“Yes.”
The colonel spoke again.
“The Comrade Colonel said that you mentioned Stuttgart. Are you from there?”
“Yes.”
“Your name?”
“Paul Weiner.”
The eyes of the hard-faced colonel widened. He leaned forward. “Do you know Jules Weiner?” he asked in German.
Paul was taken aback by the abrupt, personal question, and the colonel’s ability to speak the language. “Yes. He is my father.”
The officer stood up at once and came from behind his desk. His face was working. “Hanna, your Tante. Is she alive?”
Paul was thunderstruck! How could this man know about his family? Then a suspicion grew. “I don’t know. I am looking for her.”
A wave of sadness passed over the Russian’s face. He held out his hand. “I am Zelek, your Tante Hanna’s brother,” he said simply.
Paul took his hand, still shaken. At its touch, he felt a surge of kinship and warmth that he had long forgotten.
“Sit down, sit down,” said Zelek, quickly motioning to a chair to help overcome his emotion. He waved out the lieutenant, and resumed his seat. “So, you are Paul. She wrote to me many times, and always of you.”
Paul nodded his head. “Each time she received a letter from you, she would tell me all the stories about her family and how you were doing. She was very proud of you.”
Tears welled into the eyes of Zelek. “So, she is lost. And your father. I have remembered him.” To cover his deep-felt sorrow, he shouted for tea. A soldier with a samovar must have been waiting outside the door, for he came in at once, poured cups for each, and quickly left. After they sipped, Zelek drew out the makings for a cigarette and offered them to Paul, who refused, then rolled one for himself. “Tell me what happened,” he finally asked.
“I don’t know. The last I heard from them was shortly before Krystal Night.”
Zelek dropped an ash carefully into a tray. “If they were sent east, to Poland, there is not much hope.” He shook his head slowly, as if in wonder at man’s scheme of things, and then gazed wistfully at Paul. “I remember each time I killed a Cossack, and there were many, my boy, when we won our country, I used to think of them.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Why do you wish to visit the Passau Labor Camp?”
“As I said, a man in Stuttgart reported that some of the Jews were taken there.”
“It is possible. I understand that they had Germans and Dutch there. All of them left before the Americans turned over this sector to us.”
“May I go there please? To check over the records?”
Zelek nodded. “Lieutenant!” he shouted. The officer came in at once. “Take Colonel Weiner to Passau immediately in my car. He is to have full freedom there. Do you understand?” He wrote out a pass and handed it to Paul. “Here, my boy. Come back when you finish.” His face grew grim as he considered what might be found there. “I wish you luck–nephew.”
The two hour ride was endless. When the sedan turned onto a paved road, leading to the camp, Paul took a deep breath to steel himself against a repetition of what he had found in the camps to date.
A few hours later, grim faced, he came out of the administration building and got into the car. “I have found nothing of my family,” he told the lieutenant. But clouding his very being were the rows of names of those who had perished there. It was another nightmare.
Zelek had waited supper for him, and they dined alone in his office. “Stay the night, Paul,” he said.
Paul shook his head. “I must go on.”
Zelek nodded. “Search every corner. I will do the same here.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Go well, nephew.”
Munich was on his line of travel, so he decided to try it again. The clerk at the German desk remembered him. “I have been keeping my eyes open for Charnoff and Weiner cards, Colonel. Sorry, but nothing has come in yet. Why don’t you leave your name on file. Perhaps someone will be seeking you later on.” He straightened up an index. “Also, why don’t you try Stuttgart again? Maybe they stopped by.”
“I do not think it is worth while. There is nothing left there for them to come to.”
The clerk nodded his head in understanding. “I guess you are right.” He stared at the pale-faced Paul. “So you have been visiting the camps, eh?”
“Yes, all that I could locate.”
“Did you try the satellite camp north of Dachau?”
“No. I did not know there was one.”
