
“Say you’ll go try all this stuff on right now,” I said, peering into the box. “What shoe size are you?”
“Ten and a half.”
I withdrew a pair of polished black brogans and passed them over saying, “Looks like they might fit also. Maybe save you a few more bucks, Mikey.”
Michael’s mom had been with us this whole time, but had not uttered a word. It was obvious she had not wanted Michael to join the army and also obvious she was not thrilled with his choice of career. When Michael went upstairs to change into his dead father’s uniform, Betty broke down in sobs. “This can’t be happening, Andy. Please stop him from going ahead with it. For God’s sake! Do you want to lose him, too?”
Andy grabbed Betty in a hug and said, “Father?”
“I’ll speak with him,” I said, now knowing no words I could say, or anyone else could say, would sway the decision of young Michael Simon. He had found his mission in life – to adopt his father’s mission as his own – and he would not be deterred. And some day, in the not too distant future, Police Officer, or Detective, or Sergeant Michael Simon, would ask permission from the current commanding officer of Queens Homicide if he could review an old, cold case from many years ago. And when that permission was granted what would Michael Simon find in those musty folders? The existence of a never publicized second perpetrator? And if so, I knew what he would do, and I shuddered to think of his knock on my door.
Or maybe I w
ould welcome it.
. . .
On Sunday, as we did every so often, Rabbi Marc Berman and I joined Mort Stern at his store for some spirited conversation. Mort closed early on Sundays, around six p.m. After he hung the CLOSED sign in the window and pulled the shades down, he would make three egg creams and we would talk, and argue, on a number of the world’s problems – past, present and future. And tonight the topic of discussion first centered on Michael Simon and how well he had coped so far with his new identity, and his goal of becoming a police officer.
It didn’t take long, no more than ten minutes, for us to conclude the newly-discovered Jew, with the Catholic upbringing, would do fine in his life to come, Mort Stern taking full credit for what he called teaching Mikey the facts of life, and not the religious fairy tales I and the church had preached to him. He added, “Now dat the poor boy is out of the army, Berman here will try to stuff his head wid his own brand of fairy tales.”
That comment prompted our usual heated discussion, which always failed to sway Mort, and probably never would. When we all ran out of arguments, Mort said, “Listen you two, I need some advice.”
“You’re kidding us, right?” Marc said. “You never took a word of advice from me or Francis in your life.”
“Bah. Be quiet and listen for a change. I vant to read you this newspaper story first. Then ve talk.”
Mort reached into his back pocket and unfolded a small newspaper clipping. He said, “This vas in the Times two veeks ago.” He adjusted his glasses, but hesitated. “You know, maybe you two should read it yourselves. I haf…uh, difficulty vid it.”
Marc looked at me and raised his eyebrows as he took the clipping from Mort, whose hand, I noticed, was quivering. After Marc read it without comment, he handed it to me and here is what it said – Hamburg, Germany – “From his post as a teenage SS Private in a watchtower in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Bruno Dettler could hear the screams of Jews dying in the gas chamber. And Dettler later told investigators the carting of their dead bodies to the camp’s crematoria was a daily sight. Twenty-nine years later Dettler, now forty-seven years of age, went on trial Tuesday on 3,782 counts of murder. Caught two months ago in his native city of Dresden, by the famed group of Nazi hunters, Dettler showed little expression, but appeared to be listening attentively as the prosecutors detailed the charges against him. ‘The accused was no ardent worshipper of Nazi ideology,’ they argued, ‘but there is also no doubt he never actively challenged the persecutions of the Nazi regime.’ Dettler’s defense counsel argued ‘he was drafted into the SS in December of 1944, as soon as he turned eighteen, and was assigned to the camp for a period of less than six weeks until it was liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945. They claim that had he challenged his superiors by demanding they stop the killings, he himself would have been shot and his body burned up with the others.’ If Dettler is convicted he will spend the rest of his life in prison, as Germany has no death penalty.”
When I finished reading the article I handed it back to Mort and he said, “Is Bruno Dettler guilty of murder, and if so, should he spend the rest of his life in jail?”
Rabbi Berman immediately answered, “Yes, and yes.”
Mort nodded and said, “And you, Francis?”
“I’m not as certain as Marc, but he was a part of the apparatus – the great killing machine – after all.”
“Yes, he vas, and, as they say here in America, payback is a bitch. And it is now the Jews’ turn to exact retribution and vengeance, nicht wahr? Isn’t that right?”
“You sound skeptical,” Berman said stroking his salt-and-pepper beard, “and I’m wondering why, since you were a prisoner there yourself and suffered tremendously.”
“Ya, for less than two years. The Nazis grabbed me at my house in Dresden in late 1943.”
“Dresden?” I said. “Isn’t that where this Dettler came from?”
