Prisoner 441

by Geoff Leather

  To make good use of the next two days, she and Avyar, now ensconced in a second-hand pram she’d bought from a bric-a-brac shop, walked the streets of Zurich. Olga needed money and armed with two from her diamond collection, searched the marketplace, making discreet enquiries as she went. She wanted a fair price, that was all. Wartime had boosted the diamond market but without any paperwork, she knew the price would be discounted. She needed cash now. She had to trust her instincts. Each diamond she had was labelled with the number of carats. At least she could rely on that and the prices quoted in the Zurich daily newspaper’s business section. The Swiss had a reputation to uphold and when she recounted, for the second time, the bundle of Franc notes back in the hotel, she had been pleasantly surprised how easy it was and how confidential the whole transaction had been. All she had to do was sign a receipt for the money and noted the carats sold. She now hoped she had enough to last until she set foot of British soil.

  **

  Anthony Bancroft left his office at the Consulate early and walked down the street to the corner and hailed a taxi. The rundown neighbourhood was safe enough, but not somewhere he wanted to linger long. He hoped that the little man he met before still lived here. He descended the stone steps to the basement flat holding onto the cold metal handrail. He been here before and had slipped down the last two steps and into the front door banging his head and cutting his brow. Not this time he said to himself. He knocked loudly. The door opened a fraction. Bancroft recognised the face immediately and pushed the door preventing it from being slammed into his face.

  ‘Not here on official business,’ he heard himself say not quite knowing how to approach this situation.

  ‘Better come in.’

  Bancroft was shown into a small but comfortable front room. Without lights it was hard to see anything until Herr Leeter turned on the corner lamp and sat down. Bancroft followed his queue and sat opposite, unbuttoning his coat and retrieving the envelope from his inside pocket. He handed it the Herr Leeter.

  ‘What do you want of me, Mr Bancroft?’ said Herr Leeter rather too formally.

  ‘A little favour, for old time’s sake. You owe me one, remember.’

  Herr Leeter looked at him and nodded. Bancroft need not have left his name out of the enquiry which resulted in the criminal prosecution of the man who set up the forgery business and preyed on those who feared for their future, mainly wealthy immigrants from Germany and Austria desperately trying to evade the clutches of the Nazi’s even though Switzerland was a neutral bystander to this war. Herr Leeter was down at the end of the criminal chain, but his evidence had helped to successfully prosecute the main men. They never knew who fingered them.

  Bancroft explained the situation. He wanted to help but couldn’t do what was necessary if he wanted to remain in the Diplomatic Service. Herr Leeter looked at him and Bancroft could see a sadness pass over his face. There was silence between them. Herr Leeter looked at the papers again.

  ‘I’ve never spoken of this before. Mr Bancroft. I’ve kept it hidden inside me for years now, but seeing that little face. What is his name?’

  ‘From now on it is going to be Avyar Smit.’

  ‘Avyar Smit,’ he repeated. ‘Not his real name then? Leeter is not mine either. My real name is Leismann. I came here to Switzerland in 1935 during the early Nazi purges of the Jews. Once I had been a graphic artist with a publishing company but that all stopped when it was targeted for anti-Germanic publications and raised to the ground. I worked on the third floor and someone threw a petrol bomb into the ground floor one evening when I was working late. I escaped from the burning building and stood watching from the street, then I realized that my little brother wasn’t by my side. I’d pushed him ahead of me but in the confusion of flames and smoke, I had lost him somewhere on the ground floor. He’d only come to walk home with me. He was still in his school uniform. I rushed back into be burning building shouting his name. He’d been trapped under the fallen ceiling near the exit. I tried to pull him to safety. I wasn’t strong enough. I will never forget that pain in his face as it melted to blackness.’ Herr Leeter put his hands to his head, images of that night swirling helplessly through his mind. He wept for the first time in years. ‘Once he’d gone, I knew I couldn’t stay any longer, Mr Bancroft,’ he muttered through his handkerchief that soaked up the falling tears. ‘That is why I will repay your debt.’