The clerk drew over a list typed on a sheet of paper. “Here it is. It’s part of the Uniform Fabrik, AG. About two thousand prisoners worked in a sewing operation there. It is located about twenty-five kilometers north of the main camp.”
Paul nodded his thanks, left the room, and was soon on his way there. He had no trouble finding the camp for it was directly next to a huge, modern factory.
An American soldier was posted at the gate. Above him was a sign, ‘Off Limits’. A number of men in protective clothing were burning down rows of shacks that were constructed like chicken coops. The guard came to attention when Paul stepped out of his jeep.
“I would like to speak with the officer in charge,” said Paul.
“Sure, Colonel.” He shouted through the gate, “Hey, Captain Eyerson!” A medical officer came from a barrack and walked briskly to the fence. “The Colonel wants to see you, Captain,” explained the guard.
“Yes?” inquired the Captain.
“I am Doctor Weiner, on medical research orders. I have also been visiting the camps for personal reasons. I am German born. I think my family was taken by the Nazis some years ago. I am searching for them. I would like your permission to go through the camp.”
The officer shook his head. “I can’t allow that, Doctor. We have a severe outbreak of typhus here. Over three hundred cases.”
Paul eyed the captain. “I just can’t walk away, Doctor. I have been going from camp to camp for three weeks now. I know the precautions I must take.”
The doctor stood quietly, debating the request. “What did you say the relationship was?”
“One is my foster mother. The other is my father.”
“I see.” He motioned to the guard. “Let him in.” He pointed to the shacks being burned. “That’s where these poor devils lived. No heat, no running water. Nothing. We’re using the SS barracks as makeshift wards.”
He led Paul to a decontamination room, where he was dusted thoroughly with a louse powder, and then inside one of the barracks. It had been fumigated, clean mattresses, sheets, and blankets provided, and two corpsmen were giving shots and medicine to several of the patients. “We have the men quartered here, and the women next door,” explained the American. “All of the prisoners were in deplorable condition when we got here. We have released about fifteen hundred. Almost a thousand of them required treatment for malnutrition and various diseases before taking off.” He shook his head in helplessness. “I still can’t believe what I am seeing and treating. We have everything we need, but they are still dying at the rate of ten or twelve each day.”
Paul’s eyes were flashing from one prone form to the other. It was a place of dark illness. Many of the diseased were vomiting, and others were delirious. Most had lesions, rashes, and several were crying out in pain. One had recently succumbed, and a blanket had been drawn over his face.
He moved from row to row. “Do any of you know Jules Weiner?” he kept asking. “From Stuttgart.” Some replied in the negative; others did not respond, most just lay as if lifeless. He went through the building twice, and then shook his head.
Captain Eyerson led him to the next barrack. It was the same inside, only that the beds were occupied by women. “Do you know Hanna Charnoff?” he asked person after person. “From Stuttgart?”
Suddenly he stopped. A woman was motioning for him. She was old, most of her hair gone. A dark red rash was spread throughout her body. When Paul approached, she raised a flushed face and pointed
down the line of bunks.
Heart pounding so fast that he could barely breathe, he nodded his thanks and started down the aisle, peering into each face.
Then he halted in his tracks. She was lying on her side in a lower bunk.
There was little he could remember in this frame of skin and bones, or in the dank gray hair, or in the mottled mouth that was feebly trying to suck in air.
He dropped to his knees and picked up a hand dangling to one side. It was dry, rough, rheumatoid.
“Mother,” he said, the words choking in his mouth.
She moved her head and tried to open her eyes.
“Mother,” said Paul again. “Tante Hanna.”
Slowly her eyes opened. She focused them on the grim-faced man in uniform. She stared, unable to comprehend who this was, and what was happening. “Paul?” she whispered.
He put his arms gently around her, and drew her to his chest, tears streaming down his cheeks. The spots on her face and arms and shoulders meant nothing. He held her with a joy that made breathing impossible. She was like a feather.
“Paul?” she whispered again.
