Just then, a male voice speaking in broken German with a strong American accent came over the loudspeaker. He began reciting the rules. Each time the controlling country changed, some jerk felt it necessary to announce the regulations again. Manfred could almost recite them verbatim. No talking with fellow prisoners, no newspapers allowed, no diaries or memoirs of any kind, family visits limited to fifteen minutes every two months. Not that it mattered much to Manfred since he had no family left anyway. The worst thing of all was the nighttime flashing of the lights. Every fifteen minutes a guard came around flashing a light in his face to be sure he had not committed suicide. If he hadn’t already considered killing himself, this continuous disruption of his sleep could certainly influence him in that direction.
With a sideways glance, Manfred quickly looked over at Hess, wondering what the man might be thinking. He was certainly handsome with his wavy, coal-black hair and dark, brooding eyes. All of the guards, from every one of the countries, kept a heavy watch on Hess. The rest of the prisoners were not so important, and the guards never paid much attention to them. Except perhaps Speer. He had been one of Hitler’s favorites. In fact, he was Hitler’s architect.
Here at Spandau the prisoners were referred to by their numbers rather than their names. Manfred knew that this was just another method of dehumanizing and humiliating the prisoners. The Nazis had used the same method on the concentration camp victims.
Manfred kept an eye on his jailers. He could see that they were far too busy arranging their own lives to waste their time getting to know a bunch of Nazis. Well, it was their loss. They certainly could have learned a lot from their captives, Manfred thought. To the guards, this was just a duty, and the only job that they were told to perform was to be sure that no one escaped. They executed the task with diligence.
After the Germans finished eating, they were escorted outside, where each of them had been given a small plot of land to garden. The Americans, the French, and the British allowed them to grow whatever they chose, but the Russians insisted that they grow only vegetables, no flowers. This disappointed Speer. Many times Speer had told Manfred how much joy he found in the beauty of his flower garden. He’d taken great care to arrange it just the way he felt it should be, with the colors complementing each other, the shapes and sizes of the plants coordinating so as not to overwhelm. Manfred had to admit it was lovely before the Russians discovered what Speer was growing and pulled everything out of the ground. Personally, Manfred didn’t care about the flowers. He didn’t care about the vegetables either. He was just glad to be outside of the stone, blood-colored walls, out in the fresh air, far away from the smells of disinfectant and death that hung inside the prison.
The sun began to grow brighter as the dawn turned to late morning.
Manfred Blau leaned back on his haunches and smoothed the soil around the slender green sprout. It always amazed him when the earth gave birth to that first tender shoot. How strange that from a tiny seed a life could be born. Miraculous! And he had to admit, he did enjoy having the fresh vegetables harvested and used in the prison kitchen.
He gazed across his plot and saw Rudolf Hess kneeling as he carefully planted a seedling into the earth. What had become of them? How had this all happened to his precious Third Reich? He had blindly believed the Führer when he had promised the German people that the Reich would last for a thousand years, pledging his allegiance to the party and allowing the doctrine to penetrate his mind and soul until it became a part of him. And now, everything had gone bad. Darkness had enveloped his beloved Third Reich, and here he was in Spandau Prison. Adolf Hitler had ended his life, but more importantly, Manfred’s dear friend and mentor, Joseph Goebbels, had also committed suicide.
Then to make matters worse, after Manfred had been imprisoned for three months, he’d received a letter informing him that his wife, his only love, Christa, had died. She’d been ill for a long time, and although he expected the news, when it came, it shot through him like a cannon tearing through his belly, leaving a gap that he felt could never again be filled. Even if he ever left this place alive, he would never see her again. Just the knowledge of that was enough to drive him into a deep depression.
