The Last Witness

by Jerry Amernic

  Hodgson sat down and slipped on his size fifteen shoes. He had a cane beside him, the same one he used after the knee replacement.

  “Doc, believe me when I tell you this but I’m never going up those stairs again as long as I live.”

  Armed with the good news about losing some weight, Hodgson left the doctor’s office and went outside the building where a police car was waiting for him. Kathy Sottario was behind the wheel.

  “We have to hurry, Lieutenant,” she said. “The Port Authority is expecting us with their boat in twenty minutes. Shall I?”

  “Go ahead.”

  She turned on the siren and they sped down to the docks.

  Jack was already on the ferry with Emily Silver at his side. It was the day of the big rally and he was the man of the hour. When they first boarded the ferry, she had introduced him to all the members of her group. One woman whose grandparents died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz wanted to touch him and even kiss him. And she did. She said she could feel the presence of her grandparents in Jack. Jack didn’t know what to say. Everyone kept peppering him with questions. They wanted to know what it was like in the ghetto and the camp.

  “It’s funny how people are interested all of a sudden,” Jack said.

  “You’re the last survivor,” said a woman who wasn’t even part of Emily’s group. She was just a person on the ferry. But she saw Jack on television.

  “Until a few weeks ago no one seemed to care,” said Jack.

  The woman asked him what he thought about the government of Poland wanting to close Auschwitz and what he thought of the anti-Jewish incidents fomenting in that country.

  “What are you going to talk about at the rally today, Mr. Fisher?”

  Emily stepped between the woman and Jack. “Please,” she said and took him by the arm.

  Flying overhead was a helicopter carrying the Mayor of New York City. He would be speaking at the rally. There was a rumor going around about Jack receiving the key to the city, but Jack didn’t know anything about that. Besides, he wasn’t even thinking about the rally. He was thinking about Christine.

  The ferry pulled in to Liberty Island. Emily took it upon herself to be Jack’s escort and today he needed one. She had all her papers with her, including the speech they had prepared for him. One of her group had met with him at the Greenwich Village Seniors Center to get the necessary background. The speech was written, Jack approved it and it was even printed in big type, so he could read it at the rally. Tables were set up with refreshments at the east side of the monument, and over a hundred chairs were arranged with a special section reserved for dignitaries and media. There was a lot of media. Emily also brought some bottled water, so Jack’s mouth wouldn’t get dry.

  They had thought of everything.

  Jack was introduced to the Mayor, who shook his hand, and the two of them posed for pictures. Then everyone sat down and the Mayor marched up the steps to the podium. He got behind the lectern they had set up. There was polite applause and he started to speak.

  He talked about Ellis Island and the millions of people who began a new life in America at this very spot. He said many of them were Jews. He said the lucky ones were those who arrived before the Second World War in the last century to set down roots. He spoke of their contributions to American society and rattled off prominent names from science, medicine, the arts, business, even politics. Then he spoke of the horrors of Nazi Germany and the great crime committed against the Jews of Europe.

  “Today one hundred years after the beginning of the Second World War we are honored to have with us a man who is also a hundred years old.”

  There was light applause, which began with Emily’s group, and then it spread through the crowd. The Mayor smiled and with a nod acknowledged Jack, who was sitting next to Emily on the podium. Jack was uncomfortable in the spotlight, but he had something to tell these people. Something important. The Mayor continued.

  “Jack Fisher whose real name is Jacob Klukowsky was born on December 1, 1939 in the Polish city of Lodz. Earlier this month he turned one hundred and I want to take this opportunity to wish him a belated happy one hundredth birthday.”

  Another nod to Jack and more applause.

