“I’m not sure what kind of war he’s fighting. Surely there’s something we can do to help these kids?”
“Max, the orders came from the High Command.”
“Berlin?”
I looked and saw the secret red packet that had arrived.
Fritz was unusually silent, almost prayerful.
“You seem pretty sad.”
“I’m going to tell you something that you don’t want to hear. They were sent to a camp called Auschwitz. SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann had conducted negotiations to send the children to Palestine, for a great sum of money put up by the Jewish Relief Committee. However, the entire operation was canceled on orders from Himmler, who pocketed the money paid for their safety. On one of the holiest days in the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, the kids were sent to a place … to a place I can’t imagine. None of us can.”
“How do you know?”
“I opened the red packet from Berlin.”
He quietly recited part of an English poem to me.
“Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
He sighed, turned his head, looked out the window.
“To sail beyond the sunset.”
He stopped there. When later that afternoon I told David, he whispered the final line of the poem:
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
BLOCKS OF ICE
A great snow had fallen in Terezín, and it was cold, unimaginably so. David and I slipped through the ice-covered streets, making our way from the library to the infirmary to deliver to the patients a few books, protected under our coats. It was difficult negotiating the frozen streets, our hands numb, our breath heavy, from a heavy snowfall with rain and sleet.
In the distance outside the kitchen was an irregular winding line, silent and unsheltered, dark against a backdrop of snow. The people were queuing patiently, silently, waiting for a bowl of thin, watery, unseasoned potato soup and a piece of black bread. Separate from the crowd, slumped against a snowbank was an old man staring at the two of us as we approached. Four members of his family—an elderly woman, a middle-aged man, and two children—had left their places in the line, looking for him, calling for him, finding him, wailing to help him—“Please, Eli, come back,” they pleaded.
The man was unmoving. We each let go of our books, which dropped to the ground, and in a moment beneath the freezing rain they became blocks of ice with a thousand words frozen inside.
David ran toward him.
He was unable to get up, could not shift his feeble limbs. He looked up, but his gaze could no longer find its focus. His body was aged and impossibly thin, his teeth broken and brown, his gums bloody.
He managed to whisper, “Please help …”
David and I struggled to lift him up, but we saw that his eyes were now fixed, his body limp.
He was dead. A dead man standing. He didn’t need our support. We let him down slowly onto the snow as his family gathered around him, keening in a shared, raw grief.
Within moments the Kapos, the hated Jewish prisoners known for their brutality, came, wearing white armbands with inverted green triangles. They had been assigned by SS guards to carry out administrative tasks, collecting garbage for incineration and taking away the dead for cremation.
David had told me the day before that these corpses were burned like fuel to provide heat for the village. It was too much to bear. Garbage and dead corpses used to provide heat for the living.
“Get back,” one of them shouted to me and David. The cart arrived, the body was thrown into it with a thud, and it departed again. It was a scene of inexplicable grief, and a sound that none of us would ever forget.
It was not the beginning nor the end. I never turned on the heat in my room again.
Another transport arrived at the platform, a group of Danish Jews delivered on this grim conveyor belt. The tracks brought, and the tracks took away. Every day was becoming harder, the place dirtier, the conditions worse, food and water scarcer, disease more prevalent, faces more resigned, the nights darker, and fear reached into the everyday reality of painful, undignified death. We were busy staying alive; the quality of life was distant and far away, part of a forgotten dawn, fading into lost sunsets. Secretly I wondered if I would ever see another.
I learned from Fritz that the Germans had organized plans at the Chancellery to send nearly all of Denmark’s eight thousand Jews to Terezín.
“New supplies will be arriving. This is good news, Max,” said Freidle.
“What supplies?” I asked. “Eight thousand people? Where are they going to live? What will they eat?”
“New barracks are being constructed.”
David and I had become experts at finding the best hiding spots from which to observe the goings-on around camp.
“Can I come along?” Sophie asked.
I was reluctant. I didn’t want her in harm’s way in case we were spotted.
“Oh, Max, you’re being so protective. Just because I’m a girl?”
“Because you’re you, Sophie, and you don’t have to take risks. I want to protect you. That’s part of my assignment.”
She grinned. “I want to see what you and David are up to. We’re a team, remember.”
Sophie insisted on coming along, and since she stayed close by, I thought it was okay. I was extra careful to watch out for the man in the black coat, and on the day the train arrived, we took cover behind a low wall near the tracks, watching the Danes ushered into a nearby courtyard, where freshly set tables had been arranged, piled high with food and drink.
“David, who do they think they’re fooling?” I whispered. We moved to a nearby building.
“Is that herring and aquavit?” David asked, shaking his head.
Then the loudspeakers began playing a familiar Danish song,
“That’s the ‘The Champagne Galop,’” Sophie remarked.
Was this real? It felt more like a scene from a film.
Sophie spotted a man that she had once heard perform, Peter Deutsch, the conductor of the Royal Orchestra in Copenhagen. He was a short distance away, and she pointed him out.
