by Yehuda Avner
She blinked, and her dark eyes were wide and wet. “I knew all too well that the Nazis were evil, but now that I’m potentially on the receiving end of their crimes…it’s only now that I really understand what so many people have been experiencing.”
He worried for her, but he was thankful that ignorance kept her empathy directed to Jews whose lives had been constrained, whose employment and civil freedoms were restricted. He was glad she didn’t know about the murder squads and the Jews digging their own graves for the executioners out east, because then her fears would grow to all-encompassing terror. “Things are happening that we can’t imagine. Really happening, to real people.”
“I’m proud of the work you’re doing, Danny.”
He kissed her forehead.
She murmured into his chest as he held her. “Would you give your life to save other people?”
“What kind of question is that?” He smiled, brushing her off.
She lifted her eyes to his. They were serious and sincere. “The risks you take here might cost you your life, Danny. You have to know that it’s worth it.”
“I’m not going to lose my life.”
“You might. So you must be sure that it’s worth it. I love you above all things, but I’d understand if you decided to give your life to save many, many innocent people. I’d understand if you sacrificed me, too.”
“That’s crazy, sweetheart.”
“Listen to me. If you ever face the choice, I want you to remember this. If you must choose between me and a thousand other lives, let me go.”
“Darling, don’t say that.”
“I’ve treated the ailments of so many little children, Danny. Imagine how I would feel if they were all murdered just to save me.”
“No one’s talking about murder.”
“Yes, they are.” Her voice was loud, insisting that he take her seriously. “Draxler hinted at what’s happening in the east. He told me to get out of here.”
“On that, at least, I agree with Draxler.”
“Just promise me that you’ll do as I’ve asked.”
He stared at his reflection in her dark eyes. It was more real to him than his own body. The intensity of her gaze forced him to concede. “I promise.”
“Thank you, Danny.”
“Now you promise something to me. I don’t want to be without you, but, even so, maybe you should get away from here.”
“To Israel?”
He considered what might happen to Israel if the “final solution” went ahead, or if Field Marshall Rommel’s troops in North Africa succeeded in their push toward the Suez Canal and on into the Middle East oil fields. “I think it’s best if you go to Boston. I’ll join you when the embassy closes here.”
“I can’t be without you all that time.”
“It won’t be forever. It might be less time than you think. I’d say there’s a distinct possibility things are going to get extreme here.”
“What does that mean?”
She was deeply disturbed. But he couldn’t tell her about the Wannsee conference. “I don’t know. But I doubt we’ll be able to carry on the emigrations much longer. At which point Ben-Gurion will probably send me over to the US to continue my diplomatic work. I studied there. I have a lot of contacts. And if my wife is there, I’m going to tell him I insist.”
“You’d choose me over Ben-Gurion?” She sniffed, smiling.
“He has pretty eyes, but you have nicer legs.”
She slapped his shoulder.
“I’ll make a reservation for you to fly to Sweden. From there you can get a boat to the States.”
She held him tight. “I don’t want to go. What will my patients do? What will you do?”
He shuddered with the force of her embrace. His plans for the next day ticked around his head and his adrenaline surged. The risks suddenly seemed greater now that he was holding in his arms the one thing he couldn’t stand to lose.
“You’d better start packing,” he said.
Chapter 51
Within the massive structure of the Reich Chancellery there were relatively few actual offices. Though guarded by intimidating men of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, several of the entrances from the street were dummies, placed for architectural effect alone. The massive doors opened onto brick walls. At the center of the complex, Hitler had his office. Little work was ever done in it, little study or discussion. The Führer already knew what he thought and what needed to be done. He used the office to rant and ramble until the early hours of the morning, keeping others from their work or their beds. He was all words. One day, when people stopped listening, he would be nothing. But by then, he would have made millions of others into nothing.