Before she’d died, Christa had sent a letter that seemed to say good-bye. She’d informed Manfred that she’d given their adopted daughter, Katja, away to a friend who had agreed to take care of her. She said she felt it was best not to disclose in a letter the name of the friend in case someone was monitoring his mail. This news unnerved Manfred, not because he cared so much for the little girl. He’d been too busy with his work at the concentration camps to spend much time with the child, but he knew how much Christa loved Katja. When Christa gave Katja to someone else, that indicated to Manfred that Christa knew she was dying and that her time would come soon.
Manfred assumed that Christa had taken the child to her birth mother. That would have been the logical thing to do. After all, Christa had all the paper work telling her the name of Katja’s mother. They’d received all of the documents guaranteeing them that the child they were adopting was of pure Aryan blood. In fact, the Lebensborn Institute had assured them that the child had been checked thoroughly, and she was not tainted with any unsatisfactory characteristics.
That was such a happy time for the couple, filled with love and the promise of a wonderful future. Manfred sighed with bittersweet pain as he recalled that visit they’d made to Steinhöring, the home for the Lebensborn, in Munich. It had almost been like reliving their honeymoon, which had also been in Munich, courtesy of the Reich. In his mind’s eye, he could still see Christa on that day when they had gone together to collect the child. She had smiled at him. She was so happy. Seeing her this way made his heart melt. Then she took the child into her arms for the very first time and he saw the tears roll down her cheeks. The love he felt for her swelled inside of him, and he was afraid he might cry, too. He hadn’t cared about being a parent, but he knew she did, and because he adored her, her joy was all that mattered.
For a while, their lives seemed perfect. Manfred was on his way to becoming a success with the party. He was working directly with Goebbels, Hitler’s Minster of Propaganda, who had become like a father to him. He was married to the girl of his dreams, and their small family was thriving. They had plenty of food, and he was making a good salary. He and Christa were invited to the most exclusive parties, and they had been accepted into the highest circles. It seemed as if nothing could ever go wrong.
Then, on Katja’s third birthday, Christa’s father, Dr. Henenker, shot a hole right through Manfred’s idyllic life. Dr. Henenker had been caught hiding Jews. The Reich turned an angry eye on Manfred. After all, this was his wife’s father. How could he not have been connected to the crime in some way? Christa foolishly begged him to intervene on her father’s behalf. Manfred assured her that he had no control over what happened to Dr. Henenker. He told her to forget her father, that her father would pay the penalty of death and there was no changing that.
Now Manfred had to prove himself, or not only would the doctor pay the penalty of death but so would Manfred, Christa, Katja, and Christa’s mother. All night long, Manfred had agonized over what to do about the situation. It was then that his friend Dr. Goebbels had come up with a solution. In order to demonstrate that he had no prior knowledge of his father-in-law’s crime, and to prove that his allegiance was to Hitler and the party, Manfred agreed to shoot and kill Dr. Henenker while Christa and her mother were made to watch. He didn’t want to do this, but it was the only way that he could show them that he put nothing above his loyalty to the party.
So, in one dark moment, everything Manfred had spent his life carefully building vanished. The Reich accepted his act of devotion by allowing him and his family to live and also by permitting him to remain a member of the party. However, there had to be punishment, and so, Manfred lost his prestigious office job and was sent to work as an officer in a concentration camp.
Thus began t
he curse, a dark shadow that continued to follow him. It was at that first camp that he’d met the devil. He could still remember her face. Zofia, the Jewess, the one who had tempted and taunted him with her wild eyes. Everything that he did to her was her doing; her evil powers had forced him to lose self-control. She was not human, she was an evil spirit; he had no doubt about that.
When he received the letter from his dying wife, Manfred had held the letter to his chest. While sitting in his cell, alone, he had cried. Then, with trembling hands, he had asked the guard for a pen. The guard had been reluctant at first, but Manfred gave him a package of cigarettes, and the guard gave him ten minutes to use the writing implement.
