by Jana Petken
“Say it, Paul. How much worse can things get?”
“Much worse. I think the Poles being selected for deportation will be killed … not all, but many of them. Bothmann was quite open about Hitler’s vision for your country. He sees Poland as a laboratory for his racial theories. He told me that the cost of reallocating Poles would be too high and that undesirables would never reach their new homes. Apparently, Hitler would rather spend money on new infrastructure than feed Polish people forced to leave behind everything they owned. Kraków and Lublin districts are to be repopulated by German colonists once the Poles have been removed…”
“Colonists? Is that what they’re calling them?”
“Before I left Chelmno, he asked me to keep that information under my hat until it became an open official policy. I’m sorry, Anatol, had I known they’d already started this, I would have warned you sooner … somehow.”
Anatol staggered to his feet, flinching as if he’d been physically struck. He stood behind the couch, gripping its fabric with tight fists and repeating over and over, “Niech cię – damn them to hell! Fuck the Germans! If they try to cleanse my country by choosing whom they see as the best specimens and by killing the rest as undesirables, we will piss on them. We will gather an army and destroy everything they try to build in this country. It’s outrageous, even for Hitler – even for him.”
Paul got to his feet, crossed the room to Anatol’s side, and tried to calm his friend. “You know as well as I that Hitler is capable of this and more. He’s already deported Communists and Catholic priests to the death camps – Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying those two words together. You must have thought this was a possibility?” He felt a twinge of discomfort, realising how eerily his words echoed those Gert had spoken to him recently.
“Polish leaders, maybe, and Jews, of course, but not our children and the ordinary man and woman in the street. It makes no sense!”
“Anatol, let me finish. Please, you should know all of it.”
Anatol wasn’t listening. His face was ghostly-white, his eyes huge, and he was panting with rage, “How can I tell Vanda this? I am an only child, but she has four brothers and sisters, a huge family in Warsaw … Paul, how can I tell her?”
With no comforting response to give, Paul waited out the pause in conversation until Anatol could compose himself.
“I’m wasting time. Tell me the rest of it before Hubert arrives,” Anatol finally said, sitting on a hard chair next to the sideboard.
Paul stood where he was and looked down at his friend. “According to Bothmann, the German policymakers foresee reducing lower-class Poles to the status of serfs, while deporting or otherwise eliminating the middle and upper classes and eventually replacing them with pure-blooded Germans. Hitler and his sidekick, Hans Frank in Kraków, want the Generalgouvernement to be their workforce reservoir for low-grade labour, like those in brick plants and road building. In other words, they’re planning a great Polish labour camp.”
Anatol scrubbed his face with his hands, as though he were cleansing filth off himself or trying to wake up. “Ach, I don’t believe it. People like Hubert and I are valuable. We’re doctors, for Christ’s sake –”
“The Third Reich don’t want Polish people with brains or wealth or holding any position of importance, and that includes scientists and doctors,” Paul interrupted Anatol. “They want servants and slave labour with little or no education or culture – keep them ignorant – keep them submissive.”
Anatol groaned as he rose. “And now they will kill whomever they perceive as the current Polish masters, as they did to our intelligentsia when they invaded. I will not forget any part of this conversation, Paul, but we’ll talk more about this another time. Now we must go over your plan.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, damn it. We must move forward, even in the face of defeat.” Anatol cleared his throat and straightened his stooped shoulders. “We have considered a driver for the car and the uniform you brought. You will be surprised, I think. Wait here. I will fetch the man.”
Paul was curious. He looked expectantly at the doorway and froze as Kurt Sommer’s familiar face stared back at him. Already dressed in the unconscious driver’s ill-fitting uniform, he looked broader and fitter; as though someone had plastered meat and new skin on his bones, then resurrected him to health. He wasn’t the Kurt of old; his eyes wore haunting battle scars of the past, and he was thinner and much older looking than he’d been before the war. He had also grown a beard that almost covered his top lip and everything else beneath his nose to his chin. It was strange to see the grey bush on a man who was but thirty-five-years-old. No, he wasn’t the Kurt of old, but he was a better Kurt than the half-starved man who’d been at death’s door months earlier.
