The Katyn Order

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  The boy’s eyes rolled from side-to-side. “I hear . . .”

  Natalia slid her hand under his head. “That’s it, that’s it, stay with me, Rabbit.” She turned to Adam. “Keep pressing down, hard!”

  “We can’t stop,” Andreyev said. “The NKVD will have every hospital within five kilometers surrounded in the next few minutes.”

  “I know that,” Natalia snapped. “Just get us the hell out of here!” She looked up, straining to see out the back window of the speeding auto and get her bearings.

  “Where are we going?” she yelled to Andreyev.

  “Through Kazimierz and over the river to Podgorze, then farther south from there.”

  “There’s a village I know about a few kilometers south of Podgorze,” Adam said. “They had a doctor, a friend of my uncle. Do you think he can make it?”

  Natalia looked at the boy. Rabbit’s eyes had closed. She leaned close to Adam and whispered, “I don’t know. This is bad.” She held up her hand. It was covered in dark, sticky blood. “I think the bullet hit his liver.” She turned back to Rabbit. “Can you hear me, Rabbit? Are you with me?”

  The boy’s eyelids fluttered. “Conductor . . . I . . . can . . .”

  The auto raced on, swerving around corners, barreling down avenues at top speed. Natalia couldn’t see much from her position on the floor of the sedan, but after what seemed like an eternity Andreyev yelled back to them again. “We’re crossing the river into Podgorze,” he shouted over the roar of the engine and squealing tires. “I don’t see any tail, but we have to keep going.”

  “Just let us know when we’re south of Podgorze!” Adam shouted back.

  Natalia leaned over the boy. “Rabbit, are you still with me?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Rabbit! Stay with me!” She turned her head to the side, her ear just above his mouth. She could barely feel his breath. She put her fingers to his neck again and checked his pulse. It was getting weaker. His face was the color of chalk. She slapped his cheek. “Rabbit! Please, stay with me!”

  The auto bumped hard over a pothole, then swerved around a corner. Natalia was thrown against Adam again, knocking his hands off the bloody coat. She gently lifted the coat and examined the wound. The bleeding had slowed to a dark oozing. She slid her fingers under the boy’s chin and checked his pulse.

  Nothing.

  She swallowed hard and switched to the other side of his neck and checked again. Nothing.

  She slapped his cheek, harder this time. “Please, stay with me, Rabbit! Open your eyes!”

  The boy lay still. His chest stopped moving.

  Goddamn it, no!

  Tears clouded her eyes as Natalia stared at the boy’s still face. She ran her hand through his matted, blond hair. He looked peaceful, almost serene. She remembered the first time she had met him, at the massacre in the hospital square in Warsaw, a battle-hardened veteran at the tender age of thirteen. She remembered his cool, quick action with the NKVD agents at the village near the Bolimowski Forest. But most of all, she remembered how he’d laid his head on her lap after his friend Bobcat had been killed in the sewer. He’d asked her why God would let these things happen. She hadn’t been able to give him a good answer then. And she certainly couldn’t now. She studied his face for another moment, then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Oh Rabbit, I’m so sorry.”

  Adam put his hand on her shoulder.

  She slumped against him, shaking her head, letting the tears flow.

  They rode in silence as the auto sped through Podgorze and the southern suburbs of Krakow. A quarter of an hour later, Andreyev pulled over to the side of the road and stopped near a flat, open field surrounded by deserted factory buildings. Parked in front of them was an old farm truck, faded and rusty, a load of hay in the back. There was no driver.

  Andreyev got out of the car, opened the rear door and motioned for them to get out. Then he turned away and walked a few paces into the field.

  With Rabbit’s body lying in the backseat of the car, the three of them stood in silence for a long tense moment. “You can’t go back,” Andreyev said. “None of us can. The NKVD will be tearing Krakow apart within the hour.” He motioned with his head toward the farm truck. “The key is in the ignition. It doesn’t look like much, but I’m told it runs well. You can be in Nowy Targ by this afternoon, and from there you can make your way to Prochowa. Your Górale friends should be able to get you safely over the mountains into Slovakia.”