  “Two months before Jack was born Nazi Germany marched into Poland, beginning the war. As a little boy Jack lived in the Jewish Ghetto in that city. All Jewish citizens of Lodz were confined to a special area and deprived of the basic necessities of life. Many of them were notable people from the community. But now their businesses were taken from them. Their valuables were taken from them. Their very life and freedom was taken from them. This is what happened to Jews all over Europe. Jack spent the first years of his life living as a hidden child in the ghetto because if he was found he would have been taken from his family and they never would have seen him again. But they couldn’t hide forever and soon he and his family along with many other Jewish families were sent to Auschwitz, the biggest death camp the Nazis established. It was a place where countless numbers of people … numbers we can’t even imagine … were sent to their death. Such camps were set up all over Europe in the countries that Nazi Germany invaded. At the time the United States was not yet in the war but after Pearl Harbor we did enter that war and we entered it for good reason. To fend off the evils of Nazism and Fascism. We sacrificed many young American lives in that conflict so we may live with the freedoms we enjoy today.”

  The Mayor introduced the president of Emily’s organization, who said a few words before introducing Emily. She talked about all the camps shutting down, first the museums and then the sites themselves, and how most of them have since been razed by bulldozers and in her words “removed from the face of the earth forever.” The only one that still remained, she said, was Auschwitz and now it, too, was in danger of being torn down. She told Jack to come forward.

  Jack stood up. He had his cane. He was wearing his best shirt, the French cotton one with the long, button-down sleeves and the gray lines running up and down. He hadn’t worn it since his birthday. He also had a jacket. It was a special day.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this man beside me was a friend of my grandfather in the Jewish Ghetto of Lodz,” Emily said. “My grandfather was also a survivor of the Holocaust. He died in 2017 and I miss him terribly. He often spoke to me about this brave little boy Jacob and I must tell you right now I can feel the presence of my grandfather as I stand next to this man. Please welcome Mr. Jacob Klukowsky.”

  There was a spattering of applause and then all was quiet.

  The microphone was inches from Jack’s mouth at exactly the right height for him. The speech they wrote with the big type was laid out across the lectern. Everything was just the way it was supposed to be. He looked at all the people who came. He didn’t know who most of them were. He looked out to the water and the skyline of Manhattan.

  “Thank you Emily,” he said with an appreciative nod. “And thank you Mr. Mayor. For the past ninety-five years of my life … ever since I was one of a handful of children who were liberated at Auschwitz in 1945 … I have not lived as Jacob Klukowsky but as Jack Fisher. I agree with everything the Mayor and Emily said. That the camps should remain open so the world will know what horrible things really happened there. It is a crime to remove them. A terrible crime. But I’m afraid I can’t read the speech they want me to read to you. You see a few days ago I had an article published.”

  He raised his head.

  “Imagine having your first article published at the age of one hundred.”

  There were chuckles.

  “I have this article with me now and instead of the speech I want to read it to you.”

  Jack pulled out a newspaper from inside his jacket. Across the top of the front page were the words The Reflector. He opened it, adjusted his glasses, and began to read.

  “My great-granddaughter Christine Fisher was born in 2014 in the town of Kitchener, Ontario in Canada. She was the second daughter of Will and Emma Fisher who are long-time
residents of the community, the younger sister of Tiffany, and the proud aunt of Tiffany’s little girl Rebecca.”

  Jack looked out at the crowd. There were so many people.

  “Rebecca who is here today is my great-great-granddaughter.”

  He went back to his article.

  “The Fisher family has lived in Kitchener since I arrived there in 1947 as an eight-year-old boy with no family. Christine’s grandfather Bill is my son. I want to tell you about Christine. When she was a little girl she loved to read anything she could and her favorite subject was always history. That’s why she became a history teacher. Christine grew up in Wellington County which is a beautiful area with a lot of history and she knew its history. She knew about the first mill that was built in the 1800s and she knew who built it and how much it cost. Even when she was a little girl she knew how to do research.

