The Last Witness

by Jerry Amernic

  “You want me to explain it to you?”

  “Not really. To tell you the truth I don’t get many of these messages anyway. Who’s interested in an old man?”

  “Your granddaughter obviously is.”

  “She’s my great-granddaughter. Her father is my grandson.”

  “You said that before.”

  “And I’m going to keep saying it until you get it right.”

  Hodgson had been a cop for over thirty years. He had seen it all and considered himself a good judge of people, a quick study, and he liked this old man.

  “So what’s this about those books not being accurate?” he said.

  “She teaches history of the twentieth century. The wars. And the holocaust. The Jewish holocaust.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing. The book they want her to use doesn’t have anything about the holocaust.”

  “That’s it?”

  Jack went back to sit on his bed. “That’s it.”

  “And why is she bothering you with all this?”

  “She’s not bothering me.”

  “Why is she telling you about it then?”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Jack said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifty-four.”

  “A native New Yorker?”

  “Can’t you tell?”

  “I could tell right away. As soon as you said your name.”

  Hodgson smiled.

  “So,” said Jack, “you would have been born in …”

  “Nineteen-eighty-five. December. In fact my birthday is next week.” Hodgson smiled. “You and I have something else in common, Mr. Fisher. We have the same first name and we were both born the same month. December.”

  “But you were born in New York in 1985 and I was born in Poland in 1939. As a Jew.”

  Hodgson looked Jack in the eye and started jabbing the tip of his pen onto his notebook again.

  “I was born in the ghetto and then I was sent to a camp,” Jack said. “My mother and father died there. And my brother too. And everyone else in my family. All of them.”

  Hodgson began jabbing his pen onto his notebook faster now.

  “Not many children survived I can tell you. I was lucky. Six million others weren’t so lucky. That’s why Christine thinks this should be in her book.”

  “And that’s why your father was thirty when he died?” Hodgson said.

  “I think he was thirty but I don’t really know.”

  “Do you know how he died?”

  “The gas chamber probably.”

  “And your brother?”

  “He was suffocated.”

  “Suffocated?”

  “We were hiding in the sewers. All of us. He was just a newborn baby and he was crying. If they heard him they would have known we were down there.”

  “Down where?”

  “In the sewers.”

  “Who would’ve known?”

  “The Germans. But he was crying and that put us in danger. It was my aunt who did it.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “Look … my aunt … my mother’s sister … she took my brother and put a blanket on his face to make him quiet.”

  “To make him quiet?”

  “To protect the rest of us.”

  Silence. A long, drawn-out silence.

  “Lieutenant Hodgson,” Jack said.

  “You remember my name.”

  “Yes I have a good memory. Please tell me what happened to Christine.”

  “We don’t know. Probably nothing. But no one has heard from her for a few days. She hasn’t contacted anyone that we know of. Just you.” Finally, he stopped jabbing the pen onto his notebook. “In her message she said something about a condition that she has. What condition might that be?”

  “She hasn’t been well.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Jack bit his lip.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Hodgson asked again.

  “She has a health problem and there’s nothing they can do about it. She’s twenty-five.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Lieutenant Hodgson, you’re a police officer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you ever have a problem that’s not serious?”

  Hodgson thought for a moment. “Offhand I’d say any problem is serious. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”

  “We’re on the same page then.”

  There was something about this old man who had a hundred years under his belt. It was something Hodgson admired.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be. She isn’t. She even said so in her message.”

  “She did, didn’t she? But she also said she has some unfinished business to attend to and you have no idea what that might be?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Mr. Fisher, I’m going to give you my card. It’s a smart card with a chip so you can plug it into …”

  Jack waved his hand in front of him. “Lieutenant Hodgson, you’re a pen-and-ink kind of guy, right? You don’t do minis?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Well I don’t do chips and smart cards. Oh I know they’re supposed to make my life better and my wallet is teeming with smart cards about this and smart cards about that but between you and me I just find all these things to be a pain in the ass.”

  Hodgson broke out into a long, slow smile. “I understand,” he said. He showed Jack the back of his card. “My address and phone number are on this side. Can you read it all right?”

  Jack brought the card close to his eyes. “Yes I can make it out but it would be nice if they used bigger print.” He put the card down and looked up at Hodgson towering over him in those size fifteen shoes of his. “The people who make all these things forget about people like me. I mean old people. Who can’t see so well. They don’t think about us when they make these things. They don’t understand that a lot of older people just don’t get it. They ignore us. I guess it’s like the problem you have with clothes. The manufacturers forget there are some people who weigh three hundred pounds.”

  “I only wish I did weigh three hundred pounds.”

  “You’re more than that?”

  “The last time I checked it was three-twenty-nine which means I just gained another couple pounds and if I go over three-thirty my doctor is going to kill me.” With that, Hodgson bent down and rapped on his right knee. “You hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “That’s not bone in there.”

  “What is it?”

  “Titanium. I had a knee replacement. It’s still a little stiff.”

  He straightened up and put his arms at his sides, which made him look even bigger than before. Now he was so big he almost took up the whole room.