  Natalia turned to Adam. Her eyes were red from crying. She clenched her jaw firmly in that look of defiance he remembered from Warsaw.

  “We can’t stay in Poland,” he said quietly to her.

  “And I certainly can’t take you back to Berlin with me,” Andreyev said. “Tarnov’s murder will put every Russian officer in Europe on alert, looking for you.”

  Natalia reached in her vest pocket and withdrew the copy of Stalin’s order. “What about this?”

  Andreyev held out his hand. “I’ll make sure it gets to Colonel Whitehall.”

  She stared at the Russian for a moment, clutching the precious document with both hands. Then she turned to Adam and handed it to him. “Here, it’s your decision.” She turned away and walked a few steps farther into the field.

  Adam followed her. Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Captain Andreyev is right. It’s the only way.”

  She turned around and looked into his eyes. “Can we trust him? After all this . . . Rabbit . . . your uncle . . . can we trust him?”

  Adam was quiet, his eyes searching hers. Finally he nodded. “Andreyev is taking an enormous risk. We just murdered three NKVD, and he’s arranging for our escape. If he wasn’t sincere he could just as easily have turned us over to them.” He gazed up at the blue sky. A flock of swallows flew overhead. “We’ll go up into the mountains and into Slovakia. Just like you said you wanted to do. From there we can go anywhere.”

  “What about Rabbit?”

  “We’ll take him with us,” Adam said, swallowing hard, his eyes clouding up. “We’ll bury him in Prochowa next to my uncle . . . and some of the other patriots who sacrificed their lives for this.”

  Natalia reached up and touched his face. “Is it finished?”

  “Yes. For now . . . it’s finished.”

  Epilogue

  POTSDAM, GERMANY

  2 AUGUST 1945

  COLONEL STANLEY WHITEHALL sat in the back row of delegates who had gathered in the courtyard of the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam on the last day of the conference. The leaders of the “Big Three” sat side-by-side in wicker chairs on the veranda, while lower-level ministers circulated among the delegates, passing out thick packets of the declarations, decrees and proclamations that would govern postwar Europe.

  Whitehall got up to leave. He already knew the outcome. Poland was lost. The Soviet-controlled communists from Lublin were recognized as the legitimate government, the free elections touted at Yalta submerged and forgotten. His shoulders sagged a bit more than usual as he lumbered across the immaculately manicured lawn.

  Then, as he reached the walkway at the edge of the courtyard, Whitehall turned back and took one last look at Joseph Stalin, dressed in his white uniform tunic, smiling broadly at a horde of photographers. Would it have made any difference if Roosevelt hadn’t died, or if Churchill hadn’t been ousted in the British elections?

  Perhaps.

  But he knew what it really came down to. The Russian dictator wouldn’t be sitting quite so smugly if the copy of the Katyn Order had ever surfaced.

  • • •

  Later that afternoon, in the drawing room of the mansion in Grunewald, Whitehall poured a drink at the sideboard and handed it to Tom Donavan. He motioned for him to take a seat. “So, what have you learned?” Whitehall asked, as he settled into the other chair.

  Donavan set his glass on the coffee table and plucked an envelope out of his briefcase. “We finally received a dispatch from the AK chaps u
p in Nowy Targ.”

  Whitehall opened the envelope and read the message.

  A AND N OFF TO THE HILLS

  PIRATE HAS THE PRIZE

  He had never met Natalia, but Whitehall breathed a heavy sigh of relief, surprising himself over how worried he’d been about Adam. Then he downed his glass of whiskey in a single gulp and leaned forward, frowning. “So, what the hell happened to Captain Andreyev?”

  Donavan took a quick sip of his drink. “I first checked with the Soviet delegation at the Kommandatura. They went through their files but didn’t come up with anything. Then I visited the Soviet Military Administration Headquarters.”

  Whitehall grunted. “Wouldn’t guess those chaps were very cooperative.”