Paul began to chuckle, then the gurgling sound in the back of his throat flooded into full-blown laughter. He crossed the room in three long strides, pulled Kurt to him, then thumped him hard on the back with his palms and the laughter transformed to sobs.
“You’re well, Kurt. You look good,” Paul sniffed as he pulled away. “You’ve been here all this time? All this time, and I didn’t know. Damn Anatol for not telling me. Ach, I don’t care. Here you are, my friend, here you are! You beat Biermann, Kurt – you beat the bastard!
Kurt wiped his wet eyes and swallowed a lump of emotion. “We beat him, Paul … all of us.” Then he cleared his throat again and gripped Paul by his shoulders. “I never thought I’d live to see this. I don’t know what made you finally turn, but I know you well enough to assume it was a hard decision for you. I’m proud of you, Paul. Had your father lived, he would have been proud of you too.”
“The decision was not as hard as you might think, Kurt…”
The creaking noise of the living room door opening broke Paul’s moment of pure happiness.
Hubert, looking tense, looked from Paul to Kurt and back to Paul. “Sorry to interrupt this happy reunion but we need to get ready to leave now.”
Paul crossed to Hubert and shook his hand. “It’s good to see you. Are you coming, too?”
“No. I’m too old to leave all that’s familiar to me. Besides, I have two cats and a wife who’s not well. Come, you two, we must discuss your route.”
As the men walked to the door, Paul held Kurt back. “No, no. This won’t do at all. You cannot be a Wehrmacht driver with that beard on you. Come on, off with it.” he cocked his head to one side. “Shame though, it looks good on you.”
“Exactly what I said minutes ago,” Hubert agreed, staring at Kurt. “As soon as we’ve finished talking, you can start shaving. I have the soap and razor ready, so no arguments.”
Paul chuckled at the sight of Kurt, almost two metres tall and built like a Spanish bull, being told off by a short, old man.
Chapter Twenty-Four
One of the four German soldiers leaning against an Ursus A lorry that was blocking the road ahead put on his helmet and raised his hand as Paul’s car approached.
Paul swallowed the cotton-wool lump of fear at the back of his throat and kept his eyes on the back of Kurt’s head as he gave instructions, “Kurt, let me talk to them, and for God’s sake, don’t get out of that seat. One look at those trousers of yours and the game is up. Amelia, focus on the seat in front of you. Do not look at the soldiers, and do not answer them even if they ask you a direct question. You’re afraid, but we need you to look terrified. I am your enemy. I’m taking you from your home. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, Doctor,” she whispered.
Paul steadied himself for the interrogation to come. He’d put his plan together over a period of five days, and it was solid. Initially, he’d asked Anatol, through Gert, to prepare false medical orders that would allow Amelia to go with him. He’d then adopted the idea of stealing the car and driver’s uniform in the hope that Anatol would drive them to the rendezvous site, where they’d meet with the Polish Home Army or their affiliates. It was, however, after he
’d got confirmation that Anatol had delivered his message that he’d made his move, with only hours to spare.
Keeping his mind busy as the roadblock drew nearer, Paul imagined being a fly on the wall when Krüger discovered his prey had fled. He will get straight on the telephone to Biermann in Berlin, furious that the arrest hasn’t gone through. With a bit of luck, Biermann might have another heart attack, Paul thought, as a second soldier up ahead raised his hand. He was going to get out of this alive and laugh at the Gestapo’s defeat from a place far from Łódź. Fuck their need for victory … revenge … hatred or whatever is in their sick, twisted minds! They aren’t having me.
Paul slipped his hand into his pocket and fished out the falsified orders he’d been carrying on his person for two days. “Now, Kurt.”
Kurt stopped the stolen Wehrmacht staff car bearing German registration plates, beginning with WH for Wehrmacht Army and followed by five numbers. He had encountered two other military vehicles thus far on their journey to Warsaw. On both occasions, he flashed his lights and waved to the other drivers, receiving waves of greeting in return as the cars passed him.