  “She was fifteen when I first told her what happened to me. About being a hidden child in the Jewish Ghetto in Lodz and being sent to Auschwitz. A death camp. When you’re a little child death should be something that only happens to old people but for me growing up the way I did death was a constant companion from my earliest memories. I saw more death as a four-year-old than anyone should see in their lifetime. I’ve never talked in public about this before because the memories were too horrible and raw and I wanted to forget them. Some things I did forget. But I was wrong not to tell Christine about this. I was raised as a Catholic and all my family in North America is Catholic. And then Christine found out I was born a Jew and that Jews were persecuted and murdered in the most horrible genocide the world has ever seen. Six million lives were lost and many of them were children. The only thing Christine knew about what happened to Jews during the Second World War was what she learned in school. Which was nothing.

  “She wanted to change that and any student who was lucky enough to have her for a teacher was sure to learn their history. All of us should know history because to understand the present you have to understand the past. And we should learn about the good things as well as the bad because this is where we come from and this is how we learn from our mistakes. I am a hundred years old and one thing I know is that people who don’t learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them. It is the story and legacy of the human race.

  “For those few years that Christine taught history at Williamsburg Senior Public School she was always fighting with her school board. They didn’t want her to teach about the Holocaust. Some of them didn’t even think the Holocaust happened. Now I’m not talking about the Great Holocaust of 2029 which was only ten years ago. More than fifty thousand people … innocent people … were killed in that terrible episode and the children of all those victims deserve better than to have it forgotten. They deserve better. If we don’t tell people what happened then who in the year 2129 will believe it?

  “They say I am the last living survivor of the Holocaust of the Jewish people from the last century. I may be and it brings me no pride. You see, the Holocaust has nothing to do with pride but everything to do with shame. I am an old man and some might even say wise. I don’t know about that but I have learned a bitter lesson from my great-granddaughter and it’s this. We ignore the past at our own peril.”

  Jack raised his head and looked over to Emily Silver and the Mayor, and then he looked out at all the faces before him. In the front row were the people from Emily’s organization. The offspring of Holocaust survivors. One row back were Lieutenant Jack Hodgson and Kathy Sottario of the NYPD. Near the two of them were Mary Lou Bennett from the Greenwich Village Seniors Center, along with some of the residents – Eric, Linda, Fred, Patricia, Rachel. His dinner mates. Jack saw his son Ralph and his family, and he saw Christine’s parents, her sister and her little niece.

  As he took in the members of his family, he was thinking what a great victory it was to be here with all his descendants. That is exactly what it was. A victory. His eyes began to well up and for a moment he couldn’t speak. But he wasn’t finished.

  Hodgson saw the difficulty he was in and stood up on his feet. Like Jack, he had a cane with him. He called Jack’s name and said to wait. Mary Lou Bennett also got up. The two of them marched to the podium and joined Jack behind the lectern. Standing on either side of him, they each put an arm around him.

  “Good afternoon everyone,” said Mary Lou. “My name is Mary Lou Bennett and I’m the Director of Care at the Greenwich Village Seniors Center where Jack lives.” She turned to Jack. “I’m sorry to interrupt but we have a little surprise for you.”

  She pointed to the very back where a group of children were now standing.

  “Jack, these are Grade 8 students and I know your great-granddaughter Christine also taught Grade 8. These students are beginning a new segment in their studies today. They are starting their history program. Their teacher thought it would be a good idea for them to have their very first class here so they could listen to you.”

  Jack wanted to say something, but could only mouth ‘thank you’ because the words wouldn’t come. Hodgson gave him a hug and people started to clap. Then Hodgson spoke.

  “I am Lieutenant Jack Hodgson of the NYPD. Over the past few weeks I have come to know Jack Fisher very well and I can tell you he is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. He is a courageous man and a man of great dignity. I am honored to call him my friend. Oh I almost forgot.”

  With that, he stuck a hand into his pocket and pulled out a coin. The chervonets.

  “I believe this belongs to you.”

  Jack wrapped his fingers around it and pressed it to his chest.

  “And now,” said Hodgson, “I know Jack wants to finish reading his article to you from the local paper where his great-granddaughter once worked. She wrote the obituaries in this paper. It’s called The Reflector. Jack lost her a few weeks ago in a horrible tragedy.”