He was rushed. He would have liked to take more time, to contemplate his words, but since there was no leeway, he quickly answered that letter from Christa. Manfred wrote his heartfelt apologies for everything he’d done over the years that he and his wife were together. These were confessions he’d wanted to say so many times but was unable to speak the words. Now, alone in his cell, with ten minutes to apologize for a lifetime of mistakes, he began, “My darling, My Christa, I have never, nor will I ever, stop loving you. You may find it hard to believe, but you are my reason for living. You were the reason that I did what I did . . .” He spoke of the regret he had for what had happened with her father, with the child, with the party, between the two of them. “If I knew that you had found it in your heart to forgive me, I could go to my death in peace. When I am executed, it will be your face that I will envision, and if I have your forgiveness, then it will be my memories of you that will lighten my load. I will eagerly await a response from you. Your husband and the man who will love you even in death, Manfred.”
That was how he’d ended the letter, the ink smeared slightly from a single teardrop that fell as he carefully folded the toilet paper he was forced to use for his letters. But he’d never received an answer. The next time he heard news of Christa, it was in a letter that came from the hospital informing him that his wife was dead. He’d never recovered from the loss; not fully anyway. He accepted the knowledge because he had no other choice, but he knew he would never again be happy. So, when Hess came one afternoon and told him that Manfred’s escape was planned by ODESSA, he could find no enthusiasm in the knowledge. He agreed to do what was asked of him.
Manfred knew that ODESSA was using him to test the waters. They wanted to see how difficult it would be to liberate a prisoner from Spandau before they attempted an escape for Hess. But Manfred didn’t care; it didn’t much matter to him if he lived or died. He had nothing left to live for anyway.
Now, in the prison yard, Manfred looked across the plots of land and watched the prisoners as they raked and hoed the soil. So, this was what had become of the beloved Third Reich, the Reich Hitler had promised them would last for a thousand years. Albert Speer, Erich Raeder, Funk, and others were locked up like animals. He’d heard whispers that Eichmann, Mengele, and perhaps more had escaped to South America, but no one knew if this was fact or just hopeful speculation. If all went as planned, he would soon be in South America as well. If there were other Nazis who had escaped, he would join them and help plan a rebirth of the Reich.
He should be excited, but without Christa it all seemed pointless. The bright sunlight stung his eyes like tiny pinpricks. He squeezed his eyes shut. And then he saw them again, those black onyx eyes that haunted him. The eyes of the Jewess, Zofia. She’d cast a spell on him; he was sure of it. He could not rid himself of her memory. He should never have taken her into his house, never have touched her body in that dirty way. Hitler had forbidden sex between Aryans and Jews, and now he knew why. If you took a Jewess to your bed, she would possess you like a demon. That Zofia woman had not wanted him, and he knew it, but he could not help himself. Sometimes he’d gotten rough, he had lost control, but even so, her life was not nearly as bad as it would have been if she’d remained living in the barracks with the other prisoners. Manfred had been kind to her, kinder than he’d been to any of the others. Then, after all that he’d done for her, giving her the opportunity to escape the starvation, disease, and filth of the barracks, bringing her to live with him and his family, the ungrateful bitch had turned on him. She had sat in front of the tribunal in Nuremburg telling them what a monster he was. In fact, she was probably a good part of the reason that he was convicted.
He knew Jews were dangerous, extensions of pure evil. In fact, he had heard that they ate something called matzo, a bread made from flour mixed with the blood of Christian babies. And he also knew that Zofia hated him. When he’d forced her to lie with him, it had given her the opportunity to penetrate his soul and curse him for all time.
Manfred’s eyes stung from the light of the sun. Lately he’d developed terrible feelings of panic, of loss of control. He gasped for breath and then fell back on his buttocks, his heart pounding wildly. I should have killed that Jewess while I had the chance, should have broken the spell before it took hold. As long as that woman lives, I am in danger, he said to himself.
“Manfred Blau, you have a visitor.” It was Mitchells, the guard who had been paid off by ODESSA. Manfred had been expecting the visitor. But this was not a good time.