  Two days later, an unopened package lay on Anthony Bancroft’s desk. Mrs Smit and Avyar sat opposite him. He picked up the letter opener and sliced through the envelope and pulled out the papers. He pushed them across the desk to Mrs Smit.

  Chapter 12

  London 1942

  Olga Smit looked at the address. The number 23 bus had set her down two blocks away. There were rows of burnt yellow London brick houses on either side with small front gardens, some well-kept and others suffering from terminal decline. She seen the chaotic effect of the blitz bombing of London, whole streets left in ruins, beautiful Georgian terraces wounded with piles of rubble stacked up in the front gardens, their elegance scorched by indiscriminate incendiary bombs. She pushed Avyar slowly towards the corner shop. She needed to ask directions to Lansdown Road. They eyed her suspiciously when she spoke. Her foreign accent pervaded each word. Anthony Bancroft had suggested that her true background was something she should hide for the moment and that Switzerland was the obvious choice as she could talk about it from first-hand experience and anyway that was the story her papers told.

  ‘You won’t find anything there. Gone they all have, at least those who survived.’

  Around the corner she looked at the road. It was a short street lined with scorched and blackened trees, but most of the houses on the right-hand side in the middle of the terrace were in ruins. The remainder suffered collateral damage when the stray bomb landed several months ago. She stood outside the charred remains of Number 14. If her brother and sister-in-law and their two children were inside when it happened, they could not have survived. She returned to shop, head in hands.

  ‘What happened to my brother and his family in Number 14?’

  ‘Your brother?’ She looked at the other local customers momentarily. ‘Look sit down here. I’ve just made tea. I’ll get you a cup. Not many come in at this time.’

  No-one was prepared to talk about what happen in Lansdown Road. It just didn’t seem the right time to say anything as they just glanced at each other, not one person volunteered to speak but then the silence was broken.

  ‘Look, I am not sure how to tell you but the sooner, the better. Your brother and his wife and family were in the house when the bomb hit the street, the whole place shook. I am so sorry, but they didn’t survive the blast because it was a direct hit. No warning. I think it was a stray. Well, actually, it was two stray bombs. They didn’t stand a chance.’

  Olga looked straight ahead, no tears as she held the bottle for Avyar who was sucking away greedily.

  ‘When did it happen?’ she finally said.

  ‘A week ago. War is so unkind. One day you here, the next, well.’

  She told them her story. Travelling from Switzerland by plane to Portugal then boat to Liverpool. Nothing like that ever happened to anyone round here. They all nodded as other customers came in to listen.

  ‘Darling,’ said the large rotund lady dressed in flowery pinafore, her hair tied up in a bun, ‘you got anywhere to stay?’

  Olga shook her head, holding Avyar close to her for comfort.

  ‘Look, my Stan won’t mind. He’s away somewhere down south, training some raw ones. You know, new soldiers. You stay with me and we’ll sort you out. What you need right now is a good rest, you look deadbeat. Oh, by the way Olga, they called me Florrie, short for Florence.’

  With relief and a little trepidation, Olga agreed to this act of kindness from a complete stranger.

  ‘Thank you, Florrie.’

  ‘Here, take this.’ She handed Olga a small bottle of milk and some biscuits for later
.

  At breakfast the next morning, Olga walked into the kitchen holding Avyar.

  ‘Sit down, here’s some tea and bread. No butter anymore, but I’ve put a little beef fat on it to make it a bit tastier. Florrie sat down opposite her.

  ‘Florrie, what am I to do now?’

  Chapter 13

  Solomon Isaacs family Munich 1942

  Jonny stroked his brow. He been reading for many hours, but couldn’t stop himself from continuing.

  The permits were never granted for me or my parents. My tenure at the University had been withdrawn by the authorities without explanation, another Victim, this time of Nazism. We all knew it was because I was a Jew. Life for us became confused and erratic. We had no income from work as the tailoring business had been confiscated and was now being run by Aryans. Our only source of money was selling our assets one by one until now in mid-1942 there was very little left.