  A hush descended on the gathering. Hodgson and Mary Lou knew all along what Jack was planning to do. With both of them at his side, he returned to his article, clutching the chervonets in his hand.

  “I have learned a bitter lesson from my great-granddaughter and it’s this,” Jack said. “We ignore the past at our own peril. I might be a hundred years old but the little boy Jacob Klukowsky who was a hidden child in the ghetto and who was sent to the death camp at Auschwitz still lives in this frail body. His memories live. His love for his mother and his father lives. His love for all the murdered members of his family lives. And this is what it’s all about. The value of a single human life.

  “Christine once said that if they made a movie about me it should be called Indifference because indifference is how the world treats the memory of six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis a hundred years ago. The world has forgotten them. Some people don’t even want to believe this crime ever happened.

  “On the last day of her life Christine went to a place she loved and tried to do something she wanted to do ever since she was a little girl. She wanted to stand up on a railing so she could look out over this great natural wonder called the Elora Gorge and see how beautiful the world can be. The beauty that only a child of four can see. A world with birds and trees and rivers. A world where there is no misery and no suffering and no misfortune. I was denied these things when I was four years old and I take solace from the fact that my little Christine wasn’t. She was a courageous person who fought the scourge of indifference with everything she had. She even gave her life for it.

  “Christine Fisher was born in 2014 and she died in 2039. But it was the world’s indifference that killed her. She was a child of the Holocaust.”

  Author’s Note

  My father used to take me to the local Jewish bakery where this kindly woman behind the counter would serve us. I remember seeing numbers on her arm, but I was just a boy and didn’t know what those numbers meant. Later I found out. One day in the not too distant future there is going to be one person left. One survivor. This is what The Last Witness is about. I want to than
k a number of people who were helpful to me in my research. The ‘readers’ who offered valuable advice and comments on my early drafts include Ray Argyle, John Robert Colombo, Jennifer Dale, Barry Lane and my good friend Cam Campbell who took time to read when he was suffering from ill health but wouldn’t live to see the final product. Special thanks must go to real-life child survivors of the Holocaust – Anna Cheszes, Anita Ekstein, Etti Miller, Jack Veffer, Gershon Willinger, Miriam Ziegler and her husband Roman, the other members of their group at the Baycrest Centre in Toronto, and social workers Paula David and Peggy Solomon who allowed me to intrude on these most intimate gatherings. Elly Gotz is another survivor who provided key details and facts that helped me make my flashbacks as accurate as possible. I also want to thank technology wizard Chris Kata for showing me what the near future is going to look like, Jack Jebwab for revealing the sad state of Holocaust knowledge, my agent Ken Atchity for having faith in me and my work, all those who read the manuscript prior to publication and did reviews, and eminent historian Sir Martin Gilbert for being so kind and helpful when I told him about my idea. Lastly, I want to thank my wife Dorothy for her understanding when I disappeared for long stretches of writing and research to explore this most deadly time of human history. It is something we must never forget.

  Dear Reader,

  Without you none of this would be possible, so I want to thank you for reading my work and I would be eternally grateful if you would take a minute or two to review the book on Amazon. No matter what authors tell you, we do want to know what our readers think.

  Sincerely,

  Jerry Amernic

  Jerry Amernic

  Jerry Amernic is a writer who lives in Toronto. He has been a newspaper reporter and correspondent, newspaper columnist, feature writer for magazines, teacher of journalism, and media consultant. Alas, while wearing all these hats he has suffered from a chronic condition which he calls his ‘fiction addiction’. It is fed by his insatiable appetite for history and then by inserting the characters he creates into the story. His first novel, Gift of the Bambino, was published in 2004 and will soon be re-released as an e-book. The Last Witness is his second published novel, and very soon another historical thriller called Qumran will be released, to be followed next year by Medicine Man.