The suns’ rays pierced his eyes. He squeezed them shut and then opened them again. There was only darkness, with just a hint of light at the periphery of his vision. He closed his eyes hard again, trying to make the darkness disappear, to make his vision normal. Nausea brought a stream of vomit into his throat. He did not want anyone to see him puke, so he swallowed. For a while, it had seemed as if these incidents had stopped, but now, clearly, the dizzy spells were returning.
“Blau?” Mitchells was getting impatient.
“Yes, I’m coming,” Manfred croaked.
Manfred swallowed hard, the vomit kept creeping back up. He was trying to regain composure. His mouth felt like a desert at noon, but he forced himself to stand on his shaky legs. Then, slowly, Manfred followed the guard inside the prison.
They sat with a wall between them, Manfred and the visitor. The visitor was a very thin man in a dark blue suit with a crisp white shirt and a matching navy blue tie. His eyes were so small that it was difficult to determine their color. He was bald on the top of his head, but the perimeter was surrounded by thick coarse white tufts cut very short.
“My name is of no concern to you. All you need know is that I am with ODESSA, and I have the plan for your escape from Spandau. If all goes well with you, next we will go forth with our rescue efforts for Rudolf Hess.”
Manfred nodded.
“Now, listen closely and I will tell you the plan . . .”
Chapter 2
Koppel Bergman packed his cardboard valise with the few items he’d acquired while in the DP camp, then he tightened his belt. His pants were so big on him that they seemed like an inflated balloon. The previous night, he’d said good-bye to the Americans who had helped him in the DP camp and then had checked into a cheap hotel where he would prepare for his journey. He wanted to get far away from the watchful eyes of the other Jewish survivors, studying him and wondering where he was going. The DP camp had not been a welcoming atmosphere for Koppel because so many of the Jewish refugees remembered him as a member of the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Jews had not forgotten his face. They knew him well. Under German orders, they had selected him to join this Jewish council, but as the war wore on, Koppel had cooperated with the Nazis.
When he’d first become a Judenrat, he felt guilty. But his mother had insisted he take the role to which he was appointed, even that he work with the Nazis rather than against them. She wanted the additional ration cards. And since his father had died many years ago when he was only eleven, she’d leaned heavily on him always. He wanted to please her; she knew him well, and she had the power to make him feel like a king or like a worthless nobody. Because of her, he had never married. Instead, before the war, he’d spent his years devoted to the Jewish community. When it all began he was close t
o forty, and she was already an old woman. Although sometimes he wished he could abandon or kill her, he knew he would do neither. He both loved and hated her.
Each day, it was Koppel’s job to choose which of his fellow Jews would be next to go on the trains to the camps. The Nazis gave him a quota that he had to meet. So he’d walk through the streets scribbling names to fill the next boxcar.
For a while, it had made his life easier. He had access to food and luxuries the others could only remember from before the Nazis’s came to power. Because he had the power to be generous and so few had anything at all, he’d had his choice of women, all except one. Zofia. Zofia, that bitch. He had been so generous to her. He had even given extra food to the two old lesbians she lived with. And how had she thanked him? She’d spurned him, giving her affections freely to another man.
Koppel rubbed his rheumy hazel eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He’d never had good vision, and it seemed to be getting worse.
Zofia. He hated to think about her. And he hated the shame he felt when he remembered the time he’d spent in the ghetto. There was no doubt that he’d done things that he should feel guilty for, but times were bad. It was every man for himself. He had done what he had to do to survive.
Once the Nazis had had no more use for him as a Judenrat, he had been loaded onto a boxcar. He’d respected the guards, treated them like friends, but in the end, Koppel was still a Jew. Even now he could remember that train stinking of shit, vomit, and death. He had known that the Nazis didn’t really care for him, but he had expected better treatment than the others. He’d helped the Nazis, worked beside them, sacrificed his own people for their cause. And, for as long as it had lasted, his life as a Judenrat had been good.
The Promised Land (All My Love, Detrick Series) (All My Love Detrick Book 3) Page 2