He laid her back on the bed so she could see him. “Go away,” she whispered urgently. “Go away.”
“Mother,” he said. “Where is Papi?”
She shook her head, her neck barely able to support the movement. “Dead. Dead,” she whispered. “Go away. Please.”
He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, and then he reached down and picked her up, blankets and all. Eyerson was standing behind him.
“You can’t take her out,” he said softly.
“She is coming out with me,” growled Paul.
Eyerson stood undecided, and then he sighed. “All right. Where will you take her?”
“To the first house I can find.”
The American shook his head in exasperation. “You may spread the disease,” he said.
“That would be too bad for the Germans, wouldn’t it?” snapped Paul, starting from the barrack.
Eyerson nodded as he followed them up. What he had seen here today would be stamped upon his memory forever. “Wait, Doctor,” he said, as they stepped outside. He beckoned to a sergeant leading a detail of men. “Hancock!”
The sergeant motioned for his men to keep going and walked over. He was a tall, square man with a red, farmer’s face. “Yes, sir.”
“Get an ambulance. Take the doctor and his patient wherever he wants to go.” He turned to Paul. “Hancock will help you get settled, then check with you periodically to give you a hand.”
Paul was holding Hanna close to his chest. “Thank you, Doctor. We will not forget this.”
In minutes, they had Hanna on a litter, and in the rear of an ambulance.
Paul stayed by her side. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was harsh and jagged. “Where do you want to go, Doctor?” asked Hancock from the front seat.
“Start away from Dachau. Stop at the first, comfortable house you find.”
They went only a few miles. “Here’s a nice one,” called out Hancock, motioning for the driver to stop the vehicle.
Paul climbed out to see a large house with a well-tended garden. “This will do fine.” Followed by the sergeant and the driver carrying the litter, Paul went to the door and banged upon it until a man opened it a crack. Paul drove it fully open with a well aimed kick. “We are using this house,” he stated flatly. “Who are you, and who lives here?
He was a middle aged man, his face white with apprehension. “I am Helmut Graff, Herr Offizier. My wife and daughter of fourteen years live here.”
“Which is the best bedroom?” asked Paul roughly.
“This way,” Graff said hastily, leading them up the steps. Soon Hanna was deposited on freshly laundered, white sheets in the master room.
“Bring your wife and daughter here, at once,” ordered Paul. His wife was about forty, heavy-set, strong. The girl was plump and excited. “You will help me take care of this woman,” he said. “If she does not get the best of attention, I will turn you out of this house in an instant and burn it to the ground before your very eyes. Do you understand?”
They nodded their heads vigorously.
“Get warm water, at once!” When they ran off to do as bidden, Paul turned to Hancock. “I am a heart specialist and have not had much experience with typhus. What treatment are you using in the camp?”
“Lots of bed rest, Doctor. Good food. Plenty of liquids. I’ll come by each day to look her over. I’ll also leave some sedatives in the event you find it necessary.”
“Thank you. Could you arrange to have my jeep brought here?”
“I’ll drive it over myself as soon as I get back. I’ll also bring food and liquids.”
When the soldiers had gone, Paul took the bowl of warm water from Graff’s wife and sponge bathed Hanna himself. Hanna protested weakly, but he continued. He was appalled at sight of her tragic condition. Her body was skeleton-like, bones protruding, her breasts shriveled. Shortly after he finished, Hancock was back with the jeep. As promised, he brought quantities of food and medicine. Paul had Frau Graff prepare soup, and a can of meat and vegetables, then he fed Hanna himself, serving small portions and allowing her time to chew. She could take only a bit–her stomach was so shrunken.
He sat by her while she fought her battle for life. Hancock had made it clear that heart failure and pneumonia were the enemies, and that older people were highly susceptible to their ravages. Well, he knew how to treat her heart problem at least. He slept by her side, waking every hour to check on her, begging her continually to drink tea or warm milk or to eat another mouthful. Frau Graff took a great interest in helping, keeping the fire in the stove going and sitting in a corner of the room, ready to assist Paul whenever Hanna stirred.