One of the few men in the great architectural white elephant who treated the Chancellery as a genuine place of labor was Friedrich Kritzinger. After almost two decades in the Prussian civil service, he had joined the Nazi Party in 1938 and was transferred to Hitler’s staff. He was now the deputy chief of the Chancellery and officials came and went from his office all day. Even so, the arrival of the Führer’s adjutant, Brückner, gave him pause. The young man was a reminder of Kritzinger’s uncomfortable friendship with the traitor, the Countess von Bredow. He was doubly irritated and anxious at Brückner’s presence because he had only one more hour to prepare himself for the conference at the villa in Wannsee. The meeting would draw him into the presence of the Blond Beast, Heydrich, and the Gestapo’s senior officers. Even had he not feared the possible policy conclusions of the conference, the attendees would have made his skin crawl. Now he was in the presence of a man who might recall enough of the Countess’s soirees to reinforce the Gestapo’s unpleasant interest in Kritzinger.
“Hauptmann Brückner, how may I help you?”
The adjutant shut the door behind him. Kritzinger stretched his neck in his old-fashioned round collar and turned his head to one side. His long service in the Nazi government had trained him in silence when another man prepared to speak.
“I represent a group of gentlemen who would be very interested in immediately learning the results of today’s conference at Wannsee.” Brückner leaned close to the state secretary, his hands on the man’s desk.
“Which gentlemen?”
“It would be best not to say.”
“The conference is organized by Obergruppenführer Heydrich.” That name was enough to signal the extreme risk Brückner was asking him to take.
“I occupy a position very close to the Führer,” Brückner said. “In a couple of days I shall be joining him at the Wolf’s Lair. There are certain powerful persons in the leadership of the Wehrmacht—”
Kritzinger cut him off. “Plotters? I don’t want to know about this.”
Brückner hammered down his hand on the desk. “You shall know about it. You know enough of the conduct of the war in Russia to understand that we can no longer win, but the Führer will never sue for peace. A change is leadership is inevitable. Once Hitler is gone, questions will be asked about those who made criminal decisions on behalf of the Nazi regime. Do you want to be among those who stand trial when this war is lost?”
“What on earth are you talking about? What criminal decisions?”
“You know the subject of this Wannsee Conference. You understand what you’re involving yourself in, Kritzinger.”
So, it was the Jews Brückner wanted to know about. “My aim is to provide a moderating voice—”
“Moderation? When you’re forced to answer for your participation in this venture, will you say, ‘Heydrich wanted to exterminate a million Jews. I persuaded him to murder only a half million’? Kritzinger, you’re a lawyer. Do you think that constitutes a convincing defense?”
“But I asked the Führer in person if there was any program of extermination against the Jews,” Kritzinger said. “I told him that I couldn’t believe he would allow such a thing. He reassured me entirely. His words were that he intended no mass murder of innocent civilians.”
&
nbsp; “Among the Jews or any other of our enemies, does Hitler consider anyone to be innocent? The man is toying with you, Kritzinger.”
Kritzinger fingered the Nazi Party pin on his lapel. He had come late to membership, and it was not an ideological commitment. But it was there, like a tattoo on his body. He thought of all the apparently innocent decisions that had led him to this day, the moments of gradual surrender, the hints of freedom evident at the Countess’s musical evenings. Yes, he was a lawyer, and he knew how his actions would be portrayed were he ever called before a tribunal. Following orders was no defense. Neither was fear of the consequences of doing what was right. Certainly, the desire to promote one’s successful administrative career wouldn’t impress any prosecutor.
“Eichmann is the official note taker for the conference,” he murmured. “He will write the minutes.”
“Bring them to me.” Brückner laid his hand on Kritzinger’s shoulder. “We are Prussians, you and I. We carry the legacy of centuries of honorable history, of military and governmental achievement. Are you going to let the Blond Beast tarnish that?”
Kritzinger vacillated. The fingers tightened on his shoulder.
“Are you going to let an Austrian corporal shit all over that legacy?”
The army, thought Kritzinger, was finally rejecting the excesses of the Nazi regime. Brückner wanted to show the minutes of the Wannsee conference to Wehrmacht men who perhaps remained on the fence. Surely it would bring them into action against Hitler. In any case, it would be best to play both sides of the game.