  “Not at first,” Donavan said. “But I showed them Kovalenko’s letter, and that got some attention. Apparently, even after his death, the general still has some influence. Had to sign my life away, of course, but then a Red Army major took me in tow and I spent an hour sitting across the table while he rifled through personnel files.”

  Whitehall got up and poured another drink. He looked out the leaded-glass windows at the sunlit terrace. “And what did he find?”

  “They have no record of a Red Army captain named Andreyev.”

  Whitehall spun around. His drink splashed onto his fingers. “No record? That’s preposterous! The man was General Kovalenko’s chief aide. I met him myself—several times, for God’s sake, in this very room!”

  “I said the same thing to the Red Army major, a bit more diplomatically, of course.”

  “Well?”

  “According to their records, General Kovalenko didn’t have an aide. Never liked the concept, or some such thing.”

  Whitehall shook his head in disgust and tossed back what remained of his drink. He glared at Donavan. “So, that’s it? There’s no Captain Andreyev?”

  “He never existed.”

  THE JOURNAL OF LUDWIK BANACH

  My name is Ludwik Banach

  Eight months ago I descended into hell. I have seen the abyss, the dark chasm of depravity into which man can sink. And I am terrified. I am terrified the world does not know what is happening here. I fear most will not live to tell their story, so I will tell mine and pray that it will emerge from the darkness—that the world may know.

  In November of 1939 I was arrested in Krakow, along with two hundred other professors, lawyers and doctors who had been invited to a seminar at the university. German soldiers, storm troopers of the SS, marched into the assembly and forced us out at gunpoint. We were loaded into trucks, then into foul-smelling railcars. For five days we had no food, almost no water. We had no room to lie down. I was sure this was hell. And then we arrived in Oranienburg, Germany, and entered Sachsenhausen—a large camp, enclosed with brick walls and barbed wire fences.

  Then I knew what hell truly was.

  Perhaps someday I will have the courage to write about life in that dark abyss. Thousands of us labored at back-breaking jobs with little food or water in a camp so filthy and infested with rats and lice that most died of typhus within six months. Perhaps someday, when the memory is not so fresh and raw, I will be able to write about it . . . but not today.

  Today is the tenth of August, 1940, and I will begin to record the incredible events that have transpired since my unexpected and abrupt release from Sachsenhausen one month ago. The story begins on the morning of my last day in that living hell.

  10 July 1940

  During the morning roll-call I was pulled from the ranks and marched to the commandant’s office. I was confused and frightened. No one had ever been pulled from the roll-call and taken to the commandant before. If anyone committed an offense they were just shot on the spot and dragged away, their body thrown onto a cart with the other dead.

  The commandant’s deputy, Ludwig Rehm, and our block leader, Hans Fricker, were waiting for me in the office. Rehm glared at me for a long time, his coal black eyes and red, twitching face a mask of hate. Abruptly he spit in my face. Then he turned away and nodded at Fricker, who told me I was being released into the custody of the Governor General of Poland and would be transported back to Krakow.

  I was so astonished, I was certain I hadn’t heard him correctly. Fricker pointed to a suit of clothing hanging on a hook. When I took the clothing, he gave me a shove. He took me to the guard’s quarters and ordered me to shower and change clothes. He handed me a small vial of kerosene to kill the lice in my hair. Though in a state of shock from the incredible news, I lingered as long as I dared, reveling in the luxury of soap and water. It was the first shower I’d had in eight months.

  I arrived back in Krakow after two days traveling. This time I had a seat in a normal railcar, guarded by a pair of drunken Wehrmacht soldiers. Apparently I was no longer of interest to the SS.

  I was taken by auto to Wawel Castle and locked in a small, but clean, room in the lower level. I had no idea why this was happening or what fate awaited me but, strangely, I was not afraid. Perhaps it was because I could not conceive of anything worse than the hell of Sachsenhausen where I would certainly have died. My heart grieves for my friends, those whom I have left behind. There is little chance any of them will survive.