On the fifth day, Hanna seemed to have turned a corner. Even Hancock remarked that the fine care she was getting was having its effect, and in another few days her vitality seemed to have taken root.
Now they could talk. Her first question was of Gabrielle. When she heard that they had a daughter, Natalie, and both were dead, she turned her head away. She did not cry; she just stared at the wall, refusing food or drink for nearly a day. All of Paul’s pleas went unheeded. It took one of Hancock’s sedatives to put her to sleep in order to break the chain of sorrow that she had linked herself to.
When she recovered from the shock, she spoke of the death of Jules, and her own experience. The Gestapo had not executed her out of hand. Perhaps von Kaltenberger had intervened. But somehow they had been informed of her wealth, so they treated her wounds in a local detention center, and then gave her an ultimatum–to turn over her money or die. She revealed the locations of the German bank deposit boxes where diamonds and cash had been stored for safety, and she signed over her checking and savings accounts. But even with the dreadful threat hanging over her head, she refused to mention her secret Swiss accounts. She was then transported to Dachau.
There she learned from other Stuttgart Jews that Fergl had died soon after being apprehended.
Hanna was later assigned to the Uniform Fabrik, AG, where army clothing was being made. Apparently someone in authority knew of her background. At first she was made capo of a work shift, and then after three or four years, when her age and lack of food began to take its toll, she was put on a machine. Shortly before her fifty-eighth birthday, when her hands had lost their flexibility to rheumatism, she was discharged from the kommando completely, to wait in the camp until she expired. She had existed on scraps of food obtained by sewing for the wives of the guards. If the Americans had come a week or two later, it would have been too late for her.
In two more weeks, the spots had nearly disappeared from her body; she had regained some weight, and could now even walk if supported. But she was not allowed outside yet. Pneumonia was still a danger.
Then after only a month’s time, she was almost a new woman. One morning, Paul took her hand. “I am going back to my unit, Moth
er, to get discharged. Then I will return for you in order to take you to England for more rest.”
He called in the Graffs, and told them he would be going off for a few days.
They did not have to be warned again. “We will take good care of Frau Charnoff,” promised Frau Graff. Paul made arrangements for Hancock to stop by daily, then he kissed Hanna goodbye.
CHAPTER 48
1948
“Paul,” called Hanna. “Breakfast is ready.”
“Coming,” he called back. He straightened his tie and trotted down the spiral staircase. Why Hanna had to buy the largest town house in the Kensington section of London was beyond him. She purchased only the best. Perhaps, it was due to the privations of the years in the concentration camp that luxuries were a means of making up for them. In the garage were a Rolls Royce, which she drove like a madman, and a convertible Cadillac, which he rarely used. Then she had to have three servants, but still cooked breakfast herself.
His freshly squeezed orange juice, a poached egg, and two pieces of toast were waiting on the table. The British army had done what Hanna could never do–accustomed him to eating more than a roll and coffee in the morning.
She had already read the Times, he saw, as she served him, then she took her place with her usual two eggs and two fresh rolls. How marvelously she had recovered. Her gray hair was waved in the latest fashion; the lines in her face had softened, and she was using a slight touch of rouge to give her cheeks color. She had regained her weight, but constant walking and helping the maid clean the house every couple of days, had kept her trim and in top form.
“How is your design company doing?”
“Quite well. But take another egg today. You could use a few more pounds.”
“Just who is the doctor here today? “ He rubbed his stomach, still flat and hard. “I will have to start running each morning if I keep up with your cooking.”
A horn was discreetly tooted outside, and the butler strode into the dining room. “Your taxi, Doctor Weiner,” he announced.
Paul finished off his coffee, gave Hanna a kiss, slipped on a trench coat and hat, caught up his briefcase, and walked rapidly outside.
Enemy of the Tzar Page 47