“This is it,” Paul muttered as two soldiers approached the car. His main concern was not the paperwork, but Kurt being ordered out of the vehicle by one of the four soldiers. He looked the part of a Schütze driver from the waist up, but he was comically lacking in his bottom half where his legs were too long for the uniform trousers, and his feet were in civilian boots.
Paul wound his window down as two soldiers came around to the rear passenger side of the car. The other two men leant nonchalantly against the lorry’s bumper, smoking cigarettes and looking bored.
“Morning, Schütze,” Paul said.
“Good morning, Herr Oberarzt. Heil Hitler,” one of the soldiers replied with a brisk salute.
Paul gave the man the lazy salute; raising his forearm from the elbow until his palm was level with his ear. “Heil Hitler,” he said then handed over his identity papers and the orders.
Amelia’s genuine fear was apparent under the other Schütze’s malign stare, yet when the soldier leant in through the open window, his breath smelling like a dirty ashtray, she managed to keep her eyes on the back of the seat in front, as instructed.
“Her identity papers?” the man asked Paul.
“She’s a Jew. She has no papers. You’ll read all you need to know about her in my orders,” Paul retorted.
The soldier moved on to Kurt, holding Paul’s paperwork in his hand without looking at what was written.
Kurt carried the identity documents of Paul’s original driver. Looking nothing like the man, he had peeled off the photograph that had been glued to the first page of the Wehrpass book. He was prepared to answer questions, if necessary, having studied the man’s biography. The Wehrpass included personal data of soldiers, extensive details of their careers, such as units served with, battles, awards, injuries, illnesses, promotions, and miscellaneous notes.
“I’ve just arrived in Poland,” Kurt said as the soldier’s eyebrows drew together. “I was in France, and I haven’t had the time to get my picture renewed. You know how it is.”
“My driver is an idiot,” Paul grunted tersely. “He’s got straw under that helmet of his, but if you want to blame someone, blame the clerk. He shouldn’t have issued the identity documents until they were in order. I’ll be reporting him when I get back to Łódź. Can we hurry this up?”
Undaunted by Paul’s harsh tone, the soldier finally read the orders. “You’re taking her to Warsaw?”
“Yes. I’m escorting her to a holding facility where she’ll receive a rigorous medical evaluation. She’s been nursing typhus patients for months but has never contracted the disease herself. Doctor Mengele, based at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, wants to run some tests on her to find out if she carries the illness, and why she’s not become sick…”
The other soldier also popped his head through the open window to get a closer look at Amelia, studying her as if she’d just grown two heads in a laboratory jar.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Corporal. Doctor Mengele’s tests will also confirm or rule out if she’s contagious.”
Paul stared down the soldier whose face was a picture of indecision. He’d taken a step back from the car but was apparently unconvinced of the story’s validity.
“One moment, Oberarzt.”
“No, I will not wait one moment, Schütze. Either check the legitimacy of my orders or get out of our way and let me get on. The less time I spend with this stinking Jew, the better.”
The two soldiers went to the back of the car and opened the trunk. When they finished rifling through it, they returned to their vehicle where they huddled with their Gefreiter who was still leaning against the bumper of their truck. He looked at the documents while appearing to have one ear open to the Schütze who’d spoken to Paul.
“This is taking too long, Kurt,” Paul whispered. “What are they talking about?”
“Stay calm, Paul,” Kurt mumbled.
Paul, buckling under the agonizing wait, opened his door and got out of the car. “What’s the problem here? You’re wasting my time!” he shouted as he began to walk towards the four men.
The Gefreiter, deliberately smacking the documents against his outer thigh, strode towards Paul with his free hand on his sidearm and yelled, “Get back!”
Paul choked on adrenalin as the first salvo of bullets missed his right ear by centimetres. He fell to the ground like a dropped stag and lay on his stomach next to the corporal who was now also face down, but with two exit wounds in his back.