“Ya, four houses down from me, on Apfel Street. Growing up he was friends mit my son, Benjy. My wife, Ruth, and I were friends with his parents, Kurt and Greta.”
I figured Marc Berman was as stunned as I was at this revelation. He managed to speak first and said, “My God, Mort, I never knew you had a family over there.”
“Sometimes their existence is like a dream to me. Ven they came for me, they took them, too. I never knew vat happened to them, but they took them someplace other than Auschwitz.”
“Did you encounter Bruno when he came to the camp?” I asked.
“Oh, ya. I think he arrived there around December 20, and I first saw him – no, he spotted me first – on December 24, Christmas Eve.”
“How did he react?” Marc asked.
“Shocked beyond vords. Finally, he said, ‘Mr. Stern, I vill help you if I can, but I’m scared.’”
“I told him to be very careful vit consorting vit the prisoners. He vent away, but snuck back later vit a loaf of bread and other food for me. Enough to share vit the others. He said they got extra rations for Christmas.”
“When the Red Army arrived and liberated the camp, what became of Dettler?” I asked.
“Ve vent together back home to Dresden,” Mort said.
“How did you manage that?” Marc asked. “I mean, he was in an SS uniform. Why wasn’t he captured?”
“Bruno had tried to save me by continually providing me vit the food I needed to survive and continue to work. If I was strong enough to work, they vudn’t burn me up. So I saved him. My friends in the tailor shop – ve Jews have always been good tailors, you know – made him a suit of civilian clothes. I told him ven the Russians came, all the Nazis vud flee, but he should come to me, and that’s vat happened. I told him to keep his boots, they were brand new, and also his overcoat but with the insignia ripped off. I said if he vas questioned he should say he got the boots and coat off a dead soldier. I also told him to say his papers vere lost and he vas sixteen years old.”
“So you got away and headed for home and you made it there safely?” I asked.
“Ya, but it vusn’t easy. It vas vinter and ve had to walk across a lot of Poland vit hardly any food. Ve got there on February 20, and if you read Slaughterhouse Five, you know what ve found.”
“A bombed-out destroyed city,” Marc said. “Wiped out by a massive allied bombing attack and resulting firestorm on February 13, 1945.”
“There vus nothing left but rubble. No opera house. No my house, or Bruno’s house. No block ve lived on. No store I owned vit my partner, Izzy. Nothing.”
“What happened to Bruno?” I asked.
“He stayed and helped rebuild the city. He vowed to try to find out what happened to Ruth and Benjy and to his own family, who it was assumed had been obliterated in the bombing. He failed on both counts, but became a successful businessman there. A vunderful boy. Him and my Benjy reminded me so much of Mikey. Maybe dat’s vhy I took such a liking to him.”
We sat in silence for a minute sipping our egg creams. Mort slammed his glass on the table – I was surprised it didn’t shatter – and said, loudly, “Now, I ask you vunce more. Is Bruno Dettler guilty of murder, and should he spend the rest of his life behind bars?”
The Rabbi didn’t answer so fast this time. He took a deep breath, looked directly at Mort, and said, “Yes, and yes.”
“And you, Father Manzo? Do you agree vit the vengeful Rabbi here?”
“No, I do not. Not at all.”
“Because you’re not a Jew, Francis –”
“No, but I am,” shouted Mort. “And a terrible injustice is about to be committed on a righteous man who saved me from the gas chamber. And the sad part, Rabbi, is they all agree vit you.”
“What do you mean?” h
e asked.
“Dat’s the advice I vanted from you two. Should I travel to Hamburg and testify on behalf of Bruno Dettler?”
“Do you think you could convince them to change their accusations against him, based on your experience at Auschwitz and your life in Dresden before that?” I asked.
“No. I spoke with the defense attorneys and they said the mood was such in Germany that my story, while beneficial to Dettler, would not change anyone’s mind, nor alter the course of his inevitable punishment.”
“Then why even ask the question?” Marc said.
“Because unlike you two holy men I feel a responsibility to a fellow human being, a goy no less, a German no less, who became an SS soldier for five weeks against his will, and who was truly a mensch. A good human being.”
“That’s an unfair accusation, Mort,” Marc said.
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “Mort’s right. If it were me I would go testify, whether it was a wasted trip, or not.”
Mort smiled and said, “Thank you, Francis. I’ll buy my ticket tomorrow.”
Marc shook his head and said, “You two are misguided sentimentalists and are missing the bigger picture.”
“Vich is?” Mort asked.
“Bruno Dettler was a piece of the worst regime to ever exist on this planet. As everyone, from Hitler on down the chain of command, he must be brought to justice and pay the price, if only to convince the rest of the world no one will ever again get away with perpetrating another Holocaust.”
I had to admit the good Rabbi had a valid argument, but there are always exceptions to all blanket suppositions. I did not respond, but Mort did, looking Marc right in the eye, and saying, “Bah! Humbug!”