“The meeting is expected to last only a few hours,” he said.
“I expect your report by—” Brückner checked his watch. “—fifteen hundred hours.”
Kritzinger’s stomach convulsed. But here was an order and in obeying it he gave himself a way out, some protection if the plotters— the army, or whoever they were—took over in Berlin. “You shall have it, Herr Hauptmann.”
Chapter 52
Anna sliced carefully with her scalpel, but Shmulik’s leg still shuddered at her touch. The anesthetic wasn’t strong enough. She was cutting away dead, rotten flesh, but he must have felt as though an entire limb were coming off. “Almost done,” she murmured. She laid the last strip of gangrenous flesh in the metal tray at her side.
Devorah wrung out the cloth with which she was cooling her husband’s brow and dipped it into the water bowl on the side table.
“You shouldn’t have waited so long to call me here, Shmulik,” Anna whispered. She dabbed alcohol around the bullet holes to clean the wounds. “You almost missed me.”
Shmulik and Devorah grew suddenly alert. Anna wondered if they were alarmed to think that they had been so close to finding themselves without a doctor. She focused on the raw, tender skin.
Shmulik grunted in pain. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m leaving for Sweden. Straight from here to the airport.” Anna reached into her bag. “This one needs stitches.”
“Why are you going to Sweden?”
“They’re interning Americans. I have to go before they get around to me.”
“But you’re not in Berlin as an American. You’re an Israeli. The ambassador’s wife. Israel is neutral.”
She threaded the surgical needle and pressed the lips of the wound together. “Israeli neutrality is how you got yourself shot.”
“This was an accident.”
“Which is why you’re hiding in a cellar.” She drove the needle through his skin and looped the thread around.
Shmulik winced and cleared his throat. “Won’t Dan miss you in Sweden?”
“I’m not staying in Sweden. I’m going on to the States. Dan will probably join me soon enough.”
“Will he? Really?”
She cut the thread and tied it off. “He seems to think the emigrations are going to be shut down before long. That’ll be the end of the embassy here in Berlin.”
Devorah rolled a bandage around Shmulik’s wounds to dress them.
Anna packed up her bag. “I have to get going. Nearly time for my flight.” She hugged Devorah. “I’ll miss you.”
“Safe trip,” Devorah said.
Shmulik grabbed Anna’s arm and squeezed. “Don’t tell the Herr Ambassador where I am.”
“Why not?”
“It’s better he doesn’t know. I might have to stay underground to continue my work here in Germany. Even after Dan closes the embassy. Promise me you won’t tell him.”
Anna stared, unnerved. She knew that Shmulik trusted no one other than his wife, but she was troubled to be part of this secret, just as she had been surprised to discover that he hadn’t contacted Dan. “I won’t.”
She tried to move away, but Shmulik held onto her arm. “If the Gestapo take him—”
“Why would the Gestapo take Dan?”
“—he mustn’t know more than he needs to know.”
She climbed out of the hatch into the covered arch at the rear of the courtyard. Did Shmulik warn her because, underneath his hostility, he cared for Dan? Or was it that he didn’t trust him to withstand Gestapo torture? Perhaps both were true. She whispered another farewell to Devorah and turned away.
The sky was a uniform white-gray. She imagined her plane climbing through that blank cloud to Sweden, to a world where everything wasn’t oppressive and violent. Her heels clipped across the cobbles. She pictured the airplane faltering, failing to make cruising height because of the blanket of white. She closed her eyes and took a long breath. She was too stressed. Soon she would be away from here and Berlin would be just a memory.
When she opened her eyes again, a man in a long leather coat stood before her. His fedora was angled steeply because of the bandage on his wounded forehead. Anna felt a sudden pounding all through her body, her blood surging, her heart crushed by shock and fear.
Draxler motioned his Gestapo detail across the courtyard to the coal hole where Shmulik and Devorah were hiding. His black Mercedes pulled up at the curb in front of the gates at the courtyard exit. “Come with me, Frau Doktor,” he said.