Mesmerised, Paul glanced up to see Kurt stomping past him while continuing to fire his Mauser C96 Semi-Automatic Pistol at the other soldiers, who were still scrambling to reach their weapons.
Paul heard Kurt’s roar above the noise of bullets firing continuously from what seemed like a never-ending magazine. With primeval fear, he covered his head with his hands and squeezed his eyes shut while the persistent gunfire battered his ears. Any second now, I’ll be hit … any second.
The firing halted, the sudden silence a shocking contrast to the mayhem of seconds earlier. Paul took his hands away from his ringing ears but couldn’t force himself to open his eyes. A soldier will be standing above me with his rifle centimetres from my face. Kurt is dead; he must be with those odds against him. The crazy, hard-headed, stupid man…
“Stay down, Paul!”
Paul’s eyes shot open. Kurt’s voice?
The dead corporal, lying half a metre from Paul, gazed unseeingly at the sky with one arm thrown wide and the other resting on top of the pistol he had managed to unholster before succumbing to Kurt’s hail of bullets.
In a daze, Paul disobeyed Kurt and sat up to watch, like an impassive bystander out of harm’s way. Kurt, looming large with his semi-automatic pistol gripped in his hand, checked the soldiers lying in front of the lorry. The soldier who had questioned Paul was wounded but grasping for the butt of his rifle, which had become entangled in its shoulder strap. He groaned with the supreme effort of reaching for it, alerting Kurt, who turned sharply and shot him not once, but three times to finish him off. Paul’s mind had screamed, look out, Kurt! but like a damn mute, he’d been unable to verbalise his warning.
The sangfroid German Jew stood over the remaining two unchecked soldiers. They were dead, riddled with bullets, but grim satisfaction shone in Kurt’s eyes as he fired his last rounds into them for the hell of it.
Paul lurched to his feet on legs that barely held him. He staggered towards the car to check that Amelia was all right, but before reaching it, he vomited as aftershocks surged up his throat. I must stop this throwing up business, he thought, with an almost-hysterical chuckle.
“It’s over, Paul,” Kurt’s tinny voice sounded far away.
Paul wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then straightened.
“Come on. We need to go – now, Paul!” Kurt’s grating voice came at him aga
in.
Paul, still not fully compos mentis and with his ears echoing the pinging of the bullets, straightened to see Amelia stepping out of the car. “My God, Kurt, what have you done? You nearly killed me!” he screamed as his fear morphed into anger. “If I hadn’t hit the ground when I did … what the hell were you thinking?”
“They didn’t believe us,” Kurt answered with a tone that broached no argument. “I saw the Gefreiter going for his gun, and in my book, that says he was going to make an arrest…”
“You couldn’t have known that,” Paul snapped. “I would have talked my way out of it.”
“Paul … look at the state of you. You would have stuttered your way to a bullet in your head.”
Paul ran his fingers through his hair. He was still suffering a full-body tremble, as though a bloody earthquake were going off inside him, but he was also conscious of his impotence in the face of danger … and in full view of Amelia. Embarrassed, he shifted his eyes to her. “Are you all right, Amelia?” he asked, busying his shaking hands by brushing the dirt off himself with his palms.
“Yes. You have blood on your face and jacket,” she croaked, clinging to the car door for support.
Paul, unaware of how much of the dead corporal’s blood had splattered him, brushed off her remark to salvage his pride with Kurt. “Where did the gun come from?”
“Under the front passenger seat. I put it there before we left the house.” Kurt was checking the corporal’s identity papers. “You should be more worried about where these soldiers came from,” he suggested, holding up the dead man’s Wehrpass book. “He was based in the Łódź Barracks.”
“They’re a long way from Łódź.”
Kurt pulled down the lorry’s back flap, jumped into the back of the vehicle and whooped with delight. “Yes! There’s a nice cache of rifles and ammunition here. And what’s this?” he then said, lifting a bottle of beer. “They’ve got a crate of alcohol as well. Mein Gott, Paul – whisky – help me take some of this stuff to the car.”