“Many of them look tired; some are probably ill from their journey. I should get back to the infirmary. I suspect Mama will be needing a lot more help with a short supply of nurses. It always happens with new arrivals. We have to check for typhoid.”
“Be careful, Sophie. I’ll see you later.”
David and I continued to listen as the music played. Then we retreated to a darkened arch and watched this strange scene. I was so caught up that I pretended I was conducting.
“You’re being ridiculous, Max.”
But I felt the music, I heard every instrument—soft strings, brilliant brass, all of them speaking to each other, leaving and returning in perfect harmony. I couldn’t help myself, waving a slender stick as my baton to an imaginary orchestra, playing under my direction. I was madly keeping time when I felt a tap on my shoulder, turning only to find Commandant Freidle staring down at me. The secret hiding spot wasn’t so secret.
Then my heart leapt. Just past Freidle was Poppy!
I ran into my father’s waiting arms, and Poppy held me tightly. It was hard for me to do, but I had to accept that he was my father. Our embrace was so familiar, so warm, yet at the same time unsettling and painful. With just one hug, I realized the terrible longing that I had tried to suppress, to deny, remembering all those long hours that I had spent hoping he would come, praying for him to come and reassure me that everything would be all right.
Poppy gave me a big smile, one I had long forgotten. “Oh, Max, how I’ve missed you.”
“Poppy, I—”
Commandant Freidle clapped his hands together. “Shall we go to the luncheon?”
&n
bsp; “I’ve some work to do at the office,” David said, walking off, but not before catching my eye. He hadn’t acknowledged my father.
Poppy and I walked over to the courtyard as Freidle strode from table to table, asking the Danes if they were enjoying the afternoon.
Once the welcome was over, the Danes were hustled into the administration building for room assignments. Then they were fumigated for disease. Like animals. From that moment, the life they had once known would end. They’d be required to leave their baggage in the hall. Their belongings would be promptly searched for valuables. In exchange, they would be awarded yellow stars.
We made our way back to Fritz and Ava’s house. Freidle excused himself, and Poppy and I settled down at the kitchen table. He sighed and took off his hat. He’d changed a lot. His hair was grayer and his shoulders sagged.
I noticed a slight tremor in his right arm.
Poppy caught me staring. “I’m fine, Max, just so much work. As soon as I finish one project, another begins.”
“When will it end?”
“I don’t know, Max.”
He rubbed his head.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up and walked over to him, the Great Viktor Mueller. I leaned over and stared into his eyes. “It’s all a trick, Poppy, and I think you know it. This place was never a spa. It’s getting worse, you can see how crowded it is. And now the transports. You know about transports, don’t you? You know about the children from Bialystok, near Warsaw? They were taken to some place called Auschwitz. Where is that? What is that?”
Poppy said nothing. I tried to read what the silence meant: Was it shock? Guilt? Shame?
“I thought you would save them, Poppy, but you didn’t. Now the Danes. It’s all fake. I remember all the stories you used to tell me about the Distant and Mysterious Man. About courage and good deeds. I thought you were a better man, and that he, the hero, might be you, Poppy. It was our story, our secret. And you want to know something …” I pointed a finger at his chest. He stared at me, his face betraying nothing. “Every Dane will be given postcards to send to their friends back home, about their great reception was and how good it is here, and you know what I’m going to do, Poppy? I’m going to tear them up, because it’s not true! We’ve got to find a way to get everyone out of here.”
Poppy broke his gaze, placing his hands in his lap. “Max, I—”
“No! I don’t want to hear any more lies. This place started with a couple of hundred people, and how many now, thousands? They come and go. To where? Do you know their destination? Tell me, Poppy, show me. To the theater, to a concert? Were you taken to administration and deloused when you came? And you supported this place so much you were okay with me coming here!”
I threw a chair to the ground.
“‘A gift to the Jews,’ they said. The Nazis kill children. Some people are starving and freezing. There’s not enough food for everyone, or clothes, or medicine, or fuel. Why, Poppy? Some of the barracks are so crowded that they have hard wooden beds stacked together four-high. Not like the ones you and I sleep in; and this is their home? This is how my friends are treated? What kind of father are you? What kind of man? Is this what my mother would want? Is this how you honor her?”
“Max. There are things at work that you don’t understa—”
I interrupted. I couldn’t allow any explanation, any excuse.
“No, you don’t understand! I came here, Poppy, because you promised me it would be a great place to be with my friends. Just for a little while. Well, where have you been for ‘just a little while’? It’s been a long time, Poppy! You deserted me to produce shows full of lies. You’re a selfish man, Poppy. More selfish than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Poppy’s eyes streamed with tears. I didn’t care. I needed those tears. I needed to know that I was being heard.
“You’ve hurt us, Poppy, that’s what you’ve done. You forgot me, and you forgot your best friend. You betrayed Hans. I’m not proud of what you’ve done. I’m ashamed of being German, and I’m ashamed of you.”
Poppy’s right hand shook uncontrollably and he covered it with his left. He stood up from his chair. “Get your things. I’m taking you with me, Max. We’re leaving.”