  “If you remember something … anything … about Christine I mean … give me a call. I don’t care what time it is. Okay?”

  Jack said he would. Hodgson started moving toward the door.

  “Lieutenant Hodgson,” Jack said.

  “Yes?”

  “If you find out anything about Christine you will tell me, won’t you? I want to know what’s going on. She’s my great-granddaughter. I don’t want you to think you should spare the feelings of an old man.” Jack pointed to the side of his head. “I still have it up here, you know. I know you’re fifty-four years old. You’re from New York City. You wear a size fifteen shoe and you weigh three-hundred and twenty-nine pounds. And …”

  He looked at Hodgson’s legs.

  “You have a titanium knee.”

  Hodgson chucked. He really liked this old man. “Not much escapes you, does it?” he said.

  “I told you. I have a good memory.”

  “If we hear anything I’ll let you know. You have my word.”

  Hodgson turned around again and went through the door. Then he stopped and glanced over his shoulder.


  “Mr. Fisher,” he said.

  “Yes?” said Jack.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, sir.”

  The Lodz Ghetto, 1944

  16

  The Church of the Virgin Mary was one street over from the ghetto. Jacob had passed it many times and didn’t take much notice until the time he smelled the onions from the garden. There was no mistaking the smell of onions. One day when he was about to lose himself in the Aryan section, he saw a man standing by the church door. He was tall and thin, and wearing a black robe with a white collar around the neck, smoking a cigarette. The man saw Jacob and smiled as if he knew him, but Jacob didn’t know what he wanted. Didn’t everyone want something? When the man opened the door and motioned for him to come in, Jacob weighed his options. If he succumbed to his curiosity and went in, the door might be shut behind him, and then what? But if he trailed behind the man, he could have his look and run. However, after following the man with the collar through the door, he didn’t turn and run because one look inside and he couldn’t stop looking. The ceiling was higher than any ceiling he had ever seen, but then he had never set foot inside a church before.

  There were two rows of benches, at the very front the life-size figure of a man on a cross high on the wall. Jacob had seen crucifixes because Poles wore them around their necks, and he knew about Jesus, but had never seen anything like this. Even higher on the wall behind the cross were faces, and along the sides were windows, but not the kind of windows Jacob recognized. These were in brilliant color and they depicted scenes of a rising sun, a mountaintop, and a man with his arms in a gesture of welcome. Jacob was mesmerized. The man in the collar saw the look of awe on his face and put his hand on his shoulder. Speaking Polish, he asked if Jacob was Catholic.

  Jacob was about to say no, that he was a Jew who lived in the ghetto, but admitting this to anyone on the Aryan side was a mistake. It could mean a beating like the one Josef got. It could mean the end of his stealing and worse. He could be taken away and never seen again.

  “What is your name?” the man said.

  Should Jacob tell him? No, he shouldn’t tell him anything.

  “Do you live over there?” the man said, pointing to the ghetto.

  Jacob was frightened, but there was something about this man that wasn’t threatening, and so, he nodded.

  “Where is your star?”

  All Jews wore the Mogen Dovid. They had to, but Jacob never wore it in the Aryan section because that would mark him as a Jew and everything would be ruined. Boys like him weren’t even supposed to be in the ghetto. Two years earlier the order had come that all children under the age of ten and anyone over sixty-five would be resettled outside the ghetto. Twenty-five thousand people. But the Germans didn’t get that many because the Jews hid their children. At least, they tried to hide their children. The alternative was the death camp. A place called Chelmno.

  Jacob told the man that he never wore the Mogen Dovid. In the ghetto he was in hiding, but here on the Aryan side he was free and could wear this coat, Shmuel Zelinsky’s coat, and not even the whole coat because his father cut off the bottom so it wouldn’t drag on the ground. But still the coat was too big for him. Even with all the buttons done, there was enough room for two Jacobs inside it.

  The man ruffled his hair and smiled. “Are you hungry?”

  Jacob said yes. He was led into a small room that looked like a kitchen. The man took two pieces of bread, cut a hunk of salami and made a sandwich. Then he sat Jacob down at a table, and watched him devour it.

  “I have seen you before. You come by the church with nothing and on your way back your arms are full. Where do you get the food?”

  Jacob didn’t answer.

  “Listen, from now on when you’re hungry come here and I will give you something to eat.”

  “Then I will be here every day,” Jacob replied in Polish, his teeth tearing through the salami.

  The man laughed and said his name was Father Kasinski. Jacob asked if he was Jewish, which prompted another laugh. He said no. He said he was a priest.

  “These are insane times. But I am your friend so next time you’re on the street come here and I will make you another sandwich. Farshtaist?” That was a Yiddish word. He ruffled Jacob’s hair again and said he knew many Jews. He said he even had friends who were Jews, but didn’t see them anymore because they were all in the ghetto. “I told you my name. Now what is yours?”

  Jacob told him. It was the first time he ever spoke his real name on the Aryan side.

  “Can I give you some advice?” Father Kasinski said. “I have no problem with the name Jacob. In fact it’s a very good name but it’s a Jewish name. When you come here you should call yourself something else. How about Jacub which is Polish? So when you’re back home over there you will be Jacob and when you are here you will be Jacub. Can you say that?”