He took Anna’s elbow. She wrenched it away and tried to run for the cellar. Draxler must have followed her here. She had led the Gestapo to Shmulik’s hideout. She had to warn them. “Shmulik,” she yelled. “Devorah, look out.”
But where could they go? They were trapped in a basement, and Shmulik could barely move. Her cry was futile.
Draxler got her around the waist and, lifting her feet from the floor, hauled her to the street. The rear door of his car opened.
Struggling against Draxler’s hold, Anna glimpsed the Gestapo men at the coal hole. They blew open the hatch with a grenade and knelt before the opening. Gunshots sounded down in the hideout, and one of the Gestapo men took a bullet. Another pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it inside.
“No, no,” she screamed.
Draxler wrestled her into the Mercedes.
The grenade boomed and smoke billowed from the cellar.
She bit Draxler’s hand through his leather glove. He pulled away. She clawed at his face, wrenched the bandage from his wound down over his eyes.
“You’re lucky I like you,” he growled. He gave her a single sharp jab with the heel of his hand on the side of her neck. It was the practiced strike of a violent policeman who knows how to subdue a suspect with a knock-out blow.
The Mercedes door slammed and the engine roared. But Anna heard nothing. She faded away. She was in the sky, flying through the blank clouds. The world was far below. She was on her way to safety. The air up there was so very thin, so hard to breathe. She passed out.
Chapter 53
Down the leafy, peaceful drive and through the elegant portico of the Wannsee villa, Kritzinger found the bureaucrats relaxing with tulip glasses of cognac. He took a drink and held it in both hands so that it wouldn’t shake. When Heydrich offered a toast to the work they would do at their conference that day, the State Secretary of the Chancellery brought the brandy to his mout
h quickly. He drank too fast, but his choking cough was lost in the general merriment. They had great tasks ahead of them at the Führer’s behest. They chatted about history, and how the Reich would remember them. Each man, thought Kritzinger, carried a spark of avarice in his eyes, as though the power that would accrue to him as a result of the day’s proceedings was money in the bank. No doubt for some of them it truly was. For all of them, dominance was the aphrodisiac that excited.
Eichmann clinked his glass against Kritzinger’s cognac. The contact was too strong, as though Eichmann were a little drunk, or nervous. Perhaps it’s both, Kritzinger thought. Their business that day would have been enough to drive anyone to drink, to calm the nerves or to court oblivion.
“Prost, Herr State Secretary,” Eichmann said. “A proud day for us all.”
Kritzinger lowered his eyes. Brückner had seemed so sure of himself, and he argued so convincingly that the war had turned against Germany. But now that he was in the presence of the Blond Beast Heydrich and his entourage, Kritzinger wondered if a decent man like Brückner could ever have a chance against such ruthless figures. “A proud day, yes, indeed,” he murmured. “Thank you for organizing this conference, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”
Eichmann clicked his heels. “The honor is mine.” He turned to the group. “Herr Obergruppenführer Heydrich, all is prepared.”
“Then let’s begin. Gentlemen,” Heydrich said in his reedy falsetto, “let us step into the conference room, and into the future of the German people.”
Fifteen men settled around the long table, with Heydrich at the head and Eichmann keeping the official record of the discussion. Kritzinger found himself seated across from Heinrich Müller. The Gestapo chief stared at him, his brow angled downward, eyes disapproving, mouth sullen. Kritzinger’s neck twitched and he looked away, focusing on his papers.
Heydrich tapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “The Reichsführer-SS has appointed me delegate for the preparations of a final solution for the Jewish question in Europe. The Reichsführer wishes to have a draft sent to him concerning the organizational, factual, and material interests in relation to this final solution. Therefore, we have brought together in your persons the central offices immediately concerned. I shall begin with a brief report on the effort so far, inasmuch as it concerns the expulsion of Jews from every sphere of life, and from the living space of the German people.”