“No, it’s too late,” I said, stepping away from him. “I don’t know who you are. And I don’t desert my friends. I am on their side. Not yours, Poppy.” My voice was suddenly heavy with grief. “Not yours.”
Always in the past, one of Poppy’s preeminent gifts, one that carried a real sense of meaning and presence, was his ability to express himself with an eloquence that was supportive, engaging, illuminating, truthful. However much I needed reassurance, I was older now—no longer the boy who he could enchant.
I turned my back on my father and walked away.
Standing in the hall, I held my breath until I heard the front door close, then running down the hall, I threw open the front door. Poppy’s sedan was already fading into the distance.
“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” I said. “My mind is all jumbled.”
Sophie held my hand. “Max … we’re real. This … this is real. Here and now is real. Maybe that’s all we have, maybe that’s enough. We escaped, Mama and I, from a terrible place. I lost my father, Max. I’ve accepted that he’s gone. The suffering you can’t imagine, the humiliation that we were subjected to. My mother being spat at in the street while I held her hand. Things are difficult here, terribly difficult for all of us. But I am with you and that is everything for me now.”
“Think of what we’ve had and what we’ve lost; and in all of this confusion … Poppy …”
I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. Taking a breath, “I don’t love him anymore, Sophie.”
“Max, he’s your father. Don’t reject him. Don’t give up. If we hold on, who knows what will happen? There is still space here for music and for dreams. I’ve always wanted a house, and I can make it exactly how I want it to be. A place to cook, my own room, a piano.” She reached out. “Will you come live with me, Max? All we can do for now is be closer to each other.”
I thought about Poppy and my eyes burned. But he was gone now, and I had to try to forget. “Yes, we’ll find a place to call home.”
TALKING TO A TREE
David knew how I was feeling. He had understood the truth long before I had been able to, and he knew I needed a distraction, so he gave me a new assignment.
“I’m not up to it. About the last thing I want to do right now is interview anyone.”
“Are you giving up, just like that? You’re a journalist, looking for answers until you can find no more. And part of the job is writing about other people, about what you observe and feel. If we speak to someone else, we can always learn something. Everybody has a story.”
“About death?”
“And life. That’s what reporters do. They dive back in, no matter what.”
He wasn’t going to let up. I grabbed my notebook, said, “Fine,” and stormed out of the office and down the stairs.
Viktor Frankl was talking to a tree outside a building called Block B IV. Before approaching him, I studied the young doctor. I’d developed a reporter’s knack for sizing people up. He wore glasses that tried in vain to conceal his tired gray eyes. He was tall and much too thin, his white coat hanging from his slight frame.
When the doctor saw me, he extended his hand. “You’re Max Mueller.”
“You know me?” I stepped forward and greeted him.
“You’re Sophie’s friend, of course. She’s told me all about you. She and her mother help me a lot. Edith’s a good nurse.”
“How are things in the infirmary?”
“I believe we could save a lot more lives if we had supplies. Sulfur would help. But most medicine goes to the German army. I’m doing all I can with what I have.”
“I take it
you weren’t able to treat patients at your clinic in Vienna, so you came to Terezín.”
Frankl laughed. “Yes, I figured a spa vacation was just what I needed. You’re probably wondering what I was doing when you arrived.”
I smiled. “Clearly, you were in a discussion with that tree.”
“I come here to clear my head when I have a moment. I take care of a ward inside that building there—patients who have been traumatized, patients that you never see. I’ve recently heard about killing squads called the Einsatzgruppen. I’m not sure if anyone can ever recover after what they’ve seen. I hear their stories, stories from a few who have managed to escape. Hundreds are taken from their homes, shot, and left in a ditch. There’s a young boy from the Ukraine, a sweet boy, but he hardly talks, and when he does, I hear about what he has seen, things that nobody his age should see, nobody of any age anywhere should see, crimes against humanity. I can’t imagine it. He won’t tell me his name, and there’s so much I want to know. I’m lost for words and answers, and that’s why I talk to trees these days.”
“What do you talk about?”
“My wife,” the doctor said sadly. “I talk about Katharina, that was her name. I see Katie’s smile in my mind, her encouragement. To me she represented all that is good. I think we saw truth together. Truth, Max, just when you think you have found it, it skips out on you. It’s elusive.”
“Why? What happened?” I asked as gently as possible.
He seemed not to hear me, lost in his own thoughts. “I try to understand how anyone, including myself, who has nothing left in this world can hold on.”
The doctor shook his head. “But we do hold on and …” He sighed. “I remember when we first came. We walked, stumbling in the darkness, over stones and large puddles in the daylight, along a road leading to the camp. Hardly a word was spoken. As we staggered along, she whispered to me: ‘We must find a way. We must always love each other.’ I guess we live in expectation; but when the last page is written, it doesn’t matter how we live; it’s not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. I think that is some sort of truth. Here at Terezín, we have a responsibility to help each other. We consider truth one step at a time.”
While the Music Played Page 28