  “Ya-coob,” Jacob said, and he said it the Polish way.

  “Good,” said Father Kasinski. “Now if anyone asks your name tell them you are Jacub. Farshtaist?”

  Jacob nodded. For a sandwich with meat in it, he would let Father Kasinski call him anything he wanted. The next day Jacob was back, but Father Kasinski wasn’t outside the church. Jacob boldly opened the door and walked in. There was Father Kasinski.

  “Are you hungry?” he said.

  What impressed Jacob most was that Father Kasinski made him something different every time he came. First it was salami, then sausage, and after that cheese. He even had butter to spread on the bread and Jacob’s parents never had any of that. One day Jacob was back in the kitchen eating another sandwich when Father Kasinski asked him his name. He was about to say Jacob, but stopped himself.

  “Jacub,” he said.

  “Good,” said Father Kasinski. “When you’re finished I want to show you something.”

  After eating the sandwich, Jacob let Father Kasinski lead him through a side door off the kitchen to an alleyway behind the church. They passed the garden with the pungent smell of onions, and then stopped in the middle of the alley where there was a manhole cover. Father Kasinski lifted it off and pointed into the hole. He said this would be a safer way to travel between the ghetto and Aryan section because Jacob wouldn’t have to sneak through the wall or go over the top. Then he led Jacob down a steel ladder inside the hole. At the bottom leading off in all directions were tunnels and sewers. It was an underground city. Father Kasinski showed Jacob how to get from directly below the Church of the Virgin Mary to a building on the next block in the ghetto. All he had to do was bring a stick so he could push up the manhole cover, but when he tried, he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t strong enough, so Father Kasinski said he should come with a friend. Jacob immediately thought of Josef, who was bigger and stronger.

  “How old is your friend?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Bring him with you next time. What is his name?”

  “Josef Karasik.”

  “He also needs a new name.”

  Jacob was thinking. He wasn’t sure how to tell Father Kasinski what he wanted to say. “It won’t work,” Jacob said.

  “Why not?”

  “Josef doesn’t look like me but I know another boy with blue eyes and light hair.” Jacob said this boy was also twelve, but even bigger than Josef.

  “You don’t have light hair either,” Father Kasinski said. “Would you like some?”

  Jacob didn’t know what he was talking about. Father Kasinski took him back inside the church, sat him down in the kitchen and brought out a bottle. He poured the contents into another bottle with a spray on top and then he mixed the concoction he had created with tap water. Jacob watched as the water poured from the faucet. There was no tap water in the ghetto; there was no running water at all. In the ghetto, Jacob’s mother collected rainwater in barrels outside their building, so they could wash their hair and clothes, but here on the Aryan side there was plumbing. Father Kasinski said the clear liquid he just made was peroxide. He sh
ook the bottle, told Jacob to close his eyes and then sprayed his hair with it. Then he ran a comb through Jacob’s hair over and over. Ten minutes later he had him rinse his hair in the kitchen sink. It was a miracle. Jacob’s hair was blonde.

  “Now you have a new name, you have light hair and you have a safe way to get out of the ghetto and go back home as long as you bring a friend. But there is one other thing you need.” Father Kasinski dug his hand into his pocket and fished out a coin. “Take this. It’s Russian. And it’s gold.”

  Gold?

  “It’s worth ten Russian roubles which is a lot of money but I don’t want you to take it for the money. I want you to take it so you’ll remember that even during this darkest time you had a friend.” He put the gold coin into Jacob’s hand and closed his fingers around it. “Never let anyone know about this. You see, Jacob …” – he didn’t call him Jacub but Jacob – “… they would kill you for a chervonets. They wouldn’t care that you’re just a boy. That’s why I want you to hide it in your shoe. Inside the heel. Do you have glue?”

  Jacob said his father had glue for fixing sewing machines.

  “Good. Put it inside the heel then glue the heel back on the shoe. Farshstaist?”

  “Ich farstai.”

  Jacob gave him a smile and he didn’t know it then, but it was the only time Father Kasinski would ever see such a thing from him.

  Now Jacob didn’t have to sneak through holes in the wall, and watch for the German Gestapo and Polish police. From what he could tell, one was as bad as the other. He saw them hit people with their truncheons and fists. He saw them hit men and women and old people and children. They were always angry.

  There was a young Gestapo officer who always patrolled near the wall. He was short and squat with thick jowls, a wide neck, and a brown shirt that would look neat on Jacob’s father. He had a cap and looked like a schoolboy, but the black spider on his red armband – the swastika – meant he was dangerous. He saw Jacob a few times, but never said a word. He stood with his feet pointed to the sides, one hand resting on his belt, a look of power and self assurance about him, and it was different from anything Jacob saw from the Jews in the ghetto. The Jews always followed orders. But even the young Gestapo officer gave way to the German soldiers, especially the older ones who walked like kings with their gray jackets, peaked caps and Iron Crosses hanging from their chests. Jacob figured all Germans were rich.