  I had a dark sense of foreboding at what I would find here in Krakow. But I was also intrigued at the prospect of seeing the Governor General of Poland. I had learned he was the German legal scholar Hans Frank, with whom I became acquainted while attending European legal conferences in the ’30s. My memory of Frank was of a highly intelligent, if somewhat conflicted, man caught up in an impossible situation during the rise of Nazism.

  We had last met in 1935, in Germany, at a conference of the Academy of German Law, which Frank founded, and we corresponded on a regular basis for several years afterward. Frank was, at that time, a zealous proponent of human rights and an independent judiciary. But over the years, as fascism tightened its grip on German society, the tone of his letters changed, and I sensed he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Our correspondence had ceased, of course, with the German invasion of Poland. I had already been arrested and deported to Sachsenhausen by the time Frank came to Krakow as Governor General.

  26 July 1940

  On this day I met the Governor General of Poland. Since arriving in the city on 12 July, I had been confined to my room. I had seen no one except the guards who brought me two meals and tea each day. I had been allowed to bathe and given clean clothing. I put on weight and regained much of my strength. But all the time I couldn’t help thinking about my new captor, Hans Frank. Why was I here? What did he want from me?

  Following the morning meal, I was led up to the third floor of the castle, shown into a large, well appointed office and left alone. A moment later the door opened, and a German officer stepped in. Though I hadn’t seen him in five years, I instantly recognized Hans Frank.

  He bowed slightly, clicked his heels and addressed me by name. He offered me a chair and a cup of coffee, and we talked for more than an hour. It was perhaps the most bizarre hour of my life. Here was a man I had known as an intelligent, widely respected legal scholar, one of the best in Germany if not all of Europe—a man with whom I had discussed ideas, debated legal positions and corresponded with for years. And on this day, cast on opposite sides of a brutal war, we sat in a room adorned with the swastika flag and the Nazi eagle, in the royal castle of Poland, and chatted about old times. I could barely sit still, so great was my anguish over the atrocities I had witnessed at Sachsenhausen: the beatings and murders, the inhuman brutality—atrocities that Frank certainly knows about, has perhaps even ordered.

  The meeting ended abruptly when an aide knocked on the door, explaining that Frank had a telephone call.

  That afternoon I was transferred to a larger room at the other end of the castle. The room had a desk and chair and a box of German language books. As I sat at the desk, I could not imagine what was in store for me. But that was insignificant next to the question burning a hole in my he
art. Was it possible that I would be reunited with my dear wife, Beata? Could God be that generous?

  2 August 1940

  After days of waiting I was finally led from my room to an automobile outside the castle. A moment later, Hans Frank joined me in the backseat. As we drove through the streets of Krakow, my beloved city that I hadn’t seen in almost a year, it was all I could do to control my emotions. Red-and-black swastika banners flew from every flagpole. Placards with the German word ACHTUNG in bold, black letters across the top, followed by lists of rules and regulations, were posted on buildings. People stood in long queues at bakeries, their faces gray and drawn, their heads bowed. The streets were practically deserted, the only other vehicles being German military trucks and the long, black autos of the Gestapo.

  Frank leaned over suddenly and said that he would explain how things are to be in Poland. There will be no education for Poles beyond the fourth grade. The universities and libraries will remain closed. All Polish press, theatre and cabarets will be censored. References to Polish history, culture and literature will not be tolerated. Possession of radios by Poles is prohibited and will be replaced with loudspeakers in public areas.

  This was a different Hans Frank from the other day. This Frank was stiff, unsmiling and authoritarian. I listened silently, my heart sinking with the realization that the Germans intend to destroy the very fabric of Polish life, to reduce us to a nation of slaves. My despair turned to anger. I struggled to maintain control, forcing myself to remember that the man sitting next to me was no longer the scholarly, affable gentleman I had known, but the Nazi governor overseeing the occupation of my country. My skin crawled.

  A few minutes later, the auto stopped in the area west of the university. We got out of the car, and I looked up at the magnificent edifice of the new Copernicus Memorial Library. Years ago I was involved in its conception. My dream, this world-class facility, had been completed just days before the outbreak of the war.