  More and more of our German Jewish friends were suddenly disappearing, rumours started to spread that they were being resettled in the East where work was available for them to help in the war effort. It was true that the industrial giant I G Farben had built a new factory in a place called Auschwitz and needed a workforce. Both my mother and father were fit, and both had skills of their own that they could offer until this madness was over.

  We decided, before we were ordered out of our apartment and it was allocated to an Aryan family, just maybe we could keep one step ahead of the regime’s inexorable Jewish purge. Over the next few days, we gathered our belonging and the few valuables we had left. Most of our furniture had already been sold. My father told us that the Konig family who had properties in Freimann and Milberts-Hofen districts, far enough outside the central area to be safe for the time being, had arranged to hide us. I will always remember Herr Konig and his wife, Constance. They had been faithful customers of our tailoring business and used to give me little treats when I delivered finished garments to their house. She was a very kind homely person who hated what was happening to her beloved city, but outwardly did and said all the right things to keep her family safe.

  Our new home was on the top floor of a small dilapidated house where the ground floor shop windows had been boarded up. From the stone flagged entrance hall, there was a flaking grey painted door with water stains where the last rains had flowed in through the blocked drainage outside. Inside the walls crumbled under my touch as perished plaster exposed the bricks underneath. At least the top floor was dry said my father.

  I remember the knock we all had to learn, “tap,taptaptap,taptap,tap”. Mannfred, their son, crept up the stone stairs. “Any other sequence and you need to be out of the window and across the roof.” He told us first day we met at the apartment. There were no other occupants, so we were able to sneak out through the rear entrance onto a narrow lane that seemed to be a repository for mattresses, broken chairs and general garbage. No-one would look twice for a Jewish family just off Knorrstrasse so long as we kept quiet and out of site until our papers came though. Dad was still living in hope. Mannfred looked after our needs by bringing enough food and money for us to survive. He told me he’d come by tram always aware that the eyes and ears of the secret police, the Gestapo, were everywhere. He’d have to watch all those getting on or off the tram as it made its way down Furstenreider Strasse. He would get off at different stops and walk different routes each time he came to see that we were all right. I asked Mannfred, several weeks after that first night he’d brought us here, why his family was taking such a risk in hiding us.

  ‘Has your father never told you?’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘I’ll come in a few days and then we’ll go out, just you and me. We’ll be safe. I need to show you something.’

  Mannfred kept his promise and we both left the building and dodged out of the rear lane into the street. It was very dark. The moon had waned and left the night sky navy blue almost black. I followed like an obedient dog a few paces behind Mannfred and boarded a tram. It took us to Ludwigstrasse. Looking around, he beckoned me to get off the tram. He kept asking me to keep by his side so as not to arouse suspicion as we made our way through the shadows to Odeonsplatz and stopped outside Feldherrnhalle. He pointed to the plaque on the east side of the building and simultaneously we both raised their outstretched right arm in salute for the benefit of the two SS guards on duty that night. This site had become sacred as each year Hitler had decreed that the old soldiers should pay homage to the sixteen Nazis who died at the hands of the Munich police when they stopped the Feldherrnhalle March on 9 November 1923

  ‘What about it? I’ve seen it many times but frankly I tried to avoid the salute by using the Viscardigasse shortcut over there when I was still allowed to go to University. No point in making that ridiculous salute if you don’t have to.’

  ‘Sush, keep your voice down. Underneath you may have read the names of the four policemen also shot that night by the Nazis.’

  ‘Yes and….?’

  ‘There was a fifth policeman shot that day. My mother’s brother, Otto. Your father saved his life. He realised what was happening and in the chaos of running Nazi supporters, dragged Otto off the street into alley and stopped the haemorrhaging from a gunshot wound in his chest, with his scarf and waited for more police to arrive and take him to hospital. Now you know why my parents are returning the favour and helping you.”

  Soon after that night, Herr Konig came to see us.

  ‘I’m sorry, but it is impossible to get you out safely. From what I can gather everyone assumes that you have already been arrested and deported to the East. It is chaotic at the moment. Your only chance to survive for now is to stay here. We’ll do what we can but there are eyes everywhere.’

  ‘Herr Konig, thank you for what you have done so far, but staying here will bring danger to you and your family,’ said my father.

  ‘Look, the ownership of this house is well-hidden, and Otto is still influential in the local police force. He’ll keep me informed. No-one will look for Jews here. Most of the Jewish tenants are being relocated to two new camps, the Jewish Housing Estate not far from here in Knorrstrasse and in the Abbey in Berg am Laim. I’ve heard from my contact in Widenmayerstrasse at the Office of Aryanisation that only a few Jews remain at large in the city. They’ve all but given up on pursuing anyone else. We may be lucky as long as we are very careful.’

  All I remember now is the fearful monotony of existence. It was relieved by books we’d brought with us but even these I had memorised from cover to cover reciting them over and over again as I tried to sleep at night. The regular visits by Mannfred lightened the atmosphere amongst us each time he came but the news, he brought, was all very depressing for us and the light left at the end of the tunnel of hope began to fade little by little as thoughts of giving ourselves up by walking into the Housing Estate began to seem a better option.

  I don’t know what happened, but I can only guess that somehow Mannfred was being watched by the Gestapo and eventually followed. We were awoken by hammering on the door and shouting on the landing two days after his last visit and before we could escape through the window onto the roof, the door burst open and shots were fired into the ceiling. We cowered in our beds.

  ‘Drehen Sie um die Arme über dem Kopf gegen die Wand,’ came to order.

  We all obeyed, turned away and stood. My legs were kicked apart as I faced the wall. Our rooms were searched as we waited. I am not sure whether I was shivering because of the cold or fear. Minutes later, dressed in our shabby day clothes and coats and carrying a suitcase each, we were bundled out of the building into the cold night air. The noise of the arrests had summoned the curiosity of others who peeked through darkened windows or stood in doorways, amongst those I noticed Mannfred shaking his head in sorrow. We joined a queue of about one hundred others already outside the Jewish Housing Estate and were marched to a side street where three covered lorries stood idling, the engine fumes lingering in the air.

&
nbsp; ‘Schnell an Bord,’ shouted the SS officer as he dug his pistol into the back of an old man’s neck.

  The rear board was slammed into place and the tarpaulin dropped flapping over the rear. In the interior darkness, no-one uttered a word as the lorries lurched and bounced their way out of Munich until the sun rose to our left and the outskirts of Munich disappeared. It was as if we all knew nothing was left for us. Frightened souls clung to the little children and cuddled them into silence. Escape wasn’t an option. After an hour or so, we stopped at a railway junction.

  We were ordered out of the lorry and lined up alongside hundreds of other Jews clinging helplessly to their cases. Alongside one of the platforms stood a long train of cattle wagons, door open. Already those at the front were being herded on board, others stumbling and crawling over the uneven gravel beside the rails tried to cling to each other for comfort, mothers holding their little one’s hands. Once or twice the crack of a pistol rang through the early morning air followed by the wailing of despair of those closest to the body. Someone else had dared to question an SS officer. As I neared the penultimate truck, I looked along the adjacent railway line at the several bodies that lay motionless with red pooling around them.

  No-one dared to look at the faces of the soldiers for fear of a rifle butt in the head, so we pushed each other along until we were all crowded into cattle wagons without food or water. In each wagon at least a hundred of us stood each clinging to what remained of our worldly goods in suitcases and some with blankets tied with string. The books I had tried to smuggle with me were taken and destroyed by gunfire sending the fragments of paper fluttering into the air then taken on the wind into space. I had nothing save the clothes I was wearing. My parents had packed a few personal momentos, but these were to be confiscated within minutes of our arrival. The doors were dragged across the opening and the metal bars were secured with a deafening bang. Some found themselves wedged against the wooden sides where their clothes had been caught in the runners of the door. It was impossible to move and those who tried to clear a space for themselves were quickly set upon by others. It became a savage place to be as human dignity began to dissipate.